DynamoSunshirt's recent activity

  1. Comment on Spotify, the world's biggest music streaming service, has announced it is working with major labels on using artificial intelligence in a "responsible" way in ~music

    DynamoSunshirt
    Link Parent
    Sounds a lot like "useful ads." An oxymoron.

    Sounds a lot like "useful ads." An oxymoron.

    9 votes

  2. Comment on What ridiculous thing would you spend billions on? in ~talk

    DynamoSunshirt
    Link Parent
    Meanwhile, I would honestly enjoy building a car-free city with walking/public transit/bicycling as the main methods of transportation. But I suspect it would cost many tens of billions to get...

    Meanwhile, I would honestly enjoy building a car-free city with walking/public transit/bicycling as the main methods of transportation. But I suspect it would cost many tens of billions to get anywhere.

    6 votes

  3. Comment on What ridiculous thing would you spend billions on? in ~talk

    DynamoSunshirt
    Link Parent
    Sounds cool, unless you played Bioshock Infinite! Speaking of which, why not build a city underwater? What could possibly go wrong!

    Sounds cool, unless you played Bioshock Infinite! Speaking of which, why not build a city underwater? What could possibly go wrong!

    14 votes

  4. Comment on Luigi Mangione wants death penalty count tossed in US CEO murder case in ~news

    DynamoSunshirt
    Link Parent
    What confuses me the most is that, even if you're a low-tier asset holder with a solid 401k, savings, investments, and a home, it does not benefit you to squeeze the working class! You still...

    What confuses me the most is that, even if you're a low-tier asset holder with a solid 401k, savings, investments, and a home, it does not benefit you to squeeze the working class! You still likely send your kids to public school. You still drive your own car on public roads. When your pipes start leaking or your furnace breaks, you call up a working class person to fix them. In what world have the rich deluded themselves into thinking that we can rub the faces of 80% of society in the dirt for years, and not wind up with immense sociopolitical dysfunction?

    20 votes

  5. Comment on TV Tuesdays Free Talk in ~tv

    DynamoSunshirt
    Link
    A couple of months ago, I finally picked up The Sopranos. It hasn't been quite what I expected. For reference, I absolutely loved The Wire and I've historically enjoyed a lot of "prestige" TV....

    A couple of months ago, I finally picked up The Sopranos. It hasn't been quite what I expected. For reference, I absolutely loved The Wire and I've historically enjoyed a lot of "prestige" TV. But, midway through Season 3, The Sopranos still feels incredibly clunky (pacing, story, character arcs, even cinematography). Every character is so morally grey or downright bad that I really have no character to "root for" or latch onto as a favorite. It's starting to remind me of TV shows like Always Sunny, where everyone is trash, doing trash things, and you're just there to watch the spectacle instead of hoping for the plot to go in any particular direction.

    There are moments where the "evil suburban family" trope remind me of Breaking Bad. But everything feels so much clunkier than Breaking Bad and I felt like I actually cared for some characters in that show, like Hank and Jesse and Junior. In The Sopranos, the most human characters are probably Meadow and Chris... but Chris is a serial murderer, cheater, and foot-shooter, so I don't exactly hope his life improves. And Meadow just hasn't gotten enough screen time besides her small romantic arc.

    Maybe I'm just not cut out for watching depressing, gritty, nihilistic TV? Or certain bits of writing are going over my head, making arcs like Chris' brush with death feel rushed and incomplete?

    2 votes

  6. Comment on Cycling is revolutionising transport in ~transport

    DynamoSunshirt
    Link Parent
    It absolutely sucks when bikes behave so poorly. Especially e- bikes, given their greater weight and acceleration. But do try to remember that in a lot of cities, bicyclists are constantly in...

    It absolutely sucks when bikes behave so poorly. Especially e- bikes, given their greater weight and acceleration.

    But do try to remember that in a lot of cities, bicyclists are constantly in danger of being crushed by giant metal boxes. Plenty of US states allow the "Idaho stop", where a bicyclist can treat a stop sign as a yield or a stop light as a stop sign IF no other vehicles are present. That isn't just for convenience, it's for safety: the most dangerous place for a cyclist is an intersection, so it pays to get out of that life or death situation as quickly as possible.

    I think cities should more strongly regulate e-bikes, especially since a lot of e-bike companies are now making electronic motorcycles or dirt bikes. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater: it would suck to have to register traditional bicycles. I imagine it would seriously deter people from bothering with a method of transportation that is already sweaty, hard work, dangerous, noisy (thanks to cars), and expensive (when your bicycle gets stolen). If we're going to force acoustic bicycle registration, we might as well ask all pedestrians to register their shoes.

