ToastedRavioli

@ToastedRavioli@midwest.social

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ancient skeleton unearthed in France is latest to be found sitting upright⁩ ⁨⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Given that most/many ancient cultures had a good handle on astronomy, it would make sense if they associated west with death. Since the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, it makes some logical sense to associate the east with beginnings of things and the west with endings

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Maybe, maybe not⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Probably Sandii

  “Hi, this id Sandii….

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Reverse centaurs are the answer to the AI paradox: Not what the machine does, but who it does it to.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Maybe Im just not understanding the point of the centaur analogy, but it seems more convoluting than it does useful. At least in comparison to just making the same points without the analogy

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Polymarket Takes Down Betting on Nuclear Detonation After Backlash⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  For one, its not gambling if there is not an element of chance. Gambling is only the case where people dont know who will win the Super Bowl, or whether or not you will draw a blackjack at the casino, etc.

  If people have direct control over the event being bet on, to the extent that it is not affected by any element of chance, then its not gambling. Its just people with control over a given situation rigging a game to take money from other people. If you went to the casino and the roulette dealer could bet on the game and control where the ball landed that wouldnt be gambling. Neither are prediction markets in most cases.

  That doesnt even get into the issues with ethics and incentivizing people in control to do terrible things (or otherwise act amorally or irrationally) just to make money in the prediction market

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨At least 85 girls killed in strike on school in southern Iran⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Justice is a subjective rather than objective concept, unlike vengeance. Although it can safely be said that vengeance, for many people, is a core component of their sense of justice

  For others, justice is something rooted in whatever is the most good. Even for those beyond the group or person harmed by something. Like restorative justice vs just prison-based punishment. Regardless of which of those two things someone prefers, most of that choice boils down to individual conceptions of justice

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cows are magnetic and it's about time we accepted that⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They do know why, its that cows have some directional sense based in electromagnetism like an actual compass. Cows that are near high voltage power lines dont align the same way as cows normally do. Their sense gets messed up by the strength of the electrical fields that surround high voltage lines

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cows are magnetic and it's about time we accepted that⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Were gonna need a bigger magnet

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨smoooooth⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  And thus began the epoch of the tardigrades

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨People will definitely boo US athletes at the Winter Olympics⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  However bad this year is, the 2028 Olympics in LA will literally be a near repeat of the Nazi’s hosting the Olympics in Berlin in 1936

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bears or no bears?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The polar bears would be fine. The penguins would be in for quite a comeuppance

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trump will decertify Canadian planes⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  My local airport pretty much exclusively operates commercial flights on CRJs. If they were decertified tomorrow we would go to having no commercial flights at all.

  That said, the CRJs are reaching end of life and are expected to be replaced by Embraer (Brazilian made) alternatives in the near future. So airlines are actually already planning to ditch the CRJs. Realistically though they dont actually have those jets yet, so if they are no longer able to use CRJs until the switchover then they will lose a massive amount of money. Not to mention the amount of money many areas will lose by having no commercial flights

  Itll certainly clear up the schedule for more private jet access at regional airports though, like Aspen and Telluride. Im sure his rich friends would be ecstatic about that

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨L.A. Rams Owner Stan Kroenke Becomes Largest Private Landowner in the U.S.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Fuck Stan Kroenke

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trump treats other nations like he treats young girls⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Well we all saw him molest that one flag

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Olympic Council of Asia says Saudi Winter Games 'on schedule'⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It snows in a lot of places, however that doesnt make it conducive to skiing. I live in a ski town, and it has consistently been 10°c during the day and it has absolutely wrecked the ski season. We are getting no natural snow. It is winter 7-8 months of the year here, and that doesnt inherently mean we have enough natural snow to have quality skiing.

  Artificial snow is an option, but to have a good ski area requires significant amounts of annual snowfall in order to open all the runs. You can only make so much artificial snow even in ideal conditions. If its too warm then artificial snow isnt even enough

  Transfer that concept to Saudi Arabia, where they would be lucky for it to be 10°c at night for more than 2 months of the year. Its not remotely feasible to have a ski area. Even if it naturally snows a little bit.

  My comment is not ignorant, although perhaps it was not eliding everything I just conveyed. 3 months ago when I wrote my comment it was 50°c at night, in the area they are building the resort, at the time I wrote the comment. I literally just checked the weather

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Steam Replay is live and notes only 14% "of playtime spent by all Steam users" was for 2025 releases⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The only new game ive played this year is Ball X Pit and it is phenomenal and runs flawlessly for a game that is less than 3 months from release. I hope they keep adding onto it

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The AI Backlash Is Here: Why Backlash Against Gemini, Sora, ChatGPT Is Spreading in 2025 - Newsweek⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Slop is terrible obviously, but at least in exchange for the slop we get… higher energy costs and acceleration of climate change

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨There are first person shooters and third person shooters, but what about second person shooters?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Show me a third person omniscient shooter

