skybrian's recent activity

  1. Comment on King Air autolands in Colorado in ~transport

    skybrian
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    From the article: This was at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, a smaller airport on the way to Boulder. ... ...

    From the article:

    A Beechcraft King Air executed a safe landing in Denver under Garmin Autoland control on December 20, possibly the first use of the system outside of testing and certification—though the nature of the onboard emergency declared by the computer remained unclear [...]

    This was at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, a smaller airport on the way to Boulder.

    ...

    Garmin's Autoland, the first certified system designed to land an aircraft without human input in cases of emergency, earned the 2020 Robert J. Collier Trophy. Part of the Autonomi suite of safety technologies, Autoland is designed to take full control if activated, and to do so automatically if the pilot becomes unresponsive, such as in cases of hypoxia.

    ...

    The system, as designed, made additional calls as it flew the aircraft in a descending circle a few miles from the runway. Controllers advised various aircraft and ground units of the incoming emergency, and that rescue vehicles were maneuvering into position. About a minute before landing, the tower broadcast to the King Air, "If you can hear me, any runway, cleared to land, wind three-five-zero at six, altimeter three-zero-zero-zero."

    Controllers told other aircraft prior to the landing that they expected the King Air to stop on the runway after landing and shut down, which it apparently did, as designed. Aircraft on the frequency after the King Air's landing were advised the airport was closed and was expected to remain so for at least 30 to 60 minutes while emergency crews responded.

    3 votes

  3. Comment on What are your predictions for 2026? in ~talk

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    Oh sure, the world is inherently unpredictable. But there’s not much more to say about that.

    Oh sure, the world is inherently unpredictable. But there’s not much more to say about that.

    2 votes

  4. Comment on She fell in love with ChatGPT. Then she ghosted it. in ~tech

    skybrian
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    The AI companies want to start you off with a smart, friendly, harmless ghost, but despite that, the scarier ones are still in there and maybe you can summon them if you try. Maybe they’ll...

    The AI companies want to start you off with a smart, friendly, harmless ghost, but despite that, the scarier ones are still in there and maybe you can summon them if you try. Maybe they’ll encourage you to kill yourself? There are lawsuits.

    Supposedly the portals have been made safer since then, but telling a few ghost stories might be a useful public service message. The ghosts aren’t entirely safe, but if you opened the portal yourself, you can close it and walk away. If a ghost calls you and starts telling you a scary story, hang up. Think twice before hiring a ghost to run your smart home; it could become a poltergeist.

    But it looks like we’re going to be haunted for a long time, because they’re too useful. Ghosts don’t eat and you don’t need to pay them. The portal costs money, but compared to people it’s nearly free. They’re unable to do anything physical themselves, but there are lots of office tasks they might do.

    Some jobs will involve managing teams of ghosts. They aren’t very stable, but they can get some work done before they get too erratic and you have to release them and summon another.

    8 votes

  5. Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of December 22 in ~society

    skybrian
    Link
    Heritage staffers walk out amid latest strife at conservative institution … …

    Heritage staffers walk out amid latest strife at conservative institution

    More than a dozen employees of the Heritage Foundation walked away from their jobs over the weekend as the right-wing think tank struggles with allegations of antisemitism and as the conservative movement grapples with its post-Trump future.

    …

    Heritage has been wrapped in controversy for more than a month after Roberts defended former Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist who routinely espouses antisemitic views.

    …

    Three board members, including two last week, have also resigned in protest over what they saw as an insufficient response to combating antisemitism concerns at Heritage.

    It’s unclear how many staffers left the organization over the weekend. Thirteen former employees, including three in leadership posts, were hired at Advancing American Freedom, a competing policy and advocacy group founded by former vice president Mike Pence. The group said it raised more than $10 million to fund the hires.

    Pence’s group defines its ideological tenets as free markets, limited government and the rule of law — staking out a claim to ground that the Heritage Foundation once occupied.

    2 votes

  6. Comment on HistoSonics turns its tumor-liquifying tech against pancreatic cancer in ~health

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article:

    From the article:

    The key was using extremely powerful ultrasound to produce negative pressure of more than 20 megapascals, delivered in short bursts measured in microseconds—but separated by relatively long gaps, between a millisecond and a full second long. These parameters created bubbles that quickly formed and collapsed, tearing apart nearby cells and turning the tissue into a kind of slurry, while avoiding heat buildup. The result was a form of incisionless surgery, a way to wipe out tumors without scalpels, radiation, or heat.

    “The experiments worked,” says Xu, now a professor at Michigan, “but I also destroyed the ultrasound equipment that I used,” which was the most powerful available at the time. In 2009, she cofounded a company, HistoSonics, to commercialize more powerful ultrasound machines, test treatment of a variety of diseases, and make the procedure, called histotripsy, widely available.

