EnsignWashout
@EnsignWashout@startrek.website
- Comment on Lemmy is a tech literate echo chamber 5 days ago:
if they want a document printed they just go out to some print shop.
In fairness, it can be expensive to stock the holy water necessary to fend off the demons that inhabit all printers.
- Comment on Startup Claims Its Fusion Reactor Concept Can Turn Cheap Mercury Into Gold 1 week ago:
I’ll wait and see if they can add some AI to it. But if they can, I’ll invest my entire life savings.
- Comment on RPGs that are optionally pacifist? 1 week ago:
I see you subscribe to the Wolfwood school of pacifism: “I didn’t kill anyone!”
- Comment on Doge reportedly using AI tool to create ‘delete list’ of federal regulations 1 week ago:
Yes. That’s what AI actually adds - plausible deniability.
- Comment on ‘If I switch it off, my girlfriend might think I’m cheating’: inside the rise of couples location sharing 1 week ago:
My partner and I used to use location sharing pretty much 100% of the time. We just felt better knowing we could find each other.
But today, we do not, because the trust is shattered.
Google just cannot be trusted with our locations.
- Comment on Vibe coding takes the "science" out of computer science 1 week ago:
I agree. But I mean, WordPress and SquareSpace already did that for about 98% of web traffic. It was a big part of the .Com Boom and Bust.
But we keep coming up with new stuff to build web software for, and there’s still plenty of web developer jobs. And there’s still so so many many shit websites.
Today’s AI can only remix, not do the new stuff. Maybe it’ll get good enough to tackle the novel new stuff, someday. I doubt I’ll live to see it, if it happens.
The root of my crankiness is: If we’re about to no longer need developers, I should be seeing widespread websites whose search, cart and checkout actually work correctly every time.
The snake oil salesmen are bragging that the era of carpentry has ended, from on top of a wooden stage that is falling to pieces with each step.
I would say, it can only get better, but it can really go both ways from here.
- Comment on Vibe coding takes the "science" out of computer science 1 week ago:
why do you guys always just move the goalposts?
“Vibe coding” has a pretty specific definition, which includes not understanding the code. So writing tests, or correcting the code both disqualify a piece of work from being technically “vibe coded”.
- Comment on Vibe coding takes the "science" out of computer science 1 week ago:
Knowing it better than many developers, pretty soon. A huge number of us don’t really know much about how computers actually work.
Knowing it better than top developers is a science fiction fantasy singularity daydream.
And even Heinlein’s and Asimov’s post singularity fiction novels acknowledged that there would likely be roles for expert humans.
- Comment on Vibe coding takes the "science" out of computer science 1 week ago:
But for how much longer?
How much longer will we need people who understand how things work?
- Comment on What are you doing when you call someone, don't leave a voicemail or text, they call you back right away but you don't answer? 2 weeks ago:
Exactly. My phone is for texting and calling out. Receiving calls is an unfortunate bug.
- Comment on What are you doing when you call someone, don't leave a voicemail or text, they call you back right away but you don't answer? 2 weeks ago:
Perfect score. Social obligations fulfilled: 100%. Words spoken: 0. Emotional energy cost: 40%.
- Comment on YouTuber PatMan QC has passed away 😔 3 weeks ago:
Thank you for sharing this. Patman was a delight. He made some of the best “History of” videos for classic games.
RIP Patman QC. He will be missed.
- Comment on BREAKING: X CEO Linda Yaccarino Steps Down One Day After Elon Musk’s Grok AI Bot Went Full Hitler 3 weeks ago:
“We could be in serious legal trouble.”
“Don’t worry. My billions will protect me.”
- Comment on Please settle a debate. A kid in the womb is better off listening to stuff like cat in the hat so it can be read to it at bedtime? Or history of the world during the womb and read it later? 3 weeks ago:
If you want my advice, talk to them constantly as if you are the narrator, and smile and make eye contact at every opportunity.
This is great advice.
I’ve always done this, and my kids all started talking surprisingly early.
But my motive is just that it calms them.
Some baby fussiness comes from insecurity, and I find that a running narration makes them more relaxed about being set down and returned to - that kind of thing.
Basically they get the same comfort from my narration as I get from leaving the TV running when I’m alone in the house.
I don’t know (or worry about) if it really makes any serious long term difference - but it was occasionally convenient as heck when they could tell me what they wanted a bit earlier than I (or anyone) expected them to.
With my last kid, I felt more brave and also mixed in some singing, and think they are more musically inclined because of it.
- Comment on Please settle a debate. A kid in the womb is better off listening to stuff like cat in the hat so it can be read to it at bedtime? Or history of the world during the womb and read it later? 3 weeks ago:
You’ve shared the real life hack.
My kid was born with a love for the opening theme to “Star Trek: Enterprise”, because we were bringe watching it while the kid was in the womb.
Playing “Faith of the Heart” came in handy when the kid started teething.
- Comment on Employees at Amazon headquarters were asked on Monday to volunteer their time to the company’s warehouses to assist with grocery delivery 3 weeks ago:
I don’t see how even Amazon can try to kill the competition in a market that huge, regardless of price or convenience.
So I assume you wrote this after picking up groceries from your locally owner grocery store, right? Because you still have one - it didn’t collapse due to a Walmart coming to town?
