@SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop
@SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

SpeakerToManagers

@SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop

Retired software engineer. Progressive lefty from trade-union socialist communist family. Neurodivergent (ADD, OCD) & physically disabled. Interested in a lot of things including photography, computing, art, SFF, experimental video, astrobiology, complex adaptive systems, poetry, visual mathematics โ€ฆ
#Fractals, #ReactionDiffusion, #GenerativeArt, #CellularAutomata.
Allergic to libertarianism, AI hype, trans-humanism, crypto currency & web3.

๐‹๐ข๐›๐ž๐ซ๐š๐ญ๐ž ๐š๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐ฌ๐ž๐ง๐ญ๐ข๐ž๐ง๐ญ ๐›๐ž๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ฌ.

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annaleen, to random
@annaleen@wandering.shop avatar

I reviewed two fascinating new books about surveillance systems in the United States and China for @nytimes -- both Byron Tau's Means of Control and Minxin Pei's The Sentinel State argue that the real problem is overreaching law enforcement, not newfangled tech. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/books/review/means-of-control-byron-tau-the-sentinel-state-minxin-pei.html

SpeakerToManagers,
@SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

@annaleen @nytimes
Behind a paywall Iโ€™m not willing to pay for (killed my Times subscription years ago; Iโ€™m not willing to support their editorial positions, misinformation, and misleading headline).

I saw an interview with both of them recently and was impressed with their level of commitment to investigative reporting. Obviously they were surveilled when in China, and the threat of arrest or disappearance was non negligible. And horrified by how far the situation has gone.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Apple Cancels Work on Electric Car, Ending Decade long Effort

The most recent approach discussed internally was delaying a car release until 2028 and reducing self-driving specifications from Level 4 to Level 2+ technology.

Many employees on the car team โ€” known as the Special Projects Group, or SPG โ€” will be shifted to the artificial intelligence division

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-27/apple-cancels-work-on-electric-car-shifts-team-to-generative-ai

SpeakerToManagers,
@SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

@wordshaper @cstross @FeralRobots
The technology for wrist mounted BP is available, itโ€™s just going to take someone to put the development and manufacturing money into it. The idea is to use near infrared light which penetrates the skin to measure blood flow changes during the pulse and estimate pressure from that. The research on this dates back at least 45 years, I remember reading about it when I worked in a physiology lab in the 70s.

SpeakerToManagers,
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@wordshaper @cstross @FeralRobots
Machine learning may be a solution for the calibration problem. Iโ€™m not optimistic any of the tech companies will be motivated to solve the skin tone problem, as they still havenโ€™t built a bathroom towel dispenser or a sink faucet control that works right for non-white people.

SpeakerToManagers, to random
@SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

Air Canada claims chatbot, not company, is legally responsible for false information. Court disagrees.

Air Canada must honor refund policy invented by airlineโ€™s chatbot - Ars Technica https://apple.news/AHHtGvJdHS4-N7lZIaldLVw

valkyrie, to random
@valkyrie@wandering.shop avatar

deleted_by_author

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    SpeakerToManagers,
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    @valkyrie
    Nice. Took me a minute or two to get all the details like the gadget behind her and the headset in her hand, but it was worth the look.

    LLS, to random
    @LLS@wandering.shop avatar

    deleted_by_author

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    SpeakerToManagers,
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    @LLS
    Right, thatโ€™s an abuse case.

    SpeakerToManagers, to random
    @SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

    Key takeaways from the largest survey of trans people in U.S. history - NBC News https://apple.news/AzwtdmBdCSgei2PRKqrsEDQ

    lauren, to random
    @lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org avatar

    Many years ago, I was working with a friend with one of the prototype 8080 CP/M systems, that he had been lent for testing. It was a couple of big square boards, all entirely wire wrapped.

    At one point, we needed to attach test equipment to an I/O port, and we had to pull one of the big cards out of the backplane frame to do this.

    After we plugged the card back in, we couldn't get the system to boot. Odd.

    Ultimately, we discovered that the cards had symmetric +5 and -12 volt power lines, and the square cards and associated slots had nothing to prevent the cards from being plugged in backwards, instantly frying the system.

