Skip Navigation
AGI Escapes Containment; Trump Admin: "Hold My Beer" — Tariff Terathread
  • as the one person who can buy all the Paradox games + all the DLC

    LOL

    I did once as the Dutch, defeating the US

    Niew New Amsterdam

  • Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 6th April 2025
  • Intelligence Time Cubed now, that's the real deal.

  • LessOnline is a festival celebrating truthseeking and blogging, the totally not race science is just a bonus
  • To be scrupulously fair there were multiple banners on LW announcing that prices would rise unless locked in early. NFC what they started at though, maybe $400?

    Personally you would have to pay me $5,500 + room and board to force me to attend.

  • Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 6th April 2025
  • Additional "points" for the commenting system using local times in the user's browser, thereby timestamping further unfunny AFJ at 2 Apr in my timezone.

  • Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 6th April 2025
  • misread as Eliezer, semantic content unchanged

  • EAs sad that their previous rich grifters are trying to distance themselves from the movement
  • LOL from the comments

    [...] "people having unreasonably high expectations for epistemics in published work" is definitely a cost of dealing with EAs!

  • Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 6th April 2025
  • Their dumb contraction should have doomed the project from the start...

  • Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 6th April 2025
  • I knew the HN reaction to Marine Le Pen being banned from being elected to public office would be unhinged, but weirdly I did not have "good, she's a woman and weak so now a strong man can lead RN to glorious victory" on my bingo card. More fool me, misogyny is always on the card.

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43534140

  • Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 30th March 2025
  • For some reason it's on brand for HN to have a discussion of different dash widths stick on the front page more than 24h

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43497719

    Extra spice and relevance for the observation that GenAI text apparently has a lot of em-dashes in it, so add that to the frequency of the word "delve".

  • Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 30th March 2025
  • I decided to remove that comment because of the risk of psychic damage.

  • Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 30th March 2025
  • From the comments

    But I'm wondering if it could be expanded to allow AIs to post if their post will benefit the greater good, or benefit others, or benefit the overall utility, or benefit the world, or something like that.

    (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KXujJjnmP85u8eM6B/policy-for-llm-writing-on-lesswrong?commentId=xnfHpn9ryjKqG8WKA)

    No biggie, just decide one of the largest open questions in ethics and use that to moderate.

    (It would be funny if unaligned AIs take advantage of this to plot humanity's downfall on LW, surrounded by flustered rats going all "techcnially they're not breaking the rules". Especially if the dissenters are zapped from orbit 5s after posting. A supercharged Nazi bar, if you will)

  • Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 30th March 2025
  • Annoying nerd annoyed annoying nerd website doesn't like his annoying posts:

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43489058

    (translation: John Gruber is mad HN doesn't upvote his carefully worded Apple tonguebaths)

    JWZ: take the win, man

  • Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 30th March 2025
  • As it is they’re close enough to actual power and influence that their enabling the stripping of rights and dignity from actual human people instead of staying in their little bubble of sci-fi and philosophy nerds.

    This is consistent if you believe rights are contingent on achieving an integer score on some bullshit test.

  • Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 30th March 2025
  • Note I am not endorsing their writing - in fact I believe the vehemence of the reaction on HN is due to the author being seen as one of them.

  • Advent of Code 2024 - the home stretch - it's been an aMAZEing year

    current difficulties

    1. Day 21 - Keypad Conundrum: 01h01m23s
    2. Day 17 - Chronospatial Computer: 44m39s
    3. Day 15 - Warehouse Woes: 30m00s
    4. Day 12 - Garden Groups: 17m42s
    5. Day 20 - Race Condition: 15m58s
    6. Day 14 - Restroom Redoubt: 15m48s
    7. Day 09 - Disk Fragmenter: 14m05s
    8. Day 16 - Reindeer Maze: 13m47s
    9. Day 22 - Monkey Market: 12m15s
    10. Day 13 - Claw Contraption: 11m04s
    11. Day 06 - Guard Gallivant: 08m53s
    12. Day 08 - Resonant Collinearity: 07m12s
    13. Day 11 - Plutonian Pebbles: 06m24s
    14. Day 18 - RAM Run: 05m55s
    15. Day 04 - Ceres Search: 05m41s
    16. Day 23 - LAN Party: 05m07s
    17. Day 02 - Red Nosed Reports: 04m42s
    18. Day 10 - Hoof It: 04m14s
    19. Day 07 - Bridge Repair: 03m47s
    20. Day 05 - Print Queue: 03m43s
    21. Day 03 - Mull It Over: 03m22s
    22. Day 19 - Linen Layout: 03m16s
    23. Day 01 - Historian Hysteria: 02m31s
    13
    Advent of Code Week 3 - you're lost in a maze of twisty mazes, all alike

