d’oh! That’s what I get for trying to type quickly.

This is awesome, and I really no no idea about this!

So: your point is the usage of AI in common vernacular should not have changed from its meaning 50 years ago, and using it in its modern sense as shorthand for LLMs and generative models is bad.

And your point is also that the modern usage of a Luddite is correct and you should ignore the original group and the conditions that led this group to smash the textiles because the usage of that word changing is fine and we should not look at original usage?

Got it. Words change. Sometimes. And other times no.

Just within the last week or so old.reddit.com was effectively disabled and stopped working. (I think it might work if you log in, but i quit doing that 3 years ago). It was a nice resource and it’s said that it’s such a shell of what it was. Right when the internet is really needing human voices too

I’m assuming you of course are aware, but that is a tasting note. As in hersheys will specifically call out that tasting note as intentional if you do a tasting tour. It explained why I only ever liked their special dark and hates their regular bar.

Linux breaks itself all the time and is a moving target. Even in EPEL land, compatability is lacking. As this blog post said a few years ago, w32 is the only stable ABI on Linux.

Looks like I’ve replied to you a few times, and sorry for the accusatory tone! Didn’t mean it! You did get me worried since I’m going to be used “bare metal” in my embedded class later this semester, and felt like I had gone insane not being able to find it anywhere. I was mostly just trying to convince myself this morning I wasn’t insane. I had thought it was the standard terminology. I do also need to caveat this that I am not familiar with whatever law OOP was referencing. I’m assuming it was one of the either baked-in surveillance or age verification things. Yeah, I’m with you and don’t really see a way out, unless we just step way back in time when we had less standardization and do bespoke everything. Cheers, and sorry for the tone!

I was use the pre-virtual machine usage of bare metal to actually mean “No OS.” You are just raw-dog running code on the machine.

That’s a good point about what the OS provides. I come from an embedded context, so often RTOS are not much more than a kernel that’s handling some basic threads and processor access. There was a really interesting talk at USENIX a few years ago (Usenix 21 keynote with Timothy Roscoe, I just looked it up) that was basically saying that a modern OS like linux, isn’t even accessing hardware and is just an OS in a system of OSs on a computer.

So you are not wrong about what you are calling bare metal, but that usage is more popular at the moment, but the older meaning of bare metal actually just means “no OS.” It’s still very common in embedded world. They are the same words, but do have different meanings.

I cannot find it at the moment, but about 10 years ago I had found a guy at Tufts (I think) who was publishing about actual bare metal (no os) single process machines that would run a server with nothing else. It was supposed to be helpful for security reasons. It was definitely whacky. I cannot find it because the server-farm usage of bare metal has taken over :(

[Bare-Metal (redirect on wiki)[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bare_metal ]

I do now see that “bare metal server” is not going to be the right search term. Perhaps bare metal computing? I’m not sure. But what I am talking about pre-dates virtualization.

Edit: For servers, it seems the papers are calling it “Bare PC” Example: https://doi.org/10.1109/HPCC.2009.34

What you’re talking about would be called running a browser on “bare metal.” The OS is typically on charge of resource management between the various tasks. Access to the processor, storage, screen, input devices, sound, network. The os is a layer that mediates these devices. On bare metal you have to do ALL of that.

I’ve seen some interest in bare metal web servers in the past which some believe to be more secure. But I don’t think I’ve seen browsers on bare metal. There’s so much browsers need to do anymore. But anyways, bare metal would be the search terms you want to start using.

Edit: “bare metal” seems to have a newer usage for servers, so the papers I found were calling it “Bare PC.” Example: https://doi.org/10.1109/HPCC.2009.34

Is that really true though? Like there’s no reason I could be president except for the massive amount of connections and funding is need that effectively means it is not possible for me to be effective. (Nussbaum or Sen would say this is not about actual capability.)

I certainly think we could grow a new internet, but there is so much culture and forces pushing against this, that it may not be actually possible with addressing the systemic forces first.

Not to say we should do nothing (similar to recycling — we should do what we can as individuals, but it’s somewhat moot as long as industrial processes continue as they are now). We should do what we can and work toward a better vision.

(Edit: I think I was responding to only the first part of your comment because when I re-read it, I think I’m actually saying something similar to you)

This is a pretty good article. Something I try to stress to my students. Technology is a major driver of culture and society, and understanding that complexity of relationships is important. It’s not developed in an isolated bubble, nor is any technology neutral or value-free.

I like that the article highlights community engagement. That is so very true. Otherwise some good-intended deployment can quickly become technological colonialism when the users might not be able to do system upkeep or it solves the wrong problem

Sucks you can’t charge it and have to instead go to a central bank to exchange minted coins for notes that you can exchange for the commodity that is the radio.

https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2025-01/final-fonsi-ea-2251-rivian-stanton-springs-north-2024-12.pdf#page26

Does mention it is passed to a treatment facility, some is treated on campus, and other is stored.

So according to epa report it was not expected to affect local groundwater.

I thought I found something earlier that alluded to it, but Lemmys on my phone and doing any real research is always annoying on it. I can try to find something. I know they do release very significant amounts of wastewater though. But whether that’s all back on public utilities or how it’s but back in the ground is unclear. I’ll see I can find anything specific.

But combine that with someone dumping thousands of gallons of wastewater into the ground basically across the street and weirder things are going to happen.

EDIT: Yeah, I don’t think they are dumping water into the ground. Scratch that out. These datacenters DO use lots of water, as in millions of gallons per day, the concern there is more about how the public utilities and incentives were structured. [Quote for millions comes from Kate Crawford’s Atlas of AI book, but the link was the the first data I could source, which looks less than that.]

I’m now thinking this article may be more about the person not liking the datacenter than it specifically affecting the well. Could construction cause some extra sediment to clog up the well intake? Seems likely.

I didn’t see the states listed. Just mentions Louisiana, Tennessee, and Florida. I’m assuming it’s the usual suspects (southern states and a few midwestern ones).

What were the products? Is this a delta 8 or other cannabinoid thing or a delta-9 by volume thing? I guess a blanket ban would eliminate CBD products and everything. Bummer. No surprise though. Kentucky leans very conservative and a bunch of counties are still dry (even though there’s huge bourbon producers there).

Kodi and mythtv for me. I feel like I am the slowpoke meme.

It’s over already. It’s going to take decades to come back from this, if at all since the reputation is shaken at the core, and that is very difficult to rebuild.

The funding cuts and uncertainty and stifling is speech is shocking, but this is already affecting young scientists. There are cuts to summer research stipends, grant pausing means no work for some researchers. It’s the future that will really hurt when we don’t have those scientists since they either didn’t pursue science or went to other countries.

America has held a very central seat of science for quite some time, but that’s done. Europe is going to replace is—and already is. It’s a shame too since American higher Ed is structurally setup to be much more agile in how it pursues inquiry.