PuddleOfKittens's recent activity

  1. Comment on Some observations about some of the conversations here in ~tildes

  2. Comment on Some observations about some of the conversations here in ~tildes

  3. Comment on Some observations about some of the conversations here in ~tildes

  4. Comment on Some observations about some of the conversations here in ~tildes

  5. Comment on Some observations about some of the conversations here in ~tildes

  6. Comment on Is Nebula worth it? in ~tech

    PuddleOfKittens
    Link Parent
    What happened there? The only time I've heard of Second Thought was this rather damning video, so I'd guess he was kicked off for saying some crazy tankie stuff. Huh. (From the stream on this...

    What happened there? The only time I've heard of Second Thought was this rather damning video, so I'd guess he was kicked off for saying some crazy tankie stuff.

    Huh.

    Second Thought is openly stating that all Israelis are non-civilians and thus their kidnapping and murder is justified.

    (From the stream on this twitter link.)

    That's incredibly messed up.

    9 votes

  7. Comment on Bike brands start to adopt C-V2X to warn cyclists about cars in ~transport

    PuddleOfKittens
    Link Parent
    OK, so, does peak-hour traffic not cause traffic jams where you live? Cars are the easiest form of transport to jam up.

    Having my, and everyone else's main form of transportation centrally controlled by some system somewhere that is potentially subject to all of those things isn't something I, or probably most people would be ok with signing up for.

    OK, so, does peak-hour traffic not cause traffic jams where you live? Cars are the easiest form of transport to jam up.

    2 votes

  8. Comment on Reddit shares soar 14% after company reports revenue pop in debut earnings report in ~tech

    PuddleOfKittens
    Link Parent
    Reddit has been growing exponentially for years, and it's changed. Meanwhile, choosing your defaults lets you filter out the garbage and effectively blind yourself to the changes, which...

    What went wrong here?

    Reddit has been growing exponentially for years, and it's changed. Meanwhile, choosing your defaults lets you filter out the garbage and effectively blind yourself to the changes, which structurally leads people to assume their echochamber is bigger than it really is.

    I think if the average reddit user was the same type of person as the average redditor from 2011, then the IPO would've been a fatal blow. Maybe. But reddit's changes have been going on for long enough that anyone who really cared enough to leave has already left (e.g. when reddit stopped being open source), and most newcomers don't care in the first place.

    Apparently when Reddit first launched, /r/programming was a default sub, and one of the most popular subs. Nowadays it's relatively niche (which is why it's no longer a default).

    Reddit is just normal people, and normal people put up with all sorts of bullshit from Facebook etc without leaving on sheer principle, so that's what happened when reddit IPO'd.

    21 votes

  9. Comment on Reddit shares soar 14% after company reports revenue pop in debut earnings report in ~tech

    PuddleOfKittens
    Link Parent
    /r/anime_titties was created in response to /r/worldpolitics being incredibly poorly moderated. The joke being something like "/r/worldpolitics is nothing but anime titties, so we'll make...

    /r/anime_titties was created in response to /r/worldpolitics being incredibly poorly moderated. The joke being something like "/r/worldpolitics is nothing but anime titties, so we'll make /r/anime_titties and make it be about world politics".

    Same thing as /r/trees and /r/marijuanaEnthusiasts.

    25 votes

  10. Comment on Illinois Democrats speedily change candidate law; Republicans call measure ‘election interference,' "undemocratic" in ~news

    PuddleOfKittens
    Link Parent
    The word "official" gets blurrier by the day, but at this point the e.g. Democrat presidential primary is closer to an election than the actual election (which is more like a referendum on whether...

    Political parties aren't official organs of the government to begin with.

    The word "official" gets blurrier by the day, but at this point the e.g. Democrat presidential primary is closer to an election than the actual election (which is more like a referendum on whether to abolish democracy).

    Political parties ideally should not be official, but thanks to the wonders of FPTP they effectively are.

    If there's one thing that Trump has taught us, it's that unwritten laws need to become written laws if they're actually useful.

    8 votes

  11. Comment on AI, automation, and inequality — how do we reach utopia? in ~talk

    PuddleOfKittens
    Link
    I think that technology for basic necessities has reached diminishing returns a long time ago, and we need to start with the broad strokes if we want to actually improve the economy. In fact,...

