papasquat's recent activity
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Comment on Do you iron your clothes? in ~life
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Comment on The American religion of self-storage facilities in ~life
papasquat Link ParentTo me, it helps that I think of the money as already thrown away as soon as I bought it. There a very few objects we buy on a regular basis that retain enough value to be worth reselling. For me,...To me, it helps that I think of the money as already thrown away as soon as I bought it.
There a very few objects we buy on a regular basis that retain enough value to be worth reselling. For me, that threshold is about $150. If I'm not likely to get at least around $150 to sell it, it's not worth the effort of me cleaning it up, taking photos of it, posting it online, dealing with the absolute insane people on Facebook marketplace, haggling a price, and so on.
It's garbage with a ticking clock from the moment I purchase it, so I don't feel bad throwing it out. I've already mentally made my peace with that money being gone.
As far as the sentimental thing, I've just never been a sentimental person about objects. Sometimes photos remind you of something, and that's nice, but also, our minds were made to forget things. I don't necessarily want an indelible record of my life. I remember the pieces my brain feels is important to remember, and I remember them in a way that feels right to me, even if it's not really what happened.
Ive forgotten the names of many friends, romantic partners, coworkers and so on, and I'm totally fine with that. The very impactful ones I do still remember, and the memory is what's special to me, not the artifact. So yeah, I just tend to throw a lot of things out. (Unfortunately, I tend to also buy a lot of things. I'm looking at a thermal sensor right now that I bought about a year ago for a project I'm not really interested in anymore. It's bound for the trash can this weekend).
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Comment on What are the genuinely worst films of all time? in ~movies
papasquat Link ParentInteresting. That's a character trait I never really thought about Luke, but compared to other Jedi, Luke and his dad were both very impulsive. The only other Jedi we see in the OT are Obi Wan and...Interesting. That's a character trait I never really thought about Luke, but compared to other Jedi, Luke and his dad were both very impulsive.
The only other Jedi we see in the OT are Obi Wan and Yoda, and they're both obviously very in control of their emotions, but they're also Jedi masters, and very old at that point, so you could summize that Luke is just being a normal young adult. In the prequels though, we see lots of other Jedi, and all of them are more in control of their emotions and less impulsive than Anakin obviously, it's pretty much hammered over your head the Anakin is impulsive and plays fast and loose with his emotions, but they're also more in control than Luke ever was.
It sort of makes Luke's character in TLJ a little more interesting, even though I still didn't like that movie and felt it did the character a disservice.
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Comment on The American religion of self-storage facilities in ~life
papasquat Link ParentI think you're right, the root cause is overconsumption, but the immediate cause is really just guilt. People have too much shit because they over consume, but people have no room to store that...I think you're right, the root cause is overconsumption, but the immediate cause is really just guilt.
People have too much shit because they over consume, but people have no room to store that shit because they're guilty about getting rid of it. There's this pseudo emotional attachment/sunk cost fallacy that people have worn their shit. They emotionally value these objects because of what they paid for them, or memories they have associated with them, and they can't just throw them away because then that value goes away. They can't even sell them, because the 150 bucks you'll get from a used couch is way less than the 1500 bucks they spent on it, or the fond memories they have of sitting on it, so it just sits somewhere and makes people feel good knowing they "have" it.
I've successfully avoided the immediate cause of this, but not the root cause. I over consume just like everyone else. I have a huge table saw in my garage I never use, a bunch of cables to things I don't own anymore, and all the other junk that everyone else has.
The main difference between me and, say, my wife, or my parents or a lot of my friends is that I prescribe almost no value to objects outside of their actual utility.
I would have gotten rid of my art from middle school I still have in my attic if it wouldn't bother my parents or wife so much. My first coffee table from college is in a landfill somewhere, and I routinely just throw old stuff out. I never ever miss it.
Sometimes, I'll go through the effort of selling things on eBay that do have some true value, but going through that whole pain is probably worth about $150 of my time and frustration, so anything worth less than that goes into the trash. Anything else like bringing it to a college or shelter or whatever is just too much friction for me to ever do, and I just straight up won't do it, because I know myself, so it goes in the trash.
