aramis87
@aramis87@fedia.io
- Comment on Im stupid but have money 4 days ago:
I'd buy the shitty flat.
You're 50. You don't know how long you'll be able to work to pay off the expensive flat, nor do you know what needs you'll have as you get older. You can buy the shitty flat, pay it off quickly, and you'll own it. If you lose your job, you won't be evicted for not paying rent. Depending on where you live, you'll still have condo fees, property taxes, or whatever, but you'll still have more leverage and leeway than simply being a tenant.
Don't just grab any shitty flat; think of what you want now, and what you'll need as you age. You may not still be in the same flat 10 or 20 years from now, but make that assumption and plan with that in mind. I don't know what you want now (lots of kids vs no kids around, etc), but some things to think of as you age:
- People hanging around outside: this may be difficult to notice this time of year (I'm assuming you're in the northern hemisphere), but kids playing, a community garden, someone sitting on their porch smoking - anything that speaks to a level of comfort being outside. That generally means more neighborhood spirit / community involvement, and generally means less tendency toward future crime.
- Some neighbors younger than you, and at least a few kids. When you get older, you'll occasionally need help, and asking younger people you know is the easiest way.
- A grocery store within reasonable distances that is accessible either by walking or public transit.
- Minimal stairs to get into the building, minimal stairs to get into the flat, and minimal stairs within the flat. Stairs become more of a barrier and more of a danger as you age.
Probably other stuff as well, those are just the first things I thought of.
- Comment on YSK Tips for a Winter Storm 5 days ago:
If it's a small shop, it may be because the door is constantly being opened and they're trying to keep the store warm for the people working there.
- Comment on Microsoft CEO warns that we must 'do something useful' with AI or they'll lose 'social permission' to burn electricity on it 6 days ago:
Hell, Microsoft and Apple did the same thing decades ago. Microsoft offered computer discounts to high schools and colleges, so that the students would be used to (and demand) Microsoft when they went into the business world. Apple then undercut that by offering very discounted products to elementary and junior high schools, so that the students would want Apple products in higher education and the business world.
The tactic let them write off all the discounts on their taxes, but lock in customers and raise prices on business (and eventually consumer) goods.
- Comment on Hundreds of Millions of Audio Devices Need a Patch to Prevent Wireless Hacking and Tracking 1 week ago:
security researchers [...] are revealing a collection of vulnerabilities they found in 17 audio accessories that use Google’s Fast Pair protocol and are sold by 10 different companies: Sony, Jabra, JBL, Marshall, Xiaomi, Nothing, OnePlus, Soundcore, Logitech, and Google itself.
- Comment on xkcd #3195: International Station 1 week ago:
This joke makes fun of the parity between 'space', as in the invisible character between words, and 'space', as in the void between astronomical bodies. In this case, it is said that the word 'space' was never meant to be there at all, but it was included as a word due to a formatting error.
Oooohhhh, now I get it!
- Comment on Wikipedia celebrates 25 years of knowledge at its best – Wikimedia Foundation 1 week ago:
Right after they reached deals to sell all of those lovely, long, detailed, crowded-sourced articles for AI training data :(
- Comment on Digg launches its new Reddit rival to the public 1 week ago:
Considering that Alexis Ohanian is involved, it looks like he wants another bite at the apple, so it'll likely go downhill pretty quickly.
- Comment on Jensen Huang says relentless negativity around AI is hurting society and has "done a lot of damage" 2 weeks ago:
It's stealing our water, poisoning our land, is helping erode trust in institutions and each other, hallucinates, gives bad advice and worse summaries, bothers our hearing, raises our electricity rates dramatically, all but ensures we won't meet our climate goals, offers us nothing of value, is something none of us wanted and most of us hate, is constantly being pushed down our throats, and is intended to allow the wealthy to access the benefits of the talented while preventing the talented from accessing the benefits of wealth.
AI is a cancer and must be destroyed.
- Comment on Man Granted Sole Custody of Toddlers Born of Rape of His Client! 2 weeks ago:
If you have a child born of rape, there are a number of states where paternity laws allow the father to sue for sole custody (unlikely) or joint custody (more likely, because it keeps them in contact with their victim as they arrange handoffs and custody arrangements).
