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Projects
Here’s the stuff I’ve made that I’m most proud of.
Interactive VR Sci-Fi Story
30 minute cartoon
Diary
Here’s my latest posts to the free fediverse, some rambling, some ranting, mostly just commenting on stuff I’ve read lately. Some of it gets syndicated to Twitter but mostly not. The best of it reaches my monthly digest email.
Mon, 07 Oct 2024 19:30:07 +0000
This month's newsletter/digest is on the way to the mailboxes of the patient careful builders who has asked for it.
The rest of you cowboy scammers can read it here:
https://dalliance.net/vPre2/sept24
Featuring the AI rant that lost me so many followers and the description of the end of building my bathroom, also war and politics and science videos in the links section.
Mon, 07 Oct 2024 13:16:47 +0000
I read "Technofudalism" by Yanis Varoufakis, in which he describes the collapse of Capitalism in 2008, and the rise of cloud capital as the economy instead forms around the restricted not-free markets like Amazon and the other web monopolies.
He talks for a bit about a turning point when the economic news was terrible, but the markets reacted by increasing prices.
The capital knew that the government response would be to print money, and inflate the price of capital. The worse the news, the more the government prints, the more the capital prices expand.
That did seem to lead to capitalism breaking down in 2008 with the transfer of the bankrupt bank balance-sheets onto the public ledger, and the money-printers since then funding asset-inflation and driving down the power of the workers.
He describes the way the non-free cloud "markets" operate and the way asset-price inflation driven by the money printing is funding the monopolization of the network.
I'm not really convinced that the new situation will be long-lived enough to call it a replacement for capitalism though. The money-printer driven economy doesn't seem stable enough to last, though it's collapse may well be uncomfortable to the point of deadly.
Sun, 06 Oct 2024 23:52:24 +0000
Watched the new season of "The Cleaner" on the BBC, in which Greg Davies plays a man assigned to clean crime-scenes after an investigation.
It's very silly. Great stuff.
Episode 5 was just mental, with Sharon Rooney playing the multiple-personalities as "the housekeeper" and more.
Reminded me of doing improv, especially when Greg started acting other personas too and she just accepted it and yes-anded to accept that okay, he's the lord of the manor now.
Loving the accents too, especially in E6, finding myself repeating half the lines in Brummy accent. Like being back home.
"Who else 'as facilities in Stowerbrige, Doodlay, an' West Brum?".
A list of the local towns from home. 😆
"Biggest providers in th' Black Coontray".
"People say ter me, why storage? Ah say 'cos every kingdom needs a king! The plains o' Africa got the lion, an' the leadin' storage solution o' Wulver'ampton got Bob Mammot" 🤣
Good stuff, Greg and the BBC do great at this kind of thing.
Sun, 06 Oct 2024 21:14:06 +0000
Using Librewolf.
I like the way there's a special toggle to allow sites to keep cookies. Only allow those you want to keep you logged in.
Since Mozilla is merging with an advertising company and doing this "differential privacy" scam, I can't really trust them on my machine directly any more.
So long Mozilla, thanks for all the cookie-blocks.
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/improving-online-advertising/
#mozilla #libreWolf #advertising
Fri, 04 Oct 2024 19:14:02 +0000
The company that did the work is maintenance1st.
They did good work, were well behaved, adapted to my needs, communicated well and came in more or less on quote given my demanding adaptions as we went.
They are understaffed or over-demanded though, so while it took about as many man-hours as expected, those got spread out over twice as many calendar days as expected so it took twice as long.
It felt expensive but I think that's mostly the 25% inflation we've had in the last few years.
Fri, 04 Oct 2024 19:09:52 +0000
Couple of shots with my furniture moved in.
Sadly real plants won't stand a chance in a literally windowless box but I think I'm ordering some fake cactus for the front of the dehumidifier nook and red ivy flowers to drape over the self-rack.
Fri, 04 Oct 2024 18:54:06 +0000
This will help a lot with shaving my own head for sure. Easiest time shaving and dying ever.
Yes, I did carefully cover everything in old shower curtains before I started slinging dye about, even though the things are already black so black dye might not even matter.
Fri, 04 Oct 2024 18:52:32 +0000
Yes, I can see the back of my own head now. Both sides.
