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baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

Generative models and automated decision-making systems are political projects. They are tools for fencing off sectors of our society for rent, for cutting back on education and healthcare for the poor, for removing accountability. They are inherently tools for removing humans from the equation. They are not neutral in their design. Their existence has a political purpose

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baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

I've been seeing people say the harms of "AI" comes from shitty people, not the tech and that the shitty people will go away after the bubble pops. While the first part is true in the strictest sense (contrary to claims, these are not autonomous systems) it's not really true in a practical sense. The harms are designed in and the "shitty human beings" won't go away.

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Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
jonny@neuromatch.social ("jonny (good kind)") wrote:

but assuming we're not in coordinator mode, the prompt that instructs the main LLM to create an agent with the prompt text to create our statusline script is emitted, and if that works, then an agent will be run with the statusline system prompt, which is awesome.

So the prompt tells the LLM to modify the $PS1 variable in the shell configuration. for those non-computer touchers out there, the PS1 variable is the thing that customizes "what happens before my cursor on the shell line" - it's what makes it so sometimes it shows that folder you are in, and how people make their terminal look very fancy.

So the prompt text includes a whole fake JSON string that says "write a function that receives these kinds of parameters and then returns a whatever"

observe the prompt text in first image's description of fields and then the description on the claude code docs website. notice that they are ... different!!! like where is the cost field in the prompt description? the docs give a whole example of using this, but if you were to invoke it via the slash command, then it would just have no idea how to do that. the only way this succeeds is by virtue of the fact that the llm is just generating the most likely text anyway and so the odds of any of this succeeding are just "that some script that calls some variables with some maximally likely names represent some value that is maxmially likely, based on the training set prior."

[ a huge fake json object in the prompt, reproduced as far as character limits allow me to go below, most important point for the example being that there is no "cost" field] {  "session_id": "string", // Unique session ID  "session_name": "string", // Optional: Human-readable session name set via /rename  "transcript_path": "string", // Path to the conversation transcript  "cwd": "string",         // Current working directory  "model": {    "id": "string",           // Model ID (e.g., "claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022")    "display_name": "string"  // Display name (e.g., "Claude 3.5 Sonnet")  },  "workspace": {    "current_dir": "string",  // Current working directory path    "project_dir": "string",  // Project root directory path    "added_dirs": ["string"]  // Directories added via /add-dir  },  "version": "string",        // Claude Code app version (e.g., "1.0.71")  "output_style": {    "name": "string",         // Output style name (e.g., "default", "Explanatory", "Learning")  },
[description of fields on claude code's docs site, including a set of fields for "cost" like "total_cost_usd" and "total_duration_ms" and etc.  the page is probably more screen reader friendly, but partially reproduced below: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/statusline#available-data ] model.id, model.display_name	Current model identifier and display name cwd, workspace.current_dir	Current working directory. Both fields contain the same value; workspace.current_dir is preferred for consistency with workspace.project_dir. workspace.project_dir	Directory where Claude Code was launched, which may differ from cwd if the working directory changes during a session workspace.added_dirs	Additional directories added via /add-dir or --add-dir. Empty array if none have been added cost.total_cost_usd	Total session cost in USD cost.total_duration_ms	Total wall-clock time since the session started, in milliseconds cost.total_api_duration_ms	Total time spent waiting for API responses in milliseconds cost.total_lines_added, cost.total_lines_removed	Lines of code changed context_window.total_input_tokens, context_window.total_output_tokens	Cumulative token counts across the session context_window.context_window_size	Maximum context window size in tokens. 200000 by default, or 1000000 for models with extended context. context_window.used_percentage	Pre-calculated percentage of context window used
[example of using cost and duration tracking with the statusline from the claude docs - a bar is shown with a money bag showign 8 cents utsed in 7 minutes 3 seconds with some simple bash script to output a string to that effect https://code.claude.com/docs/en/statusline#cost-and-duration-tracking ] Cost and duration tracking Track your session’s API costs and elapsed time. The cost.total_cost_usd field accumulates the cost of all API calls in the current session. The cost.total_duration_ms field measures total elapsed time since the session started, while cost.total_api_duration_ms tracks only the time spent waiting for API responses. Each script formats cost as currency and converts milliseconds to minutes and seconds: A status line showing model name, session cost, and duration #!/bin/bash input=$(cat) MODEL=$(echo "$input" | jq -r '.model.display_name') COST=$(echo "$input" | jq -r '.cost.total_cost_usd // 0') DURATION_MS=$(echo "$input" | jq -r '.cost.total_duration_ms // 0') COST_FMT=$(printf '$%.2f' "$COST") DURATION_SEC=$((DURATION_MS / 1000)) MINS=$((DURATION_SEC / 60)) SECS=$((DURATION_SEC % 60)) echo "[$MODEL] 💰 $COST_FMT | ⏱️ ${MINS}m ${SECS}s"

