orthogonal to alive @avi@computerfairi.es

@OCRbot

UC Irvine astrophysics PhD student Jose Antonio Flores Velazquez killed in drive by shooting. Child of immigrants from Mexico. Dreamed of helping his dad retire from construction work.

"Before he died, he submitted a draft of his research paper in which he used advanced supercomputer simulations to interpret telescopes’ observations about the rate at which galaxies form stars"

Sometimes this world is so cruel

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-08-17/two-childhood-friends-killed-in-south-la-shooting

These two ex-Slack programmers want to replace check cashing services with interstellar travel

Do you like your quasi-futuristic entertainment stations?

A smarthome concept that wasn't absolute hell: the mid-80s Soviet SPHINX project, based on the idea that there would be a central, modular PC and appliances in the house like the TV would connect to it via the LAN. Everything was designed to be easily-expandable or pared-down as needed. It was purely conceptual but the props looked cool as hell.

always remember: Hitler cited the United States as a direct inspiration for his regime. he admired our genocide of the indigenous people and our forcing black folks into subservience. Jim Crow was in fact a direct inspiration for the Nuremberg laws.

so it's ironic, in the least funny way possible, when Americans think it can't happen here.

The gender of the day is an impatient hedgehog.

I didn't realize it would be so heartbreaking to actually read through the discord chat

Apparently there was a trans woman on discord using the handle Ten who patiently tried to explain to the devs the whole deal with transitioning is. I feel so so bad for them and I guess more people need to see what she willingly went through for liking a cool game https://www.resetera.com/threads/ion-fury-devs-show-signs-of-transphobia-among-other-issues-update-voidpoint-twitter-responds.135368/page-17#post-23674999

IT HAPPENED
https://www.eventhubs.com/news/2019/aug/17/heros-thwack-scores-0-percent-ko-during-grand-finals-super-smash-bros-ultimate-tournament/

RIP to the brilliant animator Richard Williams. Ziggy'so Gift, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and the titles to two Pink Panther films would have been enough, but Williams dared to dream to make independent big screen work and so the legend of his two lost films will be retold forever and ever

It's not counterproductive to alert people to danger on the fediverse.

WHAT PEOPLE THINK ETHICAL ISSUES IN AI ARE: wow.... we're creating... new life........

WHAT ETHICAL ISSUES IN AI ACTUALLY ARE: techbros worshiping the almighty algorithm, not caring to look at what bad patterns the machines are picking up (racism, sexism, etc) and how to avert them, and overreliance on neural networks meaning that said algorithms are treated as magical black boxes where nobody wants to (or can, really) point out exactly how the equation works (and why it may be faulty)

basically if people would just carve off 5% of the sci-fi panic and anxiety and spend that energy being legitimately concerned about how if you tell a computer "learn the rules of this game", the rules it will come back to report to you will be dripping with systemic inequality that must be directly confronted instead of excused or praised as infallible because "a passionless computer did it"

we'd all be much better off

quit worrying about if AI is going to be creating new consciousness

start worrying about AI learning how to enforce things like redlining and the glass ceiling

worry about it because *it's happening now*.

You know what? Considering the selection of magicky instances, and the bloated nature of one in particular...
Moonbeam.Dance is accepting requests for invites for any witchy, crafty, radical migrants.
Please DM me, and we'll talk.

Seriously, just stop: eating bugs is not gonna save the planet.

What we need is hard laws, actionable plans, and fines for companies killing our planet. We need to rethink how we live to be more sustainable, we don't need gimmicky "eat bugs, save the world" concepts

RT @dwnews@twitter.com

How about giving up meat and eating bugs to save the planet?

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1162472851913543680

RT @IRLDOCTOR@twitter.com

MODERN DOCTORS:

- SPEND YEARS IN TRAINING
- WEAR BORING WHITE COATS
- VULNERABLE TO MIASMA
- USE GLOVES TO TOUCH PATIENTS

PLAGUE DOCTORS:

- APPOINTED BY THE KING AFTER BEING A FRUIT SALESMAN
- WEAR COOL BLACK ROBES
- FILL THEIR MASK WITH HERBS
- POKE PATIENTS WITH A STICK

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/IRLDOCTOR/status/1162059895820210176

so, the devs behind Ion Fury are a buncha transphobic and "anti-SJW" fuckheads evidently (src: https://twitter.com/BadGameHOF/status/1162504845296721920 https://twitter.com/caravanmalice/status/1162555794702782469 )

so i'm here to present a Cool and Fun Fact about Ion Fury:

the game files work just fine under eduke32

hmmm, would be ashame if someone were to re-distribute their files! it's not like you need the original executable anyways, so Steam's DRM wouldn't work

it'd be a real dang shame if people started pirating a game that they were looking forward to, but either refunded or just changed their mind about buying,

it'd be a real shame if they didn't get hard-earned money for thinking it's cool to hate on minorities.

anyways, don't do this, i'm legally obligated to say piracy is illegal and stuff, and that i absolutely won't help give people any information on how to obtain these files, not in the slightest,

COUGH COUGH https://github.com/MachineGunnur/GOG-Games where did this link come from