skybrian's recent activity

  1. Comment on ‘Wicked: For Good’ opening to $150m; records broken for Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jon M. Chu, Broadway musical feature take and more in ~movies

    skybrian
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    While I wouldn’t call it rational there is certainly an extensive history of suspicion and discrimination against immigrants in the US that goes all the way back to before the US was founded. It...

    While I wouldn’t call it rational there is certainly an extensive history of suspicion and discrimination against immigrants in the US that goes all the way back to before the US was founded. It didn’t appear out of nowhere.

    (At the same time, there’s also a substantial pro-immigrant tradition.)

    I would have liked a bit more than the extremely brief history we got in the movie.

  2. Comment on Poets are now cybersecurity threats: Researchers used 'adversarial poetry' to trick AI into ignoring its safety guard rails and it frequently worked in ~tech

    skybrian
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    Some criticism I’ve seen of this paper is that they don’t explain enough to really prove that it works; you just have to trust the authors that they found something. Hopefully they’ll help the big...

    Some criticism I’ve seen of this paper is that they don’t explain enough to really prove that it works; you just have to trust the authors that they found something. Hopefully they’ll help the big AI labs reproduce it and figure out how to fix it.

    6 votes

  3. Comment on ‘Wicked: For Good’ opening to $150m; records broken for Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jon M. Chu, Broadway musical feature take and more in ~movies

    skybrian
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    Yeah, that’s what I meant by “it sells it a little too well.” I guess Wicked making it seem entirely unmotivated is an artistic choice, but to me it comes across as simplistic. How does the Wizard...

    Yeah, that’s what I meant by “it sells it a little too well.” I guess Wicked making it seem entirely unmotivated is an artistic choice, but to me it comes across as simplistic. How does the Wizard successfully promote xenophobia so quickly if there isn’t some preexisting bias in society?

  4. Comment on ‘Wicked: For Good’ opening to $150m; records broken for Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jon M. Chu, Broadway musical feature take and more in ~movies

    skybrian
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    I wonder how different Wicked would be if, instead of a goat professor, it were a tiger professor? That would be closer to what Zootopia does, where they use the predator / prey relationship to...

    I wonder how different Wicked would be if, instead of a goat professor, it were a tiger professor?

    That would be closer to what Zootopia does, where they use the predator / prey relationship to make it vivid why some animals were scared of the predators even though they are all supposed to be civilized now. If anything, it sells it a little too well.

    In Wicked, the first time we see really scary animals are the winged monkeys near the end.

  6. Comment on ‘Wicked: For Good’ opening to $150m; records broken for Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jon M. Chu, Broadway musical feature take and more in ~movies

    skybrian
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    I thought the fascism and xenophobia were extremely obvious, particularly when the goat professor got hauled away by a henchman that appeared out of nowhere. What I didn't get is how power works...

    I thought the fascism and xenophobia were extremely obvious, particularly when the goat professor got hauled away by a henchman that appeared out of nowhere. What I didn't get is how power works or what's motivating this. The Wizard doing it so people would have a common enemy didn't seem like enough of an explanation.

    This is why I was curious to know more about the talking animals, their relationship with the rest of society, and how that changed. That subplot seemed underdeveloped. (Contrast with Zootopia.)

    Maybe it's explained more in the next movie?

    1 vote

  7. Comment on ‘Wicked: For Good’ opening to $150m; records broken for Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jon M. Chu, Broadway musical feature take and more in ~movies

    skybrian
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    Yes, I agree that Baum's novels don't hold together, but they are interestingly weird. Perhaps it was partly due to historical context that we don't have, where Baum was making political jokes?...

    Yes, I agree that Baum's novels don't hold together, but they are interestingly weird. Perhaps it was partly due to historical context that we don't have, where Baum was making political jokes? But it might just be that fairy tales often have inexplicable things in them and he was going for that vibe when he was making stuff up.

    But it's not that I think the story has to make sense, but rather, if there's more time to fill, adding more detailed background is something you could do. I would have liked to learn more about the talking animals and how they fit into society. Also, how did Galinda end up so spoiled? What's her backstory?

    Slowing down the story to spend time on these things would probably be a bad idea, but they could be hinted at more. There are often things in family movies that only the adults would get.

    An example of a movie I like more is The Incredibles. It's a family movie with great music and things that both adults and kids can relate to.

    I've also read some interesting Harry Potter fan fiction where much of the fun was retconning explanations for things that didn't make sense in the original.

    5 votes

  8. Comment on ‘Wicked: For Good’ opening to $150m; records broken for Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jon M. Chu, Broadway musical feature take and more in ~movies

    skybrian
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    Do you recommend the book?

    Do you recommend the book?

    4 votes

  9. Comment on ‘Wicked: For Good’ opening to $150m; records broken for Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jon M. Chu, Broadway musical feature take and more in ~movies

    skybrian
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    A movie is more like a short story than a novel; space for storytelling is normally very limited. I think they could have added or at least hinted at more detail about how the world really works,...

