Month: October 2017

Anonymous asked: would be good if individuals could just easily adjust their own sex drives up or down as wanted, really. I mean, I know there are medications with either effect, but I don’t mean like that, I mean like you’d adjust a setting in a piece of software.

~ Brin ~ 4 Comments

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theopjones:

brin-bellway:

argumate:

it would indeed be very handy!

I think like most emotions it would be kind of self-reinforcing, in that once you’re at one end of the scale the other end seems unappealing, but it would still be good to have the option available.

…do people normally find a given level of libido self-reinforcing?

Only middling-libido!mes want to stay that way long-term; I get sick of high libido after ~1 day and of low libido after ~1 week. (Unless I’m too distracted by other things to notice the vague sense of being incomplete that happens when my libido is too low for too long, which is how I spent the month of April. But even that is more “being sufficiently fucked up that your damage-assessment mechanism is also damaged”, rather than actually being okay with it.)

Mind you, when I see other people complaining of loss of libido, they’re almost always talking about practical effects and not the inherent badness of having an ego-syntonic part of your psyche go missing, which makes me wonder if maybe ego-neutral libidos are more common than typical-minding would lead me to believe.

Kind of my feeling is that I often get the feeling of IQ reduced by 25% around hot woman + weird effects on inhibitions (both reduced and increased. Which is sort of self-reinforcing. 

But is also why I agree with the anon that I don’t really like a lot of my sex drive. 

I would kind of like it if I could turn off my feelings of sexual and romantic attraction 2/3rds of the time. And thats a lot of the reason. I often don’t like a lot of the effect that it has on me.

And I also wish I could shut off a lot of inappropriate times I’m attracted to someone or a lot of the feelings of unrequited crushes and such.

…okay, in hindsight I guess I should have figured my other divergences would imply divergence here as well. I had…kind of forgotten that sex drives could have interpersonal effects, since mine doesn’t really.

(I wish you good luck and good coping.)

Tags:

#god I love being ace #(fun fact: when I typed ”god I love being”) #(the ”popular tags” section recommended ”god I love being bi”) #(you almost got it recommended tags! you’re in the right general area!) #nsfw text? #sexuality and lack thereof #reply via reblog #asexuality #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see

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Anonymous asked: would be good if individuals could just easily adjust their own sex drives up or down as wanted, really. I mean, I know there are medications with either effect, but I don’t mean like that, I mean like you’d adjust a setting in a piece of software.

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

argumate:

it would indeed be very handy!

I think like most emotions it would be kind of self-reinforcing, in that once you’re at one end of the scale the other end seems unappealing, but it would still be good to have the option available.

…do people normally find a given level of libido self-reinforcing?

Only middling-libido!mes want to stay that way long-term; I get sick of high libido after ~1 day and of low libido after ~1 week. (Unless I’m too distracted by other things to notice the vague sense of being incomplete that happens when my libido is too low for too long, which is how I spent the month of April. But even that is more “being sufficiently fucked up that your damage-assessment mechanism is also damaged”, rather than actually being okay with it.)

Mind you, when I see other people complaining of loss of libido, they’re almost always talking about practical effects and not the inherent badness of having an ego-syntonic part of your psyche go missing, which makes me wonder if maybe ego-neutral libidos are more common than typical-minding would lead me to believe.

Tags:

#I know I know I have a blatantly atypical mind in this area #but there’s no reason to think that the known divergences would indicate a divergence in *this particular aspect* #and it’s not like I can go around with a baseline assumption that people *aren’t* like me or I won’t get anything done #there are so many ways to be not-like-me and no reason to assume any particular one over others #you have to start *somewhere* #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #reply via reblog #sexuality and lack thereof #nsfw text?

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Slashdot headlines written by neural network

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

rangi42:

lewisandquark:

The news site Slashdot (“news for nerds, stuff that matters”) is celebrating its 20 year anniversary this October. What could be geekier than celebrating with the help of an open-source neural network?

Neural networks are a type of machine learning program that learn by example, rather than by a human programmer feeding them rules. Whatever the headlines contain, whatever common words and rhythms, a neural network will do its best to imitate. I’ve trained an open-source neural network called char-rnn to imitate all kinds of human things, like paint colors, guinea pig names, and craft beer names.

Slashdot sent me a list of all the headlines they’ve ever run, over 162,000 in all, and asked me to train a neural network to try to generate more.

