hobbes64's recent activity

  1. Comment on 100 years of television design in ~design

    hobbes64
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    When I was little we had a big RCA wooden box tv on the floor. My parents had bought it from a furniture store. There were about 5 channels and we had to get up off the couch to change them....

    When I was little we had a big RCA wooden box tv on the floor. My parents had bought it from a furniture store. There were about 5 channels and we had to get up off the couch to change them. Sometimes it would stop working properly. Everything would be dark or green or staticky. So a tv repairman would come to the house and move it away from the wall and replace tubes or something. After he left I would look into the open back of the tv and see the big picture tube and the other little glowing tubes and it was kind of magical.
    When watching my cartoons on channel 5, sometimes the picture would scramble and I could hear someone talking loudly. I found out that one of my neighbors had a CB radio with a big antenna.
    Other times the tv would go dark again but you could temporarily fix it by getting up and smacking the side.
    Once the tuner dial broke off so we changed channels with pliers that we left on the top of the set.

    When this tv stopped working my parents bought a smaller “portable” tv and set it on top of the now dead “furniture” TV. We had it like that for years.

    Later when home computers became popular, everyone had monitors on desks and they took up most of the desk because of the cathode ray tube. I remember seeing rows of desks in offices where these monitors dominated the room with all that unusable space. I eventually had one on my desk. It would get dark sometimes so I would smack it on the side and it would get brighter for a while.

    I think it’s interesting when people (especially retro gamers) get nostalgic for old TVs. Because CRTs kind of sucked. It’s such a luxury ow to just have a big slab of glass (or plastic) that takes up no unnecessary room and doesn’t need to be smacked and doesn’t get radio interference and doesn’t weigh 409 pounds.

  2. Comment on What do you think of robots in the military? in ~tech

    hobbes64
    Link Parent
    This reminds me of the Star Trek episode A Taste of Armageddon In the episode, there’s a virtual war that never ends. People are computed to be casualties and they walk into disintegration booths....

    This reminds me of the Star Trek episode A Taste of Armageddon

    In the episode, there’s a virtual war that never ends. People are computed to be casualties and they walk into disintegration booths.

    Captain Kirk breaks the simulation computer to force people to deal with the messiness of real war.

    My point is that robot war is a step on the way to virtual war and it also might just go on for years and years without resolution because the cost isn’t measured properly.

    Already the Ukraine war has gone on a lot longer due the the robots, as everyone has noticed. It seems better in this case but long term…

  3. Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of June 1 in ~society

    hobbes64
    Link Parent
    I’ve noticed a lot of things said by the admin are just unprofessional and offensive. They have no discernible strategic purpose. It’s important to note that there are most likely multiple...

    I’ve noticed a lot of things said by the admin are just unprofessional and offensive. They have no discernible strategic purpose.

    It’s important to note that there are most likely multiple purposes and causes so you shouldn’t assume just one:

    • Firehose of bullshit distractions from crimes, treason, grifting, and other things they actually care about
    • their base is full of sociopaths who love this shit
    • they participate in “vice signaling” which is like virtue signaling for assholes and this strengthens their group bond
    • they really are just fucking stupid cruel assholes and think this is great and funny
    5 votes

  4. Comment on Clanker: A word for the machine in ~tech

    hobbes64
    Link Parent
    Whenever I use the term I think about the inept robots in Star Wars The Phantom Menace. I don't think about parodying racial slurs.

    Whenever I use the term I think about the inept robots in Star Wars The Phantom Menace. I don't think about parodying racial slurs.

    8 votes

  5. Comment on Clanker: A word for the machine in ~tech

    hobbes64
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    I’ve been using the term clanker to describe claude and copilot and other AI at work. I find this useful for the same reason the blog author does. Also, a large amount of my current work is fixing...

    I’ve been using the term clanker to describe claude and copilot and other AI at work. I find this useful for the same reason the blog author does.

    Also, a large amount of my current work is fixing security vulnerabilities found by automatic scans that run on code checkin. I call this my “clanker boss” because a machine is assigning work to me.

    Btw there’s a very noticeable thing about how AI marketing is affecting the way people think. For decades there have been machines with sensors and algorithms or some kind of programming that are able to do useful work. This would range from a thermostat, to a washing machine (especially the kind that weighs the clothing to set the amount of water used), to an autopilot. All these things would be marketed as AI now but they are just using algorithms.

    10 votes

  6. Comment on Is AI profitable yet? in ~tech

    hobbes64
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    Well somebody is making money on AI, and not just in the stock market. Maxinomics- Americans are about to get a lot richer I watched this video yesterday on nebula. The point of it is that the...