    I think that technology for basic necessities has reached diminishing returns a long time ago, and we need to start with the broad strokes if we want to actually improve the economy. In fact, technology potentially makes things worse, because a smart-toaster has a shorter functional lifetime than a toaster that doesn't have wifi. We're creating entire new categories of failure-modes.

    The two big expenses that "nobody talks about" are cars/transport costs, and homes/rent. They've been discussed at length in other topics (Build More Trains etc etc), so I won't repeat that here. But fundamentally, that's a political problem and technology won't help us (and anyone promising otherwise is worse-than-useless).

    I think the next "innovation" might be heirloom tech; i.e. mid-range appliances etc that are built to last decades. This is a technical change in manufacturing, but the choice to make the change is ultimately an expression of values that is politically driven - the only way to sell "built to last" is to build a brand that markets reliability, and then make sure that brand is never cashed in for short-term profit. That last part is a problem, because MBAs see it as "extracting economic value" and "a very profitable strategy", not backstabbing customers.

    There's also the overwork death-spiral: if people need e.g. a car to get to their job, and they get underpaid at the job which forces them to work overtime, then more people working overtime increases labor supply and thus reduces employee bargaining bargaining power and prevents them from demanding jobs be accessible without the car (WFH?) or from demanding more money so they can work less overtime. Or just the ability to decline overtime without being fired.

    In fact, I think a big problem with 'overwork' is that society is built around 'full-time' work hours, so spending less often only lets you retire earlier, it doesn't let you actually reduce your work hours. Which incentivizes spending the excess money on time-saving things (cue mexican fishing joke).

    2 votes

  12. Comment on React, Electron, and LLMs have a common purpose: the labour arbitrage theory of dev tool popularity in ~comp

    PuddleOfKittens
    Link Parent
    It's similar in that both blame capitalism for the software world's problems. Such is common at The End Of History. Correct, too.

    It's similar in that both blame capitalism for the software world's problems. Such is common at The End Of History. Correct, too.

    1 vote

  13. Comment on Ukraine pulls US-provided Abrams tanks from the front lines over Russian drone threats in ~news

    PuddleOfKittens
    Link Parent
    Keep in mind that drone operators don't upload videos of their failures very often; you only see the highlight reel. Drone kills only tell us that drones can work, not that they're reliable. Tanks...

    Keep in mind that drone operators don't upload videos of their failures very often; you only see the highlight reel. Drone kills only tell us that drones can work, not that they're reliable.

    Tanks aren't going away unless they don't have utility. Wars aren't won by K/D ratio, they're won by achieving objectives (usually taking land). If you're trying to assault any sort of fortified position, then spending a few tanks to take otherwise-unconquerable ground can be priceless.

    Also, I imagine the tank logic applies to APCs: APCs are used to transport troops in and out, and to evacuate the wounded. Even if APCs are vulnerable to drones, they aren't vulnerable to just any dickhead with an AK, which is a huge step up compared to a $500-per-use drone that's in short supply.

    Come to think of it, kevlar doesn't actually stop bullets - it's a bullet-resistant vest, but people still use the stuff because wrecking a $1000 vest to block a $1 bullet is worth it to save a >$1000 soldier.

    4 votes

  14. Comment on Ukraine pulls US-provided Abrams tanks from the front lines over Russian drone threats in ~news

    PuddleOfKittens
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    "Drones" just means unmanned vehicles that can steer themselves; there's not that much difference between a drone and a missile. A $10 000 kamikaze drone could easily carry enough explosives to...

    "Drones" just means unmanned vehicles that can steer themselves; there's not that much difference between a drone and a missile.

    A $10 000 kamikaze drone could easily carry enough explosives to bust a tank (here is a picture of Shahed 136 missiles (edit: drones) in a truck, for scale), and even if you pay $50k each and waste 10 of them for a single tank, you're still winning the economics considering that your equipment loss is only $500k whereas tanks cost multiple millions of dollars.

    The key term for the Shahed here is "loitering munition", i.e. unlike a missile it can hang around in the sky for quite a while, to wait for a target to show up.

    A standard quadcopter is not being used to blow up a tank unless some idiot leaves the tank's hatch open and switches off their brain.

    25 votes

  15. Comment on The cycling revolution in Paris continues: Bicycle use now exceeds car use in ~transport

    PuddleOfKittens
    Link Parent
    Another phrase to consider is "if there's so much demand for a bridge, then why don't I see anyone swimming across?"

