papasquat's recent activity
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Comment on Documents reveal a web of financial ties between Donald Trump officials and the US industries they help regulate in ~society
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Comment on Dox with Grok in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentHah, no, that would be interesting though. It's government-adjacent.Hah, no, that would be interesting though. It's government-adjacent.
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Comment on I don’t know if my software engineering job will still exist in ten years in ~comp
papasquat Link ParentYeah, it could be feasible. When mm-wave scanners were first deployed, one of their major criticisms was that it basically gives screners a full, 3d, nude image of the person being scanned, which...An example of a task that might be automated, assuming the vision models are good enough, is screening carry-on luggage
Yeah, it could be feasible. When mm-wave scanners were first deployed, one of their major criticisms was that it basically gives screners a full, 3d, nude image of the person being scanned, which a lot of people obviously had a problem with. Since then, manufacturers have mostly replaced those systems with ones that use computer vision to detect the presence of contraband without giving the screners the image.
I imagine you could do something similar with bag screening one day. The only issue is that bag screening images are much more complex. They're full 3d, transparent images that are generated with CT scanners, and operators can rotate, zoom, and dive into those images. I think there are manufacturers doing significant computer vision work with them to do things like detect explosive liquids versus water based on the refraction patterns of X-rays, but I imagine the tech isn't quite robust enough to be fully automated quite yet.
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Comment on Dox with Grok in ~tech
papasquat LinkI can't help but think that you may have taken the wrong lesson from this. One of the great things about the internet is that it enables people to speak freely. (Also one of the dangerous things...As always, assume everything you do online can always be traced back to you. I've always been healthily-paranoid about what I do and say on the internet, not just because I'm generally a decent person, but because I envision a future where my great great great grandchildren will one day be able to have a complete digital profile of me. I don't want to disappoint them!
I can't help but think that you may have taken the wrong lesson from this. One of the great things about the internet is that it enables people to speak freely. (Also one of the dangerous things about it, but I still think it's overall a net good). I'd be concerned that the idea that the correct way to use the Internet is to never express any opinion that isn't approved by whatever majority is currently in power in larger society. That idea would have a major chilling effect when it comes to candid discussion, especially for people who live in places with oppressive, authoritarian surveillance state apperatus, or people who express opinions that extremist violent groups disagree with.
For me, I work in an environment where saying something as simple as "trans people should be protected and are victims, not predators" linked to my real name would be a serious risk to my livelihood, so I can never express that opinion if I want to keep my job. Saying that I, or no one else can ever express that opinion anywhere without it being linked back to our real identities would have a serious detrimental effect on public perception on trans rights, for instance.
I think it's a better idea to preserve anonymity on the internet by using the same tried and true opsec measures we've always told people; don't share specific personal information that can be used to narrow down your identity, fudge key details now and then, and I think most importantly for this type of threat, do away with long-lived psuedo-anonymous accounts, because sooner or later you'll have a lapse of judgement and with enough of those, someone can use a tool like this with pretty reasonable certainty to discover who you are.
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Comment on I don’t know if my software engineering job will still exist in ten years in ~comp
papasquat Link ParentModern advanced autopilot systems have actually proliferated down to general aviation at this point as well. Garmin's autoland is probably the market leader in that sector. Here's a news story...Modern advanced autopilot systems have actually proliferated down to general aviation at this point as well. Garmin's autoland is probably the market leader in that sector.
Here's a news story about the system automatically landing a small dual engine turboprop aafter a pilot triggered it when he lost comms with an airport tower. New jetliners are all equipped with the technology and use it routinely for landing in poor visibility.
The ground equipment you're referring to is probably ILS or MLS, which send signals to the aircraft detailing their alignment to the runway. Human pilots use this information as well to aid in landing.
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Comment on What did you do this week (and weekend)? in ~talk
papasquat Link ParentWow, bold of you to admit your situation. Sorry you're going through that, and culturally, I think people in your situation, especially men, have become very unfairly derided in recent years by...Wow, bold of you to admit your situation. Sorry you're going through that, and culturally, I think people in your situation, especially men, have become very unfairly derided in recent years by popular perception. The justification being that homophobia is over now so just come out already. I think that, apart from being totally inaccurate, ignores a whole ton of complexities about people's specific situation, culture, family, and marriage.
Best of luck to you, I really hope you can find a therapist and a solution that works for you and your wife.
