Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 10th November 2024

It's also incredibly misleading, maybe it was possible to "completely" re-write the UI back in 2005—never mind that most of the value would come from, the underlying geographic data being mostly correct and mostly correctly labeled—there is no way in hell that the same would achievable in 2024. (Also the notion it would take any coder 2 * 1000 / (365 * 5/7) = 7 years to achieve a comparable result is proposterous)

Apparently the 1x engineer is taking weekends instead of working 24/7.

I don't think Trump's presence changes much regarding the AI bubble. It's still massive capital and operational expenditure, with ??? revenue to show for it. Trump very likely faces a big stock market correction in 2025 or no later than 2026, just as surely as Harris or Biden would have.

it looks like they're trying to delay either of those in most ghoulish way possible https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/11/safe-ai-champ-anthropic-teams-up-with-defense-giant-palantir-in-new-deal/

OpenAI you stand accused of the crime of being woke. To make the case, we call in the expert on everything woke: James A. Lindsay.

Which is my way of saying, it will be very dumb and very paranoid, and not even wrong.

How do you all suppose the Great Bullshit Implosion is going to interact with our incoming US government? When it becomes clear that the money is running out, will OpenAI be able to talk the Trump government into bailing them out, or will the fash kick them when they’re down, since tech will be a nice fat scapegoat for the economy hitting the shitter?

Kicking them whilst they're down would be an easy win when "the cruelty is the point" is your unofficial motto, and there's plenty of anti-tech sentiment for Trump to work with. And, of course, they're a piss-easy scapegoat - AFAIK tech's managed to piss off both political wings here.

He's probably gonna kick them whilst they're down.

I don't blame Saltman for this one, since it's just a more specific version of the general pathology that assumes the markets are basically Gods.

"In our top story today, the rapture has drawn the souls of the faithful into heaven and we have entered what experts are calling a "final tribulation". We're also receiving reports that Dread Cthulhu has awoken from his deathly slumber in his house at R'lyeh, and environmental groups are claiming that increased sightings of wolves and frost giants could herald the arrival of Fimbulwinter and through it Ragnarök.

The stock market, however, seems to be taking the literal end times in stride, with strong performances from Raytheon and other manufacturers countering a downturn in other sectors."

I’m not a teacher but I feel like my brain would explode if a student asked me to answer a question they arrived at after an LLM misled them on like 10 of their previous questions.

When I was a lab demonstrator in university, one of the lab exercises was somewhat hard to get right, and our team noticed a huge raft of plagiarism. Not only were multiple students using the exact same code, but it was code that didn’t even work! The course had a policy of instant failure with evidence of plagiarism, which was made clear at the start of the course, and yet this just kept happening. To top it all off, the lab exercises didn’t change from year to year, so the same code kept showing up! This plus a number of other incidents broke me and made me realise I didn’t have it in me to be this kind of educator.

It would be great if this was all a big psyop by big tech to gaslight educators into ending their careers for some kind of mass brainwashing conspiracy, because at least there would be some intention behind it. Instead, we’re poisoning collective consciousness with cyberslop because we think one day the virtual dumbass will reach enlightenment. We don’t actually have a way for that to happen, so we’re just going to metaphorically bash our own heads against rocks in hopes we glitch ourselves into the singularity.

So yeah in short my head would explode too.

For a palette cleanser, you might appreciate that If Books Could Kill just released a solid dunk on Sam Harris

People enjoy making amateur diagnoses of public figures, and people enjoy feeling like they're superior to neurodivergent people.

I am left thinking that many people here in the US are going to have a hard time accepting that having this person, at this stage in his life, as the national figurehead will do permanent damage to the US' prestige and global standing. Doesn't matter if Reagan was sundowning, media was more controlled then and his handlers were there to support the institution of the presidency at least as much as they were there to support a narcissist. In 2016, other countries could look at Trump as a temporary aberration and wait him out. This time, it's clear that the US is no longer a reliable partner.

An intentional sacrifice of the US' role as head manager of the global economy is not nearly as well thought out as the people pushing it think it is.

At least their shirts will accessorize nicely

Ah yes, the famous European Jewish run universities. You don't have to be an idiot to be anti-Semitic, but it certainly helps.

Audibly rolling my eyes

what in the absolute fuck

“you shouldn’t do anything that works to resist fascism” is going to be the neoliberal siren call for 4+ years, isn’t it

My radicalisation just continues and deepens.

What deplatforming actually happened that this writer is referring to? “We didn’t deplatform anyone. Therefore deplatforming bad” ???

Mass media try not to cozy up to fascists challenge: impossible!

Story from .nl, after Wilders "won" (he got the biggest share of the votes, and quite a lot more than before) the election last year, instantly the amount of horrible posts towards visible muslim people massively intensified (other groups, women, leftwingers and lgbt people (and the various intersections) also got worse replies (which on Dutch twitter always was bad already)). So this advice is so dumb, yes expose your people to more risk and potential burnout. And guess what, as we are a year in and most of Dutch twitter is still on twitter. It doesnt help. (And I cant tell, as switching to bsky has made me realize just how much of a breath of fresh air it is, but to me it feels twitter has gotten worse, but that is more likely explained by me getting better).

