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mimd

147 karma · joined September 2, 2020

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mimd··on Why Safety Profiles Failed
I'm confused over lines such as "Profiles have to reject pointer arithmetic, because there’s no static analysis protection against indexing past the end of the allocation." Can't frama-c/etc do that? Additionally, section 2.3 is narrower than what is implied by the words "safe" and "out-of-contract" and is more concerned with what C/C++ call "undefined behavior" requirements than contract correctness. Ie. An integer which is defined to wrap overflows and violates the requirement of the function contract, which I can cause in a safe release build rust.
mimd··on ‘Preapproved Narratives’ Corrupt Science
The reviewer's criticism didn't stop the article from being published. Sure, they didn't recommend it initially but that happens.

I'd call it somewhat mild attention to other factors from the one reviewer. The pointing out of issues in data balance, why an nn model, are also good criticism. Here's the review page if anyone wants to read it.

https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs415...

So the question becomes, is his claim of leaving out other factors not greatly influencing and it's just a grift and/or is nature's review process a dog and pony show?

mimd··on Earth’s average 2023 temperature is now likely to reach 1.5 °C of warming
Though unpleasant, it at least sorta gives us a preview of 1.5C. Also lost in the conversation about 1.5C (or higher) via emissions, is that we could go even higher (or lower) depending on other cyclic and event factors. Thereby making some places that appear fine at risk over the long term.
mimd··on Earth’s average 2023 temperature is now likely to reach 1.5 °C of warming
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/summer-2023-extreme-heat-causes

Several other compounding factors have been listed for this year as well.

mimd··on ‘Game of Thrones’ creator and other authors sue ChatGPT-maker OpenAI
He's looking at this all wrong. AI can be used to complete his story, as he has no chance at the rate he's going. Might even be less divisive than HBO's finale.
mimd··on Amazon restricts authors self-publishing more than 3 books/day after AI concerns
I like. Probably needs to be more restrictive, like 1 per week. But the technique of rate limiting could also be applied to social media to help combat AI/Bot post/upvote flooding.
mimd··on Intermediate sci knowledge associated with overconfidence and negative attitudes
Well, nature apparently won't publish complex articles on topics for reasons, thus causing these issues of "intermediate" science knowledge. I wonder what was cut out to get this paper through.
mimd··on ‘Occupied by the US’: wildfires renew Native Hawaiian call for sovereignty
The guardian is supporting the creation of an ethno nationalist state of a tiny minority? Wonder what will happen to the vast majority of Hawaiians who don't meet "blood" requirements...
mimd··on Margaret Atwood: My Voice and Mind Are Not Replicable
"Ugh nerd musk. Might be male. Might turn off the East Coast intelligentsia. They can't handle much. Ignore the bio apocalypse trilogy. It's speculative not sci-fi. I'm high brow. Market, market, market..." - Atwood

"Wtf?" -Ursula

--- I will give Atwood some slack, as less than half her bibliography is it. But still, evaluating the chasm between her and chatgpt is kinda what she wants on her terms.

mimd··on Margaret Atwood: My Voice and Mind Are Not Replicable
I expected a more probing take from a sci-fi writer. After all, to examine in depth the chasm between her and chatgpt is to be at the forefront of science! But perhaps it's too much to hope for any deeper interest. Her scifi is and was a frosting atop political essays, to make them palatable for mass consumption. Still, I must give her the benefit of the doubt and excuse her lack of effort. The Atlantic does that to people.
mimd··on Europe is changing social media for the better – the US can do it, too
She's worried the serfs might start using vpns.
mimd··on Why Bill Watterson Vanished
True. But like watching Richard Pryor hold back tears on the sunset strip, or listening to Billie Holiday's voice crack, your reading someone's pain. In that situation, if it helps them in dealing with depression it's okay, otherwise enjoyment of the work can verge on being a peculiar sadism.

The cynicism and story of the abrupt end of the comic, leaves an ambiguous hole in the story of Calvin. Those next stages of dialogue, that a child such as he must go through to continue. The author's hermiting, who is Calvin, gives that a possible outcome for Calvin, is to not to succeed but to retreat or worse. If you like Calvin, you don't want that, or for his author.

It is a sad backdrop that colors the work, especially near the end of the run. I'd feel better about it if Watterson went on to new pursuits rather than going silent for years. That is was a good time to try something new, rather than a depression induced rage to end it.

mimd··on Why Bill Watterson Vanished
Calvin and Hobbes was cynical, it's main characters are named for a religious brimstoner and cynical philosopher. Part of its appeal to children, beyond the general creativity of the strip, is, that it was cynical. Children can be very aware and it's often disregarded by most childrens stories. But, that cynicalness can verge from reasonable to depressive. And depressiveness can be a deathknell for continuing.