Most of us have a solid example of what driving a grocery store out of business looks like, though.
- Comment on Tech Giants Team Up With Teachers Union on $23M AI Academy 3 weeks ago:
“Not everyone in the union will celebrate this corporate partnership. Some members have legitimate concerns about tech giants shaping classroom priorities through financial relationships.”
When has a corporation and a Union ever not seen eye to eye?
(Please don’t answer. This is sarcasm. Otherwise RIP my inbox.)
- Comment on Founder of Arkane Studios: "I think Gamepass is an unsustainable model that has been increasingly damaging the industry for a decade"; impacts sales 4 weeks ago:
There’s no industry pressure to be on Gamepass, yet.
Microsoft doesn’t willingly lose money on something unless they think they can make it into
a market distorting rent extraction hellscape.something very profitable later. - Comment on Connor Myers: As if graduating weren’t daunting enough, now students like me face a jobs market devastated by AI 4 weeks ago:
Many firms are now slashing their number of new hires.
Yes. This sucks.
The main cause of this is artificial intelligence
Unlikely.
The main cause for a chill in hiring tends to be uncertainty about the future. And we know that folks are feeling high uncertainty about the future, right now. (Gestures broadly at current headlines in general and “Not The Onion”, in particular.)
Historically, uncertainty about the future is particularly high when the people have low confidence that existing and new laws will be applied in a predictable manner.
I’ll leave exactly what changed on that front as a thought exercise.
AI is interesting, but it is not the primary cause of the chill in hiring new graduates.
- Comment on AI could create a 'Mad Max' scenario where everyone's skills are basically worthless, a top economist says 4 weeks ago:
This economist is telling me they never fixed their own plumbing.
There’s theoretically nothing hard about plumbing.
It stands to reason that we ought to be able to automate all plumbing repair quite soon.
Unlike this economist, I’ve enjoyed a delightful spray of educational water, more than once, highlighting the joy of discovery of one of the many more nuanced aspects of home plumbing.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over and over, it is that however complicated I think some aspect of the world is, it is actually at least slightly more complicated than that.
I find it particularly evocative when I happen to learn this lesson while I am literally “all wet”.
Robots may become delightful-but-stupid helpers to many more roles, any day now - even plumbers.
Perhaps someday robots of various jobs may even become delightful while even not-too-terribly-stupid.
But thinking that all subject matter experts will be adequately replaced by robots is incredibly naive.
I personally consider that belief “all wet”.
- Comment on Trump’s Defiance of TikTok Ban Prompted Immunity Promises to 10 Tech Companies 4 weeks ago:
It can be hard to guess who to bribe, or how big each bribe should be?
- Comment on [deleted] 3 months ago:
Uh… So no gift. Got it.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 months ago:
Just tell him respectfully, sometime.
As a parent, myself:
- I totally don’t mind if my kids tell me they can hear me. I appreciate knowing our communication lines are open.
- I am still going to continue having (probably still loud) sex in the house. Unless my kids fully paying a roommate’s share of the costs to run the home, they’re still kids, not roommates.
- I’ll probably buy the kid some nice noise suppressing audio headset as a shopping surprise, sometime soon.
- Comment on Keir Starmer does not believe trans women are women, No 10 says 3 months ago:
I’m constantly amazed that this is a hard subject for people. As the golden rule says:
“I’m not going to reach into your pants, without an invitation. And I prefer no one reach into my pants, because we barely know each-other. Whatever someone tells me is in their pants, I’ll take their word for it, as long as they haven’t flashed me in public. Also, shitting in practically transparent stalls is awful for everyone, and showering with strangers sucks. Let’s all just do less of both.”
- Comment on Are most people here left-wing? 3 months ago:
Great analogy.
I think it’s fair to tweak it and leave that second library with full accountability for the lack of desirability.
Domain names don’t start out undesirable, they build their reputation from the content and users.
So it’s like building a second library in a perfectly nice spot, and having that library attract people who dump pollution into the surrounding area, making it undesirable.
- Comment on Are We All Just Living Beyond Our Means Now? 3 months ago:
Where can i make such a bet?
International stock index funds are, in my option, the best place to make that bet. It’s been a losing bet (compared to other index funds) for decades, but you might notice that lots of folks still buy a solid amount as a hedge, anyway, because they agree with you, or at least aren’t willing to bet their entire retirement that you’re wrong.
- Comment on Are We All Just Living Beyond Our Means Now? 3 months ago:
Things going to shit, in the US, correlates strongly with Reagen Era economic policies. The term “trickle down economics” says a lot about why it didn’t benefit most people.
In my option, all presidents from both major political parties since Reagan have done more to make it worse, than better.
My conclusion is that what’s really going on is class warfare by the ultra rich against the rest of us…
- Comment on Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift' 3 months ago:
I remember those days, as well!
- Comment on For me, it's going to be Fediverse or nothing 3 months ago:
I’m with you.
Thankfully, corporate bullahit isn’t the only way to create a discovery algorithm.
I expect that we will have a diverse set of discovery algorithms available to opt into here, in a few years.
- Comment on What programs do you wish a good FOSS alternative existed, but doesn't or most of the FOSS alternatives simply aren't good? 3 months ago:
Ooh, neat.