blindsight

@blindsight@beehaw.org

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Watch. It.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Epicly long light novels are like that, too. Like in xianxia, they’re weak and looked down upon, but, due to [secret hidden ultra advantage], they advance quickly until they can defeat the bullies. Which brings them to a new tier of power where they’re weak and looked down upon, …

  Some series do a good job of expanding the scope of things so politics start playing a bigger role, and they interact with people multiple tiers above their power for more continuity/scope, and/or move to new worlds/environments with entirely new structures, etc.

  Others just do the same thing over and over again. Most do both, lol.

  I find I can’t binge the same thing for more than a few weeks before I need a “palate cleanser” series before going back.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The shocking sex trafficking allegations at one of America’s largest hotel chains⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The whole article is sickening. Spoilers below for graphic/shocking content.

  How are there so many people willing to pay to rape teenagers? >!And cleaners just turning a blind eye on taking out bloody towels daily.!<

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Researchers upend AI status quo by eliminating matrix multiplication in LLMs⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This could be huge, but we’ll need to wait and see. The economic and ecological footprint of LLMs is problematic.

  That said, will this actually help, or will they just use 3T parameter models to outcompete competitors 1T parameter models using GPUs? Really, this is more about small-scale models competing with midsize models. Like, this could bring a model as big as GPT 3.5 down to be something you could run on affordable hardware, right?

  That would be really compelling for my sector (education) where there’s a lot of concern about student data privacy. I could definitely pitch building a local $5K-cost LLM server that could handle a dozen or so simultaneous users. That would be enough for a small school district.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Elsevier⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It would be pretty trivial for a script to automatically detect and delete tags like this, I would think. Diff two versions of the file and swap all diff characters to any non-display character.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Elsevier⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This is probably the avenue to shut this down. If finding is contingent on making the publication freely available to download, and that comes from a major government funding source, then this whole scan could die essentially overnight.

  That would need to somehow get enough political support to pass muster in the first place and pass the inevitable legal challenge that follows, too. So, really, this is just another example of regulatory capture ruining everything.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨USA | Columbia Task Force Finally Weighs In: Yes, Anti-Zionism Is Antisemitism⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That article doesn’t pull its punches. Good for them. Columbia University leadership should be dragged through the mud for this farcical panel of partisans with extreme views being selected, without any domain expertise, to run this panel. What a joke.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨International Criminal Court Members Speak Out⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I suppose it depends on your awareness of American politics and genocide in Palestine. It was instantly clear to me that this was most likely in response to US lawmakers, and I get most of my news from Lemmy (that is, not much).

  It was effective clickbait for me since I wanted to click through to verify my guess… and I suppose to get some sick enjoyment from seeing other people in power fight back against American Exceptionalism and hegemony.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Shovel Knight is getting online co-op as part of a new Shovel Of Hope DX edition for its 10th anniversary⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  lol, this isn’t the first time I waited so long to play a game that a remastered version is announced. I guess I’ll wait for the remastered version to be released and go on sale… And maybe they’ll make a remaster of the remastered version before I play it!

  Seriously, though, that rewind feature makes me excited to try this version. I ain’t got time for too much challenge in my games, but I usually get bored of easy modes. Unlimited attempts at reasonably hard content sounds perfect for me!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Research⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Van Gogh’s Starry Night, and The Scream (respectively).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Medics Say Police Weapons Drew Blood and Cracked Bones at UCLA Protest⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Another really sad part is that campus security just stood by and watched as the protesters were attacked by “counter protesters”.

  This is absolutely ridiculous. From what I can discuss, it sounds like they weren’t blocking anyone’s access to facilities, they were students peacefully protesting at their post secondary educational institution. This shit is happening in Canada, too!; thankfully a Quebec court just overruled one of our university’s attempt to forcefully forcefully remove the protesters.

  I hope the universities that called in militarized police responses get sued and administration staff is forced to resign. These chuckleclowns should never be in charge of educational institutions ever again.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Australia should pass bill to ban non-prescription vapes, Senate committee finds⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I assume as a smoking cessation tool? idk, just speculating.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Academic Rizzlers⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Based.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ONS staff refuse to work two days a week in office⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Team building is very important.

  That’s why my employer strongly requests us to meet in person 2 times/year.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cops can force suspect to unlock phone with thumbprint, US court rules⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I might have changed that setting. I don’t like Google Assistant on my phone since it interferes with my Google Home devices.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cops can force suspect to unlock phone with thumbprint, US court rules⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  On my Sony phone, holding power with the screen on brings up the power menu, which includes Lockdown mode.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Or we could do metric time⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Universal holidays between the years was good enough for the Mayans and it’s good enough for me!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Or we could do metric time⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So what I’m getting from this is that we need to pull the Moon a bit closer to the Earth, and the Earth a bit closer to the Sun.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Or we could do metric time⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What the flying fuck. I literally did that exact thing in university to manage my at-the-time undiagnosed sleep disorder.

