• 10 Posts
  • 1.44K Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: January 16th, 2024

help-circle





  • That first picture is great. That’s essentially generative AI, right? You cast out a problem and have it solved multiple times asynchronously, then find the (mean/median/mode) value.

    I do wonder how many of those ladies (weird how “computer” was a largely female profession, and then IT quickly became a largely male profession. Not making any commentary here, just kind of a showerthought observation) got laid off because of the computer. I wonder what they did after their jobs were replaced by it, and if that in turn was a net positive for them/their families.

    I guess this was right around the peak of the babyboom, so I think I know what they did. And for a while there, it was feasible for a typical family to do well on a single income.

    That’d be nice. Maybe next time around we can get it so that families can do well on a single part-time income. Or more gender-equality for who stays home and who works. Hell, I think a lot of families would be happy to be able to do well on two full-time incomes now. But this is getting into the devaluation of human labor now, instead of the evolution of technology.


  • On the one hand, I get it. I really do. It takes an absurd amount of resources for what it does.

    On the other hand, I wonder if people said the same of early generation comptuers. UNIVAC used tubes of mercury for RAM and consumed 125KW of electricity to process a whopping 2k operations per second.

    Probably not. Most people weren’t aware of it, nor did they have a care for power consumption, water consumption, etc. We were in peak-American Exceptionalism in the post-war era.

    But, had they, and computers kinda just…died. Right there, in the 1950s. Would we have gone to the moon? Would we have HDTV? iPhones? Social Media? A treacherous imbecile in charge of the most powerful military the world has ever seen?

    Probably not.

    So…I do worry about the consumption, and the ecological and environmental impact. But, what if that is a necessary evil for the continued evolution of technology, and with it, society? And, if it is, do we want that?

    And, to go a step further, could AI potentially aid in finding realistic ways to undo the harms that it had caused? Or those of anthropogenic climate change? Or uncover new unforseen dangers?

    Did the inventors of UNIVAC ponder if its descendants would one day aid in curing terminal illness, or predicting intense weather, or realize how much it would evolve in the coming decades? Moore wouldn’t have even coined his iconic law for another 14 years.

    What I don’t like…what I really don’t like…is that this phase of technological evolution is coinciding with rampant pro-capital/anti-social rhetoric and governance. I like that it’s forcing conversations around modernizing copyright law, licenses, etc…but I don’t like who is involved in those conversations.








  • Actually saying it out loud it kinda sounds like a BFE, Minnesota accent. Or maybe more Canadian. However my idea of Minnesota accent is based on the mom from Bobby’s World and Uncle Joey’s beaver.

    I’m realizing again a few minutes later that 00s+ kids may not get either of those references. And Dave Coullier is Canadian and I think his beaver is too.

    Edit again, I realize that the 00s+ kids that don’t get the references would probably be more confused by me referencing two mens beavers.

    Dave Coullier (sp?) was the actor who played the character Uncle Joey (Gladstone) in Full House, where he pretended to be the uncle to three little girls and lived in their house, with their dad Bob Sagat (of “the aristocrats” and “Rolling with Sagat”), after the mom died of mysterious circumstances. As the girls got older Uncle Joey started making videos where he stuck his hand into a beaver and used it as a puppet. Part of this gag usually revolved around various jokes about “wood”. Eventually this got him to become a bit of a local celebrity, in the morning news and as a radio host.

    Partly related fact, Alanis Morissette’s album (and now Broadway Musical), Jagged Little Pill, was inspired by a bad breakup with Dave Coullier





  • Semi-related PSA for when Disney is eventually uncancelled…

    If you find yourself at Animal Kingdom, try to get on some of the later safari rides. Like, closer to dusk. Usually not much of a line. Totally different experience than during the day.

    That’s when you might hear the kitties meow like 15 feet from the van.


  • Let’s take a look at plus-size models. That’s a really good example.

    It makes this rift between haas/body acceptance and what’s really actually healthy.

    But on the flip side, super-skinny models aren’t exactly healthy, either.

    Both normalize unhealthy weight and lead to population-wide body image problems and related eating disorders. Then you get things like social media throwing rocket fuel on that fire.

    I don’t see how either is “woke” though.