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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

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  • Wait, if you can (or anyone else chipping in), please elaborate on something you’ve written.

    When you say

    That means they can engineer a solution to any problem that has already been solved millions of times already.

    Hasn’t Google already made advances through its Alpha Geometry AI?? Admittedly, that’s a geometry setting which may be easier to code than other parts of Math and there isn’t yet a clear indication AI will ever be able to reach a certain level of creativity that the human mind has, but at the same time it might get there by sheer volume of attempts.

    Isn’t this still engineering a solution? Sometimes even researchers reach new results by having a machine verify many cases (see the proof of the Four Color Theorem). It’s true that in the Four Color Theorem researchers narrowed down the cases to try, but maybe a similar narrowing could be done by an AI (sooner or later)?

    I don’t know what I’m talking about, so I should shut up, but I’m hoping someone more knowledgeable will correct me, since I’m curious about this


  • I want to slightly hijack your comment to say how innovative lots of these services were when they showed up and how they all ultimately managed to become a corporate machine crapping on both customers and intermediaries.

    I mean that, when they arrived, Uber, AirBnB, Glovo/Deliveroo/Just Eat/DoorDash all brought something new and potentially useful and parallel to existing structures (involving regular people on the ground which, theoretically, can make an extra buck), but then… They all went down the toilet (I suppose since they were all losing money at the beginning to establish themselves, they had to find some way to make money, but they all irreparably chose enshittifcation)





  • Fascinating read about a horrible tragedy by a complete idiot. I also learned such a way of scamming is called pig butchering.

    I’m not making fun of scammed people and feel for them, but I’m stunned how person X from NYC could believe that person Y from Hong Kong would want to marry them by never having met them. I mean, I can’t understand why you’d trust someone who you’ve never met and only been chatting to.

    For example, if a real friend of yours had been a victim of email spoofing and the scammer started trading emails as your friend, then you’d be interacting with a “trusted” party and I can see it would be easier to fall for it, but these are random numbers from a country you’ve never visited (which no one can even certify even is the one they claim to be) and you start trusting them for no good reason.

    There are tons and tons of scams, some much more subtle and/or targeted than others, but this stuns me in how generic and random it is (and how successfully it works)


  • True, but the feeling is that in general Voyager was hard to watch.

    I rewatched TNG and DS9 several times from start to finish and almost skipped no episodes (though in later rewatches of DS9 I’m skipping the alternate universe ones since I can’t bear them). I tried rewatching VOY and I just can’t. Sure I can rewatch some of the awesome episodes from the show, but I can’t watch it from start to finish since I find most episodes to be cringey (even if I like most of the actors and their characters, but something doesn’t work when watching entire episodes).

    Unrelated: I watched DIS until it was on Netflix (and deemed it an action TV series that’s got nothing to do with Star Trek) and watched only a few episodes of PIC until it turned into the “fellowship of the ring” with the introduction of a sword wielding elf. Should I squeeze my nose and dive into it again and try to finish it?

    I’ll watch SNW as soon as I can. Still haven’t gotten around it




  • While I fully agree with you, for a second there I wondered what could have been proper clothing and footwear for this type of trip. I normally wear Chaco sandals in the Summer and they seem to be sturdier and more appropriate footwear for this walk and then I thought they could melt too, so… Hiking boots? Those would possibly not melt, so maybe they would have been appropriate, but I’m not sure…

    A strange game, the only winning move is not to play… You don’t go to Death Valley in the boiling hot summer (I myself have been in June of many years ago and it was a chillier day)



  • I know it’s a national sport (which I also practice) to worship Bill Watterson, but I was reading this strip and thinking both how nice and friendly his style is, as well as how realistic his imaginary stories are. Sometimes it’s not just funny and creative, it also feels like he’s drawing from everyone’s childhood.

    Maybe we should sue him, how does he know so much about us (lemmings, earthlings, planetary beings, etc)?

    Edit: fixed grammar



  • Well, you’re right in principle, but with my (old, but current) Mac+Intel configuration Firefox is not as sleek as Chrome and also often Firefox turns the fan on while Chrome doesn’t (it may just be that Google is bricking Firefox when you’re on YouTube, for example)

    Anyhow, I’m trying to use Firefox as much as I can (I’ve always done so), but it’s always been true it was a better experience to use Chrome on my setup (and I’ve never used Safari)

    Edit: why the downvotes? To teach me a lesson? I said he’s right, but I do have an actual problem and cannot yet make the full move (and am going to check out the suggestions below. Thanks!)