    Well somebody is making money on AI, and not just in the stock market.

    Maxinomics- Americans are about to get a lot richer

    I watched this video yesterday on nebula. The point of it is that the American economy is stronger than most people think, and that the money being spent on AI and data centers is benefitting relatively small companies and workers in the center of the country. I think that’s the point anyway. The video is a little bit slippery about its point. Maybe because I was on guard the whole time thinking it might be propaganda about how great tariffs are or something. Because the video starts talking about how there’s very little trade coming in through ports but a lot of shipping happening internally.

    Here’s part of the synopsis from the video:

    There's a piece of economic data that almost nobody is paying attention to that is, right now, telling a story about the United States that most people on the coasts simply cannot feel.
    It starts with a weird question: why is it nearly impossible to book a flatbed truck?
    Not a refrigerated truck. Not a standard dry van. The flatbed specifically. No walls, no roof, cargo sitting in the open air getting rained on. The kind that only makes sense when your cargo physically cannot go inside a box

    3 votes

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

    hobbes64
    Link Parent
    This thread reminds me of the Monty Python sketch about "woody" words.

    This thread reminds me of the Monty Python sketch about "woody" words.

    5 votes

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

    hobbes64
    Link Parent
    I agree with pretty much all of that. There’s a huge number of sociopaths among us and it can be shocking for those who have an intrinsic value system to accidentally discover this in friends and...

    I agree with pretty much all of that. There’s a huge number of sociopaths among us and it can be shocking for those who have an intrinsic value system to accidentally discover this in friends and family.

    I’ve thought a lot more about this in recent years as I witnessed millions of people vote for Trump multiple times. But I’m not exactly sure of the separation between sociopaths and deeply stupid people. Or the difference between sociopaths and authoritarian followers.

    Separate but related: The fundamental premise of worship is difficult for me to grasp. Fawning over and kissing up to any kind of being is very weird actually. People that are rapturously attending a church service or trump rally is just so foreign to me. I can’t imagine a God who would want that behavior from me. I’d prefer a god who valued honesty and compassion and sharing and reliability than valuing sycophancy and performance.

    6 votes

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

    hobbes64
    Link Parent
    Your crackpot theory is also interesting. I’ll have to think about it. Certainly there are some Christian leaders who believe in what they say, but I would assume they are just mentally ill and...

    Your crackpot theory is also interesting. I’ll have to think about it. Certainly there are some Christian leaders who believe in what they say, but I would assume they are just mentally ill and not having actual communication with angels or demons. But who knows, maybe supernatural stuff is true, I don’t claim to know all that’s possible.

    An addendum to my crackpot theory is that these atheist leaders hang out with the Epstein class billionaires and have wild rituals like in Eyes Wide Shut but way more horrifying and criminal.

    2 votes

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

    hobbes64
    Link Parent
    After the 2016 election I saw some posts online where trump supporters were praising her. I think it was from facebook posts from some older republican women. And they were like “it’s so nice to...

    After the 2016 election I saw some posts online where trump supporters were praising her. I think it was from facebook posts from some older republican women. And they were like “it’s so nice to have someone with class and grace as First Lady again”.

    And of course, anyone who wasn’t a racist and a cult member would see through what that was about. The immediately previous first lady was an articulate lawyer who spoke with kindness and intelligence to all the citizens of the country. And she tried to get people to be kinder to each other and make sure children were taken care of with nutritious food.

    Their wonderful replacement was a scowling 3rd wife of a known con man who cheated on all his previous wives. This “elegant” person was a former nude model (not that I care, but elderly republicans usually do), and she barely spoke at all or showed any interest in any of the duties normally performed by a First Lady.

    25 votes

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

    hobbes64
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    I think that most high profile evangelical leaders are actually atheists and social darwinists. I’m thinking about all the people that crowd around Trump and put their hands on him while he...

    I think that most high profile evangelical leaders are actually atheists and social darwinists. I’m thinking about all the people that crowd around Trump and put their hands on him while he pretends to pray. These are the same types who run mega churches and act extremely concerned about sexual morality but ignore the part about giving away all wealth to the poor.

    Of course it’s obvious that these people are immoral and phony, but my specific conspiracy theory is that they are atheists who see themselves as predators and their followers are sheep to be consumed.

    I also think that most other church leaders are secretly atheists. This includes most of the cardinals in the Vatican and most of the people who have ever been pope.

