Sevoris

@Sevoris@mastodon.social

He/him

My general account for everything on the Fediverse - from programming to design to philosophy and social stuff to politics and making a better world. I want to network and learn stuff!

Also sci-fi, speculative fiction and writing, poking at worldbuilding with a bend towards coming from real science to inspire new scenarios not written about before.

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

Sevoris, to Facebook

Okay so given that we now know that has no compunction against using any network connection they can participate in to feed their surveillance network - why exactly should anyone federate Threads.net?

This is not a friendly connection, no matter what the protocol says that we‘re pro-federate by default. This is a more than well-known hostile actor. Stop hiding behind protocol design for something that protocol design won‘t solve in the first place.

Sevoris, to random

@pluralistic article from the 25th is a synthesis article of issues that, from what I could recognize, goes as far back as 2022, in some places further. (The writing I am aware of about the ad bubble goes back to the late 2000s/early 2010s?): https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/25/black-boxes/

From the criti-hype of the ad-tech and „AI“ industry to the regulatory capture of big business to the challenges of trust in technological artifacts and regulatory systems, conspiratorial thinking to political orientation.

tschenkel, to ai
@tschenkel@mathstodon.xyz avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    Sevoris,

    @tschenkel @pluralistic Depends on the energy efficiency of the emulation…

    Greg Egan has had characters make kinda similar arguments in some of his writing: in Diaspora the „polis“ of infomorphs are these dense, below-ground computer clusters of basically-optimal compute. Thus supposedly basically no environmental impact.

    But also belike: a computational mind still has hardware. Which needs maintenance. Mass needs moving, even if it’s hypothetical nanobots.

    FredKiesche, to random
    @FredKiesche@dice.camp avatar

    And there it is…the first novel-length installment appearance of the BOMB-PUMPED X-RAY LASER!

    image/jpeg
    image/jpeg
    image/png

    Sevoris,

    @sudnadja @c0dec0dec0de @KarlSchroeder @hendric @isaackuo @cstross @nyrath @FredKiesche also: scientific telescopes get hours to days of exposure time to get above the noise floor.

    Military-relevant scopes have to work in much shorter timeframes.

    Stealth is not a binary. Being low-signature enough where no usable SnR is attainable within the decision loop can be more than enough.

    Sevoris,

    @sudnadja @c0dec0dec0de @KarlSchroeder @hendric @isaackuo @cstross @nyrath @FredKiesche or even if you cannot hide your general presence:

    • you can hide where you are for purposes of getting shot at (an entire shell of the survival onion!)
    • you can hide your hull shape ( class, systems, weapons loads)
    • you can hide your system state to a degree

    All of this curtails what the enemy can know and can decide on!

    Sevoris,

    @sudnadja @c0dec0dec0de @KarlSchroeder @hendric @isaackuo @cstross @nyrath @FredKiesche another aspect of this: modern "stealth planes" are detectable! They just get filtered out. Ships have limited real estate for scopes. Having a low enough signature means no system or human will see an exceptional enough blip to point a scope your way, especially in the heat of battle where hot missile's be eating up scopes!

    Sevoris,

    @sudnadja @c0dec0dec0de @KarlSchroeder @hendric @isaackuo @cstross @nyrath @FredKiesche like: in space, active sensors will suffer an inverse-fourth power loss of power with distance. Sensors will rely on passive "tripwire" surveillance. Get below the noise floor on those sensors and while x-ray sensors will probably still give them a general warning, that‘s still a long chain until "something is right there!"

    Sevoris,

    @cstross @isaackuo @sudnadja @nyrath @hendric @KarlSchroeder @FredKiesche Even if sensor surfaces like that are cheap, that still requires you 1) have enough compute to process all the information 2) physics-wise you will never be able to have a soft-gamma sensor with any conventional nano-structure, much less a phased array 3) physics of sensor light requires you still aim that array in a specific direction to gather high-res images, and do it long enough for a worthwhile SnR.

    Sevoris,

    @cstross @isaackuo @sudnadja @nyrath @hendric @KarlSchroeder @FredKiesche So even if your entire hull is a sensor, I suspect you would quickly find yourself running into a deep decision-making bottleneck of from what specific region of the sky to gather information from.

    And of course, if you have the means to process digital interferometer information from the entire hull, the enemy will be able to employ all the tricks modern radar electronic attack taps into

    Sevoris,

    @cstross @isaackuo @sudnadja @nyrath @hendric @KarlSchroeder @FredKiesche from waveform shifts inducing indications of blue or redshift without physical backing, to waveform distortions indicating different shapes or reflection behavior, to delays and offsets that murky up other indications.