I used a neural network called char-rnn, an open-source neural network by Andrej Karpathy, and trained it separately on the first and second decades of Slashdot headlines. Let’s see what it learned!

Decade 1: 1998 – 2007

Alternuting Your Computer
The Internet Spectrum Violated
Microsoft To Develop Programming Law
Star Trek Creates Free Memory
Launching the Linux Group Socially
Microsoft Releases New Months
More Pong Users for Kernel Project
Nintendo Goes Canadian Edition to Customers
New State of Second Life
Sexual Security To Allow Australia
Programming Supercomputer Library In Star Wars
What are The Final Fantasy
Review of the Wireless Monster?
Portable Mail With Spidey Law
New 5400 GPL Formed into An Internet
Dvorak on Mario Games?
Half-Life 2X Speed Released
Ban Manhunt 2 Better than Linux?
Vista Releases Denial of the Mumble
New Company Revises Super-Things For Problems
The Dead of Managing Moneys?
Judge Releases Sony Practices in Death
Doom’s On Worldwire Networks
Sun Releases Enterprise in Smackware
I Wants To Control of the Net
Nintendo Can Start in the Wild Button?
Secondors Talk Open Source For Super-Bork?
AOL On Beam Doubt

Some familiar personalities of the tech industry make an appearance:

Microsoft Releases Bill Gates Service Start
Steve Jobs To Be Good
Shatner Awards Up Towards A Game Car Challenge

Cell phones appear to be have been weird in the early days:

Stem Cell Phone Standards in Space
Why Are Blow Systems Taking Your Phone?
New Unreal Tournament Phone Reviews Doubts
Forget To Support Flat Spam Phone

And you find companies doing rather unexpected things: 

Microsoft Announces Mac OS X Released
Intel Releasing Linux In A Networks
Sun Upgrades Apple Devices
Corel Launches $100 Laptop
Microsoft Announces Firefox Portal
Mozilla’s Audio Caroffice
Apple Finally Launches Microsoft

I produced the above headlines by allowing the neural network a high creativity setting, so it could range over many different headline topics that it’s seen over and over. But it’s also fun to turn the creativity down near zero, so the neural network can try to generate the most quintessential headlines:

All The Company Programming Software Software?
Some Computer Computer Solution of the New Company Computer
More Anti-Spam For Software Computer
Mac OS X Interview with Linux Computer
Mac OS X Accused of the Business
Sony Plans To Start Patent System For All Time
Security Hole For Security Hole
Security Hole in the Star Trek
Computer Computer Computer Computer Software?

Decade 2: 2007 – 2017

The neural network had a tougher time with decade 2 – it seems the headlines became longer and more complex, as Slashdot experimented with new formats and new topics.  The neural network struggled to create grammatical headlines as a result. But it still did its best to reflect the new topics of the last decade. Compared to the late 1990s and early 2000s, some companies and topics disappeared, while the coverage of Apple in particular exploded. Star Trek and Star Wars, however, remain perennial Slashdot favorites.
Here are some neural network-generated headlines for 2007-2017:

Twitter Discovered In the Pirate Bay
Google Bacon Medal To Contract Computational Lab
Scientists Discover Free Wi-Fi Store In the US
Steve Jobs Sues Death of the Future
Apple Seeks To Be Become Windows 10 Has Been Control the Desktops
Stanford Computer Scientists Develop Super Man Sales For Computer Science
Star Wars Hacked In Life On the iPhone
Computer Finds Court Broke Math For Secret Company
How Do You Design To Stay Them Bomb
Ask Slashdot: How Clinton Uses Display For Android Chips On Netflix Court From the Jobs
People ‘Fork” At a Flaw Refused
The Pirate Bay Tracking Storage Security For Windows 10
German Porn Update To Compete At CNSR Healthy Court Says
Supreme Court Can Be Lingeries
Apple Says the Moon Project To Pay $1.7 Billion For Free Software
Steve Jobs Allowed To Deal With Solar Power
Apple Sues Apple To Get Flash Mathematics
Microsoft Slashdot: How To Build a Bad Privacy For Windows 10
Twitter That We Use Facebook To Receive The Life
Linux Kernel 3.1.0 Launches In Late, Facebook To Sue Star Trek
The One-Department For Alleged For Connectivity: 3-D Printed Baby
Black Hole Proposed

My favorite part, though? The Slashdot headlines that appeared to come from an alternate, much more advanced, somewhat terrifying timeline:

