Yeah, "AI" right now, outside of whatever is making the ghosts hunt pacman, generally means LLMs right now. LLMs are simply things that pick words based upon a multidimensional statistical analysis after being given an input. They're tuned and designed to give things that look like answers.

How on Earth does emotion or guilt fit into this? It really doesn't. People are fooled because they attribute positives and negatives to some kind of intelligence underneath, but if those positives and negatives aren't a function of language, those will not come through. You can train it to be polite, or rude, or manipulative based upon polite, or rude, manipulative language, because there is such a thing.

But guilt isn't a function of language. You can express guilt through language, sure, as in "Gosh, I feel so bad I did that", but you cna't actually make decisions based upon a feeling of guilt by reading things written by people who feel guilty.

So it'll never been reflected in a statistical analysis of what words are associated with other words, and never come out.

Now, maybe the people making these suggestions know all that and are talking about some future where AI actually reflects a reasoning, analytical, logical "brain" communicating. I'm as glad they are as I'm glad Asimov created the three laws of robotics. But for now I suspect this is going to be read by policy makers who think LLMs can do more than they actually can, who'll think it can solve actual problems, and we're a long way from that.

Yeah, control key in the right place, a key design for modifiers that made it harder to push them accidentally, numeric keypad merged with the directional (hence NumLk), it was a thing of beauty before you even got to the feel.

Meanwhile, this is... spam. Seriously. the garbage keyboard they're promoting is not even based on the standard Model M - while IBM did make a version without the numeric keypad, it wasn't very popular. And virtually every modern keyboard is based on the actual Model M layout using "modern" components - be it traditional membrane or mechanical - and with a small number of additional modifiers (Windows/Meta, and menu) distinguishing it from the Model M.

What the ever loving fuck persuaded Slashdot's editors obvious spam should be on the front page?

So occasionally, often against my better judgement, I wander over to r/conservative to see what they're saying to justify the insanity we're seeing, and usually it's disappointing and they're as rotten people as I expect them (alas) to be.

But lately, there have been a LOT of Epstein threads. And they're not happy with Trump at all. At. All. And I'm sensing a lot are starting to realize that the person who had Epstein as his best friend for fifteen years, who's credibly been accused of rape by at least one Epstein victim, who lost a libel suit accusing him of being a rapist with the court ruling he had committed something that fit the dictionary definition of "Rape", who bragged on multiple occasions about using his position to victimize women, who bought a teenage beauty pageant in the 1990s, who... well, you get the laundry list... might possibly be not merely on the list, but a major figure on the list.

I don't think they've realized yet that he's probably actually more of a partner than a customer of Epstein, but they're at least starting to realize he knew about what was going on, did nothing to stop it, and might well have gone further than that.

Regardless, they are pissed. Genuinely pissed.

"But... r/conservative is just one forum! Totally unrepresentative!" you say, and sure, it's the "activist right". But it's not just them. The WSJ has broken at least two stories now that feed into the general concept that maybe, just maybe, Trump is a sexual predator and his relationship with Epstein wasn't that of a wide eyed innocent who had no idea when he did all this stuff with him that he was a human trafficker. The WSJ. Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, owns that.

So... don't discount the possibility that this might actually be the story that sinks Trump. I give it a 30% chance. The major thing to remember is that a sizable amount of people who were drawn into MAGA in the first place, despite its obvious attempts to duplicate Nazi strategies and policies, were brought in using QAnon. We can argue about their intelligence and gullibility, but if they're getting clued in on this, and if Murdoch is happy to peel back the curtain a little, then the sense of betrayal they're going to have will be overwhelming. The question is will enough be willing to recognize they were conned?

That's a tiny part of it. Most of the off shoring we experienced is because during the 1980s and early 1990s US manufacturing got into a huge union busting thing and there was a fad for simply closing down factories in the US to replace them with slightly cheaper off shore manufacturing.

And by itself, that wasn't great, but the end result was manufacturing basically destroyed in the US. Outside of a small number of industries the US was protectionist about, cars mainly, there's no serious manufacturing at scale inside the US, and any company considering moving it back is going to have to spend somewhere between hundreds of millions to billions to build new plants in the US to support merely itself. And it'll STILL be reliant upon expensive imports because even aside from materials every manufacturer is part of an ecosystem, and the entire ecosystem isn't going to shift itself to the US overnight.

If you're building motherboards and the most expensive components on the boards are made in Korea, the cost savings against just importing the entire motherboard prepopulated is probably minor, and you'll end up making a massive loss if you start building factories here.

The time to have done all this would have been the 1990s or even the 1980s, but our glorious overlords wanted the opposite back then, they wanted those pesky unions with their "fair wages" and "unemployment protections" and so on destroyed. So now the US is fucked, not because it needs to be, but because that TFG has decided to go to war on this issue long after that war can only be lost, not won.

It'll look impressive. The sound will, for obvious reasons, be like ass. (Researchers spent over a hundred years researching the best materials, and the shapes to make them, to use as microphone diaphragms, turns out rocks, bananas, spoons, cuddly bears, nearby people, onions, yogurt, and crates of copy paper, are not optimal at vibrating at all frequencies.)

But it's nonetheless a cool experiment even if it's not (see other posts) a completely new concept. It is, however, a new way of implementing that concept.

Are you under the impression artisanal means "Art is anal" or something? Maybe you think an artisanal digger is some crude roughneck who hates art and calls it "gay"?