There are also a number of states that allow the woman to try to sever paternity rights in cases of rape, but several of them require the perpetrator to be convicted of raping the victim, and there are (a couple? a few?) where the perpetrator has to be convicted of rape in the specific instance that led to the child (difficult in ongoing abuse cases).
Most states defer to the patriarchy, which is terrified of men "losing" the right to see their kids over vindictive, false rape claims.
- Comment on How do you "process" hundreds of tabs you haven't gotten a chance to look through? 2 weeks ago:
I miss my old phone and my old PC, with their limited memory. Every so often, my browser would crash under the weight of the tabs, and refuse to re-open unless I agreed to discard them all ...
- Comment on How do you "process" hundreds of tabs you haven't gotten a chance to look through? 2 weeks ago:
Make a mental commitment to spend at least 30 minutes going through tabs.
Scroll through all of them. If any are news articles and that news has been moved on from or it just makes me angry, close the tab. If it's a news article but it's more of an "interesting read" thing and I'm still interested, keep it.
Keep scrolling. If you find several tabs relating to the same or similar concepts, move them next to each other; that gives more weight to following through on that group.
If it was a "yes, I'd like to buy this but my card isn't convenient" tab, if I'm still interested in it, get my card and order it. (I deliberately don't store my card, to impede impulse buying.)
If it's something I was researching (usually something I'm interested in buying) and I have the energy, keep researching. Once I've completed research, either buy the item immediately, or add it to my "things to buy" bookmark folder. I go through the folder a couple times a year and decide if the item still interests me. If it doesn't, I delete the bookmark. If it does, I may or may not buy it then.
If it's a video, download it and put it into my 'watch these' folder for later.
If it's something I was thinking of for a friend (a meme, news article, something to buy), I'll send them a text about it. If it's after hours, I'll prep a text, save it as a draft, then send it the next day.
If it's a piece of fiction, I'll group those together as well, then leave them for the moment: I'm interested in clearing tabs right now, not getting distracted.
If it's a piece of reference material, I'll either bookmark it or add it to a collection so I can come back to it later.
If it's a recipe, I'll copy it to Word, format it to my tastes, print it out and move it to the kitchen.
If it's a thread that I wanted to read through, I'll stop and read through it, then either discard it or bookmark it if I may need to reference it again.
If it's a quick curiosity thing, I'll give it a quick read to satisfy my curiosity and close the tab.
Eventually I run out of energy and browse the internet, opening up a few new tabs in the process.
- Comment on My second attempt at bochet 3 weeks ago:
That looks lovely! I've never heard of bochet before - I'll have to track some down!
- Comment on Researchers Are Hunting America for Hidden Datacenters 3 weeks ago:
Not sure "hidden" is the right word, but whatever. The link to the map is here.
- Comment on Should I get the Measles and/or Mpox vaccines if I had them as a child? 3 weeks ago:
MPox: infection numbers in the US are generally low in the US - the weekly average is generally between 3 and 18 cases per week. I haven't tracked transmission vectors in a couple years - I think the last time I checked was around 2022-23. From memory, at that time, the main vector was men who had sex with men, and then people who had sex with infected people. The CDC's recommendation list for who should get vaccinated still seems to focus on those groups, as well as travelers to areas where MPox is endemic.
Measles: in the US, this mostly depends on when you were born/vaccinated. If you were born before 1957, you are presumed to be immune because measles is so contagious and it was so prevalent back then. If you were vaccinated before 1967, you should get a booster shot: the vaccine they used back then was less effective than the later vaccine. If you were vaccinated after 1967 and before 1989, you should consider getting another shot: up until 1989, they believed that a single dose gave lifetime immunity, but then they realized a second dose was needed. People who received two doses of vaccine after 1989 are presumed immune.
- Comment on What're your strong opinions from an aged / dead fandom? 4 weeks ago:
That Blake's 7 fandom was materially better before the show aired in the States. They had gone through the painful sorting out of characters and characteristics and relationships and were developing these really interesting themes of psychological trauma and manipulation that they were beginning to explore - it was really interesting and the themes were fascinating. Them the show aired in the States, they went wild over Avon and all the stories and themes starting revolving around him. I don't mind him as a character; I do mind his character taking over all of fandom. It's sort of like if all the Harry Potter stories suddenly and inexplicably became Ron-centric; it's not necessarily wrong, but it's weird and people who liked other characters got left out in the cold, and some of us still resent that.
