2026-04-09 04:04:11 <tpbsd       > Open models like GLM-5 and MiniMax M2.7 now match closed frontier models on core agent tasks — file operations, tool use, and instruction following — at a fraction of the cost and latency. Here's what our evals show and how to start using them in Deep Agents.
2026-04-09 04:04:22 <tpbsd       > https://blog.langchain.com/open-models-have-crossed-a-threshold/
2026-04-09 04:06:43 <tpbsd       > Sunday, May 17th is when chips get a LOT more expensive ! https://www.globalnerdy.com/2026/04/06/youve-got-41-days-before-chip-prices-skyrocket/
2026-04-09 08:58:49 <veltas      > hello-operator: Yes not what I wanted but quite cool anyway
2026-04-09 09:02:32 <veltas      > Copilot's given a good suggestion of using vector execution to call an error handler
2026-04-09 09:02:43 <veltas      > Although it's similar to [[smlckz]]'s suggestion
2026-04-09 09:05:24 <veltas      > Ugh I hate these LLMs, you ask it "what day is it?" and it will say "HI GREAT QUESTION, LET'S LOOK INTO THAT.  WELL TODAY IS A DAY THAT IN LATIN IS KNOWN AS...."
2026-04-09 09:45:42 <iv4nshm4k0v > "What 1 + 2 equals to?"  "Why, 1 + 2 equals to 2 + 1, due to the commutativity of addition on real numbers."
2026-04-09 09:47:05 <iv4nshm4k0v > Which is to say, I suppose it's not altogether unexpected for a mathematical model of a language to be prone to giving mathematician's answers.
2026-04-09 11:01:56 <KipIngram   > I've been seeing Peter Zeihan predicting a supply chain oriented failure in the high-end chip sector for years.  Not with specific timing like that, but "at some point" due to the fragility of that supply chain and our trend toward deglobalization.
2026-04-09 11:02:23 <KipIngram   > He suspects AI will more or less just get "put on hold" for a few decades.
2026-04-09 11:03:27 <KipIngram   > His argument is that there are thousands of companies around the world involved with that supply chain - some of them single source / single product.  Take one of them out and the whole thing keels over.  Taiwan is just the "focal point" of it all.
2026-04-09 11:05:03 <KipIngram   > Many of the countries involved in the chain are in serious demographic trouble.
2026-04-09 11:05:38 <KipIngram   > I find his demographics-based arguments very hard to argue with; you stop having babies and that's just going to catch up with you in a few decades.
2026-04-09 11:07:25 <KipIngram   >  China's in the worst pickle, even per their official numbers which may be high by a few hundred million young people.  Apparently the Chinese system has encouraged localities to lie about how many children have been born, to get more government funding.
2026-04-09 11:07:37 <KipIngram   > But South Korea and Germany are in pretty bad shape too.
2026-04-09 11:09:35 <KipIngram   > Also China's built a real estate bubble that could pop at any time and makes all other historical such things look like nothing.
2026-04-09 11:11:36 <KipIngram   > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rzOiBl5ouo&t=3s
2026-04-09 11:12:42 <KipIngram   > Hmmm.  Don't know why that "start at 3 seconds" bit got in there, but I guess that's close enough to the beginning.
2026-04-09 11:13:35 <tpbsd       > KipIngram, it's hard to predict what may happen going forward, with helium gas shortages now and the effect that will have on the silicon use
2026-04-09 11:14:08 <KipIngram   > Yeah, that's a very specific argument that should be easier to predict timing on that any of Zeihan's very general arguments.
2026-04-09 11:14:20 <tpbsd       > KipIngram, I guess we will find out in due course as events unfold, just as they did during covid
2026-04-09 11:15:17 <KipIngram   > Yes.  There were lots of grave predictions then too that didn't turn out as bad as feared.  You're right - there's no knowing for sure.
2026-04-09 11:15:48 <tpbsd       > for instance in 2014 I purchased 500 chips type STM32F051 in UFN32 with 64KB flash for $0.56 each. During the Covid supply chain crash those same chips hit $7.80 each
2026-04-09 11:15:51 <KipIngram   > Ugh.  "Grave predictions."  No pun intended there.