As I get older, some of the jokes and commentary age to that of coming from a younger person who still is grappling with the world, unaware of the commentary that could be said in ernest against it. The self reflection is mostly done via Hobbes, and sometimes he is not enough, too much in agreement. Luckily, it mostly never verges on insulting, but it's introductory to the issues he attempts to grapple with. As a reflection of a young child it will work forever, but as a reflection of Watterson, it shows a stall in development. Instead of accepting the world or at least challenging his initial revulsion, I worry he retreated and became a hermit out of depression.

mimd··on Google and YouTube are trying to have it both ways with AI and copyright
It's a little rap on the hands, a tease, considering they love highlighting conflicts of interest when it doesn't concern them. COI's don't have much legal binding on US news reporting, unless it comes down from courts. They're more of courtesy and an attempt to get some of that legal veneer. But it is often done to build trust with the reader and not underhandedly trying to cast yourself as impartial third party who can be trusted to give a best effort picture of the situation. Ie, vox media is currently taking steps against chatgpt potentially leading to a lawsuit, why should you trust their reporting to be fair or even thorough on the subject? It's not a question of if they are right on their lawsuit, but if they giving you reasonable service. Now I suspect your fine with that service, but I like a bit more impartiality and thoroughness and the imbalanced use of COI's smells.

COI's can get very draconian in other sectors with legal binding s. It does nearly reach who you vote for. And practicing your "Opinion" doesn't give you a legal basis to breach those bounds, and say insider trade off a company.

mimd··on Google and YouTube are trying to have it both ways with AI and copyright
I'll bite verge/vergits?.

The article could have a better title, as the article clearly states Google is more in a dispute with one of its suppliers , and less of believing UMG's position. It's less hypocritical as implied by the title.

The articles could start mentioning the CFAA, and how US courts have interpreted it. It's kinda important to how the web scraping questions will go in court. I'd like an article about world wide web scraping legalities.

Also, verge should mention in these articles that they have said no to gpt bot.

https://www.theverge.com/robots.txt.

Not that it really matters in figuring out vox's positions, but they like to report on conflicts of interest.

mimd··on The Wellness-to-Fascism
Anti-vax and like positions have been cause-celebre positions for other political leanings, previously and now. I guess the guardian doesn't want to look though it's archives and remember it's part in the affair.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/200...

Course the original article, "New health fears over big surge in autism" is now inaccessible via the guardian.* How positively "fascist", eh guardian?

*Their are dozens of other "supporting" opinion and 'concerned' articles they haven't removed. Just look before 2012 and MMR.

mimd··on Why do old books smell so good?
We just need a Franciscan friar with a melodious Scottish voice and we're all set for a murder mystery.
mimd··on How Thomas Edison Tricked the Press into Believing He’d Invented the Light Bulb
Hehehe. Maybe people should stop naming things after Eddie. Bad luck.

However Theranos', didn't succeed in it's BS. Kinda need to find a product which was BS initially but later was developed into that product. Some of the old Google AI demos spring to mind.

Thomas "Fake it to you develope it" Edison?

mimd··on How Thomas Edison Tricked the Press into Believing He’d Invented the Light Bulb
Neat story but partially clickbaity title. More "How Thomas Edison oversold the qualities of an early lightbulb prototype to media and investors.", perhaps? (Not advocating to change the HN title, just clarity).

As an aside, to feed the original implication of the clickbait title, now I'm going down the rabbit hole of earlier/same time arc lamps.

mimd··on Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision
Hopefully some of them will stay and work in Montana and not leave for greener pastures. It would be a shame and unbecoming if they don't follow through on their promise.
mimd··on Extracellular communication between brain cells through transfer of Cre mRNA
They was some debate and research over mechanical pulses in axons a few years ago. Not sure what's the status of it.

I would like to find the bounds on the "bits" communicated between neurons, so I could then calculate the throughput of the eye for example. Helps to put bounds/identify the algorithms/processing for CV. However, I kept running into increasing complexity/unknowns over the general (and increasingly simplistic) theory of neuro communication and just general unknowns about the dendrite to axon terminal process and all the post signaling cascades.

Sigh, it's a fascinating area.

mimd··on US scientists repeat fusion power breakthrough
The one from a few years ago was a big breakthrough in that it overcame the "effective" input energy, proving possibility. This is just a follow-up, so it's mostly testing/replication/improved yield, etc, so this one per se is not as great an achievement, unless your down in the weeds

Think of it as curing a very hard disease in mice, which had no success before this point, like rabies. It shows possibility rather than it just being a theory on a chalkboard.

