Jordan117's recent activity

  1. Comment on Peter Watts on ‘Blindsight’, ‘Armored Core’ and working with Neill Blomkamp in ~books

    Jordan117
    Link Parent
    The good news is, you can read it for free on his website! Here's the capsule review of it I wrote elsewhere a few years ago: I also made an in-depth post on the book (and Watts' other works) for...

    The good news is, you can read it for free on his website!

    Here's the capsule review of it I wrote elsewhere a few years ago:

    In the 2070s, on the cusp of the singularity, a swarm of alien drones takes a snapshot of the Earth before burning up in the atmosphere. A small crew of bleeding-edge posthumans, all with different physical or mental augmentations, is sent to the outer Solar System to investigate the source. The narrator, Siri Keeton, is an emotionally lobotomized "synthesist" tasked with monitoring the mission and interpreting it for the leadership back home.

    I don't want to spoil its frightening thesis, but suffice to say that it shapes up to be a cosmic horror novel where the horror is rooted in abstract ideas like human cognition and the nature of consciousness. The book is peppered with philosophical concepts like the Chinese Room and (real-life) neurological quirks like blindsight, all bent towards smart, existential horror. Like Lovecraft mixed with Oliver Sacks.

    And while the ideas are solid -- the author is a marine biologist who fills the appendix with citations of evolutionary and cognitive research -- what I really love is the prose. Watts is a fantastic writer, filling every page with authentic, charismatic narration, cinematic imagery, and a way of talking about abstruse scientific concepts in a way that punches you in the gut and chills you to the bone. His style is like a horror version of Douglas Adams, mind-bending ideas and strong characters with a compulsively readable flow to it.

    Its biggest weakness is that one of the most compelling aspects sounds like a pulpy joke at first glance -- the ship is led by a vampire. I can't imagine how many people read this on the jacket and took a hard pass on Dracula in space. But it's not some BS fantasy gimmick -- it's the in-universe nickname for an ancient, predatory, sociopathically brilliant subspecies of humanity that's been resurrected, Jurassic Park-style, to help manage high-stakes ventures like the first-contact mission. The captain starts off intriguing, quickly grows frightening, and eventually advances one of the book's most disturbing and unforgettable arguments.

    Overall, it's not just my favorite SF novel, but one of my favorite novels, period. The only book I've ever bought a dead-tree copy to be signed by the author. Highly, highly recommended.

    I also made an in-depth post on the book (and Watts' other works) for MetaFilter, in which the man himself showed up to answer some questions.

    8 votes

  2. Comment on Peter Watts on ‘Blindsight’, ‘Armored Core’ and working with Neill Blomkamp in ~books

  3. Comment on Stremio is an impressive program in ~tech

    Jordan117
    Link Parent
    It is. DMCA safe harbor and similar national laws protect platforms that accept user-uploaded content by exempting them from liability as long as they respond to takedowns requests and don't...

    It is. DMCA safe harbor and similar national laws protect platforms that accept user-uploaded content by exempting them from liability as long as they respond to takedowns requests and don't advertise themselves as a place to violate copyright.

  4. Comment on Stremio is an impressive program in ~tech

    Jordan117
    Link Parent
    Just be aware that without RD, Stremio functions as a torrent client, meaning it both uploads content to peers in the torrent swarm and exposes your IP address to anyone in it (if you don't have a...

    Just be aware that without RD, Stremio functions as a torrent client, meaning it both uploads content to peers in the torrent swarm and exposes your IP address to anyone in it (if you don't have a VPN). This is much more clearly illegal and people can and have been busted for torrenting in the past, either by their ISP issuing a warning/cutting service or the media owner suing them directly.

    1 vote

  5. Comment on Recommend me a sappy TV drama with preferably >100 episodes in ~tv

    Jordan117
    Link
    I've heard good things about This Is Us.

    I've heard good things about This Is Us.

