swlabr

joined 2 years ago
[–] swlabr@awful.systems 4 points 2 hours ago

This is Uzumaki by Junji Ito but computers and stupid

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 4 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

You can pull a lever to divert the train and save your daughter. But there’s a catch, as there always is in these moral dilemmas: namely, the murderer has also tied his own five innocent children to the tracks, in such a way that, if you divert the train, then it will kill his children.

Zionism, to define it in one sentence, is the proposition that, in the situation described, you have not merely a right but a moral obligation to pull the lever—and that you can do so with your middle finger raised high to the hateful mob.

I deal with emails and social media posts day after day calling me a genocidal baby-killing monster.

I mean this is all just textbook zionism. Zionists are openly genocidal and proud of it, and are aghast that anyone might oppose zionism.

E: to be clear, zionist propaganda gets regurgitated by western media outlets to try and hide the genocide; this is a tactical measure as israel relies on international support to continue its genocide. Internally, israeli news outlets openly celebrate genocide.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 5 points 1 day ago

I think I mentioned Doughboys in this sack somewhere, so talking about CB is fair game

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 3 points 1 day ago

I think there’s room for both approaches simultaneously, especially at universities/colleges where you could offer multiple intro courses.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 7 points 1 day ago (5 children)

RE: (meta?)speculation about the quantum bubble. So the preceding two tech bubbles tried to worm their way into the arts: NFTs, and slop. How do we think the quantum hucksters are gonna try co-opt craativity?

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 6 points 1 day ago

KP writing a paper for the journal “New Frontiers In Gaslighting Children”

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There is nothing wrong with learning python in general or as a first language. My gripe is more that if you self teach it with no software engineering thought, you end up with some real bad habits that lead to bad code, like:

  • not documenting code with comments etc.
  • not testing
  • not understanding data types
  • RE: micropython, and other python wrappers: not understanding the underlying wrapped thing.
  • complaining when other languages are as easy or convenient as python

So as long as you avoid that you might be good.

Also specifically with micropython: it’s good to get something working, just don’t expect it to be fast. And if you want it to be fast, you’re going to have to learn C.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Great question that I don’t have a good answer to. My bit about python was more just a throwaway joke that was also supposed to indicate that my own opinions aren’t sufficient to write the linked article.

Here are some wrong answers, but with reasons for and none against:

  • Assembly: really gets you to understand that you are contending with a computer chip, and that anything interesting that you want to do requires abstraction.
  • C: similar to the above, but also gets you to understand some of the fundamental aspects of programming languages, mostly memory.
  • Perl: if you’re willing to teach python, why not Perl? Less readable, more magic, fun language to play golf with, so tutorial exercises could be fun.

By coincidence, these are the first three languages that I encountered as a CS student with no preexisting knowledge of programming (not in this order).

Anyway, for something approaching a real suggestion: Dart/Flutter could be an interesting choice, for some of the reasons given in the article for HTML. I haven’t given this much thought so this might still be a bad answer. Also this is the language I’m using at work right now.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 6 points 2 days ago (9 children)

Short version is that 10-15 years ago, when I was a student, it had the same “vibe” as vibe coding has today, i.e. the promise of easy implementation, but with the final product being sloppy, unreadable and buggy.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 4 points 2 days ago

All I need to know about HDI (human-dolphin interaction) (read: fuckin) is covered in many episodes of my favorite podcast Doughboys

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 3 points 2 days ago

I thought she had stolen a vaguely Asian sounding last name for some reason. Same with Richard Ngo

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Communism is when no Venti latte

 

(Archive)

Tickled pink that BI has decided to platform the AI safety chuds. OFC, the more probable reason of “more dosh” gets mentioned, but most of the article is about how Anthropic is more receptive to addressing AI safety and alignment.

 

Burns said the driving force behind the Runway deal was to allow filmmakers to “make movies and television shows we’d otherwise never make. We can’t make it for $100 million, but we’d make it for $50 million because of AI… We’re banging around the art of the possible. Let’s try some stuff, see what sticks.”

read: "I huffed my own farts and passed out. This gave me a dream where we made a film via promptfondling. I decided that I'll make a press release with made up numbers based on that dream."

As reported by New York Magazine: “With a library as large as Lionsgate’s, they could use Runway to repackage and resell what the studio already owned, adjusting tone, format and rating to generate a softer cut for a younger audience or convert a live-action film into a cartoon.”

read: "There's no need to do requels like disney does. The serfs will gobble the slop and they'll like it. After all, why risk creating new jobs or any creative output when we could just melt the ice caps instead?"

As for another example of how the studio can use AI, Burns said to consider this scenario: “We have this movie we’re trying to decide whether to green-light. There’s a 10-second shot — 10,000 soldiers on a hillside with a bunch of horses in a snowstorm.” Using Runaway’s AI technology, the studio can avoid a pricy film shoot that would cost millions and take a few days and use AI to create the shot for about $10,000.

read: "Here's a bottle of my farts. Smell it. Feeling dizzy? Good. Now imagine a scenario where you're looking at your bank account, and instead of number go down, number go up. Isn't that nice? Have another whiff."

 

Take that, Saltman! Bet you never thought it was possible!

28
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by swlabr@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
 

Original Title: Elizabeth Holmes’s Partner Has a New Blood-Testing Start-Up

Billy Evans has two children with the Theranos founder, who is in prison for fraud. He’s now trying to raise money for a testing company that promises “human health optimization.”

Original link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/10/business/elizabeth-holmes-partner-blood-testing-startup.html

 

Original NYT title: Billionaire Airbnb Co-Founder Is Said to Take Role in Musk’s Government Initiative

 

Original link

OFC if there were any real sense or justice in the world, LLMs would be banned outright.

 

No link given because it's all over the news. If you ask for proof you're going to have to eat my ass.

A lot of people are going to say it wasn't intended as a Nazi salute, and to that, I say: it doesn't matter. Was it a dog whistle? A variation of a Nazi salute from a South African neo-nazi party? Or just the vanilla salute? Such pontification is a waste of time. Fokker is a Nazi; you didn't need to see him salute. To all the regulars here, Musk being a Nazi is just an axiom of his whole deal. I mean, it's not called technofascism for nothing.

 

Just for my personal pride, I would like to state that the father of my children was the first american druid in diablo to clear abattoir of zir and ended that season as best in the USA. He was also ranking in Polytopia, and beat Felix himself at the game. I did observe these things with my own eyes. There are other witnesses who can verify this. That is all.

 

original link

“If all of this sounds like a libertarian fever dream, I hear you. But as these markets rise, legacy media will continue to slide into irrelevance.”

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