andrewrgross

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[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 18 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

Also, not only do they rely on "just vision", crucially they rely on real-time processing without any memory or persistent mapping.

This, more than anything else is what bewilders me most.

They could map an area, and when observing a construction hazard save that data and share it with other vehicles so they know when route setting or anticipate the object. Not they don't. If it drives past a hazard and goes around the block it has to figure out how to navigate the hazard again with no familiarity. That's so foolish.

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 6 points 2 days ago

Oof. Everything about this bill feels like having a car driven over you slowly. Fuck.

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Oof.

This month is really feeling like one gut punch after another.

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 37 points 2 days ago (4 children)

This is a genuine concern that we should recognize.

I'm about 99% confident it isn't, but considering it is the kind of caution we should all be exercising these days.

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

I have a lot of problems with this episode. The writing on this show just feels like it's gotten way too loose.

The reveal that Joe is Zeke is because he has "Obadiah S." written on a ziploc bag containing his father's ashes? Who labels a bag like that?

Riri's sneak into the base requires her to swim around under water and find a vent? And then cut a lock using a laser underwater? I know we already tend to just ignore the fact that real life lasers don't cut things like this, but now we're doing underwater lasers? She just found that, cut it, and then went in like she doesn't need to breathe any more. How's she even seeing shit? She's got no goggles!

And then she sneaks into the guy's lair and is just trying to discretely cut a piece of a a guy's clothes with a high powered laser!? How does that work? It's like the least discrete thing ever! He's just walking around talking to this billionarie and she's blasting off this lock cutting laser everywhere, except for some reason now it takes longer to cut through leather than it does steel. The guy should be cut in half and on fire and everyone screaming.

Why are there all these people-sized vents that are covered by openings that are taped on? They don't even screw that on? Why design a gate that traps people in the vent? Why not just put a permanent obstacle inside your vent? Why wasn't that their break-in plan? That was effortless? But the labs have no fire escape. The most obvious requirement for every lab. But she has no trouble getting out of the vent. We don't even see how she gets out, she just kind of gets trapped and then we see her leave.

And this business tycoon expected him... and then wrote a check? And also planned to have the security system entrap him but never considered the idea that the guy who broke him might just physically attack him? And also what are you doing, dude? Why are you gardening at night waiting to be attacked? Go home! And a hire a body guard!

And what is with these motherfucking contracts? I get that it's probably an allusion to Mephisto, but those contracts are worthless. So someone signs a paper promising to give you money. Where do you actually get the goddamned money? Where did they get the physical cash they're throwing around? Did they go to a bank and say, 'I'd like to withdraw $100,000 from my bank account. You'll find I have the money, because I got a billionaire to sign a contract promising me this money.' Like... think how fucking stupid this is. There's a reason why no one holds rich people hostage for a signature. They can do it for crypto. That's actually a real thing that is happening a lot these days. But a paper contract? It's meaningless! You have to actually get someone to execute it! And that's impossible because (A) you can't do that anonymously, you'd have to identify yourself and (B) contracts signed under duress are invalid. They're a legal concept, not a magic wand! This is so goddamned dumb.

Also, why the fuck is Zeke trusting Riri? Because she promised? They're not friends, and have no basis of trust at all. She's like, 'You have my word.' And he's like, 'Okay, be sure not to get me arrested for life. Here's a priceless ...' also what the fuck is that "bio-mesh"? Literally what is it supposed to be? It's like... organic? And how did she make it a metal detector cloak in 10 minutes? And why and how did he have an enormous bone-deep gouge in his arm? And why would you have blueprints for any of this? Blueprints are how they used to sketch out buildings fifty years ago. Was he drawing the dimensions of a new metamaterial with a ruler and compass? Writing out its dimensions? Like what is any of this? This feels like it was written by a 10 year old and ChatGPT.

This story makes no sense. I want to like it, but this is DUMB.

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 1 points 4 days ago

I'm just reminiscing, man.

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 4 points 5 days ago (2 children)

That's there take. I think context and audience makes a huge difference, so I'd rank it higher.

I remember the experience. I watched it at the Rave Cinema at the Baldwin-Crenshaw mall, in Leimert Park. And let me tell you: the theater was so fucking amped. This theater was built by Magic Johnson in a part of LA that hadn't had a nice theater, and it's held up well. The neighborhood has really come up around it, too, so when Black Panther played, it was filled with folks dressed to the nines. There was LA street fashion, Panafrican garb, kids grown-ups, elders... The movie was good to start with, but it was just hard not to get caught up in the energy in the air. It truly was an event.

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 2 points 6 days ago (2 children)

What's the drawback of self hosted? I've had a self-hosted instance running on a raspberry pi for a few months now, and so far it's working out great.

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I've gotta say that MCU armor peaked around Iron Man 2. And I'm disappointed that they didn't take the opportunity to finally return to greatness.

I don't mind high-tech armor, but I was so disappointed that we see her donning high tech shiny self-assembling armor in the first few minutes of the show.

I miss the gantry. I miss the sense that it was a physical thing. Imagine the prop artists preparing the parts of Riri's suit that weren't pure CGI. The casting and the polishing and the fingerprint removal before she put it on. How about this? Actually design a suit. Imagine you had a high enough power source to power it and repulsors exist. What would it look like? Imagine something like Andrea Piccinno's exo frame with some plating and a motorcycle helmet. Remember the Mark 1? Remember watching the firmware boot up on an old CRT monitor while Yinsin sacrificed himself to buy Tony time?