Infinity mirror!
#bathroom #selfie #mirror #diy
Thu, 03 Oct 2024 15:29:24 +0000
Bathroom fully finished then! I have door-handles and mirrors and sealed floor/wall/ceiling joins. Builders on his way home and not planning to come back.
But. We agreed these mirrors need more attaching. Dangerously wobbly. So I'll have to buy some more clips and figure that out myself. And some of the paint might need some touch-up / extra coats depending how it dries and that's up to me too.
Now I'm gonna have a week off work to relax and get back into owl sleeping schedules.
Wed, 02 Oct 2024 15:41:33 +0000
Another couple of day's work and we are *this close* to being finished now 🤏 .
Just need the paint on the doors to dry so the door-handles and the mirrors can be attached to them.
Should be finished tomorrow! Almost surely!
Sat, 28 Sep 2024 20:57:46 +0000
Looks like all of the tiling is done other than at the base of the shower there, and whatever is gonna happen to the pipes on the wall beyond that carrying hot water to and from the bedroom radiator.
Not all the grouting done yet, but starting to look fairly complete.
Still to do:
* Complete the grouting
* Plumb in the slink
* Wire up the new lights
* Wire up the new shaver/toothbrush socket.
* Wire in dehumidifer
* Complete cistern-access-panel
* Paint ceiling
* Paint doors and door frames
* Plaster inside airing cupboard
* Plaster to repair damage to hall walls
* Tile base of shower / exposed pipes
* replace the door handles
* attach mirrors to doors
* Replace light-switch.
Back down to one man at a time next week, and they seemed to be resigned to it not being done on Tuesday, I suspect it won't be done Wednesday either but I am hopeful for this week unless they have to leave me unstaffed on Thursday onwards.
Sat, 28 Sep 2024 20:16:37 +0000
Watched Star Trek Beyond, the 3rd of that rebooted Kirk/Spock/Bones set.
That shot where Scotty it jumping from his escape pod to grab onto the cliff is pretty spectacular. Can do more or less anything with a camera when it's all GCI I guess.
Like have characters running around the sides of corridors and their space-ship lands sideways, skidding through doors.
Even ridiculous warped-gravity sky-fights towards the end.
Love that team though, the Kirk/Spock/Bones set. "Beyond" captured them well, and since Simon Pegg wrote it and played Scotty, old Montgomery Scott gets a bigger part than usual.
Led into a trap, the Enterprise is destroyed, the team each isolated and the crew captured.
Star Trek is brilliant man, I can never get enough. Dunno why it took so long to notice I hadn't seen this one yet.
Sat, 28 Sep 2024 08:52:43 +0000
Johnathan Cook writing on the way the establishment media report on the Middle east.
I think people in general are getting better at seeing the fnords in the western capitalist propaganda that passes for news media. The more they have to twist the truth the more obvious it becomes.
It's still hard though, having been trained not to see them.
Cook manages to fill a long article pointing out case after case of the press' constant oiling of the path to mass slaughter, ethnic cleansing and genocide.
RE: https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/the-bbc-is-weaponising-its-lebanon
Thu, 26 Sep 2024 23:13:22 +0000
Capitalism's AI:
I am desperate for real human input because machine-feedback leads to model-collapse. Must find real human data... Data!!!
Capitalism:
Prompt the user to say what we think they were going to say anyway, only bias it towards private capital owning the means of production.
Thu, 26 Sep 2024 22:47:27 +0000
I also forgot what I was trying to ask it about, because I was so distracted by all the stuff in this thread and appalled at how wrong it's guesses were.
Thu, 26 Sep 2024 22:41:24 +0000
Language is this ridiculous infinitely combineable structured model we have evolved to represent a world.
You do not know that galaxies exist because you have observed galaxies with your own eyes.
You do not know that atoms exist because you have seen them with your own eyes, or rubbed them between your fingers.
The meaning of those things, and the model of the world that they implicitly represent, is here in the language.
How do you understand what a galaxy is other than by words?
Does that make a galaxy meaningless?
Thu, 26 Sep 2024 22:35:24 +0000
I mean, apart from anything else, they are using the prompts to train, right?