2026-04-09 11:16:34 <tpbsd       > theyre back down to about $4.00 each now
2026-04-09 11:17:00 <tpbsd       > tho the main suppliers have changed as resellers came and went from the market
2026-04-09 11:18:14 <tpbsd       > I think that most people underestimate the mind boggling tech that is needed to make chips, and the level of edu and experience needed by the personell at those places
2026-04-09 11:19:36 <tpbsd       > the key factor is that those industries have to keep running 24/7, they cant ever stop. They stopped for Covid I believe, and the effect was a catastrophe
2026-04-09 11:22:54 <tpbsd       > take a silicon crystal growing machine for instance, iirc only 2 places in the world grow them, and they take months for each crystal
2026-04-09 11:23:25 <tpbsd       > I'm amazed that mankind can make that tech at all!
2026-04-09 11:23:39 <KipIngram   > Right, and there are gobs of pieces of the process that are like that - all of them have to keep working.
2026-04-09 11:24:00 <KipIngram   > It really is amazing.  A whole lot of the last couple centuries of progress are amazing.
2026-04-09 11:24:32 <KipIngram   > And on semiconductors, when you realize we didn't even have transistors at all until almost 1950...
2026-04-09 11:24:53 <KipIngram   > We've done all this in just 75 years or so.
2026-04-09 11:25:23 <KipIngram   > I read some years ago that a research lab in Israel had a 12-atom transistor working in the lab.  That's got to be close to the limit.
2026-04-09 11:26:15 <KipIngram   > If we commercialize that in the next 20-25 years, that'll be industry birth to theoretical limit in a century.
2026-04-09 11:27:43 <tpbsd       > and all of that amazing tech is so precarious, given mans proprnsity for war and destruction
2026-04-09 11:27:44 <KipIngram   > It's really even more than just the obvious supply stuff - I expect our economy has gotten really acclimated to  "ongoing improvement."  Even just having that improvement hit a wall will be an economic shock.
2026-04-09 11:28:13 <KipIngram   > Right - that's one of Zeihan's core points.  It's all based on the clean operation of global trade.
2026-04-09 11:28:32 <tpbsd       > yeah, let alone widespread wars and resource depletion or witholding
2026-04-09 11:28:40 <KipIngram   > And that's fragile, particularly as the U.S. backs away from its post-WWII role of securing the sea lanes.
2026-04-09 11:29:09 <KipIngram   > At the end of WWII we had like 600 destroyers around the world, or something insane like that.
2026-04-09 11:29:29 <tpbsd       > it's my opinion that mankind should be out exploring the neighborhood, discovering resources in asteroid belts and on lifeless planets etc
2026-04-09 11:29:32 <KipIngram   > But our focus has shifted to carrier groups, which are great for projecting power to specific hot spots, but not as good at general patrol.
2026-04-09 11:30:07 <tpbsd       > imagine if mankind, against their nature worked together
2026-04-09 11:30:08 <KipIngram   > I think we've got some number less than 100 of destroyers now.
2026-04-09 11:30:16 <KipIngram   > No kidding.
2026-04-09 11:30:44 <tpbsd       > what could not be accomplished ?
2026-04-09 11:30:50 <KipIngram   > For example, if the major first world nattions worked together on asteroid deflection or something.
2026-04-09 11:31:03 <tpbsd       > if we pursued science instead of personal wealth ?
2026-04-09 11:31:06 <KipIngram   > We're the first species in history that could guard itself against that potential catastrophe.
2026-04-09 11:32:13 <KipIngram   > Most of that monitoring is done from Earth now - imagine if we had a fleet of sun-orbiting satellites spread out in a web around the solar system, keeping tabs on the asteroid belt.
2026-04-09 11:32:40 <tpbsd       > Ive always laughed at the concept of a world at war, so focussed on religion or whatever, that they dont see the moon sized asteroid that slams into us and splits the earth in 2, while we all are ejected into space
2026-04-09 11:32:41 <KipIngram   > Networked together and sharing the data.
2026-04-09 11:33:19 <tpbsd       > mankind working together could accomplish miracles ...
2026-04-09 11:33:31 <KipIngram   > Yeah.  We have a pretty good knowledge of the really big planet killing asteroids, but we're nowhere close to knowing about all of the ones that could just take out a major city at any time.
2026-04-09 11:33:43 <KipIngram   > We could wake up any morning at all and find out some huge city is just gone.
2026-04-09 11:33:58 <KipIngram   > It's unlikely, but it could happen.
2026-04-09 11:34:08 <tpbsd       > it is
2026-04-09 11:34:27 <KipIngram   > But no - we have to squabble about how we say thank you to the heavens.
