Aerrol's recent activity
-
Comment on What change would make you quit Tildes? in ~tildes
-
Comment on Finland scored three unanswered goals in the second period to beat Canada in the semi-finals of the 2026 IIHF World Championship in ~sports.hockey
Aerrol LinkMaybe the worst year for Canada in international hockey in my entire life...Maybe the worst year for Canada in international hockey in my entire life...
-
Comment on What are people's experiences with using Kagi? in ~tech
Aerrol Link Parent+1 for someone who tried a trial and didn't find myself using it that much. I'm honestly not searching for too difficult to find things these days, which is a bit sad. I wonder what would nudge me...+1 for someone who tried a trial and didn't find myself using it that much. I'm honestly not searching for too difficult to find things these days, which is a bit sad. I wonder what would nudge me back towards needing to find specific answers...
-
Comment on Blue Origin New Glenn stage 1 "No, It's Necessary" explodes during static fire in ~space
Aerrol LinkVery glad no one was hurt, but this is devastating news, especially because of the increased cadence in Lunar missions. Neither of our big Artemis Rockets will be ready it seems, which means...Very glad no one was hurt, but this is devastating news, especially because of the increased cadence in Lunar missions. Neither of our big Artemis Rockets will be ready it seems, which means everything will be pushed back despite how much energy, money, and announcements are exploding right now.
-
Comment on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 | Reveal trailer in ~games
Aerrol Link ParentHoly shit War Fantasy looks intense, thanks for the link.Holy shit War Fantasy looks intense, thanks for the link.
-
Comment on If you let AI do your writing, I will come to your house and kill you in ~tech
Aerrol Link ParentWhy are you so confident of this? The chances are much lower, but not zero. Very very recent Scientific American Article discussing the problem with hallucinations making up sources:...That said, no current frontier model is going to hallucinate the way the author claims on such a basic and straightforward question.
Why are you so confident of this? The chances are much lower, but not zero. Very very recent Scientific American Article discussing the problem with hallucinations making up sources: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-lawyers-keep-citing-fake-cases-invented-by-ai
-
Comment on The cost of safetyism - what we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard in ~life
Aerrol LinkAdding another parent voice here to say - yeah, I also agree but also feel the social etiquette in Canada makes it almost impossible to put into practice. You'll be a pariah or have social...Adding another parent voice here to say - yeah, I also agree but also feel the social etiquette in Canada makes it almost impossible to put into practice. You'll be a pariah or have social services called on you for letting pre teens out on their own too far. No one else is doing it so even if you do, your kid is isolated. I'm trying to build the muscle too, but it's a lonely fight.
-
Comment on If you let AI do your writing, I will come to your house and kill you in ~tech
Aerrol Link ParentTo add on to @Lia 's comment, which I fully agree with: the whole problem with LLMs is that they're entirely weighted random chance. I believe you that you tried this prompt and got the right...To add on to @Lia 's comment, which I fully agree with: the whole problem with LLMs is that they're entirely weighted random chance. I believe you that you tried this prompt and got the right answer. I also believe that the linked author tried a prompt and got his. It's entirely possible because nothing is guaranteed with an LLM, ever. I regularly use a relatively reliable paid LLM modifier (add-on? What's the word for companies building off of Foundation models) for legal work, and I got a pretty awful hallucination last week. It happens, and I can't even reproduce the bug for proof because, well... It was just a bad dice roll for me.
I'm trying to keep using the tools and learn to stay engaged in the state of the art, but dear God is this even more terrible news in the ever worsening death of our shared global (or even national) reality.
-
Comment on What is your favorite dinosaur? in ~talk
Aerrol LinkOooooh, another great question from Fae! My go-to would probably be triceratops, but for a more obscure reference I will say Troodon. I vividly recall a documentary I saw on the Discovery channel...Oooooh, another great question from Fae!
My go-to would probably be triceratops, but for a more obscure reference I will say Troodon. I vividly recall a documentary I saw on the Discovery channel way back when it was amazing (2008 maybe?) that went into great detail about their hypothesized intelligence based on evidence of brain cavity size and the apparently social locations of various fossil groupings. The Wikipedia page seems to cover very little of this so maybe it's been discredited since. But that documentary ended with a fascinating sci fi take of how troodon might've evolved into a reptilian civilization if they hadn't been blown up via asteroid. I've always remembered them as 'the smart dinos' since and really had a soft spot for them.
