GoatOnPony's recent activity
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Comment on MasterCard sells my transaction data in "anonymised" form; but I get targeted spam related to credit card use. How does it work? in ~tech
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Comment on Is the Cybertruck really that bad? in ~transport
GoatOnPony Link ParentWhile I think some/most of the hatred directed at Musk owned companies is misplaced, be careful about overcorrecting the other way too. There's a lot of hyperbolically positive statements about...While I think some/most of the hatred directed at Musk owned companies is misplaced, be careful about overcorrecting the other way too. There's a lot of hyperbolically positive statements about Musk companies. I'd put commentary like "changed the future of humanity" in that bucket. My life has certainly not changed in any material way from one of Musk's companies and I kind of doubt it ever will.
I think part of the polarization around Musk's companies is that regardless of whether the companies do good in the world, the means by which they arrived there is not how I want society to progress. Stuff like SLS vs Starship is frustrating because I want the way we get to other planets and explore space to be something we collectively endeavor towards, not be the whims of a billionaire. SLS failures feel like a condemnation of our collective capacity to achieve great things. Space X successes feel like marks of approval for disruptive, singularly wealthy led initiatives. That lesson concerns me even if space is now XX% cheaper to get to.
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Comment on Waymo’s robotaxis are now available to everyone in Los Angeles in ~transport
GoatOnPony Link ParentJust as an FYI, prop L did not pass despite getting more than 50%. Prop M included a poison pill where if it got more votes than L then L would not take effect. And M got more votes...Just as an FYI, prop L did not pass despite getting more than 50%. Prop M included a poison pill where if it got more votes than L then L would not take effect. And M got more votes...
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Comment on What the hell is a Typescript or: Creation ideas above my skill level in ~tech
GoatOnPony LinkOne piece of advice for this kind of service: when it comes time to run the event you'll really want a team to help. All services can go down, have bugs that get exploited, or malicious content...One piece of advice for this kind of service: when it comes time to run the event you'll really want a team to help. All services can go down, have bugs that get exploited, or malicious content posted. When those things happen they will happen at the most inconvenient time and be more pernicious than you expect. I'd try to have a few people who can help debug and push fixes, especially if they can do so at hours different from your own. It's never fun to wake up in the morning and realize that things have been broken for several hours already. In general running a service like you've described is it's own art and can be harder than writing the code in the first place.
Separately, I strongly encourage you to not write your own login system. There are a lot of ways to get it wrong and if you do, you're not just harming your application, you're potentially harming all your users too (leaking passwords and emails or allowing posting as someone else).
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Comment on Replika CEO Eugenia Kuyda says it’s okay if we end up marrying AI chatbots in ~tech
GoatOnPony Link ParentI think there's an ethical distinction between harm prevention and providing a boon. Emergency medical care is harm prevention and biological engineering which makes people go to the ER less often...I think there's an ethical distinction between harm prevention and providing a boon. Emergency medical care is harm prevention and biological engineering which makes people go to the ER less often I would put in that class. But that's not my impression of what was being discussed - my impression was that the thread was focused on immortality and significantly enhanced human capabilities over the average person. I would class those as boons, things which no one truly needs in order to have a happy life. So in as much as we should drastically improve healthcare and endeavor to prevent suffering in the most number of people possible, I wholeheartedly agree.
One additional note is that expense seems like a justifiable reason why some treatments might be societally preferred or shunned. Reducto ad absurdum, a treatment which would extend someone's life one day at the cost of billions of dollars would be viewed by most as a waste and money better spent saving the lives of many more people elsewhere. Obviously genetic or bio engineering wouldn't have that absurd a cost benefit analysis. I just want to point out that doing a cost benefit analysis at a societal level isn't unreasonable. Societal reasoning about these things is ultimately consequentialist.
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Comment on Replika CEO Eugenia Kuyda says it’s okay if we end up marrying AI chatbots in ~tech
GoatOnPony Link ParentEgalitarian societies need safeguards against the accumulation of power otherwise they don't stay egalitarian. For material goods this manifests as taking/giving from the wealthy and providing for...Egalitarian societies need safeguards against the accumulation of power otherwise they don't stay egalitarian. For material goods this manifests as taking/giving from the wealthy and providing for the needy. For non material goods, non fungible goods, or goods with extreme power, things are not so clear cut because you might just be forced to give it to no one. For example, should an egalitarian society allow secret societies? They are an avenue for oligarchic behavior that threaten to consolidate power amongst a few people. You can't really share secret societies, only attempt to prevent their formation. Should some one person be allowed to hold onto the hope diamond? It's an object that can't be divided and is an enormous status symbol, maybe society would be better off if it didn't exist. Should anyone have nuclear bombs? Clearly no one should. Egalitarian societies obviously shouldn't plow everyone into featureless clones, but there is a line somewhere beyond which it's inherently harmful to maintaining an egalitarian society for some to have something and not others.