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Comment on What did you do this week (and weekend)? in ~talk
papasquat LinkI've gotten into buying little memey EDC tools on the internet despite thinking that the whole "hobby" is stupid and cringey. I can't imagine anything more embarrassing than middle aged men...I've gotten into buying little memey EDC tools on the internet despite thinking that the whole "hobby" is stupid and cringey.
I can't imagine anything more embarrassing than middle aged men posting their "pocket dumps" and expecting everyone to believe they carry 3 knives, a wrench, pliers, a multi tool, flashlight, battery bank, a gun with two extra magazines, ratchet set, lockpicks and so on with them every day at their job as an IT guy. The whole thing is everyone living out this post apocalypse mcguyver fantasy where on a daily basis they have to fix a power distribution system, some vital engine, Bushcraft a survival shelter and 3 other things that require them to carry around all that junk.
That said... Cool little screwdrivers, flashlights, pliers and ratchets are way too fun to buy and play with.
I got what's affectionatrly called the harbor freight "meme tool" over the weekend and I have to admit, it's very cool. I justified my purchase by using it and it alone to completely disassemble and reassemble my drone to fix a few little niggling issues I'd been meaning to fix for a while, then throwing the kit into my drone bag where it replaced a handful of individual tools I used to carry around for field repairs.
I still feel like a cringe lord having all of these dumb little tools, but I mostly keep them in my backpack when I go to work. I have yet to use them while out and about and if I had to predict how often I will, I'd say maybe three times a year. It's mostly just retail therapy for men, myself included.
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Comment on Iran war spreading economic damage far beyond oil and gas markets in ~finance
papasquat Link ParentWe've for years had black and white proof of extramarital affairs with hush money, felony convictions for fraud, impeachments, and proof of a very close relationship and collusion with a known...We've for years had black and white proof of extramarital affairs with hush money, felony convictions for fraud, impeachments, and proof of a very close relationship and collusion with a known pedophile sex trafficker along with very good evidence for illicit sex facilitated by him.
Serious question, what would kompromat even consist of against trump? I literally cannot think of any material that could be released about him that would hurt him at this point, or that he would fear being released. At the absolute worst, he'd call it AI and fake news, then start another war to blare it out in the news cycle and move on with his day.
I'm sorry to say that in light of that, Trump being a controlled asset is a theory that's completely fallen apart. He's just a regular run of the mill egotistical dictator.
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Comment on I don’t know if my software engineering job will still exist in ten years in ~comp
papasquat Link ParentI really, really don't think it ever can, regardless of how good the models get. Even if the models get to 99.9% accuracy, a large company is going to be totally negligent by not keeping humans in...It doesn't seem as if the human component is ready to disappear yet. I hope (for my own sake) that it may never.
I really, really don't think it ever can, regardless of how good the models get. Even if the models get to 99.9% accuracy, a large company is going to be totally negligent by not keeping humans in the loop doing code review, which, at that point, you might as well have them inserted into all stages of software development. Even if they don't actually have to do much, the reason you have them there is accountability.
I think of it like another area where automation has gotten extremely good, and has been for years; aviation.
Autopilots on airplanes, for those that don't know, are ridiculously sophisticated nowadays. They're capable of automatically handling just about every aspect of a normal flight, from takeoff, to initial climb, to cruising, to final approach, and landing.
Theoretically, an airline doesn't actually need pilots for 99.99% of flying. You could put passengers on a gigantic drone, and it would work just fine the vast majority of the time.
There would of course, be times when it fails though. If you don't have a human onboard react to those edge cases, hundreds of people die, your airline goes out of business, and hopefully the NTSB investigation gets your board and executive team put in jail for manslaughter due to gross negligence.
Saving the hundreds of millions a year on pilot salaries isn't worth that to airlines.
If your tech company is big enough, the stakes may not be quite that high, but they're still pretty damn high. Having no one at the wheel able to make decisions means that there's no one accountable when something goes wrong. A trillion dollar company isn't willing to accept "the AI fucked up, sorry" when hundreds of millions of subscribers have their account info deleted, or get shown porn accidentally, or a catastrophic problem takes their platform down for a week.
I think it's a valid concern for smaller, very low stakes coding jobs, but for big SWE roles, I doubt they ever go away.
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Comment on Can coding agents relicense open source through a “clean room” implementation of code? in ~comp
papasquat Link ParentI don't understand how it could possibly be argued that it could. A human being who has seen the original implementation cannot produce a legally defensible clean room implementation. How could...More complicated: Claude itself was very likely trained on chardet as part of its enormous quantity of training data—though we have no way of confirming this for sure. Can a model trained on a codebase produce a morally or legally defensible clean-room implementation?
