tbf it didn’t say the output was only prime numbers

Same. Feels very old to say but computers are so much more complicated and abstracted now, I feel like they were much more approachable when there wasn’t as much to them. Like being able to open the hood of a 60s era car and see all the discrete parts vs a 2020s car and you just see a tangle of plastic :/

I met my partner when we were both in our early 20s and we clicked very quickly. Growing up and through my teens I assumed I would never settle down into a long-term relationship. I didn’t really have a good idea of what a long-term relationship would even be like for me; I certainly didn’t want to wind up in the mutually-resigned tolerance that my parents evolved into. Then for a while after we got together I (fortunately privately) assumed that we were too young and it was too good to last and that things would eventually fall apart but (so far) we’ve just never gotten tired of being around each other. We’ve had a few rough eras, actually in one of the scrabble periods now, financially, but as for the relationship itself we’ve been together almost 20 years now and going stronger than ever. Still rather in awe that it worked out this way when I think back on it. Feels very lucky.

Not “too scared to say online” but… I think it’s less a question of if we’ll ever develop a sentient AI, and more a question of whether we’ll recognize them as sentient before or after the war of independence. To be clear, I don’t think we’re there yet, but assuming we don’t wipe ourselves out first, I think it’s inevitable in the long run.

Anything that burrows is out as well. Can’t do tight spaces either.

Very cool video. Kinda terrifying that inducing Kessler syndrome as a tactic of warfare is plausible enough that they included it as an option in the wargame. I wonder how viable that would be in a real world conflict.

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I’m feeling splenetic just thinking about it.

I had no idea that ottoman had a color.

ah,  
    I see.  
            significant whitespace  
            in prose. delightful.  

learned something new today.  
you have my thanks.  

You mean like a text break?
Something...



like this?

Thanks! Glad you liked it. What is a vinphantom? I’ve never heard the term, and a search didn’t turn up anything poetry / meter related.

Oh no oh dear don’t make me chronicle the progression of the natural miracle that is the evolution of language as I swore to do when I solemnly took my Lexicographer’s Oath oh no that’s my least favorite thing.

It really depends on the advice, and my relationship with the advice giver. I generally give advice at least a thought, even if it was unwanted, unless I have a reason to mistrust the advisor. As for how I respond to the person, if it’s a friend I’ll usually have followup questions, for people I know less well it’s usually a cordial variant of “hmm, interesting perspective” and then I have to think on it for a while before I respond, if I respond at all.

Sometimes I think about how so many of us look up at the stars and wonder “if there really are aliens out there, why aren’t they colonizing the galaxy as fast as possible, as any intelligent species would naturally do?” like it’s the thing just anyone looking at the stars might think. we might be the horrifying biomechanical paperclip maximizer that the other aliens in the galaxy have to band together to defeat or face extermination.

That tracks. It felt like someone at the show really liked the first version but someone at the network made them change it, so they were like “fuck it, put a tambourine under it idk” and called it good enough.

Ooh, I never get to ask this question: Do you have a preference between the initial version and the season 3 version? I always felt like they changed it because they got the feedback “fans don’t like the song” but they didn’t really know what to do with that feedback, so they wound up with a rewrite that sounded almost, but not quite, exactly the same. But I am in the group that never really vibed with either so I find it hard to draw comparisons. Curious to get a perspective from someone who liked the intro.

It’s nice. Feels like browsing in an old western saloon.

I hope it happens. And by it I mean VR / AR equipment that I can comfortably use for a few hours at a time without getting sweaty, fatigued, or motion sick. When I’m using a computer I like to have a bunch of displays, and it would be really convenient to have a comfortable headset that I can wear instead and live my dream of coding in VR / AR and spin displays up or down on a whim, or better still use some as-yet-undreamed VR native UI that takes advantage of the platform. That dream is still a way off, it seems like, but I still want it.

I don’t think it has to be, or even should be the case really. I mean, as a general rule I don’t think it’s a great idea to let kids download stuff off the internet and run it without a knowledgeable adult at least reviewing what they’re doing, or pre-screening what software they’re allowed to use if they’re younger than a certain age. You can introduce kids to open source software and teach them computer skills while still putting limits on what they’re allowed to do, e.g. not allowed to install software without asking a parent, or only allowing them to test software on an old machine that doesn’t have sensitive data on it. I know I got thrown to the internet as a kid but I don’t think that’s the best way for kids to learn stuff.

That said, I don’t have kids and don’t plan on having them, so I don’t know how realistic that is for kids nowadays. I don’t know if they’re still as far ahead of the adults as we were when it came to working the internet so I recognize the possibility that that all may be clueless childless adult nonsense.