Apepollo11

@Apepollo11@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What do you feel lucky forabout?⁩ ⁨⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  The snek!

  Ha, you caught me, I was indeed a Reddit refugee. A little less enthusiastic about the MOASS these days, but I liked my old name, so kept it 🙂

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What do you feel lucky forabout?⁩ ⁨⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  That I was born at a time when computers were knowable. I grew up in the 80s, and cut my teeth on a ZX Spectrum. Very little was hidden - even loading software into memory was something you experienced, listening to the beeps and warbles and watching the flashing colours for ten minutes or more. Guide books showed labelled photos and diagrams of the actual hardware inside, giving real tangible meaning to the commands you typed in.

  I think there’s a massive amount of disconnect now between the users and the actual hardware, and getting up to speed with how things work is so much more difficult.

  Also, I’m lucky that I was born into a family that was just able to afford a microcomputer. My dad had a stable enough job that he was able to get a loan from the bank to buy one.

  Not sure my life would have turned out the way it did without this starting point.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is hatred/dehumanization of the working class so prominent in the UK, when about 60% of the UK population is working class?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Ok, I think I’ve worked out what the issue is here.

  First of all, let’s go back to where Owen Jones starts off.

  The term chav refers to a specific subset of young people who spend a disproportionate amount of their money on fashionable clothes and hang around being a nuisance to other people.

  He also argues that the term is used by right-wing media outlets as a broader generalisation of working-class people as a whole, to further push their arguments.

  These two things can be true at the same time.

  But I’d definitely agree it’s not a slur. It’s just lazy journalism presenting a caricature of the working-class because it’s easier for their deranged arguments.

  The majority of people are born into working class families, but only a become chavs.

  It is rubbish that the right-wing media is able to get away with writing absolute rubbish with abandon, and it’s unfortunate that a lot of people buy these papers without realising that they’re being told lies and half-truths.

  But that’s what the problem is. It’s not that the term itself is bad, it’s that bad people use it to caricature the working class in general.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is hatred/dehumanization of the working class so prominent in the UK, when about 60% of the UK population is working class?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  “Chav” doesn’t mean “working class” in the same way that “penguin” doesn’t mean “bird”.

  Heck, some of the chavs I know wouldn’t know work if it hit them.

  Chavs are a tiny subset of working class people, in the same way that penguins are a tiny subset of birds.

  I live in a northern mill town. Most of my very large extended family are working class (it’d probably be a bit disingenuous for me to claim that I still am, though). They would look at you like you were an idiot if you tried to convince them that chav means them.

  Chavs are the kids who hang around with expensive trainers and caps, who have absolutely no qualms about being a nuisance to other people.

  They represent a tiny proportion of the working class, and any criticism of them is specifically targeted at them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why does a community called no stupid questions allow comments that say the question is stupid?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I tried to find out what you were referring to - was it the rude person in the vegan thread? If you look, they were pretty heavily rebutted and downvoted by the other users.

  The mods uphold the community guidelines, ideally without overreach. If someone’s out of line, but not breaking any rules, the other users are usually good at putting people straight.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨why are fitness weights filled with sand?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  This. Dirt cheap material cost, no additional machining costs.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do you think there would eventually be technology to delete/replace memories (like the *Men In Black* device). How much do you fear such technology? (like misuse by governments/criminals)⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  You’ve basically said much of what I was going to!

  We know where memories are stored in the brain, physically. The biggest problem with targeting specific memories is simply a matter of working out which neurons are tied to that memory.

  We can already, fairly crudely, see roughly where a memory is stored by looking at brain activity when the patient recalls it. We can also directly trigger memory recollection by applying electrodes to the brain during brain surgery.

  There’s still massive engineering challenges to overcome to get this to a practical stage, but engineering challenges are usually surmountable. With that in mind, will the technology be doable, ever?

  Technology to erase specific memories - absolutely.

  Technology to replace specific memories with new ones - I suspect yes, but that’ll need some big leaps in our understanding of how memories actually work.

  Technology to do this with just a flash of light - no, probably not.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Image of pig evolution where pig starts to walk on 2 legs⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  TIL George Orwell was a pen name.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨pwned: do you pronounce it as "pohned" "pawned" or "owned"⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Just for the benefit of anyone who doesn’t know, this is not the actual etymology.

  It just started as a misspelling of “owned” (with p and o being next to each other on the keyboard).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Would it be correct to say that enshittification is the physical manifestation of the economic ai bubble bursting?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Here’s an example of a sentence where a missing comma completely changes the meaning.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When you attempt to get visas or citizenship status, you usually need legal documents from your home country, but what about dissidents who fled, and their government refuses to issue papers?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Those cases are different, and are dealt with through your country’s asylum process.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨During the lead up to the Holocaust did the N... regime just kidnap people who they even thought were Jews? Kind of like ICE is doing to citizens today?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I suspect the N words in question are very much white.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK tricks for one of the cheapest meals: beans and rice⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I focussed on the obesity statistics because that is what you were talking about.

  OK, let’s flip this.

  According to you, people with no money are not only buying junk food, but buying it in quantities to become overweight and obese.

  People with no money are buying large quantities of food.

  Is that what you’re claiming? Is that how the world works in your head?

  I’m saying that people with no money have no money to buy food. You’re saying that people with no money somehow also have enough money to buy large quantities of unhealthy food.

  At this point I can only assume that you’re just arguing bad faith, because there isn’t anything complicated to understand here.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK tricks for one of the cheapest meals: beans and rice⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  How are you not getting it?