    Sevoris,

    @isaackuo @cstross @sudnadja @nyrath @hendric @KarlSchroeder @FredKiesche a hypothesis: there‘s going to be a lot of single photon events in space. The interplanetary medium, especially in a developed system, will be full of chaotic interactions spinning off signals.

    nyrath, to random
    @nyrath@spacey.space avatar

    Online calculator for plotting scifi interstellar trips. An aid for Mongoose 2300 AD

    https://starscanner.six51.com/

    Sevoris,

    @nyrath @sudnadja Ouh yeah, writing simulations/optimizers… that seems familiar :V

    (I want to do the same for wormhole networks, first, and I‘m starting to think I have the capabilities for that. Now for the time…)

    Sevoris,

    @RogerBW @nyrath @sudnadja Does this include respecting Visser collapse avoidance constraints or are you assuming the wormholes were balanced during projection ala The Human Reach?

    blogdiva, to random
    @blogdiva@mastodon.social avatar

    TODAY IS
    AWARENESS DAY

    here's a few reasons why USGOV is trying to swipe under the rug the consequences of (re)infections:

    1. LABOR LAWS would have to change to make sure employers not only provide more sick days but pay for them

    2. INSURANCE COMPANIES would have to start "connecting the dots" of pre-existing conditions caused by COVID and other viruses like the FLU

    3. OSHA/BUILDING CODES would need to be re-written to deal with AIR CIRCULATION challenges to health... 🧵

    Sevoris,

    @blogdiva 10. HAVING TO ADMIT that our political and economic leaders were and are willing to kill and disable us en masse so they can keep playing with their sand castles of power and money. And that doctors and researchers made themselves complicit to this.

    That "trust" in leadership and C-suite and academia being lost would turn their society on its head.

    Sevoris, to random

    Crossing point observation of the day:

    • On one hand, we have new papers that show how just using the language of a specific human group can trigger implicit, hidden biases in #LargeLanguageModels

    • on the other hand, we have software developers working to build tools that automatically retrieve information that may be of interest, and that try to reason ahead on your interests. Highest point so far: https://new.computer/

    1

    Sevoris,

    Personally, I think the notion of using large language models to assist in thinking is more and more poisoned and it is especially not sustainable for people who do not fit into the evident mainstream bias these tools inherit.

    This is not a general reasoner which generalizes across any specific knowledge base. The whole system, front to back, is biased. And it will poison the thoughts we work through it and the extrapolations we allow it to do.

    2

    Sevoris,

    The end result, applied across all the peoples of the world, will be a supposedly semantic, smart internet that is filled to the brim with systemic biases and even more bends people’s trajectories towards a stochastic median enforced by a culturally loud minority - or just shits people out the other side and locks them out in various insidious ways.

    This trend trashes the ability of humans to be humans. And I do not think we have any artifacts or principle tech that would allow otherwise.

    Sevoris,

    So as interesting and full of potential as this may look on the surface to those that have not had contact with the dialogues that now intersect with the topic of „AI agents“ as people work to quantify the biases and harms that these systems cause.

    Beneath that shiny surface is a very rotten ball of gnarled-up strings that would harm, rather than help, most people. The promise cannot be generally realized.

    Sevoris, to scifi

    One of my favorite hard topics that I love to work within (even if I am terrifically starved for time to do much about this at the moment) are wormhole networks.

    They have interesting geometry constraints once you add real star maps, challenges when it becomes time to figure out how many connections you need to connect what places while observing construction and shape constraints…

    it is the kind of computer science that tickles my brain extra being scifi nerdy

    Sevoris,

    A while back I made a bunch of illustrations and wrote some text about the generalities of permissible network geometries for Galactic Library: https://www.galacticlibrary.net/wiki/Wormholes#Possible_Networks

    That was a lot of fun. The principal mechanisms are not that complicated; it’s once you add the constraints of a real or fictional star map that the more complicated and „you can’t make the best choice all the time“ dynamics emerge.

    Dream project would be to write software solvers for this. Simulate and visualize networks.

    Sevoris,

    In particular, simulating n-agent circumstances with improving technologies (wormhole projection speeds and ranges in a single connection creation) would be interesting, both to study optimal networks that satisfy the most constraints from all the parties, and just letting some organically emerge with quirks and bad choices that play off of each other.

    Maybe something to use #julialang for, though I have to say, when it comes to really optimizing the configuration, I lack know-how

    Sevoris, to random

    To be honest, I did not understand why @pluralistic is writing books like „The Bezzle“ until I got around to reading this article https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/17/the-steve-soul-caper/

    For that matter, I had never reflected on what John Oliver’s format with encapsulates, but this article made it quite succinct: you’re working on popping the jargon and obfuscation and presentation around the banality of (financial) evil with entertainment. Keep people’s attention up to understand what is happening.

    aral, (edited ) to SmallWeb
    @aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

    New blog post: Streaming HTML

    https://ar.al/2024/03/08/streaming-html/

    Let me show you how easy it is to create a simple counter web app using the new Streaming HTML workflow in Kitten before peeling away the magic layer by layer so you learn how to make the same app using:

    • HTMX & WebSockets
    • Plain old JavaScript, and, finally,
    • Without Kitten in pure Node.js.

    Enjoy + let me know what you think.

    :kitten: 💕

    Sevoris,

    @aral I am a complete noob when it comes to web frontend stuff, but this looks very interesting and you have a pleasant, moving presentation style that makes it easy to follow and lets the whole thing feel natural while also not getting hung up on „uhm am“ tangents.

    nyrath, to random
    @nyrath@spacey.space avatar

    @Johannes

    I did have a (not very original) idea of science fiction and fantasy authors using story telling role playing games to world-build for their novels.

    https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sfbackground.php#gameworld

    Sevoris,

    @nyrath @Johannes for extra bonus points - get people with different strengths and backgrounds, I suppose? Takes more resources of course, but adds that juicy injection of chaos that will make your background options that much more diverse.

    Sevoris, to ArtificialIntelligence

    Making the internet more hostile to human lives through , and should be treated as an attack upon human rights and be responded to as such.

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