    30 votes

  12. Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of May 25 in ~society

  13. Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of May 25 in ~society

    hobbes64
    (edited )
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    I mentioned above in another thread that I was posting less about politics recently because I'm burned out about Trump's crimes and there isn't much new to say about that. But I still read The...

    I mentioned above in another thread that I was posting less about politics recently because I'm burned out about Trump's crimes and there isn't much new to say about that. But I still read The Atlantic and I found this article to have a take that kind of explains everything about why Trump is a terrible and ineffective leader in a slightly different way. Personally, I usually am most concerned about why Trump does evil things, but it's also a big problem that he's a failure as a president in every way, even if you like his "policies".

    This is actually a link to the latest episode of David Frum's podcast with the transcript. The meat of the podcast is an interview with Colorado Representative Jason Crow from the Armed Services Committee, but the part I'm highlighting is the preamble by Frum:

    Has Trump Corrupted the Military?

    ... shows something very peculiar about President Trump, which is, he’s never thought of himself as a national leader. He’s a factional leader. He’s the leader of the MAGA movement that has seized power in the United States, and that attempted, actually, to hold power in 2021 by violence, then return to power in 2024 by legal means, and that is now looking for ways to hold on to power after the elections of 2026 through gerrymandering and other forms of rule bending. He has always seen himself as a movement leader who happened to arrive in the government of the United States—not as a national leader, not as the president of all the people.

    Now, if what you want to do is, sort of, plunder the Treasury and deliver a few benefits to your supporters at the expense of the rest of the country, this is a kind of, perhaps, for the short term, workable political strategy. But if you want to lead the country to war, it is doomed to failure. Wars are big, costly, dangerous events full of shocks, full of bad news. And when a president makes the heavy decision to lead the country to a major war—and this war with Iran has been a major war involving massive expenditure, massive use of U.S. munitions, American loss of life, heavy loss of life on the Iranian side—when the president makes that decision, he needs to mobilize something more than his preexisting fragment of popular support. He needs to speak to the country as a whole, or at least try to.

    ...

    But Trump has never thought that way, never tried to do it that way. And so long as things seem to go reasonably well, as they did for the first three or so years of Trump’s first term, it didn’t harm him much or didn’t hamper his plans. He was not regarded by half the country—and more than half the country—as some kind of interloper, somebody who got into the office by a kind of trick and who represented the interest only of a minority of the country, and who in everything from disaster relief to his tax program made no pretense of caring about the people who hadn’t voted for him.

    But in this second term, where things have been bumpier, where the news has been worse, where he’s made more mistakes, and where first there was the economic hardship caused by his crazy tariff program and then outright war, his inability to speak to and for the country, his inability to act the role of an American president, has become a major strategic liability for the United States because the United States was never able to accept any costs at all from the Iran war.

    A different president operating for different reasons would have said, I want to lead the country into war with Iran. I hope you all understand that this will be an expensive and difficult undertaking. Obviously, the price of fuel and perhaps the price of food will rise. I believe, might say the president, this will be a short-term shock, but a shock it will be. I have various measures in mind to cushion the shock for those most in need, but this is important for all of our interests. Here’s why. This is important for the peace of the world. Here’s why. And I ask you to follow me and trust my leadership. That’s what a normal president would try to do.

    Because Trump had never tried to be that kind of president, he couldn’t acknowledge any kind of suffering. He couldn’t make the case for the war at all. He spoke to the nation at the State of the Union just a few days before leading the nation to war. He made almost no reference to Iran. He certainly gave no indication the war was coming, and he warned of nothing, and he asked for nothing. He asked for no support from Congress. He just went to war without any kind of consultation, no kind of authorization of the use of force, which his predecessors had done for large-scale military conflicts. Asking Congress for the use of force would mean that you would be subject to questioning by Congress. How much will this cost? How long will this last? What are the goals? Are they achievable? President Trump didn’t wanna face any of that kind of questioning, so he didn’t ask for authority. But that meant his war had no co-authors. It was entirely his own doing, a one-man show. So long as everything went smoothly, that might not be so much trouble, but, of course, things have not gone smoothly, and now they’ve ended very disappointingly, if not in outright defeat, and it’s still the one-man show.

    Edit- Fixed the link to The Atlantic. Thanks @TemulentTeatotaler for noticing it was incorrect.

    6 votes

  14. Comment on If you let AI do your writing, I will come to your house and kill you in ~tech

    hobbes64
    Link Parent
    I noticed that in general what is happening in AI is moving so fast that it’s hard to explain what is wrong with it. As you noticed, the search results from LLMs are much better than they were a...