Google Returns To the Space Station
Mac OS X Project Announces Space Station
Sony Announces Mars Rover Release
Google Patents Intelligent Space Telescope
Officials Release Android Apps For New Space Telescope
Star Trek Control of the Wild Start Up
Scientists Army Interviewed
Company Computer Releases Cloning Crime
Building A Nano-Tech Back
Full Life On The Linux
Chernobyl Announces Company And Educators
SGI Launches Space Station
FreeBSD Base Scientific Hits the Moon
Red Hat Releases Linux Games And Moon
Apple’s Moon Review
About New Moons of a Company
Looking For Mars Landers to Linux
Mars Rover Set for Alien China
Congress To Buy Mars Mister
Building a Top 100 Company For Mars
Apple Considering Debut in People Processors
Apple vs. Biology Details
An Android Bans Secret Project For Console Devices
Your Own Portals
U.S. Considering Death of the Solar System
Black Holes from Digital Dell
Black Hole Sension of the Linux
Microsoft’s Lab Changes “Space”
IBM Moves to The Matrix
Super Planet Wars Solved

The quintessential headline, though? When I trained the neural network with all 20 years of Slashdot headlines, then turned down the creativity level to near zero, I reveal the following essential Slashdot headlines, distilled from 20 years of technology news:

Sun Sues Open Source Project Content
Sun Sues Anti-Spam Computers
Sun Sues Security Flaw Contest
Sun Sues New Star Trek To Stop The Math
Sun Sues Anti-Spam Standards And The Star Wars To Stop Computers
Star Wars Companies Are Streaming the Star Wars
Star Wars To Support Linux Development
Apple Settles The Future of Star Wars
Apple Releases Secure State of the World
Apple Sues Apple To Start The Solar Power Project
Sony Sues Apple Server For Seconds Off From SpaceX Project
Ask Slashdot: Do We Want To Be the Computers?
The Desist of the Planet

Want 4 more pages of Slashdot headlines from the neural network? Sign up here and I’ll email you a pdf.

Also: POLL! I’m collecting names of Halloween costumes for training a future neural network. Enter as many as you like (no email address required).

Ask Slashdot: Do We Want To Be the Computers?

Tags:

#long post #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #(my favourites are ”Scientists Discover Free Wi-Fi Store in US” and ”Facebook to Sue Star Trek”) #(though I agree that ”Do We Want to Be the Computers?” is pretty great even if it does break Betteridge’s Law) #((mind you I’m not sure uploading *in itself* appeals to me)) #((I’m sure silicon-based substrates have their own problems and I have more experience coping with my current body’s problem set)) #((and given that I am honestly impressed this laptop has made it to nearly its third anniversary of purchase)) #((I have no reason to expect they’d even be more durable overall)) #((so really the nice thing about uploading is being able to evacuate to a new body when your current one gives out)) #((for which a cortical stack and the occasional previously-uninhabited clone body would do just fine)) #(((and some offsite backups in case the stack is unrecoverable might be helpful but do leave you more open to forknapping))) #tag rambles #transhumanism #death tw

Reds are a clean caste.

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

openamenta:

pass it on

Tags:

#Amenta #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #high context jokes #(no even higher context than that) #(like the amount of context needed to parse the sentence ”reds are a clean caste” is not even enough) #(this is one of those posts I reblog mostly for the amusement of my future self) #((this amusement not to be taken as expressing an opinion regarding the statement itself))

~ Brin ~ 3 Comments

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So you know how I was complaining about not being able to find a use for my Amazon credit? Look what I found yesterday:

Amazon US! has!! a gift-card store!!! and most of them are purchaseable using Amazon credit!!!!

!!!!!

(AFAICT there’s not even a markup! except on the Visa, but the Visa is one of the few you can’t buy with gift-card credit anyway)

The bad news is, it looks like none of them are stores I normally shop at. But some of them (such as Starbucks and Panera) would only require going a *little* out of my way, and in general this vastly increases the likelihood that Amazon credit will become useful in the future.

(there are occasional complaints of cards arriving empty, but
most reviews are excellent even after the “not bothering to review
because nothing to complain about” effect, and most of the empty-card
people get it sorted out eventually (note that the cards are sold by
Amazon directly and not shady third-party sellers), so it’s
probably okay but one might want to check the balance before trying to
use it just in case)

(also they Technically Don’t Ship to Canada, but who cares, half of them aren’t even physical and I can just funnel them through my cousins anyway)

I encourage anyone who has excess Amazon-US credit lying around or otherwise gets a discount on Amazon purchases (especially if they’re a US resident, so they don’t need a funnelling contact) to investigate this themselves. None of them are stores *I* normally shop at, but they might be stores *you* normally shop at.

