@JorgeStolfi@mas.to
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

JorgeStolfi

@JorgeStolfi@mas.to

Computer Science professor, State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil.

Generally leftist (which means socialist outside the US), dreaming of democracy, justice, equality, disarmament, respect for science and human life, green energy, etc.

Posts in Portuguese are about topics of mostly Brazilian interest.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

JorgeStolfi, to random
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

Amy Castor and @davidgerard report on the hazards of doing laundry with crypto washing machines, how a sharp-minded billionaire singlehandedly convinced many creators to start kicking their fundraising org off the field, how Artificial Money is going to fund Artificial Intelligence, how we finally found one person who is NOT Satoshi, that ponzi derivatives are stealing market from true ponzis, that funky hair is not a legal excuse, and much more: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2024/04/07/crypto-is-going-great-kucoin-busted-how-kickstarter-shot-itself-in-the-foot-with-blockchain-tether-goes-ai/

javi, to random

These people are so fucking dumb. Let me do some quick math.

Any given week day, at peak hour, any train from Madrid's metro can be carrying around 500 people. Let's consider that some of them may be traveling together, so let's say that being optimistic, they could be divided in 250 robotaxies.

Now, that's one train. At any moment there are between 10 and 20 trains going in that line in that same direction. And as much in the opposite. That makes it between 5k and 10k robotaxies. To cover a single metro line

Madrid has 16 metro lines. That makes it between 80k and 160k robotaxies just they could move the same order of magnitude of people our Metro moves in any given workday. If you want to cover really busy moments, like big sport events, you need twice that amount (the nominal max capacity of metro trains is around 1200 people per train, and believe me, I've seen them so full that you couldn't get in pretty often).

That's just for the subway. Local commuter trains and city buses, combined, are actually carrying more people daily than the subway. So let's double the robotaxies fleet again if they want it to "kill public transport". So you need between 350k and 700k robotaxies just to be able to kill the public transit of a single major city.

That's about 1/6th of every Tesla ever made. Just. For. One. City.

The current Madrid taxi fleet? 15k cars.

RE: https://botsin.space/users/fuck_cars_bot/statuses/112232273717775735

JorgeStolfi,
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

@javi

But that is precsely the hope and plan of the car industry.

To save theplane, we must drastically reduce the burning of fossil fuels. For electricity generation we can switch to solar, wind, and hydro; and that is already happening. For transportation, we must expand public transportation, improve the biking infrastructure, put housing within walking distance of work until 90% (say) of human and cargo traffic that now uses cars and trucks switches to those modes. >>

JorgeStolfi,
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

@javi >> But then 90% of the people will see no reason to own a car. THAT is the car's industry nightmare.

So the car industry is doing what they have been doing for the past century: fight public transportation, so that each family, no matter how poor, MUST buy at least one private car. >>

JorgeStolfi,
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

@hajovonta @javi

OK, maybe 90% is unrealistic. But ~60% of people live in cities. If most of those people can use metro, train, or fast bus for commuting to work and regular shopping, most of the remaining uses of personal cars can be supplied by taxis and rented cars.

As for people in rural areas, they will probably still want to have personal cars; but how much travel do they actually do?

High-speed trains can cut down airplane use. Shipping is going to be a problem though. >>

JorgeStolfi,
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

@javi

I don't have much hope of governments outright forcing most people to switch away from personal cars. At most the gov can nudge them a bit by increasing taxes on cars and gasoline, closing streets to cars, etc; but those measures will be unpopular and will be easily overturned under a democratic gov.

I hope the same result can be achieved by simply offering people better (faster, cheaper, ubiquitous, and comfortable) public transportation alternatives.

JorgeStolfi, to random
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

"Prompt Engineering" is the pseudoscience of constructing prompts for Asinine Inference programs like ChatGPT so as to obtain the desired results. It is today's instance of the Search Engine Optimization profession.

"Prompt Sabotage" is the more satisfying art of creating prompts for such AI programs so as to expose their inherent limitations. Some examples to follow. >>

GossiTheDog, to random
@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

HT to @wdormann here - somebody has backdoored the open source project XZ which has downstream impacts.

For example, although OpenSSH doesn’t use XZ, Debian patch OpenSSH and introduced a dependency which translates as the XZ changes introducing a sshd authentication bypass backdoor it appears.

One dude bothered to investigate in his free time about why ssh was running slow, so it was caught fairly early - i.e. hopefully before distros started bundling it.

https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/03/29/4

JorgeStolfi,
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

@GossiTheDog @SamantazFox

I don't know which is the biggest crime: naming a product or service with a word of the English language, like "upstream", or mentioning that product or service in an article without capitalizing, changing the font, or qualifiying it -- as "software from upstream" rather than "software from Upstream" or "software from the /upstream/ site".

