AppleTea

@AppleTea@lemmy.zip

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK Joseph Stalin created the Great Terror. He started killing people randomly including artists, generals, doctors, diplomats, government officials. Everyone was terrified.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  State terrorism is a contradiction in terms. Legally, terrorism is violence carried out by a group that is not recognized as a state internationally. States cannot do terrorism, the term exists to protect their monopoly on legal violence. George Washington was a terrorist until the British empire recognized and began doing business with the constitutional United States. We see a similar change occurring with Taliban members and the present government of Afghanistan.

  More importantly, though. You claim liberal democracy is fundamentally incompatible with authoritarianism, yet if we dig into the present and recent past of the United States, we find policies that match the list you have provided.

  The Lavender Scare and Hoover’s FBI, the Red Scare and COINTELPRO, the police response to Kent State anti-war protests in 1970, the police response Columbia’s anti-genocide protests last year, the ongoing existence of privately run labor camps and prison farms.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Valve's new hardware will NOT be loss leaders⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Ok, but R&D on a given product eventually stops. Over the lifetime of a good, it becomes a smaller and smaller proportion of overall costs.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Our first look at the Steam Machine, Valve’s ambitious new game console⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  everything else is just sitting there waiting to be obsolete in a couple years

  a bit out from the cutting edge, sure, but obsolete? This aint the 90s or the Aughts any more.

  A machine put together 10 years ago will still run most things fine. Not at the fanciest settings, but fine. This is essentially the same criticism PC gaming has been lobbing at consoles for years, and now we have essentially a PC masquerading it’s way into the console wing of the market – of course the same criticism still apply! It’s not incredibly beefy because it doesn’t need to be. Different audience, different requirements.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨An ex-Intel CEO’s mission to build a Christian AI: ‘hasten the coming of Christ’s return’⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  More than that, most of the old testament is stories about how you don’t debate God, you don’t test God, and you definitely don’t force God’s hand.

  Honestly, this Intel guy is cute compared to the Christian Zionists, who somehow think God wants and will be happy with their attempts to manufacture prophecy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Part of the reason the show works is that we never really see Federation life outside of Starfleet. Mostly this is for practical budget reasons; what does a post-scarcity egalitarian society actually look like? That’s difficult to depict in a show designed to recycle the same set every episode and only very occasionally go outside to film.

  So what little we see of the civilian federation looks… a lot like the US. There’s a president. Member states planets. Constant references to US history. A military that operates how Americans like to think their military works, rather than what it actually historically has done.

  Newer shows take this even further. Section 31, as it was first introduced, was supposed to be a highly illegal, unsanctioned conspiracy acting in the shadow of the proper Federation. Now they’re presented as the ultra official, coolest badasses who are the only reason any of the egalitarian principals are able to survive.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Relatable.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Homestuck

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨AWS crash causes $2,000 Smart Beds to overheat and get stuck upright⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I feel like if I was gonna put a computer attached to a motor & heater inside a bed, the very first step would be making sure that if the software goes wrong, it always defaults to staying bed shaped and not catching fire.

  I know I know hindsight is 20/20, I’m sure I’m just missing something. Venture capitalists would just give their money to any random idiot with a pitch, right?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  lol

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  the Sun does the same thing but also with a profit motive

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Not a meme, just superpawsition⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Some answers may literally beyond our comprehension.

  Sure that may definitely be the case. But in practice, that means we should be exhausting the comprehensible possibilities first. Many Worlds is an explanation of last resort.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Not a meme, just superpawsition⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The point of the thought experiment is that a cat that is both alive and dead is absurd and clearly not what actually is happening. Schrödinger intended it to demonstrate that quantum mechanics was not a complete description of the universe, we’re still missing something(s).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jesus hates American "Christians"⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You know Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism, right? How early roman christians viewed and treated Jewish people is reasonable context to include in a conversation about the history.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Just in time⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Life has a tendency to spread when new environments are available, yes.

  But beyond this planet, there are no other environments. You might say the rest of the universe is antivironment. There is a wide range of possible conditions, of radiation and tempurature, gravity and molecular composition. Life requires a very very narrow and specific set of those conditions to continue.

  Going from one continent to another, within the same atmosphere, with the same underlying set of conditions, is not all that much of a change. Actually leaving the planet? Permanently? And without just dying in the attempt? That would require a level of organization, long term planning (like, centuries long term), and resource management that we as a species have yet to demonstrate.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Everyday AI looks more like the '08 housing bubble⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Settling mars is a centuries long undertaking. You basically have to nurture a whole ecosystem from scratch… that would be a brutally difficult and lengthy process in the best of conditions. But of course, these aren’t the best conditions. We aren’t doing particularly well with the ecosystem we’ve already got.

