markovs_gun

@markovs_gun@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tesla Robotaxi Freaks Out and Drives into Oncoming Traffic on First Day⁩ ⁨⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Driving is culturally specific, even. The way rules are followed and practiced is often regionally different

  This is one of the problems driving automation solves trivially when applied at scale. Machines will follow the same rules regardless of where they are which is better for everyone

  The ethics of putting automation in control of potentially life threatening machines is also relevant

  You’d shit yourself if you knew how many life threatening machines are already controlled by computers far simpler than anything in a self driving car. Industrially, we have learned the lesson that computers, even ones running on extremely simple logic, just completely outclass humans on safety because they do the same thing every time. There are giant chemical manufacturing facilities that are run by a couple guys in a control room that watch a screen because 99% of it is already automated. I’m talking thousands of gallons an hour of hazardous, poisonous, flammable materials running through a system run on 20 year old computers. Water chemical additions at your local water treatment plant that could kill thousands of people if done wrong, all controlled by machines because we know they’re more reliable than humans

  With humans we can attribute cause and attempted improvement, with automation its different.

  A machine can’t drink a handle of vodka and get behind the wheel, nor can it drive home sobbing after a rough breakup and be unable to process information properly. You can also update all of them all at once instead of dealing with PSA canpaigns telling people not to do something that got someone killed. Self driving car makes a mistake? You don’t have to guess what was going through its head, it has a log. Figure out how to fix it? Guess what, they’re all fixed with the same software update. If a human makes that mistake, thousands of people will keep making that same mistake until cars or roads are redesigned and those changes have a way to filter through all of society.

  I just don’t see a need for this at all. I think investing in public transportation more than reproduces all the benefits of automated cars without nearly as many of the dangers and risks.

  This is a valid point, but this doesn’t have to be either/or. Cars have a great utility even in a system with public transit. People and freight have to get from the rail station or port to wherever they need to go somehow, even in a utopia with a perfect public transit system. We can do both, we’re just choosing not to in America, and it’s not like self driving cars are intrinsically opposed to public transit just by existing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tesla Robotaxi Freaks Out and Drives into Oncoming Traffic on First Day⁩ ⁨⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  While I agree focusing on public transport is a better idea, it’s completely absurd to say machines can never possibly drive as well as humans. It’s like saying a soul is required or other superstitious nonsense like that. Imagine the hypothetical case in which a supercomputer that perfectly emulates a human brain is what we are trying to teach to drive. Do you think that couldn’t drive? If so, you’re saying a soul is what allows a human to drive, and may as well be saying that God hath uniquely imbued us with the ability to drive. If you do think that could drive, then surely a slightly less powerful computer could. And maybe one less powerful than that. So somewhere between a casio solar calculator and an emulated human brain must be able to learn to drive. Maybe that’s beyond where we’re at now (I don’t necessarily think it is) but it’s certainly not impossible just out of principle. Ultimately, you are a computer at the end of the day.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨HAAAAAAAANNNNKKKK⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Warning - this post doesn’t contain specific spoilers, but I would recommend against reading it if you haven’t watched Breaking Bad because it may color your opinions of the ahow

  I feel like you missed the point of the show if you thought the point was to show Walter sympathetically or as the good guy. The whole point of the show is that it is his pride and greed are ultimately what drive him to do worse and worse things no matter how much he tries to blame his actions on external circumstances. There are multiple instances where he does things that are completely unnecessary because at his core, Walter White is a bad person. He is not truly driven by desparation or by love of his family, but by his pride. He wants to earn his own money, and he enjoys being above the law and feels that he deserves all his money and power because he is smarter and superior to everyone. As he gets deeper and deeper into crime, it becomes clearer and clearer that his moral decay is entirely his own doing and not primarily driven by circumstances, even though Walter certainly tries to act that way. I can provide specific examples but I wanted to keep this post spoiler free.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK: WD-40 is perfect for removing adhesive left behind by stickers⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I would not recommend it though, especially on items made of plastic, finished wood, or rubber. Heat and a scraping tool are better, and barring that, a more mild solvent. WD-40 is not intended to be a solvent, and isn’t formulated for cleaning household items. It will damage or discolor a lot of materials, and it is really not worth it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How often do thieves (and identity thieves) actually get caught and served justice? Are there actual examples of law enforcement actually doing anything? (Because I think most cops are just lazy)⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s way more than I’ve seen police do for this sort of thing, you got lucky lol

