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astroflection

173 karma · joined September 15, 2025

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astroflection··on Widespread service disruptions reported as major platforms go down worldwide
Haven't noticed.
astroflection··on USPTO issues revised inventorship guidance for AI-assisted inventions [pdf]
"Artificial intelligence systems, regardless of their sophistication, cannot be named as inventors or joint inventors on a patent application as they are not natural persons.

...

Therefore, this guidance regarding AI-assisted inventions applies not only to utility patents and patent applications but also to design and plant patents and patent applications"

astroflection··on Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth
Carl Sagan's reflection on the Pale Blue Dot( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot ) image seem relevant:

"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. "

astroflection··on Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse
> And Mojang itself is adding fuel to the fire by...

You mean Microsoft.

astroflection··on How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists
I don't know of a name for this but I would rephrase what you are getting at:

The state uses private entities to get around the constitution while those same private entities use the state to get around regulation.

It's a sick fucking symbiosis.

astroflection··on Basalt Woven Textile
I wonder how long it takes for the basalt glass to begin to crystalize?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devitrification#Devitrificatio...

astroflection··on The Banished Bottom of the Housing Market
> The people we now call “chronically homeless” were once simply low-income tenants, housed by the private market in cheap rooms rather than by public programs. Once that market was dismantled, the result was predictable: the homelessness wave of the late 1970s and 1980s followed directly from the destruction of SROs. Today’s crisis—nearly 800,000 unhoused people in 2024—is the long tail of that loss, compounded by decades of underbuilding in expensive cities and soaring rents. As one advocate put it, “The people you see sleeping under bridges used to be valued members of the housing market. They aren’t anymore.”
astroflection··on When grades stop meaning anything
Regurgitation ≠ learning

Regurgitation involves short term memory and micmicking. It does not build new neural connections.

Learning involves longer term memory, synthesis of new perspectives(in the learner), and integration of knowledge across multiple domains. Learning is the building of new neural connections.

I posit that you did not actually learn how to learn and thus just regurgitated your way through math.

astroflection··on How to stay sane in a world that rewards insanity
> Yet social-media personalities regularly do a 180° turn on some issue ... and still keep their following and ability to monetize it.

And they asserted that they were totally right the entire time. That's how. And the sheep kept on following them.

astroflection··on Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication
Yes. It's a nasty parasite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baylisascaris_procyonis

Raccoons while cute, smart, interesting, etc., should not be considered as pets as long as this parasite exists.

astroflection··on Lawmakers want to ban VPNs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...
astroflection··on Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
Too bad there are no technologies that would allow the citizenry to communicate nearly instantaneously and cast their votes in a pseudo-anonymous manner.
astroflection··on Human Fovea Detector
I get about 4cm wide at 50cm distance.
astroflection··on Digital ID, a new way to create and present an ID in Apple Wallet
Nope. I will continue to have a DL card so I can choose to leave my phone at home. When we are required to have our IDs on our person at all times I can at least not be tracked everywhere I go.

Be watchful for legislation requiring: * us to have our ID on our person at all times. * IDs to be issued in digital format only.

astroflection··on Fungus in Chernobyl nuclear disaster zone has mutated to 'feed' on radiation (2024)
https://archive.is/SGbVB
astroflection··on Think Weirder: The Year's Best SciFi Ideas
A few non-Amazon links for you:

https://www.alibris.com/Think-Weirder-Volume-1-The-Years-Bes...

https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/think-weirde...

astroflection··on Mark Zuckerberg Had Illegal School at His Palo Alto Compound. Neighbors Revolted
Or just get a secret tropical island.
astroflection··on Eating stinging nettles
I first tried nettle soup in Bulgaria. So delicious. FYI you can replace spinach with nettle in almost any recipe and vise versa.
astroflection··on Solarpunk is happening in Africa
The M-PESA transaction fees are high.

<sarc>M-PESA helps fight poverty through the ingenious application of a thousand paper cuts. </sarc>

astroflection··on It's better to be rich than right
Content aside, I find it sad that "journalists" don't even bother tagging their opinion articles with "Opinion" or "Editorial" any more.
astroflection··on 10M people watched a YouTuber shim a lock; the lock company sued him – bad idea

  All security
  is merely a fantasy
  of mortal people.
astroflection··on Unexpected patterns in historical astronomical observations
Had to look this up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging
astroflection··on Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret
I am assuming the 7.7 billion gallons(29b liters) a year is all surface water. It better be. It would be hideously irresponsible to use any ground water for cooling their data centers.
astroflection··on Democracy and the open internet die in daylight
Trust/faith in "democracy" is a fools religion. 100% transparency is the only way out of the pit of feces we find ourselves in election after election.
astroflection··on The Dragon Hatchling: The missing link between the transformer and brain models
The actual paper's title: "The Dragon Hatchling: The Missing Link between the Transformer and Models of the Brain"

Don't berate the authors for the HN submitter's carelessness.

astroflection··on Public trust demands open-source voting systems
Yes and it's inner workings are 100% transparent.
astroflection··on UA 1093
https://windbornesystems.com/faq#airplanes

https://windbornesystems.com/blog/ua-1093

astroflection··on The mad king's digital killswitch
"Today, another mad dictator is threatening the world's infrastructure. For the rest of the world to escape dictators' demands, they will have to accelerate their independence from American tech – not just Russian gas. A post-American internet starts with abandoning the laws that give US companies – and therefore Trump – a veto over how your technology works."
astroflection··on EVs reach record 98.3 pct share of new car sales in Norway, surge across Europe
Meanwhile in some other country:

"General Motors said it is reducing its electric-vehicle manufacturing capacity and booking a $1.6 billion charge on its EV business as demand sinks. "

https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/gm-faces-1-6-billion-char...

https://archive.is/O3MrK

astroflection··on Apple M5 chip
https://asahilinux.org/

"Linux on Apple Silicon: Asahi Linux aims to bring you a polished Linux® experience on Apple Silicon Macs."

Why the "®" after Linux? I think this is the first time I've seen this.

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