papasquat's recent activity
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Comment on Luigi Mangione pleads guilty to federal stalking charges in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO in ~news
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Comment on Hayden Panettiere dies at 36 in ~movies
papasquat Link ParentYeah I agree with you, it's definitely the natural instinct to speculate and be curious. it's not quite the speculation I find off-putting, it's the immediate trawling through memoirs, interviews,...Yeah I agree with you, it's definitely the natural instinct to speculate and be curious. it's not quite the speculation I find off-putting, it's the immediate trawling through memoirs, interviews, or whatever to try to find answers.
That's what I'd do if I were a family member and someone close to me died, but I wouldn't want the media or the public doing it, even if it's understandable why they would.
Like, I just imagine if my wife or my sister were famous, got into a car accident or had a heart attack and died, and the media immediately went "in an Instagram post six months ago she said she was feeling sad, and in her book, she said that she felt isolated and depressed as a teenager, and she mentioned she had a bad relationship with her father in this interview" implying it may have been a suicide despite no evidence of that at all.
It would really piss me off and bother me that people were digging into her personal life just to satisfy their curiousity and impling that she was suicidal when she wasn't.
Not necessarily saying that's what happened here, but it still just doesn't sit well with me when that kind of thing happens.
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Comment on Ukraine attacks Russia with hundreds of drones - one of Kyiv’s largest aerial assaults of the conflict in ~society
papasquat Link ParentIf we're theoretically talking about an attack against the US, it would be really hard. If you flew from another country, drones that big would be picked up and destroyed by NORAD very quickly. If...If we're theoretically talking about an attack against the US, it would be really hard. If you flew from another country, drones that big would be picked up and destroyed by NORAD very quickly. If you flew from inside the US, you'd need to be able to snuggle absolutely massive military grade drone components and explosives inside and then launch them from somewhere. Much more doable, but still really hard.
9/11 worked because the bomb was already in the air and totally routine seeming traffic until about 20 minutes before the attack, which were totally unprecedented at the time.
It would be really hard for a large, unidentified aircraft to closely approach a heavily populated area without being challenged these days.
Drones small enough to fit in a car or backpack are a totally different story, but they obviously can't do as much damage.
If we're talking about a large nation state instead of a terrorist attack though, things are way different and there are so many variables involved that it would be hard to say what would happen at all.
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Comment on Ukraine attacks Russia with hundreds of drones - one of Kyiv’s largest aerial assaults of the conflict in ~society
papasquat Link ParentFrom my back of the napkin math: 11k gallons of Jet-A at 135 MJ of energy per gallon = 1,485,000 MJ = 1,485 GJ. For sanity check's sake, a 757 carries 76,968 lbs of fuel. It would be weird for it...From my back of the napkin math: 11k gallons of Jet-A at 135 MJ of energy per gallon = 1,485,000 MJ = 1,485 GJ.
For sanity check's sake, a 757 carries 76,968 lbs of fuel. It would be weird for it to have less energy than a bomb that only contains 19,000 lbs of explosives. (Fuel is also almost always a lot more energy dense than explosives).
You may have had a unit error somewhere?
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Comment on Ukraine attacks Russia with hundreds of drones - one of Kyiv’s largest aerial assaults of the conflict in ~society
papasquat Link ParentEhh... I don't know about that. I am actually pretty surprised that we haven't seen domestic terrorism in the US using drones, but something with the scale and impact of 9/11 isn't really possible...If there’s another 911 then it’s likely to be using drones.
Ehh... I don't know about that. I am actually pretty surprised that we haven't seen domestic terrorism in the US using drones, but something with the scale and impact of 9/11 isn't really possible with the types of drones used here.
The reason 9/11 was such an effective attack is that international airliners are basically massive flying bombs. They carry more energy than even the largest conventional bombs ever built. The types of tactical drones used in the ukraine war are magnitudes smaller. You could kill a few people with them, but you couldn't pull off something as shocking and effective as 9/11 was.
Its still really scary though, and I think the first time someone kills people at a really public place like a sports game or something like that with a drone, it's going to be really bone chilling.
For what it's worth, there already are anti drone defenses at big public gatherings like that. Usually, the FAA publishes temporary flight restrictions a few days before and event, and local police, state law enforcement, and federal agencies maintain a counter UAS presence at them. How effective and well covered they are remains to be seen though.
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Comment on Hayden Panettiere dies at 36 in ~movies
papasquat LinkThis is really sad. I grew up watching her, I remember being really into heroes when it came out, and we're similar ages so I kinda grew up alongside her. She always seemed like a really nice...This is really sad. I grew up watching her, I remember being really into heroes when it came out, and we're similar ages so I kinda grew up alongside her. She always seemed like a really nice person in interviews.