  You’re right in claiming there is a link between obesity and poverty. However the difference in obesity rates between the upper quintile and lower quintile is still less than 10%.

  Obesity is a problem across every single wealth bracket.

  There is a problematically high number of people in America who are both poor and obese. But there are about twice as many people in poverty who are not obese.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK tricks for one of the cheapest meals: beans and rice⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Of course, and it’s a common trend around the developed world.

  What’s important to realise, though is that there are huge swathes of people who are poorer than that. People who need to choose between eating and heating. People who go without just so their kids can eat.

  The obese poor people are not the ones who are starving (obviously). They’re not the ones in abject poverty.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK tricks for one of the cheapest meals: beans and rice⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Let them eat cake?

  Believe it or not, there are other countries that the US on the internet.

  Also (and I suspect an even more difficult concept to grasp) even within the US there are people with barely enough money to eat anything, let alone junk food.

  Look at the data - 47 million people in the US face food insecurity. Do you think these people are trapsing down to the food bank only when they fancy a change from McDonald’s?

  It’s good to be sceptical when you hear stuff that surprises you, but so a bit of research before dismissing it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is your biology haunted with your ancestors anxiety⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Is your toothbrush enchanted by a penguin’s briefcase?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I remember you from several months ago. I see from this post, you’ve not taken onboard any of the help and advice from last time.

  Either that, or this is just a trolling account you turn to every now and again when you’re bored.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are there really no stupid questions?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You’ve decided to leave Lemmy after being downvoted for posting links to conspiracy videos disguised as a question?

  FWIW, I didn’t downvote you, but surely you must see why other people have?

  I’ll provide some similar examples, hopefully you can see the problem.

  “Is it true that deep down women really want to be treated as slaves? These Andrew Tate videos raise some compelling points. Link. Link”

  “Is it true that black people are trying to wipe out the white race by diluting the purity of our bloodline? Here are some convincing videos. Link. Link.”

  Obviously these examples are worse than yours, but they’re exactly the same form. Nobody wants that kind of thing in their feed. Nobody wants to be asked to watch tinfoil-hat crackpot garbage before they can properly answer a question.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When baking, if your oven can't reach the temperature stated in the recipe, do you then just adjust for time?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  100%

  “Cooking is art, baking is science”

  With very simple recipes, e.g. white bread, you might get away with it.

  The more ingredients you add, the more chance something won’t behave quite as it should.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Does having to hold down a comment to open a downvote prompt make it less likely for you to downvote?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Maybe

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Have you all not notice there are NO communist countries?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I promise I’m not trying to wind you up, but I’m not sure what the first sentence means - sorry!

  As for the second, there’re five countries that identify as communist right now - but I’m sure you’re aware of that, otherwise you wouldn’t have put that caveat in the original question.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Have you all not notice there are NO communist countries?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  No it isn’t. There isn’t a difference.

  You asked for an example of a “FULL COMMUNIST” country.

  I’m saying that no-one can for exactly the reason you can’t name a fully democratic country or a fully capitalistic country.

  The truth is people are messy and the world is messier still.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Have you all not notice there are NO communist countries?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  There are no anything countries.

  Show me a true democracy, a wholly capitalist country, an entirely anything country. There aren’t any.

  This is the reality of living in a complicated world - nothing is black and white.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What options of resistance are programmers creating to not submit to AI culture?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s fair, but I’m not arguing that it’s a higher-level language. I was trying to illustrate that it’s just to help people code more easily - as all of the other steps were.

  If you asked ten programmers to turn a given set of instructions into code, you’d end up with ten different blocks of code. That’s the nature of turning English into code.

  The difference is that this is a tool that does it, not a person. You write things in English, it produces code.

  FWIW, I enjoy using hex-editors to tinker around with Super Famicom ROMs in my free time - I’m certainly not anti-coding. As OP said, AI is now pretty good at generating code - it’s daft not to use it as a tool.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What options of resistance are programmers creating to not submit to AI culture?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s just a greater level of abstraction. First we talked to the computers on their own terms with punch cards.

  Then Assembly came along to simplify the process, allowing humans to write readable code while compiling into Machine Code so the computers can run it.

  Then we used higher-level languages like C to create the Assembly Code required.

  Then we created languages like Python, that were even more human-readable, doing a lot more of the heavy lifting than C.

  I understand the concern, but it’s just the latest step in a process that has been playing out since programming became a thing. At every step we give up some control, for the benefit of making our jobs easier.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can a person who is a convicted felon/ rapist even get nominated for the Nobel Peace Price? Extra points if you can ELI5 that.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Maybe closer to the version of Gandhi from the Civilization games than the real one…

  The views on him are mixed depending on exactly what lines you think can reasonably be crossed for the sake of protecting America’s interests.

  In Kissinger’s tenure as Secretary of State, there were very few lines that he considered uncrossable - extending into tacit endorsement of actions that are accurately classed as war crimes.

  The carpet-bombing of Cambodia, the peacetime kidnapping and murder of a Chilean general, actual military support for a genocide campaign in what is now Bangladesh - all this and more.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Which timezone would win in a conflict?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  GMT

  We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again.

  /s obv

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Am I cognitively performing less than I could've been if I hadn't drunk alcohol at that age?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t know if this helps at all, but …

  It’s impossible to meaningfully compare the actual you to an imaginary version of yourself.

  The only meaningful thing you can do is reflect on whether, with the resources available to you, you can be better at the things you want to be better at.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨To refer casually to briefs-style men's underwear, is it Tidy Whities or Tighty Whities?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  No, I can see why some Americans might confuse them, with a “baddle of wadder” accent.