  I slept through like 30% of my classes, but it was the most rested I’d ever been in my life.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Or we could do metric time⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You can thank Julius Augustus for that. He wanted the best months named after himself. Egomaniac.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Disney reportedly wants to bring always-on channels to Disney Plus⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This is fascinating to watch happening. As numbers-must-go-up businesses chase profits in a world where subscribership has peaked, they cannibalize their own value proposition to increase profits. This encourages more users to shift to piracy, accelerating profit losses.

  Will we ever reach an equilibrium? My understanding is that total entertainment spending doesn’t decline or grow much, so it’s all just trying to compete with rivals for a bigger slice of the pie. I wonder if the major TV and film producers are just going to have less total money heading their way, and we’ll have less high-budget content created.

  I don’t really care either way; lots of lower-budget content is amaze balls. I barely ever play AAA games or watch blockbuster movies, and I think it might be better for everyone to get more diversity in content creators (that lower budgets will likely enable.)

  It will be very interesting seeing how this all plays out over the next few decades.

  Now excuse my while I go pirate low-budget UK panel shows (that are region-locked internationally) while playing Final Fantasy 5 on an emulator modded with several fan-made romhacks.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Meta's 'consent or pay' tactic must not prevail over privacy, EU rights groups warn⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I really hope they make the right decision!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Schools Were Just Supposed To Block Porn. Instead They Sabotaged Homework and Censored Suicide Prevention Sites⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This article goes against what I’ve noticed in schools, as a teacher.

  In schools I’ve worked in that block sites students want to reach (games or video streaming, almost exclusively), one kid in the school figures out how to sign up for a free VPN, and it spreads quickly until everyone in the school is using a crappy (likely unsafe) VPN. They don’t have the knowledge to seek out a reputable VPN; they just get whatever spyware they find first that works.

  There’s no point filtering school Internet, except for known porn sites. Block PornHub, obviously, but as soon as you block YouTube or Cool Math Games, then every student in the school will be using a shitty VPN by the end of the month.

  That said, students aren’t going to put the effort in to get around blocks for schoolwork. Obviously. They aren’t going to open the VPN for that!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Clickbait answer: It’s property taxes. Not hidden at all.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Everyone in Japan will be called Sato by 2531 unless marriage law changed, says professor⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I posted this in another thread on this article:

  The math is wrong.

  You can’t apply exponential growth to the proportion of a total.

  Growing from 1% to 2% (a 100% gain) is equally a reduction from 99% to 98%, a 1.01% drop.
  Going from 99% to 100% (a 1.01% gain) is equally a reduction from 1% to 0%, an infinite drop.

  Simple exponential modeling is the wrong tool.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨degree in bamf⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Did you drop a /s? This is a funny meme, so I’m assuming I just missed a joke.

  Right?

  (Speaking as a white male, white male entitlement, and privilege for that matter, are incredibly relevant to white men being sexist/racist.)

  (You can trust me on this because I’m a white male. Also, I’m used to my opinion being listened to, so I expect you to as well. Just FYI.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨positivity⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  √(x²)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That stood out to me, too. It also completely ignores the t-shirt of compound interest on amortization schedules. If you can pay 10% of your minimum wage job to student loans (lol, good luck), quick napkin math shows that millennials will literally never pay off their loans, I think?

  I don’t have time to run the math properly right now, but I’m really tempted to skip out on working to run the numbers, lol!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can someone explain why authors do this?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Alt text:

  Changing the names would be easier, but if you’re not comfortable lying, try only making friends with people named Alice, Bob, Carol, etc.

  XKCD isn’t complete without the alt text.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨France halts €100-a-month electric car leasing scheme after huge demand⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Brilliant. A model that should be adopted in developed nations all over the world.

  I wouldn’t qualify (I live too close to work) but it’s reasonable that they put driving requirements on the plan. Not much point subsidizing drivers who drive under 5K km/yr.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can a new shot prevent a hangover? I put it to the test⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  200 mg of caffeine in a product that’s marketed to take after a night of drinking before going to sleep? Or is this meant to be taken in the morning, after a night of drinking? (But by then wouldn’t the hangover be started already, making this a remedy, not prevention?)

  I find this product confusing.