The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.

[Raphael]

According to NBC News,

Starting in September, Boston will become the first major city in the country to ensure high school students graduate with AI proficiency, helping students use AI as a tool for learning while preparing them for college and the workforce.

When I saw that on Bluesky, I commented

AI proficiency classes sound like a great idea! It's important to explain to the next generation things like "Kids, here's why AI can't be trusted, and why you should try to avoid it, and how to recognize it when others use it!"

Oh wait, not *that* kind of AI proficiency? OK, never mind.

[Travis B.]

zeptoforth 1.16.2 is out!

[Raphael]

Great minds think alike! Long-time "AI"-critic Ed Zitron has posted a lengthy rant about corporate executives and "AI" - https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-revenge ... ess-idiot/ - which is partly an angrier and more in-depth version of this old post by zompist: https://zompist.wordpress.com/2023/07/2 ... bout-llms/

[Travis B.]

I have implemented support for 'raw' keys and keymaps for zeptoforth on the PicoCalc, so as to enable tracking key presses and releases by keycode in a more friendly way than relying on the default ANSI terminal mode of the PicoCalc terminal emulator.

[rotting bones]

Worse is Better: https://youtu.be/I7fEsbksKRE

[Raphael]

Apparently, at first, my new monitor didn't get along with my desk lamp. Often, when I turned the lamp on or off, the monitor would turn black, and then stay that way until I moved the mouse. I was worried that this might be, well, something to worry about. And yes, when I looked up things on the internet, I saw a warning that having too many things plugged into the same outlet extension can be outright dangerous. So I unplugged the lamp from the outlet extension serving the computer, monitor, and printer, and plugged it directly into an independent nearby outlet. Problem solved.

[jcb]

According to NBC News,

Starting in September, Boston will become the first major city in the country to ensure high school students graduate with AI proficiency, helping students use AI as a tool for learning while preparing them for college and the workforce.

When I saw that on Bluesky, I commented

AI proficiency classes sound like a great idea! It's important to explain to the next generation things like "Kids, here's why AI can't be trusted, and why you should try to avoid it, and how to recognize it when others use it!"

Oh wait, not *that* kind of AI proficiency? OK, never mind.

https://www.govtech.com/education/highe ... n-ceremony

Was it really necessary to have a computer read the names? There wasn't some bureaucrat (or hell, the president herself) from the office that could've done it instead? And how did the computer skip a bunch of people? Doing a bunch of things in sequence is the very foundation of computing!!!

[Travis B.]

https://www.govtech.com/education/highe ... n-ceremony

Was it really necessary to have a computer read the names? There wasn't some bureaucrat (or hell, the president herself) from the office that could've done it instead? And how did the computer skip a bunch of people? Doing a bunch of things in sequence is the very foundation of computing!!!

It's AI -- AI hallucinates, AI fucks up. AI does stuff like delete all your files when you ask it to do some innocuous task.

[Raphael]

AI does stuff like delete all your files when you ask it to do some innocuous task.

Based on personal experience? Ugh. Sorry to hear.

[Travis B.]

AI does stuff like delete all your files when you ask it to do some innocuous task.

Based on personal experience? Ugh. Sorry to hear.

Thankfully no -- and I wouldn't let AI anywhere near my data.

[Travis B.]

I spruced up my zeptoforth on the PicoCalc Mandelbrot set demo to be interactive and to better take advantage of the RGB332 color scheme of zeptoforth on the PicoCalc. Note that it requires an RP2350 as it uses hardware single-precision floating point. The source code is at https://github.com/tabemann/zeptoforth/ ... ractive.fs

Here is a screenshot of it:

KMANDELB.PNG (23.73 KiB) Viewed 15280 times

[zompist]

I spruced up my zeptoforth on the PicoCalc Mandelbrot set demo to be interactive and to better take advantage of the RGB332 color scheme of zeptoforth on the PicoCalc. Note that it requires an RP2350 as it uses hardware single-precision floating point. The source code is at https://github.com/tabemann/zeptoforth/ ... ractive.fs

Here is a screenshot of it:

KMANDELB.PNG

This makes me curious, as I wrote a Mandelbrot explorer a couple decades ago for the Mac.

