/technology/

Intelligent Use of LLMs
I would like to start a thread to share the methods we employ to use LLMs in a way that enhances our abilities, rather than just lazily outsources tasks to them. The heuristic for the techniques I am looking for would be if after employing the technique, a... posted 6h ago with no replies 2 2

Intelligent Use of L 2 2

Revision Demoscene, Oscilloscope Music
I've followed the demoscene for a while, and this is in a class of its own. The image is produced by using the left audio channel to control the beam on the X axis, and the right audio channel to control the beam on the Y axis. ... posted 2d ago with 1 reply 5 5

Revision Demoscene, 5 5

Yeah I've seen this stuff before. I remember the one with the mushroom. This is definitely getting much better. I wonder where it will go. I wonder if it will at some point be basically "solved" with the ability to pair arbitrary video with arbitrary audio... 2d ago 4 4

Yeah I've seen this 4 4

How to build better anonymous social media: curation and tags
Back in 2014, moot banned gamergate discussion from 4chan. This led to an exodus of the most adventurous and curious channers to 8chan, which had a strict free speech policy. For a few months at least, 8chan was a haven of smart free discussion on all sort... posted 2w ago with 13 replies 17 17

How to build better 17 17

Very cool, guys. Let a thousand alt social media flowers bloom. I look forward to seeing your respective attempts. I hope you’ll still want to come visit us here. 2w ago 6 6

Very cool, guys. Let 6 6

Nintendo is a Live Organization that turns Gimmicks into Innovations.
The second installment in a series focused on live players. This one is about Nintendo as they shared a ton of information about the Switch 2 yesterday. I prefer live vidya organizations rather than dead ones. Dead ones produce cultural slop and games with... posted 3w ago with 3 replies 7 7

Nintendo is a Live O 7 7

I agree, but I mean that this can only be ascertained retrospectively, which causes many to conflate the two. That is, the connotation is typically of 2, but the expression itself is indeterminate and includes 1, indeed there's no shortage of false negativ... 3w ago 3 3

I agree, but I mean 3 3

Dissolving vs. Surviving
Recent xenohumanist discussion has the doomer assumption built in that we as humans will be dissolving when higher man arrives on the scene. I don't think that's set in stone and want to offer a clarification. ... posted 4w ago with 5 replies 11 11

Dissolving vs. Survi 11 11

Some people won't believe in the inherent goodness of existence until it's been autistically proven to them with English philosophizing a hundred times over. That's fine. For the rest of us, we don't need to be persuaded of the inherent goodness of existen... 3w ago 2 2

Some people won't be 2 2

The Hellenic View of Existential Risk
When I was a teen, I read much of the Less Wrong and the rationalist work of the day. This provided the basis for a vague worry surrounding "existential risk." The feeling was pervasive, and I would read works about the dangers of AI or other technology to... posted 1mo ago with 8 replies 12 12

The Hellenic View of 12 12

I agree anon, this is why I think the core issue here is the lack of aesthetics or taste in the perception of the world. It is like trying to understand the world with only sight and sound but no touch. You would build all these mental castles about the di... 1mo ago 2 2

I agree anon, this i 2 2

Super-Coordination Technical Exercise Problems
Another anon and I have been thinking about how to do supercoordination. We've got many ideas but we're still looking for the right problem to dive into together seriously. ... posted 2mo ago with 4 replies 13 13

Super-Coordination T 13 13

How about aggregating the collective will of a bunch of individuals wills? By will, I mean a freeform expression/document consisting of issues one values/cares about/wants change in. 1mo ago 1 1

How about aggregatin 1 1

How Pangram uses old school machine learning to detect AI text at very high confidence (www.pangram.com) posted 2mo ago with 2 replies 8 8

How Pangram uses old 8 8

They claim: "Pangram Text is designed to detect AI-generated content with a near-zero false positive rate." ... 1mo ago 3 3

They claim: "Pangram 3 3

Freedom of Impression
Social media do not quite give us the freedom of impression. They force us into their often obscure engagement-driven "algorithmic feeds". ... posted 3mo ago with 9 replies 7 7

Freedom of Impressio 7 7

one possible recommender system that'd give autonomy or "freedom of impression," I think, is a system which recommends you things based entirely on what you yourself post. ... 2mo ago 1 1

one possible recomme 1 1

internet supplants america
Modern Americans have outgrown our republic. ... posted 3mo ago with 6 replies 8 8

internet supplants a 8 8

Ah sorry, I meant a migration **from the physical to the digital world. ... 2mo ago 1 1

Ah sorry, I meant a 1 1

Perennial Science: Peer-to-Peer-Review in God as First Criterion of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty (February 17th, 2025)
Abstract ... posted 2mo ago with 8 replies 7 7

