Rephrasing a common quote - talk is cheap, that’s why I talk a lot.

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Cake day: July 9th, 2023

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    1. Artists need to eat.

    2. Art needs to be a commercial success to defend itself from commercial successes it hurts.

    3. Computing industry notably positions itself as replacing art (I don’t mean digital art like tracker music or 3d modeling), in many things where, say, car industry doesn’t. But the suggested replacements are not that. Similarly to how journalism can only be adversarial and offensive to most points of view, otherwise it’s just public relations, because it doesn’t improve anything. Improvement is always adversarial.


  • And eventually “we” might come to the thought that for many things analog computing is enough. Symbolic calculation, cryptography and such, of course, need digital. But when we are talking about airplanes and satellites, perhaps not.

    One thing I somewhat like about the general idea of all those LLMs is that in theory they are closer to something that can work on non-deterministic technology.

    I wonder if some sort of FPGA but for analog circuits is possible. To have the advantages of re-configuration that programmable things have, but also advantages of continuous signals.







  • Well, infrastructure is built by the government in an environment where its use is regulated, and for essential things.

    Electricity for data centers isn’t essential. They should build their own parallel grids, a bit like Google and Facebook and such build their own infrastructure.

    I’m not saying they shouldn’t develop, but correct management from the governments here would be making them pay for their toys in full. That will also be optimal - they know best which infrastructure and how much they need. No loading the common grid with non-essential things that hurt lights, heating and basic connectivity.

    EDIT: Perhaps even a centralized, but separate second grid, for that.



  • Garamond does look somewhat Apple-ishly pretentious, and Lucida does evoke associations with Sun and some corporate spirit, and Arial\TNR\CN trio does feel like “Windows font classic” combination.

    But banning a more readable font to show you have “decorum” … there’s a word “чмошник” in Russian, I’ve recently realized I’m that, and also a whole crowd of adults and peers around me 13 years ago. Actually there’s just one girl who wasn’t that, and one adult. Who got the shortest straws in that story.

    That word means someone miserable and envious enough to look for confirmations and signs of coolness in all things they use and do.

    I’ve also recently realized that I don’t like computer people, and of other professions dealing with calculation and materiel. They are glorified bookkeepers and managers. The reason tech workers dislike management so much is because the whole industry is much like machine-assisted management. Paradox of small differences.

    Yeah, I know you lot like being perceived as magicians and the industry as having something to do with intelligence. Read de Saint-Exupery’s Citadel, there’s a passage on “a special book for generals”, and you will recognize that whole industry, from its lowly brick layers to its prophets.



  • so long as I was very clear in all advertising that I’m only building houses and not in any way related to the cars - but if I start putting Lamborghini cars in my advertising I could get into trouble for creating confusion

    That’s fine. But suppose your brand is Lambozucchini and you have cars kinda similar to Lamborghini, but with the brand clearly different, just with homage, a bit like Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola, where in the world is the problem with that? That should be legal, from common sense.

    EDIT: Also nobody confuses Lambo with Lamborghini, a nickname is not confusion and trademark owner doesn’t own nicknames. And they don’t own everything in the world connected to their trademark.




  • I don’t get it. Since when are similar words and cultural references and nicknames too owned by the trademark owner?

    It was pretty normal for most of the age of trademarks’ existence to use such derived references, including commercial use.

    "He tried to claim … a word play on “lamb” and not … " - why would he have to?

    I’m (ok, not really identifying as a fan of anything, but it’s good) a Star Wars fan and I can point out plenty of such references there to other authors’ creations, and George Lucas notably doesn’t hide or deny that, actually the opposite.


  • Capitalism works fine if it’s regulated either by governments or by workers through unions.

    Both at the same time, and the third necessary component - customer associations, three independent forces as a minimum.

    EDIT: This is free market, “market” and not “jungle” - because there are regulated rules, “free” - because all participants are free to associate, including association to delegate association choices. “Capitalism” is a bad word because it’s a term for everything from semi-traditional economies to mercantilism to libertarianism, that has interoperability of resources and assets.



  • What followed in the 40s and 50s was an abnormal period created by the implementation of a significant number of socialist policies that stemmed the desire for blood by the disposessed masses. These fuckers have been working to dismantle them ever since.

    It’s not quite true, USA and Canada were also far more anarchist in government traditionally, because, well, at some point they had too much territory loosely controlled and too many developing settlements and too thinly spread populations, and very dependent on new development.

    40s and 50s were in many things driven by the defeat of Nazi ideology and imperialism crumbling. Not only humanism and peace were in fashion, but also nobody wanted to go to efforts to keep some brown or yellow people enslaved - sometimes it was “let them live” and sometimes “I don’t wanna die”, but the general mood was that it’s obsolete to rob colonies.

    So. Both socialist and western parts of the world somewhat choked that cultural desire of the populace by malicious compliance.

    But one thing that didn’t go through a cycle was the tendency for more fine-grained and total control, more detailed laws and overreach. That only grew in the course of XX century. Laws of the 50s were so simple compared to our day, that an average EULA is harder to understand. Laws of the 20s were as they show in the western movies.

    So, I’m not going to say libertarianism is key, because any -ism being adopted doesn’t mean automatically finding the solution. But the solution if it’s found will be to this growth of complexity, empowering legal middlemen and interpretators and one nail drawers, and weakening anyone trying to live by the rules.