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TuringTourist

112 karma · joined June 27, 2023

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TuringTourist··on AI companies in race to demonstrate their model most threatening to humanity
Ah, I see we have now moved on to proving who has the tormentiest nexus. Never underestimate humankind's ability to outshine its own hyperbole.
TuringTourist··on Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc
I am not sure it's fair to equate the xbox 360 with the current generation which is the Xbox Series X/S, which was preceded by the Xbox One X/S, so the 360 is two base iterations old at this point.

Not that I am defending M$FT here. I'm just clarifying so we don't drift into calling everything a "Nintendo" like my parents did.

TuringTourist··on The 29th International Obfuscated C Code Contest (IOCCC) 2025 Winners
Alternatively, I wouldn't want to be in a club that was lame enough to accept me. :)
TuringTourist··on Scrcpy v4.0
This would have saved me a lot of mental anguish about 2 years ago, my phone screen died and I needed about 5 authenticators that were on it just to clock in at my (remote) job and get to what I needed to do the job.

Eventually I solved the issue by blind navigating to screen brightness and turning it all the way up, this made the screen act normal until I could replace it.

The lesson here is to not have a single point of such large failure, like I did.

TuringTourist··on Molecule produced by gut bacteria causes atherosclerosis
What is your definition of processed food? Are potatoes processed because they are cleaned? Is chicken breast processed because the chicken is plucked? Is vinegar processed because it has undergone a chemical transformation via fermentation? Are potato chips processed because they are sliced potatoes fried in oil? Are fried plantains processed because they are sliced plantains fried in oil?

I do not mean to come across as antagonistic, I just haven't been able to find a line that everyone agrees with and felt it was useful to demonstrate that by asking a bunch of questions.

TuringTourist··on Archaeologists unveil 3,500-year-old city in Peru
Echoes of Terry Pratchett:

Archaeologists are excited for this find because it comes with a visitor's center and a parking lot.

TuringTourist··on I used AI-powered calorie counting apps, and they were even worse than expected
I suspect this might be because diet marketing before AI was one of the most fraught with misinformation subjects you could run across. This is because the "sale" of the idea has an effect on every salesman, so all of the salesmen are trying to sell every thing at once,since that's also selling their thing, and ground truth gets stampeded. Now when you combine diet marketing and AI, you get a multiplier. Both in the sellers and the buyers, since the desire to believe is stacked.
TuringTourist··on Machine Code Isn't Scary
You could try the thing that made it click for me, long after x86 was dominant.

Show them a CPU running on Logisim (or the like, such as the newer Digital) and show how when you plug a program into a ROM, it turns into wires lighting up and flipping gates/activating data lines/read registers etc.

TuringTourist··on The Visual World of 'Samurai Jack'
I never watched Samurai Jack when it was coming out as a child. I have begun watching it recently and it is absolutely a breathtaking piece of work.
TuringTourist··on Claude 4
I cannot fathom how you have obtained the information to be as sure as you are about this.
TuringTourist··on CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe
Imagine inventing something like a better coffee carafe and being able to say this about a sizable portion of notable structures.
TuringTourist··on Web search on the Anthropic API
Can you elaborate? What information are you gleaning from anecdotes that is both reliable and efficacious enough to outweigh research?

I'm not trying to challenge your point, I am genuinely curious.

TuringTourist··on Euclid opens data treasure trove, offers glimpse of deep fields
And a follow up from the Krikkit species from the Hitchhiker's Guide:

- "It'll have to go"

:)

TuringTourist··on Radiant Foam: Real-Time Differentiable Ray Tracing
By being amazed when observing it, one can conclude that a thing is amazing.
TuringTourist··on Smart fabric heats up under the sun
I take "external power" to mean power that is not "free" as in humans paid for it. Otherwise the phrase "External power" is meaningless, as all energy comes from somewhere else eventually. (unless you're at some point in time extremely close to the birth of the universe, then we might accept that it's actually internal or at least locally sourced)
TuringTourist··on See how a lab-grown diamond is made
Well the process isn't quite the same, they are missing the immense value-add of substantial human suffering in their creation.
TuringTourist··on Surgeon General says loneliness is driving US into anxiety and pessimism
People you don't know are boring. Most people are full of surprises, unique insights, traits, and perspectives, if given enough time in the right setting. An increasing rarity at this point.
TuringTourist··on Sitters and Standers
Somewhat ironically you are underestimating the amount of effort it takes to be as universally reviled as that person. Presumably because you, like most people, have never been in that field.
TuringTourist··on AI helps researchers dig through old maps to find lost oil and gas wells
There is a (likely small) chance that you lost your keys in an unknown or lost oil/gas well. So yes, in theory.
TuringTourist··on Physical Intelligence's first generalist policy AI can finally do your laundry
The domestic accident is in the home, a far less acceptable place to have a threat. Furthermore, the threat/cause of the accident is presumably being visualized as a human shaped live-in android a la Bicentennial Man. A human shaped threat can feel a lot more viscerally unacceptable, at least in my experience.
TuringTourist··on Five minutes of exercise a day could lower blood pressure
possibly counter to intuition, I find that since I have started to religiously use my stationary bike in the morning, I have a lot more energy for the day, not less. I suppose if you're butting up against caloric/nutrient limits you might suffer. I personally find exercise clarifies my thoughts and improves my mood, even if its the last thing I want to do when I do it.
TuringTourist··on Ask HN: Why did consumer 3D printing take so long to be invented?
Make your own 8-bit computer on breadboard a la Ben Eater for bonus points
TuringTourist··on John Wheeler saw the tear in reality
And if that is the case, the odds are basically 0 that we happen to be the first of an infinite number of universes emulating themselves
TuringTourist··on Deliberate Practice and Acquisition of Expert Performance: A General Overview
The point is that one needs specifically deliberate practice to achieve constant improvement. GP is saying that driving demonstrates this by showing that non-deliberate practice ceases to show improvement fairly quickly.
TuringTourist··on Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
It would be nice to have a confidence level for pieces of information, like humans have
TuringTourist··on Why the CORDIC algorithm lives rent-free in my head
This was the cause of the signature jiggly textures that were pervasive in PS1 games
TuringTourist··on How Euler Did It, by Ed Sandifer
Erdős has a huge amount of credits in the papers of others (hence Erdős number) because he would just travel all over the country helping people get unstuck on their work.
TuringTourist··on An asteroid will occult Betelgeuse on December 12th
I can guarantee "simple" comes at the cost of (probably) multiple tens of thousands of pages of thrown away scratch paper (or equivalent) over many years and lives.
TuringTourist··on John von Neumann Interview [video]
He could have been, its possible nobody has been clever enough to see it yet.
TuringTourist··on The TRON Project: How Japan almost ruled IT (2022)
The US actions in the past, and presently, have been abhorrent. As a US citizen I have no issue admitting this. I also have no issue also stating I think the invasion of Ukraine is an ongoing atrocity by Russia.

I don't think you'll find a lot of people being caught in a gotcha when you ask about the US vs Russia as far as impinging on the freedoms of other countries without a right to do so. They will readily tell you that both are wrong.

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