-
Comment on Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced releases July 9, 2026 in ~games
Aerrol Link ParentIt's open world and a lot of fun, but a very different game really. It's pirate valheim more than assassins creed. The boarding is less good than black flag for sure, as is the melee combat. The...It's open world and a lot of fun, but a very different game really. It's pirate valheim more than assassins creed. The boarding is less good than black flag for sure, as is the melee combat. The seas are gorgeous, it has shanties, and the ship to ship combat feels more comparable. I am enjoying it immensely so far, but I love Valheim.
-
Comment on Anthropic announces deal with Google, Broadcom, says revenue has tripled in ~finance
Aerrol Link ParentYou can blacklist it in personal preferences on Claude. I just did that the other day.You can blacklist it in personal preferences on Claude. I just did that the other day.
-
Comment on Where can I learn about the actual science behind Artemis II? in ~space
Aerrol LinkGood suggestions so far, but here's another: Nasa's Artemis II Reference Guide (138 pages!). NASA does indeed have a lot of this information scattered out there, but it's pretty spread out and not...Good suggestions so far, but here's another: Nasa's Artemis II Reference Guide (138 pages!). NASA does indeed have a lot of this information scattered out there, but it's pretty spread out and not indexed or centralized.
Since you specifically mention Science, here's a list of the experiments onboard: https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/artemis-ii-science/
-
Comment on Welcome to a multidimensional economic disaster - the AI boom wasn’t built for the polycrisis in ~tech
Aerrol Link ParentYes, with the caveat that this ban only applies to the top end, most modern AI chips. China still relies heavily on Taiwan for all manner of other chipsets.Yes, with the caveat that this ban only applies to the top end, most modern AI chips. China still relies heavily on Taiwan for all manner of other chipsets.
-
Comment on Welcome to a multidimensional economic disaster - the AI boom wasn’t built for the polycrisis in ~tech
Aerrol Link ParentThey will be impacted but not as heavily since their investments are largely state driven. But lack of chips from Taiwan will still hurt, as will a crash in prices and demand. So maybe they come...They will be impacted but not as heavily since their investments are largely state driven. But lack of chips from Taiwan will still hurt, as will a crash in prices and demand. So maybe they come out ahead but still limping.
-
Comment on How the Netherlands bent bureaucracy into something beautiful in ~society
Aerrol LinkThis is a great optimistic article, but I wish it directly had more details on the actual method in it. I don't have time to dig into the linked research paper, but here it is:...This is a great optimistic article, but I wish it directly had more details on the actual method in it. I don't have time to dig into the linked research paper, but here it is:
https://actionresearchplus.com/citizen-centric-powering-through-bureaucracy/If someone ended up looking at it to see if there's useful stuff in there (rather than this just being one really persuasive and determined social scientist), I'd be very grateful to see quotes.
-
How the Netherlands bent bureaucracy into something beautiful
12 votes -
Comment on Water and sanitation in the developing world in ~society
Aerrol Link ParentThe Ek Son Chan quote is both inspiring and depressing. Inspiring because he wrought such remarkable improvements. Depressing because how on earth do we make important but unpopular changes in a...The Ek Son Chan quote is both inspiring and depressing. Inspiring because he wrought such remarkable improvements. Depressing because how on earth do we make important but unpopular changes in a democracy? 😭
-
Comment on The kids are all right - Surprising studies show young people are doing better than previous generations in many ways in ~life
Aerrol (edited )LinkGiven that there's seemingly been a huge uptick in posts here and more broadly about how the younger generations are doomed/broken/somehow differently flawed than other generations, I thought this...Given that there's seemingly been a huge uptick in posts here and more broadly about how the younger generations are doomed/broken/somehow differently flawed than other generations, I thought this was really refreshing to read.
Although quality data are sparse, the research that does exist suggests a different narrative—one in which kids are faring better in many ways than those of previous generations. Studies suggest youths are more empathetic and less narcissistic than in the past, as well as more open-minded and inclusive. Drug use is down, youth violence has dropped and teen pregnancies have declined. IQs have gone up, and kids exhibit more self-restraint and patience than they did 50 years ago. “There are a number of trends that are in a positive direction,” says Kristin Moore, a senior scholar at Child Trends, a nonprofit research organization focused on child and family well-being.