    A movie is more like a short story than a novel; space for storytelling is normally very limited. I think they could have added or at least hinted at more detail about how the world really works, like Pixar films often do. Outside the main story, it didn't seem very well-defined?

    Like in other modern movies, there are also the enormous exaggerated buildings that imply vast wealth and advanced construction skills, without any real explanation for how that's possible and why they would build that. It's just backdrop. It's big because it's easy to do using modern 3d graphics.

    8 votes

  10. Comment on Russians confront wartime internet cuts with public shrug, private fury in ~tech

    skybrian
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    There are also a lot of people who leave Russia for one reason or another. It's a drastic step, but seems like a good move if you can manage it.

    There are also a lot of people who leave Russia for one reason or another. It's a drastic step, but seems like a good move if you can manage it.

  11. Comment on ‘Wicked: For Good’ opening to $150m; records broken for Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jon M. Chu, Broadway musical feature take and more in ~movies

    skybrian
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    I watched the first Wicked recently (haven’t read the books) and it struck me as a kid’s movie, and not in a good way like Pixar or Studio Ghibli films. More like mediocre Disney. (Though it was...

    I watched the first Wicked recently (haven’t read the books) and it struck me as a kid’s movie, and not in a good way like Pixar or Studio Ghibli films. More like mediocre Disney. (Though it was from Universal. Maybe it’s not a coincidence that the Wizard of Oz seemed suspiciously like a corrupt version of Walt Disney?)

    I think my niece would like it, though.

    There was something samey about the music that I can’t put my finger on. Maybe it’s that it’s not very groove-based? Contrast with the original Wizard of Oz, which has songs everyone knows, that have become standards. Maybe that’s too much to hope for, but I was hoping for some catchy tunes.

    12 votes

  12. Comment on The DoorDash problem: How AI browsers are a huge threat to Amazon in ~tech

    skybrian
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    I’m unwilling to give an AI a credit card and let it buy things automatically, so I would want that confirmation page. I imagine that will be a common attitude. Perhaps someday that will change,...

    I’m unwilling to give an AI a credit card and let it buy things automatically, so I would want that confirmation page. I imagine that will be a common attitude. Perhaps someday that will change, but it would take time to build that trust.

    Adblocking or similar software might help with the upsells on the confirmation page for people who care about that. However, that’s an adversarial relationship, and I wanted to imagine how the relationship between AI agents, vendors, and end users might be more cooperative. It makes sense for the vendor to have some way to communicate directly with the end user, in case the AI gets it wrong.

    I don’t think it makes sense to use vendors you completely distrust. After all, you’re buying the product from them, so you need to trust either that they ship you the right thing or their return policy.

    I can also imagine a system where the AI is the vendor, but then it needs to do all the things vendors do, including handling returns. It needs to basically be a company that can pay the cost of satisfying angry customers if it screws up some transactions.

    1 vote

  13. Comment on LLMs are bullshitters. But that doesn't mean they're not useful. in ~tech

    skybrian
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    This article isn’t sound on Greek history. The problem is that knowledge of what the Sophists actually taught is based on fragments and on hostile sources (particularly Plato) that shouldn’t be...

    This article isn’t sound on Greek history. The problem is that knowledge of what the Sophists actually taught is based on fragments and on hostile sources (particularly Plato) that shouldn’t be taken as reliable.

    For more, see this article.

    Other than that, it seems like sensible advice.

    12 votes

  14. Comment on California Department of Motor Vehicles approves Waymo operation in many more cities in ~transport

    skybrian
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    I think there might be a misunderstanding - “they” in that first quote seems to refer to Uber Comfort drivers? They are more highly rated by Uber, but it seems unlikely that studies exist showing...

    I think there might be a misunderstanding - “they” in that first quote seems to refer to Uber Comfort drivers? They are more highly rated by Uber, but it seems unlikely that studies exist showing them to be safer drivers.

    2 votes

  15. Comment on California Department of Motor Vehicles approves Waymo operation in many more cities in ~transport

    skybrian
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    I imagine a driverless car could be made that’s good at driving backwards if it needed to, but perhaps that would seem unsafe, or they don’t have enough sensors pointing backwards.

    I imagine a driverless car could be made that’s good at driving backwards if it needed to, but perhaps that would seem unsafe, or they don’t have enough sensors pointing backwards.

    2 votes

  16. Comment on GPT-5 has come a long way in mathematics in ~tech

    skybrian
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    I imagine that with the right prompting, it should be possible to build a decent math tutor that doesn’t tell students the answer? For example, Khan Academy has built Khanmigo, which promises “no...

