captainastronaut
@captainastronaut@seattlelunarsociety.org
- Comment on The Beast at Tanagra 1 month ago:
The river Tamok, dammed up and not allowed to flow to the sea. 😭
- Comment on ‘We’re barely hanging on’: England’s cultural jewels fall into the red 1 month ago:
“The vast majority of England’s biggest subsidised cultural institutions are now operating at a loss, including many internationally renowned venues and arts brands.”
For everyone else that found that headline confusing, this is a better synopsis
- Comment on Some of the Most Popular Websites Share Your Data With Over 1,500 Companies 1 month ago:
If I’m reading an article on espn.com for free, there has to be some value exchange. I either need to pay to read the article or I need to be willing to be included in future advertising to people who have read that article. We haven’t come up with a better model to support free content on the Internet than advertising.
I would be willing to pay 5p to read that article if there was an automatic and easy mechanism to deliver that transaction to espn.com.  I want their journalists to get paid and I want the content to keep existing. But I’m also not such a dedicated fan of that site that I’m ready to subscribe monthly. The last thing we need is an Internet full of subscription paywalls.
So in the meantime, if the fact that I read an article on espn.com about rugby scores puts me in an audience of people who like rugby and this complicated web of advertising is going to show me rugby ads and ESPN is going to make money from that and that is going to keep the articles free … sure, whatever they gotta do I guess. I’m not sharing anything personal or private with espn.com so if they want to pass that along to 1600 other places so I can keep reading for free… whatevs.  It’s not the model I would’ve chosen but I don’t have a better plan to keep ESPN in business. 
- Comment on China and Norway Lead the World’s EV Switchover 1 month ago:
I really hate how this goal keeps being stated. When did it become the unchallenged truth that everyone needs to buy an EV? The goal was supposed to be transportation without carbon emissions. That could be solved in so many ways, from maglev trains to wind-powered ships to pedal- or foot-powered commuting. It should be solved with smart infrastructure and transportation strategy, not just more consumption. 
There are even multiple ways to power a personal vehicle that don’t have carbon emissions, and some of the most interesting ones are still emerging - hydrogen, ammonia - yet we are forging ahead like battery electric vehicles are the silver bullet to all of our problems. We are not going to fix our world of reckless consumption with more consumption… but we are going to make the shareholders of a few automotive companies very rich. Was that our goal?
- Comment on The FTC is probing Reddit’s AI licensing deals 2 months ago:
Let’s hope so!
- Comment on xkcd #2907: Schwa 2 months ago:
Thank you!
- Comment on Self-Destructing Chips: Researchers Unveil Techniques to Thwart Sophisticated Cyberattacks 2 months ago:
This is exactly what it would be used for.
- Comment on US lawmakers vote 50-0 to force sale of TikTok despite angry calls from users 2 months ago:
Especially in the least productive congress in US history, the odds of any actual vote are low.
- Comment on House panel unanimously approves bill that could ban TikTok 2 months ago:
Congress’ priorities are fucked.
- Comment on Our [Stack Exchange's] partnership with Google and commitment to socially responsible AI 2 months ago:
When should we all expect to receive our check for the content we contributed to Stack Exchange? 
- Comment on What Boeing’s Door-Plug Debacle Says About the Future of Aviation Safety 2 months ago:
Great article. The most concerning is that Boeing has become yet another enshittified company, chasing profit too hard over all else, and they are going to kill people with their decisions.
“The fact that the mistake was made at all, however, suggests an organization that is decreasingly inclined, or able, to make the kinds of costly, counterintuitive, and difficult-to-justify choices on which it built its exemplary history of reliability. These choices always pertain to marginal, almost negligible, concerns — simply because reliability at high altitudes is all about the margins — so their consequences manifest slowly. But their effects are cumulative and inexorable. “
- Comment on Passenger sees Boeing 757-200 “wing coming apart” mid-air — United flight from San Francisco to Boston makes emergency landing in Denver 2 months ago:
United Airlines - our planes are decrepit but at least the pretzels are… stale!
- Comment on More 128TB SSDs are coming as almost no one noticed this launch — another SSD controller that can support up to 128TB appeared paving the way for HDD-beating capacities 2 months ago:
I’m holding out upgrading for the holographic nano dark matter drives that have infinite storage capacity and RAID data into 3 alternate universes for security.
- Comment on AI Generated Videos Just Changed Forever (OpenAI Sora) 2 months ago:
We already do know where the wealth is and we aren’t taxing it. I think we know the answer to that question. Systems are only still functioning because there’s a dribble of tax revenue that still comes in. But we are already seeing schools lose funding and roads crumble as tax revenue hasn’t grown as fast as costs or populations. I don’t think it’s going to get better, because you have to be rich or have rich allies to get elected, so I don’t know how we could create different tax laws.
- Comment on This Is Why Tesla’s Stainless Steel Cybertrucks May Be Rusting 2 months ago:
Throw in the floor mats and you got a deal
- Comment on Are there any genuine benefits to AI? 2 months ago:
I think as a tool to synthesize and collect and organize information to help people make decisions, it has potential. Much like how machine learning is used to look at a bunch of MRI scans and highlight abnormalities and then medical professional looks at those anomalies to decide if they might be a tumor. But a machine is really good at finding things that are anomalous enough to be worth looking at. 
