"You got it. Corporate core data for Tessier-Ashpool S.A., and that ice is
generated by their two friendly AI's. On par with anything in the military
sector, looks to me. That's king hell ice, Case, black as the grave and slick
as glass. Fry your brain soon as look at you. We get any closer now, it'll
have tracers up our ass and out both ears, be tellin' the boys in the T-A
boardroom the size of your shoes and how long your dick is."
I recommend Gibson’s (abridged) reading of the book - but only after reading the book. Whenever I read a quote from the book now I hear it in Gibson’s iconic voice.
As a kid that’s a hilarious name because “trump” is also a euphemism for fart. To this day, fart is the first thing I think of when I hear the word trump.
On the subject of corrupt-vs-build, Tolkien's contemporary CS Lewis had some good bits in The Screwtape Letters, in which a senior devil is advising a junior on the corruption of his charge. (I don't think one needs to be Christian to pick out its insightful bits on the human condition.)
> Well, I am afraid it is no good trying to make him brave. Our research department has not yet discovered (though success is hourly expected) how to produce any virtue. This is a serious handicap. To be greatly and effectively wicked a man needs some virtue. What would Attila have been without his courage, or Shylock without self-denial as regards the flesh? But as we cannot supply these qualities ourselves, we can only use them as supplied by the Enemy—and this means leaving Him a kind of foothold in those men whom, otherwise, we have made most securely our own. A very unsatisfactory arrangement, but, I trust, we shall one day learn to do better.
> Hatred we can manage. The tension of human nerves during noise, danger, and fatigue, makes them prone to any violent emotion and it is only a question of guiding this susceptibility into the right channels. If conscience resists, muddle him. Let him say that he feels hatred not on his own behalf but on that of the women and children, and that a Christian is told to forgive his own, not other people’s enemies. In other words let him consider himself sufficiently identified with the women and children to feel hatred on their behalf, but not sufficiently identified to regard their enemies as his own and therefore proper objects of forgiveness.
The amount of people in my life who use Meta for the company and not still Facebook is probably exactly zero. I'm not talking about articles or meta-(haha) discussion about Meta or HN, though.
Adyen just bought Orb [0], a usage-based billing company, for $335M, specifically so they could position themselves as the payments choice for AI companies.
I read both of these in the last year and they're both phenomenal. I'm working my way through the classics, there's a reason they've survived centuries.
Actually, I listened to a dramatization of The Three Musketeers and I was struck by how _funny_ it is. The 4-way duel at the beginning is hilarious and Aramis' and Porthos' respective romantic escapades give great comic relief to what is otherwise an action packed adventure.
The Count of Monte Cristo is an investment, and the middle third drags, but it's necessary to set up the final third, which is so rewarding for the reader. It's the best tale of revenge and redemption I've ever read.
"""Hey ChatGPT, I've heard you make a good book club partner. I've just read [Three Musketeers|Count of Monte Cristo] and want to have a discussion about it. Ask me what I think before you tell me what you think, let's go!"""
...I read both of the books recently and it was illuminating to be able to near-instantly explore avenues of insight/criticism of both of the books. Three Musketeers matches fairly closely to Wizard of Oz (vice versa actually), and Monte Cristo raises some really interesting questions if you view "The Count" as basically a fallen angel of divine justice (and the benefits/costs to him via that role).
Since my circle of IRL people who'd recently read both the unabridged books in the last month is infinitesimally small, it was one of my first "arms-length" test cases of "The GPT's" for fitness-for-purpose. I'm still a bit muddy on throwing a bunch of personal data and thoughts to remote servers (or becoming dependent on that interaction pattern), but digging in and analyzing old books was a great kindof gut-check and something I enjoy doing when finishing a book.
I know it's regurgitating a bunch of of reddit comments and academic books/papers (in Dumas's case), but overall- highly recommended!
Yes...clearly running to something that is "regurgitating a bunch of of reddit comments and academic books/papers" is much, much better than finding a couple of actual humans that read books, and then talking to them. Peak AI right there.
I get your angle, but have you ever read the discourse between humans regarding fiction?
I mean humans have made death threats towards other humans about whether or not Han shot first.
fiction-fan-discourse is a very low bar on the rankings of human social interaction. I'm not saying that makes it replacable and trivial, but let's not pretend that every fiction discussion with another honest to god human being is a Rembrandt.
You can say this about virtually any human interaction; I'm often amazed at the sort of nonsense some people think is vitally relevant. I would far prefer talking to other humans about fiction and risk the occasion nutcase (that I can walk away from and ignore) than retreat into "tell me plausible rehashes of rehashes of other peoples thoughts and don't upset me with all that icky human interaction stuff".
