JP

https://mastodon.social/@jplebreton

videogames nincompoop

website: http://vectorpoem.com
pronouns: he/him

Public Key

npub1v80d8fnq8y2fz3297wnsnkl6nacakfuq2jsf3vd8ek6h28u74j3stwtal8

NIP-05 Address

jplebreton_at_mastodon.social@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsxrhkn5esrj9y3g4zl8fcfm0af7uwmy7q9fgyckxnumdt4r702egcjac9jj

Author Public Key

npub1v80d8fnq8y2fz3297wnsnkl6nacakfuq2jsf3vd8ek6h28u74j3stwtal8

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Last Notes

2024-09-02 17:18:21

the thing about "[group of vulnerable people] need [consumer product/service that makes the world worse] to live" is that while in certain cases it's true (eg places where public transit is so underfunded disabled people's best alternative is uber), if you couple that with "and you're ableist/classist/etc for criticizing [consumer product/service that makes the world worse]" then i will assume you are simply using said people as hostages to defend said harmful thing.

2024-08-31 16:13:45

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letting billionaires launch whatever shit they want into space so they can project geopolitical power everywhere on the planet with no accountability seems bad

2024-08-31 16:12:27

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hm, it looks like they're still providing service there: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/30/top-brazilian-judge-orders-suspension-of-x-00176920

2024-08-31 15:55:36

https://web.archive.org/web/20240628092727/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/08/the-brazilian-special-forces-unit-fighting-to-save-the-amazon Starlink ceasing service in Brazil will make it harder for illegal rainforest mining to continue operating

2024-08-29 05:25:10

"The Problem of the Unionized War Machine" - a good reminder that if a labor movement isn't international and anti-imperialist, it ain't worth dirt - and when it is, it can be a formidable force for good.
https://jewishcurrents.org/the-problem-of-the-unionized-war-machine

2024-08-28 04:45:29

I wrote about "Past Tense, parts 1 & 2", aka the Bell Riots episodes, from Star Trek Deep Space 9, and how their version of San Francisco in late August 2024 compares to the one we're living through today: https://cohost.org/vectorpoem/post/7112917-the-bell-riots-happe

2024-08-25 20:09:23

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haven't watched it and might never but whoever said that very much does not speak for me, fuck that

2024-08-23 16:30:08

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the fact that he also bought and furnished a billionaire survivalist compound full of guns, water, vitamins etc seems pertinent here - if none of that (obviously totally selfish) life extension bullshit works out and "society crumbles" (as if it hasn't already for a large % of humans on this planet), he still wants to die last and will kill to ensure that.

2024-08-19 23:37:42

my problem with "political fandoms" is that they are inversions of the only ethical power dynamic between elected and electorate. please don't think of these people as your friends or as your cool dad/mom/etc. they work for you and you are the only thing holding them accountable.

2024-08-16 19:44:25

"LLM bubble backlash people are being *scary* and *reactionary*! Don't they understand it's going to be 100x better soon and this is just what progress looks like?"
meanwhile, outside the techie fart inhalation chamber, this family was poisoned:
https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1etko9h/family_poisoned_after_using_aigenerated_mushroom/
If you're building or enabling anything about this tech's look-ma-no-regulation rollout into society right now, fuck you, rethink your life.

2024-08-10 21:41:25

I brought over one of my recent bots from cohost: follow @npub1zq4…9x4p for a random Magic the Gathering "basic land" card once a day.
I don't actually know much about MtG and last played 25 years ago but I've always dug the art, and the minimalist, frequently relaxing vibes of the basic lands. Enjoy!

2024-08-10 21:24:15

[werner herzog voice] ultimately, all editions are limited.

2024-08-09 03:59:39

The updated version of classic Doom that went live today seems cool but sadly contains a gesture of total contempt for its modding community and game history: https://cohost.org/vectorpoem/post/7223926-id-software-zenima

2024-07-02 15:01:06

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[slams dick in car door and continues to tank profits] masterful gambit, sir. here's a $60 billion CEO pay package.

2024-06-24 14:47:46

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what i think the era of LLM hype shows is that many people have massive gaps, defects, in their trust building process. trusting a summary of a complex work that is the result of the specific statistical analysis behind LLMs is actually a far larger, weirder, more abstract leap of faith than even the squishiest "vibe check" sort of assessments we do, and yet it is perceived as being objective, rational, fact/data-based.
this is a massive social problem and is getting worse every day.

2024-06-24 14:41:17

https://mastodon.social/@mhoye/112671908743273572 very illuminating example: to function in society we are always taking people at their word and making leaps of faith, great and small, by trusting people. our worlds and world*views* take the shape of the "trust networks" we've built, and they ultimately encode so much of our individual ideology - think about who all you have to believe vs disbelieve to subscribe to the chemtrails conspiracy theory, for example.

2024-05-24 14:50:40

There's a real Rube Goldberg quality to many of the attempts to find real use cases for LLMs: take regular desktop screenshots, OCR them, "find meaningful patterns" 🤔 so the system can answer queries... the amount of compute being chucked on a fire speculatively is absurd - so much of it already rolled out to users! The carbon cost of that is immediately alarming but there's also just something repellent about it from a systems design perspective. The desperation of these companies is palpable.

2024-05-23 14:23:56

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agreed that overly broad legislation is a constant threat. but also what's really happening here is a clash of values: free market capitalists want to reengineer the global economy to be a totally unregulated snakepit, and are happy to use the rhetoric of civil liberties as a shield. there is a very clearly defined position that is neither that nor classic authoritarian statism (also a threat, certainly) that centers ordinary people... which tbc your advocacy has been great for.

2024-05-23 14:12:41

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encrypted messaging is a bottom up social need that the most vulnerable people in society need most, whereas crypto trading is a top down - vulnerable at the top - attempt to create an unregulated parallel economy. it is hard to trust most politicians but i can clearly imagine people who understand these dynamics being able to legislate effectively against cryptocurrency while safeguarding democracy-essential technologies. i don't think we are stuck going to the fence for bitcoin.

2024-05-23 14:08:44

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(removing the CW since we're not at all on that topic)
right, i know not all forms of what could be considered "mining" would be easy to draw a red line around legally. but the crypto market is (in reality, despite its claims) centralized enough (bc of how economies of scale work for anything) that if you outlawed those big mining operations it would have massive downstream effects that would devalue the space for criminals and speculators.

2024-05-23 13:55:02

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what is the overlap between writing and/or using encrypted messaging software and running a cryptocurrency mining operation?
like, certainly i can imagine a lawmaker who is like "i don't think anyone should be able to do anything in private, ever" and pushes huge sweeping laws that target both and much more, but it's hard for me to imagine an actually-reasonable law that outlaws mining (again, running a for-profit business) that poses any threat to encrypted messaging.

2024-05-23 13:40:40

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one of the biggest reasons i would be fine seeing cryptocurrency mining + exchanges outlawed entirely is that they paint a target on the backs of so many legitimate and socially just uses of cryptography, basically creating a huge criminal enterprise adjacent to something that is critical for democracy and human rights. governments and corporations' cases against the latter are weak, but cryptocurrency makes them stronger.