E: there is also the 'they need us more than we need them' factor. I have not seen rightwing Dutch trolls on bksy yet, Catturd however made the jump (and was promptly banned by everybody).

We’re anti-grass lawns now? Fuck yes. I knew this place had potential.

I’m no landscaper so don’t quiz me on the options, but grass is in the lowest tier option for things to fill outdoor space with.

They can be, but they can also be a social and recreational space.

Your mum's a social and recreational space, but I don't see you going to bat for her despite being more useful

I was going to call them friendless losers who never had company over to play cornhole, have a bonfire, or lounge around on a hot summer day getting doused by a sprinkler while drinking beers because they are repugnant socially awkward cave trolls who are bitter and jealous of people who use their picturesque lawns.

But I would never do that because that is neither civil nor polite.

dang hates this one weird trick you can use to be an asshole in spite of the orange site’s civility rules

also what is that list of activities? did ChatGPT generate this? grass is required to play beep boop normal human games like cornhole now? you’re “having a bonfire” on grass and not in something normal like a firepit that’s safer on rocks or concrete? you’re just laying down on the grass, where the dog shits, slowly getting drunk and incredibly itchy from the grass as a sprinkler douses you?

picturesque lawns

oh maybe that’s it, the only people I’ve ever met with picturesque lawns are wealthy and wealthy people ain’t fucking normal

Or you could just not water it, not fertilize it, not pesticide it and simply run the mower over it whenever the assorted vegetation (which will be mostly grass) exceeds a certain height.

It won't look "nice neighborhood" nice but it'll still be fine.

i love when my yard is a giant mud patch rimmed by yellow with an occasional glimmer of green when the crabgrass blooms

the orange site is absolutely populated by the type of shithead who’s proud to be on their HOA’s board

Wild that "We left OpenAI and founded out own company with alignment and safety"-Anthropic decides to get into bed with Palantir of all companies.

It's almost as if their whole safety shtick is complete bullshit. Hmm.

1. Buy a defense ai system with a cool GUI but that absolutely doesn't fucking work

2. PRESS RELEASES

3. Leave the source code+model weights somewhere that your enemies will find it, preferably next to a big data pipe

4. Watch them copy it and try to use it on the battlefield

5. lol

Just have to avoid naming it something that would give the game away like WIM-PLOW or whatever

huh, I just switched to Tuta and that’s a very good point — there isn’t even a command line mail client, much less an IMAP bridge. the official word from a couple years ago is “write it yourself but we don’t support automated email” which is several kinds of wrong

so far I’m not hating Tuta but it’s definitely much jankier than Proton. I’m kinda surprised I’ve heard good things about Tuta’a UI compared with Proton — it’s faster, but functionality so far varies from somewhat barebones to mildly broken

no regrets on the switch on my end so far though, but this might come to bite me at some point. I wonder if a dedicated transactional mail provider could alleviate some of the pain? I can DM you a recommendation for a good one if that seems like it’d be handy

The American electorate has just covered itself with gasoline because eggs cost 2 dollars more. Come January they strike the match. gg. HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE NOVEMBER 5TH. My only consolation is that I'll hopefully get to watch some of the Magas/non voters/vote-your-conscience peeps suffer before the end. But Ol musky and peter thiel will be in their gilded bunkers while the fires consume us all.

I don’t have too much coherent to say right now

fuck the fascists for what they’ve done and what they intend to do

fuck the neoliberals for doing their best to convince marginalized people that they shouldn’t defend themselves against a terrible fate

fuck the accelerationists for pumping shitheaded propaganda into the fediverse, for the victory lap they’re taking now, and for the general idea that their revolution is worth our deaths

shit’s about to get very hard and very weird and I can’t stress enough how important it is to be careful who you trust with your life

The level of fucked we are is too big for words

I wanted to say something darkly comedic about the AI bubble popping under the new regime, but my heart is too sick to make a joke

I think I'm more angry than anything. l hadn't realized how tight my media bubble had gotten and was pretty sure this wasn't realistic. I had gotten myself ready for another round of 2020 nonsense and denial, not this.

Not surprised, still very disappointed, I feel sick.

Yeah this is fucked up. I feel so bad for everybody (esp the Americans, but this will hurt the world). Shit this prob means I should start looking into seriously helping out locally when all this explodes into more international shit. (Which imho is the best you can do anyway, do things locally, build a bit of a support network for your community).

(Note I'm not American, but I think this will end badly, just the fucker stepping out of the paris accord for example, and all the weird blowhard fascists this will make feel emboldened to do more politics locally).

E: I really hope the people who go 'this is the same as in 2020, wait till all votes are counted' are correct and not on hopeium.

Слава Україні. The world has failed you.

Nashville, here. I hear ya.