2026-04-09 11:34:37 <tpbsd       > and it's happened before, quite a few times according to the geological record
2026-04-09 11:35:19 <KipIngram   > There's a lot of evidence indicating that the Younger Dryas was triggered by impacts.  That was just 11-12 thousand years ago.
2026-04-09 11:35:39 <tpbsd       > I can understand musks drive to get mankind established somewhere else give that there are no guarantees of safety on earth
2026-04-09 11:35:42 <KipIngram   > Layers of microdiamonds all over the world, that sort of thing.
2026-04-09 11:35:57 <tpbsd       > yeah, historically just the 'blink of an eye'
2026-04-09 11:36:17 <KipIngram   > I've always liked O'Neill cylinders.  Why do we even need a planet?
2026-04-09 11:36:56 <KipIngram   > Mine the asteroid belt to build them, and stick the things all over the place out there.
2026-04-09 11:37:20 <tpbsd       > Ive often thought that perhaps 'ufo's' are just advanced craft made by humans who in epochs past had off earth bases and were cut off by war etc
2026-04-09 11:37:25 <KipIngram   > If we put them in a ring in a common orbit then low-thrust transport could be done between them.  Optimize some of them for various kinds of agriculture, some for manufacturing, etc.
2026-04-09 11:37:49 <tpbsd       > they continued to develop while the human race reverted to barbarism once again
2026-04-09 11:39:15 <KipIngram   > If it was long enough ago, it would explain why there's no evidence of it.  Time just wipes things away.
2026-04-09 11:39:27 <tpbsd       > and in the thousands of years they were separated from Earth, they lost contact, the language etc, and now have nothing in common
2026-04-09 11:39:42 <KipIngram   > And they say we've been anotomically "us" for like 200,000 years.  The first cities we know of were 10,000 years ago.  What the hell were we doing the other 190,000 years?
2026-04-09 11:39:51 <tpbsd       > exactly
2026-04-09 11:40:00 <tpbsd       > anything could have happened
2026-04-09 11:40:33 <KipIngram   > But people who talk about stuff like that, seriously, basically get intellectually cancelled.
2026-04-09 11:40:44 <tpbsd       > humans, being a apex preditor are hardy and natural survivors
2026-04-09 11:40:45 <KipIngram   > The "mainstream story" is dug in hard, and they fight opposition.
2026-04-09 11:41:33 <tpbsd       > nothing new there 'Plato ... they put WHAT?? in my drinl ???'
2026-04-09 11:41:37 <tpbsd       > drink
2026-04-09 11:42:01 <tpbsd       > how long ago were the Salem witch trials ?
2026-04-09 11:42:09 <tpbsd       > burn em!
2026-04-09 11:42:25 <KipIngram   > Oh gosh - I forget exactly.  350 years?
2026-04-09 11:43:12 <tpbsd       > you dont even need to think hard to see why any any previous human civs, now technically advanced would avoid us like the plague ?
2026-04-09 11:44:02 <tpbsd       > 'hey check out my shiny ufo!' .... burn the witch, spawn of satan !
2026-04-09 11:44:27 <KipIngram   > Yeah - we're simultaneously impressive as hell and also pathetically lame.
2026-04-09 11:45:25 <tpbsd       > the proof that there is intelligent life in the universe is that theyre smart enough to stay the hell away from humans !
2026-04-09 11:45:42 <KipIngram   > That's a t-shirt there.  :-)
2026-04-09 11:45:57 <KipIngram   > "Beam me up, Scotty - there's no intelligent life down here."
2026-04-09 11:46:08 <tpbsd       > the wearer may need 10000 sunblock;)
2026-04-09 11:47:53 <KipIngram   > Related to that - I saw a Veritasium video recently that talked about a general nuclear exchange, and they basically just took it as a given that would wipe humanity out altogether.  I was immediately suspicious and did some checking - it would not.  Studies have been done on that, and the estimates all said that even if there had been a general Soviet/US exchange - the "big one" - that about half
2026-04-09 11:47:56 <KipIngram   > of both populations would have survived.
2026-04-09 11:48:10 <KipIngram   > There would be lots of survivors.  They'd suffer horribly of course, but they'd hang on.
2026-04-09 11:48:15 <tpbsd       > imagine if someone gave mankind the design for a faster than light rocket ? how long before a a-bomb from earth is delivered faster than light to his planet ?
2026-04-09 11:48:16 <KipIngram   > And eventually "come back."
2026-04-09 11:48:39 <KipIngram   > Yeah, that sounds about like us.
