Meron35
@Meron35@lemmy.world
- Comment on I love funsubs so much! 2 days ago:
The commie fansubs for monogatari series second are so peak.
For the koimonogatari arc the opening switches between modern/classic art styles. During the classic style portions, the fansubs change to that hideous yellow with black outline font prevalent during the VHS era.
And it’s glorious.
- Comment on 'EVANGELION' New Anime Series written by Yoko Taro Officially Announced at the end of 'EVANGELION 30+'! 4 days ago:
Spoiler
If we got bad end in the first loop, good end in the second (?) movie loop, does this mean we finally get the true ending in the third loop?
- Comment on Strange Times 4 days ago:
Savage
- Comment on Microsoft claims "2026 is the moment" for AI PCs, but its essay-length beginner explanation only creates more confusion — Is it any wonder adoption is slow? 5 days ago:
Eh, I don’t think NPUs are ready to be marketed so heavily, but they’ve been around for a while and do get used.
They’re basically a rebranded tensor processing unit, think a more specialised GPU that’s even more energy efficient at tensor/linear algebra.
It’s mostly used in more technical applications, such as image/audio/video processing, machine learning, or really anything maths heavy. Apple’s M series had NPUs, and are an understated reason why they perform extraordinarily well in a lot of scientific applications.
Uses for consumers are not as compelling (especially on laptop/desktop), mostly faster/more efficient subtitle generation, face recognition, and maybe blurring your zoom background.
- Comment on LibreOffice blasts 'fake open source' OnlyOffice for working with Microsoft to lock users in 5 days ago:
It’s only available as a -bin, which means it belongs in the bin
- Comment on Get. Out 1 week ago:
That tracks for finance though. Many in that industry are the grind hard in your 20s-30s, retire in Thailand in your 40s type.
- Comment on Cops Are Buying ‘GeoSpy’, an AI That Geolocates Photos in Seconds 1 week ago:
Eh, kind of both.
When researchers peeked into which areas of the image were being used, it showed that the tiny camera watermark from the Google Streetview car was being used by the model a lot.
That is, the recognition system had learned all the routes every Google Street view car had taken, and was using that in its recognition process.
Not all images have this watermark though, so in the cases the watermark didn’t exist it then resorts to more traditional geoguessr tactics.
- Comment on Borrowing money against their stuff to get more stuff to borrow money... 1 week ago:
Nope, they definitely do. The specific assets and schemes differ across wealth levels and also across time as laws change, but the general principles of finding and exploiting loopholes remain the same.
The middle class negatively gears property despite the property gaining in capital terms. The ultra wealthy negatively gears sports teams despite the team gaining in capital terms.
The middle class deducts fancy electronics and cars as “hobbies”. The ultra wealthy deducts entire luxury hotels and horse racing clubs as “hobbies”.
The middle class stuffs income into retirement accounts. The ultra wealthy stuffs assets, which are way more fungible in value, into retirement accounts.
The Secret IRS Files Archives — ProPublica - www.propublica.org/series/the-secret-irs-files
Ten Ways Billionaires Avoid Taxes on an Epic Scale — ProPublica - propublica.org/…/billionaires-tax-avoidance-techn…
More Than Half of America’s 100 Richest People Exploit Special Trusts to Avoid Estate Taxes — ProPublica - propublica.org/…/more-than-half-of-americas-100-r…
- Comment on Borrowing money against their stuff to get more stuff to borrow money... 1 week ago:
A basic one is negative gearing + trusts + cheap loans.
Negative gearing allows you to deduct/combine different income streams together to reduce your taxable income, and hence tax liability.
Traditionally used by middle/upper middle class to deduct mortgage interest payments and reduce their taxable income.
Rich(er) people combine this with trusts to distribute income/expenses among trust beneficiaries for something more tax advantageous. Usually this is someone like a spouse, child, or extended family member.
Add on the fact that rich people get cheaper loans, which often makes it cheaper to finance day to day life with loans, and only draw down (ie realise capital gains) after shuffling around incomes/expenses for a year.
Tax loopholes are basically legal ways to shift the timing and benefiary of income/expenses. There’s a bunch of other ones, like
- choice of depreciation calculation
- purchasing things on behalf of a “trust” or "company"
- getting paid in low tax jurisdictions
- moving money into tax advantageous retirement accounts
- Comment on ‘The whole family is destroyed’: Australia’s inheritance disputes aren’t just increasing – they’re becoming messier 1 week ago:
Ignoring the morality of it, from a purely economical and financial perspective the cost of elder care for a couple is very expensive, usually averaging around the price of a home, or most of the inheritance. It’s basically liquidate the house now to send them to a nursing home, or ask a family member and “pay” them later with the house.
Hence the typical silent agreements that the sibling who looked after the parents before death gets the majority of the inheritance.
Silent, verbal, or even legal agreements are messy though. Talk to family members with the help of a lawyer.
- Comment on The Duality of Lemmy 1 week ago:
Yes.
Spoilers for every Monster Hunter plot:
The monsters in the wild are becoming way more aggressive/crazy, resulting in not only the ecosystem going out of whack, but also endangering human settlements.