Is it wasteful? Yes, definitely. In my mind it's way less wasteful than taking up space I don't need, or sitting in a storage locker I'm paying for only to be thrown out by my descendents when I eventually die though.
It's all going to a landfill anyway, I see no reason to delay the inevitable.
My wife isn't like this. She'll come up with a million potential use cases for any object we have that deep down, she knows isn't going to ever come up, but in that moment, she's convinced they will. As a result, I definitely have more stuff in my house than I'd like.
I think the main difference between us, and probably most people like her versus like me is that when she buys something, she views it as sort of an investment. Something that has value, will retail value, and will generate value over time.
Most objects I buy I just view as a liability. Same as going out to dinner or the movies or whatever, but worse, because I need to pay to store it. It actively costs me money in some small way for every day that it exists in my ownership. Once I spend the money, the money is gone. I'm not getting it back, it doesn't contribute to my net worth, so as soon as that object stops earning it's keep, it goes into the trash. If it were up to me, no one, not even an intimate object would live in our house for free, except pets (we don't have kids yet).
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Comment on Just got laid off. Now what? in ~life
papasquat Link ParentI don't know what the problem is, but on the other side of the fence, trying to hire people via applications is also a complete nightmare. When I post a position, I get hundreds of resumes that...I don't know what the problem is, but on the other side of the fence, trying to hire people via applications is also a complete nightmare.
When I post a position, I get hundreds of resumes that are nowhere near the requirements of the job, like, not even in the same field. Once I filter those out and choose the best looking few dozen or so resumes, pick the ones that seem like the best fit, I call people and probably 90% of them very obviously just bullshitted their entire resume. After I filter those out and bring people in for an in person interview, very often, all of the remaining candidates were just ok at bullshitting on the phone and don't actually have any experience in what we want, or are just... really off-putting, like I'm concerned for my safety, or they have some other weird thing going on. I had a candidate fall asleep in the middle of a conversation during a half hour interview.
It's just so weird, it's never been this difficult to sift through people to hire someone who is a somewhat decent fit.
It's just a lot easier to poach people that I know from other departments, or get referrals from people I trust. I've been burnt by random off the street hires badly in the past year or two, because it's just so much time and effort to effectively screen due to all the noise, and there just isn't enough time in the day to weed through all of it in a satisfactory way.
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Comment on I could have painted that in ~arts
papasquat (edited )LinkWow, the comments under the video made me realize that people probably didn't actually watch it and more interesting to me, People don't know what money laundering is or how it works. Buying an...Wow, the comments under the video made me realize that
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people probably didn't actually watch it
and more interesting to me, -
People don't know what money laundering is or how it works.
Buying an extremely expensive, famous, one of a kind piece of art would be one of the absolute worst ways to launder money.
The whole point of laundering money is take money that's "dirty", ie; gotten from some sort of illegal activity, and turn it "clean"; ie, give you a plausible way to have gotten it.
An extremely famous, expensive piece of art magically materializing in your custody, which you then have to sell at a very publicized auction in order to get your money back is the exact opposite of laundering money. It would be basically just broadcasting to the authorities that you've done something illegal.
Money is usually laundered through actual businesses, because it's hard to comb through tens of thousands of receipts and purchase orders to correlate that the business is generating more income than it should be.
Does money get laundered through art? Yeah, sure, but it also gets laundered through basically anything you can buy or sell. I could pay a guy that's willing to cooperate with me to sell me a million cans of tuna fish for 1000 dollars on the books, and the rest under the table, and then sell the tuna at market rates to get my $500k "clean" just as easily as I could with a piece of art.
That doesn't mean tuna fish is "just valuable because of money laundering"
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Comment on What are the genuinely worst films of all time? in ~movies
papasquat Link ParentHonestly, even though in the grand overall plot of the series, Episode 1 is completely unimportant, and nothing that happens in that movie is really of consequence, and you could skip the whole...Honestly, even though in the grand overall plot of the series, Episode 1 is completely unimportant, and nothing that happens in that movie is really of consequence, and you could skip the whole thing and not miss much... Podracing was legitimately cool and interesting, and that sequence was very well done, and the sound design is some of the best ever done not only in Star Wars, but in any sci fi movie.
I think Episode 1 may be the most enjoyable of the prequels because of interesting set pieces like the pod race and the duel of the fates battle.