I don't understand how it could possibly be argued that it could. A human being who has seen the original implementation cannot produce a legally defensible clean room implementation. How could you possibly argue that a machine explicitly designed to encode the original training data within its weights as accurately as possible that has been trained on the original implementation is designing something novel?
At that point, what's the difference between using an LLM and just photocopying the source code?
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Comment on The average US college student is illiterate in ~life
papasquat Link ParentI think urban development patterns contribute to this a lot as well, more than is often talked about. If your friends live a 45 minute drive away from you, you're not likely to meet up with them...I think urban development patterns contribute to this a lot as well, more than is often talked about.
If your friends live a 45 minute drive away from you, you're not likely to meet up with them on weeknights. If your friends are your neighbors, it's not a huge investment to go to their place for 20 minutes after work, or spend a couple hours getting a beer or playing board games rather than going home to play video games with total strangers.
We pay a huge social opportunity cost in time by living in disconnected suburbs and exurbs, or cities with horrible transit options and development patterns.
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Comment on The average US college student is illiterate in ~life
papasquat Link ParentI don't think this is exclusive to younger generations unfortunately. I'm in my late 30s, and I'm married now, but was dating as recently as four years ago, and had to go through this whole...I don't think this is exclusive to younger generations unfortunately. I'm in my late 30s, and I'm married now, but was dating as recently as four years ago, and had to go through this whole charade a few times.
I've been in situations where we were going on dates, sexually exclusive, and talking to each other all the time, but we weren't "in a relationship", apparently. The thing makes no sense. Besides the fact that we were, objectively, in a relationship (I'm "in a relationship" with my doctor, my parents, my coworkers, and anyone else I interact with on a regular basis, by definition), even in the colloquial usage, I was in a romantic, exclusive relationship.
I think a lot of people prop romantic "relationships" as being a much bigger deal than they are. If we're not married, I can just decide one day it doesn't work for me and never talk to you again, and have no further legal obligations to you. It's not a big deal if you ask someone out, date for three weeks, figure out you don't like them then dump them.
People fear them because they think a relationship is like a mini marriage, but it isn't at all.
The whole "talking=fucking" thing is also equally irritating and confusing, but that's probably the entire point of it. My question was always... what if you are actually just talking to someone now and then and haven't had sex?
The whole exercise of courtship feels like it's just driven by fear and overanalysis, rather than fun now.
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Comment on The average US college student is illiterate in ~life
papasquat Link ParentSomeone looking at their phone while I'm talking to them has to be one of my biggest pet peeves of all time. It's absolutely infuriating to me, and I've just stopped conversations halfway through...Someone looking at their phone while I'm talking to them has to be one of my biggest pet peeves of all time. It's absolutely infuriating to me, and I've just stopped conversations halfway through and walked off when people have done it to me before.
It's one of the rudest things you can possibly do, and I hate how it's becoming somewhat socially acceptable.
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Comment on The average US college student is illiterate in ~life
papasquat Link ParentThe author seems to consistently conflate idea of ability with willingness. I very much doubt that. They could read a "serious adult novel", which are apparently anything written by Barbara...The author seems to consistently conflate idea of ability with willingness.
No, our average graduate literally could not read a serious adult novel cover-to-cover and understand what they read.
I very much doubt that. They could read a "serious adult novel", which are apparently anything written by Barbara Kingsolver, Colson Whitehead, and Richard Powers. They just don't want to. There's a difference there. Being functionally illiterate means they can't read those novels. The fact that they don't, doesn't mean they can't.
If I pointed a gun to the head of most college graduates and told them to read The Nickel Boys, then give me a summary or I'll kill them, I have no doubt in my mind that the vast majority of them would be able to do a somewhat decent job.
The author of the article seems to think that his class has similar stakes, but for most students, it really doesn't. They can pass without reading a book they don't want to read, so they don't read it.
The entire premise of the article is based on this false assertion. I could just as easily make the argument that the author functionally can't ride a pink tricycle 200 feet, simply because he's never done it before and has no desire to.
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Comment on Chimpanzees are really into crystals in ~science
papasquat Link ParentCould be, yeah. Another thing I was thinking about is that having some hard coded, shared appreciation for a certain type of rare, but durable object could be an advantage. I've heard of different...Could be, yeah. Another thing I was thinking about is that having some hard coded, shared appreciation for a certain type of rare, but durable object could be an advantage. I've heard of different animals exchanging things for goods and services. Could there be some sort of innate biological wiring that supports the development of currency encoded into chimps?
