Tootfinder

Elon Musk’s wealth is 2% of Nominal GDP of China.
He can spend 1 million USD per day and if he lives another 50 years, he will still have at least 980 billion dollars upon his death.
This is next level fucked up.
#NoGoodBillionaires #ElonMusk

Gave the Level 2 induction lecture today, which I described as "An annual tradition of delivering a motivational yet mildly threatening lecture".
Yeesh, combined with a few meetings my brain feels like mush. Opened up MSc dissertations to mark and was like, "nope". Need to build up that teaching semester stamina again.

I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
#Shitpost #Shitposting #OpenCarry

Glacier Level in 1850
This sign marks the former extent of the once grand Hintereisferner, one of the key "reference glaciers" worldwide, at the peak of the LIA some ~175 years ago. By now the glacier has retracted ~5 km back into the upper valley behind the slope on the right...
More info about ongoing research @ Uni Innsbruck:

Vad säger ni #drinkklubben

Hunderte von #Meeresspiegel-Studien haben den #Meeresanstieg unterschätzt. Eine gängige Schätzungsmethode kann im Durchschnitt um 25 cm oder mehr daneben liegen.

Hundreds of sea level studies have underestimated ocean rise
One widely used “geoid” technique may have missed up to a century of sea level rise — so risks could hit millions of people far sooner than expected.

good grief cgit.freebsd.org set the anubis difficulty level to 6
https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/proofwork.pdf

Why does BART not understand the simple concept that if only one escalator is in service it should be the up escalator?

Librarian, archivist, or curator looking to level up your digital game? You might be interested in our online courses that teach #DigitalCuration skills. Cherrypick your favorite or take the full grad certificate https://DigitalCuration.UMaine.ed…

I just watched the #BlackHat #OpenAI #HuggingFace talk (#OpenAI understands it themselves. However, emergence is still no indication of actual intelligence, and the talk is again ripe with anthropomorphism.
3. Yes, it is surprising and somewhat terrifying how good these LLM agent loops have become in finding and exploiting vulnerabilities. We are seeing a much stronger version of the earlier next-generation fuzzing leap in tool capabilities.
4. The comparison with fuzzing and other tools is important for another reason: #OpenAI conducted their experiments on the live Internet. No, forcing internal test runs to go through a proxy server is *not the same as running in an isolated environment*. If there is a connection to a live production system, it is by definition not an effective sandbox. What happened to people letting their cool new fuzzers run live on non-consenting production targets on the Internet back then? They were criminally liable. Why should #OpenAI not be held liable for any damages caused by their systems?
Just because you don't understand the complexity that you built doesn't mean you aren't responsible for what it does!
5. The agent loops first successfully started exploited their proxy server on May 26th, discovered July 4th-6th as active exploitation and takeover. Credentials were revoked and the proxy server patched. "At this point, AI training and evaluations resume."
WHAT THE ACTUAL F...? You discovered emergent behavior in your overly complex system that you didn't understand, saw active exploitation of your internal systems to an extent that they were owned with admin privileges, and your response was to patch the uppermost surface holes, and then continue letting the out-of-control complex system run and continue on the same course? You didn't think to, let's see, maybe stop or at least pause the highly irresponsible experiment while figuring out - in detail - what went wrong, why, and how to avoid the same thing happening again on a systematic level?
6. On July 8th, completely unsurprisingly, the LLM agent loops continue to do the same thing and find another surface hole that hasn't been patched yet to take over again. Why should this have stopped? You haven't done any root cause analysis on the system level. Why do you expect that the problem should have stopped?
7. It takes another 11 days to discover that this is happening again. So you turned the system that had broken something back on again without a detailed root cause analysis and then didn't even watch carefully? I can't even...
8. And no, the response is not to fight fire with fire. Complexity on the attacker side (#OpenAI is the attacker, not the defender - they are the guilty perpetrator, not the innocent victim of circumstance) should be fought with *reduced* attack surface on the defender systems. Adding LLM agent loops that the "frontier" companies themselves quite obviously have no control over to already brittle systems with the hope of auto-patching your way out of vulnerabilities does not seem like a wise course of action. You don't mitigate complexity with even more complexity. The next 2 years will be ... exciting - and your best bet is going to be to disable all dependencies and complex interactions that your production systems don't absolutely require.

