modeler

@modeler@lemmy.world

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TIL about Roko's Basilisk, a thought experiment considered by some to be an "information hazard" - a concept or idea that can cause you harm by you simply knowing/understanding it ( en.wikipedia.org )

Roko's basilisk is a thought experiment which states that an otherwise benevolent artificial superintelligence (AI) in the future would be incentivized to create a virtual reality simulation to torture anyone who knew of its potential existence but did not directly contribute to its advancement or development, in order to...

modeler ,

What about the people who lived in the Americas or the Pacific 1800 years ago? These people could not have heard of Jesus as missionaries could not have spread any word to them at this time.

(And while I'm about it, Christianity was a whole different thing back then - the Trinity hadn't been invented, there were multiple sects with very different ideas, what books would be in the New Testament had not been decided, etc etc. People with beliefs of that time would seem highly unorthodox today, and the Christianity of today would be seen as heretical by those in the 3rd century, so who's going to heaven again?)

Purgatory was invented for the purpose of not sending good people who had not heard of Jesus to hell. But still, these people were denied their chance to get to heaven which seems mighty unfair.

Were zx spectrum +2 keyboards disgusting to type on?

Out of curiosity, I've been watching a few restorations of those spectrums, and I've noticed the keyboards having a rather peculiar construction, judging by today's standards. They have 2 springs, the small one, as far as I understand, presses the membrane layers together, and the larger one returns the key into neutral position...

modeler ,

I had a Sinclair QL which pioneered the keyboard. It wasn't great - it was far behind the Acorn BBCs and the Commodores) but it was quite usable.

There was significant vertical travel, and there was variation in the push the key gave back - increasing to a point of no return, then a quick downward movement to the thunk of the end of key travel.

I could type moderately fast on it.

Neutrinos: The inscrutable “ghost particles” driving scientists crazy ( arstechnica.com )

We haven’t pinned down the masses of any individual neutrino, and we don’t even know which ones are heavier than the others. When it comes to our ability to collect raw data, neutrinos present a triple threat: they’re incredibly lightweight (even the electron weighs over 5 million times more than all the neutrinos...

modeler ,

The reference if you haven't seen it.

Dara Ó Briain is a legend!

modeler ,

Two more examples: Dredd and Ex Machina.

modeler ,

stop using it

Are the MAGA crowd actively cancelling products now?

modeler ,

I'm going to suggest food items that we still take from nature and eat with minimal preparation:

  • Honey
  • Fish like salmon, trout, grouper
  • Shellfish (eg oysters)

We have evidence of shellfish and fish being eaten for a very long time - at least the middle stone age at 140kya - in middens which are 10s of thousands of years old.

Honey is likely to have been a food source - a treat even - even before humans left Africa (so before 100kya) but sadly this would be invisible in the archeological record

modeler ,

I must not use jargon.

Jargon is the mind-killer.

Jargon is the little-death that brings total confusion. I will face the jargon. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the jargon has gone there will be clarity. Only sense will remain.

Audit says Arkansas governor's office potentially violated laws with $19,000 lectern purchase ( apnews.com )

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders ' office potentially violated state laws on purchasing, state property and government records when it purchased a $19,000 lectern for the Republican governor that’s prompted nationwide attention, an audit requested by lawmakers said Monday....

modeler ,

That lectern as pictured is a cheap copy worth way less than $1000. The allegation is that she paid her friend for costs of a trip to Paris of which there are social media photos at expensive nightlife locations.

Fewer people are using Elon Musk’s X as the platform struggles to attract and keep users, according to analysts ( www.nbcnews.com )

Data from two research firms and figures published by Musk and X suggest a deteriorating situation for X by some metrics. Musk has marketed it as the world’s “town square,” but in number of users it continues to lag far behind social media rivals that focus on video, such as Instagram and TikTok. ...

modeler ,

Elon sounds like he's experienced, skilled and is approaching things from a theoretical or ethical or other grand point of view. He used to impress me with his approach on building an electric car company with full self-driving vehicles in the 2010's. I wasn't a full believer, but I thought he was competent and wanted Tesla to succeed.

Then he went and bought Twitter. As a software engineer all my life, and in the startup scene, and having worked in a failed social media platform, I have some experience. Everything he's said about Twitter is crap and everything he's done is stupid. And the results speak for themselves.

I've seen people say that Elon sounds great about things they don't know too much about. But when the topic comes to things they do understand, Elon clearly is wrong.

He started his career with hundreds of millions of dollars, and he bet it all on a couple of businesses be bought (he was never a founder, always a purchaser).

Basically he's been lucky twice (Paypal and Tesla), but each of these won 10-100x on his initial stake.

modeler ,

Elon Musk didn't build the company.

Elon Musk invested into the company,

That's what I said a couple of paragraphs later

modeler ,

Their arguments included the size of the web page, and the time to display the first content, both of which were significantly better in Nue when compared to Tailwind.

By all means argue on what is important (because what is important for your projects may be significantly different from mine), but there were many points that the author was highlighting, not just the separation of concerns. And for my projects, all these concerns are important.

modeler ,

It's called a bollock dagger and, yes, it's really phallic especially when holstered at your waist.

modeler ,

This is exactly the answer.

I'd just expand on one thing: many systems have multiple apps that need to run at the same time. Each app has its own dependencies, sometimes requiring a specific version of a library.

In this situation, it's very easy for one app to need v1 of MyCleverLibrary (and fails with v2) and another needs v2 (and fails with v1). And then at the next OS update, the distro updates to v2.5 and breaks everything.

In this situation, before containers, you will be stuck, or have some difficult workrounds including different LD_LIBRARY_PATH settings that then break at the next update.

Using containers, each app has its own libraries at the correct and tested versions. These subtle interdependencies are eliminated and packages 'just work'.

modeler ,

Exactly!

While the continents might look like they fit together, and the rock types and ages and fossils match at key points all down the coasts from Canada/Scotland all the way down to South America and South Africa, how on earth (sorry) would you explain how the continents are thousands of miles apart?

One theory posited the earth spinning so fast centrifugal forces ripped ehat would become the moon out of the Pacific, sucking Eurasia and America into the void.

That's a Randall Monroe WhatIf if ever I saw one. Think of the energy involved! All life on earth would be extinct.

So these theories were laughed out of scientific court. Until Vine and Matthew's seminal paper on magnetic stripes being mirrored over the mid ocean ridge showed there had to be something forcing the plates apart.

modeler ,

This is common enough to have a name in several industries. In SW Dev it's called 'bikeshedding'. If you have a name for it, it's easier to call out to your seniors and peers - and you should call this out and help the meeting move on to more useful matters.

I'd suggest informally discussing this with people around you - enough people that you (or someone else) can safely say "let's not get trapped in bikeshedding" in the meeting and getting immediate agreement.

modeler ,

Have you seen his, ahem, retruth of the video 'and God created Trump' video? He's literally comparing himself to Jesus. And his followers went wild!

modeler ,

Well that's obviously true! Trump's one of the greatest legal minds ever, so any ordinary lawyer should simply recognise this and follow Trump's lead. Anything else means you're a dumb lawyer /s

modeler ,

There's lox to unpick there

modeler ,

Here's a video with a lot of guidance and examples of use: https://youtu.be/EAQI2ZSmxPU?si=lF5xr8fKyCRHEk7F

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