As an aside, when Blake's 7 fandom split up, that too was fascinating. As was usual in those days, there was a pro-slash contingent and an anti-slash contingent. When B7 fandom split up, all of the pro-slash fans went into Robin of Sherwood fandom, and all the anti-slash fans went into The Professionals fandom. The problem being that RoS was almost exclusively gen and Pros was almost exclusively slash. It was very weird.
What else? That the second season of War of the Worlds should've been an entirely different series: the people who loved season 1 were never going to like season 2; and people who had tuned in and disliked the series during season 1 weren't going to Even try season 2.
That Krycek became such a big character on The X-Files due to one woman who saw his potential and kept talking about it to her friends, many of whom were popular/prolific fannish authors and artists. She convinced some of them (there was incredulity and resistance at first) but it gathered steam, Chris Carter was flummoxed but rolled with it, and here we are.
That the main follow-on series for Highlander: the Series should've been The Methos Chronicles and that one's not even up for debate.
That the final episode of Miami Vice is a masterpiece, particularly with the echoes and parallels to the first episode - and that the show itself took a major downturn the moment they decided to kill off their comic relief characters. That having God in the final episode of Quantum Leap (the original) being played by an actor who was also in the first episode of the series made it much more interesting. That if you were ever interested in Space: 1999, the "Message from Moonbase Alpha" short has some really interesting implications.
That Space Rangers and Moon Over Miami were cut off entirely too early. That Quark is funny as hell for a science fiction fan of my generation, even if it's extremely dated now. Similarly, The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne was hella fun and should've lasted much longer (though Michael Praed's Shatner-esque line deliveries were exceptionally annoying at times!). That the Sonny Steel grave arc is majorly under-represented in Wiseguy fiction.
Almost certainly others, but those are the ones that came to mind.
- Comment on Whats the best use for 75 dollars? 4 weeks ago:
Whatever you spend it on, may I make a suggestion, if you have a little extra money yourself? Spend the gift card money, yes: buy something you'll enjoy, share that joy with the people who got it for you, let them see how happy they've made you.
Then take the card that the giftcard came in, put in $75 cash, and put it in a special place. Do that every time someone gives you money or a giftcard. As I've gotten older, a lot of the people in my life have died, gotten ill, or moved away. Sometimes, when I'm feeling sad or depressed, I'll go to my little drawer of cards and pull one out at random. I'll re-read the message, and think about the person and the love that we shared at that time, and I'll take the money and do something special for myself, to cheer myself up a bit.
Then sometime in the next few days, I'll get the same amount of cash from the bank, put it in the envelope, and replace it in my stash: the caring we felt for each other at that time was true (regardless of how things eventually turned out), so the cards give me a little emotional boost and the cash lets me do something for myself that I'd normally not spend money on. It helps me feel better, even if only for a little time.
[I'll also be honest and say that sometimes I've run out of money, and something will twinge and I'll remember I have this little stash of cash, and having that has helped me get through some slightly tough times. But I always put the money back in the cards when I can afford it.]
- Comment on 'LeBron James of spreadsheets' wins world Microsoft Excel title 5 weeks ago:
TIL that there's an Excel World Championship and a World Snowshoeing Championship.
- Comment on Microsoft Edge Pushes an "All in One Browser" Message on Chrome’s Download Page 5 weeks ago:
Could you tell me what you like about Vivaldi over Firefox? Or what advantages it has? Genuinely curious.
- Comment on What are some good games to play while sick? 1 month ago:
You can pause Stardew by bringing up the menu.
- Comment on Data centers need electricity, utilities need years to build – who should pay? 1 month ago:
Make the data centers build their own power plants. Then they get all the risk and all the reward.
Make them put the power plant right next to the data center, that way they're not stressing out the rest of the grid. And that way the exact same community that gets the benefits of hosting the data center also gets the environmental costs of the power plant.
- Comment on ideas for deadspace behind fridge 1 month ago:
Get one of those reacher-grabber things they promot to the elderly; that'll let you access more of the space (you can use the grabber as a pusher as well).
