ArbitraryValue
@ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on Neuralink's first in-human brain implant has experienced a problem, company says 1 week ago:
Before anyone gets too excited: some of their electrodes are no longer able to record a signal from the patient’s brain. They’re reprogramming their software to work with fewer electrodes. No one is being turned into a borg drone.
- Comment on Will I ever be seen as truly British? 1 week ago:
I know the feeling. I’ve been in the USA for decades, almost my entire life, but as soon as I say anything, everyone can immediately hear that I’m not American. People who ask me about it are well-meaning and curious. I still don’t like it, but I try not to show it.
- Comment on Stack Overflow bans users en masse for rebelling against OpenAI partnership — users banned for deleting answers to prevent them being used to train ChatGPT 1 week ago:
I suspect it isn’t illegal.
- Comment on Stack Overflow bans users en masse for rebelling against OpenAI partnership — users banned for deleting answers to prevent them being used to train ChatGPT 1 week ago:
You can state what you don’t want, but no one will be paying attention. Except maybe the LLM reading your posts…
- Comment on Republicans are pulling out all the stops to reverse EV adoption 1 week ago:
There’s not going to be a moment when the world suddenly goes from having oil to having no oil. There are oil reserves that are relatively cheap and easy to extract, and there are other, very large reserves that are currently so difficult and expensive to extract that doing so isn’t profitable. As the easy oil gradually runs out, the supply drops, the price rises, and sources of oil that were not profitable at the old price become profitable. This maintains the supply of oil and stabilizes the price.
It’s true that the amount of oil is in principle finite, but that limitation isn’t really relevant on the timescales we’re talking about.
- Comment on [Serious] Why do so many people seem to hate veganism? 2 weeks ago:
Guilt.
- Comment on Republicans / conservatives are winning the immigration and values game. Am I misguided? (read post) 2 weeks ago:
Uh, how common do you think mail-order brides are?
- Comment on my humps 2 weeks ago:
Well, no. The one in the middle would do it because he wanted to eat you. The hippo is a vegetarian who would do it for the sheer joy of killing.
- Comment on Eurovision vows to remove Palestinian flags or symbols 2 weeks ago:
Haven’t they always been strictly non-political? Or were flags other than those of competing nations allowed before this year?
- Comment on SpidermanMyBack.jpg 2 weeks ago:
Does that doll have Spock’s head?
- Comment on Tesla to lay off everyone working on Superchargers, new vehicles 2 weeks ago:
One bad quarter and they’re doing this? I don’t even.
- Comment on Theoretical Physics 3 weeks ago:
In my experience, it’s actually the other way around: physicists can think in terms of equations, without having to visualize them. I generally can’t do that myself - I would get frustrated at talks where the presenter just had slide after slide of equations but some people could read those slides the way I read ordinary English text.
- Comment on xkcd #2924: Pendulum Types 3 weeks ago:
I used to have a simulation of a double pendulum as my screensaver, and it was so hypnotic that when I was out of the office, no one in the office could work either. I had to change it.
- Comment on Nurses Protest 'Deeply Troubling' Use of AI in Hospitals 3 weeks ago:
My experience with the healthcare system, and especially hospitals, is that the people working there are generally knowledgeable and want to help patients, but they are also very busy and often sleep-deprived. A human may be better at medicine than an AI, but an AI that can devote attention to you is better than a human that can’t.
(The fact that the healthcare system we have is somehow simultaneously very expensive, bad for medical professionals, and bad for patients is a separate issue…)
- Comment on Windows 11 Start menu ads are now rolling out to everyone 3 weeks ago:
Note that you can turn the ads off quickly and easily. I agree that there’s someone off-putting about an operating system with built-in ads, but a tech-savvy person will see them once and then never again. (A person who isn’t tech-savvy probably won’t care.)
- Comment on LEARN THE DIFFERENCE PEOPLE 👏👏👏 4 weeks ago:
A great guide to extant archosaurs!
- Comment on Maya ruler burned bodies of old dynasty during regime change, charred human remains reveal 4 weeks ago:
These people had apparently been dead for decades when their bodies were burned, so I’d say it’s more like how people remove a statue of a historical figure who is no longer popular.
- Comment on Casually dropped this tidbit 4 weeks ago:
I’m not convinced that this represents “understanding the concept of zero” in a nontrivial sense. Are there species that can be taught to pick the picture with fewer shapes but then don’t prefer a picture with no shapes?
- Comment on snek id 5 weeks ago:
This is for after you get drunk and sleep with the snake, when you need to decide whether or not to stay until morning.