I don't remember quite as many bland walking and talking sequences in that movie, and even though it has the most Jar Jar compared to the other two movies, they kept the overboard, ridiculously dated looking CGI spectical to a (relative) minimum. You still have really stupid scenes like the Jar Jar Mr. Magoo land battle and the Anakin Mr. Magoo space battle, but the movie didn't take itself too seriously and wasn't up its own ass as much as the other two were.
It also could have been because I was 12 when I saw it in theaters for the first time and thought it was legitimately the greatest film ever made when I saw it and for a few months afterwards.
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Comment on What are the genuinely worst films of all time? in ~movies
papasquat Link ParentDamn, I forgot about all of those movies. Every one that came out seemed to be worse than the ones before it. The jokes were more and more surface level and stupid as they went on. The only...Damn, I forgot about all of those movies. Every one that came out seemed to be worse than the ones before it. The jokes were more and more surface level and stupid as they went on.
The only somewhat decent gag I remember from meet the Spartans was the fat Spartan getting his six-pack makeup applied, but I remember it was so heavily promoted as part of the movie, and I'm pretty sure that exact same bit had been done in multiple places by then that by the time the movie came out, it was sort of meh.
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Comment on What are the genuinely worst films of all time? in ~movies
papasquat Link ParentI very much disagree. The lightsaber duel was tedious, and every time I've seen it I've gotten bored halfway through. It's just way too long. Also, I think Hayden Christensen gets a bad rap in...I very much disagree. The lightsaber duel was tedious, and every time I've seen it I've gotten bored halfway through. It's just way too long. Also, I think Hayden Christensen gets a bad rap in those movies. I don't actually know if he's a good actor or not because those movies sort of killed his burgeoning career and I've never seen him in anything else, but Ewan McGregor and Natalie portman are both excellent actors who were awful in those movies too, because they were given a terrible script, and their direction consisted of George lucas half assing it in front of a green screen.
How much can you really do with "I hate sand", and "From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!". Yes George, we know this opinion is from his point of view, because... he's the one that said it.
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Comment on What are the genuinely worst films of all time? in ~movies
papasquat Link ParentYeah, the prequels are kind of watchable even though they're bad. They're bad in a single man's dumb vision kind of way. I can appreciate that kind of bad. I can't appreciate corporate slop full...Yeah, the prequels are kind of watchable even though they're bad. They're bad in a single man's dumb vision kind of way. I can appreciate that kind of bad.
I can't appreciate corporate slop full of executive meddling and with creative decisions driven by ROI calculations.
Also, I hate that the Disney sequels have given the zoomers that grew up with the prequels and are blind to how bad they are cover to hide behind.
I always hear from star wars fans that are between 20 and 30, things like "the prequels were amazing, not like the terrible Disney movies". They're both bad. Multiple things can be bad at the same time, to different degrees. The prequels don't have to be good for the Disney movies to be bad.
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Comment on What are the genuinely worst films of all time? in ~movies
papasquat LinkThe Rise of Skywalker might not be the technically worst movie ever made, like there are obviously hundreds of talented people that did a good job on it, but as far as money spent to quality, and...The Rise of Skywalker might not be the technically worst movie ever made, like there are obviously hundreds of talented people that did a good job on it, but as far as money spent to quality, and my own personal level of disgust, it absolutely takes the cake.
It's such a complete dog shit movie. I loved Star Wars as a kid, was really into the books, and I was a teenager when the prequels came out. Attack of the Clones was when I was old enough to realize that the prequels weren't very good movies, and I kinda stopped being a Star Wars fan after that, although I still really liked the original movies and playing some of the games.
With all that said, I wasn't particularly excited for new Star Wars. I watched the force awakens and thought it was a pretty forgettable, whatever movie. Not good, and not interesting, and the plot was stupid, but it kept what you'd expect to happen in a Star Wars movie more or less.
I saw The Last Jedi in theaters and really hated it, so I decided I wasn't going to give Disney any more money related to Star Wars. For one, I don't think it's really that interesting of a setting, and two, they clearly had no idea what they were doing.
I saw the rise of Skywalker on a plane, and whoever was sitting next to me was probably getting annoyed at all the groans of disgust.