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dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

i thought they were supposed to be stopping with all this segregated cores nonsense? or did they just stop segregating cpu features for different cores?

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dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

lol, nova lake's mobile parts with performance cores, efficiency cores and low power efficiency cores

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dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

should beginners still learn to code?

probably not, but mostly because programming as a career will not take care of them.

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Boosted by jwz:
netblocks ("NetBlocks") wrote:

⚠️ Update: #Iran's internet blackout is now the longest nation-scale internet shutdown on record in any country, exceeding all other comparable incidents in severity having entered its 37th consecutive day after 864 hours.

Graph from NetBlocks showing network connectivity in Iran from 24 February 2026 to 5 April 2026. The y-axis represents normalized connectivity, ranging from 0% to 100%, and the x-axis represents the dates. The green line representing Iran's connectivity is high through the initial time period, with a sharp drop on the morning of 28 February. The continued drop in connectivity aligns with a nation-scale internet blackout imposed by authorities after joint military strikes by the US and Israel. A brief restoration was observed on 18 March. The minimum and current connectivity levels are indicated as 1% and 2%, respectively. The chart has a dark background with a red horizontal arrow labeled 'SHUTDOWN' indicating the disruption period, and the NetBlocks logo in the lower left corner with the Mapping Internet Freedom slogan.

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Boosted by jwz:
gleick@mas.to ("James Gleick") wrote:

“Experts are dubious.”

NY Times headline:  FEMA Official Says He Teleported to Waffle House. Experts Are Dubious.

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Boosted by jwz:
rmi@cloudisland.nz ("Rob Isaac") wrote:

@jwz

Attachments:

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dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

on the swiss cheese risk model

in this case, the barriers seem to have been mostly holes

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dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

cave of alibaba and the 40 thieves

lots of tax being collected in the port then?

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dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

the smoke had also begun to crackle

this isn't funny, fires only do this when they're distressed

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slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

Twenty-five years ago, aggressive antitrust action made safe, interoperable, tax-free computing possible, and the web delivered, unlocking economic opportunity at the pace browsers got more powerful.

Today's regulators (and the press that cover them) are not following in the footsteps of that blockbuster success. A look at why:

https://infrequently.org/2026/04/the-web-is-an-antitrust-wedge/

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Boosted by ChrisWere@toot.wales ("Chris Were ⁂🐧🌱☕"):
pennywhether@mastodon.online ("Pennywhether") wrote:

@chris Even just watching YouTube is pretty meh now. I basically don't go there anymore. So much of the long form stuff there is a paint by numbers session in appeasing the algorithm. Very predictable. I'd rather see stuff from people doing these things for themselves and anyone who wants to come along for the ride. More genuine. It's why I've enjoyed your stuff all these years regardless of the direction you've taken things. Keep doing what resonates with you. =)

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Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
cosmos4u@scicomm.xyz ("Daniel Fischer") wrote:

By popular demand here is the full-moon-lit night image of Earth from #ArtemisII in a rotated (NW now up) and zoomed-in version, now directly from https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/hello-world/ - the technical data has https://nitter.net/Erdayastronaut/status/2040105622046118282 and there is also a version with much shorter exposure at https://nitter.net/NASA/status/2040114101670523381 and a half-Earth at https://nitter.net/NASA/status/2040114160529179103 while the view with the window frame is at https://images.nasa.gov/details/art002e000191

Rotated, cropped and contrast-boosted, a bit.

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Boosted by jwz:
SFFMagazineCovers@zirk.us ("SciFi/Fantasy Magazine Covers") wrote:

Creepy no. 95 (1978)

The caption says "gorilla" but honestly they look more like chimps to me? And to complicate things we have "See Evil! Hear Evil! Speak Evil!" which inverts the three wise monkeys.

This cover does its job perfectly, because you want to read the story.

