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Captainant

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by Captainant

  1. I mentioned a couple days ago some similarities to pre-WWII actions by axis powers, and how our current path mirrors them. This is a prime example of the sort of exploitative and unequal treaty that imperialist nations would impose on weaker states. We are on a dark timeline
  2. In the Bitcoin protocol, "mining" is the process of solving for the next block in the chain. Each transaction is packed into a block of transactions as inputs into a hashing algorithm, plus a random pad value. Per the BTC protocol, a block is valid IF and ONLY IF the output from that hash function is under a certain value. There can potentially be multiple solutions to one block, but it's not likely to happen and there's a mechanism to solve the potential for that I'll set aside for brevity. The idea is that the target value is tuned to take approximately 10 minutes to solve at the current network hash rate. The process of solving for a block is: setting up the hash, adding a random pad to the input, checking it for validity against the current network target value, and then repeating that until a valid pad value is found to produce a small enough output value. This is the work that undergirds proof of work. The current network hash rate is around 800M TH/s. 800,000,000 x 10^12 hashes per second. For 600 seconds.That is 4.8x10^23 discarded computations per "mined" (solved) block added onto the chain. When the block is minted, the finder gets a baseline block reward (it halves every so often at set milestones of coins created) plus any transaction fees that users add to their transactions to help guarantee they're added to the next block in the chain and they don't get stuck in block validation limbo. Blocks have a definitional 1MB size limit, so there is a hard upper limit to the network throughput of the blockchain network. The smallest unit of a BTC is colloquially a "Satoshi" and represents one 100 millionth of a BTC. Thing is, at that size your transaction is probably never getting added to the blockchain unless you're paying a comparatively insane transaction fee ("gas fee")
  3. Any takers on what's tanking BTC's value? I guess with the rooskies and norks getting friendlier with us there's less need for it now
  4. Its been the leading voice of far right hate for fucking years now. It's maddening how the moderation team and owners blindly allowed it to be posted as a news source and """contribute""" to discussions with it.
  5. Aaaaaaaaaaaand here's the other shoe to drop: https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-offer-sell-minerals-donald-trump-russia-occupied-ukraine/ Sure can't wait for our American oligarchs to team up with the russian oligarchs to really fuck over generations! Profits are gonna be FUCKING INSANE BOIIIISSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!
  6. Maybe they've got their own "leopards eating faces" thread and they're over our bullshit too lmao
  7. The foot sucking video might have been the trigger TBH. If it's what you say I love it.
  8. I would be amazed if they could build a next gen manufacturing facility and have it operational by the end of 2026. As far as I know they haven't broken ground yet, and there's gonna be some major power grid stability issues to onboard such a new heavy load with city power infra being as shoestring (and wildly profitable) as it is
  9. No no no no, what you failed to consider is both sides.
  10. Quantum computing does something completely and specifically different from classical computing. I am still earning my depth in quantum computing - BUT - where quantum would come in handy is solving NP-hard problems that classical computers are bad at. Vehicle routing (traveling salesman, anyone?), cryptography cracking, protein folding, etc etc, are all well-suited. Even, potentially, in setting the weights and biases in a neural network for optimal performance and throughput - rather than running billions of cycles of gradient descent to rule out local maxima and minima to find the system min/max for the most generally suitable solution. These are problems in which the solution is easily verified, but it's extremely difficult to solve using classical computing methods. Quantum computing promises to find the right parameters to make the math work the best. But you still need something to actually DO that math, and that's where classical computing will remain. Broadly speaking, "AI" tries to guess or approximate the best answer to a response, and it informs that guess based on the data it was trained on iteratively over time. "Quantum computing" simply collapses all possibility spaces in O(1) time such that only the best response still exists and is not obliterated. That is a massive oversimplification, and quantum computing is (as far as I know) not anywhere close to general utility to actually set up a quantum system to approximate a complex real system. But as a student of computer science if I were to stick my finger in the air and guess where we are on the timeline we're closer to UNIVAC than we are to x86 in terms of quantum computing.
