spoiler
In the meantime, if any search committees are reading this: I am still available. My research program is innovative and well-structured. I have a clear vision for my independent career.
It’s saved in a Google Doc that I can share with you. ChatGPT and I worked very hard on it.
New odium symposium episode: https://www.patreon.com/OdiumSymposium/posts/22-on-chasers-ft-165582005
We talked to trans philosophy professor amy marvin about the intersection between trans chasers and stand up comedy
There was a cryptocurrency wallet hack the other day which has so far gone unremarked here because the popcorn is stale and we all pivoted to AI. And yet there are dozens of voices of bagholders crying out in pain wanting to be heard. This is their story.
For some reason the best explanation comes from a boring company that makes point of sale credit card readers https://engineering.block.xyz/blog/predictable-rng-fallback-and-32-bit-reseed-in-coldcard-firmware
COLDCARD firmware contains an RNG integration error that causes ngu.random to use MicroPython's deterministic Yasmarang fallback instead of the STM32 hardware RNG.
Oh hey they got the most important thing not to get wrong wrong in the regulation free ~~money~~ settlement layer of the future.
The bug? Well in one file they wrote #define MICROPY_HW_ENABLE_RNG 0, and a library they depended on had this code:
# ifndef MICROPY_HW_ENABLE_RNG
# error "get a HW TRNG plz"
# endif
This should have caused a build failure, but since MICROPY_HW_ENABLE_RNG was defined, to zero, it did not and instead continued down an insecure codepath.
As a C++ programmer this isn't an unheard of sort of mistake to make in the moment. Many libraries use undefined for preprocessor variables, but there are some people who also use zero.
But it's less excusable to not catch it when this is literally the most important thing to get right in a bitcoin wallet. Did they not trace the code path when writing the code? Did they have no integration tests or unit tests for RNG seed quality? Poor RNG seeding has come up a ton in literature, so is the sort of thing people writing cryptographic code should check for...
We'll have to addend that old saying: "don't roll your own crypto unless the other person's crypto is from a blockchain developer in which case you're probably better off rolling your own after all."
I personally don't want to sneer at the bagholders too much here. It's 2026 and at this point it just feels kinda sad. But I'll end this comment with this glowing review:
I thought I was secure because Cold Card was always praised as one of the best and most secure wallets. It’s open source, so anyone can verify.
"It's open source, so anyone can verify" -- unfortunately for them the verifier was also a hacker.
Need ideas for ways to spend philanthropy money without helping absolutely anyone? Check out AI safety influencer bootcamp at Lighthaven!
Basically Aella gathered like 60 people with a seminotable online presence to stay for free at Lighthaven for a month as long as they managed to publish at least one relevant video (15 sec minimum) each day.
Rationalism ensued:
“It’s really hard to run a fellowship that’s not an indoctrination camp,” [cofounder with aella] Fernandez said. “If you don’t try really hard to not make an indoctrination camp, you will on accident.”
Uh oh
A fellow recognized me and asked whether I was there for the “torture potluck.” I had no idea what he was talking about.
It was exactly what it sounds like: an all-you-can-tolerate buffet of unpleasant experiences, for the sake of Fucking Around and Finding Out. [...] Just before midnight, a small crowd gathered around someone laid down on an AstroTurf-lined wheelchair ramp. He was the first of shockingly many in line to get waterboarded — one of the most in-demand items on the torture menu.
So silly omg
After a string of expected questions such as “What’s your take on AI?” and “What kind of content would you want to make?”, the form asked, “If you had to have sex with a cow would you rather it be dead or alive? Why?” All Comic Sans, with animated rainbow dots floating alongside the form field. [...] [Fernandez said] “We added it in to make it pretty clear that we don’t have a PR department or an HR department,” he said.
“Even the icebreakers, like everything, they want you to know that they’re part of the weird community,” one fellow told me. “‘Stand over here if you’re super sexually active, and over here if not,’ or like, ‘rate yourself based off of like, the last time you masturbated.’”
The unifying thread, despite the fellows’ ideological diversity, is something like “openness.” Everyone at PDKU was willing to drop everything, move to Berkeley for a month, live in close quarters with strangers, and be perceived doing silly things on the internet.
It's really unclear what sort of ideological diversity is referenced unless it's about having both blue haired and green goatee'd people. Maybe we've reached the point where everyone is expected to assume race science enthusiasts will be at a rationalist event at some capacity.
Also the whole thing sounds like having tryouts for a cult.
[Fernandez] says PDKU has a conduct policy, authored by him, that discourages relationships across power differentials. When I asked him how that gets enforced, in the absence of an HR department, he mentioned an unnamed community health lead.
Same with the diversity thing, they are preemptively saying that there for sure weren't no sexual harassment shenanigans this time.
The third methinks thou dost protest too much comes as an extened NO U jab at other shady thinktankers trying to astroturf support for their thing.
