Nostr notes by Peter Ludemann

Ah, "diplomatic" language. (Or did they actually mean ...

2026-10-21T17:59:13Z

In reply to nevent1q…wf5f
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Ah, "diplomatic" language. (Or did they actually mean what they said?)

Bugs age like milk, not like wine. @npub1lq6…nf7e

2026-10-14T19:09:05Z

In reply to nevent1q…dfrw
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Bugs age like milk, not like wine. Lauren Weinstein (npub1lq6…nf7e)

It's not over until it's over.

2026-10-08T06:35:12Z

In reply to nevent1q…tg26
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It's not over until it's over.

Then I suppose you'll just have to take my word for it. 😹

2026-09-30T06:05:33Z

In reply to nevent1q…fa7s
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Then I suppose you'll just have to take my word for it. 😹

Have you tried its voice input? 🤣🤣🥰

2026-09-30T05:41:51Z

In reply to nevent1q…8gtf
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Have you tried its voice input? 🤣🤣🥰

Are you saying that the immobilization problem is unsolvable or ...

2026-09-30T05:23:17Z

In reply to nevent1q…t3mz
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Are you saying that the immobilization problem is unsolvable or that the self-driving companies don't want to spend the money to solve it? (Much as automakers didn't want to solve the problem of making cars safer in a crash until they were forced to install seatbelts and design crumple zones and provide antilock brakes)

My preference is to not put life&death decisions about ...

2026-09-30T04:20:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…zkg7
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My preference is to not put life&death decisions about treatment authorization in the hands of billionaire health insurance executives, or food safety in the hands of giant food corporation executives, or airplane safety in the hands of "self certification" Boeing executives, etc etc; all of whom are maximizing "shareholder value" and their own wealth (not necessarily in that order)...
but here we are.

By comparison, self-driving cars appear to provide significant benefits compared to their risks and also compared with human drivers (Waymo might "kidnap" passengers at the directive of police but it's not going to assault a woman passenger).

Conversely, human drivers can do some pretty horrific things also ...

2026-09-30T00:55:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…265h
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Conversely, human drivers can do some pretty horrific things also (see lawsuits against Uber for assaults) and have a much worse overall driving safety record, anecdotes about self-driving notwithstanding. It's a question of risk trade-offs - which is a common situation in life (e.g. the benefits of a medication vs the side-effects).

If the public numbers are wrong, what are the actual numbers? ...

2026-09-23T19:51:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…5yyx
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If the public numbers are wrong, what are the actual numbers? 🤔😁

Yes, but that wasn't my point. :)

2026-09-23T19:10:56Z

In reply to nevent1q…y7q8
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Yes, but that wasn't my point. :)

YouTube has "improved" its method of counting views ...

2026-09-23T18:59:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…csjz
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YouTube has "improved" its method of counting views https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/433409976/an-update-to-how-we-count-public-views-across-youtube

First search result: ...

2026-09-23T16:51:23Z

In reply to nevent1q…07pr
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First search result: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian-head_test_pattern

Cheech & Ching's "movie about Indians, but it's ...

2026-09-23T12:27:19Z

In reply to nevent1q…sn35
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Cheech & Ching's "movie about Indians, but it's really boring, man"?

I'm surprised you've taken this long to finally ...

2026-09-23T00:20:52Z

In reply to nevent1q…y3ra
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I'm surprised you've taken this long to finally experience crap automated customer "service" with almost no way of reaching an intelligent human.

So, just like most software.

2026-09-17T00:11:40Z

In reply to nevent1q…gr5z
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So, just like most software.

Is this the best description of risk-limiting audits? ...

2026-09-15T22:50:23Z

In reply to nevent1q…kpqv
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Is this the best description of risk-limiting audits? https://verifiedvoting.org/audits/whatisrla/
[@trollball.bsky.social](https://bsky.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/trollball.bsky.social )

And if the audit fails, there's a full hand-count? ...

2026-09-15T22:43:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…7r60
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And if the audit fails, there's a full hand-count?
[@trollball.bsky.social](https://bsky.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/trollball.bsky.social )

What happens if the audit shows a problem? There are no do-overs, ...

