bloup
@bloup@lemmy.sdf.org
- Comment on Why aren't the Mediterranean, Black Sea, Red Sea, the Baltic etc. considered Gulfs? 3 days ago:
to me “sea” doesn’t mean anything except for “general water region, smaller than an ocean”. I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with considering those three to be “gulfs”, but I think that people don’t usually think of them that way because unless you studied the geography carefully, you might not even notice that they actually are connected to the rest of the ocean.
by the way, fun fact: there is actually a sea that isn’t connected to the ocean and why we don’t call it a lake, I really don’t understand. but that’s the Caspian Sea.
- Comment on The first folding e-reader is smaller than a paperback 1 week ago:
I read a lot of technical material that has lots of diagrams and it’s difficult with an E reader paging back-and-forth between the text and the diagram that I’m trying to understand
- Comment on The first folding e-reader is smaller than a paperback 1 week ago:
I never understood why nobody made an E reader that you could read “like a book” that just had two screens and a hinge
- Comment on Proton 2024 Lifetime account fundraiser for online freedom | Ends on January 5th 3 months ago:
The irony is, I like proton because I don’t think you should trust literally any business to behave altruistically, including proton. By structuring the business in the manner that they have, I don’t just have to trust them. I just have to trust that the people in charge don’t want to go to jail or get fined, which is literally not true for any business owned by private individuals.
- Comment on Proton 2024 Lifetime account fundraiser for online freedom | Ends on January 5th 3 months ago:
First of all, I did not say that proton is opposing capitalism. I said that to oppose capitalism does not mean you have to be opposed to free enterprise. As in, you can be opposed to an economy comprised primarily of capitalist institutions without being opposed to the concept of free enterprise. Proton is simply an example of such a business, which can be used as evidence for the fact that it is entirely possible to start businesses in a free market economy which are actually interested in solving problems as opposed to using the existence of problems as a vehicle to enrich a class of shareholders.
Second of all, “it’s filling a niche created by other companies’ poor privacy policies” is essentially nothing more than a restatement of the second sentence I wrote, which I will repeat here: “I pointed out that as long as it’s a for-profit corporation, it would have not have any financial or legal incentive to continue pursuing its mission if it ever achieved a certain level of market share.”. You’re right that them adopting a nonprofit structure doesn’t change that, but it does change their ability to sell out their customers at the discretion of a class of shareholders, unlike any business which is owned by private individuals.
- Comment on Proton 2024 Lifetime account fundraiser for online freedom | Ends on January 5th 3 months ago:
I remember one time I criticized proton for positioning itself as community oriented while still being a for-profit corporation. I pointed out that as long as it’s a for-profit corporation, it would have not have any financial or legal incentive to continue pursuing its mission if it ever achieved a certain level of market share. But then several months later, they actually announced that they were going to put their money where their mouth is, in transition to a nonprofit structure.
I think that proton is perhaps the greatest example at the moment that to oppose capitalism does not mean you have to be opposed to free enterprise, and people should always think about this sort of thing when they listen to any kind of business leader try to convince them that it’s actually really important that they be allowed to cash out whenever they want.
I can’t imagine that they’re set up is perfect, but I definitely am going to have to give this offer serious consideration.
- Comment on Assassination is a Leaky Abstraction 4 months ago:
The most amazing part is not even that long ago, everyone agreed this is how it worked, even the business owners. I remember recently watching the 1923 silent film “Safety Last!” starring Harold Lloyd. I was very struck by a particular scene in the film where the owner of the store Harold Lloyd works at says:
“I’d give $1000 for a new idea that would attract an enormous crowd to our store. Something is wrong with our exploitation! We simply are not getting the publicity that our position in the commercial world calls for.”
This character is not presented as some kind of villain or saying something wrong. He’s just talking about how everyone understands business to work, by exploitation, which has always simply meant taking advantage of some kind of opportunity, even when people like Marx talked about it.
- Comment on Legal complications await if OpenAI tries to shake off control by the nonprofit that owns the rapidly growing tech company 5 months ago:
The public needs to understand that this is literally people trying to take away some thing that belongs to the public, without having to even pay you for it
- Comment on This GameCube Mini Is Downright Adorable | Time Extension 5 months ago:
“Nintendo take note”
this person has no clue what they are asking for.
- Comment on Gemini AI tells the user to die — the answer appeared out of nowhere when the user asked Google's Gemini for help with his homework 5 months ago:
I don’t use it for writing directly, but I do like to use it for worldbuilding. Because I can think of a general concept that could be explored in so many different ways, it’s nice to be able to just give it to an LLM and ask it to consider all of the possible ways it could imagine such an idea playing out. it also kind of doubles as a test because I usually have some sort of idea for what I’d like, and if it comes up with something similar on its own that kind of makes me feel like it would be something which would easily resonate with people. Additionally, a lot of the times it will come up with things that I hadn’t considered that are totally worth exploring.
- Comment on An MSX Core Has Just Been Released For The Analogue Pocket | Time Extension 5 months ago:
Personally I don’t even think the price is unreasonable however I have no respect for businesses which engage in FOMO tactics, especially for premium products.
- Comment on Bluesky says it won’t train AI on your posts 5 months ago:
Better BlueSky than Twitter, but I hope everyone understands by now that there’s literally no reason to take a business’s word for anything unless they somehow have legally obligated themselves to be committed to doing that thing forever. Otherwise you can only trust them to keep doing it for as long as it’s worth it from an economic perspective. I’m not saying that it can’t ever happen that a business acts out of pure goodwill, but I would never count on it.
- Comment on NES Platformer Micro Mages heading to PlayStation | Retro Gaming News 24/7 6 months ago:
Just to clarify to anybody who who might be confused. It’s going to be on PlayStation store not on the PlayStation console which came out almost 30 years ago