OBLIVIATER's recent activity
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Comment on How the heck do you go about moving cross country? in ~life
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Comment on Valve is possibly making a Steam Controller 2 and a ‘Roy’ for its Deckard in ~games
OBLIVIATER Link ParentI got a Steam controller for like 15 dollars a few years back when they went on clearance, I really wanted to like it but it just feels so wonky that I never got the hang of using it. I appreciate...I got a Steam controller for like 15 dollars a few years back when they went on clearance, I really wanted to like it but it just feels so wonky that I never got the hang of using it. I appreciate the usefulness of the touch pads but I'll never be able to use them like joysticks. Mine is sitting on my coffee table gathering dust :(
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Comment on China population set for 51 million drop as pro-birth moves fail in ~society
OBLIVIATER LinkSocietal whiplash from having generations who were strictly controlled from having babies to now having it being incentivized. Culture was shaped by those policies and it takes a long time to undo...Societal whiplash from having generations who were strictly controlled from having babies to now having it being incentivized. Culture was shaped by those policies and it takes a long time to undo that damage
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Comment on Why is Google Gemini saying we should die? in ~tech
OBLIVIATER Link ParentIt looks to me like the user was using AI to cheat on their test, not fish for any specific response hahaIt looks to me like the user was using AI to cheat on their test, not fish for any specific response haha
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Comment on Why is Google Gemini saying we should die? in ~tech
OBLIVIATER Link ParentOk I just got high and this is fucking with me, are you knowledgeable on LLMs? I've never heard it explained like that before.Ok I just got high and this is fucking with me, are you knowledgeable on LLMs? I've never heard it explained like that before.
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Comment on Why is Google Gemini saying we should die? in ~tech
OBLIVIATER (edited )Link ParentI never said I thought it was an approved prank haha, which is why my original comment also included the possibility of a disenfranchised engineer. I mean this is Google we're talking about, they...I never said I thought it was an approved prank haha, which is why my original comment also included the possibility of a disenfranchised engineer.
I mean this is Google we're talking about, they had to fire a bunch of people few years back for abusing their access to steal confidential user information. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to imagine someone doing something like this
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Comment on Why is Google Gemini saying we should die? in ~tech
OBLIVIATER Link ParentGoogle definitely hard codes some responses in, you can usually tell when they kick in because the context doesn't always quite fit. Usually if you're asking questions about how the AI works, if...Google definitely hard codes some responses in, you can usually tell when they kick in because the context doesn't always quite fit. Usually if you're asking questions about how the AI works, if its alive, etc. Or if you ask for anything against it's TOS. It's perfectly reasonable to believe that some engineer was having a laugh and snuck in this as a prank to a friend, and forgot to turn it off. It could be triggered by anything.
how code is deployed to production in large orgs like Google.
Maybe, but you have to remember Bard is a prototype that has a lot of moving parts and is constantly being tweaked. I don't think it's unreasonable to guess that there's a guy at google who has the access to slip something like this in somewhere.
Then again who knows; it's a weird black box and anything could be going on in there. It seems unlikely that this was just a weird flub of the LLM though.
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Comment on Why is Google Gemini saying we should die? in ~tech
OBLIVIATER Link ParentMy guess is disenfranchised engineer or a prank that got pushed to prod by accident, either way its pretty funny and a little spookyMy guess is disenfranchised engineer or a prank that got pushed to prod by accident, either way its pretty funny and a little spooky
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Comment on Tips for increasing online privacy (without going insane)? in ~tech
OBLIVIATER LinkEdit: I made it 20 minutes into my comment and realized you weren't really talking about online information security, but I spent too much work on this so I'm going to post it anyway :p I've been...Edit: I made it 20 minutes into my comment and realized you weren't really talking about online information security, but I spent too much work on this so I'm going to post it anyway :p
I've been doxxed, witch hunted, and even swatted once: here's what I've done to help.
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Google/Bing/whatever your name, your address, your phone number; any identifiable information you can think of that could be publicly available. Check multiple pages of results. Find every website that has your information on it and submit opt-out requests (99.9% of the sites should have this function, some don't) there are a lot of websites out there like peekyou, the Whitepages, etc which will just post your straight up name, address, number, etc for anyone to find. It's criminal.
