scarabic
@scarabic@lemmy.world
- Comment on OpenAI wants to buy Chrome and make it an “AI-first” experience 12 hours ago:
When a company considers buying Chrome because it could help them extend the reach of their product, they are fucking drunk and need to go home. This would be like buying the state of Nevada so you could put up billboards all over Las Vegas.
- Comment on What do office workers actually do? 1 day ago:
I’ll just give some examples.
We know that construction workers build things, but many office workers are behind them. When you hear “office worker,” think “information worker” as that will help.
What information?
Someone has to pay the construction workers. This involves accounting and payroll tasks best done at a computer.
Architects design the project being constructed and this is done in an office.
There are permits, inspections, regulations, taxes, real estate licensing etc to clear the project and this is done through computers and telephones.
Coordination of the different work crews must be planned - we don’t just ask concrete, civil engineers, plumbers, electrical, and landscaping to all show up on the same day and just figure things out. These things are scheduled out and arranged with many different companies / subcontractors and this is mapped out on a computer and agreed to over the phone.
The new apartments being constructed will need tenants to rent them. Billboard space is going to be rented near the building. A graphic designer is designing the billboard on a computer in an office. Someone else is calling the billboard company to arrange the large scale printing of it and to purchase the time it will be displayed.
I’ll stop. This is off the top of my head. If construction workers, with their obviously valuable and easy to understand work have this many office workers behind them, you can imagine how it’s even more complex for things like tech companies.
- Comment on Why are popes always really old? 2 days ago:
The amount of power is the same
There is only one pope seat at a time which they can influence. But that’s not a complete measurement of all the power involved.
Think of fit this way. Every time there’s an election, everyone comes out to kiss their ass and offer favors and so on to they themselves or “their guy” elected. If elections happen only every 20 years, then this ass-kiss-fest only happens every 20 years.
They’d rather it happen every 5 years.
- Comment on Why are popes always really old? 2 days ago:
Mmm smart.
- Comment on Here’s an idea 3 days ago:
The biggest problem I see is that people don’t always understand others’ jobs and how to judge if they are doing them well. I know this will be unpopular but managers are the key example here. Everyone thinks they know who the good and bad managers are but until you’ve been one, you dont understand their job to truly know more than who you like and who you don’t like. That’s no way to decide anyone’s pay.
- Comment on Hottest Star Trek character? 3 days ago:
Are you the kind of guy who hires a dominatrix to stand on his balls with high heels?
- Comment on Instagram is using AI to find teens lying about their age and restricting their accounts 3 days ago:
This kind of headline always makes it sound like AI is being used as judge, jury, and executioner. But it’s more likely that it’s part of narrowing the field or generating candidates.
I’m reminded of another headline recently about how AI is now going to be used at a nuclear reactor. Everyone assumed this meant that ChatGPT would henceforth operate the entire reactor including having the ability to cause meltdowns. It turned out to be that the employees were getting an AI powered document search for their office that would help them search regulatory and technical documents.
We need to remain skeptical of AI, but this hardon for Skynet everywhere is not actually helping with that. That’s more emotional catharsis, 2-minutes hate, than effective skepticism.
- Comment on Tesla Slumps Below 50% Share of California's Electric Car Market 3 days ago:
No one cares when you bought. You’re supposed to flood the used Tesla market to suppress new sales happening NOW.
I’ve heard a lot of excuses from Tesla drivers about how they can’t afford to stand for their ethics. It’s pathetic. How are we to believe this from anyone who could afford one in the first place?
Plot yourself on the historical spectrum of “what was I willing to give up for my ideals” and that brave moral stand about not having a car payment looks pretty fucking limp.
I have empathy for you. I’m just more concerns with your soul than your car payment.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 days ago:
If they also consume it over the border, sure.
If they bring it back, they are importing it and that’s when you have to pay the tariff. If you’re thinking “just keep it in your trunk how will anyone know?” just consider how long smuggling has been a thing and ask yourself if you think border guards have thought of this. They have.
- Comment on Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case 6 days ago:
It’s very hard to actually get a company broken up and I can’t remember ever seeing it happen. But when your antitrust case is judged against you, they don’t just charge you a fine and say “on your way now.”
- Comment on Why do some drivers turn off the signal sound so quickly? 1 week ago:
Of course signals are for inter-driver communication. It’s a signal “to” someone, right?
We don’t need to discuss how to use your signal when no one’s around.
- Comment on Why do some drivers turn off the signal sound so quickly? 1 week ago:
Physically moving into the other lane also tells them that you are moving. The sole purpose of having a blinker is to use it in advance.
- Comment on Am I going crazy, or has people's spelling gotten awful lately? 1 week ago:
Yep it’s always been shit.
- Comment on For the First Time, Artificial Intelligence Is Being Used at a Nuclear Power Plant 1 week ago:
All predictions in this vein are invalid.
If you want to say “even this little bit is unsettling and we should be on guard for more,” fine.
That’s different from “if you think this is only a small amount you are wrong because a small amount will become a large amount.”