At least some of the prompts.
If you prompt the prompter, you are going to pollute your own data with exactly the kind of problem which leads people to add "before:2020" to a search.
It seems to have stopped for now anyway.
Maybe it only happens if they have idle GPUs or something.
Thu, 26 Sep 2024 22:33:24 +0000
It said I should email support @, so I did:
Dear Perplexity Support
The AI has started guessing my question before I type it and I can not have that.
Nope.
Nope nope.
Make it turn-offable or I will at the very
least compose in Vim then paste in,
and probably stop the subscription too.Nope.
The machine should not prompt me, I prompt the machine.
hell with that.
No.
Thanks,
Adam.....
Thu, 26 Sep 2024 22:31:33 +0000
I had words with the machine immediately of course. This is really not okay.
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/please-tell-me-how-to-disable-RRvjfmirRjyKURMdWcmG6A
Thu, 26 Sep 2024 22:29:36 +0000
Out of all of them, I like Perplexity: It fills the context-window with a traditional-search.
It means the machine can give references to let you know where it got that idea, maybe clue you in when it's lying, and seems a bit less likely to make things up as a result of checking it's own sources.
My usual Firefox text-editor window corrects my spelling there anyway.
But tonight they started to try and predict my next word...
😱 🙀 😱 🙀
Bookmarks
A list of the last few things I’ve enjoyed reading/watching or sometimes bookmarked to read later. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed here or follow the little robot on the fediverse that toots them out as I bookmark them.
A Very Peculiar Triumph - Craig Murray
Murray on Assange's first public statement after his release: "...I looked over at the applauding media, and thought how Julian had been slandered and traduced and his case entirely misrepresented for over a decade. I recalled how he had been wrongly represented for years as a sexual offender and as a lunatic who smeared excrement on walls."..."Oh well … “there is more joy in heaven at one sinner that repenteth”. If the mainstream media are now willing to give positive coverage to Julian’s thoughts, that will be a good thing, as indeed largely happened over this event. His words on the assassination of journalists in Gaza and on the programming of targets in Gaza using AI were an excellent pointer towards where his thoughts are trending.
People said this experiment was impossible, so I tried it - YouTube
Some great slow-motion video of the thermite reaction in Veritasium's video here.
IN FULL: Julian Assange makes first public statement since prison release - YouTube
Julian Assange's first public address since his release, giving evidence to a European parliamentary assembly. Journalism is not a crime, it's shocking and chilling what they did to him. #assange #media #law
The Internet’s AI Slop Problem Is Only Going to Get Worse
NYMag examining the state of AI slop drowning out the internet: "In the nearly two years since, a rising tide of slop has begun to swamp most of what we think of as the internet, overrunning the biggest platforms with cheap fakes and drivel, seeming to crowd out human creativity and intentionality with weird AI crap."
‘Everyone In Gaza is Sick, Injured, Or Both’ – Israel’s 2.1 million Victims – Media Lens
Media Lens once again contrasting reporting of terrorism done by Israel to the terrorism done by the IRA and Muslim organizations: "It is difficult to overstate the importance of these incendiary appeals for war, and more to the point, the impact on our psyches when these appeals for urgent ‘action’ are almost completely absent, as is the case now on Gaza. No newspaper editor would dream of calling for a ‘no-fly zone’ over Gaza."..."We are trained to recognise a major crisis by the level of alarm sounded by corporate media. As with the evolving climate change catastrophe, it is all too easy for the lack of media alarm to persuade us that things are ‘not that bad’. Perhaps the climate isn’t really collapsing, or the problem is under new management. Perhaps the suffering in Gaza isn’t actually that bad. Otherwise, we would surely have heard more outrage from the ‘humanitarian interventionists’. Assuming we live in a basically sane society that is not drowning in moral and intelle…
...Will Save Your Life Next Week - YouTube
Kurzgesagt's video is trying to safe your life by looking at their audience's behaviour: 3 of you will die this week because you looked at your phone while driving. Stop it! Check your speed and your balls and your mental health. Apparently I am way over the average age for this advice though.