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Do the same for your immediate family members, especially your parents. Parents are the number one targets for psychos online and they usually don't have the wherewithal to do this kind of thing themselves. If you have the patience you can do it for inlaws as well, I once had someone call my sister in laws phone number dozens of times saying that I caused someone to kill themselves and I should be in jail. It really stressed her out and I felt terrible that she was targeted because of her relation to me.
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Once you've done everything you can to remove your information from the people finder websites, do some digging into specific popular databases. You may find that you're still showing up in them despite them not appearing on searches.
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For any public online information that you can't easily remove, submit a takedown request via Google. I believe they'll remove it from the search results if you give them a good enough reason, so feel free to get creative. This isn't foolproof obviously but it does a lot to slow down the lazier creeps online.
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Consider trying out a paid service like incogni to go through a purge other records. It's usually not very expensive and can save you a lot of time and effort. I don't know how well they work, but for a few bucks it's probably worth it.
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You can go even deeper and start planting fake information out there associated with your personal identity. Not really sure the best way to do this, but I believe you can submit corrections for online people searches and change things like addresses and phone numbers. You could also make fake social media accounts associated with your name or username and have false info planted there too. I personally haven't but it's worth a shot if you're desperate to have some barriers up.
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Call your local PD and warn them that someone may attempt to SWAT you or your family. They usually are pretty clueless but sometimes you'll find someone helpful and they'll be able to make a note about it and maybe prevent a disaster.
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Recognize that you will probably never be able to get all traces of your info off the web and don't stress out about it too much. You can only do so much, and it's not worth beating yourself up too much over it. Do your best and hope for the best, don't let the trolls win.
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Comment on Wonder announces acquisition of Grubhub in ~food
OBLIVIATER (edited )Link ParentI did a triple take, I expected grubhub to be worth a lot more money than $650 million, but maybe I'm used to tech companies being overvalued as hell. I thought they meant Grubhub was acquiring...I did a triple take, I expected grubhub to be worth a lot more money than $650 million, but maybe I'm used to tech companies being overvalued as hell. I thought they meant Grubhub was acquiring Wonder. I feel like food delivery apps are on the downtrend after COVID, its just far too expensive to be ordering from them anymore. You're spending 40-50 bucks on 20 dollars worth of food that cost 5 dollars to make. (And its usually not even that tasty after its been sitting for 1~ hour.)
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Comment on What are your favorite “chore” games? in ~games
OBLIVIATER Link ParentI'm using too many to list right now (unless you're really interested, I could send a screenshot of my mod list) But the biggest recommends so far are: Stardew Valley Expanded (this may be too...- Exemplary
I'm using too many to list right now (unless you're really interested, I could send a screenshot of my mod list)
But the biggest recommends so far are:
Stardew Valley Expanded (this may be too overwhelming for new players, it adds LOTS of extra content)
Better Chests/crafting (Nice QOL storage tweaks for those who hate digging through chests for items)
Tractor mod (only really necessary with the big farms from SVE expanded)
Look up anything (in game wiki so you never have to tab out to look up something)
There are more like I said but those are the ones I find most useful.
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Comment on Waymo’s robotaxis are now available to everyone in Los Angeles in ~transport
OBLIVIATER (edited )Link ParentAh my mistake I was thinking of the other one mentioned in the video, where the driver of the car was watching netflix on their phone instead of paying attention and the self driving car hit a...Ah my mistake I was thinking of the other one mentioned in the video, where the driver of the car was watching netflix on their phone instead of paying attention and the self driving car hit a person crossing the highway at like 2 am.
Edit: I read the article and found this interesting:
which dragged her for around 20 feet at a speed of 7 mph before coming to a final stop.
Obviously that's terrible, but I honestly expected it to be way more brutal than that. I'm happy that she lived (especially after getting hit by the initial car, which I might add was not driverless.) It could have been way worse, getting dragged at relatively low speed for a few feet is much better than what was implied by the video and the other articles I read on the subject. I wonder how she was positioned under the car, hopefully not under the tires; though I imagine not because she survived. It is a little funny to me that everyone focuses so hard on the self driving car in that situation when the initial accident was caused by a human and was much more damaging.
