Matthew Dodd

@brivael And yet, as a rally counterpoint: Timo Rautiainen.

Aujourd'hui grosse discussion avec mes ingés (chez Argil) sur pourquoi Elon a viré le LIDAR de ses voitures autonomes. Choix radical, moqué pendant des années, et comme d'hab il avait raison depuis le début. Le LIDAR c'est un laser qui balaye l'environnement et crache un nuage de points 3D. Sur le papier tu obtiens la géométrie exacte du monde. Dans la vraie vie c'est une verrue technologique collée sur le toit parce qu'on sait pas faire mieux avec la vision seule. Problème numéro un : ça rajoute une modalité dans le training du modèle. Ton réseau doit apprendre à fusionner vision + lidar + radar + ultrasons. Chaque capteur en plus c'est une source de désaccord à arbitrer, pas une source d'info supplémentaire. Sensor fusion artisanale = dette technique permanente. Problème numéro deux, la bitter lesson de Rich Sutton : scaler le compute sur une seule modalité bat systématiquement les architectures bricolées à la main. Tesla a dropé le radar, puis les ultrasons, est passé full end-to-end vision. Leur courbe sur les edge cases s'est accélérée APRÈS, pas avant. Waymo fait l'inverse et reste stuck en ops géofencée. Problème numéro trois, le plus fondamental : le LIDAR voit la géométrie, pas la sémantique. Il sait qu'il y a un truc, pas ce que c'est ni ce que ça va faire. Les derniers 9 de fiabilité sont des problèmes de cognition, pas de perception brute. Un capteur de plus résout rien, il ajoute du bruit. Sébastien Loeb balance une 208 T16 à 180 dans un chemin boueux corse sous la pluie avec zéro LIDAR. Deux yeux, un cerveau. L'évolution a donné des yeux aux prédateurs pendant 500 millions d'années, pas des lasers. Il y a une raison. Le LIDAR c'est l'équivalent du marxisme appliqué à l'économie. Une solution planifiée, centralisée, qui prétend modéliser explicitement ce qui doit émerger d'un système distribué et adaptatif. Tu remplaces l'intelligence par de la mesure, la compréhension par de la donnée, l'émergence par le contrôle. Ça rassure les ingénieurs qui veulent tout spécifier en amont, exactement comme la planif rassurait les économistes soviétiques. Et ça échoue pour les mêmes raisons : la réalité est trop riche pour être capturée par un capteur, comme elle est trop riche pour être capturée par un plan quinquennal. La vraie intelligence, celle de Hayek comme celle de Tesla, c'est de faire confiance à un système qui apprend de l'expérience plutôt que de tout pré-encoder. L'élégance d'une solution c'est son rapport signal sur complexité. Le LIDAR explose le dénominateur. Défendre le LIDAR en 2026 c'est préférer empiler des hacks plutôt que résoudre le vrai problème. C'est de la feignasserie intellectuelle maquillée en rigueur d'ingénieur. Les mêmes gens qui défendaient les systèmes experts en 2012 contre le deep learning. Ils finiront pareil. Never bet against end-to-end. Never bet against la simplicité. Never bet against Elon.

@davepl1968 @MbarkCherguia Yea, but what the hell is wrong with their bear-junk?

@MbarkCherguia Two ninja bears high-fiving while knee to knee. Am I sane?

@2Aorg @Mrgunsngear @permitlesscarry Correct.

@MatthewNDodd @Mrgunsngear @permitlesscarry It's already law. They just have to use it.

I applaud AG Harmeet Dhillon, the head of DOJ's Civil Rights Division, for standing up against the unconstitutional laws that will (99.9999% chance) go into "law" this summer. However, lawsuits simply aren't enough for these tyrants. They don't care that they'll have to use Virginia state tax dollars to fight the federal government in court. They'll just forcibly steal more taxes from Virginians until the legal process is over and the tyrants behind these "laws" will not be held personally accountable for what they're doing which is textbook criminal "deprivation of rights under color of law (18 U.S.C. § 242)." Governor Spanberger, and others like her, need to be arrested and criminally tried for what they're doing to their citizens. They are the very "domestic enemies" our founders warned against. If a state governor just re-instituted slavery, violating the 13th Amendment, they'd be arrested by the feds. The 2nd Amendment *should* be no different but somehow it's treated differently. #virginia #CivilRights #richmond #crime #2nd #spanberger #2a #norfolk

@2Aorg @Mrgunsngear @permitlesscarry Anyone sponsoring, co-sponsoring or voting for, or failing to vote against or veto.

