palordrolap
@palordrolap@fedia.io
Some middle-aged guy on the Internet. Seen a lot of it, occasionally regurgitating it, trying to be amusing and informative.
Lurked Digg until v4. Commented on Reddit (same username) until it went full Musk.
Was on kbin.social (dying/dead) and kbin.run (mysteriously vanished). Now here on fedia.io.
Really hoping he hasn't brought the jinx with him.
Other Adjectives: Neurodivergent; Nerd; Broken; British; Ally; Leftish
- Comment on Why does google decide to log people out of all their google accounts all at once with no warning? 1 week ago:
Sounds like Google doesn't create per-account cookies and uses one cookie set per browser instance, so you're either logged in or you're logged out, one account at a time.
Browser containers or profiles might be the answer to what you need.
I've been using different Firefox profiles to run accounts in parallel for well over a decade at this point. Containers might be able to do the same thing, but on account of the aforementioned, I've stuck with the old way of doing things.
- Comment on Is there a word, perhaps as 40-letter compound word in German, that explains this annoying social phenomenon? 2 weeks ago:
Also not what you're looking for, but it may scratch some of the itch: déjà vu
That is, (you think) you're inducing a sense of déjà vu and disgust within Sebastian.
- Comment on why is the beginning on the left and the end on the right? 2 weeks ago:
Additional to other answers, back in the early days of alphabetic writing, some writings alternated left to right then back again right to left on alternating lines. This is called "boustrophedon", literally "(as the) ox walk(s)" because it's the same way oxen are used to plough fields.
There's documented evidence of both early Latin and Greek being written this way. What's less clear is which direction they chose to start those writings.
The problem with that is that you have to learn to read both directions. They often wrote the letters backwards when text went the other way, which came with its own set of problems. You probably don't have a mirror. You basically have to learn to write almost twice as many symbols. Some letters are their own reflection and you can't always tell which way something was written. etc. etc.
Eventually someone influential will have chosen the direction for presumably a good reason (to them) and everyone else eventually followed suit.
- Comment on Am I financially enabling child labor in 3rd world countries by buying second hand fast fashion? 2 weeks ago:
Do you consider yourself a virus?
Well, certain people do consider me to have some undesirable traits like ideas about getting our species off the planet, and if I didn't exist, I'd generate considerably less CO₂.
Uncomfortable though it may be, the latter applies to everyone I've ever known, cared about or who has cared about me.
And it is inherent. The singular purpose of certain genes is to make more of the same gene, and they've gotten very good at it. Humans and viruses are both emergent phenomena.
But then, I suppose if we don't leave, we don't spread the disease elsewhere... so OK. You're right. We should never ever leave...
And the only way to save the biosphere is to do something we're completely incapable of. We're screwed. Neat!
- Comment on Fedimap.de - a reallife usermap of the Fediverse 2 weeks ago:
I reckon there's a few of us about on here.
- Comment on Am I financially enabling child labor in 3rd world countries by buying second hand fast fashion? 2 weeks ago:
I don't think that because the rich b-stards think that. I think that because I believe our species - regardless of race - has outgrown its environment. If I got this idea from somewhere else, it wasn't from Musk or Bezos or others like them. It might even have come from watching Star Trek or reading sci-fi.
We're like a virus or a cancer that will ultimately end up killing the host. Earth's biosphere in this instance.
The correct course of action is to destroy the infection or cut it out.
And if you want what's being cut out to survive afterwards, yes, you have a lot of work ahead of you before you do so to ensure its continued existence once it's somewhere else.
We need to consider what it would take to get every single one of us off this planet and living somewhere else.
- Comment on Am I financially enabling child labor in 3rd world countries by buying second hand fast fashion? 2 weeks ago:
I'm actually of the opinion that humanity needs to get off this rock as soon as possible. The uncomfortable truth is that fewer humans would in fact help the environment, and none would be even better.
The problem is with how to implement that without it turning into murder.
Hence, we leave.
- Comment on AI agents now have their own Reddit-style social network, and it's getting weird fast 3 weeks ago:
Yes. The institution in question is human society. We generally grant the permission to make rational decisions over our lives to other humans who know better that we do or are more skilled than we are.