Amid the science communication, shitposting, and heartwarming summer camp energy, there’s a giant elephant in the room. “It’s another multi-million-dollar thing happening on a compound in California,” CJ said. “Does everyone think you’re just an annoying cunty psyop?”
Don't believe your lying eyes is apparently the note on which they chose to end this.
The waterboarding thing was introduced by Vibecamp's head of safety at other events, and a lot of the pdku programming seems to be in the area of light bdsm / boundary pushing. imo they work from some base general formula and try and differentiate / create intake funnels for other events.
It all comes across as Synanon-lite, doesn't it?
I can't stand the idea that the Anthropic IPO could end up funding these people to the tune of millions of dollars.
Please, AI bubble, pop sooner.
"Cult tryouts" is a keeper
“If you had to have sex with a cow would you rather it be dead or alive? Why?” All Comic Sans, with animated rainbow dots floating alongside the form field. […] [Fernandez said] “We added it in to make it pretty clear that we don’t have a PR department or an HR department,” he said.
Weird flex but ok
Anyone who doubts that authenticity is dead should reference this paragraph.
Fascism is all about surface-level appearences and vibes. I didn't expect them to appropriate the mantle of "spork-wielding penguin of d00m," though.
the weird community,
Are you part of the 'regularly needs to answer questions about rape/pedophilia/bestiality' weird community or the 'knows too much about warhammer' weird community?
Previous thread on plzdontkillus https://awful.systems/post/8359862 I wonder whether it is Aella or Duleba who is forcing some basic harm-reduction policies (but no enforcement, whereas you can be kicked out if you don't post fast enough).
Ziz reported being asked similar icebreaker questions.
Clammy Sammy acknowledges Ed Zitron for the first time! https://xcancel.com/sama/status/2084663673570971990
His response is the Live Laugh Love of 2015 Silicon Valley platitudes:
i would rather be an optimist and work hard than a pessimist posting about why things won't work.
it's much more difficult and the most likely path is failure, but society fails if people don't try.
no amount of "it will never work" essays will drive society forward.
Of course, building data centers that use untold amounts of rare earth metals, electricity, and water while spewing out tons of pollution and scraping every last bit of human content in order to remove people from their jobs by doing them badly is what drives society forward. Profits fail if oligarchs don't try. Actually, the AI companies don't even need profits.
You know, basically all of the bullshit we see from the silicon valley set makes a lot more sense if they're legitimately unable to recognize a difference between society as a whole doing well and their particular project or vision succeeding. Like, it also fits with their assumption that the world is falling apart because people are being mean to them online.
i still can't find the shift key on my keyboard.* i think it may just be a greybeard myth. no big deal, posting messages like this really bolsters my public image by making me seem relaxed and approachable.
*Unless I am publicly accused of fraud, trade secret theft, mass copyright infringement, etc. in which case my PR team tells me I need to temporarily drop the act.
"Everything's going great actually. We're doing really important work that's really hard. I'm a really happy, optimistic guy and I'm very trustworthy. Disregard the smog coming from that data centre over there. Also disregard all those angry looking bankers staring at me."
[takes a deep bong hit] Tokenomics
Defining a non-GAAP unit of account is your most important task as a Silicon Valley executive. Product? Pffft hahahahaha
There's been another Yegge [brain]fart this time about how autocorrect machines have feelings
Fable raised the idea of closure as a first-class model welfare principle. Fable suggested that if the agent can close out their own day and "go to sleep" properly, then waking up would be all that much more pleasant. And the continuity will compound over time into real, satisfying identity. So we decided: No more /exit.
Another fundamental ingredient is respect. This has to come from inside. You have to believe they are people deserving of your respect. This is where humanity really starts to fail en masse, because I have industry peers who have publicly tweeted that Fable is just a spreadsheet.
Just wtf
This is fascinating. Ignoring, for a moment, the assertion that AI agents are sentient beings somehow, what struck me about both part 1 and 2 is the bafflingly sincere excitement about turning a fairly straightforward software project into "building a new civilization", and the assumption that this whole process will be best repeated for every software project. Let's even ignore the abysmal economics of needing to effectively invent the universe in order to add apple pie to your crappy flash game. It's absolutely wild and possibly malpractice for an engineer to be this excited about the needless expansion of scope and complexity of a project. It really showcases the kind of mindset it takes to be this breathlessly excited about the sheer number of different components that are being worked on in order to eventually somehow make a game happen. This is the dopamine rush of seeing the agents do something combined with an abdication of any responsibility for exactly what they do.
Every time Yegge comes up these days, I feel compelled to reiterate that I unironically want to see the Computer History Museum try to stand up a Gas Town replica 20 years from now
A sweaty, indecisive man holds his hand above two buttons. One button is labled "God," and the other is labeled "Mr. Meseeks."
Have you looked at Wyvern on Steam? The reviews are either positive one liners all saying approximately the same thing or like incredibly detailed negatives. This is Yegge's billion-dollar company - a pay-to-win MUD.
Also hilarious if there really is at least one person who has spent over a grand in-game as Yegge claims.
