glesica's recent activity

  1. Comment on If AI is sentient then so is ‘Age of Empires II’ in ~tech

    glesica
    Link Parent
    I tried to figure out where I read about it, but no luck. Some searching revealed that there have been a bunch of papers published in the last few years with similar findings or conjectures, so...

    I tried to figure out where I read about it, but no luck. Some searching revealed that there have been a bunch of papers published in the last few years with similar findings or conjectures, so maybe it's not so far-fetched.

    1 vote
  2. Comment on SpaceX stock tumbles 23% from its high as average investor sees gains wiped out in ~finance

    glesica
    Link Parent
    I think it depends on how they get the money. If they issue bonds, then (I think) they're getting a pile of money more or less all at once. But that's not the only way they can borrow, I'm sure,...

    I think it depends on how they get the money. If they issue bonds, then (I think) they're getting a pile of money more or less all at once. But that's not the only way they can borrow, I'm sure, and there are probably crazy ways to structure bond issues as well that I'm unaware of.

    1 vote
  3. Comment on If AI is sentient then so is ‘Age of Empires II’ in ~tech

    glesica
    Link Parent
    I don't think we actually know that complexity is the right metric. I mean, I think it's undeniable that with greater complexity you can make something that seems more conscious; but just because...

    I don't think we actually know that complexity is the right metric. I mean, I think it's undeniable that with greater complexity you can make something that seems more conscious; but just because something seems more conscious, or can convince more people, doesn't necessarily mean that it is conscious.

    There was a paper a couple months back that presented possible evidence of quantum effects in the brain. If that's true (and I have no idea) then it could be that consciousness doesn't actually require all that much complexity, but it does require these weird quantum effects.

    That being said, maybe it doesn't really matter? If something is complex enough that it can do useful stuff, then whether it is conscious is really more of a philosophical / ethical question.

    3 votes
  4. Comment on SpaceX stock tumbles 23% from its high as average investor sees gains wiped out in ~finance

    glesica
    Link Parent
    I don't know for sure, but the fact that they're talking about "short term" inflation might mean that they're worried the borrowed money won't go as far. Like, if you borrowed a billion dollars to...

    I don't know for sure, but the fact that they're talking about "short term" inflation might mean that they're worried the borrowed money won't go as far. Like, if you borrowed a billion dollars to build a data center, but now the data center will actually cost 1.5 billion, or you'll need to build a smaller data center because you only have that billion dollars.

    4 votes
  5. Comment on Steam Machine prices revealed, starting at US$1049.00 in ~games

    glesica
    Link
    Weird thing for me to notice, I guess, but it seems odd that the front USB ports both appear to be USB-A. Is that what's on the controller (for wired use or maybe just charging)? It seems like the...

    Weird thing for me to notice, I guess, but it seems odd that the front USB ports both appear to be USB-A. Is that what's on the controller (for wired use or maybe just charging)? It seems like the whole world has pretty much shifted to USB-C, even for flash drives and such, at this point.

    6 votes
  6. Comment on Are there any games that had their development abandoned that you followed where you wish that continued/completed development? in ~games

    glesica
    Link
    Going back a long time, Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain was hyped like crazy and I was super excited for it to come out. When it finally did, it didn't deliver on any of the really killer stuff it had...

    Going back a long time, Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain was hyped like crazy and I was super excited for it to come out. When it finally did, it didn't deliver on any of the really killer stuff it had promised and was mostly a bland affair. It was pretty disappointing.

    1 vote
  7. Comment on The user is visibly frustrated in ~tech

    glesica
    Link Parent
    This is my number one annoyance. If the thing is wrong, that's fine (although I wish there was a way for its confidence to approximate how certain it is), but please explain why it was wrong and...

    they can be so confidently incorrect about things and then don't properly address the mistake or how it happened.

