Biggles @Biggles@social.cleverlibre.org

@mayaisloading haha and as some Redditor pointed out, there are a whole bunch of children who never turned into a hungry caterpillar

I have so many questions about what just happened with Voyager 2. But let's review:

On August 20, 1977, Voyager 2 was launched from Earth.

In December 1977, it entered the asteroid belt.

In June 1978, its main radio receiver failed. Since then it's been using the backup receiver!

On July 9, 1979, it flew past many of Jupiter's moons and made its closest approach to Jupiter.

On August 26, 1981 it shot past Saturn.

On August 25, 1989 it shot past Uranus.

On November 5, 2018 it crossed the heliopause and entered interstellar space, 120 times farther from the Sun than we are.

On July 18, 2023, it overtook Pioneer 10 and became the second farthest man-made object from the Sun.

3 days later, some idiot sent a command that pointed its high gain antenna 2 degrees away from Earth. HOW EXACTLY DID THIS HAPPEN?

On August 4, 2023, NASA used its most high-powered transmitter to successfully command Voyager 2 to reorient towards Earth, resuming communications. HOW WAS THAT POSSIBLE?

How can you "shout" across 120 AU? It takes light about 16 hours to travel that far.

I found this on an old, salvaged drive I was organizing and immediately crumbled into ancient dust.

@baldur exactly this:

(Quote from the article):
“This isn’t fixable,” said Emily Bender, a linguistics professor and director of the University of Washington’s Computational Linguistics Laboratory. “It’s inherent in the mismatch between the technology and the proposed use cases.”

It’s like trying to solve the problem that cars don’t provide any nutritional value. The idea of using LLMs to provide detailed factual information is just not tenable. That’s not what they are.

SunOS 4.1.4 says it can't possibly be the year 2023: "WARNING: preposterous time in filesystem -- CHECK AND RESET THE DATE!"

sorry SunOS, there's nothing i can do to fix 2023.

One of the most spectacular coronal mass ejections from the Sun ever captured by NASA's SDO spacecraft.

Credit: NASA​/​SDO

With 45’s checkered past, is Smith playing brilliant, strategic chess? Trump looks to assert “advice of counsel” as a defense. But that could prove very damaging to his case and still fail outright when the jury deliberates. I explain why in today’s piece. https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/jack-smith-has-set-a-trap-for-trump?sd=pf

I keep flashing back to eliezer being smug on Twitter about how good ChatGPT is at chess, and it turns out once you get past book openings and extremely well-documented games, it completely shits the bed and stops acting like it knows the rules of chess or even basic chess notation. and this is a very obvious outcome if you know how LLMs work, but most promptfans don’t

The Infinite Mac CD-ROM library is now officially launched! I wrote up a post with some details of how it's implemented and other recent improvements: https://blog.persistent.info/2023/08/infinite-mac-cd-roms.html

Infinite Macs website just got WAY, WAY, WAYYYY better. Read the blog: blog.persistent.info/2023/0...
mounted CD libraries from URL (streamed fast instead of all loaded at once), drop-down menu selectable OS, and more.

being mutuals with me means I will helpfully explain what an upper decker is if you ask

(as a public service: it's when you shit in the cistern of an enemy's toilet, thus releasing an infusion of poo stew with every flush)

Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition gets a free starter edition https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/08/age-of-empires-iii-definitive-edition-gets-a-free-starter-edition/ #RTS #Linux #SteamDeck #PCGaming

One of the creepier tech-related incidents I remember was many years ago when I wanted the Sam's Photofacts (a third-party creator of device specs and schematics, etc.) for a very old portable TV. Way out of date, but I was trying to help someone with it.

I mentioned to a friend that I was looking for old Photofacts, but I did not say anything about the TV. He scribbled an address on a scrap of paper, an address locally here in L.A. "Try him," he muttered.

I drive over. It's a small unmarked storefront. I go in, the bell on the door rings. Sitting inside, like the caterpillar in "Alice in Wonderland", is this little guy perched on a stool, with immense stacks of paper surrounding him everywhere. Total mayhem.

I walk up to him -- knowing that this was a waste of time and really wanting to get out of there -- and asked if he had the Sam's Photofacts for that specific very old TV model.

Without saying a word, he reached over to the pile of papers right next to him, took the TOP item off the pile, and silently handed it to me. It was the ancient one I needed. Stunned, I paid him the amount marked on the item, and left with it, not completely sure what had just happened.

When I drove by there a month later that storefront was something else entirely. He was gone.