- Comment on Keep This Under Wraps For Now 5 weeks ago:
Places with traditions of mummification have dry climates in which bodies may mummify naturally, so it’s not something the people just came up with out of nowhere.
- Comment on At least he's honest 5 weeks ago:
calls himself a predator
van isn’t windowless
I can’t even.
- Comment on Guys will meet him and just say "hell yeah!" 5 weeks ago:
If Tourette’s involves a compulsion to say socially inappropriate things, what happens if those things don’t turn out to be socially inappropriate? Does the compulsion switch to something else? Does it fade?
- Comment on Florida woman who stole, sold Biden's daughter's diary sentenced to 1 month in prison 5 weeks ago:
We already knew the diary was real and this ruling doesn’t include any new information about the actual contents of the diary. Plus, it’s a big jump from “Biden did some weird nudist stuff” which is what the purported diary actually claims to “Biden is a pedophile”.
- Comment on Mona: Court rules women’s-only exhibit must allow male visitors 5 weeks ago:
I think from the libertarian point of view, being compelled to do something is bad even if that thing itself isn’t all that difficult or unpleasant. I’m a pretty stubborn, libertarian-leaning person myself and I would resent doing even all my favorite things in the world if the government were making me do them.
(I still wouldn’t make the comparison to slavery myself.)
- Comment on Mona: Court rules women’s-only exhibit must allow male visitors 5 weeks ago:
I think the reasoning is that since having a job is essential for almost everyone, then by making it illegal to have a job in which one may refuse to deal with members of a protected class, the government is effectively compelling everyone to deal with them, which might be seen as a form of forced labor.
- Comment on Mona: Court rules women’s-only exhibit must allow male visitors 5 weeks ago:
I feel like running a museum is a lot more like a form of expression than running a cafe is. “Who is the audience for art?” seems like a topic where a government-imposed “correct answer” is more of a problem than it would be if the topic were “Who eats a sandwich?”
- Comment on Mona: Court rules women’s-only exhibit must allow male visitors 5 weeks ago:
The velvet-clad lounge - which contains some of the museum’s most-acclaimed works, from Picasso to Sidney Nolan - has been open since 2020.
If the artist had opened an exhibit of her own work only to women, I could defend that as artistic expression. However, this is just a museum being sexist and then saying “It’s just art bro!”
With that said, apparently the museum is privately funded. I tend to think that this ought to mean it can be sexist if that’s what the people running it want (as a matter of principle, not as a matter of Australian law).
- Comment on California sheriff releases bodycam video of killing of boy, 15, holding gardening tool 2 months ago:
I think shooting someone trying to attack you with a hoe generally counts as self-defense, but I don’t understand why
“The use of a Taser in this situation with the amount of time or the use of pepper-spray would not have been something we would have been able to react to quick enough. Ultimately we have to stop this problem … law enforcement officers are not required to be hit over the head with something. What happens when they get incapacitated? … The deputies followed through with what their training protocols are.”
This seems like exactly the situation tasers are meant for.
- Comment on Health gains of low-traffic schemes up to 100 times greater than costs, study finds 2 months ago:
I agree that compromises between the interests of drivers and pedestrians are necessary, and in a big city with more pedestrians than drivers, it is reasonable for these compromises to favor pedestrians. I don’t agree with the frequently expressed view that reducing the number of drivers and increasing the number of pedestrians is in itself a good thing, and that’s what this article sounds like to me. The emphasis on the health benefits for people who stop driving feels like being told “eat your vegetables, they’re good for you” which, as an adult, I’m offended by, but this is an emotionally charged issue for me so maybe I’m overreacting.
I’m interested in the claim that LTNs do not, on average, increase motorist travel times. That could change my mind about this issue.
- Comment on Health gains of low-traffic schemes up to 100 times greater than costs, study finds 2 months ago:
I suppose it depends on what the “greater good” is. If I was doing significant harm or likely to do significant harm in a way that could only be prevented by not driving (for example, if I was a dangerous driver due to some disability) then I would feel a moral obligation not to drive. If, however, I was simply causing a very small part of a much bigger problem (such a pollution) then I would be open to paying a tax or fee to compensate for the harm I was doing, but I would still drive. I think I contribute to society and therefore I do feel entitled to use a fair share of society’s resources. If I was merely offending the sensibilities of people who think that a society with fewer drivers is better in some unquantifiable moral or aesthetic way then I wouldn’t feel any obligation to cooperate with them.