In 2011 Sara Konrath, a social psychologist at Indiana University Indianapolis, and her colleagues analyzed changes in empathy—concern for others and the ability to take their perspectives—among nearly 14,000 college students from 1979 to 2009. They found that empathy had sharply declined across the 30-year period. Their paper led to a flurry of articles, including in this magazine, lamenting the loss of empathy among youths.
Then, in 2025, Konrath and her colleagues updated their analysis to look at empathy trends through 2018. They were excited to discover that 2007 was actually the low-water point for empathy—levels dipped to their lowest that year but then shot back up. A decade later empathy in young people was higher than it had been at any other time over the previous 39 years.
This new, more positive discovery didn’t get nearly as much media coverage as the one published in 2011, which Konrath found frustrating. “I have to say that I’ve noticed good news is not as popular as bad news,” she says. Recent science supports her assertion: a 2025 study found that negative and alarming articles about children are more likely to go viral than nuanced and balanced stories.Kids today are highly interested in helping others, too. In work presented at the 2023 conference of the European Research Network on Philanthropy, Konrath and her colleagues surveyed nearly 700 adolescents and found that 73 percent had volunteered or given to charities. “Fixating on that negative story you see in the headlines isn’t really representing the reality of young people,” Konrath says.
Although there’s no question that racism and homophobia remain persistent problems, a 2019 study analyzed more than four million tests of implicit and explicit attitudes administered to people in the U.S. between 2007 and 2016 and found substantial declines in anti-gay and racial bias, especially among young people. A 2024 study found that homophobic beliefs and attitudes have been dropping among adolescent boys in Canada, and in another study, researchers in Turkey found that Generations Y and Z hold more egalitarian views about gender and are more likely to reject violence against women compared with Gen Xers. “I frequently hear from parents how shocked they are by their children’s complete comfort with the spectrum of sexuality and gender identity, and I think there’s a contrast with how we grew up,” says Emily Edlynn, a clinical psychologist in Illinois who has been practicing for 20 years.
One important skill these shifts may be nurturing is emotional literacy. “Over the past 15 years of clinical work with young people and their families, I have definitely noticed that many kids come in with a richer emotional vocabulary than kids I saw earlier in my career,” says Tracy A. Prout, a clinical psychologist based in New York State. “They’re often better able to name feelings, talk about mental health, and recognize concepts like anxiety, overwhelm or burnout.”
But warmer, more empathetic parenting could help explain why kids are becoming more empathetic themselves. In a 2024 study, researchers at the University of Virginia invited 184 13-year-olds and their parents into a laboratory and observed how empathetic the teens’ mothers were when their kids asked for help. Every year after that, until the children were 19, the researchers also observed how empathetic those teens were with their closest friend. They found that the more empathetic the mothers were with their teens, the more empathy those teens showed for their friends throughout adolescence. The study suggests that empathy can be passed down from parents to children through warm everyday interactions.
One problem is that cognitive biases often make us think kids today are faring worse than kids in the past. In a series of experiments published in 2019, Protzko and Jonathan Schooler, a psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, found that intelligent adults (those who did well on a vocabulary test) think youths today are less smart than kids used to be, and well-read people (based on an author-recognition test) believe kids today enjoy reading less than kids did in the past. Yet data don’t bear out these ideas. These misperceptions, the researchers found, are driven by people’s tendency to notice the limitations of others in areas in which they excel combined with a memory bias that causes them to project their own abilities onto entire past generations. “No reality can match an artificially elevated view of the past,” Protzko explains.
TL;DR: The kids are actually doing great - better than those before them in a shockingly large number of metrics - and you shouldn't worry as much as you probably have been about backsliding culture and online vitriol. It's a problem, we should work on it, but the overall trend is still good and the kids are still alright.
-
The kids are all right - Surprising studies show young people are doing better than previous generations in many ways
49 votes -
Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Aerrol Link ParentI also really am enjoying No Rest for the Wicked! The bit that stands out to me most is that its is coop really well done, which is a massive plus for me over lonely souls games. (edited because I...I also really am enjoying No Rest for the Wicked! The bit that stands out to me most is that its is coop really well done, which is a massive plus for me over lonely souls games.
(edited because I clearly couldn't read your comment fully)
God, I tried Voat too and 100% agree. It was jarring and enlightening to watch that place swiftly go down the toilet. As someone who was very pro free speech and 'let the best ideas rise to the top' mindset, that live experiment completely changed my perspective on how to manage communities and discourse.