2026-09-15T22:09:34Z

In reply to nevent1q…ud05
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What happens if the audit shows a problem? There are no do-overs, correct?
[@trollball.bsky.social](https://bsky.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/trollball.bsky.social )

Do they get earplugs? (Data centers are made of “razor blades ...

2026-09-12T21:45:15Z

In reply to nevent1q…xedz
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Do they get earplugs?
(Data centers are made of “razor blades and hate” but I'm guessing you're not proposing that they actually touch the hardware?)
210kur (npub1cdq…t63g)

I never used TENEX but worked with someone who had ... I was ...

2026-09-03T19:37:25Z

In reply to nevent1q…53ck
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I never used TENEX but worked with someone who had ... I was assigned the task of designing a dial-up tty app for 2-dimensional layout of real estate newspaper ads ... I used the TENEX design principles and deployed the app with 1-page of documentation, most of which was taken up with how to set the DIP switches on the tty, dial in, login in and type "?" - and gave the phone number for our help desk. We deployed to several hundred offices (the app was used by the receptionists) and didn't receive a single help desk call.

Hybrid UIs that combined the best of CLI and GUI existed 50+ ...

2026-09-03T11:23:18Z

In reply to nevent1q…r00l
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Hybrid UIs that combined the best of CLI and GUI existed 50+ years ago (TENEX) but everyone still follows the Mac GUI that had to fit into 128K of RAM, with more restrictions due to using ROM or the Unix shell that prioritizes terseness over usability (bash has some semi-useless workarounds)

Lake Ontario isn't the hill I'd choose to die on. But ...

2026-08-31T10:31:53Z

In reply to nevent1q…s9ly
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Lake Ontario isn't the hill I'd choose to die on.
But it's interesting to compare with Google's actions in China (MSFT complied IIRC). Or are the two things comparable?
Todd Knarr (npub1x0p…wlp9)

https://substack.com/@albertcory50/note/c-325879955?r=3pn95

2026-08-30T23:44:56Z

In reply to nevent1q…lvry
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https://substack.com/@albertcory50/note/c-325879955?r=3pn95

They also use Wago connectors rather than wire nuts.

2026-08-29T22:09:47Z

In reply to nevent1q…usfh
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They also use Wago connectors rather than wire nuts.

Why isn't this a problem in Germany? @npub15l0…7ggh

2026-08-29T21:50:19Z

In reply to nevent1q…zdsv
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Why isn't this a problem in Germany?
Ben Stokman (npub15l0…7ggh)

So, Carnegie was an OK guy after all? /s ...

2026-08-25T19:04:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…pvzr
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So, Carnegie was an OK guy after all? /s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_library

I suppose the communication disconnect is that those of us ...

2026-08-25T10:48:36Z

In reply to nevent1q…7lqe
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I suppose the communication disconnect is that those of us without your detailed knowledge and analysis have no good way of properly evaluating it.

It's like when I've designed computer systems and haven't been able to say anything more reassuring than "trust me, this system will do what you really want even though you don't know what you really want" ... I've been right 9 times out of 10 and I'm hoping Professor Blaze is right 999 out of 1000, especially as the system (which has since been improved) has shown some spectacular failures (eg, Gore vs Bush)

rk: it’s hyphen-minus actually (npub1mzg…l2g4) Jonathan Hartley (npub1g0u…8ncn)

The professionals can remain calm because they think they can see ...

2026-08-25T10:23:27Z

In reply to nevent1q…7w9c
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The professionals can remain calm because they think they can see past the chaos monkey strategy of flinging feces everywhere - the strategy of no strategy but simply looking for an opening to appear from the ensuing mess.

What I don't know is how resilient the system is, especially faced with people who just want to see the world burn. We're like people living on the 50th floor of an apartment building in an earthquake zone ... the engineers have done the calculations and it should be safe but ...

The person doing my echocardiogram said that they worked a few ...

2026-08-22T19:55:25Z

In reply to nevent1q…nt43
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The person doing my echocardiogram said that they worked a few months at one place and then moved on, and that this was quite common.Similar situation?

With renewables, energy usage isn't an issue. ...

