redwattlebird

@redwattlebird@lemmings.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Melbourne goes from among the most to least expensive capital cities⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s a very big generalisation though right; just some blokes in IT with shiny phones.

  And, further, even if they stopped getting new phones, that’s hardly going to equate to a 5, 10, 20% deposit on a $500k studio apartment. Maybe it’s not that they’re lazy, maybe they’ve just given up.

  And with AI muscling people out of that industry, can you even blame them?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Melbourne goes from among the most to least expensive capital cities⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  The building codes are less stringent than they were decades ago, hence the drop in quality of housing compared to those built many decades earlier. It’s never been easier to get a home built. There’s a significant rise in remodeling homes at the moment because those who can afford it are doing it. I know because I do work with architects for these very people.

  The hurdle is equity imbalance. The more houses you own, the more you can borrow. The more you own, the more you can rent or put on Airbnb and run as a hotel without having to pay corporate tax.

  That and a lack of protection against people who do decide to build because if you get shafted by a builder, there is literally no one, no authority to turn to I’m order to get any deposits back. Much safer to build it yourself but can’t if you’re working to pay off your loans etc.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Melbourne goes from among the most to least expensive capital cities⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  In a housing crisis, there shouldn’t be any landlords.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Melbourne goes from among the most to least expensive capital cities⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  How many young people have you actually spoken to? Or is this just casual observation from Sky News? Because I know a whole bunch of younger people now that I’ve gone back to uni to switch careers after 20 years in the work force, and I can tell you that they’re absolutely struggling.

  They’re on 2hr commutes one way, facing a job market that asks for senior roles only or entry level jobs that barely allow for any savings. They’ve got broken phones that they’ve been using for years because it’s too expensive to get new ones. They don’t drive because they can’t afford upkeep on a car. They either catch public transport or ride bicycles and work their arses off while their employers take advantage of them by firing them when they reach 21, which is the age where employers are legally required to pay you the national minimum salary.

  They’re bloody thankful when they get offered a job paying $55k/year before tax.

  So, I don’t know about you but these younger people are massively screwed and we’ll be screwed as retirees because there will be more oldies than there are young in the work force.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Quick post about AI-free FireFox Based Browsers (Keep your Adds and avoid the Bloat)⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yep. I really really want Waterfox on IOS but I’ve settled for Qwant. It’s not bad.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Transcribed text of Samantha Fulnecky's assignment, paper, and professor's comments⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Absolutely! I saw zero citations and mostly baseless opinions. I would’ve failed her as well. It was very poorly written.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨xkcd #3184: Funny Numbers⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  0118 999 881 999 119 725 3

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨it is legal to keep a kangaroo as a pet in oklahoma⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Just waiting for a mate

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do we have No Man's Sky fans here?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I liked it but wish it had better multiplayer. My friends kept dropping out of the party and there wasn’t much to do as part of a small group other than to collect corvette parts to make bigger (or smaller) outrageous ships.

  Could be tempted to do the massive week long runs but… I just got back into BG3.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Hi. How’s your day/evening been? Learn anything new today?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's nothing⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh my god. The feeling has a name. Thank you. I had always thought it was a heart problem or a rib that popped.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google's Agentic AI wipes user's entire HDD without permission in catastrophic failure⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  They gave root permission and proceeded to get rooted in return.

  Does that phrase work?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ChatGPT is down worldwide, conversations disappeared for users⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Ok. We’re deviating off the point of LLM profitability here and have driven this conversation off into the weeds. So I’ll make this one last comment, and then I’m done. This debate has been interesting but exhausting.

  Final counterpoints:

  • $3.5mil is the cost of the connection footed by the energy provider and tax payer, and provides no ROI to investors like NVIDIA, hence no profit to LLM and “AI” in general.
  • As far as I can tell, the biggest method of external income for LLM companies are subscriptions and there is simply not enough uptake in subscriptions to get ROI, so they try to force consumers to use it which ends up pushing away your customer base since you’re taking away their power of choice.
  • For them to obtain ROI, literally the entire planet needs to use it which isn’t feasible because, as a consumer, you need income to consume and the larger driver of investment into LLMs is to reduce the cost of labour.

  LLMs have long since gone beyond the scope of interesting science project to something driven by pure parasitic greed.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ChatGPT is down worldwide, conversations disappeared for users⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  And how, pray tell, will doing all of that return a profit?

  I’m from Australia, so I can only speak to the Australian climate and industry. I can confidently say that the model shown in Vienna is not feasible in our country. We simply don’t have much use for excess heat and we are highly susceptible to droughts. DCs use a lot of water to cool down and having these all over the country for private enterprise is bonkers. So, that’s instantly a market that isn’t profitable. Furthermore, it’s not feasible to build a pipe and re-route the heat across large distances with minimal heat loss.

