AA5B
@AA5B@lemmy.world
- Comment on New fuel cell could enable electric aviation 1 day ago:
The problem is that we don’t yet have a practical alternative to jet fuel, except high speed rail and Zoom. The technologies are all too young.
And it’s not just cost, it’s trying to make them useful enough. Batteries will not take you across a continent, for any cost.
We’re more at the stage of “fuck the cost. Give me another option to try”
- Comment on New fuel cell could enable electric aviation 1 day ago:
I wonder if that takes an appreciable amount of carbon out of the air, and if it is somehow persisted in solid form.
- Comment on I feel attacked 2 days ago:
Diet M3 I see on auto trader is $73k. That’s where I get off the bus
- Comment on I feel attacked 2 days ago:
Can older ones be had in reasonable condition for reasonable price? I never looked into those on the assumption they cost more and are not very common.
While I liked mg’s when I was younger, more recently I was a fan of Miata’s.
- Comment on I feel attacked 2 days ago:
I came really close to doing that as a younger adult. At one point it was almost a club, so many co-workers had an older mg. Unfortunately they are no longer as plentiful or cheap.
Now I’m tempted from time to time but would never spend the time to care for it myself, which is one of the reasons to get an older vehicle.
At the moment I have the practical needs that both my kids are driving but sharing one car and can’t yet afford their own. This is the first summer that coordination will be a challenge. I took a Quick Look into long term rentals and short term leases and they’re just too expensive. I don’t want to buy them a car that will just sit and rot for 10 months they’re in college. I am so tempted to get myself another fun car. Maybe a project or classic. For the summer I’d have one more vehicle to share for the family. If there was an issue with my main car, I’d have an option. And if it’s a fun car for me I don’t mind having it the ten months of the year they’re in school
- Comment on I feel attacked 2 days ago:
True, true, this is me too. I’ve got to admit to having to hold myself back from a full on outdoor kitchen. But I have a nice grill and a huge smoker, and I’ll be here every weekend wondering how to find people who want to share 15# of pulled pork or something.
I’ve actually gone overboard with cooking in general. Replaced teflon with cast iron and stainless steel, and a griddle top , and learned how to cook so many different foods from so many cuisines.
- Comment on I feel attacked 2 days ago:
What about the stereotype of buying a flashy car? Arguably that’s the one I fell I not: spending far more on a car than I ever have to get something flashy and different, and purely thinking of me for what felt like the first time in my life.
- Comment on Do you actually audit open source projects you download? 4 days ago:
I’m actually planning to do an evaluation of a n ai code review tool to see what it can do. I’m actually somewhat optimistic that it could do this better than it can code
I really want to sic it on this one junior programmer who doesn’t understand that you can’t just commit ai generated slop and expect it to work. This last code review after over 60 pieces of feedback I gave up on the rest and left it as he needs to understand when ai generated slop needs help
- Comment on Do you actually audit open source projects you download? 4 days ago:
My company only allows downloads from official sources, verified publishers, signed where we can. This is enforced by only allowing the repo server to download stuff and only from places we’ve configured. In general those go through a process to reduce the chances of problems and mitigate them quickly.
I’m actually going round in circles with this one developer. He needs an open source package and we already cache it on the repo server in several form factors, from reputable sources …… but he wants to run a random GitHub component which downloads an unsigned tar file from an untrusted source
- Comment on VCs are starting to partner with private equity to buy up call centers, accounting firms and other "mature companies" to replace their operations with AI 1 week ago:
Effective rates
- The ladder of progressive rates ends too early, so actual income tax rates do not go up after something like half a million income. That’s a lot for most of us but does not begin to cover the wealthy
- Many tax cuts over the last few decades were specific to other types of income, generally available to the wealthy
For example if you were like Elon Musk, the richest person in the world (sometimes) who gets little to no salary and is paid mainly with stock options, you’d pay at most 37% on your salary, same as any basic millionaire but the bulk of your income would count as long term capital gains and taxed at 20%, lowering your effective rate. Even better, you could take loans against your stock and never “realize” the gains so never pay taxes on it.