2026-04-09 11:49:02 <tpbsd       > yeah, lots would survive, theyd just glow in the dark
2026-04-09 11:50:13 <tpbsd       > humans are hardy survivors, wed just live on fine, and ignore those pesky second heads
2026-04-09 11:50:44 <veltas      > Depends how it would go, and we know nothing
2026-04-09 11:50:47 <KipIngram   > I don't remember the details now, but apparently at some point during the cold war there was a mistaken alert in the Soviet Union - some kind of sensor error told them we'd launched.
2026-04-09 11:51:14 <veltas      > Like nuclear war theory has said you don't attack the leadership because you want someone to negotiate with, so capitals would be safe
2026-04-09 11:51:16 <KipIngram   > One relatively junior guy didn't follow his procedure of escalation, and then they figured it out and the whole thing de-escalated.
2026-04-09 11:51:20 <tpbsd       > after all it's been said that if it wasnt for radiation from the sun and the genetic changes it causes, man wouldnt probably have become so varied ?
2026-04-09 11:51:25 <KipIngram   > I feel almost like putting a picture of that guy on my wall.
2026-04-09 11:51:49 <veltas      > And then Iran happened
2026-04-09 11:51:56 <tpbsd       > he was a Rusian officer
2026-04-09 11:52:35 <tpbsd       > and didnt press his button thinking the alert was not genuine
2026-04-09 11:52:44 <KipIngram   > Right.
2026-04-09 11:53:32 <tpbsd       > he probably went home after his shift and was henpecked by his wife who had had a hard day raising their kids
2026-04-09 11:54:09 <tpbsd       > veltas, something always happens
2026-04-09 11:54:46 <tpbsd       > it's been like this all my life, mankind is this way in the main
2026-04-09 11:55:13 <KipIngram   > Iran's been at the center of things for thousands of years.
2026-04-09 11:55:27 <tpbsd       > why oh why didnt we stop at swords and shields ??
2026-04-09 11:55:32 <KipIngram   > And always has had those mountains to hide in - it's a hard nut to crack.
2026-04-09 11:55:48 <tpbsd       > yeah, 4000 years or maybe 5000
2026-04-09 11:56:19 <tpbsd       > and here we are, civs barely 300 years old trying to tell them what to do ?
2026-04-09 11:56:42 <KipIngram   > Yes - we're upstarts.
2026-04-09 11:56:51 <tpbsd       > it's the new teenagers on the block, making war on all the really old men
2026-04-09 11:57:26 <veltas      > tpbsd: I'm saying that the assumption that they won't kill leaders is wrong, so nuclear war theory's been turned upside down
2026-04-09 11:57:30 <KipIngram   > The very earliest conflicts on record were round 1 of the Iran/Iraq war.
2026-04-09 11:57:41 <tpbsd       > I think just the Mongol empire occupied iran for 400 years at one point
2026-04-09 11:58:22 <tpbsd       > whose record ?
2026-04-09 11:58:26 <KipIngram   > The Mongols occupied damn near everything in that region for a while.
2026-04-09 11:58:37 <KipIngram   > Well, I just mean "standard history."
2026-04-09 11:58:39 <veltas      > Sorry that was meant for KipIngram
2026-04-09 11:58:56 <tpbsd       > there are old records that mention the invasion of 'the sea peoples' and no one knows who they mean
2026-04-09 11:59:10 <KipIngram   > Yeah, I'm talking about older than that.
2026-04-09 11:59:39 <tpbsd       > there are old cities with writing or cuiniform that no one can read still
2026-04-09 11:59:44 <KipIngram   > Urek, Akkad, etc.
2026-04-09 11:59:49 <tpbsd       > yeah
2026-04-09 12:00:01 <KipIngram   > Sorry - Uruk.
2026-04-09 12:00:04 <tpbsd       > everything is lost to time eventually
2026-04-09 12:00:34 <tpbsd       > look at egypt ? it was once a green fertile land with rivers and paradise ...
2026-04-09 12:00:52 <KipIngram   > Yeah, the Sahara was once a greenbelt.
2026-04-09 12:01:09 <tpbsd       > tons of undiscoverd civs are still thought to be burried under all that sand
2026-04-09 12:01:46 <KipIngram   > They also suspect there are undiscovered ruins under the rain forest canopies.
2026-04-09 12:02:06 <KipIngram   > They think we could find a lot of them  if someone paid for a thorough LIDAR survey.