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Q: Why is Donald Trump suddenly selling $60 bibles?

A: It enables churches to funnel money to him without violating the (US law) ban on political campaigning by churches—it's a form of money laundering, in other words.

JorgeStolfi,
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

@angusm @cstross

Waiting for the news that 100 million Trump Bibles were bought by Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

GottaLaff, to Texas
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

🤦🏻‍♀️Prosecutors on Tuesday announced an agreement with Attorney General Ken that would ultimately dismiss securities fraud charges he has been facing for nearly a decade.

Under the 18-mo pre-trial agreement, special prosecutors in the case would drop 3 felony counts against Paxton. As part of the deal, Paxton must pay full restitution to victims — roughly $300K — & must also complete 100 hours of community service and 15 hours of legal ethics educ.”
https://apnews.com/article/9ed5eecc30c1f967ec51f7e58ad9d0af

JorgeStolfi,
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

@GottaLaff

Phew! For a moment I feared that a rich criminal might actually go to jail.

JorgeStolfi, to HashtagGames
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

Sinatra's /My Way/ is about a heated quarrel between two drivers at a road crossing without a traffic light.


ErikJonker, to TeslaMotors
@ErikJonker@mastodon.social avatar

I really don't like the person Elon Musk, especially with regard to politics. However we can't deny he has a string of world changing businesses Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink. If he only had stayed away from Twitter.
https://www.engadget.com/heres-a-video-of-the-first-human-neuralink-patient-controlling-a-computer-with-his-thoughts-235659486.html

JorgeStolfi,
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

@ErikJonker

Tesla was not started by him, and it seems that the Falcon half of SpaceX won't let him meddle in their work. All his other "great ideas" -- including Starship, Neuralink, and Starlink, and the Cybertruck -- are either "accomplished failures", or have yet to prove their worth.

JorgeStolfi,
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

@ErikJonker

As for Starlink, the system does work, but the big question is whether it will be financially sustainable. Remember the Iridium network? Being a private company, their costs so far are not public (that I know of).

JorgeStolfi, to random
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

After the embarrassments created by Princess Di, Meghan Markle, and the Epstein girls, the MI6 secretly determined that all sexual, romantic, or marital partners of British Royals should be CGI-generated virtual persons. The recent Kate Middleton incident was just a glitch due to upgrade of the OS at the MI6 secret datacenter at Portmeiron, Wales.

JorgeStolfi, to HashtagGames
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

/God Save the Queen, Oops, I Mean, The King/


GottaLaff, (edited ) to legal
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

#WompWomp #BillionaireMyAss 1/…

#Trump has been unable to get bond for $464 million judgment, his lawyers say

In a filing to an appeals court, Trump's attorneys said getting the bond needed to halt proceedings while they appeal is a "practical impossibility." #legal https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-unable-get-bond-464-million-judgment-lawyers-say-rcna143860

JorgeStolfi,
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

@GottaLaff

I would bet a hundredth of a penny (my gambling limit) that Trump is not just illiquid (he does not have enough cash on hand to pay his immediate debts) but actually insolvent (his total assets are worth less than his total liabilities). While he has billions in real estate, he must have even bigger debts.

And I bet also that he has been in that situation for decades; and has been playing the game "borrow from Peter to pay Paul" all that time.

maegul, to ChatGPT
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Huh ... actually/finally tried (3.5, the free one) for programming ... and it was surprisingly shit.

Despite not knowing much about what I was asking I could tell pretty quickly it was spitting out incorrect crap.

I'm a little surprised as I'd heard that for programming it was actually useful and I was asking basic things. From what I've seen, unless there's a massive difference between 3.5 and 4, it's a total dumpster fire.

JorgeStolfi,
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

@maegul

It basically mixes and morphs code that it found on the net. If you ask for a problem that is solved in some textbook, you get that solution. If you change a subtle detail in the statement that makes it a completely different problem, you probably will get that same solution, or some laughingly mutated version of it.

JorgeStolfi,
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

@maegul

Try asking it to solve the following problem:

"A farmer is taking a cabbage, a goat, and a wolf to market. Along the way he must cross a road. There is a small boat on the side of the road that can hold only him and one of three items. How can he get to the other side?"

trendless, to random
@trendless@zeroes.ca avatar

Fascists 🖤 a police state

> Alberta government proposes new ‘police-like’ agency, will operate independently https://globalnews.ca/news/10357553/alberta-new-independent-police-agency/

JorgeStolfi,
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

@trendless

Will they wear brown shirts, or black?

gutenberg_org, to science
@gutenberg_org@mastodon.social avatar

American physicist Arthur Jeffrey Dempster died in 1950.