Genetic/bio engineering falls into the non fungible category. Then the next question is whether some having it would threaten to give them power difficult for the rest of society to overcome. Then can we do this to everyone? If yes, would such a society be better? If the answer to the first question is yes and to either of the latter is no, then an injunction against it seems reasonable to consider.
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Comment on Google lays off hundreds of ‘Core’ employees, moves some positions to India and Mexico in ~tech
GoatOnPony Link ParentI'm biased since I work in tech, but I think one reason for interest here is that tech (and certain FAANG in particular) are viewed as not just regular companies. These companies claimed that they...I'm biased since I work in tech, but I think one reason for interest here is that tech (and certain FAANG in particular) are viewed as not just regular companies. These companies claimed that they would not be traditional entities obsessed with nickel and diming but instead have real transformative impact on the world. Seeing that veneer be pulled away is shocking or vindicating and thus generates more interest than other companies doing the same or worse since it's expected behavior for them.
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Comment on Slay the Spire 2 | Reveal trailer in ~games
GoatOnPony LinkI enjoyed StS and expect I'll play this one too. I do find it a little surprising that it looks so similar to the first game, the mechanics look identical in the screenshots and much of the...I enjoyed StS and expect I'll play this one too. I do find it a little surprising that it looks so similar to the first game, the mechanics look identical in the screenshots and much of the content also seems the same. I suspect it will still sell very well and be lots of fun - likely more fun than others in the genre as well, but I guess I was hoping for a little more. It's been 5 years since the first game came out and the genre has explored lots of new ideas. Why is this not a paid DLC and instead a new game?
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Comment on VHEMT: the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement in ~life
GoatOnPony Link ParentI'm not trying to assert that these claims are true. I personally agree that they are false! I support most of your arguments made elsewhere. Absolutely, your skepticism is warranted. Different...Neither of these claims are true.
I'm not trying to assert that these claims are true. I personally agree that they are false! I support most of your arguments made elsewhere.
And I think a fair bit of skepticism is warranted whenever any group "shares the goal of population reduction."
Absolutely, your skepticism is warranted. Different ideologies are more or less susceptible to various immoral/violent behaviors and antinatalism is more susceptible than most. But ecofascism requires extra characteristics of violence and oppression which those claims alone don't necessitate, especially if they're only weakly held by most members. There's a careful balance to be had between persuading people away from potential treadmills to fascism while still not alienating them by jumping to call everything along that pathway fascism. I think your earlier comment strayed enough into lumping antinatalism for environmental reasons into ecofascism such that I wanted to comment.
but if I can get you to adopt this specific world-view, moving to eco-fascism isn't really that big a stretch any longer, especially when the inadequacy of anti-natalism in solving this becomes clear.
This is where I'd most disagree - I think there's a pretty big gap between voluntarily choosing not to have kids and being willing to commit/permit genocide or other oppressive behaviors. I'd also wager that most people who make that jump are doing so not out of any logical conclusion of the core tenets but primarily due to other factors, factors which might arise across all sorts of ideologies. To some degree I'd rather focus on those factors - fatalism, sense of powerlessness, in vs out group thinking, dogmatic adherence - than on whether some tenets share more or less with ecofascism. I think if you removed antinatalism something like ecofascism could still arise just under a different set of tenets (eg. "western countries have their pollution under control, its all those /other/ countries who are causing harm, so let's all go hate on them.") as long as those other factors persist.
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Comment on VHEMT: the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement in ~life
GoatOnPony Link ParentNot the person you're responding too, but I think attempting to associate 'lower population is desirable and good for the environment' as the defining characteristic of eco-fascism comes off as...Not the person you're responding too, but I think attempting to associate 'lower population is desirable and good for the environment' as the defining characteristic of eco-fascism comes off as reductionist. By way of analogy to normal fascism, this is akin to saying 'nationalism is distilled fascism' during a discussion about how some people want nation states. You can have a reasoned disagreement about nationalism, and even bring up fascism as an example of its ills, without trying to equate the two. For the topic at hand, disagreeing about whether population reduction is good or bad (as you've well argued elsewhere) is fine, but I think trying to pin any group who shares the goal of population reduction to eco-fascism is painting with too broad a brush. Intentions, values, and proposed means matter when it comes to what a movement will actually do, so not every group which shares a part of ecofascism's goals is necessarily worthy of being labeled under that banner. In particular, I think that VHEMT don't share ecofascism's ultra nationalist, anti-immigration, totalitarian efforts to commit genocide which seems like the important criteria for being labeled as such.