Perennial Science: P 7 7

God is our fundamental reality, but not necessarily in this life. i think pantheism results in impiety, hubris and absurdity. But I'm not opposed to the idea that God is the fundamental reality in distinction to our relative reality. ... 2mo ago 4 4

God is our fundament 4 4

Lessons from Palantir Alums About Building a Tech Company (www.partly.work) posted 5mo ago with 3 replies 10 10

Lessons from Palanti 10 10

That makes sense. The forward deployed engineers are the engineers the customer should have but don't. 5mo ago 4 4

That makes sense. Th 4 4

"Bull fighting" from the future: Drone Slaying
For a few months I've been thinking about the history of warfare and sports. My grandfather grew up bullfighting - Most of my memories of him are watching the "corridas" every Saturday. ... posted 10mo ago with 11 replies 14 14

"Bull fighting" from 14 14

America retains distinct advantages in premier industrial domains, such as computer chip design (note, separate from manufacture), rockets, turbine jet engines, and various advanced materials science. As a strictly military example, no one makes night visi... 8mo ago 2 2

America retains dist 2 2

Soft Ware for Hard Power
I learned Photoshop as an autistic youth who wanted to make logos and background graphics for friends' gaming YouTube channels. Thousands of hours of skill development there transferred to every graphic design software I've come across since (Illustrator, ... posted 1y ago with 16 replies 18 18

Soft Ware for Hard P 18 18

One of my old friends from Berkeley wanted to design a new power supply for an amp. He designed it from scratch, used open source PCB design software and had it printed for him by a company specializing in such things. ... 8mo ago 4 4

One of my old friend 4 4

The Drone Question. Is America screwed by lack of industrial capacity?
The war in Ukraine is teaching us that explosive hunter-seeker drones, FPV piloted or autonomous, are shockingly overpowered. Flying panzerfausts are wrecking armor for fractional cents on the dollar, and flying grenades are blowing the legs off of boys wh... posted 11mo ago with 40 replies 20 20

The Drone Question. 20 20

consumer demand is a complete red herring here. Consumers should not be buying drone swarms or even thinking about it. The question is whether hackers are building novel stuff and then getting into manufacturing, and then whether the manufacturing ecosyste... 10mo ago 8 8

consumer demand is a 8 8

Towards an Illegible Computational Medium of Exchange
You cannot be sovereign if you do not control your medium of exchange, if your enemies can insert themselves into every transaction and tax it or block it at will. ... posted 11mo ago with 12 replies 17 17

Towards an Illegible 17 17

There had been a thread on high software profit margins, which has since disappeared off sofiechan. The OP on hackernews might still be relevant (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35904339): ... 11mo ago 2 2

There had been a thr 2 2

Silicon Valley's Military Fever Dream
Thank goodness I can just Ctrl-A Ctrl-P before the paywall shows up. That was a close one. It does appear that Silicon Valley wants to appear more chad, so to speak. Perhaps nerds have too much of a reputation for being hunchbacked and quiet, as the articl... posted 13mo ago with 24 replies 12 12

Silicon Valley's Mil 12 12

I looked to President Eisenhower in his inaugural address for guidance ... 11mo ago 0 0

I looked to Presiden 0 0

How to Control an Online Forum
This thread is for the linked post about disinformation and forum control. ... posted 13mo ago with 5 replies 13 13

How to Control an On 13 13

Currently, sliding is not a huge problem because the front page has everything (scroll down!). Though of course discussion seems to be concentrated in the top few threads. In the long run, we're going to deal with scale and prioritization with tags. There ... 13mo ago 7 7

Currently, sliding i 7 7

Who’s Behind All the ‘Pussy in Bio’ on Twitter? A little something on what we're up against. (nymag.com) posted 14mo ago with 6 replies 12 12

Who’s Behind All the 12 12

1. Urbit is not designed to be uncensorable, nor is it particularly useful for our purposes. ... 13mo ago 7 7

1. Urbit is not desi 7 7

Updates on sofiechan's curation system: Cybernetic Direct Democracy
I (admin) just pushed a bunch of changes. You'll see it most obviously in the percent signs next to the save and hide buttons, and as colored emojis indicating which posts are well regarded, and which are about to be deleted. Broadly, this is part of how s... posted 1y ago with 12 replies 20 20

Updates on sofiechan 20 20

I notice a large number of threads converge on approximately 60% up, 1% down. This is two things: not enough people, so when the usual number of us vote and engage in a usual thread, it ends up with about the usual amount of evidence. But then they should ... 1y ago 5 5

I notice a large num 5 5