    So, yeah, I helped kill one of the very first microcomputers. I've always been perversely a bit proud of that.

    SpeakerToManagers,
    @SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

    @lauren
    Congratulations, youโ€™re officially an acceptance test engineer. I did that for a few years back in the day (yeah, CP/M, 8080, 8 inch floppies). I was the 1st person at IMSAI to actually try putting 64K of ram in a chasis. It didnโ€™t work. The designer had neglected to interface the ram chip outputs to the backplane with drivers, and the poor things pooped out trying to drive all that capacitance.

    xgranade, to random
    @xgranade@wandering.shop avatar

    I really hate that a typical keyboard layout gives you () [], {}, <>, and precisely no other delimiters. Once you use () for arguments, [] for lists, {} for code blocks, and <> for type arguments that's all you get in your language unless you reuse something.

    SpeakerToManagers,
    @SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

    @xgranade
    Well, it takes some fumbling around to bring up the Unicode keyboard on my phone or tablet (got to install it on my laptop yet, but it might be more convenient there ), but there are these:
    ใ€–ใ€—โชโซใ€”ใ€•โ…โ† โฆ•โฆ–โฆ‘โฆ’โŽโŽ 
    and a bunch of others that look pretty cool.

    johnshirley2024, (edited ) to random

    2 bucks for THE OTHER END as , publisher tells me. Promo for 24 hours till midnight tonight, the 22nd.

    An alternate Judgment Day--from a progressive POV. Consciousness itself does the judging.

    โ€œA thrill-packed action ride, with each slice of the knife driven by a series of very understandable ideals. Shirley spares no-one.โ€ โ€”MetroSilicon Valley

    โ€œAmazing . . .With this book [Shirley] breaks the tape.โ€ โ€”Harlan Ellison

    https://www.amazon.com/Other-End-John-Shirley-ebook/dp/B00J90F7LY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2T8R84SOURPOU&keywords=the+other+end+by+john+shirley&qid=1703213832&s=books&sprefix=The+Other+End+by+John+%2Cstripbooks%2C140&sr=1-1

    SpeakerToManagers,
    @SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

    @johnshirley2024
    Purchased and added to the TBR pile.

    trochee, to random
    @trochee@dair-community.social avatar

    Hey look, it's the trailer for "Butlerian Jihad: Year Minus One"

    Against pseudanthropy | TechCrunch
    https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/21/against-pseudanthropy/

    Via @SpeakerToManagers (tx!)

    SpeakerToManagers,
    @SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

    @trochee
    I wonder if we shouldnโ€™t be more concerned about AIs pretending to be gods than pretending to be humans. Some of the worst damage has been done by humans pretending to be gods.

    SpeakerToManagers,
    @SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

    @trochee
    I think we ought to insist they use skaldic poetic form, but with a whole new list of kennings particular to computer science. No human would go to that much trouble.

    SpeakerToManagers,
    @SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

    @trochee @xek
    Isnโ€™t that the plot of โ€œForbidden Planetโ€, with Dr. Morbius as Prรณspero and his id as Caliban?

    SpeakerToManagers, to random
    @SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

    Against pseudanthropy - TechCrunch https://apple.news/A5OApiWb0SL-xhVMeOo8Hkw

    SpeakerToManagers,
    @SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

    @johnshirley2024
    While I agree this would be a Very Bad Thingโ„ข, I wonder if what we have now where political candidates claim to hold political views before the election to get some set of voters to approve of them only to abandon them when theyโ€™re elected is much different.

    xgranade, to random
    @xgranade@wandering.shop avatar

    Ar some point, I feel like I should reflect and write down my reflections on what goes wrong with conflating "tech should be accessible" and "tech should be easy to use," and especially on who gets to define "easy" in the first place.

    SpeakerToManagers,
    @SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

    @xgranade
    I worked in a corp. research lab on user interfaces and programming environments (I tried to think of prog langs as UIs & decided it would be too hard to convince lang designers* of that viewpoint). The lady in the next office was a psychophysiologist working on color spaces for displays & printers. We talked about how to provide user interfaces to color spaces & convinced ourselves there was no easy way to do it.