2026-08-07T09:01:37Z

In reply to nevent1q…nqm0
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With renewables, energy usage isn't an issue.
Tim Bray 🇨🇦 (npub19ua…53cv) @robpike.io (npub1wxz…ndds)

That argument might work if LLMs were precise. But they can't ...

2026-08-05T23:43:31Z

In reply to nevent1q…p5lp
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That argument might work if LLMs were precise. But they can't even do arithmetic and the code I've seen was barely junior programmer quality.
@robpike.io (npub1wxz…ndds) Tim Bray 🇨🇦 (npub19ua…53cv)

That's like saying we don't need any master bricklayers ...

2026-08-05T23:01:33Z

In reply to nevent1q…klzk
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That's like saying we don't need any master bricklayers or stonemasons or carpenters because anybody can lay bricks or cut stones or hammer nails ... and who cares what happens in a few decades when the quality difference becomes obvious. (Not that a lot of software is of high quality today but I digress)
@robpike.io (npub1wxz…ndds) Tim Bray 🇨🇦 (npub19ua…53cv)

If you know how to get UL to change its stupid regulation about ...

2026-08-03T22:36:24Z

In reply to nevent1q…cse8
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If you know how to get UL to change its stupid regulation about maximum hot tub heater temperature, please tell me - I tried writing to them but no response.

BTW, most Japanese baths and hot springs are hotter than the ...

2026-08-03T22:28:48Z

In reply to nevent1q…8h7w
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BTW, most Japanese baths and hot springs are hotter than the limit (104⁰F/40⁰C) that UL imposes on hot tub heaters for "health" reasons - hot water can allegedly cause strokes, which means that 100 million people daily risk their life... except that life expectancy in Japan is significantly higher than in the US. Thanks, UL.
(And saunas in Germany and Japan (and presumably Finland) are much hotter than in the US and of course they allow löyly, unlike most saunas in the US.

(UL: Underwriters Laboratories)

Also at Japanese public baths (sentō), the woman collecting ...

2026-08-03T22:24:10Z

In reply to nevent1q…8h7w
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Also at Japanese public baths (sentō), the woman collecting payments can see into both the men's and women's change rooms. She seems bored. In the men's bath area, you can hear the women chatting and laughing, although it's difficult to make out the words.
Most modern homes and apartments have their own baths and sentō are sadly disappearing.

Also, in Japan, I've been using the urinal when a cleaning lady came in and started mopping. No big deal.

I hadn't realized that you also comment on San Francisco.

2026-08-03T21:18:47Z

In reply to nevent1q…76z4
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I hadn't realized that you also comment on San Francisco.

Meh, the sauna at the Munich Hilton had a sign saying no bathing ...

2026-08-03T20:47:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…mume
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Meh, the sauna at the Munich Hilton had a sign saying no bathing suits (and a reminder to wear a swimsuit to the pool) and was mixed gender. Not designed for Americans, I suppose. And there was a nude sunbathing area at the big park downtown.
And of course Japanese public baths and hot springs are no swimsuits, although there are very few mixed gender left. (It helps to be able to read 男 and 女 although sometimes other words are used such as 紳士)

Do American workers have a reasonable expectation of privacy when ...

2026-07-24T22:44:43Z

In reply to nevent1q…svlx
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Do American workers have a reasonable expectation of privacy when at work? It would be ironic if POWs have more rights than employees.

The speedometer could have been designed to go to 70, with a ...

2026-07-23T02:43:25Z

In reply to nevent1q…m9px
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The speedometer could have been designed to go to 70, with a limiter on the engine so that it can't go faster. The technology for doing this has existed since the steam engine and it's not expensive (I have driven a 1952 M35 that had a 55mph limiter)
John Morris (npub1hkr…pcdj)

Maybe people have learned from what happened when car ...

2026-07-23T02:38:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…680v
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Maybe people have learned from what happened when car manufacturers (and oil companies) weren't made responsible. (I'm joking of course... most people have been thoroughly indoctrinated in car-worship)
John Morris (npub1hkr…pcdj)

If it wasn't safe, would the speedometer go to 120? ...

2026-07-23T02:32:41Z

In reply to nevent1q…ejzh
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If it wasn't safe, would the speedometer go to 120?
John Morris (npub1hkr…pcdj)

Can we sue car manufacturers because we know that some people ...