Then store lightweight things that you'd like somewhat accessible and are aggravating to store somewhere else. If this was my mom's space (she loves to travel), she'd store her empty luggage in there. If this was my sister's, she'd put all her holiday stuff into plastic bins with large handles and store that in there.
- Comment on My son asked to watch a Christmas movie today 1 month ago:
"Computer, play a British holiday film."
computer plays The Great Escape
- Comment on AI Slop Is Ruining Reddit for Everyone 1 month ago:
I beg to differ: spez has ruined reddit for everyone.
- Comment on Is it even feasebal to find 12 people who have not been screwed over by insurance for the Luigi trial? 1 month ago:
You don't have not-have an opinion on the US healthcare system, you just have to claim that your opinion on the healthcare system won't affect your ability to reach an impartial verdict.
- Comment on Trump says he'll release MRI results but doesn't know what part of his body was scanned 1 month ago:
I'm still waiting for his healthcare plan. And infrastructure week. And --
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
They voted against support for Sandy too.
- Comment on Flights disrupted after Airbus discovers intense sun radiation could impact flight control data 1 month ago:
If anyone has an article with more technical details on what the solar radiation did, and how they're going to patch it, I'd like to read about it :)
Not a direct answer to your question, but: the sun (like the earth) has areas that are more "geologically" active; those areas tend to throw out solar flares. As the sun rotates, the area that throws out these solar flares slowly faces toward the earth (solar maximum) then slowly rotates to face away from the earth (solar minimum). The solar cycle is roughly eleven years long.
Currently, we're just slightly past solar maximum. For the past year or so, the "more active" part of the sun has been roughly facing earth and intermittently spitting out solar flares. When these flares hit the earth's atmosphere, they cause auroras (which is why we've had so many auroras these past couple years) and can interfere with electronic and electrical equipment (see: the Carrington event).
I have no details on what l the exact damage that was caused by the interference the plane suffered, nor any knowledge of how they plan to address the issue. But whatever they come up with is going to take some time to develop - and we're moving away from solar maximum so being hit with a massive flare is increasingly less likely - at least for another decade. My suspicion is that they'll come up with a "solution" that actually may not work very well, but it works well enough to give the impression that they're doing something - and it'll look like it's working to some extent, simply because the active side of the sun is rotating away from us.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
As I said, OP seems to be a young person trying to figure how they fit in the world, and they're not giving much information (which is fine). But we're not all born with an innate understanding of all the flavors of sexuality, or all the options out there.
They say they'd like a male partner, which could be situational depending on where they live; it could be a definite preference; or it could be that they're demisexual and haven't realized that's an option. And if they do get a partner, in extremely general terms, there tend to be different benefits depending on which sex you partner with.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
If I may ask, without being rude: are you sure you're asexual and not [demisexual](https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/wiki/Demisexual]? For me, there would be a difference between someone who's really not interested in sex at all vs someone who's really only interested in sex once they've emotionally bonded with a person.
If you are asexual, there are definitely other asexuals out there who would still be interested in having nonsexual partners.
In your original post, you mentioned male partners; I'd also suggest you consider whether you'd be okay with a nonsexual female partner. Again, not trying to be rude, you just seem to be trying to figure out how you can get fit, and I'm not sure what options you've considered.
You should also know that your preferences can change over time, and that's okay as well; it doesn't necessarily mean that you were "wrong" about who you were, it may simply mean something is different about either you or your situation.
- Comment on Google CEO: If an AI bubble pops, no one is getting out clean 2 months ago:
[he] addressed the “immense” energy needs of AI, acknowledging that the intensive energy requirements of expanding AI ventures have caused slippage on Alphabet’s climate targets. However, Pichai insisted that the company still wants to achieve net zero by 2030 through investments in new energy technologies. “The rate at which we were hoping to make progress will be impacted,” Pichai said, warning that constraining an economy based on energy “will have consequences.”
We need "line go up" so badly, we're willing to bake the planet.
“We will have to work through societal disruptions,” he said, adding that the technology would “create new opportunities” and “evolve and transition certain jobs.”
Someone once described AI as "a way for the wealthy to access the benefits of the skilled, without allowing the skilled to access the benefits of wealth".