Does anyone else find it a little gauche how when a celebrity dies, and the cause of death is unknown, media outlets pour over memoirs and interviews for clues about whether it could have been suicide, or drug related or whatever?
It could have been, or it could have been an accident, or a medical issue.
I understand the impulse to want answers, but it just feels kind of disrespectful to within 24 hours of death, search for clues that someone killed themselves. If it was me, I'd want to at least have a few weeks before people started openly speculating on whether I committed suicide, especially if I didn't.
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Comment on Hayden Panettiere dies at 36 in ~movies
papasquat Link ParentYeah, that's the part of the article that really struck me. How horrible would it be as a parent to lose one adult child, and then a few years later, lose the other. Sounds like the cause of death...Yeah, that's the part of the article that really struck me. How horrible would it be as a parent to lose one adult child, and then a few years later, lose the other. Sounds like the cause of death isn't released. All I can hope is that it was something quick and painless, and not related to pain she carried from the struggles she detailed in her memoir.
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Comment on US tax law is funding the AI infrastructure boom, not creating it in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentYou're technically right, but in the end, it's functionally equivalent. If you're giving a business a 1 million dollar grant versus a 1 million dollar tax break, it's virtually the same effect on...You're technically right, but in the end, it's functionally equivalent.
If you're giving a business a 1 million dollar grant versus a 1 million dollar tax break, it's virtually the same effect on both sides of the deal. The business gets more money, the citizens get less.
At the end of the day, taxes are a huge cost to all businesses when factoring in the profitability of their business model. There are few businesses that can't turn a profit if they didn't have to pay taxes, so by choosing which businesses to tax and which ones you don't, government is very much putting their thumbs on the scale of the types of business they attract to their region.
So even though they're not sending them money, they're allowing the use of their resources without actually charging them for it. "Funding" in the form of services and infrastructure rather than cash.
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Comment on AI data center developers begin suing local jurisdictions behind bans and moratoriums — claims range from officials exceeding authority to violations of due process and equal protection laws in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI don't understand on what grounds they would lose. Its pretty long established precident that local communities have the authority to pass ordinances about what can and cannot be built in their...I don't understand on what grounds they would lose. Its pretty long established precident that local communities have the authority to pass ordinances about what can and cannot be built in their jurisdiction. I don't see how you could argue they don't have the authority to ban a data center without invalidating the entire concept of zoning in general.
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Comment on One woman's message from the hell of US Immigration and Customs detention in ~society
papasquat Link ParentI think that may come down to the fact that for most of history, the "commoners" didn't have much power. There were series of formal and informal checkpoints controlled by powerful educated people...I think that may come down to the fact that for most of history, the "commoners" didn't have much power. There were series of formal and informal checkpoints controlled by powerful educated people before most people even had a say in who got put on a ballot even in a democratic system.
I think there was brief window of time when we were more broadly democratic and most people did have more of a say in who we were led by, but the general populace had some level of education, or at least trusted people that did. That's not really the case anymore though. Social media giving people slices of the attention pie that are totally divorced from their expertise or education level has been a big contributing factor in my mind.
People can just go online and say shit. It doesn't really matter if any of it is verifiable, or true. It just matters that it gains traction. I think it's natural that people start devaluing truth, because increasingly that's not what you're rewarded for saying.
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Comment on Being well prepared makes me feel 😌 in ~life
papasquat Link ParentLol, yeah, exact same situation here. We always sort of compromise and end up packing the day before, instead of a week before as she'd like, or an hour before we leave like I'd like.Lol, yeah, exact same situation here. We always sort of compromise and end up packing the day before, instead of a week before as she'd like, or an hour before we leave like I'd like.
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Comment on Being well prepared makes me feel 😌 in ~life
papasquat Link ParentYes, 1000%. I don't enjoy it when there are a million little crises, but when something catestrophic happens at work, I feel the most in my element. At basically every job I've ever had, I've...Yes, 1000%. I don't enjoy it when there are a million little crises, but when something catestrophic happens at work, I feel the most in my element. At basically every job I've ever had, I've eventually become the "crisis guy", either formally or informally. Long term planningwise, I'm shit, but when everyone's hair is on fire, I'm good.
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Comment on (book impressions) Mudgirls Manifesto: Handbuilt Homes, Hand Crafted Lives in ~design
papasquat Link ParentThis is something I was thinking about while reading through the summary and intro. Its really cool, but it also perpetuates a lot of ideas that I hear online which I don't think are quite true;...although they're doing some really cool stuff, replicating it at scale would statistically put people in harms way (and imo would also environmentally devastate the Earth's ecosystems). But the core ideas are still neat!