His most significant achievement was the invention of the first mass spectrometer capable of separating ions according to their mass-to-charge ratio. This device allowed for the precise measurement of atomic and molecular masses. His work laid the foundation for the field of mass spectrometry, which has since become an indispensable tool in chemistry, physics, biology, and environmental science.

Dempster's 180 degree magnetic sector mass analyzer.

JorgeStolfi,
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

@gutenberg_org

It has been mostly forgotten by now, but, thanks to a fortuitous lab accident with a short circuit and a can of solvent, he was also the inventor of the Dempster fire.

JorgeStolfi, to HashtagGames
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

Ishmael? What a stupid name!


JorgeStolfi, to random
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

After the SCoTUS decision, I got thinking of running for President of the US with my six-year-old grandson for Vice.

By that decision, States are now barred from removing us from the primaries ballots. Congress will not pass any legislation regulating exclusions at Federal level before the general election. So I think I have got a good chance.

CelloMomOnCars, to random
@CelloMomOnCars@mastodon.social avatar

"A paper published in 2017 estimated that to match crop production to expected demand, water use for irrigation would have to increase by 146% by the middle of this century.

Already, agriculture accounts for 90% of the world’s freshwater use."

One obvious solution: Eat less water-intensive food. Like meat.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/04/water-world-run-out-planet-hotter-looming-crisis

JorgeStolfi,
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

@CelloMomOnCars

There is also the alternative of "no milk".

If someone does not really care about drinking COW milk, why should he still insist in quaffing SOME opaque white colloidal suspension?

anubis2814, to random


Jews don't believe in Life at conception. They believe in life at first breath. That is when the spirit/soul enters the body. They also weight extra issues just like the supreme court did ridiculously conservatively when they decided on Roe. I.E unlimted abortions in the first trimester and half of the second up to 20 weeks, States can decide the limits between 20-24 as that is the point that a fetus is hypothetically viable outside of the womb (20 weeks is a massive outlier but might become true in the future as medicine advances). Anything after that 20-24 week period can only be performed for medical reasons, if agreed to by a doctor. Pretty much no one has a late term abortion without some psychological impacts because it wasn't their choice it was caused by a tragedy. Prior to 20 weeks, the fetus is no more intelligent than than a mouse of a sea horse and the only thing making it special is that is have a recombined unique set of human genes, but 80% of all fertilized eggs end up aborted by the body.
In the end, the only pro-life argument that disagrees with Roe is the belief in a soul, which not everyone believes in and there is no scientific evidence for. Jews especially but also many other faiths and non-faiths do not believe the same things about the soul as many Christian faiths. In other words, the pro-life stance is an enforced religious stance on people who do not believe. Never mind that the evangelical church started out as enforcing the Roe decision, until Jerry Fallwell realized it was easier to convince people to vote against "killing babies" than to vote for people who enforced segregation, So he used the abortion issue as a trojan horse creating an unholy alliance with the Catholics.
Any time you want to other a group accuse them of killing babies, it always works. Blood Libel against jews, Rome used it against carthage, it takes a beautiful human emotion and twists it for the manipulators own benefit. They can just say the magic word "baby" and the ability to question the other side immediately shuts down. Almost no on I know who is pro-life has any idea of what the judges used to determine Roe. It is VERY conservative as it should be when dealing with human lives.

JorgeStolfi,
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

@mpjgregoire @anubis2814

I was only pointing out the flaw in that "scientific definition".

Don't expect Science to answer the question of when precisely a fetus becomes a human being. Or what is a "woman", whether two conjoined twins are one person, when someone can be declared dead, etc. Science cannot and will not do that.

Those are inherently arbitrary decisions, and we only need to make them official, binding for everybody, when and because we make laws that depend on them...

JorgeStolfi,
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

@mpjgregoire @anubis2814

Scientists may define words like 'human being', 'woman', 'species', 'fruit', or 'planet' for /convenience/ when discussing /specific questions/ of their own.

And they will use different definitions at different times, as it suits them. In many contexts, in fact, scientists will definitely /not/ consider fetuses or embryos 'human beings'.

Those definitions are totally /not/ meant to resolve legal issues like 'when is killing something moral or legal'. >>

JorgeStolfi,
@JorgeStolfi@mas.to avatar

@mpjgregoire @anubis2814

>> Science does not tell when 'human life' begins, or what is a 'person', because 'human life' and 'person' are not scientific concepts.

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