You start off as a rookie hunter by culling them, and as you work up the ranks you discover that the source of this imbalance is actually due to a mysterious new monster (not actually that mysterious because it’s usually the cover art monster).
You gradually gain more experience and kill the flagship monster, graduating low rank (the first half of the game), roll credits.
But it turns out the mysterious new monster only invaded the ecosystem because it was escaping from an even bigger threat, the new Elder Dragon of the game, whose awakening is a once in a 1000 year occurrence and is causing even more mayhem in the ecosystem.
You work up the ranks again, and slay the Elder Dragon, graduating high rank (second half of game), credits roll for second time.
Rinse and repeat for the G rank DLC/expansion, where you also get some new areas.
Canonically everything is done for the ecosystem. Gameplay wise there is significant dissonance as you genocide multiple species just for a 1% drop to upgrade your corpse dress.
- Comment on Considering that LLMs are trained on the whole of the internet, it's kind of amazing that they don't talk back to you like a condescending, smug asshole 2 weeks ago:
Microsoft Tay
Tay, Microsoft’s AI chatbot, gets a crash course in racism from Twitter | AI (artificial intelligence) | The Guardian - theguardian.com/…/tay-microsofts-ai-chatbot-gets-…
- Comment on Neocities founder stuck in chatbot hell after Bing blocked 1.5 million sites 2 weeks ago:
Kagi, the premium paid search engine, has a “small web” feature that is exactly this
- Comment on Shanghai scientists create computer chip in fiber thinner than a human hair, yet can withstand crushing force of 15.6 tons — fiber packs 100,000 transistors per centimeter 3 weeks ago:
Cybernetic wig enhancements when
- Comment on Los Angeles aims to ban single-use printer cartridges — new ordinance will target ink and toner that can't be properly recycled 4 weeks ago:
Yep, laser toner is literally plastic dust that gets rolled on then baked. That’s why it doesn’t smudge or rub off when wet - it’s plastic.
That’s why there’s so many large warnings to properly recycle toner cartridges.
Tbf as long as the toner doesn’t spill anywhere, the risk is lower than other background sources like tyre dust. Still gives me the hereby jeebies though.
How printer dust is polluting the air? – TCTEC® Innovation - tctecinnovation.com/…/how-printer-dust-is-polluti…
- Comment on Los Angeles aims to ban single-use printer cartridges — new ordinance will target ink and toner that can't be properly recycled 4 weeks ago:
Laser toner is literally micro plastic powder that gets rolled onto paper then baked, mmm
- Comment on It's barely a science. 4 weeks ago:
No need to convince me of Econ 101 BS, economists themselves are well aware of it since at least the 1980s. That’s why basically every unit of Econ above the 101 level shits on it, and any good Econ 101 shits on itself.
As a general rule of thumb, anything in economics before 1970 basically ran on vibes due to lack of data. Unfortunately, current day undergrad Econ 101 lags at least 20 years behind the current consensus.
That’s why the Card, Angrist, and Imbens paper was such a big deal. They used (natural) experimental data, and found out that using Econ 101 supply and demand to study the labour market doesn’t work. That’s why there’s an entire field called labour economics, which is only taught at the graduate level.
Most policymakers probably only learnt Econ 101 maybe 4 decades ago, so they’re impression of Econ is probably six decades out of date.
The Death of “Econ 101” - www.currentaffairs.org/…/the-death-of-econ-101
- Comment on It's barely a science. 4 weeks ago:
I’m so tired of this flack that economics gets, that it is somehow “lesser” because it is a “soft science.”
Economics does run randomised control trials. Economics does adhere to testable hypotheses. Economics does use rigorous statistics/maths.
You how sometimes grants/government programs are randomly allocated? Those are live, randomised control trials, and if you read the fine print you’ll find a project number for researchers studying the effects of rental subsidies, health insurance, etc, one of which being the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment. Those cancerous recommender algorithms, which are the culmination of millions of live A/B tests? Developed by the Econ PhDs poached by Big tech.
Oregon Medicaid health experiment - Wikipedia - en.wikipedia.org/…/Oregon_Medicaid_health_experim…
It is true that many hypotheses cannot have experiments run. But this makes it even more impressive when economists find natural experiments. For example, the 2021 Nobel Laureates Card, Angrist, and Imbens studied the effects of minimum wage by looking at the towns on the border of New Jersey/New York, which had implemented different minimum wages. They found that increasing minimum wage did not increase unemployment, completely contrary to ahem conservative wisdom.
The Prize in Economic Sciences 2021 - Popular science background - NobelPrize.org - www.nobelprize.org/prizes/…/popular-information/
In contrast, many of the supposed “hard” sciences cannot run experiments either, or also adhere to untestable simplifying assumptions. Ecology, physics, geology (just to name a few) all study systems which are too large and complex to run experiments, yet the general public does not perceive them as “soft”.