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft AI CEO Puzzled by People Being "Unimpressed" by AI⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  There are literally all of about 10 schools an MBA is worth anything from. Often people with MBAs from non T10 schools are recommended to take their MBA off of their resume when they inevitably struggle to find a job. A sub T10 MBA on a resume just says “I will ask for more money courtesy of my useless credential”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨AI Slop Recipes Are Taking Over the Internet — And Thanksgiving Dinner | Food bloggers see traffic dip as home cooks turn to AI, inspired by impossible pictures⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Bosher salt, everyone’s favorite kosher salt and borax mixed seasoning. Why stop at sodium chloride when you can enjoy the power of sodium borate?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The difference can be pretty staggering between games even released a short time apart. I recently got back into AC games, and while downloading them I noticed Origins is less than 25 Gb, while Odyssey is over 75 Gb. They were only released one year apart.

  I havent started Odyssey, so I cant make a comparison, but Origins is a beautiful and well running game at less than 25 Gb of data. I cant imagine Odyssey is significantly more impressive to a point where demanding 3x the data is justified. But I guess I will see soon enough

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Peter Thiel dumps entire Nvidia stake, slashes Tesla holdings amid bubble fears⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Everybody remain F***ING calm!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tobacco conference to weigh up stubbing out cigarette butts⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  They do actually serve the purpose of catching a lot of tar, not just tobacco itself. Which I would assume does have some positive impact for the smoker not getting as much tar through to their body. Although its obviously a negligible benefit in comparison to just not smoking, but that seems reductive. Just like how they talk about ecigs. Harm reduction is a pretty valuable perspective, but for some reason people only view tobacco products from an “abstinence or bust” standpoint.

  In the pre-filter days, when people used those long Pink Panther style cigarette holders, a lot of the holders were designed to fit another cigarette inside of it. The second cigarette acted as a kind of tar filter for the cigarette being smoked. When I was young I bought an old cigarette holder at an antique mall and it still had a cigarette inside it from who knows how many decades prior

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Vacations don't fix your life because your brain treats time off like a free trial of being the person you want to be⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  All my homies hate Albert

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Artist sneaks AI-generated print into National Museum Cardiff gallery⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  In British English it is sneaked

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Saudi Arabia's Dystopian Futuristic City Project Is Crashing and Burning⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Unfortunately, instead of a metaphor for renovation and adaptation, Neom is becoming a metaphor for the Kingdom’s failure to modernize—its inability to throw off the shackles of the past, and its delusion (which appears to be quickly dissipating) that it might somehow transform itself into a paragon of the future. At the same time, said floundering metaphor is being held aloft by thousands upon thousands of precarious workers, many of whom, according to a report from Human Rights Watch, have died for the project. There’s just something about a hubristic mega-project being built in the desert with the blood of countless laborers that doesn’t exactly speak of modernism.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When Xfinity has an outage, I don’t pay for those days. The government’s been shut down for 39 days so can I pay 39 days less in taxes?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  America bad. Sweden perfect. China perfect. Botswana perfect

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨An Idea That I Could Get Behind⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Reminds me of when kids would steal letters off of the signage board in highschool for presidents day so that it read “Penis Day - No School”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Due to Federal Government Shutdown, SNAP Benefits Suspended Beginning November 1, 2025⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Colorado has the benefit of wiggle room stemming from the whole TABOR refund thing. Normally they refund several hundred dollars per year to all residents of the state in unspent tax money. This year those refunds are expected to only be around $20 per person, and then are expected to drop to nothing at all for the foreseeable future.

  So while Colorado can handle this type of thing once, it also means that we are blowing our safety net in a fairly permanent way. With little means to make up for it either, as the TABOR laws make it quite difficult for the state to raise taxes when necessary.

  Its a system that was fairly well designed in some ways, at least for a world where shit was stable. But in the new normal of ridiculousness it is probably going to bite the state in the ass pretty hard. Its just going to be a delayed effect

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hundreds of public figures, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Virgin’s Richard Branson urge AI ‘superintelligence’ ban⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The thing is that there is a snake eating its tail type of logic for why so many investors are dumping money into it. The more it is interacted with, the more it is trained, and then the better it allegedly will be. So these companies push shoehorning it into everything possible, even if it is borderline useless, on the assumption that it will become significantly more useful as a result. Then be more valuable for further implementation, making it worth more.

  So no one wants to blink, and theyve practically dumped every egg in that basket

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Western Executives Shaken After Visiting China⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Theres an argument to be made that we also dominated by creating manufacturing standards before there were international standards, so by the time the world was establishing international standards we were able to push for our standards to become ISO standards. Like screw threads being 45°, that kind of thing.

  But the world standards especially became our standards because we were the cheap production hub as you said, and because we were farther removed from conflict during WWII. Another aspect is that we had established a ton of military bases to move things around the world, which was a huge benefit as well. But overall, we certainly used to occupy that same spot that China occupies today