Basically everything about it was bad. The plot was stupid and contrived, the characters were unlikable and made no sense, and there was a shoehorned love story smashed into the end of it with a sledgehammer for no reason. I hated almost everything about it, and if I paid money for it and wasn't stuck on an airplane, I would have left the theater halfway through and asked for my money back.
I couldn't believe that a big studio would allow that to be released
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Comment on Deciding whether (or not) to have a child in ~life
papasquat Link ParentEvery parent throughout all of history has thought the same thought. My parents thought it due to AIDS, the drug epidemic and the rising crime that came along with it, along with the looming...have you ever felt bitter about inheriting the world we're presently in?
Every parent throughout all of history has thought the same thought. My parents thought it due to AIDS, the drug epidemic and the rising crime that came along with it, along with the looming threat of nuclear war. Their parents thought it during the height of the cold war and what seemed like communists infiltrating every aspect of the government, their parents thought it due to the total collapse of the world's monetary systems and so on.
Every generation has extreme challenges and they find a way to cope with it. Life overall gets better or worse, but it hasn't yet ended. Human society will adapt and people will manage to find bits of joy no matter what the world looks like.
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Comment on Anthropic's Dario Amodei calls for AI oversight, joined by Sam Altman and Elon Musk in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI'm not so sure it's a moat they're after as much as recognizing they're in a prisoners dilemma. Realistically, no one is close to anthropic, openai and Google when it comes to frontier AI...I'm not so sure it's a moat they're after as much as recognizing they're in a prisoners dilemma.
Realistically, no one is close to anthropic, openai and Google when it comes to frontier AI research. They have such a massive competitive advantage, and the only way to bridge that advantage for an outside firm is to 1. Hire the most valuable, expensive and sought after labor force the world has ever seen and 2. Make capital investments in infrastructure that dwarfs most countries.
There's basically no danger of some random startup taking the crown from these three, at least not outside of China.
I think they recognize that they're in an unsusrainable competitive arms race that only stops when 1. The technology hits a ceiling where scaling stops returning performance gains, 2. The scaling required to see notable performance gains requires more capital than exists on earth, or 3. The AI becomes smart enough to fully escape their control and dooms us all.
None of those options is really a position that any of these companies want to be in, but by letting up off the gas, they know they'll be ruined and the future of this technology will be dictated by one of the other two, so they're all careening towards certain destruction (either financially or literally, depending on how this goes). Option 1 is realistically the best case scenario for everyone, but no one knows how likely it is.
The only way out of that logical, game theory trap is for some outside entity with more power than any of them to step in and put and end to it, and the US government is the only organization that fits the bill. They've become victims of their own success, and they're not stupid, they know how this ride ends.
Personally, I think this may be one of the few times the interests of multi billionaires may align with he interests of the general public.
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Comment on What is your "when I found out about 9/11" story? in ~talk
papasquat LinkI was a sophomore in highschool, in my JROTC class. I may have even been wearing a uniform at the time. I had no desire to join the military at the time, it was just a class my parents made me...I was a sophomore in highschool, in my JROTC class. I may have even been wearing a uniform at the time. I had no desire to join the military at the time, it was just a class my parents made me take for some reason.
I don't remember much about the day to be honest, just where I was when Id heard the news. We must've watched the broadcast on TV in the classroom, but I don't remember if we went home early, or if classes were suspended or anything like that. I do know that I did end up joining the military a few years later though, and the US military post 9/11 was so different than it was before 9/11 that its almost like talking ahout two completely different organizations when I talked to people who were in back then.
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Comment on New app: Sheets - Manage Ghostty/Kitty/Alacritty themes easily! in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentNah, not really. If just implies that something is writing code. Kinda like when you load the dishwasher and turn it on, you say "I washed the dishes", because "I intiated the process resulting in...Nah, not really. If just implies that something is writing code. Kinda like when you load the dishwasher and turn it on, you say "I washed the dishes", because "I intiated the process resulting in a machine washing the dishes" is kind of unweildy.
I'm just happy there's a term for it at all, and people recognize that vibecoding isn't the same thing as actually programming.
