The problem with the App Store model is that the app could just be switched off by the powers that be. It would be better if something like this could be built into the OS. If one decentralised use case took off, then there could be other applications, like hosting the internet archive, wikipedia or LLMs, or digital cash. Might need waystations to get into rural areas but it sounds like the best long term way to secure the free internet.
Readit NewsStephenMelon commented on Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes reuters.com/world/america... · Posted by u/jumpocelot
I think following the constitution is a good thing, even if bombs are falling. I mean, look, people are dying, and yet the country is not just hunkered down in bunkers for the last four years. Life is going on. People are getting up and going to work and coming home and eating dinner and going to bed. Surely they could also go and vote... if the constitution did not say what it says.
It just wouldn’t be possible to have a fair election when a sizeable percentage of the population is living under foreign occupation.
StephenMelon commented on Stranger Things creator says turn off “garbage” settings screenrant.com/stranger-t... · Posted by u/1970-01-01
You know when something doesn't annoy you until someone points it out?
It's so obvious in hindsight. Shows like the Big Bang theory, House and Scrubs I very rarely caught two episodes consecutively (and when I did they were on some release schedule so you'd forgotten half of the plot by next week). But they are all practically self contained with only the thread of a longer term narrative being woven between them.
It's doubtful that any of these netflix series you could catch one random episode and feel comfortable that you understand what's going on. Perhaps worse is the recent trend for mini-series which are almost exactly how you describe - just a film without half of it being left on the cutting room floor.
Google currently has an advertising campaign for Gemini (in conjunction with Netflix!) which is all about how you can use AI to tell you what the key episodes are so that you don’t need to watch the whole thing. If that isn’t an admission that most of it is filler I don’t know what is…
Based on what I hear from those in the know, the perception is that it's decades away instead of years. And an even more complicated problem isn't whether or not they can make it work with considerable constraints (geofence, no highways, avoid several spots that are hard to handle, weather, assistance via remote operation when stuck), but how to do it profitably. The cars are expensive. The maintenance is expensive. The ongoing cleaning, charging, and prepping of vehicles is expensive. Constantly updating HD maps is expensive. Of course the engineers to keep everything running smoothly are expensive. And the small army of people you need to actually talk to and help customers - something Google has basically never done before - is expensive.
I love the idea of self-driving cars and I really can't wait until they're ready. But I'd say that's going to happen about as quickly as changing the infrastructure in this country. Personally I'd rather have better public transit anyway.
Seems like autonomous personal air travel would be a far, far simpler problem to solve than road-based driving? Far less edge cases, once you are in the air the only obstacles you really need to worry about are other vehicles, birds, leaves and the odd stray plastic bag. With VTOL the whole thing could be an order of magnitude easier than driving. By the same principle, sea travel would also have less edge cases, at least in calm conditions. Is it the case that people aren’t seeing markets for those applications of autonomy or is there some other reason why there isn’t the same hype in those areas?
StephenMelon commented on New Type Of Killer Whale Found Swimming In Southern Ocean npr.org/2019/03/07/701101... · Posted by u/dang
Very interesting.
Always fascinated by the Orca species.
It’s my understanding there has never been a reported killing of a human by Orcas and that they possess a very interesting and not entirely understood brain.
Apex ocean predator, hunting in packs.
Maybe never reported in the wild?
For a few years I have been predicting the advent of a kind of cognitive weapon of mass destruction, a "propaganda doomsday weapon."
This would be a dishonest/manipulative debate AI paired with big data and microtargeting. It's like pairing a trained and primed con artist with every single human being in parallel and having it shadow and work on them 24/7. Big data and cross agent "fleet wide learning" would allow it to get smarter very rapidly.
I consider this scenario to be as much of an existential threat as atomic and biological weapons.
Isn’t that what Cambridge Analytica were aiming for?
Doesn’t need to be a better graph, it needs to be good enough to grow.
Most FB users probably aren’t “power users”.
Facebook jumped the shark when they started trying to encourage private individuals to “create engagement” and pay to boost their posts. If internal marketing jargon is leaking into your UX, you clearly have serious problems with how your staff are being incentivised.
Facebook could have become an engine that allowed society to maximise human capital and but they sacrificed all that potential at the altar of growth hacking and bleeding advertisers dry.
StephenMelon commented on Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’ bloomberg.com/opinion/art... · Posted by u/montalbano
Where is North Korea not on this list? Right...they have nuclear weapons. The surefire way of preventing invasion & war. That's why the Great War isn't going to happen again. If WWIII does happen it's game over folks.
Nuclear weapons are the reason why the competing global powers have found new ways to compete and project power abroad. Global wars have mostly moved from being violence-based to being fought via propaganda and economics. It probably mirrors the way smaller communities moved from physical to intellectual competition.
I asked ChatGPT a question about a made up character in a made up work and it came back with "I don’t actually have a reliable answer for that". Perfect.
On the other hand, I can ask it about varnishing a piece of wood and it will give a lovely table with options, tradeoffs, and Good/Ok/Bad ratings for each option, except the ratings can be a little off the mark. Same thing when asking what thickness cable is required to carry 15A in AU electrical work. Depending on the journey and line of questioning, you would either get 2.5mm^2 or 4mm^2.
Not wrong enough to kill someone, but wrong enough that you're forced to use it as a research tool rather than a trusted expert/guru.
DeepSeek however hallucinated a completely fictional band from 30 years ago, right down to album names, a hard luck story about how they’d been shafted by the industry (and by whom), made up names of the members and even their supposed subsequent collaborations with contemporary pop artists.
I asked if it was telling the truth or making it up and it doubled down quite aggressively on claiming it was telling the truth. The whole thing was very detailed and convincing yet complete and utter bollocks.
I understand the difference in the cost/parameters etc. but it was miles behind the other 3, in fact it wasn’t just behind it was hurtling in the opposite direction, while being incredibly plausible.