MimicSquid's recent activity

  1. Comment on Order of the Sinking Star | Official announcement trailer in ~games

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    As someone who liked his previous work and have no idea of what he's been up to on the bigotry front, would you be willing to catch me up?

    As someone who liked his previous work and have no idea of what he's been up to on the bigotry front, would you be willing to catch me up?

    3 votes

  2. Comment on The iconic ‘Home Alone’ house is being renovated by its new owner (The interior is being restored to match its appearance in the original 1990 film) in ~movies

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Depending on the specific renovations a house has undergone, a contractor may have convinced a previous owner to "upgrade" to modern flooring because there's a strong secondary market for old...

    Depending on the specific renovations a house has undergone, a contractor may have convinced a previous owner to "upgrade" to modern flooring because there's a strong secondary market for old growth hardwood flooring. They can be so helpful as to handle the old boards along with the other construction waste without additional charge. Similar things are done with old chandeliers and other electrical fixtures they no longer manufacture. It's one of those things that's not stealing, since the new owner does want the change, but it's kind of embezzling, as the value of the old stuff is extracted without the owners' knowledge.

    12 votes

  3. Comment on CONTROL Resonant | Announcement trailer in ~games

    MimicSquid
    Link
    Well, that looks a good bit more like my kind of thing than Firebreak.

    Well, that looks a good bit more like my kind of thing than Firebreak.

    7 votes

  4. Comment on Disney inks blockbuster $1b deal with OpenAI, handing characters over to Sora in ~tech

    MimicSquid
    Link
    I give it a day, maximum, before there is video of Captain America saying things entirely counter to his character while in the background Yoda and Moana perform actions implying coitus. How well...

    The three-year licensing agreement will allow Sora users to create bespoke fan videos with the likes of Captain America, Yoda, and Moana.

    I give it a day, maximum, before there is video of Captain America saying things entirely counter to his character while in the background Yoda and Moana perform actions implying coitus.

    The release added: “OpenAI and Disney have affirmed a shared commitment to maintaining robust controls to prevent the generation of illegal or harmful content.”

    How well has that actually worked to date?

    20 votes

  5. Comment on Low pressure, fatal consequences: Explosion at Yenkin-Majestic in ~science

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    People are never supposed to crash their cars. Why should car manufacturers have seatbelts or crumple zones? No one is supposed to catch their kitchen on fire. Why should we require smoke alarms...

    People are never supposed to crash their cars. Why should car manufacturers have seatbelts or crumple zones? No one is supposed to catch their kitchen on fire. Why should we require smoke alarms or fire escapes?

    If you only secure things to the point at which they're supposed to operate, you're failing to prepare for things to go wrong. That's the whole point of safety tolerances, automatic warnings, and built-in emergency plans.

    4 votes

  6. Comment on These travel influencers don’t want freebies. They’re AI. in ~travel

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    A lot of what's hard for a real person is content creation. Going places, writing scripts, recording themselves, photographing things, etc. If all of that is replaced with AI images and videos,...

    A lot of what's hard for a real person is content creation. Going places, writing scripts, recording themselves, photographing things, etc. If all of that is replaced with AI images and videos, the cost craters. And then you can spam hundreds of accounts with variations of the same image and personality for the cost of one trip to Europe for one person. It's not that any one account will be as effective to start as one influencer, but they're much cheaper.

    4 votes

  7. Comment on Grocery stores are profiling online shoppers and charging them dynamic prices based on algorithmically determined affluence in ~finance

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    All of that is only relevant if there's a single level of pricing going on. With the price floor set by the shop who isn't dynamically pricing their goods, there's no cheaper goods for people...

    All of that is only relevant if there's a single level of pricing going on. With the price floor set by the shop who isn't dynamically pricing their goods, there's no cheaper goods for people whose personal demand drops below the baseline. And then the middleman's markup only provides profit for the middleman rather than offsetting the cheaper goods provided to people with leas demand.

    3 votes

  8. Comment on Grocery stores are profiling online shoppers and charging them dynamic prices based on algorithmically determined affluence in ~finance

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Right, which means that the higher prices being charged some people doesn't actually imply a decrease in the price for anyone else.

