cutmetal's recent activity
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Comment on Jumping spiders shouldn’t be this smart in ~science
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Comment on What do you think the top three most used apps on your phone for the past week are? in ~tech
cutmetal LinkI guessed Claude, Firefox, Wikipedia. But my phone (P9P) only shows usage day by day, not week by week, so I can't tell :(I guessed Claude, Firefox, Wikipedia.
But my phone (P9P) only shows usage day by day, not week by week, so I can't tell :(
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Comment on Leak exposes members of Peter Thiel’s secretive ‘dialog’ society in ~society
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
cutmetal LinkI'm about halfway through Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Ruin - I'm tearing through it, loving it at least as much as the first one. They're a lot like Brin's Uplift books but with some...I'm about halfway through Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Ruin - I'm tearing through it, loving it at least as much as the first one. They're a lot like Brin's Uplift books but with some absolutely killer prose. I absolutely love the way these stories take place in depressed little bubbles, a handful of people deep in time and space, trying to find meaning in something when they may be the last of humanity, watching centuries go by as they skip through time with hibernation tech.
I've read lots of this "survival at a great remove from the rest of humanity" subgenre but I'm always open to new recommendations in the space.
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Comment on Nintendo Direct announced for June 9th in ~games
cutmetal Link ParentSame! Thab has always been whiny but he really seems to hate playing MM these days. Ryu Kahr is still crushing it though - he's trying hard to make something else stick, but it seems like he's...Same! Thab has always been whiny but he really seems to hate playing MM these days. Ryu Kahr is still crushing it though - he's trying hard to make something else stick, but it seems like he's figured out in his head how to be ok with playing MM. MM being played by the right people is the perfect mindless content, and MM3 would inject some much-needed freshness into the scene.
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Comment on Nintendo Direct announced for June 9th in ~games
cutmetal Link ParentUgh sorry! I was just trying to will it into existence. Maybe next year 🥲Ugh sorry! I was just trying to will it into existence. Maybe next year 🥲
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Comment on Nintendo Direct announced for June 9th in ~games
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Comment on Tildes Survey #8: What is your favorite video game? (Results) in ~talk
cutmetal LinkFor me it's got to be Oblivion. Between the pirated version I played in and after college, the XBox 360 version I was playing around 2016, the Steam version I went to off and on, and finally the...For me it's got to be Oblivion. Between the pirated version I played in and after college, the XBox 360 version I was playing around 2016, the Steam version I went to off and on, and finally the remake, it's hard to say how many hours I put into it, but it was probably about 1000. You could say that I basically failed out my freshman year due to Oblivion, but it would be more accurate to say I failed out due to my extremely poor mental health, and Oblivion was my life raft. Or maybe my poor substitute for therapy. Skyrim was good too, and Fallout 3 and Starfield, but they never hit the same as Oblivion.
A close second would be RimWorld - 500+ hours per Steam, a more modern obsession for me.
Notable runners-up:
- Diablo 2
- StarFox 64
- Super Mario Brothers
- Rogue (the OG, still distributed in Debian's bsdgames-nonfree. As a kid I had some MS-DOS version, no idea where I got it)
- Minesweeper (first fully-working game I ever wrote (aside from little toy games in TI-83 basic) was a clone, called SwineMeeper!)
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Comment on Tildes Survey #8: What is your favorite video game? (Results) in ~talk
cutmetal Link ParentI haven't played Hi-Fi Rush, but sometime around 2007 I came up with a very similar concept for a game - an action platformer where you get points for doing stuff in time with the music. Mine was...I haven't played Hi-Fi Rush, but sometime around 2007 I came up with a very similar concept for a game - an action platformer where you get points for doing stuff in time with the music. Mine was called "Assault Shaker", and instead of the collectibles being coins or rings they were salt shakers, haha. Well now that's out in the world so I can finally let it go, do with it what you will!
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Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of June 1 in ~society
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Comment on Tildes Survey #6: Vote for the next four surveys we do! (Results) in ~talk
cutmetal Link ParentPlease put me on your list! I keep missing them!Please put me on your list! I keep missing them!
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Comment on What are people's experiences with using Kagi? in ~tech
cutmetal Link ParentInteresting, thanks for clarifying! Still, maybe I'm splitting hairs but "has always been an AI company" isn't really quite right - sounds like they started as an AI company, then pivoted to...Interesting, thanks for clarifying! Still, maybe I'm splitting hairs but "has always been an AI company" isn't really quite right - sounds like they started as an AI company, then pivoted to search which is where they made a name for themselves, then around back to AI as the modern LLM era came about. But, I see now what you meant.
