EnsignWashout
@EnsignWashout@startrek.website
- Comment on 2 days ago:
because you probably don’t know how software is built.
Oh shit. Nevermind then.
- Comment on Google admits the open web is in ‘rapid decline’ 2 days ago:
What I’m hearing is: I can replace saying “I have a dumb little WordPress blog that no one reads” with "I host a part of the ‘Deep Net’.
Sweet.
- Comment on thick skinned employees, how can you be so thick skinned? 2 days ago:
What do I do if adult tells me they want to play with hot wheels with me? I say yes.
Fuck yeah. Hot wheels are great.
- Comment on 2 days ago:
I find it bizarre that people find these obvious cases to prove the tech is worthless. Like saying cars are worthless because they can’t go under water.
This reaction is because conmen are claiming that current generations of LLM technology is going to remove our need for experts and scientists.
We’re not demanding submersible cars, we’re just laughing about the people paying top dollar for the lastest electric car while plannig an ocean cruise.
I’m confident that there’s going to be a great deal of broken… everything…built with AI “assistance” during the next decade.
- Comment on Hollow Knight: Silksong Sparks Debate About Difficulty and Boss Runbacks 4 days ago:
I can accept stupid decisions. I don’t have to respect them.
- Comment on Been looking into getting an "Indexed Universal Life" insurance policy. Are these trust worthy? 2 weeks ago:
I hate investing
Mutual Funds / Index funds are your best bet. If you can, pick out one named “target retirement YYYY” with roughly the year you will turn 67.
It will automatically follow investing best practices based on your current age - agrressive earlier, and very cautious later.
I’m not familiar with all the details of how it works
Perfect recipe to get ripped off. (Most people I know say this is a bad product you are considering buying.)
- Comment on what are the grievances with the "male loneliness epidemic"? 2 weeks ago:
I can’t prove anything, but:
- There’s evidence that billionaires are taking much more than they earn, and that we (everyone else) would be dramatically better off without them (whether we tax them away or… Come to some other compromise.)
- Billionaires own most media outlets and social media sites, even those these don’t actually make much money compared to everything else the billionaires own. This makes some people ask why they bother…
- There’s a noticable tendency in billionaire owned media to focus daily on divisive topics. The specific topic changes, but the divisiveness continues.
- There is history of powerful authoritarians investing heavily in divisive propaganda, primarily to break apart and distract groups of people who could overthrow them.
What I have laid out is not proof that today’s billionaires are directing their staff to verbally attack minorites at any opportunity.
But it certainly is something to think about next time a vicious rumor about a minority group comes along.
- Comment on what are the grievances with the "male loneliness epidemic"? 2 weeks ago:
Would you accept “under-regulated capitalism” or “capitalism treated as an ideal rather than a tool” as a more specific root cause?
- Comment on what are the grievances with the "male loneliness epidemic"? 2 weeks ago:
the need to constantly change jobs to move ahead financially also keeps people on unsteady ground with relationships.
That’s a great point.
- Comment on LibreOffice is right about Microsoft, and it matters more than you think. 3 weeks ago:
If I recall correctly, it has been released for moile on and off as experimental builds. Last time I grabbed an APK, it wasn’t ready.
- Comment on LibreOffice is right about Microsoft, and it matters more than you think. 3 weeks ago:
Put any person who has zero computer experience in front of a windows computer or Linux computer and I doubt they would say the windows computer just works and the Linux one doesn’t.
I did this experiment on my own kids. They find Linux more usable, and find it hard to believe people tolerate Windows.
There’s also some indoctrination involved.
But they have access to both, and they prefer Linux. I think that the “Windows is genuinely easier” argument doesn’t hold any water anymore.
- Comment on LibreOffice is right about Microsoft, and it matters more than you think. 3 weeks ago:
Sure, but it’s not quite the compelling argument it used to be.
Today, I’m not sitting here pining for old Linux software that stopped working. And the small amount of old windows software that did finally stop working actually works now only works on Linux with Wine.
That’s another of the decision points that finally switched to fully favoring Linux, for me, in the last decade.
- Comment on LibreOffice is right about Microsoft, and it matters more than you think. 3 weeks ago:
There is such a law, but many of us feel that Microsoft has proven malice a few times, when it comes to open standards.
- Comment on If there's a sort of "apocalyptic" event but there are still surviving communities, will people be able to make eyeglasses again, or are people with vision issues gonna be fucked? 4 weeks ago:
Can I find a broken window and start sanding it with sandpaper, as an extreme example?
Yes, provided you have a way to polish it back TU transparent again, after changing the shape.
- Comment on The World Will Enter a 15-Year AI Dystopia in 2027, Former Google Exec Says 4 weeks ago:
We can take action. We can grab the die that Joel McHale has tossed into the air.
- Comment on OpenAI's 'Jailbreak-Proof' New Models? Hacked on Day One 5 weeks ago:
It also could be they’re both liars and incompetent.
- Comment on Lemmy is a tech literate echo chamber 1 month 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 month 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 month 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 month 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 month 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 month 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 month 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 month 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 month 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? 1 month 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? 1 month ago:
Perfect score. Social obligations fulfilled: 100%. Words spoken: 0. Emotional energy cost: 40%.
- Comment on YouTuber PatMan QC has passed away 😔 2 months 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 2 months 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? 2 months 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.