    I imagine that with the right prompting, it should be possible to build a decent math tutor that doesn’t tell students the answer? For example, Khan Academy has built Khanmigo, which promises “no answers.” I haven’t tried it.

    There seem to be lots of tools out there! Reviewing them to figure out which ones are best would be a lot of work.

    3 votes

  17. Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of November 17 in ~society

    skybrian
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    Supreme Court temporarily restores Texas’ new congressional map ...

    Supreme Court temporarily restores Texas’ new congressional map

    Texas is back to using its 2025 congressional map, at least temporarily, after Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito granted the state’s request to pause a court ruling that would have required using the lines legislators drew in 2021.

    The high court has not yet decided what map Texas should use while the court battle over the legality of the map plays out over the coming weeks and months; Friday’s ruling is a short-term pause while they make that decision.

    ...

    Alito requested that the plaintiffs respond to the motion by the end of the day Monday. The Dec. 8 candidate filing deadline is fast approaching, which the state made clear to the justices in their petition.

    2 votes

  18. Comment on The DoorDash problem: How AI browsers are a huge threat to Amazon in ~tech

    skybrian
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    If the value of the AI is figuring out what to purchase, maybe this ends up like flight search? There's a search engine that lets you do price comparisons, but at the end, they send you to the...

    If the value of the AI is figuring out what to purchase, maybe this ends up like flight search? There's a search engine that lets you do price comparisons, but at the end, they send you to the airline's web page to finish the transaction. Maybe some things get filled in for you. If the AI takes the place of flight search, it's just the start of the transaction.

    What would a good user experience look like? The AI figures it out, you get a confirmation page from the seller with the transaction details and if it looks okay then you press "Buy."

    (And sure, there would inevitably be upsells on that page.)

    2 votes

  19. Comment on US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to end all monkey research in ~science

    skybrian
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    From the article: … …

    From the article:

    The clinic was dirtier than any of the animal hospitals that Strickland had worked in, with swarms of cockroaches hiding between the metal cages. It was also more dangerous. Many lab monkeys carry an illness called B virus, which rarely harms them but has killed nearly half the people it has infected. Because it can be transmitted through scratches, bites, and saliva, Strickland was required to wear long sleeves, a head covering, a surgical mask, a face shield, steel-toed boots, and two pairs of gloves—and to sedate her charges for even the most straightforward procedures.

    She was surprised by how many of the problems she was treating were caused by staff negligence. When the maintenance team forgot to fix a heater, she would end up needing to amputate frostbitten fingers and tails. Or a water line would break, and no one would notice for hours, at which point monkeys would come to her dehydrated, with pinched skin and sunken eyes. Cages were old, and repairs often makeshift, so animals were always escaping—or injuring themselves trying to. In e-mails from July, 2022, one veterinarian identified fifteen recent escapes, adding that a deeper search of records would likely yield more.

    …

    Employees at the facility stole pressure washers, respirators, ketamine, and at least one baby macaque, who was rumored to have been traded for a dog and an A.T.V. In the afternoons, some of the areas behind the enclosures took on the atmosphere of a night club. People drank, smoked weed, played dice. “It could get sexual out there,” a longtime supervisor told me. “It wasn’t just the monkeys breeding.”

    Strickland glimpsed Westergaard only when he would pop out of his office to pay his respects to the capuchins. Although he drove flashy sports cars, he dressed casually: shorts, T-shirts, a Led Zeppelin hoodie. “We were warned never to speak with him,” Strickland said. “Doctors ended up in screaming matches when they went to him with concerns.”

    …

    In a letter to the N.I.H., Alpha Genesis later wrote that it had “terminated” the technician responsible, confirming, despite its own public statements, that Garvin hadn’t quit on the job. But perhaps Westergaard’s insinuation that Alpha Genesis was under siege from animal-liberation “extremists” was the cannier P.R. move. After all, though many Americans harbor an instinctive aversion to animal testing, they also dislike the idea of crunchy do-gooders meddling with private property. By hinting that his business was the victim of shape-shifting saboteurs, Westergaard distracted from the more prosaic story about the carelessness of his staff.

    Yet it occurred to me that both narratives—the one about activists and the one about accidents—obscured the role played by the monkeys themselves, who seemed to be very much trying to leave. In “Fear of the Animal Planet: The Hidden History of Animal Resistance” (2011), the writer Jason Hribal argues that confined animals are praised as intelligent beings until they escape, at which point their actions are attributed to brute instinct, or human error. But for monkeys in captivity, Hribal observes, freedom becomes an abiding preoccupation. He recounts a story about three Japanese macaques at the Pittsburgh Zoo who fashioned a bridge from a fallen tree branch to sneak out of their exhibit. Apes are even more methodical. Orangutans sometimes spend weeks finding the necessary materials (wires, bolts, screws), hiding their elaborate preparations from their keepers, and awaiting the perfect moment to execute their plans.

    5 votes