    11 votes

  6. Comment on Why US President Donald Trump's tariff chaos actually makes sense (big picture) in ~society

    Jordan117
    Link Parent
    Who says they wouldn't win? The most sociopathic ultra-wealthy want a desperate, uneducated, immiserated population that they can rule over more easily, without the protections of labor unions,...

    Who says they wouldn't win? The most sociopathic ultra-wealthy want a desperate, uneducated, immiserated population that they can rule over more easily, without the protections of labor unions, safety regulations, or the capacity for job-hopping or self-sufficiency. Even if they themselves lose trillions in the bargain, it still leaves them with more wealth and power in relative terms compared to the rest of us. Kings of the ash heap.

    9 votes

  7. Comment on President Donald Trump's tariff formula contains math error that mistakenly quadruples rate on every country, says American Enterprise Institute in ~finance

  8. Comment on How come the mods on here keep editing the titles of my post to be exactly what they already were? in ~tildes

    Jordan117
    Link Parent
    Not typically, but maybe make an exception in a case where the source is a notable aspect of the story? Something which is probably best judged by the person who chose to include it. (Source links...

    it's not typical to also include that in the link text

    Not typically, but maybe make an exception in a case where the source is a notable aspect of the story? Something which is probably best judged by the person who chose to include it. (Source links are not visible on the listing page, btw)

    The acronym US is much more globally recognized, though, and likely does not require expansion.

    Speaking of which, it's strange that mods insist on always expanding "Trump" into the clunky "US President Donald Trump", despite there not being a single person on Tildes (or arguably on Earth) who wouldn't understand that in context. It was -especially- clunky in this instance, but seeing that phrase over and over and over again on the front page gets irritating when Trump (sorry, "United States President Donald J. Trump (R)") is so omnipresent in the news. It reminds me of when he'd put out all those little brainfart fake-tweets on his Truth Social page and then title every single one "Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America" in like 20pt font. Feels like according him undue gravitas and respect.

    Finally, while mycketforvirrad may seem like a machine, they do still need to sleep

    FWIW, I'm not mad at them for not responding right away, this isn't their job. But it does highlight the frustration of having somebody else take it upon themselves to change your own writing into something that is, imho, objectively worse and less clear, and then having to wait around for them to fix it instead of being able to edit your own dang words yourself. Or having any input into the decision to change it in the first place. While I don't doubt that these "helpful" edits take a lot of time and effort and are done with genuine good intentions, they seem to too often overstep and make mistakes or miss context -- understandable because they're being made by somebody uninvolved with the original topic who is more focused on upholding an unwritten style guide than whatever story the post author was trying to tell.

    I continue to think that these edits should be limited to fixing spelling/capitalization/obnoxious YouTube auto-titles/etc., and -never- make more substantive changes (like removing key info from the title!) without at least notifying the user and leaving a more visible sign that the post was changed. I appreciate what these edits are trying to do, but in practice I keep finding them frustrating and oddly paternalistic in a way that makes me want to post here less, and I don't think I'm alone in that.

    1 vote

  9. Comment on How come the mods on here keep editing the titles of my post to be exactly what they already were? in ~tildes

    Jordan117
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Just experienced something similar. Original title: American Enterprise Institute: Trump tariff formula contains math error that mistakenly quadruples rate on every country Silently changed into:...

    Just experienced something similar. Original title:

    American Enterprise Institute: Trump tariff formula contains math error that mistakenly quadruples rate on every country

    Silently changed into:

    Donald Trump US tariff formula contains math error that mistakenly quadruples rate on every country

    The "Trump tariff" part was made needlessly wordier (and arguably grammatically incorrect). Meanwhile, actually important context is removed: the fact that Trump's mistake is being called out by the American Enterprise Institute (a foundational right-wing think tank).