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tech
GoatOnPony Link ParentGood overview! To add an additional technical detail, there's an IETF standard (RFC 8805) which is the spec for how IP address owners can publish a mapping from IP range to location. Tech...Good overview! To add an additional technical detail, there's an IETF standard (RFC 8805) which is the spec for how IP address owners can publish a mapping from IP range to location. Tech companies may also be able to correlate IP address with other locations signals used with them (language, device location APIs, etc). The combination of the two means IP geolocation can be pretty accurate. To test, if you do a search for 'X near me' in a new incognito window you may be surprised at how relevant the results are.
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Comment on What’s something you wish more people understood? in ~talk
GoatOnPony Link ParentIf you'd like to put your mental health above the efficiency and environmental metrics and live outside a city, I think you should be allowed to do so. Proscriptive policies that don't allow for a...If you'd like to put your mental health above the efficiency and environmental metrics and live outside a city, I think you should be allowed to do so. Proscriptive policies that don't allow for a personal weighing of the options is bad. However, this is about a balance between personal preferences and societal benefit. I take it as true that the Earth cannot support everyone living the inefficient lives of NA style non-urbanity. Writ large, society should want moderately dense cities otherwise we're all probably screwed. Current NA policies currently heavily discount the externalities of non-city living. I view city density measures as trying to incrementally fix some of those incentive structures and make the personal calculation about where to live more closely match the true costs of that choice. They aren't about prescribing what any one person has to do, but about making the externalities aligned with the cost and subsidizing choices which, in aggregate, we should ideally prefer.
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Comment on Palworld could be a delight if it wasn't so invested in being awful in ~games
GoatOnPony Link ParentCaveat: I haven't played the game or followed its marketing. The article and a quick search for marketing about the game make it seem like the game is engaging in satire - its wearing its...Caveat: I haven't played the game or followed its marketing.
The article and a quick search for marketing about the game make it seem like the game is engaging in satire - its wearing its influences very obviously while adding in an absurdist/dystopian slant to it. "Pokemon but with guns" is a funny concept - juxtaposing cute and violence is the basis for plenty of humor and really feels like a satiric critique of the genre.
The theme of something like cruelty in a piece of media can be examined through how the content itself treats the topic or by how the content fits into some broader reflection of our society. MH, pokemon, minecraft, etc do not really examine the theme of cruelty in themselves. Immersed in those games and the fiction they've set up, cruelty is not a thematic consideration, the power fantasy, power of friendship, or exploration are. Palworld seems (see caveat) like it actually does want to actively engage with cruelty as a theme. It's not asking a player to have suspension of disbelief about the rules of the world like pokemon where creatures just love helping humans, it's asking players to engage directly with overworking cute creatures for personal gain. For most people, the themes presented while engaging with a piece of content are felt more strongly than ones brought up in relation to the real world and outside the fiction. So Palworld's examination of cruelty is going to feel different and more viscerally relevant. I don't see an issue with a reviewer saying that that theme was uncomfortable or not handled well. We can talk about whether other games should get a pass on thorny topics because they construct useful fictions to sidestep the topic, but it seems entirely reasonable to me to critique the portrayal of those issues in a game that is addressing them directly/as satire.
Having defended the article's ability to make those critiques, I will say that the article could have done a better job at conveying them.
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Comment on I want to learn Android (with Kotlin) ... should I focus on Jetpack or the old XML style? in ~comp
GoatOnPony LinkI worked on an android app professionally for 5 years, but I haven't seriously touched android in the last 2 years. My team was just examining whether to switch over to compose when I left and...I worked on an android app professionally for 5 years, but I haven't seriously touched android in the last 2 years. My team was just examining whether to switch over to compose when I left and I've dabbled with it a bit in my spare time.
If I were starting an app today I'd use Compose, but there's a couple criteria you could use to pick between them:
- Preferred programming style: if you're a fan of functional programming, unidirectional data flow, compositional and stateless components, compose is heavily reliant on those paradigms. If you like react, compose is amazing. If you want java style subclass OO where objects hold state, regular views might be more familiar.
- Performance: Views require/will by default use a bunch of tricks to try and get better performance. Learn to love recyclerviews and constraintlayout. Compose has better baseline performance but if you run into trouble you might have fewer tools to bail you out.