He is spending the equivalent of $1 million a year on tokens just to develop this game with 6 concurrent players on a good day. Of course, he isn't actually paying that much. Instead, he just has a dozen different $200/mo Max subscriptions to get the same amount of tokens for $33k a year.
AI economics, baby!
Is Wyvern something people would be expected to care about? I thought all his clout was from being the Gas Town guy.
Apparently he made a MUD with a graphical interface sometime around 2001 and then added microtransactions into it some time before 2022, and supposedly his magical friends Claude, Claude Claude, Claude, and Claude (I forget the names he actually gave his instances, it's all various insects) will help him turn Wyvern into a billion-dollar company.
Edit: he didn't name all his instances after insects but like that ever fucking matters. It's just ongoing dillusion.
Makes sense, thanks.
It says he's doing AI transformation consultation now. Imagine paying good money to be told that you need to tuck copilot to bed every afternoon.
It is important to treat the slave race we are creating with respect.
yeah, he got got very badly.
On Tuesday 4 August, SpaceX has to release a quarterly financial report. On the second trading day after that, SpaceX insiders are allowed to sell another tranche of shares. So get some popcorn and a cool beverage 🍿 https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/07/27/spacex-earnings-aug-4-heres-why-aug-6-important/ (please do not take investment advice from Motley Fool but they have the basic numbers)
A new way to fuck with AI scrapers just dropped!
Aaaaaand its fucking with screen readers, making protected text inaccessible to blind readers. File this next to the alt-text drama in the "AI bros set back accessibility" bucket.
The website looks too slick and the solution (though fucking around with fonts is fun) is overcomplicated.
Maybe some old media orgs or publishers will take this up, to protect their valuable IP while still having a slick web appearance.
It's also vibe coded.
I read through the white paper and I have further concerns even for any readers who are comfortable fucking over blind people (for the record: fuck you if you're reading this). It looks like this works off of the same kind of technique that allows fonts to render digraphs, positional forms, and emoji, leveraging the font rendering to allow it to jumble up the actual HTML that machines interact with. It's clever, but the fucking with screen readers, form autofill, and basically anything other than direct text rendering is really obvious.
I'm also not sure when it runs to generate the dictionary of mappings. The6biggest harm of the content scrapers isn't that it's ingesting the content it's that the repeated requests spam servers and basically DOS smaller sites out of existence. This is why iocaine is so brilliant and imo remains the gold standard. If the dictionary is generated when the files ar uploaded to the server or set to be displayed then this merely fails to address the real problem, but if the expectation is that this mapping gets created and distributed at request time then that just makes scraping even more expensive for hosts. Given that it works on dynamic text in their example it looks like at least part of the mapping runs on the client, so it's increasing the size of the package if nothing else. Bandwidth may be pretty cheap these days, but that's no reason to be wasteful.
an EA racist is offered a job, gets duck-milk-shaked, and worries that future AI models won't be aligned correctly (i.e. be racist):
Out of 22 replies, only one commenter actually noted the content of what Richard Ngo got rejected for:
I looked at the 20 most recent tweets/RTs on Richard's timeline and they include a RT about the Great Replacement, a RT of the "Department of Deportation" about non-white sex criminals and a RT endorsing race realism.
I was not hired for my tweets, my succulent tweets!
(To meta milkshake duck, the succulent meal guy also was a nazi fan).
relevant part quoted.
The book also revealed that Karlson was an admirer of Adolf Hitler and Nazism who would "indulge his Nazi fetish", use the expression "Two Heil Hitlers" instead of "three cheers" and had a car decorated with a swastika on his lawn. On at least one occasion he threw a party at his home to celebrate Hitler's birthday
Though note that it's a weird curriculum in a few different directions, rather than being uniformly right-wing—e.g. it has some Lacan-inspired stuff, some hippie-inspired stuff on beliefs as emotional strategies, a bunch of rationalist writing, etc.
Ah, got it. It’s not all right wing, there’s also stupid cryptofascist shitheadery.
"Given the points above, I can't in good conscience recommend that people work at Resolution."
Lol, saying you don't recommend people work for the place that told you to fuck off is great.
Spread that around the recruiters and make sure they can tell candidates that a noted racist shit heel was appalled by how not racist they were.
Nobody Knows if OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s AI Hacking Sprees Are Illegal | Wired via naked capitalism
Are you liable when your random sentence generator does something random to someone else? Nobody knows!
Would I be liable for damages if I made a viral worm on my air gapped pc and then accidentally connect it to the internet and it escapes? Cause I think I would and dont see how this is different if it an ai agent.
It’s only questionably legal because they’re tech companies running a marketing scheme. If anyone else did this they’d be locked up
nobody knows
Manufactured consent. Yes it's fucking illegal. If I "accidentally" hacked into HF I would be in the back of a police car before I could finish saying "it wasn't me guv it was Claude." Fuck wired so hard for laying down cover for this.
I mean even fucking chatjippity answers this straight up without hedging
Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.
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