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Comment on Waymo’s robotaxis are now available to everyone in Los Angeles in ~transport
OBLIVIATER Link ParentThat incident was not Waymo and was back in 2018. While horrifying, it's not representative of the state of self driving today with Waymo, 6 years is a long time in this field.That incident was not Waymo and was back in 2018. While horrifying, it's not representative of the state of self driving today with Waymo, 6 years is a long time in this field.
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Comment on What are your favorite “chore” games? in ~games
OBLIVIATER LinkI'm going through Stardew right now with tons of mods, its great. I could literally play all dayI'm going through Stardew right now with tons of mods, its great. I could literally play all day
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Comment on How self-driving cars will destroy cities in ~transport
OBLIVIATER Link ParentI mean if you want to get nitpicky to that level, humans aren't zero emissions either, I'm breathing out a lot of CO2 right now just for fun. I get your point, but I also think the point I was...I mean if you want to get nitpicky to that level, humans aren't zero emissions either, I'm breathing out a lot of CO2 right now just for fun.
I get your point, but I also think the point I was trying to make was clear; self driving EVs have the chance to be significantly less environmentally impactful than the current cars were driving today.
Is there a good chance that they'll end up being nearly as bad? Maybe. But I'm optimistic that with the massive improvements we've seen to battery technology in just the last few years that the "heavy EV make more tire pollution" problem will be a thing of the past once batteries are slimmed down. Solid state batteries which are already here and in production today are twice as energy dense as current LION batteries which is a massive improvement. I believe that since quite literally trillions of dollars is flowing into the electrification market, we're only just beginning to see what can happen with things like EVs.
Would I love to live in a future where public transportation and bikes are much more accessible and popular? Of course. I ride a bike to nearly every local destination I can, even when it's not very convenient or safe to do so. I get stressed out driving and don't enjoy it at all, I love my bikes and would love to get more use out of them.
But I'm also not stupid and know that it's very unlikely to see a future where the car is eliminated or even massively reduced for most America cities and towns. The suburban sprawl is only accelerating and with thousands of new developments going up around the country, those places will be car-locked for decades to come.
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Comment on How self-driving cars will destroy cities in ~transport
OBLIVIATER Link ParentI mean I don't have any pipe dreams about UBI, but I would like to hope in a future where there are literally almost no jobs left, the people won't just roll over die. What's the point of all...I mean I don't have any pipe dreams about UBI, but I would like to hope in a future where there are literally almost no jobs left, the people won't just roll over die. What's the point of all those amazing labor saving inventions when no one benefits from them. It may be hard to believe right now because of how terrible wealth inequality is, but I want to believe that we'll come to a point in civilization where the standard of living for someone who doesn't work is still fairly good.
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Comment on How self-driving cars will destroy cities in ~transport
OBLIVIATER (edited )Link ParentLiterally millions of people have asked for them. Also, there's no reason why this wouldn't be possible with self driving cars. They're mostly electric already anyway. Edit: watching through the...Literally millions of people have asked for them.
What people want are zero pollution ( or best as we can get ) vehicles with sustainable energy sources.
Also, there's no reason why this wouldn't be possible with self driving cars. They're mostly electric already anyway.
Edit: watching through the video now. I'm usually a fan of Not Just Bikes, but this one feels very weird to me. I agree with a lot of the points he makes but he also just seems to be countering "nebulous claims of improvement" with just as nebulous claims of detrimental effects.
This felt far more like an opinion piece than his regular content and I found myself saying "how could you possibly know that" multiple times so far. So many bizarre doomer assertions that every single positive claimed by self driving car proponents will actually be the exact opposite with the source being "bad things have happened in the past" at best and "trust me bro" at worst. (There are a few real sources scattered throughout the video, but nothing for his most damning claims.)