    This is my number one annoyance. If the thing is wrong, that's fine (although I wish there was a way for its confidence to approximate how certain it is), but please explain why it was wrong and how it will not make the same mistake again. Admittedly, this may be too much to ask since even the most helpful tools are still just really huge mad libs generators.

    3 votes
  8. Comment on I learned Odin in ~comp

    glesica
    Link
    I was just thinking about rewriting a small game I've been working on in Odin. I originally used the Go Raylib bindings, but the browser story from there is a little dicey, whereas it's apparently...

    I was just thinking about rewriting a small game I've been working on in Odin. I originally used the Go Raylib bindings, but the browser story from there is a little dicey, whereas it's apparently first class if you use Odin.

    2 votes
  9. Comment on US FBI says Google engineer used internal search data to win $1.2M on Polymarket in ~tech

    glesica
    Link Parent
    What you're saying here is that we should accept worse predictions in the interest of fairness. I would agree if prediction markets served some other social purpose, like commodities markets do....

    Well informed analysts can still drive much of the trading and have better insight into a prediction then the average person.

    What you're saying here is that we should accept worse predictions in the interest of fairness. I would agree if prediction markets served some other social purpose, like commodities markets do. But the literal only reason to have prediction markets is to predict the future, there's nothing else being risked, there's no other impact on the "real" economy. It's a literal casino, if they want to have rules, let them pay for the enforcement.

  10. Comment on What are your personal crackpot conspiracy theories about the world right now? in ~talk

    glesica
    Link Parent
    At this point, I'm not sure this is even crackpot. I mean, even the partial set of Epstein files that have been released pretty much prove it (maybe not the specific percentage, but the overall...

    I just think 10-20% of humans are born without the psychological barriers that regulate the rest of us, and they've been using that as a superpower to make the world their playground at our expense.

    At this point, I'm not sure this is even crackpot. I mean, even the partial set of Epstein files that have been released pretty much prove it (maybe not the specific percentage, but the overall gist).

    Edit: My friend and I talked about this a few months ago. One thought we had is that "primitive" societies sentenced these people to death (or banishment, same thing). Like, if you took more than your fair share in, say, an early Polynesian culture, I suspect you weren't going to last long. But today, we've actually designed a system that favors these personalities.

    6 votes
  11. Comment on What are your personal crackpot conspiracy theories about the world right now? in ~talk

    glesica
    Link Parent
    I used to listen to "Real Dictators", a podcast that chronicles the lives and times of dictators around the world and through history. Interesting stuff. One of the most interesting realizations I...

    The first person that a con man cons is himself into believing he’s justified in his shitty immoral behavior.

    I used to listen to "Real Dictators", a podcast that chronicles the lives and times of dictators around the world and through history. Interesting stuff. One of the most interesting realizations I had was just how many dictators seem to have genuinely believed that they were the only hope for their countries, even if they didn't start out like that, and even once things had gone off the rails.

    7 votes
  12. Comment on Introducing WebGPU support for llama.cpp in ~tech

    glesica
    Link
    This is pretty neat! I'm hopeful that we're moving toward a world where local models are the norm and remote models are mostly used for large, complex, or specialized tasks. I don't know how...

    This is pretty neat! I'm hopeful that we're moving toward a world where local models are the norm and remote models are mostly used for large, complex, or specialized tasks. I don't know how realistic that is, time will tell.

    5 votes
  13. Comment on Zoo CAD engine overview in ~engineering

    glesica
    Link Parent
    I've had a lot of success using OpenSCAD for designing gizmos to be 3D printed, but it's definitely got rough edges. If you try it, download the nightly build or whatever they call it, they...

    I've had a lot of success using OpenSCAD for designing gizmos to be 3D printed, but it's definitely got rough edges. If you try it, download the nightly build or whatever they call it, they haven't done an official release in YEARS so the release version is lacking a lot of features.