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Comment on What are people's experiences with using Kagi? in ~tech
cutmetal LinkI've been using Kagi since '22 or '23. For me it still doesn't feel as powerful as classic Google, but it does seem to give better results than pitiful modern Google or DDG. For the past year...I've been using Kagi since '22 or '23. For me it still doesn't feel as powerful as classic Google, but it does seem to give better results than pitiful modern Google or DDG. For the past year though I've been turning more and more to Gemini instead of web search - Google hooked me with the "free Gemini Pro for a year with Pixel purchase" promo. That's a whole other can of worms, I guess the main thing is that I don't ask Gemini about anything that I don't want Google to know about me. (Sidebar, it's fucking creepy the way Gemini drops passing references to things it knows about me in unrelated chats.) Anything medical, sex related, etc goes through Kagi, never Gemini.
I think the main drawback to using Kagi is that the normal web seems to be rapidly dying. Kagi tries to derank generated slop pages, and I'm not shy about flagging them in my results, but it's endless whack-a-mole. But that said, Kagi is the only way I want to be searching the actual web.
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Comment on What are people's experiences with using Kagi? in ~tech
cutmetal Link ParentWhether you googled it with Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Dogpile, HotBot or Google, you still googled it!Whether you googled it with Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Dogpile, HotBot or Google, you still googled it!
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Comment on What are people's experiences with using Kagi? in ~tech
cutmetal Link ParentWhere did you get this from? Kagi predates the modern AI boom. They've always been a web search company.FWIW Kagi has always been an AI company
Where did you get this from? Kagi predates the modern AI boom. They've always been a web search company.
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Comment on WiFi 5 beamforming is able to infer the identity of individuals without a WiFi device on them through passively recording communication in radio networks in ~tech
cutmetal Link ParentI know a guy who tried to get it running with a couple ESP modules he had laying around, he said he couldn't get it to work too well. It could often do presence, sometimes respiration, but he...I know a guy who tried to get it running with a couple ESP modules he had laying around, he said he couldn't get it to work too well. It could often do presence, sometimes respiration, but he rarely (or never) got good data for heart rates. He said he thought that it was very sensitive to interference, so like even a PC fan running in the room could throw it off.
My takeaway was, it's boggling and terrifying that any of it is possible. Like Van Eck phreaking, the fact that hobbyists can make it work at all is scary, you have to wonder what people with resources are doing with this sort of technology.
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Comment on WiFi 5 beamforming is able to infer the identity of individuals without a WiFi device on them through passively recording communication in radio networks in ~tech
cutmetal LinkYou can also use wifi to triangulate people's locations within a room, and to read their heart and respiration rates https://github.com/ruvnet/RuViewYou can also use wifi to triangulate people's locations within a room, and to read their heart and respiration rates
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Comment on Lost in a sea of HVAC in ~life.home_improvement
cutmetal Link ParentAgreed that the pushback on heat pumps is a holdover from the dark ages of heat pump technology. A heat pump is almost always the right answer today, if you live in a place with four seasons. But...Agreed that the pushback on heat pumps is a holdover from the dark ages of heat pump technology. A heat pump is almost always the right answer today, if you live in a place with four seasons. But a backup heat source is also not only wise but mandatory - when the outside temps get much below zero, heat pumps get less and less efficient, and eventually they just can't function. If the backup is not that oil furnace or gas then it will need to be electric resistive heat. Imo, OP should keep the relatively young furnace for the backup.
I've got a heat pump that's 15-20 years old now in the house I've owned for ten years, it's stopped working and required repair like 2-3 times on me. Last time the outside unit fan motor burned out. These are complex systems that run all the time, eventually they will all break down and need repairs.
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Comment on Tesla’s newest electric vehicle could jolt the trucking industry in ~transport
cutmetal Link ParentPeople really don't give them enough credit for this. To be fair, it was a long time ago at this point. But they really did create the modern EV market, and showed that an upstart American car...People really don't give them enough credit for this. To be fair, it was a long time ago at this point. But they really did create the modern EV market, and showed that an upstart American car company could succeed.
You mentioned the stalks, but it's the entire control system that's user-hostile. Stalks were a good invention and cars should have them, same with physical buttons. Also steering wheels are normally round for a reason, how are you going to palm a "steering rectangle" through a turn?
I'm sure this has all been beaten to death at this point but it still makes me mad. Before Elon when totally off the deep end the Model 3 could have been a nice, affordable EV if they hadn't
fucked up"innovated" the controls so hard. -
Comment on Project Glasswing: what Mythos showed us in ~comp
cutmetal Link ParentWhat you're describing is called formal verification. It's so onerous to perform that nothing except the most critical software is put through this process. I doubt that AI bug finding will result...What you're describing is called formal verification. It's so onerous to perform that nothing except the most critical software is put through this process.
I doubt that AI bug finding will result in an increase in formal verification, but maybe! Everything in the world of software development is heavily in flux right now, so the future is very murky.
But, I think more likely is that, in the future, critical software will add a mythos-level AI bug checker as a CI step, alongside unit and integration tests and linters. Since the tools are automated, just use the same tools an attacker would use to uncover the bugs, but before you even ship the buggy code.
Small world, I read Children of Time last year and am about 3/4 through Children of Ruin now!