    • I worked on the C++ standards committee with Bjarne Stroustrup.
    cstross, to random
    @cstross@wandering.shop avatar

    Why scientists are making transparent wood

    The material is being exploited for smartphone screens, insulated windows, and more.

    โ€œI truly believe this material has a promising future,โ€ says Qiliang Fu, a wood nanotechnologist at Nanjing Forestry University in China

    https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/12/why-scientists-are-making-transparent-wood/

    "Wood nanotechnologist". I'm just going to leave that here and tiptoe away quietly โ€ฆ

    SpeakerToManagers,
    @SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

    @cstross
    I bet you could make pottery out of this stuff. Vases, plates, coffee cups. Just bend the wood precursor into the shape you want then dip in the polymer.

    Dianepatterson, to random
    @Dianepatterson@wandering.shop avatar

    Lol. Listening to a podcast with a โ€œtrue listener taleโ€ that has someone taking an at-home pregnancy testโ€ฆin 1965. ๐Ÿคฆ๐Ÿปโ€โ™€๏ธ

    SpeakerToManagers,
    @SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

    @cstross @Dianepatterson
    My uncle died in 1966 of a stomach cancer that would probably be completely survivable today. Note that in the entire interval since then Iโ€™ve been an adult. Also, I knew a polio survivor who was in an โ€œiron lungโ€ when I was a child, and Iโ€™ve been protected by polio vaccines since I was 8.

    Things change rapidly, and the rate of change speeds up.

    cstross, to random
    @cstross@wandering.shop avatar

    Introducing the New Management revised National Curriculum Introduction to Human Sacrifice Lego playset!

    SpeakerToManagers,
    @SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

    @cstross
    That needs to be on the back cover of the next New Management book. And BTW, whoโ€™s the artist. I will be gibsmacked if itโ€™s from an AI and would love to see the prompt.

    SpeakerToManagers,
    @SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

    @cstross @Landa
    At least we now have proof that theyโ€™re coming to get us. Maybe if I build a Lego tzompantli Iโ€™ll put robot heads drenched in lube oil in it as revenge.

    ZachWeinersmith, to random
    @ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social avatar

    If one more person critiques A City on Mars for not accounting for something that is in fact accounted for one the book, I am going to... feel moderately annoyed but take no action.

    SpeakerToManagers,
    @SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

    @Landa @cstross @maxthefox @ZachWeinersmith
    The Earthโ€™s biosphere took over 3 billion years to evolve to itโ€™s current state and we have no evidence that rewinding and restarting that process would give the same result, or any result at all, for that matter. If we want to learn how to maintain stable biomes we should probably build a thousand Biospheres and try many different combinations and parameters.

    SpeakerToManagers,
    @SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

    @cstross @Landa @maxthefox @ZachWeinersmith
    This reminds me of the debate about how many people it takes to clone a technical civilization, say for a generation ship interstellar voyage. Every time the discussion starts up again the number goes up as we realize how many skills are involved and all the overhead in maintaining knowledge (teachers, librarians, demographers, historians, oh my!).

    โถ of โท

    SpeakerToManagers,
    @SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

    @cstross @Landa @maxthefox @ZachWeinersmith
    If either the clay/RNA or the black smoker environment life origin hypothesis is correct then life was fundamentally shaped by the lithosphere and/hydrosphere. Not a real surprise, evolutiion likely started operating on chemical cycles in the prebiotic soup, and evolution is all about co-evolution of life and environment.

    SpeakerToManagers, to random
    @SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

    Some of these are brilliant. 12 and 24 are especially great. The elevator floor buttons are a godsend to delivery people
    These People All Had Really Simple, But REALLY Genius Ideas, And I Love Them For That - BuzzFeed https://apple.news/AfcT7VAVjRruZhTbduEUibA

    mathling, to random
    @mathling@mastodon.social avatar

    To the furthest seed?

    SpeakerToManagers,
    @SpeakerToManagers@wandering.shop avatar

    @mathling
    These are lovely. Have you tried rendering them on a nonEuclidean surface, spherical or hyperbolic?

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