@benb@osintua.eu2025-12-22 23:18:25
A Chapter Closes: Ukrainian International Legion Dissolves: https://benborges.xyz/2025/12/22/a-chapter-closes-ukrainian-international.html
@benb@osintua.eu2025-12-22 23:18:25
@mariyadelano@hachyderm.io2025-12-18 16:31:46
Don’t get me wrong - while using the fountain pen I am still trying to maintain good writing posture and I’m continuing to do my regular hand stretches.
But for a sense of the difference: before, I was happy with the fact that I managed to develop a good pain management routine to allow me to write like 2-3 pages at a time without convulsing in pain.
And now I can write 6 pages nonstop without even thinking or feeling anything. A short 5–10 minute rest and I can come back for more.
This is such a big deal to me. I was able to draw yesterday with a relaxed hand after spending hours writing notes. Before I’d only be able to do one or the other in a day!
And then I finished the evening by writing out a chapter of my novel by hand.
And today my hand is totally fine!!
@aral@mastodon.ar.al2025-12-17 08:27:31
“People want software that is fast, modern, but also honest about what it does.”
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/leadership/mozillas-next-chapter-anthony-enzor-demeo-new-ceo/
No, you muppet, people want tools that do what…
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot2025-11-18 09:21:37
"I remember somebody jokingly suggesting that I challenge Elon Musk to a fight (this was during his and Mark Zuckerberg’s martial arts feud), and quietly thinking to myself, I am literally not paid enough for that" -- @…
Happy retirement, Eugen!
@jorgecandeias@mastodon.social2025-11-18 14:55:22
Well, the guys who were always going on about the "benevolent dictator for life" thing must be feeling a bit of a loss here. How are they going to complain now?
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/11/my-next-chapter-with-mastodon/
@cdarwin@c.im2025-11-18 05:12:31
Kash Patel has reportedly assigned a security detail of SWAT agents to guard his country singer girlfriend,
in the latest chapter of the FBI director’s blatant misappropriation of bureau resources.
A group of elite agents from the FBI Field Office in Nashville have been assigned to protect Patel’s girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins.
The sources added that those agents, who are typically charged with responding to high-risk situations, would likely be unable to respond in the event o…
@Techmeme@techhub.social2025-12-22 06:40:35
Q&A with iRobot co-founder Colin Angle on the company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy, regulatory pressure that killed Amazon's deal, his new robotics startup, and more (Connie Loizos/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/20/it-f
@simoncox@seocommunity.social2025-11-18 08:32:14
Thank you for everything @… ! 👏
https://mastodon.social/@Mastodon/115569662927806367
@seeingwithsound@mas.to2026-01-11 08:10:51
(paywalled) Supporting individuals with visual impairments 2: Walking and navigating support https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-95-5783-7_4 "emphasizing sensory substitution functionalities and emerging assistive technologies", "challenges in …
@cdarwin@c.im2025-11-17 23:56:14
It’s definitely a long shot.
But Rae Huang, a 43-year-old community organizer, minister and dues-paying member of the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America,
is making her move, throwing her hat into the ring for mayor of Los Angeles.
The virtually unknown candidate is the deputy director of Housing Now California,
a coalition that fights displacement of tenants at the state and local levels.
Huang, who announced a campaign launch on Sunday, i…
@Techmeme@techhub.social2025-12-15 18:01:13
Lidar manufacturer Luminar files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and says it reached a deal to sell its semiconductor subsidiary to Quantum Computing Inc. for $110M (Reshmi Basu/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/202…
@mgorny@social.treehouse.systems2026-01-18 18:04:19
Cynicism, "AI"
I've been pointed out the "Reflections on 2025" post by Samuel Albanie [1]. The author's writing style makes it quite a fun, I admit.
The first part, "The Compute Theory of Everything" is an optimistic piece on "#AI". Long story short, poor "AI researchers" have been struggling for years because of predominant misconception that "machines should have been powerful enough". Fortunately, now they can finally get their hands on the kind of power that used to be only available to supervillains, and all they have to do is forget about morals, agree that their research will be used to murder millions of people, and a few more millions will die as a side effect of the climate crisis. But I'm digressing.
The author is referring to an essay by Hans Moravec, "The Role of Raw Power in Intelligence" [2]. It's also quite an interesting read, starting with a chapter on how intelligence evolved independently at least four times. The key point inferred from that seems to be, that all we need is more computing power, and we'll eventually "brute-force" all AI-related problems (or die trying, I guess).
As a disclaimer, I have to say I'm not a biologist. Rather just a random guy who read a fair number of pieces on evolution. And I feel like the analogies brought here are misleading at best.
Firstly, there seems to be an assumption that evolution inexorably leads to higher "intelligence", with a certain implicit assumption on what intelligence is. Per that assumption, any animal that gets "brainier" will eventually become intelligent. However, this seems to be missing the point that both evolution and learning doesn't operate in a void.
Yes, many animals did attain a certain level of intelligence, but they attained it in a long chain of development, while solving specific problems, in specific bodies, in specific environments. I don't think that you can just stuff more brains into a random animal, and expect it to attain human intelligence; and the same goes for a computer — you can't expect that given more power, algorithms will eventually converge on human-like intelligence.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, what evolution did succeed at first is achieving neural networks that are far more energy efficient than whatever computers are doing today. Even if indeed "computing power" paved the way for intelligence, what came first is extremely efficient "hardware". Nowadays, human seem to be skipping that part. Optimizing is hard, so why bother with it? We can afford bigger data centers, we can afford to waste more energy, we can afford to deprive people of drinking water, so let's just skip to the easy part!
And on top of that, we're trying to squash hundreds of millions of years of evolution into… a decade, perhaps? What could possibly go wrong?
[1] #NoAI #NoLLM #LLM
@michaels@mstdn.nursing.unibas.ch2025-12-01 18:29:59
@NFL@darktundra.xyz2025-10-29 15:35:44
Marcedes Lewis, 41-year-old tight end, signing with Broncos' practice squad in 20th NFL season https://www.nfl.com/news/marcedes-lewis-broncos-practice-squad-41-year-old-tight-end-20th-nfl-season