2026-07-23T02:26:00Z

In reply to nevent1q…cfws
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Can we sue car manufacturers because we know that some people will go 100mph on a winding country road and kill a bicyclist (this recently happened near where I live and I can almost guarantee that the driver will get at most a slap on the wrist and won't even lose his driver's licence).
I don't see much hope for anything stronger applying to BigTech but I applaud your enthusiasm.
Lauren Weinstein (npub1lq6…nf7e)

Clandestine copies of Adventure circulated inside IBM in the 80s ...

2026-07-21T18:18:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…mt6z
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Clandestine copies of Adventure circulated inside IBM in the 80s ... the IT folks regularly scanned disks for the executables but apparently didn't understand simple encryption.
Some people had function keys set up with the first moves of the game because there wasn't a way to save the game state.

There is, of course, this alternative to the complicated ...

2026-07-21T05:29:52Z

In reply to nevent1q…a5wv
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There is, of course, this alternative to the complicated elections

Someone once told me that everyone has two personalities -- their ...

2026-07-17T16:58:07Z

In reply to nevent1q…jmmt
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Someone once told me that everyone has two personalities -- their normal personality and their under-stress personality -- and the two can be very different. I would add a third: social-media personality, also different from the other two.

He likes to block people. Seems to get a lot of crank ...

2026-07-17T05:14:56Z

In reply to nevent1q…9q2c
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He likes to block people. Seems to get a lot of crank voting-related messages.

Matt Blaze seems to think otherwise and he has far more expertise ...

2026-07-17T05:03:41Z

In reply to nevent1q…h6s6
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Matt Blaze seems to think otherwise and he has far more expertise in election fraud than me.

Understood. I am simply wondering whether the removal of ...

2026-07-17T05:01:37Z

In reply to nevent1q…yq4l
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Understood. I am simply wondering whether the removal of thousands of people from the voter lists had a noticeable effect at voting time. Especially if that state didn't have a mechanism on election day for re-registering people who had been left off the lists.

Wasn't there a major problem in Florida 2000 & 2004, when ...

2026-07-17T04:56:39Z

In reply to nevent1q…sgmc
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Wasn't there a major problem in Florida 2000 & 2004, when some automated process removed thousands of people from the voter rolls? Or did those people get notified that they had been removed, so they didn't cause a noticeable blip when showing up to vote? (Or removals were reversed?)

(All because the Constitution doesn't say that all citizens have the right to vote, but I digress)

But if foreign governments are attacking databases, might they be ...

2026-07-17T04:44:35Z

In reply to nevent1q…e5ne
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But if foreign governments are attacking databases, might they be removing registrations for people they think will vote in a particular way - and be much more effective in affecting the outcome than the SAVE Act?
Or were the databases simply corrupted, making the voting process more chaotic but not actually affecting the recording and tabulation of votes?

Doesn't the Constitution say that the states control how ...

2026-07-16T18:56:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…nj92
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Doesn't the Constitution say that the states control how voting is done, and not the federal government?

You meant to say "the shills for Big Business and especially ...

2026-07-14T21:45:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…3wva
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You meant to say "the shills for Big Business and especially for Big Oil, Big 'Health', Big Tech".

So far, at least in the US, the liability laws have been mostly ...

2026-07-05T17:50:27Z

In reply to nevent1q…2xfp
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So far, at least in the US, the liability laws have been mostly enforced by class-action suits, which take years to adjudicate and can be complicated (for example, the Bayer/RoundUp decision, not to mention pardons for those who cheated on air pollution standards). Those suits are better than nothing but don't seem to have stopped a lot of bad behaviour.

(Lawyers have benefitted the most from the class-action suits - I don't begrudge them their part of the settlement because they take the cases on contingency and the government - both D and R - hasn't been doing its job)
(The EU has been more proactive than the US)

IOW, you want LLMs treated like employees and Google-et-al want ...

2026-07-05T17:36:18Z

In reply to nevent1q…cr3p
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IOW, you want LLMs treated like employees and Google-et-al want them treated like contractors or 3rd parties (like advertisers), as far as liability goes. (Although "employee" laws vary quite a bit by country and the US has some of the poorest laws in the world; it also has some of the poorest privacy laws)

I have very mixed feelings about AIOs ... they've been able ...