"""I have an idea for a movie club, where two movies with a tenuously connected theme are watched (separately) and then discussed. If you've seen the movies "XXX", and "YYY", tell me what is similar about them, what's different, what are some possible "connected themes" and who tackled the topic better?"""
...time passes...
"""Now that you understand the idea behind these pairings, recommend five more pairings, but don't give any hints as to their connections, just five bullet points with "A vs B" movie titles. Bonus points if there is at least a 10-year gap between them, and they are both not box-office blockbusters (but make sure they are slightly more popular or recognizable movies, not exclusively low-distribution non-critically-acclaimed indie movies)."""
* Children of Men vs Snowpiercer
* Lost in Translation vs Frances Ha
* No Country for Old Men vs Hell or High Water
* The Prestige vs The Illusionist
* Drive vs Nightcrawler
...I know guidance is "don't just post AI output", but this is specifically a human-to-human discussion around novel(?) ways to interact with AI/LLM's. I've found they're _really_ good at conceptual-venn-diagrams.
There's a book "Algorithms to Live By" (ie: look for matching socks via BFS/DFS or whatever). Asking the AI: "you know a bunch of algorithms, what are the top three that should have been in the book?" => "what are the weakest that could have been removed?"
Recently during performance reviews, we had to write our self-assessment and had guidance from on high like: "make sure you talk about people skills, technical skills, customer impact, etc." ...so yada yada: "I'm so amazing, I'm so great" => "Dear AI, I've been given this guidance `...`, please compare my handcrafted storytelling against the guidance `...` and tell me where I have missed covering a requirement" => "...now please give help w.r.t. simplifying or cleaning up the section on $INCREDIBLE_TECHNICAL_ACHIEVEMENT b/c I was focusing on describing my personal impact, but need help making it more digestible for others".
The combination of instant, tailored feedback and the fact that they've read the whole internet, "watched" every movie (read the script, read critics reviews, reddit, forum discussions, etc), read most published books, and that they're 80%+ plumbers, doctors, lawyers, car mechanics, etc. make them an unstoppable research assistant, especially when crossing connections that would normally be "expensive" to do so.
Example: ask a [doctor+lawyer+plumber] about the health and legal impacts of lead solder in pipes or whatever. Instead of needing to schedule 3 people's times, wait for them, pay them, etc, you can get instant "free" feedback, educate yourself, and then have a more solid foundation to branch out from there. Such incredibly useful tools!
We're getting into the 1930s now - the sound era and the start of the Golden Age. Here's some recommendations.
The Divorcee - Norma Shearer won best actress for this performance of a sophisticated woman. She evens the score after her husband has a brief affair, and as this is pre-Hays code, she isn't punished for it.
Hell's Angels - produced by Howard Hughes, is worth watching for the dogfighting stunts alone. 4 people died filming them.
Holiday - Inferior to the later Hepburn/Grant remake, but still a solid rendition of the play.
L'age d'Or - Luis Buñuel's surrealist showcase
Animal Crackers - the Marx brothers, it's still funny
You want to suck air through the filters rather than blow into them. For one, this keeps the fans cleaner but also it's more efficient, reducing turbulence inside the box.
https://old.reddit.com/r/crboxes/ is a good resource if you're looking to make your own. There's been a general shift from large box fans to PC fans because their performance/noise ratio is better.
There's certainly something to novelty wearing off with time but I don't think that diminishes historical work. When I listen to Abbott and Costello perform "Who's on First?" (c. 1938) - it's still funny. It's not intrinsically less funny because I've heard it and things it inspired many times over.
It's also in how you watch things. I sometimes catch old films in the theatre and the room is filled with laughter. I was belly laughing to The Palm Beach Story (Sturges, 1942). Heck, I've been to see Shakespeare where everyone's laughing.
I think it is Michelle Obama.
That's what the "market" thinks. You are welcome to "arbitrage" it with some $!
Biden has a non zero probability of dying before the election (of natural causes). Plus DNC nomination is a super pac driven process. Math might just compute.
> Biden has a non zero probability of dying before the election (of natural causes). Plus DNC nomination is a super pac driven process. Math might just compute.
So the odds of Biden dying, times the odds of Michelle Obama wanting to run, times the odds of the DNC not picking Kamala Harris—the current VP, times the odds of Michelle Obama actually winning, might work out to 4%?
...uh... I don't even know what to say about that.
Hmm, yes, getting into financial contracts with people who live in cloud cuckoo land, for a few percentage points that get eaten up by the site itself seems like a good idea.
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