uriel238
@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone
- Comment on Zuckerberg: The AI Slop Will Continue Until Morale Improves 2 weeks ago:
Obvously Facebook- and Zuckerberg-mocking AI content must continue until morale improves.
- Comment on Typing monkey would be unable to produce 'Hamlet' within the lifetime of the universe, study finds 2 weeks ago:
The original thought experiment had to do with playing around with infinity, which is a whole field of mathematics with a lot of crossover. It raises questions like whether we can assume any fixed-length sequence of digits can be found somewhere in the mantissa of a given irrational number (say, π).
- Comment on Fired Employee Allegedly Hacked Disney World's Menu System to Alter Peanut Allergy Information 2 weeks ago:
In a company as blue-chip as Disney, the discontinuation of access and privileges and security clearance are indicators of imminent repositioning, likely firing if you’ve engaged in mischief (such as voicing your opinion or comparing salaries).
It’s why you give sweet Christmas presents to the awkward guy in HR and invite him to all your socials. Blow him if he’s into it. He’s your intel source regarding who is in danger of discharge, and if the boss doesn’t like you.
This disgruntled guy had to be lower rank than the mailroom if HR wasn’t given notice, and his access was super low priority. No-one cared.
(Yes, I’m bitter.)
- Comment on Typing monkey would be unable to produce 'Hamlet' within the lifetime of the universe, study finds 2 weeks ago:
So the secret to this thought experiment is to understand that infinite is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is…
The lifespan of the universe from big bang to heat death (the longest scenario) is a blink of an eye to eternity. The breadth and size of the universe – not just what we can see, but how big it is with all the inflation bits, even as its expanding faster than the speed of light – just a mote in a sunbeam compared to infinity.
Infinity itself looks flat and uninteresting. Looking up into the night sky is looking into infinity – distance is incomprehensible and therefore meaningless. And thus we don’t imagine just how vast and literally impossible infinity is.
With an infinite number of monkeys, not only will you get one that will write out a Hamlet script perfectly the first time, formatted exactly as you need it, but you’ll have an infinite number of them. Yes, the percentage of the total will be very small (though not infinitesimally so), and even if you do a partial search you’re going to get a lot of false hits. But 0.000001% of ∞ is still ∞. ∞ / [Graham’s Number] = ∞
It’s a lot of monkeys.
Now, because the monkeys and typewriters and Shakespeare thought experiment isn’t super useful unless you’re dealing with angels and devils (they get to play with infinities. The real world is all normal numbers) the model has been paired down in Dawkin’s Weasel ( on Wikipedia ) and Weasel Programs which demonstrate how evolution (specifically biological evolution) isn’t random rather has random features, but natural selection is informed by, well, selection. Specifically survivability in a harsh environment. When slow rabbits fail to breed, the rabbits will mutate to be faster over generations.
- Comment on Feds Say You Don’t Have a Right to Check Out Retro Video Games Like Library Books 2 weeks ago:
Feds are wrong, or would be if copyright continued to serve its original purpose (according to the Constitution of the United States) to create a robust public domain.
All media should be accessible through public libraries, and arguments by federal courts presumes that the public does not have vested interest in content. It presumes the government isn’t there to serve the public, which raises questions as to why we have government in the first place.
- Comment on Inside the U.S. Government-Bought Tool That Can Track Phones at Abortion Clinics 3 weeks ago:
The US Supreme Court has has an antagonistic relationship to the forth amd fifth amendments to the Constitution of the United States since before I was a kid in the 1970s since they often interfered with efforts to round up nonwhites. But after the 9/11 attacks and the PATRIOT ACT, SCOTUS has been shredding both amendments with carve-out exceptions.
Then Law Enforcement uses tech without revealing it in court, often lying ( parallel reconstruction ) to conceal questionable use, and the courts give them the benefit of the doubt.
- Comment on T-Mobile, AT&T oppose unlocking rule, claim locked phones are good for users 3 weeks ago:
Sadly, I don’t know enough about it to give you advice. Every time I switched phones or services, I had to twaddle with the settings until I could get features (commonly MMS, or SMS with media) so that they worked properly. If AT&T is actually blocking you out for refusing to use an AT&T phone, the trick would be to get the phone to pretend it’s an AT&T phone, then way Firefox can pretend it’s Chrome when it needs to.
