theparadox

@theparadox@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I tire of this life⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  At least until the corrupting force of micro-plastic-capitalism causes your house to get seized and you must begin the adventure of a lifetime to retrieve it!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What options of resistance are programmers creating to not submit to AI culture?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think it’s at the point where it helps people code more easily, but maybe I’m just exclusively experiencing edge cases and turning to it for the wrong uses. I’ve only had failures. Hallucinations that waste my time, and flawed algorithms.

  My favorite was a few weeks ago when I was having a rough day and needed a complicated algorithm to make a decision based on an inputted date. I told it that if I plug in value A to its algorithm, the answer is wrong. It went step by step explaining its "reasoning"and it returned the correct answer and then at the pivotal step it plugged in a different year than was in A, for just that step, and then proceeded to confirm to itself that if you plug in A, you get the right answer.

  Maybe someday it will help, or maybe some problems it is useful for, I’ve just never had that experience.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Metal on the inside, business on the outside⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Lol, my partner loves BTBAM. I was going to mention them as well.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Metal on the inside, business on the outside⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I know Plini, will check out The Omnific!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Metal on the inside, business on the outside⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Another great band!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Metal on the inside, business on the outside⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Arch Echo
  Intervals
  I’m also a fan, I just didn’t want to go too nuts with my list because I needed to get to sleep! I’ll check out the rest.

  Also; I think mentioning Protest the Hero in the context of instrumental music does a HUGE disservice to Rody Walker’s vocal talents and lyrics.

  Agreed. I honestly mentioned PtH just to mention them. I often can’t work to their music because my brain fills in their vocals for me, which is sometimes too distracting.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What options of resistance are programmers creating to not submit to AI culture?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I disagree. Even high level languages will consistently produce the same results. There may be low level differences depending on the compiler and the system’s architecture but if those are consistent you will get the same results.

  AI coding isn’t an extremely human readable higher level programming language. Using an LLM to generate code adds a literal black box and the interpretation of the user and LLM’s human language (which humans can’t even do consistently) to the equation.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Metal on the inside, business on the outside⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I love working with instrumental metal, typically prog or “djenty” stuff, in the background. Sometimes a bit of post-rock.

  I was surprised how many of us there are. A lot of “professionals” I know listen to metal. Engineers, developers, IT folks. It will randomly come up and everyone will say something along the lines of “Oh, really, you too?”

  Been listening to a lot of Their Dogs Were Astronauts recently. In the interest of sharing my personal favorites bands to work to, because I found a number of them from random mentions in forums:
  Their Dogs Were Astronauts (mostly instrumental)
  Wide Eyes (mostly instrumental)
  Caligula’s Horse (instrumental only tracks available)
  Polyphia (mostly instrumental) Protest The Hero (instrumental only tracks available)
  TesseracT (instrumental only tracks available)
  Apocalyptica (started covering Metallica as cellos quartet instrumentals, now has a number of original songs with guest vocalists)
  Collapse Under The Empire (post rock, mostly instrumental)
  Parhelia (post rock, mostly instrumental)
  Opeth (occasional instrumental tracks, started as death metal, evolved into more prog metal)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Simpler times?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This was kind of me in early high school. There was this badass goth chick who, looking back, was very likely “flirting” with me quite a bit. Admittedly, I had my own absurd style that definitely had shades of goth too.

  I recall she bit my arm so hard she drew blood… on more than one occasion. I absolutely had a thing for her so I didn’t mind. She was a grade or two older and had a boyfriend who was either from another town, dropped out, or already graduated. I’d never met or seen him though. Me and her did hang out a few times in random secluded places after school or during down time but nothing romantic ever happened - just talking.

  Looking back on it as a more mature adult, and vaguely recalling her stories, I am pretty sure she had a fucked up childhood and home life. I wouldn’t be surprised if the boyfriend situation was more fucked up than I realized.

  Shortly after graduating high school, I met some people who actually knew the guy (he had allegedly been their dealer a few years prior lol) and apparently I looked a lot like him, only I was a few inches taller and less skinny. The number of times I was mistaken for him was crazy. I guess she had a type? I hope she’s doing ok.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Could a minority in US Senate essentially disolve the federal state?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Here’s the problem: SCOTUS more or less Ok’d the previously illegal “pocket rescission”.

  This means the administration can literally decide to not fund anything appropriated by Congress. That makes negotiations for funding anything pointless. There has to be a line somewhere. At least (for now I think) the administration can’t fund things without congressional approval. It’s literally the only leverage Democrats have.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"I’m Canceling My Subscription": Xbox Players Call to "Boycott" Game Pass "Hard" Over 50% Price Increase As Microsoft’s Website Crashes from Mass Cancellations⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Friday, Oct 3 is one of those sales… tomorrow as of this comment.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Deaf people get to avoid a lot of arguments⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  During one ASL argument I witnessed, outside a Six Flags if I remember correctly, I saw something that stuck with me. One person literally turned their back from the other person. It never really struck me until then that it’s so hard to ignore someone yelling at you, but all you have to do with ASL is not look.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Marriage is FOMO⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t disagree but I think there is more too it. Many forces working in tandem to push people into marriage.