Thank you. We have been saying this for years. Federal civil rights violations under color of law and conspiracy against rights - 18 USC 241 and 242 - should be used. It is a direct conspiracy to violate the constitutional rights of Citizens and the Constitution itself. It is very akin to treason. That's why these statutes even include the death penalty!!!

@Mrgunsngear 18 U.S. Code § 241 - Conspiracy against rights - seems pretty clear to me...

@9mmsmg Good reason to have a delivery driveway.

Honestly, for an Amazon driver, he's probably one of the best.

@planefag Rigid conduit then. My solution was different.

Yes yes angle iron or tube would be far stronger for the weight even before you consider cross-bracing. hmmmmm x.com/MatthewNDodd/s…

talk me out of welding up a 40 foot tall HAM radio tower out of 3/8ths inch rebar

@planefag Look at how Rhon 25s are put together. Make a jig.

@travis4nh Weren't we going to solve this by using starving orphans to do our shopping?

@Insanegame2025 @realsigridjin This was USENET days and the guy was a little crazy.

@MatthewNDodd @realsigridjin It was the internet stream protocol. Basically a zoom prototype that was used by like one vendor who created it.

hmm finally admitted ipv6 is a mess and dropped an internet draft for ipv8 if an ipv4 address looks like 1.1.1.1, an ipv8 address looks like 1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1 kinda wild it took 25 years to just suggest making the numbers longer haha

@keisan_15 @BaldingsWorld We doing REFORGER again?

@BaldingsWorld Seriously, that would be a great scenario. I prefer us being the backstop that will send reinforcements. But front-line defense in Europe should be handled by Europeans.

Serious question: do Europeans literally listen to nothing the US has said for 40 years?

@bird_actual @Aviation_Intel It was a puller rotor when you put the nose down on a gun run though. :)

@Aviation_Intel The AH-56 Cheyenne didn't fail, the only reason the U.S. Army didn't mass-deploy them was because the U.S. Air Force got its panties in a twist over a technicality regarding the Cheyenne's pusher rotor on the back and its stub wings TECHNICALLY making it a fixed wing aircraft.

Breaking: Army Names Its New MV-75 Tiltrotor Cheyenne II First applied to a failed cutting-edge attack helicopter, the Cheyenne name returns for what is perhaps the Army’s most ambitious rotorcraft program yet. twz.com/air/army-names…

@planefag You'll use nickel or silicon-bronze rods like everyone else.

@MatthewNDodd I'm a welder. Adjust expectations accordingly.

when I am King, the gears of the oscillating mechanism in table fans will legally be required to be milled out of chrome-moly steel

@shortmagsmle I'm pretty sure I managed to read every single interesting book in the middle school library. You're never on a list if you don't check them out.

For a class activity everyone had to go to the library and check out one book about a topic they had an interest in. This was middle school. I got called to the vice principal’s office via PA system a few days later. I had checked out a book from the history section about small arms of WWII. The guy asked me some roundabout questions to see if I was a school shooter type of kid (I wasn’t) and whether things were okay at home (they were). He heavily implied that I could be in some serious trouble, which was terrifying because I was always a pretty obedient student and a “good kid.” I wasn’t a smart ass and I didn’t “own” the guy because I was a nervous and always tried to be respectful, but I did manage to raise the point that the book came from his own library and that it seemed weird to me I could get in trouble for checking something out from a library that he was ostensibly responsible for overseeing. This caused what I now realize to be an uneasy stalemate and he sent me back to class and told me not to tell anyone about the book. There was no further incident. In hindsight, the whole thing was retarded and a well-credentialed professional administrator was basically shut down by a nervous 13-year-old.

@bryanrbeal I commuted on a two stroke enduro. The power-band and inadvertent wheelies when the light turned green were a real problem.

@treblewoe @Midnight_Captl If you're an IC in an "agile" shop, you're cooked.

A friend at Apple told me that over the past couple weeks, their team got access to Claude with a $300/day token budget. This is global sourcing on the business side, not engineering. I’m also hearing that when directors ask for backfill, senior leadership is asking what the team’s AI usage looks like. If token usage is low or nonexistent, the answer is increasingly: go figure out how to get more leverage out of AI first. Wild.

@travis4nh (Obligatory negative waves...)

@MatthewNDodd if I have amused even one other oddball, it was all worth it

The Tortoise (me): I would silently just have a mental reservation about the phrase "without any mental reservation" Achilles: very well, then the oath shall say "without any mental reservation about the phrase 'without any mental reservation' " The Tortoise: Then I would...

@travis4nh Legit still giggling about Hilbert.

2/ Achilles is wrapped up in baroque theorycel recursion...but you're not helping him, Tortoise. Why is that? "What do you mean I'm not helping?" he's lying there on his back citing Hilbert, and you're not helping