The next large test (ICF is not thought to be scalable to achieve true parity) is the large scale iter tomahawk test in 5 years as it's scheduled for 2025, which is supposed to reach overall breakeven, though we will see.

mimd··on New ideas using Wayland Input Methods
I like the translate idea, but it should be either interspersed lines or at the sentence level completion. Otherwise it will require the writer to go back and un-translate the text to fix mistakes. Another thought is to offering completion of multiple translations, for a particular sentiment.

Overall, providing some text services independent of the program (spelling/grammer, translate, etc) would be useful.

mimd··on Italy is betting big on train travel
True, and it's mostly a rehash of an already released CNN article. But I don't like that the Smithsonian wants to be a general news service. Their a museum group. But the reduction to being general news/click bait seems to infectious.
mimd··on Italy is betting big on train travel
The Smithsonian is rehashing a press release on available tourist train choices in Italy? Couldn't they spend some more effort, like an examination of one of the historical trains?
mimd··on Trinity Nuclear Test’s Fallout Reached 46 States, Canada and Mexico, Study Finds
The should have chosen a different color for the United States wind pattern vs the deposited of rem graph. It creates confusion over how much of a deposit. I don't think the inclusion of the overall deposit of all testing is necessary for the paper, though it's useful for background.

As an aside, the NYT should at least wait till it gets published in a journal. I don't like the now common practice of citing of arXiv as the equivalent. It's sorta okay for fast research but continuous use for more than that undercuts the review process.

mimd··on Why Rust is a great fit for embedded software – 2023 update
It would be nice to find a good rundown of how much of the memory safety properties are preserved at stages in the microcontroller/linux driver development.
mimd··on Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley
I address more in the other comment. I was more trying to head off the oliver stone, "it was exclusively the Soviets", which was the original post. The article is okay, but spends too much time on the mental faculties of those involved.

No, I have not forgot the firebombings. They should have weighed the firebombings as the same. But they didn't. Some of it was that it was novel and a single bomb. New capabilities seem to leave an impression, such as V2's for the ability to hit a target without warning, even though they were cost ineffective. But, they were not grasping their predicament.

But take the Soviet case to it's conclusion, and that the bombs had no impact on whether they thought the war should be continued. They could have waited more if it was just the soviets, as all the stated Soviet plans do not involve Honshu. You likely had a couple months at the minimum, even if the soviets rushed. And it's not like I hear any worries of communism in anything, Japan had a pact with them and tried to use them as a third party. So why not try to negotiate openly with the US/GB/China/Soviets then? Half their cabinet thought to try even after everything. No, hirohito, thought the US was going to bomb them to bits in the interim, whether by firebomb or atom bomb, and the offer was only going to get worse. So they ended it.

This isn't to say that maybe the atom bombs were needed to come to that position, as the previous bombings might have been enough. Or maybe a few weeks of waiting would have been enough. I ponder if their had been no bombings of any kind, per the rules of war, would Japan have surrendered given the Soviet involvement. I would guess no, considering the margin given and the longevity of such an event creating a way to rationalize out, but still something to think about.

mimd··on Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley
Ugh. Should have left that part out, and now, I spent too much time trying to give you a good response. ;)

Japan was hedging it's bets at the top, giving the option to explore a soviet mediated conditional surrender, ie. the maintenance of their post ww1 gains, maintenance of government, etc. They, Togo and Suzuki, had been considering it for a while. However, it wasn't well recieved by the mil, who thought it at best a tactic to garner an ally and to delay for time to make a defense or to get a new opening. And that is key, as it's the military had the majority of spots and overall control of decisions, only breaking after the initial bombing and soviet involvement (to a degree the soviet involvement might have been more shocking for the mil, as it wasn't known if the US had anymore bombs). And a military coup to continue the war was a chief concern, so much so that any discussion of it was done in secret. This is also likely the reason for their screwups on not responding to/inability to negotiate, as once it was made known, a coup could happen. The disconnect between the cabinet levels pragmatism and the lowers zeal didn't help any outside impression, and is one reason they had both a botched coup and yet an orderly surrender.