    4 votes

  7. Comment on Cycling is revolutionising transport in ~transport

    DynamoSunshirt
    Link Parent
    What makes you think the rural area you grew up in is safe for kids to cycle around? I also grew up in a rural area with low amounts of car traffic, but I'm not sure I would ever describe it as a...

    What makes you think the rural area you grew up in is safe for kids to cycle around? I also grew up in a rural area with low amounts of car traffic, but I'm not sure I would ever describe it as a safe place to ride a bike. Far too many big cars driving well over the speed limit who refuse to get over even a couple of feet for bicycles. These days most cars are drunkenly weaving around since at least half of people seem to use their smartphone or at least touchscreen center console while driving. But even back when I was a kid it was routine to get run straight off the road on your bike by uncaring drivers, especially near blind corners. 90% of our roads were 55 mph since all the population centers were incredibly small. The experience might be better someplace where you have a more substantial 30mph street grid.

    2 votes

  8. Comment on Meta: AI chat interactions on Facebook and Instagram will be used for ad targeting in ~tech

    DynamoSunshirt
    Link
    They capture your mouse location and movements, track the other apps you have installed on your phone, and even contribute to your shadow profile based on information they gather from friends and...

    They capture your mouse location and movements, track the other apps you have installed on your phone, and even contribute to your shadow profile based on information they gather from friends and acquaintances. Every aspect of the Meta platform hoovers data for targeted advertising: that's their bread and butter. Why would anybody think that they would ever create a product that doesn't help their targeted advertising? God help us if we ever manage to create a raw brain-computer interface that allows Zuckerberg to target you based on thought.

    12 votes

  9. Comment on Cycling is revolutionising transport in ~transport

    DynamoSunshirt
    Link
    Simply put, cycling scales better than cars. In crowded cities, it's a pain to use cars for anything besides moving large objects because cars take up a TON of space. Of course we should use...

    Simply put, cycling scales better than cars. In crowded cities, it's a pain to use cars for anything besides moving large objects because cars take up a TON of space. Of course we should use bikes! And, whenever possible, our feet.

    That being said, unfortunately I think it's going to take the USA a very long time to wake up to this fact. It's heartening to see the UK and France build remarkable cycling infrastructure in London and Paris -- I can attest to just how good the London bicycle highways are from my last visit! -- but US cities are so horribly, miserably broken. Stroads everywhere. Double parking everywhere with no enforcement. Massive, sprawling trucks and SUVs everywhere, many blocking visibility at intersections (because daylighting isn't even something we can agree on), others failing to fit inside the bounds of normal parking spaces, often extruding their way into bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure.

    Even NYC recently removed a bike lane, and I can also attest from my NYC commute that cycling across the city often feels more like going into battle than a leisurely ride. My biggest gripe with NYC? The fact that the DOT, fire departments, police departments, and every other government organization has no problem with parking in or otherwise blocking bike infrastructure. Consequently, you can never truly trust in your commute, because the city doesn't consider your mode of transportation worth rerouting or ensuring any level of continuity day-to-day. You exist on the forgotten margins, except when you become the focus of political animus, as cyclists learned with this summer's (ongoing!) wildly nitpicky criminal summons.

    I have a lot of hope for the future of other countries that have reduced car accessibility in cities to better accommodate bicycle riders and pedestrians. But it's such a struggle in the USA I honestly doubt we'll ever figure it out. I strongly suspect at least one major city in the world will go entirely car-free before we make any significant reductions to on-street parking in lower Manhattan, let alone build legitimately usable un-blocked bicycle infrastructure in any US city. And when I say 'legitimately usable', I mean the kind of infrastructure you'd let your 13-year-old child use independently to visit a friend. London has it. Paris has it. Even Montreal sorta has it. No US city has it IMO.

    7 votes

  10. Comment on California attorney fined for using twenty-one AI hallucinated cases in court filing in ~tech

    DynamoSunshirt
    Link Parent
    Good point, sorry -- it's easy to forget that legal text has resisted the rot of laziness and inattention to detail since it's actually legal and detail orientation is the name of the game....

    Good point, sorry -- it's easy to forget that legal text has resisted the rot of laziness and inattention to detail since it's actually legal and detail orientation is the name of the game. Honestly I'm glad I screwed this up because now I understand what makes this even more egregious than the same situation in other industries. It makes you wonder what kind of crap other people have slipped by thanks to LLMs!

    4 votes

  11. Comment on My take on Apple's Liquid Glass in ~tech

    DynamoSunshirt
    Link Parent
    I have seen it with a pure CSS solution, but I suspect that's only because I used a separate CSS file. I suspect that embedding it right on the page prevents a flash of unstyled content on...

    I have seen it with a pure CSS solution, but I suspect that's only because I used a separate CSS file. I suspect that embedding it right on the page prevents a flash of unstyled content on particularly slow connections, like edge data.