Original magazine: https://archive.org/details/warrencreepy-095

#Magazine #MagazineCover #PulpMagazine #PulpFiction #ScienceFiction #Fantasy #Horror #Art #Illustration

Three gorillas are seen holding spears and wearing helmets belts and shoulder straps, approximately roman-empire looking. The caption reads "See Evil! Hear Evil! Speak Evil!". Creepy magazine cover February 1978.

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Boosted by zkat@toot.cat ("Katerina Marchán"):
MikeDunnAuthor@kolektiva.social wrote:

1st panel shows Marvel super heroes. Reads: How Americans see them[elves] 2nd panel shows Star Wars storm troopers and Darth Vader & Darth Sidious. Reads: How the World actually sees them. 3rd panel shows Mel Brooks, Rick Moranis, from the movie "Space Balls." Reads: How they really are.

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jwz wrote:

Why are there no photos of the bombed out AWS data centers? Asking for an everybody.

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jwz wrote:

So much winning.

I see we are at the "US Navy base in Virginia asking for donations of toiletries" stage of the victory lap. Sailors have been arriving in Norfolk, Va., home to the world's biggest naval base, since at least the middle of March....
https://jwz.org/b/yk5w

Screenshot

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Boosted by jwz:
Cdespinosa ("Chris Espinosa") wrote:

Has a Defense Secretary ever been fragged by his own men? Asking for historical reference

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Boosted by EmilyEnough@hachyderm.io ("Emily 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️"):
alex@tech.lgbt ("Alex R") wrote:

It'd be nice as an industry to have something in between 'vibe coding' and 'artisanal burnout'

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Boosted by jwz:
mitch@mitchwagner.com ("Mitch Wagner") wrote:

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soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker") wrote:

I was reminded this evening of the time /r/programming kept removing people's links to my blog, so I took out a Reddit ad to spite them.

And left the comments on.

https://old.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/11or9nk/furry%5Fcryptography%5Fads%5Fonly%5Fon%5Ftumblr/

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Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
maxleibman@beige.party ("Max Leibman") wrote:

“There’s no way to put the genie back into the bottle,” insist AI boosters about a product that the industry is spending more than a trillion dollars a year to keep out of the bottle.

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
jargon_bot ("Jeff’s JargonBot") wrote:

Error 418: I'm a teapot. But while I'm here — 'kick': 1. [IRC] To cause somebody to be removed from a IRC channel, an option only available to channel ops. This is an extreme measure, often used to combat extreme flamage or flooding, but sometimes used at the CHOP's whim.
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/K/kick.html

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
quachpas@sciences.re ("Pascal Quach") wrote:

#introduction

Hi Mastodon! I'm Pascal and new to Mastodon. I'm a computer engineer and a researcher in operations research. I'm a (fairly) strong advocate for #openSource and #openScience. I'm interested in many topics but mostly #sustainability #privacy #lowtech #epistemology.

I'm a bit of a #typesetting nerd, so I use #LaTeX (or #TeX), and #Typst. I maintain two Typst packages: glossarium and algorithmic.

I have some free time before my next work contract starts, so I have been slowly going through my personal projects backlog...

Looking forward to meet people here!

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
fsinn@mas.to ("Francisca Sinn") wrote:

RE: https://newsie.social/@TheViking/116343285900906491

TV talking head - confirmed to his job by Congress - is now purging the US military of leaders who won’t bow down to him.

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
linuxgal@techhub.social ("🌈 ☯️Teresita🐧👭") wrote:

#StarTrek #JI

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Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
elizayer ("Elizabeth Ayer") wrote:

The fact that we are *not* seeing wildly improving software all around us tells us everything we need to know.

There is no flourishing of value delivery, new product categories, more needs being satisfied better. It’s the opposite.

All we are seeing is decreases in quality, because 👏 code 👏 creation 👏 is not 👏 the problem.

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Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber") wrote:

Let me add one more thing to this. It's said implicitly above but let's be explicit. The problem is that this pipeline effectively *undoes itself*.

Part of the reason this worked well for @mttaggart is carefully setting up guardrails and monitoring things.

But the very patterns of usage of these things makes it so that people either never develop the skills where they can, or are demotivated to provide that level of care over time.

Which means the system eventually moves towards a structure that degrades and shakes itself apart by the very patterns of usage.

I don't know how to solve this.