gramie
@gramie@lemmy.ca
- Comment on Exclusive: Microsoft is finally shutting down Skype in May 2 days ago:
I remember a theory that the US government asked Microsoft to purchase Skype and change it from p2p to server-based, so that they could intercept decrypted communications.
Skype was originally made by a European company (Latvian?).
- Comment on Is there any hope for Ukraine to survive as an independent state now that trump is desperately wishing for a peace treaty with Russia, even bypassing Ukraine? 1 week ago:
Being Ukrainian puts a completely different spin on it. My comment still holds true for Americans, but I would rather not see Ukrainians ground under the heel of another dictator, especially one enabled by the stupidification of the United States.
- Comment on Is there any hope for Ukraine to survive as an independent state now that trump is desperately wishing for a peace treaty with Russia, even bypassing Ukraine? 1 week ago:
I’m sorry, but I don’t see it. The century of American supremacy is coming to a close. You may not want to admit it, because everyone in the US has been thought about American exceptionalism since they started school. China will rise, as will Europe possibly. I think Russia is failing as well. Its current lashing out is the end of their term as a great power.
The US is a big country, and the fall will be slow, but I don’t think there is a way to stop it now. I suspect that future historians will trace it back to the Nixon era. Come to think of it, every Republican president since then has also been really, really shitty when it came to preserving the health of the democracy.
- Comment on Microsoft Study Finds Relying on AI Kills Your Critical Thinking Skills 2 weeks ago:
Because he has the knowledge and experience to completely understand the final product. It used an approach that he hadn’t thought of, that is better suited to the problem.
- Comment on Microsoft Study Finds Relying on AI Kills Your Critical Thinking Skills 2 weeks ago:
I was talking to someone who does software development, and he described his experiments with AI for coding.
He said that he was able to use it successfully and come to a solution that was elegant and appropriate.
However, what he did not do was learn how to solve the problem, or indeed learn anything that would help him in future work.
- Comment on Brazil condemns US after deportees arrive handcuffed 5 weeks ago:
We are all guilty of crimes at some point. Maybe speeding, or parking somewhere without permission, driving when you may be intoxicated, taking some office supplies home, not noticing that your license plate had expired, a million other things.
The point is that any one of us could be arrested and convicted if the authorities decided it was worth their while to.
You are in favor of these people being deported without even judicial review, because you are in no danger of being harmed by the government’s actions. Yet.
- Comment on Got electrocuted today 2 months ago:
You see, there’s different kinds of dead: there’s sort of dead, mostly dead, and all dead. – Miracle Max
- Comment on Japan prosecutor bows in apology to former death row inmate 2 months ago:
And that’s why this prosecutor is making the apology. Everyone knows that he had nothing to do with the original verdict and sentencing, so he looks noble and there is no one alive to actually take the blame.
They acknowledge that the system is flawed, but no one has to do anything about it.
- Comment on Four tourists die after suspected tainted alcohol poisoning in Laos 3 months ago:
I didn’t see any mention of Laotians being affected. Was this restricted only to tourists at a bar, or did only the tourist deaths matter for the new cycle?
- Comment on Is the Wii good? 3 months ago:
I got a Wii with the Wii Fit balance board for my dad to work on his balance and coordination as he aged. He never really got into it, but I think that could be an absolutely killer “game” for elderly people.
- Comment on Infintiy Infintiy Infintiy Infintiy Infintiy Infintiy Infintiy Infintiy 3 months ago:
But given infinite time, could OP spell “infinity” correctly?
- Comment on Using AI generated code will make you a bad programmer. 4 months ago:
I have done pair programming with a junior partner, and I found it extremely beneficial. Taking the time to talk out my ideas and logic invariably helped make them clearer in my mind and realize pitfalls much sooner than I otherwise would have.
I had to explain things clearly and logically, and he was bright enough to ask good questions and point out typos as I was coding.
- Comment on SMTP provider 5 months ago:
I use Brevo as well. Free tier: 300 emails per day.
Very happy with them.
- Comment on DEF CON 32 - Disenshittify or die! How hackers can seize the means of computation - Cory Doctorow 5 months ago:
A lot of his science fiction writing is available with a Creative Commons license, meaning that you can download and read it for free. I really enjoy his quirky, sardonic style.
craphound.com/tag/creative-commons/
Gets you to a page where you can download.
- Comment on I'm the developer of WalkScape, the RuneScape inspired fitness MMORPG where you progress by walking IRL. We're now accepting more people to the Closed Beta! 5 months ago:
I’ve been using this for about 3 months. I would estimate that my dog walks are now about twice as long as they used to be. I don’t really enjoy walking, but this gives me just enough incentive to do it everyday and, if I feel like taking a shortcut, taking the long way instead.