I'm curious, what happens if you keep zooming in? What I recall is that my program couldn't keep capturing the details, because single floats weren't precise enough.

[Travis B.]

I spruced up my zeptoforth on the PicoCalc Mandelbrot set demo to be interactive and to better take advantage of the RGB332 color scheme of zeptoforth on the PicoCalc. Note that it requires an RP2350 as it uses hardware single-precision floating point. The source code is at https://github.com/tabemann/zeptoforth/ ... ractive.fs

Here is a screenshot of it:

KMANDELB.PNG

This makes me curious, as I wrote a Mandelbrot explorer a couple decades ago for the Mac.

I'm curious, what happens if you keep zooming in? What I recall is that my program couldn't keep capturing the details, because single floats weren't precise enough.

I get a similar result. For the following parameters:

Code: Select all

mandelbrot::xa float32::v. -5.696653e-1  ok
mandelbrot::xb float32::v. -5.696604e-1  ok
mandelbrot::ya float32::v. 6.825421e-1  ok
mandelbrot::yb float32::v. 6.825467e-1  ok

I get:

KMANZOOM.PNG (4.93 KiB) Viewed 15200 times

[Travis B.]

Here is an updated screenshot (note that the text display has been improved):

KMANDEL1.PNG (24.65 KiB) Viewed 15171 times

[Travis B.]

I created a blocks game for zeptoforth on the PicoCalc, which is sufficiently different from Tetris that it should not fall prey to The Tetris Company (who make Nintendo look like children). The source code is at https://github.com/tabemann/zeptoforth/ ... ck_game.fs.

Here is a screenshot:

BLOKGAME.PNG (2.2 KiB) Viewed 15048 times

[Raphael]

Why does it have to be so common for computer mice to sooner or later get to a point where they interpret many of your individual clicks as double clicks or two clicks in quick succession? Why is it that when that starts to happen, there's apparently nothing you can do short of buying a new mouse?

[Travis B.]

Why does it have to be so common for computer mice to sooner or later get to a point where they interpret many of your individual clicks as double clicks or two clicks in quick succession? Why is it that when that starts to happen, there's apparently nothing you can do short of buying a new mouse?

Because they're made cheaply, of course. I suspect you could open them up and clean the microswitches for the mouse buttons, but considering that most mice don't cost that much, unless it's an expensive gaming mouse or some mouse for an old platform that is not made anymore (or is only available at a high price)...

[Raphael]

Because they're made cheaply, of course. I suspect you could open them up and clean the microswitches for the mouse buttons, but considering that most mice don't cost that much, unless it's an expensive gaming mouse or some mouse for an old platform that is not made anymore (or is only available at a high price)...

Thank you. Are more expensive mice less likely to end up this way, so that this might be a kind of mouse version of the boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory Or are more expensive mice as shitty in this regard as the cheapest ones?

[Travis B.]

Because they're made cheaply, of course. I suspect you could open them up and clean the microswitches for the mouse buttons, but considering that most mice don't cost that much, unless it's an expensive gaming mouse or some mouse for an old platform that is not made anymore (or is only available at a high price)...

Thank you. Are more expensive mice less likely to end up this way, so that this might be a kind of mouse version of the boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory Or are more expensive mice as shitty in this regard as the cheapest ones?

That I don't know, as I have never figured I should shell out the kind of money that would buy me an expensive gaming mouse on a mouse.

[Raphael]

My Mom got what was apparently a phishing or social engineering hack attempt in the form of an email that was signed with the name of an actual real-life acquaintance of hers, from an email address that contained said acquaintance's actual name, but wasn't one of his actual email addresses. A call to said acquaintance led to the realization that the scammers/phishers had tried the trick with several people in the circle of acquaintances, each of whom got emails fake-signed by other acquaintances.

It's creepy how far phishing technology has gotten.