Charlie Loyd @vruba@everything.happens.horse

For now, I need to work on developing more stretch without knocking it down too much. Next time I might roll them out. Or maybe I’m too worried about knocking it down.

Have given up on this “let’s find a moderate perspective on ‘AI’ and stop yelling” essay about a dozen times, then restarted it about a dozen times when I read something that got under my skin, and now it’s just 7,000 words of me pointing out that everyone other than me is wrong without a conclusion, so I guess I’m going to work on my baguette shaping technique some more.

Power’s out, so I guess I’ll just sit here and watch the barometer fall.

Looked up some archaic medical terms and apparently a thing that appears on death certificates is “body trouble”. I’m sure this is a euphemism for something incredibly sad, but I’m just imagining a doctor shrugging like a mechanic. “Best as I can tell, they had a problem with their insides.”

Come down to National Geodetic Survey marker AE5211 in the next 15 minutes if you want an ass kicking.

Hearing the Minecraft damage sound every two seconds as I skim the Wikipedia article on quaternions.

Happened to be learning about communication technology in the mid-fifties, and my goodness what a time to be reading the news.

This reads exactly like the list of people who liked a post that just says something like “Hands Holbein the Younger” or “we should respect that he took our advice and mackled less”. https://botsin.space/@ryanfb/109999045107815043

A reasonable thing to ask here would be: Charlie, are you Calling For Civility?

Good question. Thanks for asking. And my answer is: Nope. The alternatives here are not (1) status-quo–preserving fear of controversy v. (2) standing in public and playing a recording of your opinions on the loudest speakers you can find. I am positive you can find a way to be firm and even fiery in your arguments without presenting them like things that everyone else was too lazy to think of. I believe in you.

It reminds me of things you hear from people whose information environment is clearly about the size and smell of an Altoids tin: “Homosexuality doesn’t appear in the animal kingdom” or “We’ve never actually observed evolution” or whatever – things where you don’t just want to say no; you want to pull the emergency brake, ask where they heard that, why they believed it, and what they think other people believe.

It’s bad. Even when the conclusions are correct, it’s a bad way to think in public.

There’s a very culture-war–flavored bubbledness to a lot of the “AI” “discourse” that I (mostly accidentally) see, and I hate it.

People sure like making categorical statements about what’s possible, impossible, or inevitable with a level of self-confidence that does not befit grownups talking about the unknown.

In particular, I keep seeing this naïve quality to the delivery of controversial statements: a sense of “I’m revealing the truth to you, not making an argument; treat me as such.”

—Karl Marx, 1867

Need to figure out a way for web fonts to be free but type designers to live lives of lavish comfort.

We did it, everyone; we’re Abnormally Dry: https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?CA

Had to think about the UV index before stepping out for a burrito, so happy first day of meteorological spring I guess.