JoshuaFalken
@JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world
- Comment on LLMDeathCount.com 1 week ago:
Kill death ratio - or rather, kill save ratio - would be rather difficult to obtain and more difficult still to appreciate and be able to say if it is good or bad based solely on the ratio.
Fritz Haber is one example of this that comes to mind. Awarded a Nobel Prize a century ago for chemistry developments in fertilizer, used today in a quarter of food growth. A decade or so later he weaponized chlorine gas, and his work was later used in the creation of Zyklon B.
By ratio, Haber is surely a hero, but when considering the sheer numbers of the dead left in his wake, it is a more complex question.
This is one of those things that makes me almost hope for an afterlife where all information is available from which truth may be derived. Who shot JFK? How did the pyramids get built? If life’s biggest answer is forty-two, what is the question?
- Comment on Valve's new hardware will NOT be loss leaders 1 week ago:
I’m not sure cost can be set aside from a price discussion when they’ve explicitly stated it won’t be a Costco rotisserie chicken.
With the number of consoles sold this generation, I’m not sure where the limit is for what people will spend to play the games they want. With console pricing has trailing budget gaming PC’s, I could see a number of people getting a Steam Machine in lieu of the next Playstation or Xbox.
What would be interesting to see in the future is the split between units sold to lifelong console players making a change, and pre existing Steam users with stuffed libraries buying one for the couch. If the latter make up the majority of sales, but they priced it like a chicken, that’ll be a problem pretty quick.
Hopefully it shakes out well and indie game developers reap some well deserved rewards.
- Comment on Mullvad Leta shutting down 2 weeks ago:
I’m adding this to the list of things that I would have used if not for learning about it from a shutdown announcement.
- Comment on Controversial startup's plan to 'sell sunlight' using giant mirrors in space would be 'catastrophic' and 'horrifying,' astronomers warn 2 weeks ago:
I disagree they are bozos. I’m actually coming around on the idea. Not the mirror thing of course, but the VC grift using a flashy idea. Millions of dollars and the only thing you make is a slideshow? Brilliant.
- Comment on Controversial startup's plan to 'sell sunlight' using giant mirrors in space would be 'catastrophic' and 'horrifying,' astronomers warn 2 weeks ago:
This reminds me of the venetian shade idea. ‘Trillions of dollars’ hahaha okay let’s see who wants to pitch in.
- Comment on Sliced off the tip of my thumb, what are some good one handed games? 2 weeks ago:
Fruit Ninja comes to mind.
- Comment on ProtonMail Logged IP Address of French Activist; Should You Be Worried About Your Privacy? 2 weeks ago:
Could you elaborate on this comment?
- Comment on Here’s what ads on your $2,000 Samsung smart fridge will look like 3 weeks ago:
That would be interesting if it were a thermal camera. Though as you point out, I wouldn’t be spending extra money on such a feature.
- Comment on Here’s what ads on your $2,000 Samsung smart fridge will look like 3 weeks ago:
Haha, that was intentional. It’s amusing to present an argument and wholly undermine it in the final line.
I don’t see much use for a dedicated kitchen screen. Though for someone that does have a use case, the fridge is the only place I see it going other than a wall. More cost effective to use a tablet, we agree.
- Comment on Here’s what ads on your $2,000 Samsung smart fridge will look like 3 weeks ago:
Haha, that was intentional. I don’t see much use for a dedicated kitchen screen. Though for someone that does have a use case, the fridge is the only place I see it going other than a wall.
To follow a recipe on a fridge screen might also involve having an island to be able to face it while prepping, so even that scenario I have trouble seeing utility.
- Comment on Here’s what ads on your $2,000 Samsung smart fridge will look like 3 weeks ago:
Cupboard doors are too high; dishwashers are too low; ovens have too many windows; countertops are too horizontal; and the backsplash is too far away.
As far as surfaces where screens could go, a fridge is a pretty good contender. I don’t have anywhere else in my kitchen I could put a dedicated screen. When I’m following a recipe, I just pop a tablet on the windowsill.
- Comment on Here’s what ads on your $2,000 Samsung smart fridge will look like 3 weeks ago:
Those people should have just slept in their fridge, problem solved!
