papasquat's recent activity
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Comment on Meta agrees to heavy restrictions on teen users in major lawsuit settlement in ~tech
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Comment on Meta agrees to heavy restrictions on teen users in major lawsuit settlement in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI'd agree with you if social media and it's affect on teen depression were something new. But it's effects have been studied for decades at this point. We know that bombarding young, developing...I'd agree with you if social media and it's affect on teen depression were something new. But it's effects have been studied for decades at this point. We know that bombarding young, developing minds with people to compare themselves to, things that make them angry, advertisements that make them feel like outsiders, and features to keep them hooked on that content has a harmful impact on their minds and behavior. We know those impacts can result in depression, murder, and suicide. Facebook knows they have billions of users and that some proportion of them would be driven to do this stuff. They intentionally put those anti fearures in place anyway.
I think they're as directly responsible as anyone that runs a website can be.
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Comment on Young adults in the US are increasingly wary of AI, concerned it will take jobs in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentThat's one of the arguments I hear about the public good of traditional stock trading, (and one I sort of believe) that I still think is pretty weak. I haven't looked into the numbers...Even with normal stock trading, as disconnected as it is from reality, there's at least the argument that you're investing in the company and believe in its future, regardless of what you plan to do with the actual stock
That's one of the arguments I hear about the public good of traditional stock trading, (and one I sort of believe) that I still think is pretty weak. I haven't looked into the numbers specifically, but something like like 99.99% of stock trading is on the secondary market, meaning, it doesn't help the company whose stock is being traded at all.
In theory, the people running a company shouldn't really give a shit about the stock price. If Microsoft's stock jumps 1000% overnight, Microsoft doesn't benefit from that at all, except for individuals who work at Microsoft and also happen to own their stock individually. The company itself doesn't see a dime of that increase.
They get a big cash infusion at the IPO, and that's it. Afterwards, it's just a bunch of people who own a piece of the company getting richer or poorer based on the stock price, and not actually directly influencing the company's operations at all.
So if you're buying stock at in IPO because you believe in the company's mission, I can see that being a public good, but buying it after that doesn't really actually help anyone except for investors. That one is harder to contort your brain into seeing how it helps the world.
I GUESS one argument you could make is that the anticipation of the secondary market drives up IPO prices, and without it, companies would get far less investment, but you really have to squint at that one.
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Comment on Young adults in the US are increasingly wary of AI, concerned it will take jobs in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentThe more that time goes on, and the less that a company's stock price reflects its actual earnings, or even its projected earnings, the more that the entire stock market seems like an entirely...The more that time goes on, and the less that a company's stock price reflects its actual earnings, or even its projected earnings, the more that the entire stock market seems like an entirely pointless shell game, or the world's biggest casino.
It used to be that companies that were well run and had good indicators of solid fundementals had high stock prices, because investors could rely on a steady flow of dividends from that stock based on their revenue.
You own a company, it does something that people find value in, they pay the company, and you earn profit because you own part of it, easy.
Now though, much of the market seems to be growth stocks entirely decoupled from any projection of dividend revenue. We want the stock solely because other people want the stock. Why do those people want the stock? Well, easy, because other people want the stock.
Like imagine if the rest of the economy worked this way? You start a lawn care business and invest a ton of money on advertising and flashy graphics. You don't actually own a lawn mower, and when people sign up, you just hire some kid to do a terrible job and charge the people an insane subscription fee. Anyone paying attention to your business knows that you have no way of actually making money with this model, and you just hemmorage money every month, but your entire goal is just to get as many people as possible familiar with your brand, so that someone else buys it. The person that buys it is also aware that it makes no money and can't possibly hope to make money, but they're banking on the brand becoming even more visible so they can sell it to the next guy.
The whole country would collapse in six months. It's absolute insanity, but that's how some of the most valuable publicly traded companies work now.
I used to understand on a theoretical level what the public good of the stock market was. Now, the whole thing just seems like a massive waste of time and resources.
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Comment on PS3 emulator RPCS3 now supports online trophies through its own PlayStation Network replacement in ~games
papasquat Link ParentI've been playing demons souls on it. It and bloodborne are the only soulsbourne games I've never played, because I never owned a PlayStation, and it's amazing. The upscaling has made it It look...I've been playing demons souls on it. It and bloodborne are the only soulsbourne games I've never played, because I never owned a PlayStation, and it's amazing.
The upscaling has made it It look incredibly good for a console game released 17 years ago, and I've been playing co-op with a friend of mine, which works flawlessly with all of the in game networking features intact. Its really impressive.