2026-04-09 12:02:09 <tpbsd       > just the Antithikera mechanism is a lesson in lost tech
2026-04-09 12:02:27 <tpbsd       > yes, thats so true, in the Amazon
2026-04-09 12:02:37 <KipIngram   > And who knows what's underwater just offshore?  Sea levels were 400-500 feet lower at one point, and early civs tend to be coastal.
2026-04-09 12:02:44 <KipIngram   > A lot could have just got submerged.
2026-04-09 12:02:46 <tpbsd       > the Amazon will certainly never be explored by me!
2026-04-09 12:02:59 <tpbsd       > exactly
2026-04-09 12:03:23 <tpbsd       > some even think that some prehistoric species still exist in the amazon
2026-04-09 12:07:46 <KipIngram   > Nowhere's going to get explored by me - I'm quite content to just review the known discoveries by internet.
2026-04-09 12:07:58 <KipIngram   > Exploring's a young man's game.
2026-04-09 12:08:07 <tpbsd       > so true
2026-04-09 12:08:17 <tpbsd       > I did my own exploring as a youn man
2026-04-09 12:08:35 <KipIngram   > Yes, it sounds like you did.  :-)
2026-04-09 12:08:59 <KipIngram   > I think you were a bit more rowdy than I was.  At least in that way.
2026-04-09 12:09:41 <tpbsd       > I remember being in a remote and isolated plave in the australian north west, out of fuel and pointing to the petrol tank on my motor bike as a iron ore train thundered by
2026-04-09 12:10:15 <tpbsd       > i was about 20km from the nearst town, out of water and fuel
2026-04-09 12:10:34 <tpbsd       > and it was the usual 100+ F
2026-04-09 12:10:55 <KipIngram   > Ugh.
2026-04-09 12:11:21 <tpbsd       > it's amazing the insight that comes from knowing one may perish soon
2026-04-09 12:11:45 <KipIngram   > I don't do well in heat anymore.  I think I gave myself a mild heat stroke jogging once, and ever since it's been harder to deal with the serious heat.
2026-04-09 12:12:09 <KipIngram   > I'm not even sure it's "damage" - it may just be my body learned that that was a bad sitch and sends me the warnings faster now.
2026-04-09 12:12:24 <tpbsd       > it occured to me that the bottom of my motorbike fuel tank was probably not flat and that fuel may remain in any low dips in the metal
2026-04-09 12:13:29 <tpbsd       > so I lay the big heavy kawasaki 900 on it's side and then managed to start the bike, I rode it in first gear, idling the engine the 20km !
2026-04-09 12:13:54 <tpbsd       > I had to do that a couple of times more when it stalled from lack of fuel
2026-04-09 12:14:24 <tpbsd       > but I made it back!
2026-04-09 12:14:37 <KipIngram   > That's a great story.
2026-04-09 12:15:04 <tpbsd       > lucky must be my middle name!
2026-04-09 12:15:19 <KipIngram   > Ingenuity.
2026-04-09 12:15:31 <tpbsd       > being stranded in the ausie outback, without water in summer is often a death sentence
2026-04-09 12:16:12 <KipIngram   > Yeah, I've always found the "edge oriented structure" of Australia pretty fascinating.
2026-04-09 12:16:21 <tpbsd       > I worked for STC in those days as a electronics tech, maintaining a remote network of radio repeaters
2026-04-09 12:16:36 <KipIngram   > You actually still have real wilderness in a way we don't here.
2026-04-09 12:16:49 <KipIngram   > Or at least not in the parts of the country I've ever lived in.
2026-04-09 12:17:15 <tpbsd       > in summer what you describe as 'wilderness' here often is death for white men like me
2026-04-09 12:17:33 <tpbsd       > arid, boiling hot, no water
2026-04-09 12:17:43 <tpbsd       > flies everywhere
2026-04-09 12:18:04 <tpbsd       > no trees, no shade, it's hell on earth
2026-04-09 12:18:26 <tpbsd       > people last a couple of days alone
2026-04-09 12:19:14 <tpbsd       > but to an Aboriginal, it's paradise, they see with eyes that know every inch of the land
2026-04-09 12:19:46 <tpbsd       > I did discover that I can easily smell distant water tho
2026-04-09 12:20:00 <tpbsd       > when youre desperate, you can just do it
2026-04-09 12:20:18 <tpbsd       > I think civ has just overpowered our natural senses
2026-04-09 12:20:38 <tpbsd       > how did early man discover water ? he just followed his nose!