I feel like what I'm saying is straight-up CRAZY to the people who make these shows. But PLEASE: if you must, work up to the fancy polished CGI stuff by the end! Let us see something that looks a kinda real. Let her impress us by showing us stages of development instead of literally starting with a product that is finished and capable of cross country flight!

Bring back a gantry. Or let us see her step in and tighten a harness! I feel like if these people were in charge of Top Gun, everyone would get in planes by just running onto an air ram in street clothes and getting launched into the cockpit while the plane is flying. 'Flight suit? Ladder? No, audiences will be bored.'

It really disappoints me that this show is dismissing this opportunity. We got a glimmer of it in Wakanda Forever, but oh well.

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago

My understanding was that she used up the grant money and/or overextended the term of her scholarship without graduating.

It was a little hazy, tho

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 41 points 1 week ago

This is welcome news, but it still feels bizarre that people continue to act as though the settlements are part of a black market criminal operation. These are just private contractors of the Israeli government. You can't cut ties with the settlements while remaining in bed with the Israeli government than you can forgo using using one half of a hammer.

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

This article is better than I expected.

I thought it was going to be overly credulous nonsense about what the strategy is for an operation that is clearly a purely selfish gimmick to keep Bibi in power at the expense of Israel's long term reputation, security, and stability.

Overall, this author appears to be using dry sarcasm to allude to the fact that the emperor obviously has no clothes.

It makes me sad that Jewish Israelis let Bibi puppeteer them like this. It's unfortunate, and it reminds me that at least until something changes, change will have to come from abroad. I think American Jews are probably the greatest hope for an intervention. But it's not a hopeful situation.

 

I want to emphasize that although this article is written in a manner that shows sympathy to the perpetrators of a genocide, I thought it was a valuable look into the ways that the genocide in Gaza is completely tearing apart the social fabric of Israeli society.

“Some people go into this with a deep sense of mission — of serving their team, their country, of doing something bigger than themselves,” she said. “But over time, that can blur into something else. It can make it easier to dehumanize the other side. I believe there has to be a space between committing war crimes and being killed. I pray we’re still in that space.”

[Ron Howard voice:] They were not.

 

Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate who has been in immigration detention in Louisiana for more than a month, was barred from attending the birth of his firstborn child Monday, after immigration officials denied him permission to attend the birth in person, according to emails reviewed by CNN.

On Sunday morning, attorneys for Khalil wrote to Melissa Harper, director of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in New Orleans, requesting that Khalil be released from detention for two weeks so he could travel to New York and be with his wife when she delivered their son.

Khalil’s case has sparked a firestorm of controversy since he was arrested outside his Columbia University residence where he was living with his then-pregnant wife, a US citizen. ...

I just read this and thought... Jesus Christ, that's fucking ice cold.

I feel like they could've agreed to a 48 hour suspension in his detention just to be at the hospital and then carted him back to a remote swamp prison and still retained 99% of their Nazi cred. Hell, letting him hug his child and then disappearing him again is still ruthless as fuck. But no. That was still too much kindness for these sadists. Okay, noted.

 

My brother pointed out to me that in last week's episode of his podcast, Ezra Klein namechecked solarpunk in a blink-and-you-miss it mention:

“One common argument I heard on the left - Lina Khan made this point actually in our pages - was that this proved our whole paradigm of AI development was wrong. That we were seeing that we did not need all this compute, we did not need these giant companies, that this was showing a way towards a decentralized, almost solarpunk version of AI development, and in a sense the American system and imagination had been captured by, like, these three big companies.”

The context isn't as interesting as the quote. He was talking about different approaches to developing strong AI. It's only interesting because he used the term "solarpunk" in such a casual manner in a discussion that wasn't about solarpunk or even fiction. It reveals that it's in his vocabulary, and that he's ingesting this in his media diet. For those who don't know Klein, he's a very popular writer and journalist whose politics roughly resemble a quieter version of Elizabeth Warren's.

After hearing this, the thought occurred to me that what I'm witnessing is an idea spreading from a fringe group into a mainstream concept. Eventually, if it gets big enough with mainstream progressive liberals like Klein, I bet it'll one day get discovered and made into a boogieman on the right.

I wonder how long that will take? When is the first time I'll hear a clip of like, I dunno, Ben Shapiro shouting, 'Have you heard about this new thing they call SOLARPUNK???!? It's crazy! It's like... imagine a cyberpunk dystopia: but they want THAT with like, vines and TRANS PEOPLE everywhere! Some ruthless Soviet dictatorship but without even the cool cars or wonderful corporate innovation! It's just TRAINS and GARDENS instead! Ulgh!! [eyes bugging out for the thumbnail image]'

That might be interesting. I think that this idea has a viral quality, so perhaps I can look forward to that in 2025 or 2026. What do you folks think?

 
 
 
 
 
 

A poll on Mastodon: what's the overlap between fans of Star Trek and fans of the sci fi genre of solarpunk?

 

My husband bought a Stark Drive bike through Kickstarter about 6 years ago. It's served us incredibly well, and we've put thousands and thousands of miles on it, but the battery is now truly cooked.

I think it's time to finally buy a replacement, which sells for $600: https://starkdrive.bike/accessories/17ah-battery-pack/

Before I do, though, I just wanted to get some expert opinion. Are there any other options that are cheaper or more environmentally conscious? Are there places that can capably disassemble the battery locally and rebuild it with fresh cells? Would doing so have any advantages against just buying the new one? Thanks.

 

Tbf sometimes I see really bad lefty memes on here, so when I saw a good I felt like I had to provide a demonstration.

(It's gotta fit the format, people.)

 
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