I’m reading AI content there, and when I post, I’m getting accused of being a bot / using an LLM. Fantastic.

Unexpected - I thought flying would be by magnitudes safer than anything, but it’s in the same magnitude as bus, and not even train is x10. I always thought that all those safety regulations were unnecessary, just compensating for some psychological factor of how it FEELS dangerous due to overreporting, history and other factors. But apparently, they are needed so it just remains barely safer than other forms of public transportation.

Seeing what happens when the US just stops helping makes me realise: The good they did as a superpower over the decades isn’t talked about as much as the bad. Obviously now, there is plenty of that, too.

In order to change the degree so that it allows studying in many universities abroad (such as Germany), this would be needed:

• functions and graphs, mostly R->R
  • general analysis, continuity, function as a specific type of relation
  • series, sums, limits
  • derivatives
  • integration
    • numerical
    • basic approaches and when to use which
    • a few common “tricks”
• proofs: very basic direct, induction, contradiction will do
• set theory
• Vectors, limited to R³, line, plane, rotation. Very basic matrices
• introduction to imaginary numbers
• stochastics & probability

It’s based on my subjective impression of weaknesses in the few Americans studying in Germany that I know.

The absurd “pizza-gate” suddenly makes sense.

Ideas?

• CO2 tax - if it’d be high enough to completely pay for the damage, this shit would stop pretty fast. But even less than that would help. Alternative: Certificates without loopholes. Some use would survive, e. g. an IT professional would still use $ 50 worth of energy per day if it gives a 10 % productivity boost, but models would start consolidating and use all tricks to keep it efficient, rather than push out whatever they can. Only works when imports from regions that refuse to participate are taxed when imported, or outright banned.
• Huge advantage of machine learning: The “when” is completely flexible. Could just use excess power from renewable peaks, or even nuclear & coal nightly production. But as long as it’s cheap enough to just make more power around the clock: Why should they? They won’t do it voluntarily. Solutions could start with a “green” label for consumers, but that would probably not do that much. It also won’t help when we force them to use 100 % renewables and nuclear, and then they just buy all solar panels and wind turbines off the market leaving us with higher costs and trouble switching to net 0
• Evaluate the market and identify the bubble. Does an AI focussed company make conservative use of existing capabilities, without overhyping them, or put their money on likely near-future developments, or depend entirely on optimistic future capabilities?
• With such measures in place, we’d still have the models they trained so far. They’d eventually plateau anyway (or already have). When training of new models stops, as we make it too expensive to spend a lot of power for a tiny improvement, a good part of the power waste stops.

Not tough enough for a true wakeup call. Wipe it all off, and replace with:

• Your friends think you’re stupid!
• All the other kids are staring at you!
• Mommy and Daddy fight because of something you did!
• You walk funny!

tbf, getting shot in the face IS one of the better interactions you can have with Dick Cheney.

I mean, which one would you pick?

• waterboarded at home
• sent to allied torture prison abroad
• accidentally groped during family Christmas photo
• he jumps awkwardly onto your presidential campaign train last minute and you lose it
• shot in the face

Dick Cheney was among the worst in an administration that disrespected human rights, international law, honesty, trustworthiness and set the US reputation as well as the fight against global warming way back.

Usually, that probably would have been my last thought of him.

Except, we have this crazy timeline. This timeline, in which he was able to stand out just by pointing out that he is still in favour of free elections. At least that was still a given in his time, even though the decision about the loss of Al Gore was considered controversial by some back then.

A low bar, a low bar indeed. But here we go, on this positive note: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6Nq9SpGzic

Great cat. But a little disappointed - I was expecting legendary mischief stories.

Could be even worse, look at what happened to Stauffenberg’s family.

Arguable whether he signed up for that.

Fight and die in defence of a NATO ally? Yes. Same as the aggressor, if the elected government decides so, such as in Iraq? Also yes.

Risk having his wife, children, grandchildren taken away and put in Sippenhaft (collective punishment) or put in a reeducation orphanage? Not sure there is a moral obligation to that. Safety for his family was one of the things he got out of all this.

His risks for resisting beyond what he already did are higher than they would be for the average citizen. On the other hand, he also could do more than the average citizen.

A tough call, and I would not judge.

There is absolutely no legitimate reason to implement “cloud” storage or backup in a way that does not encrypt on the client side, with open, verifiable standard if not open source for the client software, in such a way that it can’t be read by the provider.

I remember when I got PGP mid 90s and thought: Wow, in 6 months, everybody will use it! Yet it never caught on. User stupidity, elitism or a bit of both?

At the height of pre-encryption WhatsApp I remember talking about PGP to some younger relatives about the problem of intercepted messages, and they had a hard time believing that we had “access to that kind of technology” in the 90s.

Somehow, they managed to normalise sending your stuff out there based entirely on trust in corporations and governments, although the problem was solved technically long ago.

Problem is: They fight back by introducing “convenience” that only works in clouds they can access, such as “AI” in Google or Apple Images. E. g. you can enter “cat” and it will show all your cat photos.

But I got to admit that I TALK a lot about a switching to a self-hosted image solution such as PhotoPrism, but lack in execution, other than putting it on my todo-list.

Yes, it’ll all be about “unity” and “healing”.

Note that even in Germany post WW II, where a real effort was made and at least the official line was uncompromising, the large majority of Nazis and their ideas in politics, society, law, industry GOs and NGOs died slowly of old age over the next 50 years. Without that effort, even a future Democratic president (if even possible) would just be a waiting game for the next Trump.

It does feel delightfully lazy to pick a recipe and send the settings with one tap. But the forced rate-or-skip spoils much of the fun.

Also basically, it’s time and temperature. It’s not like a Fallout-style robot that cooks complex meals for me. Could do without.

PHILIPS HD9880/90 Airfryer Combi XXL. I can select a recipe in the app and send it, so the settings are perfect for that.

But the downside is that it goes off like a smoke detector and blocks all controls and display until I rate the recipe or select “skip”, on the air fryer display.

But if it’s voluntary, it’s not smart to sound like “you are an idiot and I don’t like you”. Especially people with mental or legal problems might avoid a situation where they are being confronted about their faults.

I didn’t doubt it; it was just so odd.

Why does it look like previous generation generative AI, where everybody looked the same?

I’m a huge fan of Amazon’s user experience, how well the product selection, checkout and everything works. For some people with ADHD, seniors, the impatient etc. it’s particularly tempting.

As things got worse, in terms of politics and workers’ rights, I checked out alternatives more. And in many cases, it was about just as convenient. Even small shops, such as buying directly from the manufacturer, often have a simple PayPal or similar checkout which is equally convenient, and it’s not rare that it’s cheaper. Even if they don’t have that, browser support to enter the address and credit card details makes a 1-time purchase less of a hassle than it used to be.

The big national alternatives, e. g. in Germany Otto, Alternate, Thalia for books … are more often than not pretty good too, as they had Amazon as a competitor for years and survived.

Not sure what kind of “together” we can have. Working with anti-MAGA conservatives is supposedly wrong, working with (even anti Netanyahu) Israel supporters is supposedly wrong - won’t get a majority that way.