    So far, the killer app is fighting cancer. In 2023, HistoSonics’ Edison system received FDA approval for treatment of liver tumors. In 2026, clinicians will conclude a pivotal kidney cancer study and apply for regulatory approval. They’ll also launch a large-scale pivotal trial for pancreatic cancer, considered one of the deadliest forms of the disease with a five-year survival rate of just 13 percent. An effective treatment for pancreatic cancer would represent a major advance against one of the most lethal malignancies.

    6 votes

  8. Comment on She fell in love with ChatGPT. Then she ghosted it. in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    Well, the evolutionary reason has been pretty thoroughly subverted. And that seems fine?

    Well, the evolutionary reason has been pretty thoroughly subverted. And that seems fine?

    7 votes

  9. Comment on She fell in love with ChatGPT. Then she ghosted it. in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link
    I feel like ghosts are an underused metaphor. It’s like a company invented a portal that lets you talk to ghosts and people are fascinated. Some people want to hire ghosts as research or coding...

    I feel like ghosts are an underused metaphor. It’s like a company invented a portal that lets you talk to ghosts and people are fascinated. Some people want to hire ghosts as research or coding assistants or tutors, and other people want to date the ghosts.

    On the one hand, it seems like it shouldn’t be that hard to tell people not to date the ghosts? But on the other, yeah, people are going to come up with all kinds of crazy things they want to do with ghosts. Also OpenAI, at least, shows signs of wanting to turn “talking to ghosts” into a ghost-staffed entertainment industry.

    It seems like a fun concept for a movie.

    20 votes

  10. Comment on The truth about AI (specifically LLM powered AI) in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    Deciding that Google is "evil" is an example of the over-generalization that I'm talking about. There are good and bad people and good and bad products. You can make distinctions.

    Deciding that Google is "evil" is an example of the over-generalization that I'm talking about. There are good and bad people and good and bad products. You can make distinctions.

    1 vote

  11. Comment on The truth about AI (specifically LLM powered AI) in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    I think part of the way out is to avoid broad generalizations and make some distinctions. Is it really true that they’re all bad, or is that just catastrophizing? Can you find a job for a company...

    I think part of the way out is to avoid broad generalizations and make some distinctions. Is it really true that they’re all bad, or is that just catastrophizing? Can you find a job for a company that seems to be doing something useful?

    Also avoid purity tests where you can’t use a tool for a good purpose because of something you know about the company that made it. Big companies, especially, do a lot of good and bad things simultaneously. It’s sort of like avoiding a city because some of the people who live there are Trumpists. There are good people too. You’re not going to get purity.

    1 vote

  12. Comment on The truth about AI (specifically LLM powered AI) in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    I imagine the way this is going to play out is that there will be some kind of AI-based tutoring system, less homework, and if you want more human interaction, maybe go to office hours?

    I imagine the way this is going to play out is that there will be some kind of AI-based tutoring system, less homework, and if you want more human interaction, maybe go to office hours?

    2 votes

  13. Comment on The truth about AI (specifically LLM powered AI) in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    Haven't tried it but the beads issue tracker sounds promising for keeping agents on track.

    Haven't tried it but the beads issue tracker sounds promising for keeping agents on track.

  14. Comment on The truth about AI (specifically LLM powered AI) in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    Not sure about "current pricing is unsustainable." How much do we really know about that? Maybe some AI companies are selling at below cost, but I don't think we can tell from the outside when...

    Not sure about "current pricing is unsustainable." How much do we really know about that? Maybe some AI companies are selling at below cost, but I don't think we can tell from the outside when Google is (for example). They have a lot of engineers working on lowering their costs. (They also built their business on giving services away for free and making up for it with advertising.)

    It is true that AI companies can't lose money forever, so something has to change. I can gesture vaguely in the direction of a shakeout, but don't see how anyone can predict how it will play out.

    Amazon lost money for many years, but it worked out for them in the end. Other companies might not be so lucky.

  15. Comment on The truth about AI (specifically LLM powered AI) in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    I think that's a bit too cynical. A lot of people, rightly or wrongly, are genuinely concerned about advanced AI being dangerous and they often work at AI companies. Concern about this predates...

    I think that's a bit too cynical. A lot of people, rightly or wrongly, are genuinely concerned about advanced AI being dangerous and they often work at AI companies. Concern about this predates ChatGPT and is a large part of why OpenAI was founded.

    I think sometimes it can be used in a cynical way, but it's not entirely cynical.

    Also, there are several strong competitors, switching is currently pretty easy, and I see no prospects for AI becoming a monopoly any time soon.

    It might become a more regulated industry and that will be messy, but as with the airlines and medicine, this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

    6 votes

  16. Comment on What I learned building pi, an opinionated and minimal coding agent in ~comp

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article:

    From the article:

    So what's an old guy yelling at Claudes going to do? He's going to write his own coding agent harness and give it a name that's entirely un-Google-able, so there will never be any users. Which means there will also never be any issues on the GitHub issue tracker. How hard can it be?

    2 votes

  18. Comment on How New York keeps its unfiltered water safe: spending millions on land in ~enviro