mountainriver @ mountainriver @awful.systems

Posts

2

Comments

274

Joined

2 yr. ago

I think when most people say a culture product was good, they mean that they were entertained. I found it entertaining way back when. Looking back at it now, I'm not sure why. It is objectively awful.

Thinking about it, I think it's a combination of:

• Due to real life stuff, I wanted to be distracted and entertained (I binge watched and read a lot of material of questionable quality at this time)
• Fanfiction, so large suspension of demands of any formal structure and logic
• Fanfiction of children's fantasy books, so another large helping of suspension of disbelief
• I started reading just as it was wrapping up, so binge reading and then moving on (only to then 10 years later finding out that it was a cult recruitment tool, like finding out you had been to Scientology seminar, enjoyed free snacks and just missed all the cult recruitment going on)

I also think stories happens to a very large part in the mind of the reader/listener/watcher/player. So the story as perceived by me of ten years ago, or sailor's coworker, doesn't have to have much connection with what was actually written. That is also what I have noticed trying to re-read some of the sci-fi I read as a kid. The stories I remembered was much better than the ones in the books.

This could very well just be me not understanding Lemmy yet, but I find it tricky to find the new comments. I mean if I've read a thread and see that there are 10 new comments since last I read the tread, I would like to be able to find them. Or maybe there already is?

In SCOOP they were marked with [new] in read. I liked that.

I am not an expert, but I did take a couple of semesters of history, and I find him rather annoying.

Somebody who should have been infuriated was Manuel Eisner, who wrote the paper Long-Term Historical Trends in Violent Crime. It's a really good paper, and I have seen Pinker misquote it, so he can't claim ignorance.

Eisner's argument, which I find persuasive, is that it was not the state power increase as such that decreased private violence. Because if that was the case, southern Europe wouldn't have lagged as much as it did. Rather it was the transformation of the nobility from personally very violent knights and lords, to officers and bosses who wields state violence. And that happened at different times, matching the decline in private violence. With the nobility no longer needing personal violence, it goes down. Quite different from Pinker's take.

And then there is the question of where that state capacity for violence was wielded. I don't think Pinker includes Queen Victoria in his rouge gallery, yet the famines in India killed about as many as the ones in the Soviet Union and Communist China, and those are usually counted as state violence.

On the rise and fall of violent crime in the west during the 70ies and 80ies, there has been many candidates, but most fall away because they can't explain it both in western Europe and the US. One good candidate is leaded gasoline leading to lead poisoned babies growing up and becoming more violent in the crucial young adult age. It matches, but I haven't seen any proper attempts to really test it, by for example comparing cities to the countryside.

A Danish ad company made a Google interface that they called "impersonal me" which searched Google with no personalisation. And not only was it better than Google search, it found things that normal Google just didn't show. In particular old comments I had written and lost track of. In the impersonal search they were easily found, in the normal search they weren't way down on the list, they weren't in the list at all.

Fascinatingly bad.

Sounds like something autocomplete would make up. Are we sure that is a real person this time?

Machine made t-shirt, with extra fingers.

Besides, isn't most clothes just made by poor people in poor conditions instead of being made with machines? Just like AI.

I don't have a dog in the race and I always think the bubbles will burst before they do. But with that caveat, shouldn't the interest rates be a factor?

My reasoning is that part of a bubble is that as long as line goes up there are assets which can be used for collateral for loans for new money to push the line up. With a low interest rate the new money is cheaper, with high interest it's more expensive. So all else equal, the boom should burst quicker with higher interest rates.

From what I have read, it can be a support as long as:

• It is trained on local data, from the machine and procedures normally used.
• The accuracy is regularly tested (because any variation in the indata, whether from equipment or procedures changes the input data).
• It is understood as a tool that gives suggestions for the radiologist, not a replacement.

Of course, it cannot be better than the best radiologists around. So the question is if it is worth it, compared with for example hire more staff.