- Comment on What's the oldest game anyone here has played in 2024? 6 months ago:
I have the set of Infocom text adventure games. I think the earliest ones came out in about 1981 or 82. I still fire one up now and then for a nostalgia hit. I bought a few when they came out, but couldn’t afford more.
You can play some of them online, in your browser. Of course there are thousands of text adventure games (a.k.a. interactive fiction) available for free. Definitely worth checking out! And look at Inform, a language and IDE for creating these games by using more or less standard English.
To protect against piracy, most of these games required physical objects that were included in the game box. They are known as feelies. There are plenty of places on the web where you can find all the feelings you need.
- Comment on Does anyone else feel like fireworks are a complete waste of money and a ridiculous amount of unnecessary Pollution? 7 months ago:
Are you saying “Whatabout…”?
- Comment on Does anyone else feel like fireworks are a complete waste of money and a ridiculous amount of unnecessary Pollution? 7 months ago:
instead of death
Unless you count birds that abandon their nests, and other animals that flee their homes. Or the heavy metals and other chemicals that are added to the environment. Or the significant increases in particulate matter in the air.
- Comment on Why not serve fried chicken on Juneteenth? How is it different from serving corned beef on St. Patrick’s day? 8 months ago:
Corned beef seems to have originated in Ireland and Scotland, but was commonly used throughout the British Empire for the past 400 years. I assume the cooking and salting process makes it last much longer without going bad, which would make sense for long voyages.
- Comment on France mobilises police to regain control of New Caledonia airport road 9 months ago:
Is it strategically important? They have a very small military presence there (less than 2000 normally), no Naval Base, and the nickel mines are in the process of shutting down and leaving, partially because of severe problems obtaining adequate electric power.
I’m also unsure why non-native people who have lived on New Caledonia for more than 10 years should be excluded from having a say in the government of the island, given that most of them are French and the island did not choose independence.
I can understand why the Kanaks do want keep the control they have, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they should.
- Comment on France mobilises police to regain control of New Caledonia airport road 9 months ago:
You should be aware that the people who have been rioting and burning are French citizens, but they are actually the local people of New Caledonia, known as Kanaks. There have been three referenda to decide whether the island should declare independence from France, all of which failed. The separatists, after losing three times, have been trained and assisted by Azerbaijan, who are angry at France’s support of Armenia.
Source: I have a family member on New Caledonia.
- Comment on Australians stranded in New Caledonia 'running out of food' amid civil unrest 9 months ago:
I have a family member in New Caledonia. He said that things have settled down somewhat. He also sent an interesting article describing how Azerbaijan is using unrest in the Pacific to punish France for supporting Armenia in a territorial dispute. The article said that the leaders of the violence in New Caledonia were trained by Azerbaijani security forces.
- Comment on After announcing increased prices, Spotify to Pay Songwriters About $150 Million Less Next Year 9 months ago:
I think that you are off by about an order of magnitude. Spotify pays $0.003 per stream, and title apparently pays $0.01 -0.05.
- Comment on With two Boeing whistleblowers dead in one month, either Boeing is actively killing them, or there are enough whistleblowers that this rate of death is not statistically significant 9 months ago:
Or, as The Onion reports, Boeing intentionally hires employees with suicidal tendencies.
- Comment on Calculus made easy 9 months ago:
- Comment on Calculus made easy 9 months ago:
This exact explanation is in the book: calculusmadeeasy.org/4.html
- Comment on Calculus made easy 9 months ago:
I also studied chemical engineering, and throughout high school and university that was exactly it. Calculus was a kind of magic, and you just had to learn all the spells.
With this book I finally understood why the derivative of x^2 is 2x.
- Comment on Calculus made easy 9 months ago:
The online version can be found at calculusmadeeasy.org
35 years after graduating from engineering school, this book helped me finally understand why calculus works, instead of just learning how to mechanically apply it.
- Comment on When did breasts become a thing that needed to be concealed in public and why? 10 months ago:
But this ignores all the cultures where women’s breasts are not considered sexually. I lived in Africa, and it was actually a big adjustment for me, even though the local people’s attitudes were changing due to Western media. 25 years of Canadian upbringing made it hard not to look when women or teenage girls took off their shirts. But that was my problem, not theirs.
And not just Africa. In rural Japan japan, before WWII, women were often topless.
- Comment on First game you played 1 year ago:
Original pong, at the Toronto international boat Show, probably in about 1977.