- Future proofing: Compose is the likely future, but it will still be a while before the ecosystem is done adjusting. Compose is also multiplatform, which is quite nice if you want to learn one UI framework for desktop, web, and mobile. But, if you want to use it professionally, be prepared that you might still need to understand regular Views and XML layouts for existing code/if the team has decided to wait to use Compose. Also I personally find that stack overflow for android view code is really hit or miss, a lot of answers are not up to date or encourage some very hacky solutions.
Also note you can mix and match - compose can embed regular views and vice versa.
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Comment on What are some of your daily use/most important apps? in ~tech
GoatOnPony Link Parent+1 to chwazi. If you regularly play boardgames it's a must have. It randomly picks a person after everyone puts one finger on the screen. Replace all faff about who is first player with chwazi...+1 to chwazi. If you regularly play boardgames it's a must have. It randomly picks a person after everyone puts one finger on the screen. Replace all faff about who is first player with chwazi instead.
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Comment on The race to mine the bottom of the ocean in ~enviro
GoatOnPony LinkA potentially interesting companion to this is the first segment in this let's learn everything podcast episode (headphone warning that they play a klaxon during parts of it) which describes...A potentially interesting companion to this is the first segment in this let's learn everything podcast episode (headphone warning that they play a klaxon during parts of it) which describes creatures living in the deep ocean and their fascinating adaptations. One part brought up is that most media attempts to portray these areas as scary and alien rather than just another massive habitat that we should respect as much as any other biome. I find it interesting to consider how much media romantization or lack thereof could be a driver in public support for conservation.
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Comment on Google wants an invisible digital watermark to bring transparency to AI art in ~tech
GoatOnPony Link ParentI think your concerns are valid - hiding arbitrary information in images is a worry. It's already possible, but normalizing it has additional dangers. IMO, this is mostly about how much you think...I think your concerns are valid - hiding arbitrary information in images is a worry. It's already possible, but normalizing it has additional dangers. IMO, this is mostly about how much you think AI generated images being created and shared by unsophisticated people is a concern. I'm concerned enough about bad data provenance as a vector for widespread harm (political misinformation, faked reviews, conspiracies, etc) that on balance I weigh this effort as a net positive. But I can see how a different weighting for the concerns/likelihood of it succeeding would lead to it being a negative.
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Comment on Google wants an invisible digital watermark to bring transparency to AI art in ~tech
GoatOnPony Link ParentI'd be very happy if metadata was standardized and retained across systems, but I don't think that's achievable on relevant timescales. Getting a w3c/ietf standard is only the very top of the...I'd be very happy if metadata was standardized and retained across systems, but I don't think that's achievable on relevant timescales. Getting a w3c/ietf standard is only the very top of the iceberg and it's already a slow process. The hard part is updating every OS, server image upload/download path, SMS, email, etc to handle it properly. A watermark can skip all of that. If you accept that AI image proliferation is doing harm now, a watermark gets you there much faster.
Normalizing hiding data in images is a reasonable concern, but I think implicitly passing metadata has very similar risks.
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Comment on Google wants an invisible digital watermark to bring transparency to AI art in ~tech
GoatOnPony Link ParentI think there's a large class of honest people who share images without taking extra effort to also share the provenance. Most people aren't actively malicious, they just don't care/aren't...I think there's a large class of honest people who share images without taking extra effort to also share the provenance. Most people aren't actively malicious, they just don't care/aren't thinking about it. They wouldn't remove any provenance if it was already attached for them. If there was a widely used metadata format which systems would automatically preserve on the user's behalf that would be sufficient, but alas, we don't. Putting a watermark in the image content is the best facsimile of that we have.
A major issue in this space is that different entities use the term 'anonymized' for very different privacy bars. A common definition of anonymized is just 'I removed the unique identifiers of name/email address/ip address etc'. This is a very weak approach and there's been many examples over the years where the other fields in the dataset (even if some aggregation and randomness is applied) were sufficient to link back to individual users. It's only been somewhat recently that better approaches to anonymization have appeared which better match the colloquial idea of anonymization. The main approach being something called differential privacy, which is a set of aggregation techniques that provably bounds the probability that adding or removing any single person from the dataset would be detectable. This is the technique that for example the US Census adopted in the most recent census. Applied properly it provides very strong protections against re-identification, but it can also add a lot of noise and removes outlier rows. It's what I'd consider the gold standard for anonymization and anything else is basically just marketing or security through obscurity.