    Right, which means that the higher prices being charged some people doesn't actually imply a decrease in the price for anyone else.

    2 votes

  9. Comment on Grocery stores are profiling online shoppers and charging them dynamic prices based on algorithmically determined affluence in ~finance

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    To my understanding Instacart isn't setting the base price, the retailer is, and then Instacart is applying a markup. So the floor is what makes profit for the retailer, which has nothing to do...

    To my understanding Instacart isn't setting the base price, the retailer is, and then Instacart is applying a markup. So the floor is what makes profit for the retailer, which has nothing to do with Instagram's markups. This wipes out any benefit for the poorest people.

    5 votes

  10. Comment on Grocery stores are profiling online shoppers and charging them dynamic prices based on algorithmically determined affluence in ~finance

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    I would think that there's nothing wrong with that sort of price discrimination if the revenue was used to subsidize food for the less fortunate. For it to go into a middleman's pocket doesn't...

    I would think that there's nothing wrong with that sort of price discrimination if the revenue was used to subsidize food for the less fortunate. For it to go into a middleman's pocket doesn't seem to have any benefit to society beyond padding Instacart's balance sheet.

    8 votes

  11. Comment on China’s growth is coming at the rest of the world’s expense in ~society

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Let's take the most extreme hypothetical case: China can produce enough of everything for everyone on Earth, and cheaply enough that it's still profitable to ship it in rather than manufacture...

    Let's take the most extreme hypothetical case: China can produce enough of everything for everyone on Earth, and cheaply enough that it's still profitable to ship it in rather than manufacture locally. In this instance China needs nothing from other countries and still ruins everyone's domestic production because the Chinese stuff is still better/cheaper than building domestically.

    Historically, there's been a balance of trade, where different countries import and export things, and it more or less balances out. When it doesn't, that's when people start worrying about trade deficits. If China imports nothing and sells things, over time, the assets available to other nations will flow to China as it accumulates more of the resources that used to be spread more evenly. You can think of it as equivalent to Amazon's strategy of selling at a loss to drive other competitors out of business. The longer China sells more than it imports and at a rate that diminishes the competitive capability of other nations the stronger they'll be by comparison.

    10 votes

  12. Comment on A post on X claiming that Denmark has introduced an IQ threshold of at least 85 for sperm donors has sparked confusion, debate and memes, but ultimately is misleading in ~health

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    And is also updated regularly to aim at the midpoint of the range. Someone's IQ can change over the course of their life not only because of their own innate efforts, but because the population...

    And is also updated regularly to aim at the midpoint of the range. Someone's IQ can change over the course of their life not only because of their own innate efforts, but because the population got smarter around them. Truly, IQ is a zero sum game.

    6 votes

  13. Comment on RAM is so expensive, Samsung won’t even sell it to Samsung in ~tech

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    To be fair, that was for one year, as they were developing a new consumer product, on an item not a mainstay of modern civilization.

    To be fair, that was for one year, as they were developing a new consumer product, on an item not a mainstay of modern civilization.

    12 votes

  14. Comment on Swiss reject millionaire inheritance tax in ~society

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    I'm curious about what a person could do with a billion dollars of personal wealth that would be out of reach with 100 million that is more important than 900 million extra for infrastructure,...

    I'm curious about what a person could do with a billion dollars of personal wealth that would be out of reach with 100 million that is more important than 900 million extra for infrastructure, social programs, and other matters of government? What are they actually losing the ability to do? Yes, a number changed. What does that mean for them?

  15. Comment on Swiss reject millionaire inheritance tax in ~society

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Right. And what I'm saying is that losing 90% of their net worth is not a major sacrifice for a billionaire. Their life will still be one of absolute comfort as far as money could provide.

    Right. And what I'm saying is that losing 90% of their net worth is not a major sacrifice for a billionaire. Their life will still be one of absolute comfort as far as money could provide.