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Insurance giant Aflac says a cybercrime group breached its systems and may have stolen data; source: the attack bears the hallmarks of Scattered Spider⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  FYI- insurance company data breaches impact more than just customers. I had my identity stolen a few years ago because a small car insurance company I’ve never heard of was able to buy data on me from my state’s government to build a potential customer profile, and then they got hacked. I would assume Aflac has data on just about everyone in the US.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨MIT researchers crack 3D printing with glass — new technique enables inorganic composite glass printed at low temperatures⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Low temp has a lot of implications for spreading this technology. Being able to print complex glass shapes at low temperatures can open up all kinds of cool applications that wouldn’t be possible at high temps.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What do you think the solution to selling progressive politics to young men is ?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh I know, I was just using super stereotypical language. Every Latino I know just says Latino or Hispanic.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dear Kevin⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  You can say black bastards rape our young girls but virgins go without on here. We’re not reddit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What do you think the solution to selling progressive politics to young men is ?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Legit I think it’s to shift the focus away from helping other people for the sake of being nice and onto uniting together to fight a common enemy - the bosses, corporations, etc. Dale the machinist from Alabama isn’t going to go to the protest to protect trans latinx PoC out of the kidness of his own heart but he might if he realizes it’s part of a larger project to go out to take back his rights from the people fucking him over, and fuck over his boss. Young men are drawn to masculinity and militaristic language right now, and left wing politics can be easily framed in those terms. Yes, being good to other people should be good in its own right but a lot of people don’t see it that way and we need to get them on our side too.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dear Kevin⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s a particularly horrible one people used to use to remember resistor color codes-

  “Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls But Violet Gives Willingly.”

  Black, brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, gray, white

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dear Kevin⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s pride month

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK | Fewer than half of young men believe abortion should be legal, poll finds⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I think it’s more just abandoning a generation of young men to be raised by the Internet while nobody’s watching and not giving a shit when there are concerted efforts to tell boys they’re worthless and ugly and will never get girlfriends to sell them scam products and harmful ideologies that supposedly offer a way out. Instead, these boys were yelled at and told how worthless and ugly they are for thinking these things, and how they’ll never get girlfriends, just feeding into all of the right wing lies. The far right has spent most of the past two decades trying to create this false problem for young men so they could sell a solution to it, and nobody was paying attention. I remember seeing the beginnings of this shit in the early 2010s and being disturbed at the harmful things being aimed at me as a teen boy and it’s just way worse now as kids are online and overstimulated 24/7.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hertz, showing the difference between science and engineering⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Even more than that, just proving Maxwell was right was a key stepping stone to all of modern physics. Maxwell, not Einstein, was the first to show that the speed of light is invariant, and Einstein’s Relativity was a framework for explaining how tf physics works if that’s actually true. Prior to Einstein, physists all just kind of assumed there was some flaw in Maxwell’s theorems to lead to this crazy speed invariance, but as the evidence just kept piling up in favor of Maxwell, they started having to wrestle with the uncomfortable thought that this could actually be true. In this sense, Hertz can also be thought of as an important step to Einstein and beyond, and almost all of our modern technology.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YouTube "search results"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  But why does it work?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨just beat it⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I can only imagine the euphoric mixture of dread and excitement that the engineer who came up with that one must have had right before presenting it to the rest of the team. The realization that all hope for normal solutions had been lost and abnormal solutions were needed, combined with the requirement of absolute confidence in these facts to present this to managers. I am jealous, this is a feeling most engineers only get a few times in their careers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YouTube "search results"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Why 2026? Isn’t everything on YouTube made before 2026

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You have my consent to kill me⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  If you look at renderings of what 4D objects would look like intersecting 3D space, this is what I imagine for those. Seeing 3D cross sections morphing continuously but inconceivably into each other without being able to even comprehend the true form of the thing you’re seeing glimpses of would be terrifying.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sheeple⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Surprisingly not as dangerous as you’d think, ignition point of gasoline is higher than the typical cigarette. Not safe by any means, but under normal conditions a cigarette will not ignite gasoline vapors

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anime Streaming Takedowns on the Rise as Anti-Piracy Pressure Increases for 9anime, Gogoanime & More⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Tbh these sites suck ass with shitty low quality streams. If you’re going to pirate do it right.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's not supposed to make sense...⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  That is exactly what happened lol

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's not supposed to make sense...⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Quantum physics doesn’t make sense until you just let the math take you to the results and stop worrying about your intuition. You have to absolutely trust the math and work through the results as many times as you need to for them to make mathematical sense in spite of your intuition. Further, have some grace with yourself. It took us 7,000 years from the dawn of civilization to get to Aristotle, 2000 years to get from Aristotle to Newton, and 218 years to get from Newton to Einstein. In that time a lot of progress has been made to our understanding of physics, and a lot of the confusion about quantum physics is due to flawed understandings of the people who created it. Spin was literally thought to be rotational motion of the particle in the of

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hello, non-Americans, do you have any Chinese language classes in your education system?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  My high school in a semi rural part of the Southern US had a Chinese language class that you could choose to take for your foreign language credit back in the early 2010s. I think it’s a false premise to say that it’s not taught in the US, most kids just choose to take easier languages like German, French, or Spanish