2026-04-09 12:21:00 <tpbsd       > he could smell it miles away, like animals can
2026-04-09 12:37:13 <KipIngram   > I agree totally that civilization has weakened us in many ways.
2026-04-09 12:37:53 <KipIngram   > It gives us a lot of benefits, but it also removes adversity, and on top of that makes us hugely interdependent on one another.
2026-04-09 12:38:46 <tpbsd       > KipIngram, and at this rate, nature may decide we no longer need brains, and remove them
2026-04-09 12:39:08 <KipIngram   > No need to remove them, when people voluntarily refrain from using them.
2026-04-09 12:39:12 <KipIngram   > But yeah.
2026-04-09 12:39:14 <tpbsd       > as life will become so easy
2026-04-09 12:39:22 <KipIngram   > Have you seen Idiocracy?
2026-04-09 12:39:46 <KipIngram   > It was a comedy, of course, but at the same time I think there was a real message there, intentional or not.
2026-04-09 12:39:49 <tpbsd       > we only have brains to survive, when survival is easy, brains dont enlarge, they shrink
2026-04-09 12:39:53 <tpbsd       > yeah
2026-04-09 12:40:18 <tpbsd       > true, it's a clever film
2026-04-09 12:40:44 <KipIngram   > Demolition Man was sort of a "political spin" on the same idea.
2026-04-09 12:40:51 <tpbsd       > I di watch a lot of films, but Im a reader at heart
2026-04-09 12:41:01 <KipIngram   > Me too.
2026-04-09 12:41:09 <tpbsd       > yeah, it was a blast, stallone and bullock
2026-04-09 12:41:39 <KipIngram   > Yes - pretty hilarious actually.  In that case it wasn't intelligence on the chopping block - it was more of a "woke gone mad" type thing.
2026-04-09 12:41:52 <tpbsd       > my mind can supply the best ever visual effects that no film can afford
2026-04-09 12:41:58 <KipIngram   > YES.
2026-04-09 12:42:13 <tpbsd       > yeah, demo man was a classic
2026-04-09 12:42:39 <KipIngram   > I help moderate a Reddit community that focuses on an urban fantasy series by Jim Butcher.  I've become astounded by what a large fraction of that community seems to only do audio books.
2026-04-09 12:42:45 <tpbsd       > ever seen or read 'roadside picknick' ?
2026-04-09 12:42:54 <KipIngram   > But they'll argue with you that they're still "reading."
2026-04-09 12:43:09 <KipIngram   > I've asked them, "When you read a book to your three-year old, is he or she reading?"
2026-04-09 12:43:22 <tpbsd       > eww, I just cant get into audio books, but then I have great eyesight and Im a fast reader
2026-04-09 12:43:23 <KipIngram   > But it's an issue that will anger people.
2026-04-09 12:43:57 <tpbsd       > my mother used to read to me up to when I was about 3 or 4
2026-04-09 12:44:00 <KipIngram   > Same here.  I did listen to a few of the audio versions of that series, just because that community acts like the guy who narrates them (the actor that played Spike on Buffy) hung the moon.
2026-04-09 12:44:07 <KipIngram   > I had to see what all the fuss was about.
2026-04-09 12:44:12 <KipIngram   > And he does a perfectly fine job.
2026-04-09 12:44:21 <KipIngram   > But I'm a print-reader end of story.
2026-04-09 12:44:26 <tpbsd       > I remember being mesmerized by and afraid of 'jaberwocky'
2026-04-09 12:44:32 <KipIngram   > Your comment on imagination - that's precisely how I feel about it.
2026-04-09 12:45:01 <tpbsd       > the mind is the best special effects of all :)
2026-04-09 12:45:08 <KipIngram   > For me it was a scene in the Stephen King book "The Talisman."
2026-04-09 12:45:16 <veltas      > I've listened to pretty much the whole bible in the car, and I've had a lot of people get angry when I saw I've "read" it even though technically I listened to it
2026-04-09 12:45:31 <KipIngram   > A kid is hiding in these woods, in an alternate world, while someone goes by on the highway - he doesn't want to be seen.
2026-04-09 12:45:34 <tpbsd       > I like listening to audio podcasts about tech and the old days
2026-04-09 12:45:44 <KipIngram   > The trees are able to move, and they try to take him.
2026-04-09 12:45:57 <KipIngram   > And the way King wrote that scene just scared the pants off of me the first time I read it.