  If you want a historical project, then look to balancing modern industry within the planet’s biosphere. It’s a prerequisite to anything happening on mars.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Happy 20th anniversary to the Corrupted Blood incident!⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  viruscomix.com/page599.html

  you may or may not recognize the artist

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mid Career Marine Biology⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  xcancel.com/alharry/status/1450288983745785862

  I guess this is a phishing attempt? Would have worked on me because I immediately needed more context and had to track down the post

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Would Oganesson even last long enough to lick? Let me look this up…

  …0.7 millisecond half-life. A fraction of a millionth thousandth of a second. So you really only have to worry about all the things it decays into, and not the element itself.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Shortly After Xbox Game Pass Prices Spiked, the Page to Cancel Game Pass Subscriptions Was Overwhelmed⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  …is the difference being publicly traded on the stock exchange? The only company I can think of that doesn’t fall under “corpo” is Valve, and it seems to mostly be because they don’t have to answer to shareholders.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨hyperbaric oxygen chamber⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I get these stories as a way of pointing out the inherant absurditity in a lot of every day things…

  …but also… life requires energy. Something’s gotta keep the metabolism going. Oxygen is both highly reactive and significantly more abundant than any of its heavier counterparts further down the column. If there is life out there with a metabolic rate anywhere approaching our own, it would be weird if it didn’t use oxygen.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨hyperbaric oxygen chamber⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  those actually look pretty tasty

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mark Zuckererg Demos New Facebook AI And It Couldn’t Have Gone Worse⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The AI being hyped right now is not AI at all. It’s really important that we all acknowledge this, that the world is selling itself a multi-billion-dollar lemon: predictive text engines that have nothing intelligent about them. They’re giant sorting machines, which is why they’re so good at identifying patterns in scientific research, and could genuinely advance medicine in wonderful ways. But what they cannot do is think, and as such, it’s a collective mass-delusion that these systems have any use in our day-to-day lives beyond plagiarism.

  Goddamn, a gaming outlet saying what the serious grown-up press should have been saying from the start!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Based and Red Pilled Gigachad, many such cases 😔⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  No other country has done as much? We’re gonna just ignore how much support Israel has thrown behind Trump? Netanyahu was meeting and communicating with him during the 2024 election cycle, all while ignoring the Biden administration! Snubbing a sitting president for a prospective candidate!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hmm this "unisex" bathroom seems biased...⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think just being an organism with an anus leads to higher levels of poop exposure than whatever minuscule amount of particulate matter that manages to aerosolize from an unlided flush

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨IF YOU TAKE ENOUGH YOU CAN SEE *THE PATTERN* BRO⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s assuming the someone running the simulation is even aware we are here. For all we know, they’re just trying to model out the behavior of stars and black holes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  gonna keep banging this drum every time this comes up:

  When physicists say “observe”, they actually mean “measure”. And to measure a photon of light, you have to interact with it somehow, there is no passive way to do so.

  The post’s header image implies that the interference pattern goes away just by looking at it. If that were the case, we would never see the interference pattern, never know it was there in the first place! In the actual experiment, they put a sensor at one or both of the slits. But to “sense” a single photon, you have to interact with it in some way. Otherwise you wouldn’t know it was there.

  Again, this is where the language trips us up. Rather than “sensor”, would really be more accurate to say they put a photon-touch-er at the slits.

  So, what we actually get is “Touching the photon changes the photon’s behavior.” The universe doesn’t magically infer when we happen to be looking at it, there is no spooky action-at-a-distance!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Good news. :)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  DC is a former wetland

  for like half a century after the countries founding, there was no sewer system. So a giant lake of shit formed, practically behind the White House. It’s thought a lot of the early presidents had their life shortened by cholera complications

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Help.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Voicing His Own Thoughts Without Prompts

  What are you thinking about, baby?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨China's green energy boom could spell the end of the fossil fuel age⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Perhaps. At the same time, we also had a better reputation then. A lot of countries were quick to jump on board when we decided who was gonna get invaded. Maybe they would have been just as eager to pull together and go green? Not that we’ll ever really know, of course.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨China's green energy boom could spell the end of the fossil fuel age⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Maybe… but… remember ten years ago when there were all those articles about how “China is building train stations to no-where!” and today those same train stations are now in the center of new bustling cities? Isn’t this what we’d expect to see, right at the start of a pivot to green energy?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Remember to 2FA your kidneys.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  maybe they mean with dialysis?