    The phrase I use when talking about demand for infrastructure is "If you build it, they will come."

    Another phrase to consider is "if there's so much demand for a bridge, then why don't I see anyone swimming across?"

    8 votes

  16. Comment on Rooftop solar panels are flooding California’s grid. That’s a problem. in ~enviro

    PuddleOfKittens
    Link Parent
    Expanding the macrogrid is politically hard because when expanded past state lines it's definitionally interstate commerce and thus can be federally regulated. Basically, California doesn't want...

    Expanding the macrogrid is politically hard because when expanded past state lines it's definitionally interstate commerce and thus can be federally sabotaged regulated. Basically, California doesn't want any of their grid to be regulated by Trump if he wins 2024.

    There are ways to mitigate this and expand the grid across state boundaries anyway (and this is being done), but it's not the freebie it looks like.

    3 votes

  17. Comment on Rooftop solar panels are flooding California’s grid. That’s a problem. in ~enviro

    PuddleOfKittens
    Link Parent
    Batteries aren't quite where it's at - load shifting is where it's at. So for instance, being able to use AC to store heat/cold during peak, then tap into it during off-peak. Or basically turning...

    Batteries aren't quite where it's at - load shifting is where it's at. So for instance, being able to use AC to store heat/cold during peak, then tap into it during off-peak. Or basically turning any time-sensitive appliance into one that's not time-sensitive, even if it's less efficient as a result.

    13 votes

  18. Comment on Why do negative topics dominate social media sites, even here? in ~tech

    PuddleOfKittens
    Link Parent
    I think this is missing the point, and to explain why I'm going to go off on a tangent: Recently, there was a YouTube video called "capitalism is good, actually" which said that the problem with...

    Soooooo many times I'm reading something about some "big problem with/under capitalism" and just think "that's not a problem inherent to capitalism, the social policies in your country just suck."

    I think this is missing the point, and to explain why I'm going to go off on a tangent:

    Recently, there was a YouTube video called "capitalism is good, actually" which said that the problem with climate change wasn't capitalism, it was the lack of carbon tax. Except, we've the recognized the carbon tax as the obvious solution since the 1980s; we just haven't been able to implement it is due to corporate lobbying from fossil fuel companies.

    Capitalism is not a list of laws. Capitalism is a process that prevents laws from being changed if they sufficiently benefit the rich and powerful. Saying "other country X doesn't have that law" is missing the point, the existence of any given law is a historical accident (e.g. the US "chicken tax" that prevents small foreign truck imports, guess where the name comes from) and won't be consistent across countries.

    So: the key term here is the political economy (I.e. the market for buying/selling political influence). The political economy is inherent to capitalism, and there has never been a capitalist society without one. A political economy inevitably causes distortions in the free market, because buying a distortion in your company's favor ("regulatory capture") is frequently profitable. This means that any failings of checks/balances of capitalism can be caused by capitalism itself, and can't necessarily be used as justification for "that's not capitalism, your [checks on capitalism] just suck".

    10 votes

  19. Comment on China is battening down for the gathering storm over Taiwan in ~misc

    PuddleOfKittens
    Link Parent
    My point here is that it doesn't make a lot of sense for a news article to mention it in the first place - it's a given. It's like reporting that Chinese troops have been practicing digging...

    My point here is that it doesn't make a lot of sense for a news article to mention it in the first place - it's a given. It's like reporting that Chinese troops have been practicing digging trenches: yes, so what? How is that relevant to anything? Military gonna military.

    We do technically have evidence, by the way - all their missile silos are underground, which includes not only the silo itself but also the accompanying infrastructure (the point of a silo is that the big metal door stays closed and relatively bomb-proofed except the moment the missile launches; building everything underground is a key part of making the facility able to hopefully survive a nuke).

    Again though, this is not interesting or surprising.

    2 votes

  20. Comment on China is battening down for the gathering storm over Taiwan in ~misc

    PuddleOfKittens
    Link Parent
    Not really - putting military complexes underground is really obvious; everyone knows where everything above-ground is, thanks to satellite imagery, and concrete is expensive and...

    Is there better evidence for that somewhere? If true, it seems like interesting reading.

    Not really - putting military complexes underground is really obvious; everyone knows where everything above-ground is, thanks to satellite imagery, and concrete is expensive and not-overly-necessary when you can build your bunker under 50 metres of solid rock.

    1 vote