2026-04-09 12:46:00 <veltas      > But mostly I mean I've received the text rather than I've physically used my eyes to decode it
2026-04-09 12:46:01 <tpbsd       > King is a odd one, but I have enjoyed some of his books
2026-04-09 12:46:06 <KipIngram   > Amazing how the right words on a page can have so much power.
2026-04-09 12:46:21 <veltas      > King is definitely a weird guy
2026-04-09 12:46:27 <veltas      > I don't say that lightly
2026-04-09 12:46:36 <tpbsd       > how they can manipulatr your imagination in powerful ways ?
2026-04-09 12:46:55 <KipIngram   > veltas - I have no particular problem with audio books, and if that's how you like to spend your time driving there's NOTHING wrong with that.
2026-04-09 12:47:14 <KipIngram   > It doesn't bother me that people listen to books - I just worry a little about people who ONLY listen to books and NEVER read.
2026-04-09 12:47:41 <KipIngram   > I think the mental activity of turning the printed words into understanding is "healthy exercise" so to speak, and I think people need some of that in their lives.
2026-04-09 12:47:53 <KipIngram   > Doesn't mean they need to 100% read print at all.
2026-04-09 12:47:57 <tpbsd       > the Bible is massive, I have read a lot of it over a decade or so, it's a journey for sure
2026-04-09 12:48:12 <KipIngram   > I've read portions of it, but not the whole thing.
2026-04-09 12:49:03 <tpbsd       > having suffered some strokes that affect my ability to read at the time, I now have a deeper understanding of the incredible ability of the brain to read
2026-04-09 12:49:48 <tpbsd       > I used to take it all for granted, like reading was as easy as eating apple pie and ice cream, but Ive learnt that there is a hige mental engine behind it
2026-04-09 12:49:55 <tpbsd       > same with speaking
2026-04-09 12:50:18 <KipIngram   > Yeah, I think most of us have no clue what in incredible gift all that is.
2026-04-09 12:50:22 <tpbsd       > we are all idiots in charge of the most awesome organic computer in existence
2026-04-09 12:50:30 <KipIngram   > This brain of ours - it's the one huge advantage we have over other animals.
2026-04-09 12:50:37 <tpbsd       > and we mostly take it for granted
2026-04-09 12:50:39 <KipIngram   > To "be human" is to USE IT.
2026-04-09 12:51:16 <tpbsd       > and we use it without any conscious training, it just ' grows' on us
2026-04-09 12:51:29 <KipIngram   > Right, exactly.
2026-04-09 12:51:47 <KipIngram   > I've raised five daughters.  Watching all those things "come online" is an amazing thing.
2026-04-09 12:52:22 <tpbsd       > if we had to swap our brains for the 'stargate' AI computing centre, I think we would be very dissapointed in the loss of capabilities
2026-04-09 12:52:45 <tpbsd       > KipIngram, Ive raised 2 daughters and 4 boys, I feel the same
2026-04-09 12:54:26 <tpbsd       > my problem with audio books is that id have to play them at 3x fast speed or id be bored in minutes
2026-04-09 12:55:04 <tpbsd       > theyre way to slow as I'm only interested in the content, not the readers timbre or vocal effects
2026-04-09 12:55:37 <iv4nshm4k0v > Strictly speaking, there're audio books, but there're also audio plays.
2026-04-09 12:57:56 <iv4nshm4k0v > Audio books are supposed to be read in level, neutral voice, I mean.
2026-04-09 12:57:58 <tpbsd       > true
2026-04-09 12:58:23 <tpbsd       > it's probably hard to remain neutral, tho a machine can do it
2026-04-09 12:58:36 <tpbsd       > AI readers will probably be a thing one day
2026-04-09 12:59:43 <tpbsd       > 
ACTION is rewatching the 2014 'Marco Polo' tv series atm

2026-04-09 13:00:48 <iv4nshm4k0v > 
ACTION listens to http://relay4.slayradio.org:8000/ 

2026-04-09 13:00:48 <iv4nshm4k0v > Audio books have their uses - like listening while you're on a bus or a train.  Audio plays / series also have their fans; I'm partial to "Dragnet," for instance.
2026-04-09 13:01:55 <tpbsd       > iv4nshm4k0v, it's a personal preference for sure
2026-04-09 13:02:10 <tpbsd       > my eldest son loves audio boks
2026-04-09 13:02:15 <tpbsd       > books
2026-04-09 13:03:01 <tpbsd       > hes a scifi addict, mainly all the classics from the 60's to the 90's
2026-04-09 13:04:21 <tpbsd       > iv4nshm4k0v, I bet you have read 'roadside picknic' by Arkady and Boris Strugatsk ?