RE: https://thepit.social/@peter/116962244994361810
The thing I notice about that video is they had that tarp all lined up and ready to go: <9 seconds from collapsed to covered, and the people with the tarp didn’t even seem to be in a hurry.
They fully expected something like this might happen, and they ran the demo anyway.
Whoever this demo was supposed to be for, whatever the audience’s level of expectations, there’s something here about the extraordinary pressure companies are under to cobble together the appearance of future-bending success at any cost.

oopsie doodles!
Came outside to do some dirt moving only to find the #poolpond intake bay very nearly empty!
I have not been topping up the water since I filled it about 9 days ago? It has been cooler but windy and the last little bit of rain we got was a few days ago.
It must have just got below the level of the intake bay in the past hour or two as it was on its way to emptying. Luckily i caught it in time.
Water is being added now. I am also going to use the twirly sprinkler to water the flower and blueberry garden and it will also add to the pond at the same time in a nice aerated way.
Adding from the hose is not ideal as all that chlorine goes in at the same time
Anyways, crisis averted and information gained. It is already coming back up nicely.
hopefully it is full in time to have a dip after dirt moving!
#gardening #pondlife #diy #backyardProject

ran out of steam but good progress!
the area in front of the sheds is pretty much level and I got the dirt pile down to level up to the edge of the sheds. I think another 5 or 6 loads cart loads of dirt will finish off the pile and bring then dirt up around the back of the pond!
my back was starting to complain and the sun came out so I stopped and ate black berries poking through the fence!
then I went for a swim. It felt sooo good.
#poolpond #backyardProject #diy #gardening #ants #anthill

i think the reason I have enjoyed building and maintaining the ponds so much is because they are kind of like a computer system.
Most of the time they work fine, and when they have issues, which generally manifests as "I'm losing water", it is for a clear reason.
But like computers, getting to and identifying that reason, and fixing it, is the challenge.
Over the past few days, the #pandemicpond has been losing water at an accelerated rate. In the summer, it should be able to go at least 2 or 3 days before needing a top up due to evaporation.
But these past few days it has been very low after just a day.
There has to be a leak/escape of water somewhere.
I also recently (about 2 weeks ago) changed the inlet at the top of the bog barrel to shorten the pipe and make it not stick up as tall and ugly.
Like computers... "have you changed anything recently" is a top contender for the root of the issue.
Shortening and dropping the height of the pipe increased the flow without having to increase the pump power. But that could have also caused a minor overflow on the waterfall, or raised the level of the top pond to where it might be overtopping somewhere non-obvious.
I suspect this increased flow is the main issue.
However, like all IT issues, you should cover the easy stuff first. I checked all the piping from the barrels to the waterfall to make sure there were no joints leaking or drips down the pipes.
All seems fine there. I also did a check around the perimeter of the pond to look for overtopping. Nothing there at low levels, but I have to check again when the system is full.
I wanted to cut the hose down further anyway, so I have done that. Was able to remove over 4 feet of pipe. The height hasn't changed though so the impact on flow should not be large.
Then I checked the pump itself, cleaned out its filter bag, strained the skimmer box and put it all back. Nothing untoward there either. Basically just regular maintenance.
A thought occured to me though, the main overflow for the pond is behind the skimmer. If it rains a lot or I overfill the system, it overflows there into some rocks and drains out under the garden to the sidewalk.
I wonder if when the new posts and gate were installed, the level of the overflow dropped slightly. This would give less leeway (freeboard) for the pond before it gets too low. 🤔
Re-raising the overflow would be tricky. And best done after the rains return in fall. But it is something Ill have to consider if today's investigations don't fix the issue.
I just finished refilling the pond (overfull oops... typing too much)
Time to check for overflows and seeps around the edges.
#pandemicpond #pondlife #gardening #home #diy #IT #TroubleShooting