  16. Comment on Living wage calculator in ~finance

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    In San Francisco, the cost of $25k/year for one person is for a single room in a shared apartment. I know people who were paying that much for a bedroom in the Mission 8 years ago, and it hasn't...

    In San Francisco, the cost of $25k/year for one person is for a single room in a shared apartment. I know people who were paying that much for a bedroom in the Mission 8 years ago, and it hasn't gotten better.

    3 votes

  17. Comment on Living wage calculator in ~finance

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Absolutely. I'm super pleased to support more housing. Some of the state level bills passed recently could mean my (rent controlled) building might be demolished because of where it's located, and...

    Absolutely. I'm super pleased to support more housing. Some of the state level bills passed recently could mean my (rent controlled) building might be demolished because of where it's located, and I still support more housing. (Though the fact that there was an amendment that rent controlled tenants who lose their units so that new, larger buildings can be built will get equivalent new units and carry on their renting situation makes it much easier to support it without worrying about any personal downsides.)

    I am, of course, sad about gentrification, but having been in the same neighborhood through three waves of it at this point I can't help but feel that handwringing about it is kind of pointless. People come and people go, and the community networks they use to connect to each other come and go too, and new structures grow with new people. Trying to keep the community of a neighborhood the same is just as useless and destructive as trying to keep the housing stock the same. Everything will change with time, and the best we can do is try to build it up in a way that will actually support the people yet to come.

    4 votes

  18. Comment on Living wage calculator in ~finance

    MimicSquid
    (edited )
    Link
    I would say that one of the major weaknesses of this, like many living wage calculators, is the lack of any retirement or other savings. Unless one has absolute faith that social security and...

    I would say that one of the major weaknesses of this, like many living wage calculators, is the lack of any retirement or other savings. Unless one has absolute faith that social security and other retirement programs will actually cover the entirety of your life in retirement and that you'll have no surprise expenses, their "living wage" is still quite a bit below where it would need to be. The individual costs are more or less in alignment with the basic cost to live, but it's not enough.

    One should also note that while they show the "living wage" breakdown, many of those costs don't actually drop much just because you have less money. Looking at Alameda County, CA, the hourly pay for a living wage is $30/hour, and the poverty wage is $7.52/hour, which is 25%. But the "living wage" cost for housing for a single adult is pegged at $24k/year, and that's about as low as you can go. If you're sharing a room with someone you might be able to pay $12/k a year, but there are pretty much no $6k/year housing options.

    A lot of the "middle class" is barely scraping along at the "living wage" line, and it's not really possible to quarter those costs and live. That means the poverty wage is actually just death, forced emigration, or spending your life hotbunking in a shared room and scrounging for every penny. These numbers just reinforce why we see so many homeless encampments: no one but finance, medical, management, and computer people make much above a "living wage" that assumes you'll earn until you die.

    EDIT: They do call this out in the FAQ:

    Do the living wage estimates include a reasonable amount of savings and leisure expenditures or go beyond a subsistence wage?

    No, the living wage model currently does not factor in savings, leisure expenditures, emergency expenses, or other cost categories beyond basic needs.

    Not much of a "living" wage, then. Calling it something more than a subsistence wage is gilding a turd, and presenting wages below that line is just creating a false sense that their top option isn't actually the bottom of the barrel.

    30 votes

  19. Comment on Bun is joining Anthropic in ~tech

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    One of these situations leaves the open source thing independent and one of them doesn't. Do those hold equal weight for you?

    One of these situations leaves the open source thing independent and one of them doesn't. Do those hold equal weight for you?

    16 votes

  20. Comment on Swiss reject millionaire inheritance tax in ~society

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    If a billionaire lost 90% of their net worth, they'd still have 100 million dollars, and be richer than 99% of everyone in the world. They'd be able to own multiple nice houses in beautiful...

    If a billionaire lost 90% of their net worth, they'd still have 100 million dollars, and be richer than 99% of everyone in the world. They'd be able to own multiple nice houses in beautiful cities, the interest from their investments would be sufficient to ensure that them and all of their descendants would never need to work a day in their lives, etc. Is that a person who you would feel bad for?

    4 votes