    3 votes
  14. Comment on US FBI says Google engineer used internal search data to win $1.2M on Polymarket in ~tech

    glesica
    Link Parent
    But the whole point of a "prediction market" is to make... predictions. You WANT insider trading if your goal is to predict the future, because people with "insider" knowledge push the market...

    and insider trading needs to be tightly regulated.

    But the whole point of a "prediction market" is to make... predictions. You WANT insider trading if your goal is to predict the future, because people with "insider" knowledge push the market toward correct predictions. The problem is that these aren't prediction markets any more, they're casinos, and there's too much money being risked.

    8 votes
  15. Comment on The Enhanced Games are Sunday. Here's what to know about the controversial event. in ~sports

    glesica
    Link Parent
    That's fair. I was mostly thinking of acute danger, like if there's a decent chance of the athlete just dropping dead in the middle of an event because of the PED. I don't know if there are any...

    That's fair. I was mostly thinking of acute danger, like if there's a decent chance of the athlete just dropping dead in the middle of an event because of the PED. I don't know if there are any actual substances in common use that have this property, but I can certainly imagine them existing (probably from watching a lot of dystopian movies or something).

    2 votes
  16. Comment on The Enhanced Games are Sunday. Here's what to know about the controversial event. in ~sports

    glesica
    Link Parent
    This is the only real argument for an athletic event where there is no drug testing, in my opinion. It's silly, but if basically everyone is already doping, then why keep up the charade of...

    Which specific PED, how it's used, and how they cover their tracks varies over time, but the reality is that on the world-stage there's a constant PED race.

    This is the only real argument for an athletic event where there is no drug testing, in my opinion. It's silly, but if basically everyone is already doping, then why keep up the charade of testing?

    I'm not sure that proudly declaring open season is the right way to handle it though, surely it would be possible to ban substances that are known to be dangerous and that can be reliably tested for.

    4 votes
  17. Comment on OpenAI is preparing to file for an IPO in the coming weeks in ~finance

    glesica
    Link
    Cynical take, but I don't think an unrealistic one, is that they've gotta dump this on to the public markets before the bubble bursts. I'm not even a skeptic about the technology, it works, and...

    Cynical take, but I don't think an unrealistic one, is that they've gotta dump this on to the public markets before the bubble bursts. I'm not even a skeptic about the technology, it works, and it's useful (though certainly not for as many things as the hype machine would have us believe). But it's also overinflated and investors want their returns.

    28 votes
  18. Comment on Project Glasswing: what Mythos showed us in ~comp

    glesica
    Link Parent
    That's an interesting point. I do wonder if we're heading (back) to a world where developing software is rather expensive.

    I wouldn’t be surprised to find cybercrime insurance policies starting to put Mythos contracts as a requirement for getting said insurance.

    That's an interesting point.

    I do wonder if we're heading (back) to a world where developing software is rather expensive.

    2 votes
  19. Comment on Project Glasswing: what Mythos showed us in ~comp

    glesica
    Link Parent
    It's an interesting combination, that LLMs seem poised to both write most of the code, and also audit / exploit that code. So one LLM adds a new feature to library X, another LLM pulls the new...

    It's an interesting combination, that LLMs seem poised to both write most of the code, and also audit / exploit that code. So one LLM adds a new feature to library X, another LLM pulls the new version into product Y, and yet another LLM is watching and immediately attempts to exploit the change.

    I can't help but wonder if the software ecosystem is about to fundamentally change. Like, where are the costs going to fall? Is it on the library author to run a bug-finding model? Or on whoever pulls it into their project (in which case, that's a lot of duplication of effort)? Can the model writing the code self-audit, eventually, so it just doesn't write exploitable bugs?

    Crazy times.

    2 votes
  20. Comment on Electric ships are slowly starting to make sense in ~transport

    glesica
    Link Parent
    I would imagine that the benefit is also a bit less for cruise ships because there are so many things other than the engines that need power?

    I would imagine that the benefit is also a bit less for cruise ships because there are so many things other than the engines that need power?

    3 votes