But I don’t know the specifics.
- Comment on T-Mobile, AT&T oppose unlocking rule, claim locked phones are good for users 3 weeks ago:
If you get phones from the manufacturer they’re not labeled compatible with AT&T so much as that they have access to specific radio ranges and are controlled either by soft-stored codes or by a SIM card, and I’d buy the sim card from the service, and then stick it in my phone. The Sony I had for a while was compatible with both the T-Mobile and AT&T ranges, and I used a third party service that was an el-cheapo front for T-Mobile.
T-Mobile wanted me to pay extra for hot-spot use, but I got around that with software, which is like hacking the subscription seat warmers on your BMW.
Curiously, Apple phones will lock themselves (or did for a while… is it better now?) based on what service you initially connected them to, and you have to (had to, I hope) get their permission and pay fees to unlock it again.
The telecommunication companies are an oligopoly, so like a legal cartel, so they pull a lot of bullshit that we end users have to suffer. But it means I feel not a jot of guilt when I hack the hell out of it to extract services I didn’t pay for, since it’s all a grift anyway.
- Comment on T-Mobile, AT&T oppose unlocking rule, claim locked phones are good for users 3 weeks ago:
Locked phones are what led me into the rabbit hole of purchasing phones from manufacturer, since the carriers not only lock phones but hobble the OS.
It did mean understanding what was necessary for a phone to qualify for given carriers, but I can tech when I need to, and I tech for my friends when they need it.
In 2024, T Mobile and AT&T (and Verizon) have all demonstrated they do not engage in good faith commerce, and so right now they’re being sniveling little shits (quote me please) because the FCC and DoC are escaping regulatory capture.
That is to say, the end users are tired of their shit. Apple and Google, too.
- Comment on Sympathy for their PTSD 3 weeks ago:
In the aughts, once the US torture programs started getting public attention around 2003, I did my obsessive thing on the German Reich and the Holocaust.
During Operation Barbarossa, the SS was experimenting with eradication methods. The most common was the porgrom, endorsing the locals to massacre the undesirables. When they weren’t undesirable enough or it was the whole village, the einsatzgruppen (death squads) had to come do it, usually forcing them to dig a mass grave and then executing them along the side.
It was messy and brutal and gross, and there was high turnover among the death squads (the US has a similar problem with its combat drone operators). And this was a major problem.
The SS experimented with other ideas, including deathwagons that would pipe the vehicle’s exhaust into an enclosed chamber to kill dozens at a time, but even that was too harsh and too slow.
This is how the prototype genocide machine was made at Auschwitz. The program was aet up so no one who interacted with the live prisoners also interacted with the dead corpses. The guy who pushed the execute button was two persons removed in the chain of command from the guy who signed off on the execution order, and none of those people had to face the prisoners or the outcome. The point specifically was to make the process of massacre less stressful for the people involved.
- Comment on Just finished Doki Doki Literature Club, what a fucking rollercoaster 5 weeks ago:
I bought it specifically to support the dev, which is way more effective regarding small games by small publishers than big games by big publishers.
- Comment on Might as well go cyberpunk, I guess. 1 month ago:
and…?
- Comment on New Yorker’s ‘Social Media Is Killing Kids’ Article Waits 71 Paragraphs To Admit Evidence Doesn’t Support The Premise 1 month ago:
I’m in my fifties, still dealing with major depression and suicidality on a daily basis. I get it. I, too, am not a danger to myself or others, although I’ve sometimes held on only by a thread.
- Comment on Father horrified by an AI Chatbot that mimicked his murdered daughter 1 month ago:
Monkey Paw!
- Comment on Might as well go cyberpunk, I guess. 1 month ago:
I was looking forward to someday having some nice Cannon or Panasonic or Fujifilm hi-res eyes to replace mine but my insurance won’t even land me decent glasses.
I miss being able to read six-point font or see more than ten meters in front of me.
- Comment on Might as well go cyberpunk, I guess. 1 month ago:
What’s frightening to me is our semi-autonomous drones and robots, including police attack bots.