2026-07-05T17:34:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…gtlg
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I have very mixed feelings about AIOs ... they've been able to find things that I'd have had a lot of trouble finding with regular Search (just as Google's search was a major improvement over TF-IDF search, although TF-IDF does better for some kinds of information).

A programmer I very much respect has been successfully using Claude to clean up a lot of stale bugs (stale because they weren't easy to fix, difficult to reproduce, only showed up on one platform, etc.), but I don't think someone less capable than him (including me) would have been able to do this nearly as well.

I also agree that AIOs can be dangerous - just as Free Speech can be dangerous - and it's very difficult to draw the boundaries (see, for example, "hate speech" and political lies). The genie is out of the bottle and won't go back in; how do we deal with it?

BTW, that German court did little more than treat Google's ...

2026-07-05T17:19:13Z

In reply to nevent1q…kwn8
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BTW, that German court did little more than treat Google's "AI" similarly to how it would treat an employee making a public statement. Somehow, corporations have been able to deal with the liabilities of employees misbehaving, so they should also be able to figure out how to deal with "AI" misbehaving.

Not to disagree with you about "trust aura around SERPs" ...

2026-07-05T17:17:36Z

In reply to nevent1q…t8uh
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Not to disagree with you about "trust aura around SERPs" but have you tried searching for anything related to health, for example? (IOW, it's a false "trust" but I agree that it exists)

As the original Eliza showed, humans are easily tricked into ...

2026-07-05T17:04:24Z

In reply to nevent1q…8u3g
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As the original Eliza showed, humans are easily tricked into believing that a machine is authoritative. But they're also easily tricked into believing that what's in a newspaper or on a TV "news" show is authoritative. To me, it's a spectrum of unreliable information; but for most people, the media matters (as Marshal McLuhan pointed out in "The Medium Is the Massage" (not "message")).

No, I'm just more cynical than you.

2026-07-05T16:47:11Z

In reply to nevent1q…rxzu
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No, I'm just more cynical than you.

Well, that's no different than almost any other advertising.

2026-07-05T16:33:25Z

In reply to nevent1q…ejpu
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Well, that's no different than almost any other advertising.

Humans often mix up Frankenstein and Frankenstein's monster. ...

2026-07-05T16:27:52Z

In reply to nevent1q…xn38
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Humans often mix up Frankenstein and Frankenstein's monster. So what?

Unpopular opinion ... The Founding Fathers deserve a little bit ...

2026-07-05T16:21:33Z

In reply to nevent1q…hatl
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Unpopular opinion ... The Founding Fathers deserve a little bit of disrespect, as do most Famous People In History. "Worship Words" are not useful when drained of meaning. (And, yes, I understand your dislike of "AI", but the advert is mostly not about that)

One of Canada's main "founding fathers" and 2nd longest serving Prime Minister was well known to be an alcoholic and Canadian kids are taught about his many flaws (and achievements). Almost nothing is named after him, although his face was on $10 bills for a while. This is widely considered to be a Good Thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._Macdonald#Legacy_and_memorials

Deification of the "Founding Fathers" is not helpful. Critical examination of what they did (both good and bad) - that's helpful. And if it takes a bit of "disrespect" to do that, why not?

There's an ongoing attempt to name a bridge after the emperor ...

2026-06-28T23:43:19Z

In reply to nevent1q…mr5f
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There's an ongoing attempt to name a bridge after the emperor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor_Norton_Trust#%22Emperor_Norton_Bridge%22_advocacy,_2013%E2%80%93present
Why not? Pete Seeger immortalized the boxes in a song https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boxes , so renaming a bridge seems reasonable to me (and, yes, this a non sequitur but so is San Francisco)

So the decision isn't a precedent that allows the President ...

2026-06-25T17:02:43Z

In reply to nevent1q…d0tk
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So the decision isn't a precedent that allows the President to arrogate the application of any law that he doesn't like? That's what had me worried (separately there's the chaos added to helpless people's lives).

I wonder if this usage of the word "spam" had any effect, ...