    Problem difficulty so far (up to day 16)

    1. Day 15 - Warehouse Woes: 30m00s
    2. Day 12 - Garden Groups: 17m42s
    3. Day 14 - Restroom Redoubt: 15m48s
    4. Day 09 - Disk Fragmenter: 14m05s
    5. Day 16 - Reindeer Maze: 13m47s
    6. Day 13 - Claw Contraption: 11m04s
    7. Day 06 - Guard Gallivant: 08m53s
    8. Day 08 - Resonant Collinearity: 07m12s
    9. Day 11 - Plutonian Pebbles: 06m24s
    10. Day 04 - Ceres Search: 05m41s
    11. Day 02 - Red Nosed Reports: 04m42s
    12. Day 10 - Hoof It: 04m14s
    13. Day 07 - Bridge Repair: 03m47s
    14. Day 05 - Print Queue: 03m43s
    15. Day 03 - Mull It Over: 03m22s
    16. Day 01 - Historian Hysteria: 02m31s
    20
    Advent of Code 2024 Week 2: this time it's all grids, all the time

    The previous thread has fallen off the front page, feel free to use this for discussions on current problems

    Rules: no spoilers, use the handy dandy spoiler preset to mark discussions as spoilers

    24
    Person who exercises her free association rights at conferences incites ire in Jameson Lopp
    protos.com Bitfinex hacker Razzlekhan was job hunting at Bitcoin 2024

    Razzlekhan, who conspired to launder tens of thousands of bitcoin, told attendees she was searching for work as a crypto consultant.

    Bitfinex hacker Razzlekhan was job hunting at Bitcoin 2024
    1
    www.web3isgoinggreat.com Martin Shkreli claims to have been behind a Donald Trump memecoin

    After Arkham Intelligence announced a $150,000 bounty for anyone who could prove the identity of the person behind a Donald Trump memecoin called $DJT, blockchain sleuth zachxbt quickly rose to the occasion. He submitted evidence that Martin Shkreli, the "pharma bro" who spent years in federal priso...

    This season's showrunners are so lazy, just re-using the same old plots and antagonists.

    8
    In an attempt to secure the libertarian vote, Trump promises to pardon Dread Pirate Roberts (while calling for the death penalty for other drug dealers)
    www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com Ross Ulbricht - Lawyers, Guns & Money

    Trump: Donald Trump promised to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the online illegal drug marketplace Silk Road, in a raucous speech before the Libertarian National Convention on Saturday night. “And if you vote for me, on Day One, I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht,” t...

    Ross Ulbricht - Lawyers, Guns & Money
    6
    www.404media.co Flood of AI-Generated Submissions ‘Final Straw’ for Small 22-Year-Old Publisher

    “The problem with AI is the people who use AI. They don't respect the written word,” the founder of Bards and Sages said.

    > “It is soulless. There is no personality to it. There is no voice. Read a bunch of dialogue in an AI generated story and all the dialogue reads the same. No character personality comes through,” she said. Generated text also tends to lack a strong sense of place, she’s observed; the settings of the stories are either overly-detailed for popular locations, or too vague, because large language models can’t imagine new worlds and can only draw from existing works that have been scraped into its training data.

    1
    AI grifters con the US gov that AGI poses "existential risk"
    time.com U.S. Must Act Quickly to Avoid Risks From AI, Report Says

    The U.S. government must move “decisively” to avert an “extinction-level threat" to humanity from AI, says a government-commissioned report

    U.S. Must Act Quickly to Avoid Risks From AI, Report Says

    The grifters in question:

    > Jeremie and Edouard Harris, the CEO and CTO of Gladstone respectively, have been briefing the U.S. government on the risks of AI since 2021. The duo, who are brothers [...]

    Edouard's website: https://www.eharr.is/, and on LessWrong: https://www.lesswrong.com/users/edouard-harris

    Jeremie's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremieharris/

    The company website: https://www.gladstone.ai/

    1
    "The Obscene Energy Demands of A.I." - hackernews discussion

    HN reacts to a New Yorker piece on the "obscene energy demands of AI" with exactly the same arguments coiners use when confronted with the energy cost of blockchain - the product is valuable in of itself, demands for more energy will spur investment in energy generation, and what about the energy costs of painting oil on canvas, hmmmmmm??????