Tags:

#adventures in human capitalism #oh look an original post #the more you know #home of the brave

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~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

So because of Reasons (I maybe shouldn’t go into much detail publicly, but it involves a side gig), I have been exposed to a lot of romance novels (often erotic, though not always) over the last few months, and it has been an Experience.

1. Did you know that in mainstream fiction circles, “MC” stands for “motorcycle club” rather than “mind control”? Because I did not know that, and I did a hell of a double-take when I first saw an “MC romance”.

2. Relatedly (or I guess *not* relatedly, if you are someone who looks at “MC fiction” and thinks “motorcycle club”), I did not expect memory play to be so popular. I mean, they put a different spin on it, of course, but still. Quite a few people in these have glorious sex with their true loves and then later wind up mind-wiped (I think usually by Fiction Head Trauma) and the true love has to Remind them *nudgewink*. And that’s not even counting other variations on the theme.

3. Wow, is a lot of this stuff dark. And even when it’s not dark, it’s often embarrassment-squicky, or people are doing something ~taboo~ and worrying about getting caught. It seems like even people who aren’t *specifically* marketing to taboo fetishists casually assume that something being taboo is a point in its favour, sexiness-wise (why would worry be sexy?). (And apparently breath play? Although that might have just been one person. But she seemed to think her audience would agree, without having selected her audience for hypoxyphilics beforehand.)

4. Overall, when I see stuff about what’s up in popular erotica, I am left with a sense of “wait, *these* are supposed to be the normal vanilla people? they’re *way* more out-there than I am.” (Also, that a lot of the problems† that I thought were specific to primarily-non-con-oriented kinks (or even specific to hypnosis, like memory play) are apparently happening all over. Not that I was expecting *this* porn to appeal to me anyway, but still, I feel some solidarity with the people who *would* like this stuff if only it were fluffier. Though there’s still *some* fluff out there, of course (just as there is here).)

Did something happen to, like, the sexual Overton window while I wasn’t looking? Is it subcultural effects–but I would expect subcultural effects to work in the *opposite* direction if anything. Or outgroup bias: everyone thinks the [people who are only into central examples of sex]†† are Over There in Normal Land, and that it’s just their own circle that’s kinky? Maybe the central-example-of-sex people just don’t read much erotica, even mainstream stuff? Maybe things were *always* like this and I’m just naive? (I think I have vaguely heard that taboos-are-sexy was always like that, though I don’t understand why.)

—

†I am using “problem” in the subjective sense here, to mean “trends that make porn less suited to my tastes”.

††I am no longer confident in my sense of what “vanilla” means, so I’m trying to avoid it here.

Tags:

#??? #sexuality and lack thereof #oh look an original post #amnesia cw

Image ~ ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

dimetrodone:

 

nentuaby:

Oh, oh! But that’s not all.

So in modern taxonomy there’s a concept called a “type specimen.” This is a preserved corpse, image, or detailed description which defines a type (species or genus). All the other attributes of a type definition basically amount to “is this close enough to Type Specimen XYZ to be called the same thing as it?” In the event that thinking on where the boundaries are set changes (and that happens ALL THE TIME) whatever’s on the same side of the new boundary keeps the old type; anything placed on the other side needs a new name. (And a new type specimen is selected for that new group.)

Now, this is a fairly recent innovation– older taxonomical systems going back to Linnaeus thought things would be more static than that, so they didn’t feel the need to have a system for what to do in the event of changes. Now, the rule for type specimens is that they have to be one the person who originally came up with the species knew / got to examine. For most of the species Linnaeus described, he’d worked from a specific specimen anyway, and at least a detailed description was preserved, so that was OK.

Problem was Homo sapiens. His description of us amounted to, well, “dis us.” So the modern taxonimists trying to retrofit THAT to up-to-date standards had to sit down and have a good think. And what they came up with was “Well… There’s one specimen of humanity we know for absolute certain Linnaeus examined in great detail. And there are images preserved, and we know where the remains are.”

So Carl Linnaeus is not just human… Carl Linnaeus is the one person who, no matter what the heck weird changes may happen in taxonomy, is human by definition.

Tags:

#history #biology #neat