2026-06-25T16:58:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…9z7d
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I wonder if this usage of the word "spam" had any effect, positive or negative, on the sales of Spam. (Spam musubi is surprisingly tasty, I discovered in Hawaii - I've never seen it in Japan, where there are many variants on o-musibi/o-nigiri)

TIL that TPS was created by Congress and not just an Executive ...

2026-06-25T16:52:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…vzj8
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TIL that TPS was created by Congress and not just an Executive Order. I cannot understand the legal theory behind that decision, but I suppose that's because I'm not a lawyer.

There are good human drivers? (Present company included)

2026-06-18T15:20:10Z

In reply to nevent1q…uh9t
_________________________

There are good human drivers? (Present company included)

That's what California human drivers do anyway ...

2026-06-18T15:09:12Z

In reply to nevent1q…wyav
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That's what California human drivers do anyway ...

What's wrong with whole milk? (Except for lactose ...

2026-06-09T02:09:26Z

In reply to nevent1q…xugr
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What's wrong with whole milk? (Except for lactose intolerance)

When I used MacOS (not recently), I installed the GNU utils ... ...

2026-06-02T23:34:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…gfkl
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When I used MacOS (not recently), I installed the GNU utils ... BSD is fine as an OS but their philosophy for tools is too conservative (GNU is too liberal, but I can easily ignore the stuff I don't want to use). ISTR also installing rsync, make and a few others.

So, Ubuntu will be shipping the latest updates to rsync? ...

2026-06-02T21:20:32Z

In reply to nevent1q…yj3e
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So, Ubuntu will be shipping the latest updates to rsync?
https://social.treehouse.systems/@thesamesam/116662824873341085
https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/116671089723559128

Wasn't that about the time that the acronym "RTFM" ...

2026-05-23T21:53:31Z

In reply to nevent1q…qqcs
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Wasn't that about the time that the acronym "RTFM" came into widespread use? (comp.lang.c became unusable every September)

You were fortunate to only have had to deal with Arpanet and uucp ...

2026-05-23T20:59:00Z

In reply to nevent1q…yyvp
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You were fortunate to only have had to deal with Arpanet and uucp ... we un-Americans had to also deal with other gateways and I recall the joys of figuring out the correct incantation of "!", "@", "%" to send/receive email (Bitnet, Fidonet, and others I no longer remember)
Even though email was primitive in those days, it really helped ... I was working with an Australian researcher and we could usually get 2 messages back-and-forth per day, even with the timezone differences and store-and-forward delays. And Usenet was fabulous in the days before undergrads were allowed on (and in my somewhat esoteric area, even after AOLers were allowed on).

Was there a bang-path that didn't go through ucbvax? (Or one ...

2026-05-23T20:10:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…skm7
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Was there a bang-path that didn't go through ucbvax? (Or one of the others in your signature)

I still use numbers to reach my router. ;) But if the majority of ...

2026-05-23T20:07:11Z

In reply to nevent1q…8n9y
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I still use numbers to reach my router. ;) But if the majority of folklore says (and I don't know the folklore) that pre-DNS required using numbers, what's a poor AI to do? Send a DM to Lauren, asking for verification? (I wonder what "AI" would tell me about bang-paths ...).

"It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so"

I was just wondering how this could be fixed, and a UX fix ...

2026-05-19T00:16:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…55k3
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I was just wondering how this could be fixed, and a UX fix isn't obvious to me. But if the AI companies were faced with some serious penalties (executives going to jail or fines that have a significant effect on the corporation's bottom line / stock price) I suspect they could be quite creative in responding.

But putting in all the caveats would make the response read like ...

2026-05-18T21:18:40Z

In reply to nevent1q…pgja
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But putting in all the caveats would make the response read like a piece of badly written legalese (yes, I'm being redundant).
An interesting problem...

Google Superroot (for search) has timeouts for the various ...

2026-05-18T19:10:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…c7rv
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Google Superroot (for search) has timeouts for the various sub-queries, which leads to non-determinism in search results, causing varying amounts of inaccuracy (and that's without things like failed spam detection, deliberate misinformation, link farming, etc.).
Misinformation has been around since writing was invented, and long before that I'm sure; humans seem to be only partially capable of detecting it. Computer-produced misinformation has a patina of authenticity, similar to the opinion pages of the WSJ, articles in The Economist, government notices, CBS news, and even articles in The New York Post or Breitbart.

