Alex Mason

Alex Mason

@freemanonthe.land

Softwarer. Hunk. Father. Mother. Crystal owner. Beloved by all, defeated by none.

72 followers75 following263 posts

My top 9 movies 1. The English Patient 2. Agent Zero 3. Chunnel! 4. Chapter Two 5. Death Blow 6. Prognosis Negative 7. Rochelle, Rochelle 8. The Pain and the Yearning 9. Cry, Cry Again

Alex Mason reposted

i held up the twin towers for as long as i could so firemen could escape but eventually mayor mamdani demanded that i evacuate the area. there is blood on his hands but mine are clean. so was my suit. many firemen were saying thank you, sir, they'd never seen anyone so clean.

Alex Mason reposted

it’s very validating that there’s no one who’s extremely pro-Israel but then otherwise a normal, kind person. it’s all guys who are disgusted by children’s hospitals.

Carl Quintanilla@carlquintanilla.bsky.social

Fetterman text to aide: “Why do I have to keep having to meet with [Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia]?” Aide: “Because they are worried about vaccines and Medicaid cuts.” Fetterman: “Well I’m not.” @wsj.com #PAsen www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

This simulation project has been quite a journey so far, with plenty of fixes and features ahead, but what a great feeling to see these little phenomena emerge from a careful, systems-driven design.

The above demo is an X-shaped rigid body being pushed by steam which is created by boiling water at a heat element and rising due to buoyancy. Gases and solids can overlap with liquids but not each other, so the gas can push on the solid and apply torque, and the solid, in turn, pushes the gas.

Experts Warn that Fostering the Juster May Hasten Global Folly Experts Will Be Consumed in The Folly

Citizen Slain@shanesheehy.bsky.social

If the Juster did not exist it would be necessary to create him

Alex Mason reposted

Replying to @mayorseidel.bsky.social

They know what their class interest is. It's to use prejudice, patriarchy, and property to prevent the emergence of a diverse meritocracy. That would redound to the benefit of people from all backgrounds who find their opportunities in the city. "Can't make it anywhere, but I can make it here."

Alex Mason reposted

Replying to @mayorseidel.bsky.social

Notice how he's not saying "this is the fault of Parisian Sans-Culottes for being condescending to those poor peasants who would only support them if they knew that they shared a class interest." They don't share a class interest! These people *are a different class* that is *hostile to our class*.

Alex Mason reposted

I just pissed myself... this is the movie he is mad that people are calling slop... I demand you watch with the sound on... it is so much worse than you think it is going to be...

Chet Faliszek@chetsucks.com

Ah yes... all those AI artists taking their lives because their work is being called AI slop... countless...

The desire for sweeping conclusions, I think, has robbed the debate of easily settled grounds. It's a lot easier to show that a class of systems isn't or won't be like a person with feelings, than it is to show that a broader class of systems can never exhibit interiority or self-aware experience.

So you really have to ask why you care, because that will most likely anchor the debate to an area that's far more practical to settle than this flighty yearning for Ultimate Truth.

"Consciousness" is a topic where people have specific thoughts and hide them behind generalities, almost guaranteeing that opponents will talk past each other. It smacks of intellectual dishonesty.

The paper I review announces that there are physical conditions necessary for consciousness to arise, but never indicates what they are. To make their argument's basis so tangible would expose it to scrutiny. The conditions are defined recursively as whatever chips in data centers don't have.

Going to a fancy restaurant with a monkey chef called like "Out on a Limb" and they're serving peanuts on the half shell. The waiter is swinging his arms above his head as he walks and spilling water everywhere. They've been in business for 2 years

"Has anyone ever told you you look like Bo Burnham?" No, not even once. Yet strangely I've been asked this exact question dozens of times.

Alex Mason reposted

Replying to @nutedawn.bsky.social

Let's remind the voters that Im running against a freaking astronaut and that I have resting Patrick Bateman face!!! *actual campaign media*

It's so brutal that this is one of the scam ads

Jeff Horwitz@jeffhorwitz.bsky.social

Meta earns $3.5 billion every six months from showing Faceboon and Instagram users 15 billion “higher legal risk” scam ad impressions a day, internal documents state. That haul vastly exceeds how much the company expects regulators To fine it for running scam ads. www.reuters.com/investigatio...

Suppose a machine shuffles a deck of N cards, by moving one card at a time from the top of stack A to a random position in stack B. The last card from stack A is guaranteed a uniformly random position in stack B, but what about the first? Does it have a 1/N chance of ending up on the bottom of B?

Suppose the machine puts the card randomly on the top or bottom of stack B instead of any position, so the last card has a ½ chance to end up on top, but the first card has a 1/2^(N-1) chance. Does the distribution for all cards become uniform after some number of shuffles?

"if balrogs have wings why don't they fly" I'm thinking they're heavy, they need solid footing and a good jump to get up maybe 10m at a time, like turkeys or chickens. The wings are mostly for menacing, like a goose.

You're a mid-sized sedan getting knocked off a cliff, you're not flapping your way out of that one. But charging into battle with the boost from those things must feel so sick

Just finished watching Devs (2020). Cool drama with satisfying twists, but the philosophy is paltry. The protag breaks the magic universe predictor, and determinism as such, essentially by being the first person in all history to be really headstrong.

"Don't blame me, it was predetermined." No, blame is itself one of many "causes" that factor into the determination of behavior, as is our attitude toward determinism. It should enlighten us toward a solutions-focused mode of social regulation, rather than a vindictive or grudge-focused one.

Alex Mason reposted

Replying to @asherelbein.bsky.social

I for one long for the day when a man may be judged not for how many people he left to die, nor how many women he groped, but by the content of his character

Alex Mason reposted

the empirical evidence is pretty conclusive that the 2020 protests contributed to trump’s defeat. why did it take four years for the “calamitous imagery” of those protests to have a decisive electoral impact in trump’s favor, & what caused the political valence of that imagery to reverse entirely?

Thomas Chatterton Williams@chatterton.bsky.social

One of the principle reasons Trump swept back into power was the legacy of the calamitous imagery of 2020’s “fiery but mostly peaceful protests.” This is such a gift to him. Throw in a Hamas armband to boot? I almost can’t believe this isn’t staged

Alex Mason reposted

When ICE comes into our neighborhoods targeting our communities and hurting our leaders, we show up! United. Organized. Ready to protect families.

Possession with intent to distribute requires written advertisements by the dealer, otherwise there's no way of knowing their intentions

Eric Lipton NYT@ericlipton.nytimes.com

Corruption requires explict quid pro quo. It is not corrupt to take an action that aligns with the interest of a person who gives you a gift, unless the official action was in direct response to that gift--a bribe. Terms matter. Accuracy and fairness matters. Regardless of what social media wants.

I will never understand the desire to gloat about things like this

Likesopomp@likeopomp.bsky.social

Your kind can say whatever you want but democrats are not going to move to the left for 2028, they are definitely not going to move in your direction on Israel, and even if they do it will be a moot point because Gaza will be depopulated by then. But at least you showed That Woman Liz Cheney.