I don't know what else to say, I can't explain any of this, but also please know that you're not alone out there.

are you US-based? very sorry, take care

@slopjockey @BlueMonday1984 Vance concerns me more than Trump.

The third worst part is the fact that I’ve been owned in a way I can’t even explain to my closest friends.

Oh god, this so much. Well, third worst for me personally, as a non-American white guy. I suppose Palestinians, Ukrainians, and marginalized groups in the US might have a few issues they'd rank higher.

the bit i wonder about is: would president couchfucker block weapons exports to Ukraine

What did sideburns ever to do that guy?

I'll bet quite a lot that they'll learn the exact wrong thing from this and decide that they just weren't republican enough.

?

I have been having this feeling in a couple places too, heh

“Our mission at Mozilla is more high-stakes than ever,” wrote Syed in an email to staff, a copy of which was shared with TechCrunch. “We find ourselves in a relentless onslaught of change in the technology (and broader) world, and the idea of putting people before profit feels increasingly radical.”

"which is why we don't"

Its times like these which make me happy I switched to Librewolf.

i see you remain an optimist https://gizmodo.com/the-worst-people-in-the-world-are-making-a-ton-of-money-after-trumps-victory-2000521095

a real web3 moment if there ever was one.

unfortunately the six active players bit is a joke

Before my postmodern deconstruction and unlearning of the worship of Great Men, all I needed to know about feynman not being a good person to look up to was the calling women bitches thing. Miss me with that PUA shit

Feynman reminds me of the brujo (one specific man, not brujería in general) from Pirsig's Lila. Feynman's safecracking and unorthodox approaches are like the brujo's routine flaunting of social norms; through routinely doing things the wrong way (sacred clowning), new possible behaviors and modes of social existence are explored. Also, Feynman's attitudes towards women remind me of that brujo's tendency to spy on women by looking through their windows into their homes while they were not necessarily dressed, which the brujo's society did not tolerate.

A significant fraction of the people commenting on HN believe themselves to be the next Jeff Bezos. They cheer for the boot that crushes them, as surely one day they themselves will own that boot.

The thing that really grinds my gears about the escape to Mars plan is that Earth is already habitable (for now) and Mars is not. If we can make an uninhabitable planet habitable, we could just make the already habitable planet stay habitable. There is no scenario where terraforming Mars is easier than, uh, "terraforming" the Earth.

The earth is our coffin and hope is a mistake.

such a metal album name

I think "any idiot that got lucky under capitalism" is a pretty good description of Musk and his type, to be fair.

The Martians seem to think that Mars will be like a new colony, with all the "hope" that implies, but it seems to me that colonization was a wretched process for many of the colonists (to say nothing of the people being colonized). Musk is only cheerful about it because he thinks he'll be whipping the slaves rather than working the arid red soil.

Looks like she lost despite the polls legitimately being pretty left-biased this year. Even when it's right the hallucination machine is still wrong.

I'm sure her results would be very accurate if troll farms could vote and chatgpt was doing the count.

SMRs make me so goddamn miserable. We already know how to build nuclear plants. Build those! We're kind of on a tight deadline here, maybe don't waste time trying to invent a less efficient reactor that's supposed to solve a problem we don't have.

We already have working carbon capture technology, too. It's called plants. Thanks to deforestation and ocean pollution we're making negative progress creating CC machines, nice job.

Carbon capture, small nuclear reactors. We stopped thinking big. To really solve climate change we need to do one easy, but big thing. Blow up the Sun.

I'm about to pass out from the cognitive dissonance I'm feeling from seeing andressen and musk talking about privilege

maybe i'm a weirdo but i actually really like this a lot. if there weren't armies of sycophants chanting outside of all our collective windows about how AI is the future of gaming... if you look at this "game" as an art object unto itself i think it is actually really engaging

it reminds me of other "games" like Marian Kleineberg's Wave Function Collapse and Bananaft's Yedoma Globula. there's one other on the tip of my tongue where you uploaded an image and it constantly reprojected the image onto the walls of a first-person walking simulator, but i don't recall the name

Showed this to my wife.

You know what the worst part is? We're spending all this computing power to generate this bad acid trip, but if I just took a bunch of LSD you know what I'd still have? The things in my pockets. I'd have a better time just having a bunch of LSD and walking down to the 7-11

oh cool, Minecraft LSD: Dream Emulator edition

which would be a cool concept, if the generative AI model weren’t incredibly prohibitively expensive to run, trained on plagiarized videos, and incapable of coherently tracking state (believe it or not, LSD: Dream Emulator does have a gameplay and progression loop… game-like things without one tend to get dull very quick)

I've seen this floating about quite a bit, and everyone I know is dunking on it - the most frequent comparison I've seen is calling it "Minecraft with dementia".

Note that the person in the video isn't part of the team/whoever that creates it, just someone who is reviewing it.

See, there's the mistake. You can't let outside people actually interact with the thing; you need to stick with cherry-picked 2-3s clips.