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zipwitch commented on Neuralink Progress Update [video]   youtube.com/watch?v=DVvmg... · Posted by u/lelf
polytely · 5 years ago
Seems like a nightmare now that I think about it, like you get a ransomware popup beamed into your visual cortex saying:

"We are in your brain, wire the contents of your bank account to the following bitcoin adres: <adress>. If you do not comply, we will blow up your neuralink, if you try to alert anyone, we will blow up your neuralink. We are watching, you have 2 hours, good luck."

"01:59:59"

"01:59:58"

...

zipwitch · 5 years ago
"it was rumored that hackers for big media companies had figured out a way to get through the defenses that were built into such systems, and run junk advertisements in your peripheral vision (or even spang in the ... middle all the time - even when your eyes were closed. Bud knew a guy like that who's somehow gotten infected with a meme that ran advertisements for roach motels, in Hindi, superimposed on the bottom right-hand corner of his visual field, twenty-four hours a day, until the guy whacked himself."

-Neal Stephenson The Diamond Age

zipwitch commented on Neuralink Progress Update [video]   youtube.com/watch?v=DVvmg... · Posted by u/lelf
ethanwillis · 5 years ago
It's naive to think this will be optional for long once it's viable.

Oh you have X,Y,Z mental illness? Treatment from or inclusion in society is contingent upon getting this chip installed.

zipwitch · 5 years ago
Want this job? Even if it doesn't get to the level of "all employees need to be running OurCorp Headware (tm)", being required to be running Microsoft Headwindows in order to get a job with medical benefits seems ominously plausible.
zipwitch commented on Partying like it’s 1999 – Initial public offerings are back in Silicon Valley   economist.com/business/20... · Posted by u/lxm
01100011 · 5 years ago
It's an obvious short opportunity but how can you know how long the market will remain irrational?
zipwitch · 5 years ago
"The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

Here's a piece on the origin of the quote: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/09/remain-solvent/

zipwitch commented on Volunteers spot almost 100 cold brown dwarfs near our sun   space.com/citizen-scienti... · Posted by u/wglb
catmistake · 5 years ago
zipwitch · 5 years ago
As the wikipedia article states, the WISE survey[1] results would have turned up Nemesis or anything like it, and did not. Currently most likely theory for the improbable distribution of objects beyond the Kuiper Cliff is Planet Nine.[2]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide-field_Infrared_Survey_Exp... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Nine

zipwitch commented on Roblox is a MUD: The history of MUDs, virtual worlds and MMORPGs   medium.com/@felipepepe/ro... · Posted by u/Kinrany
HeadsUpHigh · 5 years ago
>I enjoyed WoW, especially with friends, but it felt a lot more like a skinner box with nice graphics.

That's exactly what WoW aims to be: A themepark and the player is there for the ride. Whatever rough edges existed in vanilla are nothing compared to games before it, the games' goal always was to be as polished as possible.

zipwitch · 5 years ago
Yep. Vanilla had a few little bits of actual RPG peeking out here and there. They have long since been buffed out. Cash-extracting skinner box inside a pretty show, with a dash of e-sport and lobby game on the side seems to be a state WoW's owners are quite satisfied with.
zipwitch commented on Roblox is a MUD: The history of MUDs, virtual worlds and MMORPGs   medium.com/@felipepepe/ro... · Posted by u/Kinrany
waprin · 5 years ago
MUDs are what got me into programming. I was obsessed with them as a kid, although they were associated with DnD which was considered satanic so I had to hide them from my parents and teachers, who both forbid me from associating with DnD or MUDs.

Besides playing them, I actually spent more time as a "builder" than a "coder", which was an intermediate step in the hierarchy. As a builder, I would write hundreds of room descriptions, which most people never read. I desperately wanted to be a coder, the highest level of coolness in the MUD hierarchy, thus the journey began.

However, to me, MUDs always had an underground sensibility to them that something like WoW or Roblox will never replicate. The lack of polish is part of the fun, in the same way an underground punk rock show might be more fun than Coachella. I'm not sure if there's any experience like it left on the internet, I've never played Minecraft, but based on what I've read, that may come the closest.

zipwitch · 5 years ago
As someone with a pair of nieces who are Roblox junkies and who did dabble with MUDs back in the day, I can assure you that Roblox has a ton of content that is put together by enthusiastic amateurs. And while it often has heart, soul, and seems fun for those playing, it definitely doesn't have excess polish. If anything, I'd say Minecraft content tends to be far more polished than Roblox content, even after allowing for relative graphics differences.
zipwitch commented on AI slays top F-16 pilot in DARPA dogfight simulation   breakingdefense.com/2020/... · Posted by u/MontagFTB
notatoad · 5 years ago
gamers worry about the latency of a wireless controller sending a signal from their couch to their TV.

for a fighter jet with a remote pilot, you're looking potentially hundreds of miles of range, and the latency of the video transmission to the pilot combined with the latency of the controls signal back to the plane. i can't imagine that being acceptable for any sort of dogfighting scenario.

zipwitch · 5 years ago
That's before taking into account enemy attempts to jam, spoof, or otherwise disrupt your control link.
zipwitch commented on Satellite warfare: An arms race is brewing in orbit   economist.com/science-and... · Posted by u/bookofjoe
zipwitch · 5 years ago
"Orbit War was a magazine game published by Steve Jackson Games in Space Gamer (Issue 66 - Nov 1983). This release was followed by an expansion published in Space Gamer (Issue 67 - Jan 1984) and later by the boxed edition.

It is a simulation of satellite warfare in low Earth orbit. The players are the USA and the APU (Asian-Polish Union). The object is of course to destroy your opponent's satellites and such..."

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2101/orbit-war

zipwitch commented on The Suspected Poisoning of Alexey Navalny, Putin’s Most Prominent Adversary   newyorker.com/news/our-co... · Posted by u/jseliger
mcsb4 · 5 years ago
The fact that it was invented in Russia doesn't mean that this sample was Russian made. Every decent chemist can produce that stuff. We were also shown powerpoint slides of Saddams truck-mounted labs of WMD - they just didn't exist. The second mission was to "win hearts and minds". Result: 1,000,000 people dead. Women, old people, children and toddlers included. Just watch collateral damage again. Do it 100,000 times and you know what happened in Iraq. Plus a dash of abuse and torture of prisoners of war in the Abu Ghraib prison. There are plenty of things I doubt when I hear about them.
zipwitch · 5 years ago
>Every decent chemist can produce that stuff.

After reading, "Novichok agents: a historical, current, and toxicological perspective"[1] it looks like the only places to have produced such agents are Russian chemical weapon labs and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Central Analytical Database.

Maybe someone who works in the field can provide some more evidence either way?

[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6039123/#R19

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u/zipwitch

KarmaCake day2158March 11, 2014View Original