This is something I was thinking about while reading through the summary and intro. Its really cool, but it also perpetuates a lot of ideas that I hear online which I don't think are quite true; namely that Cities are unsustainable and environmentally damaging, and a more sustainable way to live is by living in sparsely populated areas, close to nature. Every piece of evidence I've seen suggests the complete opposite. Human beings, while in untouched wilderness, tend to badly harm it, no matter how careful they are about avoiding that tendency. We take up a lot of space, we clear areas for housing comfort, we get rid of pests and so on. That tendency doesn't really matter much on a small scale, but if you scale that up to eight billion people, it would be devastating for everyone to go off into the wilderness to homestead.
At the end of the day, sustainability mostly comes down to efficiency; how can we live our lives to our standard of living while consuming as few resources as possible. Cities are extremely good at this. The more people live close together, the less energy it costs to transport them and the goods they need to live to them and amongst them. You can build a water main that supplies 500 people living in an apartment building with far less effort as it takes to build one supplying 4 families in an exurb far away from the city, for instance. It becomes easier to regulate problematic behavior like groundwater pollution when people are closer together also. Cities obviously have a lot of sustainability problems too, but overall, it's a lot better for nature for human beings to concentrate themselves in a few small areas rather than spreading out as much as possible.
You do still rely on rural areas for food and resources, but doing these things at a large scale is a lot more efficient and requires less resources than if everyone has their own little farm.
I think it's very common to confuse the concept of living around nature, with preserving nature, which is ironic, because those two things are virtually always diametrically opposed.
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Comment on Being well prepared makes me feel 😌 in ~life
papasquat Link ParentDamn, this is absolutely me. My wife detests it because she's a chronic over preparer. I'm way better at winging it in just about everythjng rather than meticulously preparing, which usually ends...Damn, this is absolutely me. My wife detests it because she's a chronic over preparer. I'm way better at winging it in just about everythjng rather than meticulously preparing, which usually ends up just stressing me out. Does this ever become a problem with you and significant others (if you have one?)
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Comment on Why normal people aren’t using AI agents in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI'll give you an example of what I mean by inertia. I worked at a huge bank with about 200k employees. We had hundreds of thousands of other organizations we did business with, meaning other...I'll give you an example of what I mean by inertia.
I worked at a huge bank with about 200k employees. We had hundreds of thousands of other organizations we did business with, meaning other banks, technology vendors, government regulatory bodies, large customers, investment firms, fintech providers and so on.Internally, and externally, the way high importance presentations intended to convey information were done was via PowerPoint. To replace PowerPoint with... Say... Guy drawing on whiteboard videos, there are a number of things you'd have to do.
One, you'd have train almost 200k people who have used PowerPoint their entire careers to learn guy drawing on whiteboard software. Two, you'd have to convince all of these other organizations to accept guy drawing on whiteboard videos instead of PowerPoint presentations. Three, you'd have to replace a lot of technology explicitly made to show, create, store, and regulate PowerPoint presentations to do all that stuff with videos instead (meaning large conference room hardware, purpose made remote meeting appliances, sensitivity labeling software, DLP appliances, storage servers, and so on). Four, you'd have to change federal regulatory rules mandating the use of PowerPoint for certain presentations.
Some of this stuff is doable with enough investment, some of it is outside of the realm of the organizations power to change. How would you sell this, likely hundreds of million dollar effort to the board of directors? What material benefit would you be able to demonstrate by ripping out PowerPoint and replacing it with guy with a whiteboard videos? How could you show that it would help the company make more money within the next few years?
It would be a very tough sell, and PowerPoint works well enough, so it's not really done, even if you can imagine a better alternative.
An organization has finite resources, and they spend their resources in ways that maximize their investment. Not spending those resources on things that don't maximize that investment isn't laziness, it's good management.
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Comment on One woman's message from the hell of US Immigration and Customs detention in ~society
papasquat Link ParentI think the erosion of public education is only going to make this worse. Somehow, we've become a nation that no longer respects intelligence. It feels like a positive feedback loop of...I think the erosion of public education is only going to make this worse.
Somehow, we've become a nation that no longer respects intelligence. It feels like a positive feedback loop of unthoughtful, unintelligent people getting elected because unthoughtful, unintelligent people vote for them, and they further erode the importance of education and intelligence, which makes people like them more likely to get elected.
Its really depressing, and I think everyone around me thinks I'm being an overreacting humorless crumudgeon when they show me tiktoks of someone glorifying being lazy, or ignorant, or "just going based on vibes".
It really bothers me when I see the instruments of that cultural trend in action.
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Comment on Why normal people aren’t using AI agents in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentIts not about imagination, it's about inertia. Its the same reason why we still use ipv4 even though ipv6 exists, or why we use 60hz AC current in the US despite most of our appliances being DC...Its not about imagination, it's about inertia. Its the same reason why we still use ipv4 even though ipv6 exists, or why we use 60hz AC current in the US despite most of our appliances being DC now. Its not like no one has thought of a better way of doing things. Its just that the current way of doing things works well enough, and no one person has the power to mandate that everyone change. Every organization does business with other organizations and has to do presentations with them. PowerPoint is a convenient, well known way to do that. You can have all the imagination you want, but you can't change the entire worlds standards with imagination.