Seems to be a lot of non-determinism there ... when I tried it, I ...

2026-05-18T18:45:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…y6ea
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Seems to be a lot of non-determinism there ... when I tried it, I got correct answers (including https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/characters/nm0002121/) but also a link to an utterly unrelated (except for the title) YouTube snippet. Maybe there's a lot of pressure on the servers, causing timeouts for retrieving critical pieces of information? (I'm not excusing wrong answers; just hypothesizing another cause of "AI" failures beyond just the fundamental technology issues)

But regular Google search did ok for me. So, do we have something ...

2026-05-18T17:51:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…n404
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But regular Google search did ok for me. So, do we have something like the opinion writers at the WSJ who appear to not read the news pages of the WSJ? 🤡

Bringing responsibility to "AI" could also be a first ...

2026-05-18T16:59:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…88qf
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Bringing responsibility to "AI" could also be a first step (a precedent) in bring responsibility to corporations. After all, the Supreme Court has said that they are "persons" in terms of speech, so why not in other aspects?
AI6YR Ben (npub1ucv…5a8g)

Replace "AI" with "corporations" and you'd ...

2026-05-18T16:40:56Z

In reply to nevent1q…9eqj
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Replace "AI" with "corporations" and you'd fix a lot of flaws in capitalism. A few CEOs going to jail would do wonders to corporate governance ("pour encourager les autres"). Especially if "I didn't know" wasn't allowed as a defence (it's the CxOs' jobs to know and to insure that they know).

(This wouldn't fix all of capitalism, despite what libertarians might think; but having "skin in the game" usually improves outcomes)
Dźwiedziu (npub1stm…7vfs) AI6YR Ben (npub1ucv…5a8g)

TVs in those days no longer had round CRTs, so I wonder what ...

2026-05-16T03:58:42Z

In reply to nevent1q…9vjk
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TVs in those days no longer had round CRTs, so I wonder what prompted that retro look (it would have been cool to have everything in Art Deco style, but they went with more of a mid-century look)

I suppose they hadn't watched 2001.

2026-05-15T17:55:51Z

In reply to nevent1q…dsl4
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I suppose they hadn't watched 2001.

Something similar could be said about most SciFi movies (e.g. the ...

2026-05-15T17:42:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…uwwt
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Something similar could be said about most SciFi movies (e.g. the first Star Wars). Because, in the end, most SciFi (esp. space opera) is only incidentally about science. And most "historical" movies get big parts of the history wrong, for the same reason.

Do rants ever avail?

2026-04-14T08:23:16Z

In reply to nevent1q…8mwa
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Do rants ever avail?

The university mainframe had some PDP-11 frontend communication ...

2026-03-20T18:06:36Z

In reply to nevent1q…n3gs
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The university mainframe had some PDP-11 frontend communication controllers (the less said about IBM's 3705, the better). One day, the DEC repairman came in to fix one of the PDP-11s, hooked up his oscilloscope, and the mainframe went dark. It turned out that there was a floating ground and when the oscilloscope was used, it connected the floating ground to the real ground and blew the fuses (and some other things - there was probably smoke from the oscilloscope and/or the PDP-11).
Matt Panaro (npub146z…8pmv)

Despite REXX being able to do anything that JCL does (and much ...

2026-03-20T17:00:54Z

In reply to nevent1q…yml0
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Despite REXX being able to do anything that JCL does (and much much more). I still have nightmares about the thousands of lines of assembler I wrote to work around deficiencies in OS/370 and JCL (if you have C code that runs on mainframes and opens files by name (instead of by ddname), you can thank me).

The Unix Haters Handbook is mostly the X11 and csh haters ...

2026-03-20T16:47:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…0ypa
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The Unix Haters Handbook is mostly the X11 and csh haters handbook. And nobody has bothered to do a Windows Haters Handbook (or VMS or z/OS).

Although there are some less than ideal parts of Unix, many of which were fixed in Plan9. And cdecl is a lifesaver whenever I'm writing C.