- Comment on New Yorker’s ‘Social Media Is Killing Kids’ Article Waits 71 Paragraphs To Admit Evidence Doesn’t Support The Premise 1 month ago:
Yeah. My parents, teachers, ministers, police officers, etc were glad to blame Dungeons and Dragons for my major depression and suicidality in the 1980s, because none of them wanted to look at systemic social problems that are even worse today.
So if those kids are genuinely suicidal, that means the home is not a place where they feel safe. That implies parental dysfunction.
Remember we also were quick to blame vaccines for ASD because it was too hard on parents to suggest childhood upbringing factors.
- Comment on Suggestions 1 month ago:
Well, yeah, but I wouldn’t trust NYT news as trustworty without confirmation from other sources. I’d say the integrity of the rag has been compromised, but I don’t actually know if it ever was integral even in the Raymond and Jones days.
- Comment on Suggestions 1 month ago:
NYT editorials have leaned far right for a long while now. They’re FOX News with a longer, more bluechip reputation.
Do not use NYT as a reliable source. Do not trust NYT readers who do.
- Comment on there's now more ads in "legit" sites (YouTube, amazon) than in piracy sites 1 month ago:
Much like the twenty minutes of unskippable ads on commercial DVDs, the media companies and social media will enshittify until the general public turns to piracy.
Essentially, the sooner we all come to terms with piracy being
acceptablenecessary, the sooner they let off on their enshittification efforts. - Comment on Men Harassed A Woman In A Driverless Waymo, Trapping Her In Traffic 1 month ago:
I’d expect the Waymo video to have captured footage of these guys. It might not be that difficult to track them, and street harassment might well qualify as assault if the DA of San Francisco were interested in prosecuting.
That said, it’s telling that they freely and openly harassed a strange woman on the street once the threat of being run over was not a factor.
- Comment on Elon Musk’s X is now worth less than a quarter of its $44 billion purchase price 1 month ago:
We knew this was going to happen before he made the purchase.
Everyone said, the best way for Elon to keep his money was to change very little, or even take a hands-off approach.
Masnick suggested this would happen
It was that and so much worse. Moral of the story: Running a huge social media service is hard. Maybe don’t assume that because you’re a billionaire you’re the best at doing stuff.
- Comment on YouTube has found a new way to load ads | AdGuard Blog 1 month ago:
Wow. Is this normal behavior for you?
- Comment on YouTube has found a new way to load ads | AdGuard Blog 1 month ago:
Well, I certainly can’t make my point to you. You have bested my patience, my fellow lemming.
- Comment on YouTube has found a new way to load ads | AdGuard Blog 1 month ago:
Nah, I’m good.
I think an athiest would have a better chance trying to deconvert a Catholic Bishop than I’d have getting you up to speed.
- Comment on YouTube has found a new way to load ads | AdGuard Blog 1 month ago:
I kind of inferred the /s by the end of the post, but respect that such inference isn’t universal. Also there are many /s comments that I wouldn’t infer if it wasn’t explicit.
- Comment on YouTube has found a new way to load ads | AdGuard Blog 1 month ago:
I’m even more baffled by your criticism that YT cares more about shareholders than creating an egalitarian society. Thats true of literally every business including the one you work for. YT never said they were trying to make society egalitarian. Where do you even get that shit from?
The pissed-off engineers that develop effective adblockers, for which there remains robust support.
Much like the west coast oyster monopolies of the 1880s that were plagued by oyster pirates, YouTube is fighting a losing battle.
- Comment on YouTube has found a new way to load ads | AdGuard Blog 1 month ago:
It doesn’t, which informs the rise technical mitigations of YouTube’s terrible ad schemes. YouTube isn’t interested in a more egalitarian society but serving its shareholder masters, and it sucks even at that.
YouTube subscriptions are not a good deal for the consumers, so they’re not going to be popular, which might serve to explain to you why everyone is not a paying subscriber, nor will they ever be.
- Comment on A courts reporter wrote about a few trials. Then an AI decided he was actually the culprit. 1 month ago:
The Jessica Fletcher problem?
- Comment on YouTube has found a new way to load ads | AdGuard Blog 1 month ago:
The ratio of income to bills is way lower on our side than YouTube’s.
We need that money more than they do.