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Comment on Meta agrees to heavy restrictions on teen users in major lawsuit settlement in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentDon't forget, they had to pay out less than 10% of their annual revenue also. To translate, for the average American that would be around a $7000 fine. Imagine being directly responsible for many,...Don't forget, they had to pay out less than 10% of their annual revenue also. To translate, for the average American that would be around a $7000 fine.
Imagine being directly responsible for many, many suicides and murders, rampant addiction and depression in millions of kids, and then your punishment is paying a $7000 fine and promising not to do it again?
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Comment on X corp is taking down Nitter instances and demands takedown of project repository in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI normally would agree with you. My threshold for the amount of terrible people on a platform before I write everyone on the platform off as a terrible person is very, very high. Hell, I was an...I normally would agree with you. My threshold for the amount of terrible people on a platform before I write everyone on the platform off as a terrible person is very, very high.
Hell, I was an avid 4chan user for a long time, even though I've always held almost diametrically opposed opinions versus the average /pol/ user. (The /tg/ and /mu/ boards were legitimately good places for discussion for a time).
With Twitter though, not only has the site actively cultivated a Nazi adjacent/white supremacist user base by putting policies in place to make sure they're never banned regardless of how disruptive they are, and unbanning users who were banned for very, very good reasons regardless of their political opinions, but the owner is explicitly a white supremacist.
He's made that really clear on many occasions. He's not just a libertarian type "free speech at all costs" type, he's very overtly publicly racist. It's a site for Nazis, by Nazis now. The fact that some people who aren't Nazis are on it doesn't change that, unfortunately.
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Comment on X corp is taking down Nitter instances and demands takedown of project repository in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentWho cares? Like literally, who cares about twitters bottom line, their business model, and why they make the decisions they do. They're a privately owned company, and they're free to try to stop...- Exemplary
why would a site like Twitter allow third-party front-ends?
Who cares? Like literally, who cares about twitters bottom line, their business model, and why they make the decisions they do. They're a privately owned company, and they're free to try to stop third parties from scraping content by whatever technical means they have at their disposal.
That clearly hasn't worked out for them, so they're now trying to use the law to do their dirty work, which is the part that I do have an issue with.
Twitter is a telecommunications service, which means they enjoy title 230 protections in the US, where they're based. They can't be sued for the things their users say, because under the law, they're an impartial service provider, not a content publisher.
What that should also mean, is that they have no right to dictate what happens to the content on their platform after it's posted. If someone wants to scrape the site, republish it, open up a twitter competitor that scrapes twitter, what the court should say is: "Tough luck shitheads. You didn't write the content, you don't own the content, and you don't get to decide where the content is republished".
If they want those copyright protections, then they can revoke their section 230 protections, review and publish every tweet, and then stand behind them. That's why the New York Times gets to bring you to court if you reprint their newspaper, but Twitter doesn't.
You can sue the New York Times if they publish a false story that send right wing lunatics to your doorstep. Section 230 says you can't sue Twitter for the same.
You can't have it both ways.
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Comment on What are we in a golden age of? in ~talk
papasquat LinkRC aircraft. When I was a kid, I dreamed of owning an RC helicopter. I loved helicopters, I still do, they're fascinating, ridiculously complex machines that I'm still shocked managed to fly all...RC aircraft. When I was a kid, I dreamed of owning an RC helicopter. I loved helicopters, I still do, they're fascinating, ridiculously complex machines that I'm still shocked managed to fly all the way back in the 30s. My parents took me to look at some one time, were shocked at A. How expensive they were, B. how dangerous the guy at the store told them they were, and C. How insanely difficult he said they were to fly, so that was that.
Later in college, I finally got a blade 300, and the guy was right. The thing was absolutely terrifying, and it was so insanely hard to fly that I spent way more time fixing it after crashing than flying it. It took me hundreds of hours, but I eventually was able to hover around the yard. It was fun, but the amount of time, effort and money to fly for a few minutes just wasn't worth it for me.
I've recently gotten back into RC aircraft in the form of fpv quadcopters (drones), and man, it's insane how far they've come.
They're cheap as hell now, durable, stable, with incredible RC links and HD video systems that feel like magic.
I can build a whole quad faster than it took me to fix the rotor head of that rc helicopter after a crash. I can charge batteries in no time and fly around as long as I want. My RC link will reach tens of miles, and the receiver costs about 20 bucks. And I have a camera on the thing that makes your feel like you're flying, so you don't have to worry about losing sight of the thing and crashing. And if you DO lose your video link, the thing has a gps on it, it can fly back home and land itself.
Its so amazing how much more fun and accessible the hobby is now than it was back then.
It makes me really respect the people that were flying rc airplanes back in the 50s where every aspect sucked way worse than it did when I first got into it, but they kept doing it anyway.