  11. Bingobongo is telling the truth in this video clip. "The only thing that matters is power. Power. That is all that matters. A system of checks and balances? HAH! That's a good one." https://v.redd.it/2wd4nukwd4le1 This FBI is gonna make Hoover's ghost get an erection for longer than 4 years.
  12. I'm a specialist in this space - this is 100% accurate. I have some customers that are starting to build real business cases for this sort of tech, but nothing to the degree that the market has inflated its value and speculated on that basis. GenAI became the next hot buzzword that vapid MBA's would say to eachother at board meetings, without really understanding what it meant. They saw line going up, so it validated the okeydoke they were all nodding along to. The music is gonna stop and the bubble is gonna pop. Now, that's not to say it's all bullshit. To the contrary, it's a novel new mechanism to meaningfully parse through libraries of data that's been locked away in textual language in mere hours. There's crazy potential for applications with contract management and terms disputes, archival information searching and integration, theory possibility space exploration, and on and on. But critically, none of those things justify the trillions in capital expedature that we've seen so far. It does represent a significant enhancement in our information processing capability. It's just that I doubt those improvements will be put towards social goods, but rather for further concentration of wealth
  13. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/02/24/texas-houston-colony-ridge-immigration-operation/ Feds to target “criminals and illegal immigrants” in Houston-area development, Abbott says Federal immigration authorities on Monday planned to conduct a targeted operation on "criminals & illegal immigrants" in a housing development outside of Houston that’s been under scrutiny from conservative lawmakers and media for selling land to undocumented people, Gov. Greg Abbott said. Abbott said in a social media post that he had worked with President Donald Trump's immigration adviser, Tom Homan, “for months” to target Colony Ridge, a 33,000-acre development some 30 miles outside of the nation’s fourth-largest city. Conservative influencers, outlets, think tanks and Texas lawmakers had dubbed it as a safe haven for undocumented people, often painting it as a cartel-run crime hub. The extent of any enforcement was not immediately clear. Spokespersons for the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Texas Department of Public Safety and Abbott did not respond Monday morning to requests for more information.
  14. I thought he was evoking Milei Ya know, that far right goon that rugpulled his own consituents with a nationalist memecoin?
  15. Ironically, the aging computer systems may actually be their salvation. Like straight outta Battlestar Galactica lol. The invaders don't know how to use the old systems so they overlook them
  16. Ah fuck. I could 100% see Trump and Hegseth ordering our armed forces to occupy russia's holdings as a """peacekeeping""" force - as long as we get some of those sweet sweet precious fluids mineral rights
  17. man, I can't wait till we get designer diseases again! Only poors get polio anyways amirite?
  18. Well in fairness, those poor girls at Pearl were already scuppered. Running aground was actually an improvement in that case
  19. Annie has always been a shithead. He's been doing this schtick for damn near a decade now. The russians can never do anything wrong, and your insurance claim has been denied.
  20. Better reporting on this: https://kyivindependent.com/zelensky-wont-sign-a-natural-resource-deal-that-will-be-paid-by-10-generations-of-ukrainians/ “I am not signing something that will be paid by 10 generations of Ukrainians," Zelensky said, adding that he wants a dialogue with Trump. The initial White House proposal sought a 50% interest in Ukraine’s natural resources, including critical minerals, oil and gas, as well as critical infrastructure and ports. Zelensky said Ukraine is not ready to “split 50/50 without knowing what’s ahead.” The Ukrainian leader also pointed out that the U.S. proposed to return future aid with an interest of 1:2. “For every U.S. dollar, Ukraine must return two. In simple terms, this is 100% of the loan,” he said. The exact details of the current proposal have been kept secret but the administration of President Donald Trump has ramped up pressure on Kyiv to sign. Ukraine has had a back and forth with its American counterparts for nearly two weeks and Kyiv will start working to conclude an agreement with the U.S. on Feb. 24, said Ruslan Stefanchuk, speaker of Ukraine's parliament. The value and volume of Ukraine’s critical minerals are unknown with the figure hotly debated among experts as assessments are based on old Soviet-era figures. However, $350 billion worth of natural resources are located in the Russian-occupied territories, First Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said at the forum.
  21. Heyo, looks like bird flu is hitting endemic stages in cattle! Thank goodness we have competent public health officials serving the public interest
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