- Comment on ‘There isn’t really another choice:’ Signal chief explains why the encrypted messenger relies on AWS 3 weeks ago:
I’m going to call bullshit on the underlying assertion that Signal is using Amazon services for the sake of lining Jeff’s pocket instead of considering the “several” alternatives. As if they don’t have staff to consider such a thing and just hit buy now on the Amazon smile.
In any monopoly, there are going to be smaller, less versatile, less reliable options. Fine and dandy for Mr Joe Technology to hop on the niche wagon and save a few bucks, but that’s not going to work for anyone casting a net encompassing the world.
- Comment on The AWS Outage Bricked People’s $2,700 Smartbeds 4 weeks ago:
Most people don’t even consider things like this. That’s why companies keep getting away with it. It’s not the customer’s fault.
- Comment on Why Signal’s post-quantum makeover is an amazing engineering achievement 4 weeks ago:
I could. Presumably so could the others commenting on this post. But then what are we to do about the privacy or tech illiterate people we’ve carried to Signal over the years?
It’s easy to winge about just doing what you perceive as the optimal solution. It’s more difficult when you need to navigate the path to get there from where we are now.
- Comment on American cops think they're what American firemen ARE. 5 weeks ago:
To my surprise, you’re right. Brigades letting buildings burn didn’t happen - at least not by company decree.
The most I’d ever looked into it was to see what those plaques looked like. I appreciate you countering the idea, it led me to an interesting read of this correction article that seems a great summary of what really occurred.
Primarily it seems they all just worked together for reasons that, after reading them, are painfully obvious and I can’t believe I hadn’t considered even the first one.
- preventing fire spread from buildings uninsured to those insured
- quick efficient response was good advertising for the insurance company
- resolving fires in uninsured properties is an act of charity and displays goodwill
The article by Paul J Sillitoe is worth the read, but here are some highlights for anyone interested:
More recent writers have more firmly rebutted the notion of letting uninsured buildings burn. In 1996, an insurance company history referenced, in 1702, “the first of many recorded examples” of insurance fire brigades working together to fight fires. The insuring fire office recompensated the other offices whose men who had assisted. The “erroneous myth”, is said to have originated only in the 1920s. Originally writing in 1692-3, Daniel Defoe noted that the firemen were “very active and diligent” in helping to put out fires, “whether in houses insured or not insured”. Only two occasions have been reported (in 1871 & 1895), though, where insurance companies threatened the authorities that they would cease attending fires in uninsured properties. With no reward, no water, and no insurance interest in a burning building, it is not difficult to envisage firemen standing back on occasion, jeering and generally interfering with rival brigades fighting a fire in which they did have an interest. Or, alternatively, simply packing up and going home. Arguably, therefore, the legend of insurance fire brigades letting uninsured buildings burn originated in the first half of the 18th century.
- Comment on American cops think they're what American firemen ARE. 5 weeks ago:
Once upon a time fire brigades were private entities operated by insurance companies. When they heard of a fire nearby, they’d roll up and only take action if the plaque on the building had their company name on it. Domestic authorities these days certainly resemble that behaviour.
- Comment on kurzgesagt – AI Slop Is Killing Our Channel 1 month ago:
I’m unsure we are talking about the same comment. The misinformation is the claim the Gates foundation is continuing to fund Kurzgesagt, when that clearly isn’t the case. This incorrect information is veiled by beginning the statement with the truth of the 2015 grant.
Insofar as the reputational damage Kurzgesagt has incurred, I’m not sure there’s much meat on that bone. Sure, you might believe they have fallen from grace or some such, but as I pointed out in another comment here, we can’t just connect everything under the sun and say ‘group A is bad because groups B through Y are all next to one another and with group Z doing all those injustices, group A is complicit in those crimes’.
To me, the question of whether Kurzgesagt is a Gates mouthpiece is pretty cut and dry. A few reasons for this, but the most glaring is simply that the money didn’t keep coming, and it wasn’t much money to begin with. I wouldn’t be going out of my way to talk up my employer to clients if my last bonus was a decade ago and didn’t even cover my rent for the month I got it.
- Comment on kurzgesagt – AI Slop Is Killing Our Channel 1 month ago:
Thank you for linking that video and doing what you can to share these conflict free sources you hold in such esteem.
- Comment on kurzgesagt – AI Slop Is Killing Our Channel 1 month ago:
Sorry, I didn’t think the word ‘continued’ would have needed underlining for anyone that could read what I wrote.