Good article. Captures the bubble growth and the lack of profit growth, with lots of examples. And that the capacity growth of AI is limited by non AI works, so no growth into functionality.

Good one to hand to people who needs to understand the nature of the bubble (and that it is a bubble).

The Golem and The Golem at large are two excellent little books about how science and technology actually works. History of science, so heavy on examples (as the historical subjects tend to be) and light on theory. Several examples of what today would be pseudo science but was treated seriously at its time, because they didn't know what we consider basic knowledge (and you can't get it from first principle...)

Good for anyone interested in science or technology, but perhaps particularly useful for the cultists (if they can be persuaded).

Even if you got one, depositing it would raise some questions.

Can you copyright AI products?

I am no fancy copyright lawyer, but if I understand the legal situation in the US, you cannot claim copyright unless there is a human being involved. There was a case a decade ago with a photographer setting up a camera that a monkey or ape used to take a selfie. PETA sued on behalf of the animal, claiming the copyright, and the court ruled that only humans can have copyright so the picture had no copyright.

Though the prompt fans will probably claim to be artists, so I guess more legal wrangling.

Probably ending in something like every time an AI image is created Disney get a cent. And following that, to combat piracy, social media platforms demand proof of current AI subscription to upload image. Sure, in theory you can upload an image you yourself has created without AI, but in practice the algorithm will find it to similar to something else and execute automatic takedown. Isn't it simpler just to pay your AI/Disney tax?

Back in the late 90s tech boom days McDonalds declared that they would sell hamburgers over the Internet. Remember, this was before smartphones, hell it was before Nokia flip phones with rudimentary browser and email. Most people who had internet access at all used it either at work, school or the family computer with dial up modem.

McDonalds' stock price rose by 50%.

I remember it because I thought this was so stupid that it must mean that the bust was near. I was just of years. The market can stay stupid longer than you can believe it, or however it was Keynes put it.

He appeared to be human, but then they counted his fingers.

Larger expenses in a month than earnings in a year. AI going great. Capitalism going great.

Philanthropy can't change the power structures, philanthropy is a band aid that soothe the conscience of the philanthropist.

Aaron and assorted developers can't give the villagers power, because they only have power in relation to the villagers, not in relation to the world trade system. If they want to give the villagers power they need to change the system that gives the villagers a fraction of their earnings per hour.

But then you are back to the usual options. Thirty years of boredom, trying to change the system from within? Protest world leaders and get beaten by police for your troubles (or even sentenced for destruction of police equipment by smashing your face into it)? Join a communist party and play spot the fed?

I guess it's better to join a philanthropy cult, where billionaires can pay you to hang out in a castle and discuss the problems with the poor over some overpriced ethanol.

And did it appear he needed any help from dorky software engineers personally going to villages to “help out”?

I once saw what I think was a BBC show where an Englishman visited cool tribes and lived with them. Tough, outdoorsman.

The only episode I saw he was in Mongolia and it had what I think was unintentional humour. The local vet - who had been the local party representative during the Communist era and now held some other title - placed him in a family that could need a hand during migration, as their teenage daughter had a disability. So on he went on horseback and he made it there with just a bunch more pauses then the Mongolians would have preferred. But once there, the best his hosts could say about his efforts to help was "Well, he is strong. And he is trying."

By the looks of it, the Mongolians could not believe how a big, strong guy could be so utterly useless.

Your honor, My client caused no damages.

As clearly seen in the impact statements the only thing that was lost was crypto currencies and as they state they would have been held on to if not lost. By holding on to the crypto currencies, the victims shows a common delusion in the crypto sphere, namely that crypto has value. In all certainty they would have held on until said crypto was lost, stolen or had collapsed. The true expected value was zero.

Notably missing: grabbing a couple of millions and run of to a non extradition country.

He is so sure he can get out on top that running away doesn't even hit his brainstorm top 19 list. He doesn't write the list on paper and burn it later, because for it to backfire he would need to fail.

Insane confidence man.