one man's scrap is a another man's perfect fit.
corollary.
"you have a huge piece of thick underlay that would easily fit that entire area! Why don't you just do it in one piece?"
"why would I do it in one piece when I could use up 10 pieces? 😆"
ground is level or at least as level is it is going to be under my supervision lol. Laying down some gardening cloth to keep out blackberries mostly. Next I will put down drainage rock which will bring it to the right level to put down the rubber horse mat, which will then be the same height as the other shed
#poolpond #backyardProject #diy #landscaping #wastenotwantnot

good morning!
did some early-morning ponding on the #pandemicPond this morning.
The water level was unusually low, so I started looking around for leaks or blocks. I have been wanting to cut down the vertical PVC at the top of the bog barrels to make it not stick out so much and blend in a little nicer and also because it would reduce the height for the pump, so increase flow.
Well it turns out that connection, where the black pipe goes into the white PVC in the barrel, was a little loose and some water was leaking out and adding to the evaporation budget.
So that gave me the push to do the small modifications on the top end of the pipe. It was also a good time since turning off the pump meant the top pond would drain into the bottom pond. When the system is full, that would normally cause the bottom pond to over flow, but since it was all low, no extra water was lost.
I cut the inlet down a few inches under the water in the bog barrel to move the T down and then cut another 6in from the top pipe to snug it all up.
Then I also tightened up the connections for the over flow/air valve and added an elbow to keep water from escaping out the valve outlet. Only took about 5 minutes. I have been wanting to do this for months. 😂
Result:
black pipe doesn't curl as high over the barrel ✅
no more leak from the PVC connection ✅
no more water escaping from the air valve ✅
noticeably more flow over the waterfall! ✅
Pump is back on and water is replenished from the rain barrel ✅
the fish are happy! 🐟 and me too. ✅
oh oh! did I tell you we have a new fish! The top pond fish had babies and it looks like one has survived to be big enough not to be cannibalized. 😂 It is very skittish and is still mostly black so I havent got a good picture of it yet.
#pondlife #diy #gardening #portalberni

moving dirt this morning before the sun gets too hot.
It's supposed to be 34°C with a humidex of 36 this afternoon. 🥵
It is only 20°C in the shade right now so time to get a good dent in the pile before I melt.
Current interim goal is to level a space equal to a little bigger than the current grey shed so I can put an identical one beside it either back-to-back or face to face.
The shovel mark in the top of the dirt pile to the left is the width mark that I have to clear to. 😂 We'll see if I get all the way there today! Watch says I have put 73min in so far.
I also need to convince the boy to help move the rocks from around the pond into a central pile. Pile location is TBD tho. 🤔
But it needs to be done so I can shore up a couple of low spots on the edge of the poolpond and in general start landscaping the edge of it.
#poolpond #backyardProject #diy #gardening #landscaping

Had a decent sleep last night after a long day. Got up before 6AM so that I could start the sprinklers on time.
(We are allowed 6-9AM/PM alternating days but I only water in the mornings because watering when it is still 32°C at 8PM is dumb)
While they were going I got going on another dirt-moving session. Over 3 hours! The sun was blocked by clouds for much of it so that helped a lot. Managed to get the space cleared for the 2nd shed. The whole back part of the yard is nearly level. It’s amazing just how much lower one side of the yard was from the other!
Another couple days of moving dirt and leveling and the dirt mountain should be spent!
Lunch and naptime. 2000 calories burned 😝 💪
Started to feel some pains in hands, thumb, back. Body knows… so I stopped :)
#poolpond #backyardProject #diy #gardening #dirt #portalberni #clay