I also found a lot of the things he was saying to be self contradictory, like how self driving cars won't end up being cheaper than Ubers because companies will charge as much as possible, pointing out how Ubers are so expensive now because of corporate greed (but uber wasnt even profitable until this year and still spends the vast majority of their proceeds on paying drivers) and then in the very next point he goes on to say that when self driving cars become popular they'll increase congestion because everyone will be taking them for any trip because they're so cheap and accessible. And then he says that there's no way people will want to use their personal car to earn money on the side as a robo taxi because people don't want their car smelling like a taxi, but who is he speaking for?? If I had the option to rent out my car for potentially hundreds of dollars a day while I worked or slept I would sure as hell do it, then clean my car every now and then if I needed to. Not to mention Uber already pretty much made this a non-issue by charging users who make a mess in their cars a ridiculous cleaning fee.
This is just the tip of the iceberg on my nitpicks with this video and it's really disappointing. I appreciate the message and the cautiousness when approaching a self driving future, but this felt like a hit piece disguised as a factual video.
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Comment on Understanding the leftist that didn't vote: "Everybody else gets one, but not me" in ~society
OBLIVIATER Link ParentThis is one of the most infuriating things about modern politics for me (in the US.) Seeing people change their tune immediately about an issue once they become the ones in power, or just ignore...This is one of the most infuriating things about modern politics for me (in the US.) Seeing people change their tune immediately about an issue once they become the ones in power, or just ignore it completely. It's so incredibly frustrating because they give you no room to criticize the hypocrisy without risking being labeled an enemy of the party and ostracized.
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Comment on Understanding the leftist that didn't vote: "Everybody else gets one, but not me" in ~society
OBLIVIATER (edited )Link ParentVoting discourse quality everywhere is at an all time low, understandably due to what just happened in the US this week. It is still a shame to see someone get dismissed and attacked for sharing...Voting discourse quality everywhere is at an all time low, understandably due to what just happened in the US this week. It is still a shame to see someone get dismissed and attacked for sharing their opinions (especially when they're being misrepresented.)
I see this happen quite a bit from some specific users on this site and it's frustrating that it has been accepted as the norm. I always try to engage in discussions here in good faith and positively respond to comments. When I reach a point in the discussion where I know it won't end up resolving naturally I usually try to find some common ground with the other user and thank them for their time and counterpoints.
People have gotten too used to the constant
Nitpicking replies style from reddit
And will go on for hours and sometimes even days at a time responding to the weakest part of the comment while completely missing the forest for the trees. (I have fallen into this trap before too.)
I hope and wish that people would consider that they don't need to insert themselves into every single thread and make their opinion known just for the love of the argument. Sometimes it's ok to let people disagree with you and move on.
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Comment on Chegg is on its last legs after ChatGPT sent its stock down 99% in ~tech
OBLIVIATER Link ParentIf you're in highschool or college, what sounds more appealing. A paid service that may work better, or a free one that may work worse. I was broke in college, I would have loved ChatGPTIf you're in highschool or college, what sounds more appealing. A paid service that may work better, or a free one that may work worse. I was broke in college, I would have loved ChatGPT
Moving without a job is pretty scary, what industry are you in? You mentioned putting up a year's worth of rent in escrow so it sounds like you have enough money saved up to be pretty comfortable without a job for a while.
When I moved from a small rural town in NC all the way to LA (pretty much as different and far away as you can get from where I grew up) it took me a hot minute to get over the culture shock. My living situation fell through while I was making the drive across the country so I had to scramble to find a room to rent on FB marketplace while staying in hotels which ate up a lot of my savings. While I eventually landed on my feet, it was pretty stressful and soured my first impressions of LA quite a bit. Didn't help that only 4 months after moving there and starting my life over, covid hit and basically shut down the entire city and put me back to square one. If I wasn't young and adaptable I probably wouldn't have been able to get through it as well as I did, and I definitely couldn't go through that bullshit again haha.
I basically did what you did though, except I did have a job lined up. I moved out of my place with only what I could fit in the back of my tiny Volvo S40 (that thing was crammed so full of crap that it weighed the suspension down a full 6 inches) and drove across the country in a week with no real plan and only a vague idea of what my life was going to be like. I think you'll be ok, sometimes you just need a big life change and a cross country move will definitely give you that. Just don't be like me and lock yourself in your room for 6 months straight doing nothing but working and playing video games; it'll kill your motivation and ambition to do anything exciting and fun.