There are many other tricks you can pull to count your income as other that income and taxed at a lower rate. Last time we had that debate, Warren Buffet, another of the richest men in the world wrote an opinion piece in support of changes that he could take advantage such that he paid a lower effective tax rate than his secretary. Nice try but quickly disappeared under a flood of propaganda from other rich people
- Comment on VCs are starting to partner with private equity to buy up call centers, accounting firms and other "mature companies" to replace their operations with AI 1 week ago:
I can definitely see the fear of letting ai do something like that. Someone will always try to trick it. That’s why we can’t have good things.
However, like you said, they didn’t think to make that an option in the voice menu. If it were an AI, you could drop the process into the knowledge base and have it available much more easily than reprogramming the voice menu
- Comment on VCs are starting to partner with private equity to buy up call centers, accounting firms and other "mature companies" to replace their operations with AI 1 week ago:
In the US we do that to some extent but not for the wealthy. Somehow we ended up with upper middle class paying the highest rate, then tax rates dropping as you get wealthy. It’s fair that I pay a higher rate than someone with less income, but very much not fair that I pay a higher tax rate than wealthy people
- Comment on VCs are starting to partner with private equity to buy up call centers, accounting firms and other "mature companies" to replace their operations with AI 1 week ago:
True, but there’s no reason that can’t coexist with a sense of fairness, and witha long term greater good
Of course I don’t want to pay more taxes. However I realize I’ve been more successful than some, and a more progressive tax scheme is fair. I realize I have vices and don’t mind if there is a discouragement, as long as it applies to everyone fairly. I realize my success is based on a successful society and understand it is only fair to leave society in at least as good condition as I found it. Most importantly I have kids so I’m all for building a better future for them …. And understand that includes the society they will live in, the environment they will live in
- Comment on German court sends Volkswagen execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal 1 week ago:
This is the most unbelievable part: a us court held management responsible for criminal behavior? Did that not pay their fines? Did no one have a spare jet to offer?
- Comment on VCs are starting to partner with private equity to buy up call centers, accounting firms and other "mature companies" to replace their operations with AI 1 week ago:
Hopefully you can see the difference between working for someone else profit, vsinvestments in all of our well being and a more fair tax structure
- Comment on I'd choose 4 tbh 1 week ago:
2, 6, 9. Health, happiness, comfortable life.
- Comment on I'd choose 4 tbh 1 week ago:
How. Two is just don’t gain weight. It doesn’t say anything about losing weight or about healthy nutrition. For those of us with a tendency to gain, this is all positive.
My most pressing health concern under my control is my weight. As an adult already overweight, I would be very happy to at least never weigh more than I do now
- Comment on VCs are starting to partner with private equity to buy up call centers, accounting firms and other "mature companies" to replace their operations with AI 1 week ago:
would you want to voluntarily waive parts of your salary?
Yes, I tend to vote for increased taxes to invest in education, environment, social welfare. And yes, that includes progressive taxes that hit me harder (as long as that also applies to the wealthy), and vice taxes that target my vices
- Comment on VCs are starting to partner with private equity to buy up call centers, accounting firms and other "mature companies" to replace their operations with AI 1 week ago:
I’m mad that there used to be someone knowledgeable and empowered to help when you called your utility company, and they were outsourced to a call center where people generally can’t help and wouldn’t know how. Where they are tied to simple scripts and generally can’t answer anything else.
Call centers already are the enshittification of phone support. Voice menus is are the enshittification of call centers. Corps focus on ever cheaper without remembering there are customers trying to get help.
Will ai turn this trend around? It’s possible. Or is it just a cheaper way to make the experience yet worse
- Comment on VCs are starting to partner with private equity to buy up call centers, accounting firms and other "mature companies" to replace their operations with AI 1 week ago:
There was a lot of talk about that when the call centers were sprouting up: generally poor jobs, minimum wage, and liable to be outsourced or ai’d. They were generally put places where there were no real options so those towns are going to suffer when it all goes away
- Comment on VCs are starting to partner with private equity to buy up call centers, accounting firms and other "mature companies" to replace their operations with AI 1 week ago:
No one should have to work in a call center, but I’m still hopeful about it being a good place for ai.
A huge part of the problem with voice menus is how tightly they’re scripted. They can only work for narrow use cases where you’re somehow knowledgeable enough to find the magic phrasing while being ignorant enough deformed simple use cases and only do things the way they thought of.
