Sven Slootweg @joepie91@pixie.town

Hm.

So if you think about it, if you're looking down at a map, it's easy for you to see the shortest path between two points, but it's hard for a computer to, because it has to walk all the way from point A to point B to see how far it is.

Which makes me think, are all graphs of dimension N more easily solved if they can be viewed from N+1?

In school we heard "you won't carry a calculator around all the time" as reason for doing math on paper. OK, that was a total goof, because now we all have phones that, potentially, can serve as arbitrarily powerful calculator anytime and anywhere.

But that's not the gotcha you think it is. I don't think teachers were just blind to technological progress here, they were fully aware of one thing that they neglected to teach: it's a tool, and a tool is only as powerful as the mind that uses it. If you don't know how something works, you fall back into a magical understanding: you throw in ingredients on one side, and a solution pops out on the other side. There is no way for you to tell if the result is reasonable, or the magical process completely goofed out. Also, you will be completely dependent on the tool where a little understanding could show you shortcuts that make things easier for you, or at least feed the machine easier.

We're now in a worse situation like this concerning LLMs. They are branded AIs, advertised as machines that give answers, and if you don't know the shape of the answer already, and have no idea about the facts, you are completely at the mercy of a magical process that tells you fairytales. When things don't work with that answer, you are completely adrift with no idea how to fix it. Because a tool is only as powerful as the mind that uses it.

remember, when you're giving to Indigenous mutual aid today — and if you have money, you ought to be — as tempting as it might be to write "death to America" in the note field, this helps nobody and puts a target on two people's backs.

payment processors are not the place to leave radical messages.

@RadicalGraffiti WAGES TOO LOW?
BLAME CORPORATIONS NOT IMMIGRANTS

Hallo allemaal, we zijn verhuisd van server. Voorheen kon je ons vinden op social.npo.nl, vanaf vandaag zit Pointer, het journalistieke onderzoeksplatform van KRO-NCRV op mastodon.nl.

Ook hier delen we onze onderzoeken, nieuws en oproepen voor tips, deskundigheid etc. Heb je tips voor iets dat we moeten uitzoeken? Deel je ervaring hier op onze site (https://pointer.kro-ncrv.nl/deel-jouw-ervaring) of schiet ons aan hier op mastodon.

https://social.npo.nl/@Pointer_kroncrv/113519998786177555

Study (N=6K) finds single women are not miserable spinsters. Women may have more social support beyond romantic relationships. Single men are unhappier. Inequitable household labor="more rewards for men & more costs for women in heterosexual partnerships." https://people.com/single-women-are-happier-than-single-men-study-says-8739240

Absolutely wild to me that things that didn't exist when I was a kid are now common place:
- wifi that can do 100MB/s
- external gpus that can play AAA games

Technology is so cool and it makes me so sad that it's used to harm so many people all the time.

What are things that excite you? ​​

I made a quilted winter cover for the AC in my living room (in lieu of taking it out), and also a very silly joke.

LMAO
#dwarffortress

hi advanced nix people
is there a way i can ask the nix daemon if there's currently a build running and get the build logs?

Been doing handheld battery maintenance since last night. All my PSP Streets and PSP Gos were dead so a little overdue. Just the Gos left for PSPs, then on to Vita, then Nintendo.

If you have anything with lithium rechargeable batteries, here's a reminder to check their charge levels occasionally so they don't end up as spicy pillows!