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Comment on Software for humans in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentYeah, I think I'm pretty aligned with you on my feelings around this stuff. I don't mind when other people use AI to help them do personal projects, or when people use it at work to help with...Yeah, I think I'm pretty aligned with you on my feelings around this stuff. I don't mind when other people use AI to help them do personal projects, or when people use it at work to help with work, as long as the quality is still good (big qualifier, I know).
I do absolutely HATE when people diminish the work of other people by commenting that AI could do that, or that it wasn't actually that hard because they did the same thing with AI. It fills me with blinding rage, and it's very common amongst obnoxiously pro ai spaces.
When someone hand builds a complicated piece of software, shares it with the world, talks about the years they've spent on it, and someone comments that AI could do the same thing, I just want to slap them.
Even if it was the same quality, which is extremely dubious, imagine someone going up to a master blacksmith that created a hand forged masterpiece of a sword over months and going "I could get the same thing on temu for 10 dollars".
This unfortunately happens (very common in custom furniture especially), but I absolutely detest the idea.
Even if the results were the same (they basically never are). Someone hand crafted by a human being is special, and will always be more valuable than something mass produced and shitted out by a machine. Even if blacksmithing and furniture making is no longer a viable career in most places, the people those things create has way more intrinsic value to most people, and the same is true for software in my opinion.
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Comment on New app: Sheets - Manage Ghostty/Kitty/Alacritty themes easily! in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentVibes in the colloquial usage just means non specific emotions or unconscious observations. So when you're vibe coding, you're not thinking about specifics, like implementation details, control...I really don't see how getting an LLM to write code for you is in any way, shape or form related to the English word 'vibe'. :(
Vibes in the colloquial usage just means non specific emotions or unconscious observations.
So when you're vibe coding, you're not thinking about specifics, like implementation details, control flow, optimization or any of that. You just have a rough general idea of the shape you want the software you want to take, ie, coding entirely based on vibes. -
Comment on In search of the hypothetical iPhone Duo buyer in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI don't think it's a matter of someone forcing them to use phones, it's that they're more comfortable using them. A lot of young people just didn't grow up using computers. They've been able to...I don't think it's a matter of someone forcing them to use phones, it's that they're more comfortable using them.
A lot of young people just didn't grow up using computers. They've been able to theoretically do everything they needed to do on a smart phone their whole life, so they've never been really exposed to anything else. Makes sense that they wouldn't seek out a computer unless they were required to by a job or something. Even though doing any sort of long form input on a phone seems like torture to me, if it's all you've ever known, it probably feels normal.
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Comment on In search of the hypothetical iPhone Duo buyer in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI think the requirements in a phone for users that do most of their computing on a computer (ie, older people) is much different than the use cases of users who do most of their computer related...I think the requirements in a phone for users that do most of their computing on a computer (ie, older people) is much different than the use cases of users who do most of their computer related tasks on a phone (increasingly, younger people).
If I need to fill out a resume, or pay a bill, or write an email longer than a couple of sentences, I'm not using my phone to do that. Touchscreens are a really terrible compromise that are a necessary tradeoff of input usability against screen real estate. I find them really frustrating to use, and I'm way more comfortable using a mouse and keyboard for anything requiring a lot of input.
There are a lot of people that don't feel that way, and it seems to be the case more as time goes on. There are a lot of people who don't own a computer of any kind except for their phone. They do everything on their phone, from reading news, to filling out job applications, paying bills, investing, writing and so on.
For those kinds of people, it might make sense to have a phone that can transition to having a gigantic screen.
For me, I just want something small that fits in my pocket, has decent battery life, and mostly gets out of my way.
I would never buy something like this in a million years. If I was forced to only use a phone for everything technology related though?
Maybe it becomes more appealing at that point. -
Comment on Apple announces iPhone Duo, its first foldable iPhone in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentThey do, it's just more rare over the past few years since Apple became the iPhone company and stopped actually making new kinds of devices. I still encounter people to this day who insist that...They do, it's just more rare over the past few years since Apple became the iPhone company and stopped actually making new kinds of devices.
I still encounter people to this day who insist that Apple invented the smartphone, even though I knew people with them for years before the iPhone was released.
Do you hang them instead of folding? If not, aren't your clothes wrinkly all the time?