Yeah, the startup time of the Linux subsystem is annoying (and ...

2026-03-20T15:48:53Z

In reply to nevent1q…gld2
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Yeah, the startup time of the Linux subsystem is annoying (and Debian is rather conservative in its update policy, so I have to build a number of apps by hand). But the integration is pretty good - I can run X-based apps with cut&paste working almost all the time (e.g., emacs).
But for me, the big advantage of the ChromeBook is that it lets me do a remote wipe if I lose it while travelling.

You may want to install the GNU utilities because the BSD ones ...

2026-03-19T21:09:12Z

In reply to nevent1q…4yp8
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You may want to install the GNU utilities because the BSD ones are a bit minimalist. I think I used homebrew or macports ... I had a work Mac and I found it annoyingly slightly different from Unix/Linux, even though I understood why Apple had deviated from the "standard" way of doing things. (I now mostly use a fairly beefy Chromebook with a Linux subsystem)

If the President does it, it's not a crime, according to ...

2026-03-14T23:54:23Z

In reply to nevent1q…jd8x
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If the President does it, it's not a crime, according to SCOTUS. (Richard Nixon is soooooo jealous)

As always, you're much too kind.

2026-03-13T18:26:34Z

In reply to nevent1q…40xe
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As always, you're much too kind.

Ideally, education would be tailored for each student. But ...

2026-03-07T18:47:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…5r2q
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Ideally, education would be tailored for each student. But that's wildly expensive (and I'm unconvinced that private schools do that either).

(For myself, back in the Cretaceous period, my "GATE" program consisted being allowed to skip some classes and do what I wanted in the library. This worked fine for me (and I had access to a very good regional library despite being in a small country school); but for my daughter it was terrible, as I found out almost too late. And the "resources" expended on a single GATE student are typically a fraction of those expended on a "special needs" student, even though gifted students also have special needs)

Will they also end programs for children with disabilities, also ...

2026-03-07T16:27:48Z

In reply to nevent1q…cmj3
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Will they also end programs for children with disabilities, also to promote "equality"? Too many people seem to think that "gifted" children don't need help and don't realize how awful regular school can be for them.

I hadn't thought about it that way. Although the converse is ...

2026-03-05T22:28:49Z

In reply to nevent1q…42ke
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I hadn't thought about it that way.
Although the converse is also true ... e.g., attempts to legislate cryptography backdoors based on some horrific incident that "could have been prevented if the terrorists weren't using end-to-end ciphers".

Machines make mistakes. Humans make mistakes. The question is: ...

2026-03-05T20:23:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…4u9n
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Machines make mistakes. Humans make mistakes. The question is: which make more mistakes, cause more deaths/injuries, have worse worst-case scenarios - remember when NORAD's defence systems thought that the moon was an incoming batch of Soviet ICBMs? Or the Soviet Union's radar almost had the same result (thank-you LtCol Stanislav Petrov for correctly judging the situation)? Or when the US Navy shot down Iran Air Flight 655?

Individual incidents such as a Waymo blocking an EMS make headlines. I'm much more interested in the overall statistics, boring though they may be. (And I'll leave you and Brad Templeton to argue the details, if that's what you want to do; but from what I've seen, Waymo makes fewer mistakes than human drivers, on *aggregate*) (Tesla is another story, of course)

PS: I agree that there needs to be a robust discussion of safeguards; but reporting alarmist incidents doesn't contribute to that discussion.

That's even on Fox News' website front page (except ...

2026-03-02T17:13:58Z

In reply to nevent1q…flmg
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That's even on Fox News' website front page (except it's 27%).

Can we still trust BBC? It has a partnership with CBS (since ...

2026-03-02T17:10:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…guts
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Can we still trust BBC? It has a partnership with CBS (since 2017) but maybe that's only for newsgathering.

Not to disagree with you that Something Should Be Done; but with ...

2026-02-24T04:34:45Z

In reply to nevent1q…kw3l
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Not to disagree with you that Something Should Be Done; but with spam, nothing is "simple" or "obvious". And it's impressive how fast spammers figure out to get around the latest antispam tactic. For outgoing spam, many of the techniques used for incoming spam are not available - although other techniques can be used (whether they are sufficient is another question).