    I noticed that in general what is happening in AI is moving so fast that it’s hard to explain what is wrong with it.

    As you noticed, the search results from LLMs are much better than they were a few months ago.

    Similarly, I have noticed that code generated by AI has gotten a lot better so it doesn’t just generate garbage all the time (it sometimes does a good job, sometimes generates garbage, but this is an improvement). My company has been scrambling for months to create best practices around using AI and creating interfaces for it, but as soon as we create one standard we find it to be obsolete. Either a new industry standard has popped up, or change in LLM behavior has changed enough to make the standard irrelevant.

    When I look online, I see many articles and comments about AI slop and how it is low quality. Soon that will be edge cases and it will be harder to detect AI output. Already most of us have probably spent time reading AI stuff and arguing with bots online without realizing it.

    At a fundamental level, it doesn’t matter. The proliferation of AI is still harming us regardless of the quality. Every article written by AI is one not written by a human who’s actually tasted food. Someone has lost the ability to do useful work and everyone else is reading an imitation of life and that is bad and sad.

    41 votes

  15. Comment on Ferrari unveils its first all-electric car, the four-door Luce in ~transport

    hobbes64
    Link Parent
    Regarding the cybertruck, I saw someone recently said it was trying to be a truck version of a DMC DeLorean. I’m not sure why I never realized that before, probably because I haven’t really...

    Regarding the cybertruck, I saw someone recently said it was trying to be a truck version of a DMC DeLorean. I’m not sure why I never realized that before, probably because I haven’t really thought or read about it much. But weird choice for inspiration right? At best DeLorean was controversial, and the only reason many people have a positive opinion now is because of nostalgia about “Back to the Future” movies.

    6 votes

  16. Comment on Ferrari unveils its first all-electric car, the four-door Luce in ~transport

    hobbes64
    Link Parent
    Yeah but it’s $640,000 it probably should try harder to be one ;)

    It’s not trying to be a supercar.

    Yeah but it’s $640,000 it probably should try harder to be one ;)

    13 votes

  17. Comment on Memorial Day weekend box office: ‘Mandalorian and Grogu’ opens to $100 million domestically, $163 million globally for the four-day weekend in ~movies

    hobbes64
    Link Parent
    I thought it was good and it was fun seeing a Star Wars movie with people. There were some little kids and they were so happy to see baby yoda, it was very cute to hear their reactions every time...

    I thought it was good and it was fun seeing a Star Wars movie with people. There were some little kids and they were so happy to see baby yoda, it was very cute to hear their reactions every time he came in the screen.

    But also that made me uncomfortable when there was so much casual violence and swallowing of characters by a giant fromsoft boss snake. It’s kind of a family movie and kind of not.

    4 votes

  18. Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of May 25 in ~society

    hobbes64
    Link Parent
    I would normally post some political things here. But most of what I posted would be something about this week's illegal, unconstitutional, or immoral thing done by Trump and/or the republican...

    I would normally post some political things here. But most of what I posted would be something about this week's illegal, unconstitutional, or immoral thing done by Trump and/or the republican party. A thing that would get him removed from office and convicted in a functioning government. Because it's literally weekly when there is at least one scandal that is larger than any political scandal in American history.
    For me personally, I've decided to step back from that. Because there isn't anything else to say about those things for me. In my opinion, Trump is an evil traitor who should be in prison. Also many members of the US government should be investigated and tried for serious crimes and corruption. Almost everyone who agrees with that have already noted it and don't need more stories about it. Those who don't agree are either evil or ignorant in an untouchable way.

    I really hope that people vote in their own best interests in the primaries and in November and put an end to this.

    14 votes

  19. Comment on Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix 2026 - Race Weekend Discussion in ~sports.motorsports

    hobbes64
    Link Parent
    I liked seeing Lewis on the podium. And if we keep seeing Max on the podium, I'll have to stop calling him "Mid Verstappen"

    I liked seeing Lewis on the podium.

    And if we keep seeing Max on the podium, I'll have to stop calling him "Mid Verstappen"

    1 vote

  20. Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of May 18 in ~society

    hobbes64
    Link Parent
    Agreed, I noticed that but just gave the API headline in the link text. Headlines about Trump are often inaccurate in this way. They either sanewash his bizarre statements or use weasel words to...

    Agreed, I noticed that but just gave the API headline in the link text.

    Headlines about Trump are often inaccurate in this way. They either sanewash his bizarre statements or use weasel words to avoid offending him. Just one of the horrible ways the press has failed.

    5 votes