I'm trying to fully comprehend why you think there's anything artisanal about road building. It sounds like you've just heard the word and are trying to apply it to everything right now regardless of whether it makes any sense. You didn't even bother to look at the definition on the Word of the Day calendar your mom got you.

(Helpful hint: in future, there's a free online dictionary - actually there are many, including ones run by older dictionary companies, but FWIW this one, which is run along the same lines as Wikipedia, I've found to be very thorough and likely to answer your questions: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki...)

Artisinal digging isn't a thing and never will be. You don't need craftsman skills to dig.

Yeah. And to be honest, most of his complaints seem to revolve around the fact that consumer grade self hosting devices are not a big thing right now, and that's because we've failed to regulate ISPs properly and force them to be neutral IP carriers who shouldn't dictate how people use their connections. "No server" rules are dumb, and a consumer box that allows you to install servers as apps, including email, ActivityPub (or ATProto PDSes), a blog platform, photo storage, web office apps, etc, would be entirely viable and something people would want if they didn't have to read a manual on how to configure a router to make it work.

Self hosted for those who can do it ought to be an actual duty, not merely a privilege. The more it's normalized that people use their internet connections for more than streaming and browsing the web, the less excuses ISPs will have for locking things down, and the more incentives they'll have for encouraging third parties to make user friendly self hosting platforms.

Jack Thompson isn't a democrat.

The Family Entertainment Protection Act was a proposed mandatory ratings system. Had it gone into force video game sellers would have had to card buyers of games. Describing it as censorship or remotely comparable to preventing any game outlet from being in business if it sells games aimed at adults, is absurd.

There's a world of difference between the people who want to prevent adult content from being sold to kids, and the people who want to prevent adult content from being created and sold.

The other thing I don't get is using apps for everything.

I mean, I get it from the manufacturer's point of view. It means they can update things as they please retrospectively and possibly add new charges for functionality or services and/or implement spyware after the sale.

But from a user's point of view, why would I ever want my new home solar power and battery installation that has an expected working life of at least 20-30 years to be dependent on some random phone app to configure it? How many people had smartphones 20-30 years ago? How many people will still have them in 20-30 years? Exactly.

Nothing wrong with providing an app as well for the convenience of those who want it. But anything that is a permanent appliance or fixture in my home and doesn't fundamentally require external connectivity to do its job still needs to have 100% of its functionality available locally as well, without relying on external connectivity or any separate hardware or software platform for the UI.

When there is functionality that really does need remote connectivity, like say a power system that integrates with my electricity provider that offers flexible, demand-based pricing, there should be open standards for how these remote interactions work and it should still be possible to see and do everything else locally.

The world would be a much better place if governments and regulators promoted this kind of future-proof approach but sadly the public sector tends to lag so far behind in its awareness and understand of tech issues that it's not very effective at dealing with them.

I'm sure the client will be totally happy with getting money from an incompetent lawyer just before they spend time in jail or are even executed for a crime they didn't commit. Or maybe lose their entire business, worth more than the lawyer's net worth, over something they were in the right about.

Honestly, it pisses me off when people like you suggest the justice system should be based upon anything but justice, whether it's lawyer gaming, "Oh we can't admit a mistake", or whatever else. These are real lives affected by the justice system. Everyone deserves to have the truth known and the facts adjudicated fairly, and mistakes rectified, not ignored or "compensated" without actually being fixed.

That's great but doesn't address my point. Like, at all. You're seriously claiming that someone who needs AC can buy a $150 window unit and that's it, that's the end of it? You might just as well argue that the extension cord is going to cost $15, so maybe that's the total cost of air conditioning a house.

Buying a cheap unit that's barely adequate for a child's 8x8 bedroom (and let's not even start talking about how fucking loud it is) doesn't address the fact you'd need at least $1,000s worth of window units to adequately cool a small two bedroom home, and you'd be paying a fucking fortune in power costs.

Central air is more expensive up front, sure. BUT IT WORKS. And it's not obscenely inefficient. And it's not LOUD.

What next? "I don't know why British people don't have swimming pools. I mean, an IN GROUND pool is going to cost thousands, but I was at Wally World the other day and they had an inflatable kid's pool for $8.88!"

"done correctly" is doing a LOT of heavy lifting here.

Altman's at least pretending to not be aligned with the administration. But in any case, the obvious lobbyist for this would be Thiel.

It isn't poorly understood: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I suspect we have a journalism-trying-to-report-science-they-don't-understand thing. I wish "Science Journalist" was a thing, especially as when you get science explained by people like Phil Plait etc they're actually good at writing stuff that's interesting and accurate.

But even if every news org has a "Science Correspondent" who actually was qualified to do the job, the state of the industry right now is that they'd be getting rid of them as a cost cutting measure. Which is doubly unfortunate as news that actively makes you feel uninformed is why people are turning away from it - often to even worse alternatives.
 

When I left Britain quarter of a decade ago, yes, very few had air conditioning, and I suspect that's still the case. Air conditioning is expensive, and people are far more frugal in Europe than in the US.

I'm wondering though if the rise in popularity of heat pumps might introduce Europeans to air conditioning indirectly. Given they're supposedly far more efficient than regular electric heaters, which people do buy (because they're cheap!), it seems like a win against heat stroke deaths which are alas common over there.