  However, even when or if they implement this throughout all of Austria, it won’t return a profit (which is what I thought your attachment was here, not the feasibility. We are talking about profitability, right?). This project cost $3.5m Euro and partially funded by tax. It’s not a great example of profitability but a good example of sustainability measures.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ChatGPT is down worldwide, conversations disappeared for users⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  These companies have BILLIONS in revenue and millions of customers, and you’re saying very few want to pay…

  Yep, I am. Just follow the money. Here’s an example:

  https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/29/microsoft_earnings_q1_26_openai_loss/

  not saying this is an easy problem to solve, but you’re making it sound no one wants it and they can never do it.

  … That’s all in your head, mate. I never said that nor did I imply it.

  What I am implying is that the uptake is so small compared to the investment that it is unlikely to turn a profit.

  If OpenAI can build a datacenter that re-uses all it’s heat for example to heat a hospital nearby, that’s another step towards reaching profitability.

  😐

  I’ve worked in the building industry for over 20 years. This is simply not feasible both from a material standpoint and physics standpoint.

  I know it’s an example, but this kind of rhetoric is exactly the kind of wishful thinking that I see in so many people who want LLMs to be a main staple of our everyday lives. Scratch the surface and it’s all just fantasy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ChatGPT is down worldwide, conversations disappeared for users⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It is unlikely to turn a profit because the returns need to be greater than the investment for there to be any profit. The trends show that very few want to pay for this service. I mean, why would you pay for something that’s the equivalent of asking someone online or in person for free or very little cost by comparison?

  Furthermore, it’s a corporation that steals from you and doesn’t want to be held accountable for anything. For example, the chat bot suicides and the fact that their business model would fall over if they actually had to pay for the data that they use to train their models.

  The whole thing is extremely inefficient and makes us more dumb via atrophy. Why would anyone want to third party their thinking process? It’s like thinking everyone wants mobility scooters.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨it's friend shaped!⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Thank you for sharing the excellent shots with us. I love cheetahs. I was lucky to come across two cubs when I travelled there way back in 2012. I couldn’t catch them on my camera though since there were so small.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨it's friend shaped!⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Whoah! In the Serengeti? Super lucky to see them!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Had to look this up⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  About Cho Chang though, she actually looked up the meanings and choose Cho because it meant butterfly. I’ve never really associated that character’s name as a play on the racist stereotype, being Oriental myself. I’ve just associated it with general western ignorance.

  As abhorrent as she is now, she was a queer ally but just didn’t understand trans, like many people around her age and demographic. She reacted to the massive backlash and drove herself into the weeds.

  She’s horrible now and deserves all the hate but know that she’s a result of our own making. I think if any new people express a misunderstanding, it’s far better to make a bridge to correct that misunderstanding. It takes a lot on our part, trans and trans allies, but I’d rather make a friend out of a fool than a foolish enemy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨To the rapidly aging person reading this: GameFAQs is 30 years old, and people are sharing their memories of the venerable guide hub⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Coincidentally, i was just thinking about this site the other day because i was so sick of video walkthroughs!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Discord customer service data breach leaks user info and scanned photo IDs⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Absolutely! I brought it into another group for corporate stuff and it was great. We also used it over COVID lockdown for games with another group of friends.

  I’ll do more research on Matrix and see if i can set something up for a truly seamless transition. Thanks for the suggestion!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Discord customer service data breach leaks user info and scanned photo IDs⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I tried getting my friends to move to any other chat client but the thing that keeps them on discord is the screen share. Like it or not, this feature is what’s locking people in as a one stop shop game streaming chat.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wrong Groomers⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  CLAMP School Detectives has this kindergarten girl go on a date with her male teacher.

  I think CLAMP does the male groomer thing quite a bit, actually. Seishirou and Subaru from Tokyo Babylon, for example.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Thank G*d I grew up in the 90s. Everything is woke now. Smh my head⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Nah. Wouldn’t it have just been one season and then cancelled the rest because they didn’t make a billion overnight?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sam Altman admits OpenAI ‘totally screwed up’ its GPT-5 launch and says the company will spend trillions of dollars on data centers⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Nah, they deserve a free therapist or at least access to affordable mental health programs.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This CEO laid off nearly 80% of his staff because they refused to adopt AI fast enough. 2 years later, he says he’d do it again⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  No, I disagree. The CEO is by far the most replaceable person when it comes to AI if the directive is to simply make more money for shareholders based on market research. I would argue that the CEO is being a parasite here.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Schools are using AI to spy on students and some are getting arrested for misinterpreted jokes and private conversations⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  WTF America?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"ok, imagine a gun."⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This phrase has confused me so much even I heard it in one of Taylor Swift’s songs.

  Then my Texan cousins explained it to me on a visit one day. I was still confused. Now I’ve found out it’s a stage coach thing. Interesting.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Meet the AI vegans: They are choosing to abstain from using artificial intelligence for environmental, ethical and personal reasons. Maybe they have a point⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  AI vegan is not a thing and shall never be.

  The correct term is Technophile. Anyone obsessed with tech would never hand it off to a third party to do when they can go through the joy of learning themselves.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨AI chatbots are becoming popular alternatives to therapy. But they may worsen mental health crises, experts warn⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This is what happens when mental healthcare is not accessible to people.