It seems like human beings everywhere independently developed an appreciation for gold and jewels which fostered their use as a currency for a very long time. Could it be that that was something biologically encoded for rather than sociologically developed?
If you had a species that all valued some durable, non consumable thing with no real use, they could use that to trade for useful things with one another and that seems like it would be a massive advantage.
I'm talking out of my ass though, I don't know anything about evolutionary biology or sociology.
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Comment on Chimpanzees are really into crystals in ~science
papasquat Link ParentI wonder where that behavior comes from. I can't imagine how being attracted to shiny things would be an evolutionary advantage, so is it some sort of vestigial behavior from when it was? Or is...I wonder where that behavior comes from. I can't imagine how being attracted to shiny things would be an evolutionary advantage, so is it some sort of vestigial behavior from when it was? Or is there just some less obvious mechanism going on?
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Comment on Electricity use of AI coding agents in ~enviro
papasquat Link ParentEnergy is never free. It doesn't matter if you're getting it from solar, hydro, wind, or coal. The demand you're placing on the grid requires more solar panels to be manufactured, more wind...Energy is never free. It doesn't matter if you're getting it from solar, hydro, wind, or coal. The demand you're placing on the grid requires more solar panels to be manufactured, more wind turbines to be built, and more dams to be erected; all of which have an environmental impact.
Renewables have far less of an impact than fossil fuels do, but manufacturing a solar panel is still a very resource intensive process that has a negative environmental impact. If we're spending a ton of energy without much benefit, we're still destroying the environment for no reason.
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Comment on Apple announces Macbook Neo, a new budget Mac in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentYou'll notice it a bit, but disk I/O speeds have grown much faster than ram I/O speeds have in the past decade, and Apple's disks are some of the fastest in consumer computers. Falling back to...You'll notice it a bit, but disk I/O speeds have grown much faster than ram I/O speeds have in the past decade, and Apple's disks are some of the fastest in consumer computers.
Falling back to swap used to mean you were waiting ages for applications to chug along. It's not nearly as much of a performance hit nowadays though.
More RAM would be better, but it's not the end of the world.
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Comment on Living human brain cells play DOOM on a CL1 in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentYeah, I mean... maybe? We don't actually know what human consciousness even is or have a way to objectively measure the presence of it. I think this is a far cry away from an actual human brain,...- Exemplary
Yeah, I mean... maybe?
We don't actually know what human consciousness even is or have a way to objectively measure the presence of it.
I think this is a far cry away from an actual human brain, but it's certainly human at least in some aspect.
I'm not so much horrified at the current iteration, but of the iteration a decade down the road where this stuff gets more and more complex.
If it starts being useful and outperforming silicon based AI, do we eventually get to a point where we're running data centers full of trillions of human neurons to run workloads? How do you verify that something that complex isn't conscious? Where does the line get drawn?
Seems like a potential prototype torment nexus to me.
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Comment on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei killed in Israeli and American joint strikes in ~society
papasquat Link ParentI had a platoon sergeant that thought of himself as a cold steely warrior, and I routinely had to tell him that he was actually one of the most emotional people I've ever worked with, like the...I had a platoon sergeant that thought of himself as a cold steely warrior, and I routinely had to tell him that he was actually one of the most emotional people I've ever worked with, like the emotional regulation skills of a 10 year old. Just much bigger and with a rifle and platoon of armed kids at his disposal.
Warfighters are the most emotional people in the world, but not usually during the most high stress parts. It's the beforehand and afterwards when the screaming, fights, crying, and complete breakdowns usually happen.
I think the most successful people at it are the ones who are able to have their emotional freakout but realize when they're being irrational and biased because of it.
It's really difficult to understand how many of these decisions get made based on almost pure vibes unless you've been in a TOC though. People sitting on the internet and analyzing and criticizing the rationality of it all with the benefit of foresight aren't really saying anything valuable.
If it's one thing that we should take away from his presidency, it's that committed, popular support is literally the only thing that matters in politics. Rule of law, norms, watchdog organizations, the three branches of government, none of that matters if you have a fanatical, committed base. They're all just powerless words on paper. If you can win elections, and more importantly, if people think you can win and influence elections, you can do literally whatever you want.
I'm not sure what that says about (big R) Republicanism as a governance concept, but it feels like there are a lot of assumptions about how a Republic operates under duress that we've been taking for granted up until they were proven wrong over these last few years.