Things that you might have delegated to a secretary or assistant or business analyst might be worthwhile done by an LLM. “sort all these papers by which ones understood the topic the best so I can read those first“ “Do any of these articles contain new information I haven’t seen before?“ “based on the Billboard top 20, create 5 catchy beats for a backing track” “Draft a letter to this customer apologizing for our error and offering them a coupon for their next order” “analyze this email I wrote and help me make the tone more professional” 
I am terrified by what is going to be possible with phishing scams, spam email, fake articles, deep fake videos, reproduction of copyrighted works, an overwhelming volume of trademarks and patents that are meaningless, obtuse contracts that are purposely difficult for a human to read but contain surreptitious loopholes, software that is full of flaws and back doors, and corporations putting more barriers between customers and customer service people.
“find me the 50 most popular articles on this topic, synthesize them all into a 20 bullet point summary and highlight for me the differences of opinion presented so I can understand both sides of the issue” - super useful
“Generate 100,000 unique variations on a very professional email correspondence from a Nigerian Prince offering to pay $50,000 transaction fee for assistance with an international wire transfer “ - no
Unfortunately I don’t think there are any incentives for the companies building these things to limit use or install the guard rails necessary. And our laws, which always run a little behind technology, are thoroughly outpaced by the rate of innovation here. The very old people in charge of governments have no chance of staying ahead of these companies. It will get much worse before it ever gets better.
Honestly, we should just stick to porn. The Internet should just be for porn because everything else we do with it seems to turn evil. 🫤
- Comment on This Is Why Tesla’s Stainless Steel Cybertrucks May Be Rusting 2 months ago:
“The Cybertruck does not ship with clear coat, that outermost layer of transparent paint that comes as standard on almost every new motor vehicle on the planet. Instead, each Cybertruck owner has the option to purchase a $5,000 urethane-based film to “wrap your Cybertruck in our premium satin clear paint films. Only available through Tesla.””
That’s bullshit from Tesla, because they definitely don’t have special PPF that isn’t available aftermarket. They certainly have not invented a vinyl film. That’s not an unreasonable price for a PPF job of an entire vehicle, but PPF isn’t suitable for every part of a car. The fact that the paint has no clearcoat at all should not be addressed by charging the customer extra. 
- Comment on AI Generated Videos Just Changed Forever (OpenAI Sora) 2 months ago:
It’s pretty terrifying when you think about the possibilities of deception. And also how throwaway content is going to become. We are going to generate content at a volume orders of magnitude larger than our already current excessive volume, and finding the stuff that has real meaning and a real message is going to be even harder.
Also, artists whose work and styles fed this will be put out of business without ever being paid for their work that was used to train these models. 🫤
- Comment on Spotify just changed TOS, giving them unprecedented rights to create "derivative works" from audiobooks 2 months ago:
I hope not! I hope they interpret it this way and are willing and able to take action, by removing their catalog or maybe even a class action lawsuit. 
- Comment on ‘What do you mean, the tower is gone?’: thieves steal 200ft structure from Alabama radio station | Alabama 2 months ago:
AM radio? Anyone who is listening to that probably doesn’t have a phone to call anyone about it, inside their Mad Max bunker.
- Comment on Security researcher charged with defrauding Apple out of more than $2.5 million, company thanks him two weeks later 3 months ago:
The timing is probably just coincidence. He probably submitted a bug bounty weeks or months earlier and it just now got included in release notes. 
- Comment on Why Everyone Should Still Use an RSS Reader in 2024 3 months ago:
When Google’s shut down I switched to Feedly. They even imported my Google settings so there was no downtime. I’ve been paying for their Pro version ever since. It’s a really good app!
- Comment on Has anyone defederated your instance? An update to the Defederation Investigator 3 months ago:
Neat thanks!
- Comment on AI shouldn’t make ‘life-or-death’ decisions, says OpenAI’s Sam Altman 3 months ago:
But it should drive cars? Operate strike drones? Manage infrastructure like power grids and the water supply? Forecast tsunamis?
Too little too late, Sam. 
- Comment on How Disney and Warner Bros. Are Causing Internet Piracy to Boom | Platforms like Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+ were supposed to do away with pirated media. Instead, they may make them stronger than ever. 4 months ago:
So much this! None of it is worth our time. The Hollywood capitalism machine has just gotten really good at making people believe that every film or show is going to be the next important cultural touchstone and if you don’t see it you will be left out. But after it goes off the air and people stop talking about it, none of it really mattered. “Fast content” is like “fast fashion” - designed to be disposable and to keep consumers paying for it over and over.
- Comment on Elon Musk's X claims it's now a 'video-first platform' as it tries to reverse an advertiser exodus that has cost it billions in value 4 months ago:
I look forward to the drunk cheeseburger eating.
- Comment on Neo-Nazi podcasters sent to prison on terror charges for targeting Prince Harry and his young son 4 months ago:
Right? Clearly this is the only DNA that should propagate. Look at these handsome specimen! /s