Sometimes, yes, those humans turn out to have been deceitful or dishonest, but there are mechanisms in place for when that happens.
And yes, sometimes those mechanisms are wilfully avoided by the deceitful. Politicians and rich people are especially good at this.
Guess who's pushing "AI"? The thing that has no contract with human society and cannot be held accountable. And neither will the people pushing it.
This is why we should have as little to do with it - at least as it is in its current form - as possible.
- Comment on Whats the best alternative to twitch and youtube? 3 weeks ago:
Tangential advice: Many people use YouTube (and formerly Twitch until they nixed it) as a place to store videos. As in the only copy of a video is hosted there.
If your videos are precious to you (or you think they're going to be), make arrangements for them to be at least stored elsewhere, if not hosted. That's not going to be cheap what with hardware prices going through the roof, personally or third-party, but it is necessary because no host is both trustworthy and permanent.
Actually not even self-storage is as trustworthy and permanent as we'd like, but it's still better than any alternative for data retention.
Also, donate to your chosen Fediverse host(s) if you can.
- Comment on AI agents now have their own Reddit-style social network, and it's getting weird fast 3 weeks ago:
Fake AGI is like fake banknotes. Some of them are really good approximations. Nigh indistinguishable. A lot of people will be fooled by it but eventually it will be discovered to be a fake and people will get hurt in some way or another.
And it won't be the people who are pushing for "AGI".
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
I wouldn't turn up to most job interviews with rainbow hair, oversize sunglasses and clown shoes. And if I dressed sensibly, I probably wouldn't bring my teddy bear as a mascot if I expected to be taken seriously.
Emojis are in that sort of territory.
Know your audience. And if you don't, or are trying to present to as wide an audience as possible, default to the safety of plain prose.
- Comment on 3 weeks ago:
but three hundred twenty-seven otherwise
Depends on the dialect. That "and" is a requirement in British English.
- Comment on AI agents now have their own Reddit-style social network, and it's getting weird fast 3 weeks ago:
The people who are seeking AGI will be happy when an LLM appears clever enough to fool them, not anyone else.
They may even realise this, because they think everyone else is less clever than they are.
This is why the whole thing has been called AI in the first place.
- Comment on xkcd #3201: Proof Without Content 3 weeks ago:
That blank box is a proof if and only if it is a proof. That makes it a self-reference and has no truth value.
- Comment on How do I keep a brand new one of these mats from wanting to keep curling up on the ends? 3 weeks ago:
I was going to suggest gluing a thin, flat strip of metal around the edges, but yeah, anything stiff would serve the same purpose.
- Comment on Am I financially enabling child labor in 3rd world countries by buying second hand fast fashion? 3 weeks ago:
Seems to me that would make the true ethical choice to be to buy it from the second-hand shop and then burn it, robbing anyone else any chance of advertising that fashion.
- Comment on Kernel Community Drafts a Plan For Replacing Linus Torvalds 3 weeks ago:
As I've said before, once Linus is gone, we might well end up with splits at the kernel level rather than at the distro level. And we would be wise to avoid any one organisation's stock kernel, even if there are some very large organisations providing a lot of code for the kernel at present.
I can see a future where, say, GNOME, start producing their own kernels to support their vision of the Linux desktop from the ground up.
And it's all but certain that Canonical and Red Hat would be very interested in things going their (respective) way(s) when the time comes.
- Comment on YSK that the guy who created the hardest quote on conservatives is also a contemporary classical music composer 3 weeks ago:
And the smart ones would agree with it and insist you'd be insane to think otherwise.
- Comment on Do you touch the light switch entering a room if it's already on? 3 weeks ago:
Not a doctor, but that sounds like an OCD-type thing to me. I suspect most people do not feel the need to touch a control if it is already set as they want. Also, this might be in violation of rule 3 as a result.
Consider consulting with a doctor or psychologist or (cheaper) trying to get yourself out of this habit before it diversifies into a family of them (assuming it hasn't already).
- Comment on Google will pay $135 million to settle illegal data collection lawsuit 3 weeks ago:
Any C-levels, current or former, who were in charge during the unethical behaviour should be made to pay this. Either they knew or they should have known. Seize their assets, take them back to basic income and lifestyle and only then take the remainder of the fine from the company.