Ai has the potential to respond to natural language and reply with anything in a knowledge base, even synthesize combinations. It could be much better than scripted voice menus us: more importantly it could be cheaper to implement so might actually happen.
I actually just did an evaluation of such a tool for internal support. This is for software engineers and specific to our company so not something you’re going to find premade. We’ve been collecting stuff in a wiki and just needed to point the agent at the wiki. The ai part was very successful, even if you think of it as a glorified search feature. It’s good at turning natural language questions into exactly what you need!
Unfortunately I had to reject it for failing on the basics. First example it was decent at guiding you to write a work ticket when needed but there was no way to configure a url for our internal ticketing system. And there was no way to tell it to shut up.
- Comment on ‘Alexa, what do you know about us?’ What I discovered when I asked Amazon to tell me everything my family’s smart speaker had heard 1 week ago:
They work great as an intercom, if you have them in every. Room
- Comment on Can Tesla's Self-Driving Software Handle Bus-Only Lanes? Not Reliably, No. 1 week ago:
You may not have much experience with autopilots, so no. There are different levels of autopilots in aviation, not just the full control with auto-land you may be thinking of. I used to fly a small prop plane with single axis autopilot. much less capable than Tesla full self-driving. However it was safe and useful because I understood its capabilities and limitations. I knew what to use it for and what not, so even an extremely simple analog autopilot successfully reduced pilot workload, improving safety
- Comment on Tesla Full-Self Driving Veers Off Road, Hits Tree, and Flips Car for No Obvious Reason (No Serious Injuries, but Scary) 1 week ago:
It’s ready, but you’re assuming an entirely general taxi service. It will be carefully constrained like Wayno was. It will be limited to easy streets and times, probably lower speeds, where there is less chance of problems. It’s ready for that.
There’s always a reason. I agree with the author: most likely it misinterpreted a shadow as a solid obstacle. I’m not excusing it but humans do that too, and Tesla will likely ensure it doesn’t come up in their taxi service.
Remember that robotaxi doesn’t actually exist yet. I’m pretty sure the plan is to start with Model Y having human safety drivers. it’s ready for that
- Comment on Do you think a story that mixes magic with super advanced technology can work? 1 week ago:
Iron man and other Marvel movies started being very science. Oriented, but quickly combined magic or turned to magic
- Comment on The technology to end traffic deaths exists. Why aren’t we using it? 1 week ago:
While I agree in concept, redesigning and rebuilding society to be less car centric would NOT be fast or easy.
It’s better in so many ways and I wish more Americans could experience the freedom and convenience of walkable and transit oriented areas to understand how unpleasant their cars really are. But if even if we seriously pursued that, it would be many decades, probably more like a century. In the meantime electric vehicles are much better than what we use now
- Comment on Trump says a 25% tariff "must be paid by Apple" on iPhones not made in the US, says he told Tim Cook long ago that iPhones sold in the US must be made in the US 1 week ago:
Plus a consistent supportive economic policy. I haven’t read the book to know what’s included in that $55B, but I know it’s been a long term effort and no business will try to build such capability in chaos and personality cults.
Republicans talk about being best for business is sort of like their “family values”: mostly talk, mostly opposite
- Comment on Trump says a 25% tariff "must be paid by Apple" on iPhones not made in the US, says he told Tim Cook long ago that iPhones sold in the US must be made in the US 1 week ago:
But we can just import some of the things we need as we build up the more valuable end of supply chains. I’m sure they’ve thought of that and there are no tariffs impeding those prerequisites, right? Right?
- Comment on Trump says a 25% tariff "must be paid by Apple" on iPhones not made in the US, says he told Tim Cook long ago that iPhones sold in the US must be made in the US 1 week ago:
Did you ask around? I’m sure you can go into any biker bar in that state and ask for bumfuck
- Comment on Trump says a 25% tariff "must be paid by Apple" on iPhones not made in the US, says he told Tim Cook long ago that iPhones sold in the US must be made in the US 1 week ago:
Ts the entire supply chain that’s the problem. I keep reading stories about Apple pre-buying the entire output of factories for multiple years. For the thousands of parts in a modern phone, how do you expect entire parts industries to spring up overnight on the scale that Apple sells phones? Then entire resource and tooling chains to support those? And we’re making it even more impossible with blindly applying tariffs everywhere so you couldn’t even get established