• 2 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: November 25th, 2023

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  • One author (Daniel) correctly predicted chain-of-thought reasoning, inference scaling, and sweeping chip export controls one year BEFORE ChatGPT existed

    Ah, this reminds me of an old book I came across years ago. Printed around 1920 it spent the first half with examples of how the future has been foretold correctly many, many times across history. The author had also made several correct foretellings, among them the Great War. Apparently he tried to warn the Kaiser.

    The second half was his visions of the future including a great war…

    Unfortunately it was France and Russia invading the Nordic countries in the 1930ies. The Franco-Russian alliance almost got beat thanks to new electric weapons, but then God himself intervened and brought the defenders low because the people had been sining and turning away from Christianity.

    An early clue to the author being a bit particular was when he argued that he got his ability to predict the future because he was one quarter Sami, but could still be trusted because he was “3/4 solid Nordic stock”. Best combo apparently and a totally normal way to describe yourself.




  • I usually go with “Scientology for the 21st century”. That for most gives just “weird cult”, which is close enough for most people.

    For those that are into weird cults you get questions about Xenu and such, and can answer “No they are not into Xenu, instead they want to build their god. Out of chatbots”. And so on. If they are interested in weird cult shit, and have already accepted that we are talking about weird cults the weirdness isn’t a problem. If not, it stops at “Scientology for the 21st century”.







  • Something I have been pondering is why when going after Bitcoin from crimes (ransom or stolen) they don’t just declare the individual “coins” stemming from illegal proceedings and that when they show up the “coins” will be confiscated and the holders investigated for money laundering. They have a serial number of sorts, right?

    It should decrease the trade value of the “coins”, might even have the added benefit of scaring people of from the scam currencies. Ay, there might be the rub, for in this modern world of ours suppressing financial “innovations” is treated as worse than scams.







  • Pondering where we are heading, I think the tech monopolies will get larger. The companies in a monopolistic position can raise the prices, right now officially because they have added new shiny AI functions nobody wants. After the crash they will raise prices to recoup losses. Microsoft is already rising prices across the board.

    The companies that makes their products worse and more expensive and can’t recoup losses through monopoly, well they crash and/ or are bought up. The result is a more monopolistic tech sector, leading to more monopoly rents, worse wages etc.

    When I was younger and more idealistically hopeful, I would have added that this would give incentives for switching to FOSS. These days I just think the now even stronger monopolies will work even harder to co-opt or squeeze out any competition.



  • I was going to write that it was good that you didn’t say “um” all the time. (Being silent in pauses is in my experience a learned skill for most people and one that comes once one has heard oneself say “um” too many times.)

    The sound was fine. I think your (Jabra?) headset did its job unless that was also the result of editing.

    The imagery got a bit distracting because you look to the side of the camera. No problem for podcasts, but for video it’s better to look straight at the camera to look at the audience so to speak. (Also a learnt skill.) So maybe a webcam you can place in front of the screen you are presumably reading of?

    No idea about marketing a YouTube, but you got in the “like and subscribe”, so that is probably good.