The soviets disregarded the request and invaded soon after it was made. This removed Japan's possibility of using the Soviets as a negotiating party/leverage with US/GB/China. This likely means a combination of soviet views/reasons:

a. the soviets thought their unconditional surrender was imminent and needed to grab land quickly b. They didn't think a unconditional surrender was imminent but needed to get on with their agreement with the others (They had to go to war on August 9th as that was the yalta agreement, 3 months after may 9th, and it's not like the sped up thinking they were close to surrender and needed to get in quickly) c. That the mullings of conditional surrender was a delay tactic to regroup/dig in and so should be ignored d. Some combination of US/GB/China would or could not entertain a conditional surrender and thus it was moot, potsdam for instance e. Japan was just looking for a new partner to help with US/GB/China and it would be not kosher to entertain it as they already had Yalta/disagreements in Europe/fights over the germans surrender f. Japan was weak and offered nothing, especially consider russo Japanese history

But consensus is just what's being carried out, not the state of all opinions. It's the reason I included "could". For example, the US may have thought that it was a strong possibility they may not surrender to any reactions, but tried anyway by dropping leaflets and more. Japans offers for a soviet negotiated conditional surrender were known to the other allies as they were decoded. Now, you could go down the path of if the US/GB/China should have gone the route of entertaining a conditional surrender to avoid continuing. But conditional surrenders can drag on for years, the war continuing all the while, and used to delay for an opening or a peacetime regrouping. It's why at all the conferences they insisted on unconditional.

Some the cynical attitude towards it was that japan wanted to play the cost game near the end, where they held that they'd fight vigorously unless they got good terms or something changed. And it's not a terrible plan mind you, as for example, the US has shown weakness to such costs in subsequent years, though for less popular wars. Or that Great Britain for example, despite being alone and under imminent invasion, saw the entrance of the US and the Soviet Union into the war. Some of this is also likely influenced by the potsdam terms, indicated the allies in the pacific did not seek Japans complete destruction. Some of this was to make surrender look attractive but it also betrays a weak stomach (despite the firebombings indicating otherwise). It only appears that threat turned into a real thought post atomic bombings (per their comments in the meetings about the bombs).

It's betrays the delusion of were they thought the war stood, that the atomic bombs meant anything changed or had even considered the USSR as a negotiator. They had already been firebombed, and thus looked at possible annihilation without the atomic bombs, they had no allies, the soviets had given warning that they were not on their side by not renewing the non aggression pact in april though they did not weigh it like they should have. Sorta the last desperate and illogical actions of a flailing government. It's one reason why the whole episode is confounding, especially later, as a "rational" actor would have surrendered earlier.

Per your point on the soviet invasions. The soviets got bogged down on both landings quickly and were helped by the surrender of a large portion of the japanese forces starting on the 15th and still taking till well after the surrender to take sakhalin and kuril. This likely would have happened to hakkido, if they weren't repulsed (doubtful they'd be fully dislodged, but overextended supplies are bad when getting bogged down). I'd have to dive more into the planning on hakkido to see the state of it, as Sakhalin/kuril are often seen as quick risky land grabs as they were launched after the bombings/invasion of Manchuria, and surrender on the 15th. Still the Soviet style of pressing might have made some gains, though it would have been limited to Hokkido. For your original post, it depends on if Japan thought Soviet occupation of Hakkido as a breaking point to take an unconditional surrender, (Okinawa comes to mind as a failed breaking point, though it did seem to set some stuff in motion), but I doubt it as, as it's always been sorta a backwater for Japan.

mimd··on Christopher Nolan wants Oppenheimer to be a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley
It's both actions, the dropping of the atomic bombs and the the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. The Soviets, like the US, would have needed to prepare for a land invasion of Japan, probably about 9 months to 1 year of so of prep, which would be behind a US invasion, but it helped close in the walls. The Soviets had agreed to the war with Japan, but another view is to look at it as a quick spoils at the end of the war and to help mao. See the yalta negotiations. Still it was brought up in their surrender discussions.

You can crawl through the memories/literature to see what weighed on their minds more, but it's the bombings. Japan knew what nukes were as they were developing themselves. And as pointed out by the poster, the coup attempt happened after both the Soviet involvement and Hiroshima, August 12th, so the point still stands, that their was a willingness to fight to annihilation, which would include a Soviet invasion. But your right to point out that Japan considered the better offer that stood at that pivot moment, rather than the triple scenario of more bombings, a US land invasion, and even later Soviet invasion.

Be aware, overtly strong emphasis of the Soviet invasion and de-emphasis of the role in the bombings is often a tactic to dismiss the usage of the atomic bomb, that's not borne out by what we know of the internal dialogue of Japan's surrender. And on the outside and without hindsight, to both the US and soviets, it looked very much that Japan could/would fight to the death, and this reflects in the decision making of those few weeks. Still, perhaps the Soviet invasion would have been enough, but we will never know. And it would have not worked if the coup had worked.

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