    Spellchecks and standardizing capitalization are one thing, but these kinds of edits materially change the impact of the headline, which is the first and often only part of a thread that people see. I was told in this thread that such edits are rare, but this is the first thing I've posted since this discussion and it's already happened right off the bat. (I was also told such changes are gladly undone if asked, which I did a few hours ago; still waiting for a response on that).

    4 votes

  10. Comment on An image of an archeologist adventurer who wears a hat and uses a bullwhip in ~tech

    Jordan117
    (edited )
    Link
    The problem shouldn't be that the model is aware of copyrighted content, that's an unavoidable consequence of training on internet-scale data. The problem should come when people use the model to...

    >Indirectly but very obviously ask AI to generate Indiana Jones
    >AI generates Indiana Jones
    >shocked_pikachu.jpg

    The problem shouldn't be that the model is aware of copyrighted content, that's an unavoidable consequence of training on internet-scale data. The problem should come when people use the model to create copyright-infringing content for profit. Like, it's possible to use Photoshop to draw a picture of Mickey Mouse or use Microsoft Word to type up the lyrics to an unlicensed song, but that doesn't make those programs illegal; only using them to make that content and then selling the result should.

    6 votes

  11. Comment on President Donald Trump's tariff formula contains math error that mistakenly quadruples rate on every country, says American Enterprise Institute in ~finance

    Jordan117
    (edited )
    Link
    @mycketforvirrad Can you please restore the "American Enterprise Institute" to the title? Changing "Trump tariff" to "Donald Trump US tariff" is awkward enough, but the fact that this dissent is...

    @mycketforvirrad Can you please restore the "American Enterprise Institute" to the title? Changing "Trump tariff" to "Donald Trump US tariff" is awkward enough, but the fact that this dissent is coming from a well-known right-wing think tank is an important part of this story and not apparent from the listing unless you follow the link.

    edit: You can switch it to "Conservative think tank:" if you think "American Enterprise Institute:" is too obscure. But it needs to be mentioned. This would be like if the Center for American Progress put out a statement openly questioning the logic and basic accuracy of a major Biden admin policy.

    12 votes

  12. Comment on President Donald Trump's tariff formula contains math error that mistakenly quadruples rate on every country, says American Enterprise Institute in ~finance

    Jordan117
    Link

    Though in effect the formula for the tariff placed on the United States by another country is equal to the trade deficit divided by imports, the formula published by the Office of the US Trade Representative has two additional terms in the denominator that just so happen to cancel out: (1) the elasticity of import demand with respect to import prices, ε, and (2) the elasticity of import prices with respect to tariffs, φ.

    The idea is that as tariffs rise, the change in the trade deficit will depend on the responsiveness of import demand to tariffs, which depends on how import demand responds to import prices and how import prices respond to tariffs. The Trump Administration assumes an elasticity of import demand with respect to import prices of four, and an elasticity of import prices with respect to tariffs of 0.25, the product of which is one and is the reason they cancel out in the Administration’s formula.

    However, the elasticity of import prices with respect to tariffs should be about one (actually 0.945), not 0.25 as the Trump Administration states. Their mistake is that they base the elasticity on the response of retail prices to tariffs, as opposed to import prices as they should have done. The article they cite by Alberto Cavallo and his coauthors makes this distinction clear. The authors state that “tariffs [are] passed through almost fully to US import prices,” while finding “more mixed evidence regarding retail price increases.” It is inconsistent to multiply the elasticity of import demand with respect to import prices by the elasticity of retail prices with respect to tariffs.

    Correcting the Trump Administration’s error would reduce the tariffs assumed to be applied by each country to the United States to about a fourth of their stated level, and as a result, cut the tariffs announced by President Trump on Wednesday by the same fraction, subject to the 10 percent tariff floor. As shown in Table 1, the tariff rate would not exceed 14 percent for any country. For all but a few countries, the tariff would be exactly 10 percent, the floor imposed by the Trump Administration.

    16 votes

  14. Comment on Stremio is an impressive program in ~tech

    Jordan117
    Link Parent
    Same way watching a film clip or a lyric video for a song is a copyright violation; doesn't mean you should be wary to register a YT account.