If there were some catastrophic event that made PowerPoint no longer usable, like Microsoft going out of business, I could see a change taking place, otherwise though, no other alternative offers enough benefits to justify the immense costs to use something else.
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Comment on Why normal people aren’t using AI agents in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentMostly for the same reasons that you must submit a PSD file if you're working in graphic design, you must submit a PDF if you're a lawyer, you must submit a LaTeX file if you're working in math...Why not just prompt out some dynamic visualizations in D3? Why not do one of those “person draws stuff on a marker board” type videos instead?
Mostly for the same reasons that you must submit a PSD file if you're working in graphic design, you must submit a PDF if you're a lawyer, you must submit a LaTeX file if you're working in math and so on. They're industry standards, and standards are important.
They're not necessarily standards because they're the best tool for the job, but it's just a format that people have come to expect and have built processes around. Even if I had a presentation that was much better suited for a man drawing on a whiteboard video, when I'm asked to submit my deck, and I submit an mp4 of a guy drawing on a whiteboard, the person coordinating the presention is going to be like "what is this, I need your PowerPoint".
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Comment on Why normal people aren’t using AI agents in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentThis stuff is honestly a massive pain in the ass. Getting it to work is a pain, but eventually when you do, it feels cool getting something to work. Maybe not the best use of your time, but it was...This stuff is honestly a massive pain in the ass. Getting it to work is a pain, but eventually when you do, it feels cool getting something to work. Maybe not the best use of your time, but it was fun, so whatever.
The real problem is that in a month or three or a year, a software update, or an API change will happen, or a service you rely on will go out of business, and your custom software will break.
Congrats, you're now in maintenance mode. There is literally no one on earth that enjoys software maintenance. It becomes another chore, and even with an AI tool, you no longer even remember the script or how it works, and fixing it involves reaching back into the depths of your memory to remember where the script is, what tool you used to make it, how to even get started prompting to fix it.
Once you fix it, it'll be good for a bit, then it will break again. This will always happen, for the rest of your life. Its a new task you will have to do every so often, on an unpredictable schedule, until you lose interest, the script irreparably stops working, or you die.
Its an absolute pain in the balls, and I wouldn't recommend anyone who doesn't want to maintain software forever integrate some custom built stuff into an important part of their life because of that, ai or no ai.
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Comment on Why normal people aren’t using AI agents in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI don't see "generalist" type robots ever really taking off. They're always going to necessarily be more expensive, less reliable, and worse at their tasks versus robots built for one specific...I don't see "generalist" type robots ever really taking off. They're always going to necessarily be more expensive, less reliable, and worse at their tasks versus robots built for one specific task. And if you're buying a 60k robot that can "do everything" versus 12 $5k robots that can do the tasks you need them to do, the 60k robot can still only do one thing at a time, and when it breaks, you're totally screwed.
The way I see things going is that specific tasks start becoming more and more automated. We've got a robomower, a robovac, one day we'll have a robot that just picks things up off the ground, a robot that folds laundry, a robot dishwasher that automatically loads and unloads itself, a robot power washer that cleans your house and so on. Designing a single general purpose robot that can do all of those things well would likely cost as much as a house, even years into the future.
Anyone in a leadership position at any large healthcare company has killed people for profit, (more accurately, let people die for profit). The US has a for-profit healthcare system. Its a requirement of the job.
The key nuance here though is that it doesn't matter how healthcare is doled out, if you're in a leadership position in a place where there's more need for healthcare than resources to give that healthcare (literally everywhere on earth), you will have to make decisions that will result in people dying.
If a 95 year old man needs MRIs to detect tumors on a biweekly basis, and a 20 year old comes in from a car accident and needs an MRI to save his life, and there's only one spot left on the MRI machines schedule, a choice needs to be made. If you only have three trauma doctors on duty and 5 people come in with life threatening injuries, a choice has to be made.
There are a lot of issues with how the US doles out healthcare, but any other system requires that similar choices are made. I don't think it's fair that rich people get better care than poor people in the US, but blaming insurance companies for finding ways to make money is pointless. They exist to make money. That's how the system is set up.
If we had public healthcare, it would be policy boards and administrators making decisions about who gets care. If we had anarcho capitalist city states, it would be the Lord chancellor CEO of the city making those decisions or whoever.
Someone would still have to make them, so the idea that this guy deserved to be murdered for being the guy that did it doesn't really square that well. He might have deserved to be punished for how he made those decisions, but deciding who gets lifesaving care and who doesn't isn't inherently morally wrong. Its necessary for someone to do.