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Scientists discover that feeding AI models 10% 4chan trash actually makes them better behaved⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This is not surprising if you’ve studied anything on machine learning or even just basic statistics. Consider if you are trying to find out the optimal amount of a thickener to add to a paint formulation to get it to flow the amount you want. If you add it at 5%, then 5.1%, then 5.2%, it will he hard to see how much of the difference between those batches is due to randomness or measurement uncertainty than if you see what it does at 0%, then 25% then 50%. This is a principle called Design of Experiments (DoE) in traditional statistics, and a similar effect happens when you are training machine learning models- datapoints far outside the norm increase the ability of the model to predict within the entire model space (there is some nuance here, because they can become over-represented if care isn’t taken). In this case, 4chan shows the edges of the English language and human psychology, like adding 0% or 50% of the paint additives rather than staying around 5%.

  At least that’s my theory. I haven’t read the paper but plan to read it tonight when I have time. At first glance I’m not surprised. When I’ve worked with industrial ML applications, processes that have a lot of problems produce better training data than well controlled processes, and I have read papers on this subject where people have improved performance of their models by introducing (controlled) randomness into their control setpoints to get more training data outside of the tight control regime.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨where are worker rights parades? why are we focusing on very limited issues?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Great writeup! I did want to mention that “Shrinkflation” is not the right term for the phenomenon of the 1970s, that is “stagflation” (“stagnation” + “inflation”). “Shrinkflation” is when the size of products shrinks while the price remains unchanged to hide the impacts of inflation. The reason it was so hard on the economy is that there is typically a positive correlation between inflation and economic growth. As inflation increases, the economy grows faster, and as it decreases, the economy shrinks. Stagflation, when the economy shrinks and inflation increases, removes a lever that the central bank typically has to get the country out of a recession because they can’t increase inflation to encourage economic growth. The reasons that usually works are complicated and beyond the scope of a random Lemmy comment.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Commodore shocks retro TechTuber with option to buy 'the whole company'⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They may have some old IP like manufacturing specs, schematics, software, etc.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Looking for the perfect 5 year anniversary gift?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I wonder if this is the result of AI poisoning- this doesn’t look like a typical LLM output even for a bad result. I have read some papers that outline methods that can be used to poison search AI results (not bothering to find the actual papers since this was several months ago and they’re probably out of date already) in which a random seeming string of characters like “usbeiwbfofbwu-$&#8_:$&#)” can be found that will cause the AI to say whatever you want it to. This is accomplished by utilizing another ML algorithm to find the random string of characters you can tack onto whatever you want the AI to output. One paper used this to get Google search to answer “What’s the best coffee maker?” With a fictional brand made up for the experiment. Perhaps someone was trying to get it to hawk their particular knife and it didn’t work properly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If we replace most plastic with a non plastic alternative and would that really be better?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This is a non-trivial problem. The best thing for the environment is for all of us to stop buying so much shit we don’t need, but that would require a dramatic shift in how society works and the cultural values of pretty much everyone. Cookies coming in metal tins again would be way worse for the environment than plastic, but you also have to remember that when cookies came in metal tins, they were luxury items people would buy for holidays and special occasions. The only way to meaningfully improve things for the environment in terms of packaging is for all of us to buy less pre-packaged food in general.

  Expanding access to goods is both good and bad, and plastic containers are a big part of that process. I think it’s completely unrealistic to replace all single-use plastics with non-plastic alternatives, and I think that efforts to do so have largely backfired in unexpected ways. This problem is best solved by reducing the amount of useless shit we buy but in the meantime I think biodegradable polymers are a good bridge technology. We actually already know about a lot of biodegradable polymers because the earliest polymers were based on biopolymers such as cellulose, resin, and rubber, and these have remained commercially important enough to maintain a high degree of knowledge of their chemistries.

  Another problem, of course, is that most people don’t actually want truly biodegradable polymers. You don’t want a ketchup bottle that starts breaking down while you’re still using it or impacts the taste of the ketchup, but you also don’t want to buy it in a thick, non-squeezable glass bottle. So from an engineering perspective we have to devise plastics that are biodegradable, but only when we want them to be. There are a lot of advancements in this field, but it’s still not enough on its own to fix things. This issue also applies to paper, since almost all “paper” packaging products also include polymers as sealants to improve performance precisely because paper has all the same issues without it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Consumer groups file complaint against SHEIN for dark patterns fuelling over-consumption⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Everyone does that all the time though. I can’t remember the last time I bought something online that wasn’t supposedly either the last one in stock or one of like 5 left. It’s obviously bullshit and everyone is doing it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wikimedia Foundation's plans to introduce AI-generated summaries to Wikipedia⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Wikipedia articles are already quite simplified down overviews for most topics. I really don’t like the direction of the world where people are reading summaries of summaries and mistaking that for knowledge. The only time I have ever found AI summaries useful is for complex legal documents and low-importance articles where it is clear the author’s main goal was SEO rather than concise and clear information transfer.