Using a piece of factual information to prop up false information within the same sentence is how false narratives take hold.
- Comment on kurzgesagt – AI Slop Is Killing Our Channel 1 month ago:
They accepted, and continue to accept a great amount of money from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
It’s interesting how any false narrative starts with a granule of truth.
Kurzgesagt was indeed provided $570,000 in 2015. That money was paid out across the following four years.
They have not continued to accept any amount of money from the Gates foundation.
- Comment on kurzgesagt – AI Slop Is Killing Our Channel 1 month ago:
I did a few searches and while I didn’t find that quote from Kurzgesagt’s CEO, I did find the contribution listed from a decade ago on the Gates foundation website. $570,000 paid out over four years. They also gave NPR $2,000,000 the next year.
Since I didn’t find the CEOs quote you’ve mentioned, I can only question the context around it. Would those videos not have been made because the Gates foundation specifically tied the funding to those videos being created? Or would they not have been made because Kurzgesagt didn’t have the money to do so otherwise?
Regardless, Kurzgesagt is a private company and if they wanted to conceal hidden agendas by corporate contributors, they would just keep quiet - not openly acknowledge that they made content with money given to them by some larger organisation.
If we’re going to denounce any group of people that are connected via Bacon’s Law to a disastrous corporate industry, the moral high ground will be unachievable for the entirety of our species.
- Comment on Are Cars Just Becoming Giant Smartphones on Wheels? 2 months ago:
The simplicity of the Slate interior is fantastic. They developed a screenless touch screen that you can rotate without even looking at them. I wish I were in the market for this type of vehicle.
Interior photo
- Comment on Proton Mail Suspended Journalist Accounts at Request of Cybersecurity Agency 2 months ago:
Small shoe.
My perception of Proton was never that users would be kept safe from governments, but that users would be kept away from advertisers.
- Comment on Signal announces a backup feature that includes 100MB of storage for texts and the last 45 days' worth of media for free, or 100GB of storage for $1.99/month 2 months ago:
Is Signal equivalent in scale to iMessage or WhatsApp? Does it come preinstalled on devices as well? All three are tools, I agree, however one of these things is not like the others. The average toolbox will have Phillips and Robertson screwdrivers, but not a Torx type.
Signal takes at least a grain of interest to even get a user to install it, whereas iMessage is already there ready to go and that suits most people just fine. The question I asked was based on my incorrect assumption that centred in the Venn diagram of people whom bother to use Signal, read a technology forum, and look at an article about backups, there would also be an overlap with people that already had a backup solution in place.
Your Marlinspike comment notwithstanding, thank you for demonstrating that I was wrong. I should have remembered most people just want to drive a car, not concern themselves with how or why the wheels go round.
- Comment on Signal announces a backup feature that includes 100MB of storage for texts and the last 45 days' worth of media for free, or 100GB of storage for $1.99/month 2 months ago:
It does strike me as funny that some fixate on the ‘why bother’ question when viewing what amounts to be another person’s hobby.
- Comment on Signal announces a backup feature that includes 100MB of storage for texts and the last 45 days' worth of media for free, or 100GB of storage for $1.99/month 2 months ago:
Well my point was not that every random maintenance task under the sun gets done and ticked off a mile long list.
It seems a reasonable guess that a person whose hobby is building custom mechanical keyboards probably does keep it clean. I figured people using an encrypted messaging system with backups enabled would probably go to the trouble of ensuring those backups didn’t live in one place.
From your comment and a few others, it’s evident I was wrong in this thought. Among other things, it seems some people don’t want backups at all, which is a bit surprising to me. That’s why I asked the question.
- Comment on Signal announces a backup feature that includes 100MB of storage for texts and the last 45 days' worth of media for free, or 100GB of storage for $1.99/month 2 months ago:
Are people not copying their backup off their device periodically?
Personally I’d find it useful to create backups by year so the process doesn’t take twenty minutes and wouldn’t create a massive backup file.
A couple years ago I had to make an effort of sending gallery links instead of sharing images and video directly through Signal since my backup file had grown so large. It’s a bit arduous.
- Comment on breakfast 2 months ago:
I wouldn’t have guessed before this image that a hundred blueberries would fit in a dish that small.
- Comment on What are some franchises with characters that personify countries? 2 months ago:
While not about France, the prominent example that comes to mind is Star Wars personifying the United States as the Empire.