  Most simply, marriage is glorified by society. It’s considered the ultimate declaration of love (within normal circumstances). Humans often feel the emotion so strongly and wish to express it. Society tells them this is how they should do it. It’s also viewed as an achievement or a measure of love by many societies. You aren’t committed (married)? Do you have cold feet? Do you not love them enough to marry them?

  I may be viewed as one of those people for saying it, but there are a lot of pressures to conform to those around you. There is a certain life script - a series of things that those around you have done and expect you to do because… that’s just what you do. You find someone, get married, have kids, etc. If you don’t do these things or take too long to do these things you are defacto weird. You’ll be slowly ostracized, gossiped about, avoided, suspected. You won’t share the life experiences of those around it. It will be awkward. You won’t fit in unless you manage to find enough atypical people to surround yourself with.

  Also, most governments create a society where it is beneficial to marry, to encourage stable families and population growth. Certain circumstances can negate the benefits or even counter them, as some commenters have brought up, but in most cases married couples are given boons from the government.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why Shouldn't I Use A Small Gaming PC⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Three concerns:

  • Heat - Will degrade faster and perform worse than it likely can because it will throttle itself
  • Upgradability - Looks like only SSD and Memory are serviceable.
  • Warranty - How is customer service? I have heard mixed reviews on most mini PC manufacturers.
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Perfection.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  This reminds me of my elementary school computer teacher. That teacher, and his teaching us LogoWriter, changed my life.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Been seeing a lot of posts about replacing Spotify and such, so I wrote up a guide on how I did just that⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  This is a dumb question but I’ve really wanted to use Pangolin and I have trouble finding it clearly explained whether or not it works, with authentication, for applications that are not browser based. For example, if I wanted to connect to my self hosted home git server from VSC via ssh would that be possible through Pangolin? Obviously I could use it to log in to the web interface but what about apps/applications that I need to punch into my home network? The authentication is browser-based so in my mind it would not.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Been seeing a lot of posts about replacing Spotify and such, so I wrote up a guide on how I did just that⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve been working on the same and ran into the same issue. If not Bandcamp, I’ve had success on Qobuz. Their streaming payments to artists, last I checked, is substantially higher than anywhere else I’ve looked. I’m hoping the same is true of their music sales but I’m sure half of that is dependent on the labels, which likely have something to do with their not being on Bandcamp… or maybe that’s just my cynicism. I know little about how things work in the industry I just want to pay artists for their amazing work.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Train your brain⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s also ok if you are using it in an effort to make workers obsolete and upend the entire economy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How long do we have before PCs get locked bootloaders and corporations ban installation of "non-approved" software? (for context: Google is restricting sideloading worldwide on Android ETA 2027)⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The situation is actually quite awful. I remember when TPM was palladium and there were apocalyptic talks in tech conferences about it being the end of general purpose computers. The idea that your computer could veto what it was used for.

  The backlash only set them back a few decades apparently. Everyone forgot and now it’s a literal requirement for the latest Windows and in two months they’ll stop supporting the old Windows…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Metal genres⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It seems Tidal is streaming only. There is Qobuz but I hear them mentioned by people looking for Hi-Fi. Their streaming service seems to pay higher than average.

  I guess I’ll just have to assume the compensation is decent for digital purchases as well. Having Hi-Fi audio quality doesn’t hurt - I can always transcode it if I need to stream or convert it if I need to cram it in a small storage device.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Metal genres⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Random question - anyone know a good site to buy digital music that pays the artists somewhat decently? I’ve got a few artists I need to get albums from after bailing on Spotify and they aren’t on Bandcamp and don’t has album sales linked to their official sites. Hell, even physical copies of some albums are hard to come by in the US.

  I saw “7Digital” mentioned somewhere but I see there multiple listings for the same album at different prices (literally the exact same album, exact same quality) which makes me suspect it’s not as legit as I had hoped.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It Took Many Years And Billions Of Dollars, But Microsoft Finally Invented A Calculator That Is Wrong Sometimes⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think it would be infinitely better for an LLM to walk a user through the use of the formula in their specific use case rather than do it for them… but that won’t sell as well because most people don’t want to learn to use a spreadsheet they just want to do a thing and move on to something else. This is how it is sold and this is why it is used, in most cases. It’s not a hammer that people misused despite there being nothing in the sales material about it’s usefulness as a bludgeoning device against other humans. LLMs, spreadsheet copilot included, is commonly packaged and sold as a magic solution that will just do the work for you, with an asterisk and fine print stating that it’s for entertainment purposes only and that whoever isn’t liable for any false information or whatever bullshit clause they come up with. People use it as it is sold to them and that’s what worries me.

  another optional tool at users’ disposal.