  12. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    DynamoSunshirt
    Link Parent
    The final boss was easily the worst part of the DLC for me. Which is fitting, because I also found the final boss fight of the base game to be the worst part of that game! While I understand that...

    The final boss was easily the worst part of the DLC for me. Which is fitting, because I also found the final boss fight of the base game to be the worst part of that game!

    While I understand that they want the fights to be hard, I do think some of those combos were just a bit too much. When a boss moves too fast, unpredictably, and never gives an opportunity to get any damage in, there's only so much we mortals can do. I admit that I wound up poking with a rot stick with maximum holy elemental resistance just to get through on NG, and on NG+ I found a slightly better -- but still ultimately unsatisfying -- solution.

  13. Comment on My take on Apple's Liquid Glass in ~tech

    DynamoSunshirt
    Link Parent
    On my own site, I fought this by defaulting all styles to dark theming, then toggling light mode on manually via javascript on first page load, if the user doesn't already have a preference. CSS...

    On my own site, I fought this by defaulting all styles to dark theming, then toggling light mode on manually via javascript on first page load, if the user doesn't already have a preference. CSS loads damn near immediately depending on your configuration, whereas javascript will always take some time to init. No light mode users complain about a "dark flash", but dark mode users certainly will notice if you do it the other way!

    7 votes

  14. Comment on California attorney fined for using twenty-one AI hallucinated cases in court filing in ~tech

    DynamoSunshirt
    Link Parent
    They may have had an underpaid, overworked paralegal check it. But a lot of people underestimate just how hard it is to catch subtle issues (or even glaring ones) when you're asked to check...

    They may have had an underpaid, overworked paralegal check it. But a lot of people underestimate just how hard it is to catch subtle issues (or even glaring ones) when you're asked to check thousands of lines of LLM output.

    I've seen it in my line of work too. Bosses assume you can increase output because the LLM spits out output faster than a human can type. But reading through it all and verifying it takes even longer than just writing it up yourself in the first place.

    Now, I have no idea if they actually had someone checking this in the first place. Given recent LLM adoption practices, probably not. But rest assured, this is much more likely a result of high-level decisions to lean on LLMs and increase output than it is some low-level employee's laziness. Business decisions create an environment that forces these behaviors, but it's the low-level people who often get the blame.

    16 votes

  15. Comment on iOS 26 is here in ~tech

    DynamoSunshirt
    Link Parent
    18.7 has no aesthetic changes, I've been using it since it came out and it works great. 26 is a much bigger deal and probably worth waiting on while they sort out bugs.

    18.7 has no aesthetic changes, I've been using it since it came out and it works great. 26 is a much bigger deal and probably worth waiting on while they sort out bugs.

    1 vote

  16. Comment on Oracle, Silver Lake consortium to control 80% stake in TikTok in US in ~finance

    DynamoSunshirt
    Link Parent
    Sorry if I'm being thick here: are you joking about Andreeson investing "optimizing" away all flexibility in the egg-laying hen production pipeline in the USA, thus leading to a shortage when the...

    Sorry if I'm being thick here: are you joking about Andreeson investing "optimizing" away all flexibility in the egg-laying hen production pipeline in the USA, thus leading to a shortage when the latest round of bird flu hit that population (as it inevitably does), forcing bird killings, which led to increased egg prices?

    Or is there something else I've missed?

    4 votes

  17. Comment on iOS 26 is here in ~tech

  18. Comment on iOS 26 is here in ~tech

    DynamoSunshirt
    Link Parent
    I believe you can also click and drag it off to the right edge of the screen to dismiss it, much like you can on iOS! A little mire reliant.

    I believe you can also click and drag it off to the right edge of the screen to dismiss it, much like you can on iOS! A little mire reliant.

    2 votes

  19. Comment on iOS 26 is here in ~tech

    DynamoSunshirt
    Link Parent
    Actual #000 OLED black? Maybe I need to give that a try, then. I really wish iOS and macOS had more true blacks, but at least they generally do a better job of it in dark mode than Google's awful...

    Actual #000 OLED black? Maybe I need to give that a try, then. I really wish iOS and macOS had more true blacks, but at least they generally do a better job of it in dark mode than Google's awful dark-greyish-blue for so many things.

    2 votes

  20. Comment on Slow social media in ~tech

    DynamoSunshirt
    Link Parent
    I agree with most of what you've said. But I also see a very healthy community on Mastodon right now. I've been waiting for the right opportunity to get some friends and family to join, in the...

    I agree with most of what you've said. But I also see a very healthy community on Mastodon right now. I've been waiting for the right opportunity to get some friends and family to join, in the hopes that we can exist in a little bubble of non-attention-mining social media. Who knows if it will work out? But I do miss having social media that actually connected me to friends and family.

    2 votes