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Comment on Router recommendations? in ~comp
papasquat Link ParentYeah, with my AP it's not so bad. With my switch, it's uniquely terrible. Without getting super deep into it, I run everything in my house off of one chassis, my router is a VM, my container host...Yeah, with my AP it's not so bad. With my switch, it's uniquely terrible. Without getting super deep into it, I run everything in my house off of one chassis, my router is a VM, my container host is a VM, so on and so forth, so when I want to get to the server VLAN to the workstation VLAN, I need a router which lives on that sever chassis, and has a trunk port passed through to the VM, and it's just this... Horrible chicken or the egg scenario that involves my internet being down for hours while I rebuild the whole thing and put patch cables in different places.
The whole thing could be so much easier with a console cable and CLI access to my switch configuration, but ubiquiti thinks that's a bad idea for some reason.
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Comment on Router recommendations? in ~comp
papasquat Link ParentThey still do this separate controller garbage, at least with their switches. I have a switch of theirs that I lost the controller container for, and in order for me to manage it ever again, I...They still do this separate controller garbage, at least with their switches.
I have a switch of theirs that I lost the controller container for, and in order for me to manage it ever again, I need to factory reset the switch, which means I have to remember every trunk configuration on every port, and its just such a huge pain in the ass that I've been putting it off for six months. There's no way that I know of to recover the configuration that already exists on the switch.
Never buying another device of theirs again because of that whole experience.
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Comment on Japan tried to build an operating system for the entire world, then the US government intervened in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentWouldn't a denser written language require less text on a screen at a given time, not more?Wouldn't a denser written language require less text on a screen at a given time, not more?
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Comment on Japan tried to build an operating system for the entire world, then the US government intervened in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI always thought the difference between Japanese industrial, interior, and landscape design, and Japanese web design was so striking. In all of the previous areas, Japan basically invented...I always thought the difference between Japanese industrial, interior, and landscape design, and Japanese web design was so striking.
In all of the previous areas, Japan basically invented minimalism. The zen Buddhist aesthetic has been endlessly minmiced, and the wabi-sabi concept has basically ingrained itself in all modern interior and industrial design. If you look at traditional Japanese joinery and architecture, they're master classes in tasteful understated design, less is more, quantity over quality. I mean, hell, look at a first gen sony walkman and you can see the same thing.
Then you get onto the Japanese internet, and it's like your eyeballs are being assaulted by chaos and flashing colors. It feels like going back in time to the 90s. Its like the web equivalent of a cheap mini mall with vape shops, hookah lounges, a payday loan place, and a nail salon, each with their own annoying pattern of flashing rgb lights all trying to grab your attention.
Its such a weird juxtaposition.
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Comment on Chinese humanoid robots smash human records in 100m sprint and high jump at Beijing robot games in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentYou may be right, and I'm guessing that's what all these companies tied to humanoid robots are hedging for, but I've had a really hard time thinking of even an industrial use case where humanoids...You may be right, and I'm guessing that's what all these companies tied to humanoid robots are hedging for, but I've had a really hard time thinking of even an industrial use case where humanoids would be better suited to a wheeled, tracked, or quadruped robot.
The human shape is mostly an evolutionary compromise based on using existing limbs and adapting two of them for tool use and fine motor manipulation instead of locomotion. It's really not beneficial for much except for being an exact stand-in for a human, like for crash testing, or testing chairs or something like that.
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Comment on Chinese humanoid robots smash human records in 100m sprint and high jump at Beijing robot games in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI think it's the second part much more than the first to be honest. This kind of dexterity and motor control is impressive and genuinely useful, the humanoid form factor probably isn't though. Its...The use case as I understand it is pretty much “drop into the billions of situations that are already designed around humans doing the thing, and have the robot do the thing without needing to retrofit the whole environment for them”. That and it’s goddamn cool, of course.
I think it's the second part much more than the first to be honest. This kind of dexterity and motor control is impressive and genuinely useful, the humanoid form factor probably isn't though.
Its a lot easier and cheaper to design robots that can navigate specific environments to do specific tasks that they can do a lot better than a humanoid can versus trying to design one that can replicate everything a human can do. Still, if you want to build a laundry folding robot, or a firefighting robot, it needs to be able to have human level dexterity and object awareness, so the capabilities demoed at events like this are important.
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Comment on Chinese humanoid robots smash human records in 100m sprint and high jump at Beijing robot games in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentThat's literally the whole point of the article though. If it was about just achieving an arbitrary goal, say, 10x faster than a robot from a decade ago, it'd say that, but it's specifically about...You don’t need to compare it against humans. It’s better to compare it against robots 10 years ago.