    It's not enforced, but the user is acquiring a copy of a movie illegally.

    Same way watching a film clip or a lyric video for a song is a copyright violation; doesn't mean you should be wary to register a YT account.

    2 votes

  15. Comment on Stremio is an impressive program in ~tech

    Jordan117
    Link Parent
    There's nothing currently illegal about debrids, they operate under safe harbor protections and using them doesn't involve re-distributing content to others, as with torrents. It's like being...

    There's nothing currently illegal about debrids, they operate under safe harbor protections and using them doesn't involve re-distributing content to others, as with torrents. It's like being worried you might get personally sued because you knowingly looked up copyrighted content on YouTube that wasn't posted by an authorized account.

    That said, legal regimes could always change in the future. If you're super cautious, you can always use a pseudonym when creating the Privacy.com virtual card (or even use prepaid card or bitcoin if you'd like), a throwaway email when signing up, and a VPN when streaming. But RD has been around for 10+ years and users have never come under legal threat.

    2 votes

  16. Comment on Stremio is an impressive program in ~tech

    Jordan117
    Link Parent
    If properly configured with Torrentio and a Real Debrid subscription, Stremio will only show either files that are already cached by RD ("RD+"), or uncached torrents that, when selected, will...

    If properly configured with Torrentio and a Real Debrid subscription, Stremio will only show either files that are already cached by RD ("RD+"), or uncached torrents that, when selected, will prompt RD to torrent it on their end and then stream it directly to you from their servers when finished ("RD Download").

    1 vote

  17. Comment on Igorrr - ADHD (2025) in ~music

    Jordan117
    Link
    Still has that uncanny-valley effect and visible artifacting, but I suppose it works better for their style; the last video of theirs that I've seen, VERY NOISE, was very, uh, interesting.

    Still has that uncanny-valley effect and visible artifacting, but I suppose it works better for their style; the last video of theirs that I've seen, VERY NOISE, was very, uh, interesting.

    1 vote

  18. Comment on Megathread: April Fools' Day 2025 on the internet in ~talk

    Jordan117
    Link
    MetaFilter, an old-school community blog and my other online haunt, is finally embracing The Future by unveiling Socky the Sockpuppet, a goofy, Clippy-esque "AI" "assistant" that spouts in-jokes,...

    MetaFilter, an old-school community blog and my other online haunt, is finally embracing The Future by unveiling Socky the Sockpuppet, a goofy, Clippy-esque "AI" "assistant" that spouts in-jokes, memes, and inane advice from the corner of every page. Especially fun because certain lines only appear on certain pages, encouraging exploring around the site to try to find them all! And the art for it is kind of adorable.

    26 votes

  19. Comment on Stremio is an impressive program in ~tech

    Jordan117
    Link Parent
    I subscribed a few months after that, and it seems to work fine despite the dire headlines. Apparently they had to drop some partnerships, take down some API endpoints, and remove specific files,...

    I subscribed a few months after that, and it seems to work fine despite the dire headlines. Apparently they had to drop some partnerships, take down some API endpoints, and remove specific files, but in my experience it works great.

  20. Comment on Stremio is an impressive program in ~tech

    Jordan117
    Link Parent
    NP! Though note that if you only use Torrentio, Stremio will stream the torrent using a built-in torrent client, exposing your IP (if you don't have a VPN). That's why I recommend combining with...

    NP! Though note that if you only use Torrentio, Stremio will stream the torrent using a built-in torrent client, exposing your IP (if you don't have a VPN). That's why I recommend combining with Real Debrid -- you still see the broad torrent catalog scraped by Torrentio, but each result will either directly stream a cached copy from RD (labeled "RD+"), or pass the torrent to RD to torrent on their end and then directly stream you a copy once its done ("RD download"). Faster and much less risky than torrenting yourself.

    1 vote