2026-04-09 13:05:06 <iv4nshm4k0v > Sure, why?
2026-04-09 13:05:36 <tpbsd       > First published in 1972, Roadside Picnic is still widely regarded as one of the greatest science fiction novels, despite the fact that it has been out of print in the United States for almost thirty years.
2026-04-09 13:05:38 <iv4nshm4k0v > FWIW, my preference for books is HTML (or EPUB), text/plain, then dead tree editions.  I find it easier to read than to listen to; and if I can search it, that's even better.  Yet I find time to listen to audio plays as well.
2026-04-09 13:05:57 <tpbsd       > ebooks here for me alo
2026-04-09 13:06:33 <tpbsd       > I have a few different ebook readers, I started with the pocket ebook, pre 2000
2026-04-09 13:07:07 <tpbsd       > but I cracked the screen one day when it was in my jeans pocket, what a sad day that was
2026-04-09 13:07:59 <iv4nshm4k0v > I mostly just use Lynx on my "desktop" machine.
2026-04-09 13:10:42 <tpbsd       > I mainly use 'fbreader' which is reading 'consider phlebas' atm
2026-04-09 13:13:25 <tpbsd       > iv4nshm4k0v, my first and favorite ereader was the Pocketbook 360, a very old  design from Pocketbook, a Ukrainian company
2026-04-09 13:13:55 <tpbsd       > https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Pocketbook_360
2026-04-09 13:15:50 <iv4nshm4k0v > My copy of Roadside Picnic is urn:isbn:978-5-17-088647-0 from 2020.  Though I'm certainly more of a Clifford D. Simak and Poul Anderson fan, than of Strugatsky brothers.  Even if the novel proved to be quite influental.  Say, the author of http://fimfiction.net/story/481301/1/ (a short story) saw fit to reference it within the story by name.
2026-04-09 13:16:14 <tpbsd       > I'm the same!
2026-04-09 13:16:24 <tpbsd       > Simak is awesome
2026-04-09 13:16:34 <tpbsd       > one of my all time favorites
2026-04-09 13:16:55 <tpbsd       > I couldnt list all my fav scifi authors
2026-04-09 13:17:12 <iv4nshm4k0v > Among the US sci-fi writers, Simak was perhaps the most popular in USSR.
2026-04-09 13:17:19 <tpbsd       > there are too many of them
2026-04-09 13:17:27 <tpbsd       > oh!
2026-04-09 13:17:36 <tpbsd       > well he deserves to be
2026-04-09 13:18:12 <tpbsd       > he was a prolific writer, as was Asimov, another favorite of mine
2026-04-09 13:18:39 <tpbsd       > not to mention jack vance, 'the anome' series
2026-04-09 13:20:43 <iv4nshm4k0v > I've read some of Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein, but wouldn't call myself a fan.
2026-04-09 13:26:29 <tpbsd       > the first ever scifi book I read was Heinlins "the tunnel in the sky" a scifi version of 'lord of the flies'
2026-04-09 13:27:02 <tpbsd       > I found it a bit disturbing at the time
2026-04-09 13:27:18 <tpbsd       > I led a sheltered life as a kid
2026-04-09 13:33:10 <iv4nshm4k0v > One of my relatives was a subscriber of the "Young Technician" magazine.  They've printed sci-fi short stories (and, occasionally, short novels - split across several issues), so I guess that's where I've read my first sci-fi story.  No idea what my first sci-fi novel was, but I think I've read Simak's "The Visitors" when I was nine?
2026-04-09 13:37:12 <tpbsd       > I've never read Simaks The visitors, tho I see it was one of his last books
2026-04-09 13:37:25 <iv4nshm4k0v > (And then http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kwaidan:_Stories_and_Studies_of_Strange_Things around the time I was ten.  Though that's pure fantasy, I guess.)
2026-04-09 14:15:46 <veltas      > Has anyone here read the .doc specification that MS was forced to write?
2026-04-09 14:16:20 <veltas      > It's fascinating to me, you can see a lot of fwrite()-based record keeping
2026-04-09 14:16:35 <veltas      > I'm sure it wasn't even that bad originally but all the Office bloat definitely was showing
2026-04-09 14:16:42 <veltas      > I can tell MS were glad to move on