That's literally the whole point of the article though. If it was about just achieving an arbitrary goal, say, 10x faster than a robot from a decade ago, it'd say that, but it's specifically about beating human records. The subtext there is pretty clear.
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Comment on Chinese humanoid robots smash human records in 100m sprint and high jump at Beijing robot games in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI think the approach is pretty flawed, because humans and machines are put together in vastly different ways. The human body has over 600 different muscles. That's 600 actuators that can...I think the approach is pretty flawed, because humans and machines are put together in vastly different ways.
The human body has over 600 different muscles. That's 600 actuators that can independently control motion to different parts of the body.
Replicating that with a robot is ridiculously expensive, and will always remain ridiculously expensive. Even if you're talking about a $20 servo, that's $12,000 in servos alone. We don't have a way to grow robots either, they need to be meticulously assembled, ironically, by hand in most cases, so at the end of the day, building one with the full capabilities of a human is astronomically expensive.
At the same time, humans aren't even that good at most physical tasks. When we mow a lawn, we use a device with a giant handle and a gas engine that we use our dumb feet to push around. A robot lawnmower does the same thing with a handful of motors and battery, and it does it way, way cheaper than a humanoid could.
So if you want a robot around your house to help you with a few tasks, say, vacuuming, mowing your lawn, and folding your laundry, are most people going to buy the $100,000 humanoid that will be equally expensive to fix when it breaks, or the $200 robot vacuum, the $400 robot lawnmower, and the $1000 robot laundry folding machine, all of which can work at the same time?
Id guess there probably are places that a humanoid robot makes sense (I actually struggle to think of one right now though), inside people's homes probably isn't that place though.
Once you can grow them in vats or replicators and just recycle them when they break, maybe, but beyond that I don't see the financials ever making sense.
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Comment on Artists built a site to escape AI. Scrapers are coming for it anyway. in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentIts not stealing, but it's also not learning. Framing AI training as "learning from something" is being a little disingenuous about what's going on. I think it's a lot more accurate to say that...Its not stealing, but it's also not learning. Framing AI training as "learning from something" is being a little disingenuous about what's going on.
I think it's a lot more accurate to say that these artists uploaded their art to a place to explicitly spell out how they didn't want their art used, and then were targeted for that exact use. You don't really need to delve into the nitty gritty technical details of how AI training works to determine that it's wrong.
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Comment on Webcomic of the author's experience in an abusive school that was a part of the Troubled Teens Industry in ~life
papasquat LinkI've spent basically my whole workday doing nothing but reading this graphic novel. Its amazingly done, and incredibly fucked up. I'd never heard of Elan, and I'd heard of abusive rehabilitation...I've spent basically my whole workday doing nothing but reading this graphic novel. Its amazingly done, and incredibly fucked up. I'd never heard of Elan, and I'd heard of abusive rehabilitation schools before, but didn't realize it was that bad. After doing some research, yep, it was, and people had known how bad it was for much of its existence. Shockingly, the school was still running until 2011. It makes me wonder how many similar places may still be running to this day.
The world, and especially the US seems to have this fatal flaw where a charismatic con-man is able to just basically weave their own reality and get away with just about anything. Its crazy how people can be put in jail for accidently leaving weed in their car, but somehow you can become a multi millionaire by abusing kids for decades, and live your entire life without facing any consequences. Really disturbing stuff.
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Comment on What game are you terrible at? in ~games
papasquat Link ParentIts interesting that you play Go, but don't have the same issue. Go is definitely older than chess, and might be the only potential rival for chess as far as games that have been absolutely...Its interesting that you play Go, but don't have the same issue. Go is definitely older than chess, and might be the only potential rival for chess as far as games that have been absolutely overanalyzed and optimized in the same way.
Its extremely location dependent. Here's a good source from fidelity though: https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/smart-money/average-salary-in-us
The number is kind of meaningless though to be honest. Like, emotionally, I still have an association with $70,000 a year as a threshold for "a lot of money", and something like $45,000 as "average", which mostly has to do with my age.
The actual number isn't what determines what's a lot versus what's barely acceptable though, the purchasing power of a dollar is, and we've had record inflation in the US in the past few years.
That emotional association with what passed for a high versus average or low salary when you started working sticks with you, probably for your whole life. It explains a lot of the boomer mentality of "you're making $50,000 a year! What do you have to complain about money about???".
When your biggest cost is already paid off (housing) and you don't interact with the economy as much anymore, it's easy to forget that inflation is an ever present force in working people's lives, and that wages haven't kept up with it. Someone making $70,000 a year today is poorer than people who made $10,000 a year when boomers were kids.
That's an easy concept to understand intellectually, but tough to take to heart and feel on an emotional level.