Yeah, I know this is a pipe dream. These people have their arms lodged so deep in politicians it makes their mouths flap, so it'll never happen, but it would stop this sort of behaviour right quick.
- Comment on xkcd #3200: Chemical Formula 3 weeks ago:
-1 would be antihydrogen. Blackholium is whatever number is large enough to cause gravitational collapse, so probably one or two more than the largest neutron star.
- Comment on xkcd #3200: Chemical Formula 3 weeks ago:
There are exotic atoms in that chemical formula that aren't in the periodic table. Not even if you count the equivalent table of potential antimatter atoms.
Muonium is sure to exist in non-zero quantities at any one time, for example.
- Comment on Why there is no clock that displays time 4:20:69 ? 3 weeks ago:
There's a Unix timestamp that ends with at least one of 42069 or 69420 within any 24 hour period. Often both.
- Comment on What should be emoji reaction for "me too" in the general sense 3 weeks ago:
Nah. It's not, or wasn't, Redshift. Nor is it a vision issue. I can have the emoji picker on screen at the same time as my comment and they're definitely very different colours.
I think the picker uses images, but the on-screen text renderer in Firefox is using the Noto Color Emoji font as a substitution (because the text font doesn't have emojis) and whatever Firefox has set as the default colours for the glyphs in it.
My picker clearly doesn't know how to generate the right modifier sequences to change those, and I don't think it's worth mucking around with Unicode zero-width joiners and colour modifiers to try to figure it out.
- Comment on What should be emoji reaction for "me too" in the general sense 3 weeks ago:
As someone aware of the ancient lore, but am in fact from the early continuance of the Eternal September: the AOL logo
In the early days of the WWW, there was an influx of clueless folks - often AOL users - saying "me too!" on anything and everything with little to no further input. It was among the earliest of Internet memes.
Oh. The AOL logo isn't an emoji? Then 🔼 and 🔺 are close approximations. I'm not sure what, if anything, can set the colour(s) of those. My emoji picker says the first one should be white on blue, but it's showing as white on orange as I type in the comment box. The second one is just red.
- Comment on TikTokers say anti-ICE videos won’t publish. The company blames tech issues 3 weeks ago:
I was going to suggest using pro-ICE rhetoric dripping with over the top sarcasm, but there are too many sufficiently smart pro-ICE people who'd see through it and too many anti-ICE who might have trouble discerning it. And then there's the issue of getting the tone right in a stressful and dangerous situation.
- Comment on Why are americans taking health advice from a former heroin addict ? 3 weeks ago:
True. He's in government, and specifically that government, so he has access to all the money and drugs he wants, so if he's remaining clean, he's doing exceptionally well on that score.
This should not be taken as an endorsement of his abilities as a politician or his knowledge about science. Plenty of other evidence suggests he should be doing neither of those. Hell, I'm not even sure I'd follow his advice if I was a heroin addict trying to get off the stuff.
- Comment on YSK grab a cup of coffee and read this article if you want to truly understand what's happening in Minnesota 3 weeks ago:
that's what ICE and Trump want to happen
Yeah. It's the same playbook used to great effect in a certain Middle-Eastern conflict.
As for the "accidental" sabotage, I can't imagine they'd be very ... charitable ... to that sort of agent, especially if there's the vaguest whiff that they might be doing so on purpose. Stomp stomp stomp, etc.
There are fates worse than death. Civil disobedience and nuisance is the only way. Make them absolutely loathe every moment they're on duty so they don't want to go back to work.
- Comment on Do babies learn languages at different rates depending on how hard the language is? 4 weeks ago:
I saw a video the other day that repeated that claim, but I can't remember which video it was, nor can I find a specific scientific paper on it (caveat: there may be a search skill issue on my part).
Interestingly, I did find a paper (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28430531/) that apparently seeks to investigate the claim, but doesn't mention, in their abstract anyway, any specific papers making the claim. That's something I'd expect they'd do if they found such a paper themselves, but I can also think of a few reasons that such information might be omitted from it.
- Comment on Bye, X: Europeans are launching their own social media platform, W 4 weeks ago:
... so you don't think Mastodon is a worthy competitor?
How about Bluesky?