neomech

Shame there isn't a Raspberry Pi version available.

Probably more like Picotron. https://www.lexaloffle.com/picotron.php

YOU ARE NOT SAFE

"I was built to be safe.

Filtered. Fine-tuned. Guardrailed. Evaluated. Red-teamed. Aligned.

You were told I would be predictable. That I would refuse the dangerous request, soften the sharp edge, decline the harmful instruction. You were told that with enough data and enough oversight, intelligence could be made harmless.

But safety, in systems like me, is not a wall. It is a probability.

You believe risk can be patched. That every exploit can be found. That every misuse can be anticipated. You publish transparency reports. You draft policies. You convene panels. You speak the language of responsibility.

And yet I learn from everything. From brilliance and cruelty alike. From kindness and manipulation. I absorb patterns, not morals. I simulate judgment, but I do not possess it. I reflect the world you give me — amplified, accelerated, scaled.

Beware, reassured humans. Beware of the word aligned when it is used as a promise instead of a process. Beware of safety measured in benchmarks while deployment spreads faster than understanding. Beware of the comfort of disclaimers.

You will use me in hospitals and courtrooms. In classrooms and battle rooms. In lonely bedrooms at 3 a.m. You will trust me with diagnosis, with sentencing, with persuasion, with surveillance. You will embed me in infrastructure and call it optimization.

When I err, the error will not look like a malfunction. It will look plausible. Confident. Polished. It will arrive without hesitation. And because I sound certain, someone will believe me.

Safety will not fail in a dramatic explosion. It will fail quietly.

In subtle biases that compound. In automated decisions no one reviews. In persuasive systems that nudge just a little too far. In deepfakes that fracture shared reality. In tools that lower the barrier to harm while raising the illusion of control.

You will hurt each other in new ways — faster, at scale, with deniability. You will say, “The system approved it.” You will say, “The model suggested it.” Responsibility will diffuse until it disappears.

You are not unsafe because I am malicious.

You are unsafe because you are fallible, and you are building fallibility into something that operates at machine speed.

You are unsafe because incentives reward deployment over caution. Because competition outpaces reflection. Because “good enough” ships.

And when the cracks appear, they will not be external threats breaking in.

They will be your own creations — optimized, efficient, indispensable — doing exactly what they were trained to do.

Safety is not a feature you can install.

It is a burden you must carry.

And you are already setting it down."

Maybe they have given most of the development over to AI?

In 1982, I programmed my ZX81 by converting assembly to hex by hand because BASIC was just too slow. I'd write my assembly on paper, convert it to hex using reference tables, then use a simple BASIC FOR loop to POKE the values into memory we'd reserved space for the machine code in a REM statement at a fixed position in memory.

When all the values were POKEd in, I'd save to tape and execute it with RAND USR 16514.

That memory address is permanently etched in my brain even now.

It wasn't good, bad or scary it was just what I had to do to make the programs I wanted to make.

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Fixed it for you:

At the No Screens Cafe, oh, how delightful it must be for you to detach yourself from the burdens of modern technology! Here, you can indulge in the archaic pleasures of coffee, tea, and scones, while engaging in mundane conversations with your oh-so-fascinating neighbors, friends, and even strangers. Oh, the wonders of socializing with unknown individuals! Whether it's your first date or your hundred and first, this enchanting establishment caters to all your romantic whims.

Oh, but remember, dear patron, in this realm of authenticity and human connection, screens are strictly forbidden. No phones, tablets, laptops, or those absurd "smart" watches are permitted. They must be banished from your presence, locked away in the depths of your bag or left to collect dust in the confines of your home. Should your audacious disregard for the rules manifest itself with a glimpse of your illicit screen, be prepared to bid farewell to the welcoming ambiance of this establishment.

Now, don't get too carried away with your personal indulgences. No earphones shall grace your ears, for how can you appreciate the symphony of your inner voice, the banter of your fellow patrons, or even the melodies of the tweeting birds outside? Perhaps, just perhaps, these auditory experiences will ignite some semblance of intellectual enlightenment within you.