The difference is that economics is unfortunately one of those fields where lots of unqualified people (read politicians) have lots of strong opinions about, and in turn has a disproportionate influence on everyone. Those criticised austerity measures in the wake of the GFC? That was due to politicians implementing the policies of the infamous “Growth in a Time of Debt” by Reinhart-Rogoff paper, which was published as a “proceeding” and hence not peer reviewed. During the peer review process was found to contain numerous errors including incorrect excel formulas. It didn’t matter - policymakers liked the conclusion, and rushed its implementation anyway.
Growth in a Time of Debt - Wikipedia - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_in_a_Time_of_Debt
If you look into any awful policy, you will see a similar pattern. Even Milton Friedman, as an ultra hard libertarian for advocated for lowering taxes and abolishing all government benefit programs, recognised that poor people need some assistance, and so actually advocated for replacing benefits with a universal negative income tax (an even more extreme version of UBI). It didn’t matter - policymakers of the Reagan Thatcher era heard the lowering taxes and cutting welfare part, and didn’t do the UBI.
- Comment on Beyond the Familiar: Top 5 Sci-Fi Anime of All Time - Wealth of Geeks 4 weeks ago:
Shin Sekai Yori (From The New World) and Dennoh Coil are amazing sci-fi series that are always overlooked.
- Comment on Bye, X: Europeans are launching their own social media platform, W 5 weeks ago:
They named themselves W but those draconian ID requirements are an L
- Comment on My morning routine in 2026 5 weeks ago:
- Comment on YSK you can turn off Google's personalised advertising. This prevents them from using things like your browsing history, search history, or personal data to serve you customised advertisements. 5 weeks ago:
SmartTube
- Comment on Judge orders Anna’s Archive to delete scraped data; no one thinks it will comply 5 weeks ago:
The original subreddit simulator ran on simple Markov chains.
Subreddit simulator GPT2 used GPT2, and was already so spookily accurate that IIRC its creators specifically said they wouldn’t create one based on GPT3 out of fear that people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between real and not generated content
- Comment on The singular they is actually such a natural part of the English language, the people complaining about it almost certainly use it without noticing 1 month ago:
Some academic fields a decade or two ago went through a phase where they intentionally used “she” for all pronouns. The idea was because academia was so male dominated, even a neutral pronoun would still make people inagine a male lab worker, statistician, etc when reading. Intentionally using “she” was thought to force people to imagine a woman and normalise that image.
- Comment on If you're a parent, how do you prevent your kid from watching AI slop? 1 month ago:
Unfortunately this is an increasingly unviable strategy, because even “good” creators have started using clickbaity titles and thumbnails, even if their content has remained the same. Some have even retroactively changed the titles/thumbnails of their older videos to this style.
Clickbait is engineered by behavioural scientists to be as addictive as possible, and has been proven to trigger similar neural pathways to other addictions, such as drug or gambling.
Basically every creator with a shred of self awareness has admitted that they hate creating clickbait thumbnails, titles, and phrases like smash that like button and subscribe; they end up doing it anyway because A/B testing with randomised thumbnails and titles clearly show that they work.
The live A/B testing in particular obscures whether a creator employs clickbait or not - you may be under the impression that a certain creator has remained principled, when in reality you were just allocated to the control group by chance.
I feel that it’s one of those situations where the game is rigged, and the only way to “win” is to change the rules yourself.
- Comment on If you're a parent, how do you prevent your kid from watching AI slop? 1 month ago:
Look into DeArrow (by same creators of SponsorBlock), which offers crowdsourced “de-clickbaited” video titles and thumbnails.
- Comment on A generation taught not to think: AI in the classroom 1 month ago:
Nope, this is exactly how surveillance capitalism works
- Comment on What are your technology mispredictions? 1 month ago:
I never thought tablet computers would become popular among the mainstream public.
When the iPad first came out, it was functionally worse than even the cheap netbooks, and I didn’t see much purpose in the larger screen with phones getting bigger and bigger every year. Wireless display was also already available, so I envisioned people would just cast content to a TV if they really wanted a bigger screen. Even reading articles etc seemed to be already covered by eReaders, which were already available for half a decade by the time the iPad released.
Little did I know how brain rotted people would become.
Tbh I personally still don’t see the utility in most tablets, except in specific niches like in digital note taking/drawing, or industrial cases where it becomes a glorified HUD.
- Comment on Dell says the quiet part out loud: Consumers don't actually care about AI PCs — "AI probably confuses them more than it helps them" 1 month ago:
Already existed for half a decade.
Google Coral is probably the most famous and is mainly suited for small IoT devices, e.g. speeding up image recognition for security cameras. They come in all shapes and sizes though.
M.2 Accelerator A+E key | Coral - www.coral.ai/products/m2-accelerator-ae
- Comment on Ubisoft Closes Canadian Studio After It Unionizes 1 month ago:
Ubisoft asked the Rayman team (who have produced some of the best platformers) to develop Prince of Persia The Lost Crown, regarded as the best metroidvania of 2024.
It failed to meet sales expectations, so they disbanded the teams and cancelled the sequel.
Turns out gamers™️ do vote with their wallets, and they vote for churned out sequels.