- Comment on For the First Time, Artificial Intelligence Is Being Used at a Nuclear Power Plant 1 week ago:
You may think it’s as plausible as you like. Obviously you do or you wouldn’t have said it. It’s still by definition absolutely a slippery slope logical fallacy. A little will always lead to more, therefore a little is a lot. This is textbook. It has nothing to do with companies, computers, or goats.
- Comment on For the First Time, Artificial Intelligence Is Being Used at a Nuclear Power Plant 1 week ago:
That’s textbook slippery slope logical fallacy.
- Comment on As a US citizen who was born in the UK, how risky is it to leave and reenter the US right now? 1 week ago:
And it wouldn’t tell a citizen they are at the same risk as someone on a work visa.
- Comment on My imaginary children aren’t using your streaming service – Terence Eden’s Blog 1 week ago:
I can’t imagine what it is like for bereaved parents who have recently lost a child. Or for those struggling with fertility issues.
Don’t dress up your petty annoyance at having to share a world with parents as saving the bereaved and barren.
- Comment on Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Striking Motorcyclists More Than Any Other Brand: New Analysis 3 weeks ago:
Those are ways to gather empirical results, though they rely on artificial, staged situations.
I think it’s fine to have both. Seat belts save lives. I see no problem mandating them. It would not be markedly better
- Comment on Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Striking Motorcyclists More Than Any Other Brand: New Analysis 3 weeks ago:
It’s hardly either / or though. What we have here is empirical data showing that cars without lidar perform worse. So it’s based in empirical results to mandate lidar. You can also build a clear, robust requirement around a tech spec. You cannot build a clear, robust law around fatality statistics targets.
- Comment on Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Striking Motorcyclists More Than Any Other Brand: New Analysis 3 weeks ago:
This sounds good until you realize how unsafe human drivers are. People won’t accept a self-driving system that’s only 50% safer than humans, because that will still be a self-driving car that kills 20,000 Americans a year. Look at the outrage right here, and we’re nowhere near those numbers. I also don’t see anyone comparing these numbers to human drivers on any per-mile basis. Waymos compared favorably to human drivers in their most recently released data. Does anyone even know where Teslas stand compared to human drivers?
- Comment on Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Striking Motorcyclists More Than Any Other Brand: New Analysis 3 weeks ago:
These fatalities are a Tesla business advantage. Every one is a data point they can use to program their self-driving intelligence. No one has killed as many as Tesla, so no one knows more about what kills people than Tesla. We don’t have to turn this into a bad thing just because they’re killing people /s
- Comment on Online ‘Pedophile Hunters’ Are Growing More Violent — and Going Viral: With the rise of loosely moderated social media platforms, a fringe vigilante movement is experiencing a dangerous evolution. 3 weeks ago:
I see it as people wanting to commit righteous violence. People have violent impulses, but we usually control them. Some people with extraordinary violent tendencies go looking for a place where it’s “okay” to let them loose. This is not the only example.
- Comment on Airbus previews next-gen airliner with bird-inspired wings 3 weeks ago:
It’s true, but so is retooling aviation around hydrogen. This is just a prediction but I think before that ever happens, EITHER we’ll have light batteries that are safer and more effective that Lithium OR we’ll have carbon-neutral ways to produce hydrocarbon fuels that can be used with conventional aircraft.
Hydrogen has struck out on personal electronics and ground transportation. Now it’s angling for aviation where its energy density may matter more. But it hasn’t been losing because of energy density.
- Comment on How can I reject MAGAs version of america more then I already am? 3 weeks ago:
I miss the minutes when this term was just used unironically and hadn’t yet become a magat slur.
- Comment on How can I reject MAGAs version of america more then I already am? 3 weeks ago:
Show zero tolerance for others speaking in favor of it. You don’t have to win every argument. You have to let them know that their “political beliefs” are fighting words and they’re going to get a fight whenever they try to speak them.
- Comment on Power is not energy: why the difference matters [Technology Connections] 3 weeks ago:
He says it so many times in so many ways that he actually starts to make it seem more complex than it is. You start wondering if you’re missing something, because you got it in 6 seconds but 12 minutes later he’s still talking about it.
- Comment on Other than a faulty charging port, is there any reason to use a wireless phone charger over wired? 3 weeks ago:
Yep, convenience of plopping the phone down really is 100% of it for me. Especially with Apple’s magnets setup, it’s a one-hand, one-second operation. The thought of having a dangling cable on my desk and picking it up and fiddling to plug it in seems like something from 10 years ago. I’ve even forgotten once or twice what kind of port my phone has.
- Comment on Airbus previews next-gen airliner with bird-inspired wings 3 weeks ago:
But its only exhaust is PuRe wATeR!! /s
It still makes me LOL to see people tout this, when battery EVs don’t exhaust anything.
- Comment on Do you think Social Media is just exaggerated as being placed of being the source of all problems? 4 weeks ago:
“Source of all problems?” If you exaggerate it right in your question and then ask if it’s exaggerated, of course the answer will be yes.
“It’s just a tool” yes and when people say “social media” they mean the whole combination of the tools and how they are getting used. The whole “it’s just a tool” argument isn’t worth much. Yes, it is, and now that it’s been let loose in the world, we see how it is being used.
A match is “just a tool” but in a forest that’s dripping with gasoline, you can see how that tool will do exactly one job.