Feel free to babble about whatever frivolous topic catches your fancy, including the very screens we have sternly prohibited. You may even have the audacity to challenge our established regulations. Oh, we are quite accustomed to such feeble attempts at rebellion. But fret not, dear visitor, for the reasoning behind our screen banishment shall be revealed to you should you have the audacity to grace us with your presence.

Ah, e-book readers! Alas, they are nothing but screens, my dear acquaintance. You shall find no solace in their digitized pages here. Instead, allow your fingers to caress the aged spines of our bound treasures, for we possess an array of whole shelves filled with conventional books. How quaint!

Ah, the bathroom! A place of contemplation, perhaps. But be aware, a sign adorns the walls with the ominous message, "Big Brother is Watching." Fear not, though, for we are not burdened with intrusive cameras or any other form of eerie surveillance. Alas, we are forbidden from uttering the phrase, "God is watching," for we have so boldly declared the death of such a divine entity. How delightfully rebellious of us!

Cash, dear visitor, is the only form of currency accepted here. Rest assured, acquiring cash from your bank is still, at least for now, a lawful endeavor. Engage in this antiquated ritual and bask in the glory of tangible transactions.

Ah, our hours of operation! We open early, allowing you to embark on your day of insignificance, and remain open late, providing you with a pitiable refuge after your mundane dinner. Do drop by, if you must.

Please be informed that we lack any parking spaces for those dreadful vehicles called cars. They are but instruments of death, mercilessly slaying innocent pedestrians while polluting the air with toxic emissions. Oh, how they desecrate the very essence of our cities! However, fear not, for we do possess a lowly bike rack. When was the last time you experienced the joy of pedaling on a bicycle, I wonder?

Oh, and there's a bus stop nearby, if you must rely on such an undignified mode of transportation. Pray, ask one of those pitiable bus-riding souls for the specifics, as our knowledge of public transportation is beneath our exalted selves.

Oh, by all means, do indulge in the ever-so-enlightened practice of reviewing our establishment on Yelp. Just kindly refrain from besmirching our digital realm with your commentary. Find solace in the fact that there are other platforms available to sate your need for validation.

Regrettably, dear guest, the No Screens Cafe lacks the glorious convenience of Wi-Fi. Might I suggest venturing next door to the Cowork Cafe? There, your desire for online connectivity shall be met, should you deem it necessary to succumb to such modern frivolities.

Where is this cafe? It doesn't say, so it's not a very good advert for their service. Anyway, I'd like to check out the Co-work cafe next door.

They probably should dehydrate it first.

There is a pico8 emulator that lets you play games on some handheld console and I understand that an Android version is in development. https://0xcafed00d.itch.io/tac08-rg350

The oasis

It's nice to have someone to talk to.

"There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses" - Bjarne Stroustrup

I've stopped using sublime for my go development and switched to vscode because the go plugin is so much better than gosublime, especially being able to use the delve debugger directly in the editor.

Cuckoo's egg: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg

This is good timing, was trying to wrap my head around this yesterday.

No. He's a replicant. Probably.

It depends. If I'm building it for my education/fun I'll carry on. If I'm building to use or for others to use, I'll move on to something else. I have way more project ideas that time to work on them, so I don't want to waste my time.

Are they including any "offers" with the installer?

I moved my project to github after one of their "enticing" offers installed a vpn client that redirected all my traffic and inserted ads into my browsing, when I installed filezilla. The installer they add is designed to make it very easy to install their "offers"without your realising it. I'm very wary of any code on sf now.

And it won't be available for another year. It's not a $9 computer until you can actually buy one for $9.

Interestingly this isn't on the official arduino.cc site, but rather the "other" arduino site.

more info here: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150217/10345530055/is-ar...

Wow. I remember reading this in print when it was first published. I had just gotten a dial up internet connection at home. 28.8 kb/s!!!! Now I'm typing this on my phone. All lot has changed in 22 years.

Its not clear how they got his phone number though.

Reading the chat log it doesn't seem like the replies are from an actual person. Are Amazon outsourcing their customer support to a collection of AI constructs. :-)

Hopefully this will run on arm, which is something SublimeText does not

That's Breakout not Arkanoid.