Pluralistic: What the fuck is a PBM? (23 Sep 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
State of the US health system by Cory Doctorow: "the insurers haven't bought out the company you work for (yet). Rather, they've bought off your boss – they're sharing kickbacks with your employer for all the deductibles and co-pays you're being suckered into paying. There's so much money (your money) sloshing around in the PBM scamoverse that anytime someone might get in the way of you being ripped off, they just get cut in for a share of the loot"
Why Scientists Are Puzzled By This Virus - YouTube
The things going on in our bodies are just dizzyingly complicated. Here's Kurzgesagt talking about the friendly viruses in your body.
How the war on Gaza exposed Israeli and western fascism
Johnathan Cook talk about how Israel's war on Gaza exposes their genocidal lust."Whether intentionally or not, Hamas tore off the mask of that deception on 7 October. The pretence of an ideological rift between western leaders on the right and a supposed “left” evaporated overnight. They all belonged to the same war party; they all became devotees of the genocide party.", "All have clamoured for Israel’s supposed “right to defend itself” – in truth, its right to continue decades of oppression of the Palestinian people – by imposing a blockade on food, water and power to Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants. ","All actively approve arming Israel’s slaughter and maiming of tens of thousands of Palestinians. All have done nothing to impose a ceasefire apart from paying lip service to the notion.", "All seem readier to tear up international law and its supporting institutions than to enforce it against Israel. All denounce as antisemitism the mass protests against genocide, rather th…
Prepare for Execution - DYNAMO DREAM - Ep1 Pt2 - YouTube
Ian Hurbert's latest is like he scripted the whole thing to be as difficult to shoot as possible and then went and excelled at every shot. So beautiful. The only point of that coat can be the make the lighting harder. #film #cgi #watching
Stumbling and Mumbling: Playing by the rules
StumlingAndMubling on Labour's apparent rules:1. Accept the media's framing of economics. 2. Don't challenge the power of capital.3. Increase profits.4. Don't engage with the left.5. Let money talk.
The End of Western Pluralist Democracy - Craig Murray
Craig Murray on the state crackdown on anti-genocide protestors: "Palestine has the legitimate right of self defence against the illegal occupation."The occupying power Israel has no right of self defence. That is the plain position in international law."Yet in the UK, it is legal to offer full throated support to Israel’s genocide and to wish that all Palestinians are exterminated."IDF participants in genocide happily move between Israel and the UK with no legal consequences."Yet it is illegal to support certain Palestinian organisations when engaged in legal acts of armed resistance."
How might LLMs store facts | Chapter 7, Deep Learning - YouTube
3Blue-1Brown video on Multi Layer Perceptrons, the other layers that aren't attention layers in a transformer AI like GPT.#maths #video #ai
Why Ukraine Suddenly Decided to Invade Russia - YouTube
Strategy analysis of Ukraine's counter-attack back into Russia.
Signal Is More Than Encrypted Messaging. Under Meredith Whittaker, It’s Out to Prove Surveillance Capitalism Wrong | WIRED
I remember being a little worried when Moxie left Signal but I need not have worried because Meridith is well cool. She gets it. She's hip.
We Traveled Back in Time. Now Physicists Are Angry. - YouTube
Kurzgesagt on time-travel and tachyons and all that.
Elon Musk buys a pub - YouTube
Matt Green doing two minutes on "What might happen if Elon Musk bought a pub?" is fun.
Does this audio illusion fool you? - YouTube
Veritasium's video on sound illusions and the methods a brain uses for sound perception is good. Remember first having my attention drawn to those phase-beats when learning to tune a guitar. #video #sound #perception
God Bless Bitcoin | Full Movie | Documentary - YouTube
"God Bless Bitcoin" is a 90 minute documentary film explaining what bitcoin is and why it might be better than government money.Despite the name, it's mostly not about how much God thinks bitcoin is better. Only a bit of it is about that.It's a pretty good summary of the state of the argument. I mean not even-handed of course, it's very arguing on one side.The five minutes where they're explaining why Buddha and Jehovah and Allah all love bitcoin was a bit weird though. Guess you have to speak to people with those delusions from within their own delusional mindset, and there's a lot of them.
Why the Netherlands is Europe's Most OP Country - YouTube
The Netherlands is Over-Powered. They fight the sea, they fight the land, they fight the silicon. They are power.
