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lithos

965 karma · joined September 11, 2015

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lithos··on Apollo says AI has delivered 'zero financial payoff' outside the tech industry
Imagine the lawyer like profit that will occur after hospital AIs argue with Insurance AIs.
lithos··on Anthropic logged net loss of over $80B in first half of 2026
Capitalism says no, AI bros move between models rapidly for even small improvements.

Companies are likely to follow enthusiasts' methods to make moving easier once they stop getting Sweetheart below cost deals.

lithos··on Alzheimer's breakthrough: 2 hrs of sleep restored without clearing brain plaques
One of the fraud filled paths in science.

More like rust, where once it starts it allows the process to speed up. In this case collecting poisons.

lithos··on Florida's HOAs and condo associations are making the housing crisis worse
Just trailer parks by a different name.
lithos··on Using AI for just 10 minutes erodes your ability to persist at hard things
While there's not economic incentives for the company (less ad placement, more expensive hardware usage), a lot of middle managers have their bonuses based on AI use (and they'll happily kill search to force you into AI).
lithos··on California is chasing wealth that has feet
HOA are forclosing more than banks in some regions, it's not just trailer parks these days getting hard lessons in being the "fake owner" of your property
lithos··on US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons
Hit enough transformers and it will be a very long temporary.
lithos··on Oslo bans smart glasses in schools
Even if these were open source smart glasses they would be a creepy surveillance device.
lithos··on There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
Google used to have a deny/block list. But such lists are obviously very advertising unfriendly, since the companies paying for placement and running the most ads are most likely to be blocked.
lithos··on Why Big Tech's AI Spending Is $3T Higher Than It Seems
If the MBAs/Managers/HR can not find a way to utilize their now more productive workers, they should be replaced.
lithos··on Wildfire alert backfires as public blocks all government warnings
I turned mine off permanently after spending time in New Jersey, that region positively spammed them.
lithos··on ICE Collected Nearly 1M People's DNA Last Year–Including Young Children
New Jersey "government-ize-ed" this quite a while with a database that's quite abused. But every US hospital does genetics testing for allergies (a few for milk and similar that are nearly a death sentence for the new born).

NJ is just ahead of giving law enforcement access whenever it wants for searches, and renting the data to whoever pays.

lithos··on What does GitHub's security team even do?
Exec Bonuses being able to be clawed back for Security issues is just about the only fix that will have real effects. Anything else will have MBAs believing it's a "next guy" problem, and a obstacle to hitting their objectives.

Though right now the US thinks it's winning the Security Vulnerability Stockpile war, so it won't change the state quo.

lithos··on Nobody knows what a used GPU cluster is worth
Short term thoughtset MBAs.
lithos··on Measles surge in Utah sparks fears US could undo decades of progress
I would put some blame on medical billing, and the opiods pandemic also made some fertile ground for trolls (a work injury turning family member to an addict, followed by minimal fines and zero jail time for the conspirators that grew the pandemic). Basically a perfect setup to grow mistrust.

Just a couple of decades ago both sides of the US political aisles laughed at antivax style rhetoric, and didn't see forcing the issue further than it was as worth it (us religious grounds and similar).

lithos··on German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews
There's a difference between something that properly advertised itself as dangerous, and something that advertises itself as a professional authority.
lithos··on German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews
One that doesn't maim/injure/kill you is a pretty good standard. And before you call bs, look at all the foraging and chemistry books that are for sale on Amazon that are AI.
lithos··on U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse
It was a scheduled Trump win, from how demotivating Harris was. Sure Trump demotivated a little over a million or two from bothering to show up to the polls for him, Harris was five to ten times that number (depending on whose numbers you use).
lithos··on College students drown out AI-praising commencement speeches with boos
AI Bros are spending too much good will being obnoxious about fancy approximation algorithms, when their purpose in real AI will be lizard brain/reflex type actions.

The next AI winter can't happen soon enough. (Note each past AI winter did give us new tools just like this one will, it's just a shame that it'll be an excuse to worsen customer support)

lithos··on Permacomputing Principles
Look a Redditor.
lithos··on For the first time in the U.S., renewables generate more power than natural gas
They are scaled for politics.

Tell someone over 60 or 70 that Poland has better modular reactors than us, and they'll suddenly care.

lithos··on France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech
My personal PCs have enough screens that I haven't tried. Though I do really like Windows snapping features on my work laptop (can't change OS there).

I haven't played with other windowing systems to judge too much. And just picked right from screen shots/gifs to not need to try.

lithos··on France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech
If you picked XFCE as your front end you get WinXP functionality, with the nice things from win10/11 (start menu search that's actually local only, multiple desktop workspaces, and graphical settings/updates I've only needed to go to command line twice in four years).
lithos··on Maine is about to become the first state to ban major new data centers
Cooling is a very variable 30% cost. (IE: Iron Mountain's underground Datacenter with a flooded reservoir in the mine gets to brag about 5% of its cost being cooling, as the most extreme low end).

Up north comes with it's own issues for Datacenters. Winter low humidity (kills cable/wire insulation), chiller freeze protection can get pretty complex to set up properly (with failures causing complete destruction of some components that will need multi-ton cranes to replace), and multi-year construction projects are harder with real winters. Sure it's all perfectly manageable engineering wise, but why bother.

There's probably easier green energy credits down south, given the current viability of solar.

lithos··on Our commitment to Windows quality
They serve ads in notifications. Of course start still has them. (Work computer can't go to Linux, so stuck witnessing the mess)
lithos··on Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
Happening to the NBA gambling leagues now with both players and referees.
lithos··on Facebook's Fascination with My Robots.txt
Forum/Wiki content probably more likely to be old enough to be from preAI days, meaning they get to avoid the AI inbreeding problem.

Git content likely to have code for the bot to train on.

lithos··on AI is destroying open source, and it's not even good yet
Even someone who hates AI, is likely to hate it less than SO.
lithos··on Purdue blocks admission of many Chinese grad students in unwritten policy
That doesn't happen if enough of a community forms that it goes insular to itself.
lithos··on A pandemic rescue became a 30-year debt trap
Student loans are solved, join the military. It's an ok enough place to last out a recession/depression.
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