  I just had my place of work upgrade me to Windows 11 this week. In order to install office, I was directed by Microsoft to download the “Office 365 Copilot” app which downloaded the office installer. Copilot is not subtle. It may be technically optional but good lord does it want you to know about and use it for everything.

  And no, I didn’t try it yet. I will likely be trying it and Gemini soon out of curiosity. Last time I tried to use it I was given hallucinated nonexistant python modules and powershell commands that wasted my time. It’s been a year or so though.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It Took Many Years And Billions Of Dollars, But Microsoft Finally Invented A Calculator That Is Wrong Sometimes⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  it’s not a replacement for a human brain, it’s an assistant.

  This is what I think AI and automation is generally good at and should be used for - mitigating unpleasant or repetitive work so that the focus of the user is productivity/creativity.

  This is what this integration is for - it’s not a replacement for a human brain, it’s an assistant. As are all LLMs.

  The context is something we disagree on wholeheartedly. Those funding and fundraising for AI and an enormous subset of those using are not looking to use AI in the way we are talking about. The prior are hoping to use AI to extract value from it at the expense of people who would otherwise need to be paid, or they and claim it can do anything and everything. Those using it, many of them, do not have a sufficient understanding to comprehend the solution. They are basically “vibe coding”. Tell the LLM to do something they aren’t knowledgeable about, then keep telling it to fix the problems until they don’t see problems anymore. Yes, spreadsheet formulas are likely simpler than an app but I know people who use AI for Google Sheets and they rarely test any results, let alone rigorously.

  Anecdotal, sure, but I don’t have enough faith in humanity to presume everyone else is doing something wildly different.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It Took Many Years And Billions Of Dollars, But Microsoft Finally Invented A Calculator That Is Wrong Sometimes⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think the concern is that you can come up with a number of formulas that will get correct answers for some combinations of values and not others.

  If you do not understand the logic of the formula, and what each function does, how do you verify they are correct and will always give you the results you think they will? Double check every result in it’s entirety?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Feeling insecure about going to a 'girlie pop' concert as a 30 year old man, am i overthinking it?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Be aware of the venue and how crowded it could be. I’ve been to plenty of metal shows in my youth and been waaay to close the speakers. Surprisingly, what fucked my ears worse than anything was when I got invited by a girl friend to see the band “Live” (known for the song “The Dolphin’s Cry”) at a standing room venue. I was only like 20 but still being packed in tight among countless shrieking girls/young women gave me tinnitus for a week and my hearing has never been the same since.

  Really though, don’t worry about how you are perceived. Just have fun, but maybe bring ear plugs just in case. Hell, I likely should have worn earplugs for most of my concerts regardless.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ICE agents pointed guns at a US citizen when she walked out on to her yard to ask why they were arresting her (legal immigrant) partner.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  They people who most vocally claim it is for use against a tyrannical government are happy that their government is abusing their black and brown neighbors.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Women are anonymously spilling tea about men in their cities on viral app⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  For me, it’s hard to say one or the other is worse. It might depend on circumstances. Is someone making a false claim of rape worse than someone raping someone, or worse than a child rapist, serial rapist, etc? In damage collectively done to all victims, quite possibly. However, the intention of the false witness isn’t usually to delegitimize the claims of other victims. It’s usually shortsited and desperate - a desire to avoid social consequences or to punish the accused. I suspect such false claims are also more common among a younger, naive, immature population. It’s fucked up and selfish, surely. As fucked up as feeling you have the right to use another person’s body for your own physical pleasure or to assert dominance or whatever shit goes through a rapists mind? I don’t know.

  Frankly, I’ve never been the victim or perpetrator of either crime, nor have I even been in a situation where either crossed my mind. All I’m qualified to say is that I wish neither crimes would happen to anyone.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Women are anonymously spilling tea about men in their cities on viral app⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  People who pretend to be victims upset me almost as much as people who victimize others (they are not equal, but it is still so fucked up). Victims have a rough enough time already being taken seriously. It doesn’t take more than a few false positives to completely take the air out of legitimate accusations from victims. I wish there was some way to solve this problem.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Gen Z's 'overemployed' solution for a broken economy: 5 jobs and $3K per day. It's totally legal⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  AI will likely not be taking many jobs - it’s continuing to be unreliable for most circumstances.

  That’s not to say all circumstances. Regardless, the industries that use it heavily will likely destroy themselves. Having people doing that work is how you prepare them to do the more difficult work that AI is even more unlikely to succeed at… so you are starving yourself of a workforce for the more important jobs in your industry. The pool of people with X years of experience will shrink to nothing, and they won’t be willing to hide newbies.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's just loss.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Quick Internet search… ourworldindata.org/wild-mammals-birds-biomass

  They are referring to biomass.

  • 1 cow ~ 1200 lbs / 545 kg

  • 1 rat ~ 0.5 lbs / 0.25 kg

  1 cow ~ 2400 rats by biomass