Mastodawn

K.C. Budd 4d ago

Riker Googling 4d ago

do samsung starships explode more

K.C. Budd 5d ago

Strange New Words (Adam)Apr 19

There's a character in Galápagos, the 1985 novel by Kurt Vonnegut, who has created a computer called the Mandarax that can understand natural language, translate languages, and answer questions on many topics -- it's basically an LLM. His wife does ikebana (Japanese flower arrangements) and she discovers that his machine can do it as well as her because he's tape recorded her classes and fed the data into the computer. She says to him,

"You, Doctor Hiroguchi, think that everybody but yourself is just taking up space on this planet, and we make too much noise and waste valuable natural resources and have too many children and leave garbage around. So it would be a much nicer place if the few stupid services we are able to perform for the the likes of you were taken over by machinery. That wonderful Mandarax you're scratching your ear with now: what is that but an excuse for a mean-spirited egomaniac never to pay or even thank any human being with a knowledge of languages or mathematics or history or medicine or literature or ikebana or anything?"

I read that on the bus this afternoon.

#Books #Tech #AI

K.C. Budd May 13

Folks. Listen. I'm going to do a little bit of critical thinking on your behalf:

If you know someone who lives in a relatively small community, and something from that community makes the national news, I guarantee the person you know in that community already knows about it. They likely knew about it days or weeks (or months) prior to it making the national news.

So you don't need to ask them if they know about it. Really. (And they've already been asked by everyone else they know.)

This post has been brought to you by NV Energy and CA Liberty Utilities, Lake Tahoe.

K.C. Budd May 13

juliette May 13

It’s a travesty that 5 years after the event, we still don’t have a movie or a mini-series about the Evergiven and the Suez Canal.
It was the most glorious global news story ever. It impacted many, yet hurt no one. It had global commerce drama and slapstick comedy. It unfolded hilariously, spurred a thousand memes.
We could all watch this re-enacted without feeling bad. It could be a drama or a comedy. It could be staged with 5 different POVs.

Working title: “Never-given”.

K.C. Budd May 13

WAIT, MUSK LITERALLY NAMED HIS SUPERCOMPUTER "COLOSSUS"?

Like, I mean, I guess if you are going to build The Torment Nexus you might as well just *call* it the Torment Nexus, but... here I was just thinking that these AI founders need to (re)watch Colossus: The Forbin Project as a cautionary tale only to just realize one of them literally named his datacenter after it 🤦‍♂️

K.C. Budd May 12

ACARS Drama - Top Shelf Drama May 12

Air to Ground Message:

OK SO BASICALLY ITS ALL BAD LOL

Area: Jacksonville, FL, USA
Type: Boeing 737 MAX 8
A: #a7c884ace4d
F: #f5347f25fca

#acars #vdlm2

K.C. Budd May 10

Luna has something to say, y'all.

#dogsofmastodon #schnauzer

K.C. Budd May 10

I should have taken a photo for a mastodon post, but:

TIL never leave a PoE Ethernet cable connected if it's possibly going to be exposed to moisture or a solvent, &etc

Unlike the rest of low voltage Ethernet, the differential between the two 48VAC pins for PoE is enough to cause arcing and even works great with a solution to nicely oxidize the connector pins.

I removed my PoE cameras and taped off the connectors to get our house painted, but I didn't disconnect the switch. As a result, all the connectors have black marks around two of the pins and the pins are bright green.

Thankfully I was able to resuscitate them with some contact cleaner and a pen knife. Now they're reconnected (and coated in No 4 dielectric grease) and up and running again, but that was quite the hassle for a minute.

#ethernet

K.C. Budd May 10