    Maybe it's just my newness antennae needing calibrating, but I do feel the extreme energy requirements for what's arguably just a frivolous toy is gonna cause AI boosters big problems, especially as energy demands ramp up in the US in the warmer months. Expect the narrative to adjust to counter it.

    36
    www.theverge.com Elon Musk’s legal case against OpenAI is hilariously bad

    Elon Musk’s greatest legacy will be as a provider of inane law school exam hypotheticals.

    Elon Musk’s legal case against OpenAI is hilariously bad

    Yes, I know it's a Verge link, but I found the explanation of the legal failings quite funny, and I think it's "important" we keep track of which obscenely rich people are mad at each other so we can choose which of their kingdoms to be serfs in.

    8
    Some interesting tidbits in this ElReg story about "AI Dean Phillips"
    www.theregister.com Developer of Dean Phillips bot suspended by OpenAI

    Biden's challenger model shot down despite super PAC support

    Developer of Dean Phillips bot suspended by OpenAI

    Apologies for the link to The Register...

    Dean Phillips is your classic ratfucking candidate, attempting to siphon off support from the incumbent to help their opponent. After a brief flare of hype before the (unofficial) NH primary, he seems to have flamed out by revealing his master plan too early.

    Anyway, apparently some outfit called "Delphi" tried to create an AI version of him via a SuperPAC and got their OpenAI API access banned for their pains.

    Quoth ElReg:

    > Not even the presence of Matt Krisiloff, a founding member of OpenAI, at the head of the PAC made a difference.

    > The pair have reportedly raised millions for We Deserve Better, driven in part by a $1 million donation from hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, who described his funding of the super PAC as "the largest investment I have ever made in someone running for office."

    So the same asshole who is combating "woke" and DEI is bankrolling Phillips, supposed to be the new Bernie. Got it.

    1
    bless this jank @awful.systems gerikson @awful.systems
    [SOLVED] cannot login using mobile Firefox

    Anyone else have this problem? It’s been bothering me for a while and is the last thing keeping me using mobile Chrome.

    On the login page , after entering username and password, the “login” button does nothing. It might slightly change color but I am not directed to the site logged in, nor do I get an error.

    platform: iOS

    The username and password are entered automatically via either Firefox’s password store, or iOS’.

    0
    Looking for: random raytracing program

    Years ago (we're talking decades) I ran into a small program that randomly generated raytraced images (think transparent orbs, lens flares, reflection etc), suitable for saving as wallpapers. It was a C/C++ program that ran on Linux. I've long since lost the name and the source code, and I wonder if there's anything like that out there now?

    11
    The official awful.systems Advent of Code 2023 thread

    Rules: no spoilers.

    The other rules are made up as we go along.

    Share code by link to a forge, home page, pastebin (Eric Wastl has one here) or code section in a comment.

    121
    Any interest in an Advent of Code thread?

    The wider community is still on Reddit, I wonder if there’s an interest to have a small alternative?

    If not, what’s a good Lemmy instance for these things?

    7
    ScottA is annoyed EA has a bad name now
    www.astralcodexten.com In Continued Defense Of Effective Altruism

    "All you do is cause boardroom drama, and maybe some other things I’m forgetting..."

    In Continued Defense Of Effective Altruism

    In a since deleted thread on another site, I wrote

    > For the OG effective altruists, it’s imperative to rebrand the kooky ultra-utilitarianists as something else. TESCREAL is the term adopted by their opponents.

    Looks like great minds think alike! The EA's need to up their google juice so people searching for the term find malaria nets, not FTX. Good luck on that, Scott!

    The HN comments are ok, with this hilarious sentence

    > I go to LessWrong, ACX, and sometimes EA meetups. Why? Mainly because it's like the HackerNews comment section but in person.

    What's the German term for a recommendation that's the exact opposite?

    12
    We don't even have Universal Basic Income yet but libertarians are already arguing it's too large

    [this is probably off-topic for this forum, but I found it on HN so...]

    Edit "enjoy" the discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38233810

    30
    gerikson gerikson @awful.systems
    Posts 44
    Comments 1.1K