Promonk's recent activity
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Comment on Dutch YouTube creators behind Alberta (Canada) separatist videos getting millions of views in ~society
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Comment on Dutch YouTube creators behind Alberta (Canada) separatist videos getting millions of views in ~society
Promonk Link ParentIn this case, it's not "countries" steamrolling over you, it's grifters trying to earn an easy living by riling up people who live far away from them, presumably to avoid personal consequences....In this case, it's not "countries" steamrolling over you, it's grifters trying to earn an easy living by riling up people who live far away from them, presumably to avoid personal consequences.
Would you prefer it if it were Canadians running these slop political channels? I would guess not.
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Comment on "The reason I'm not an atheist is that I think the philosophical arguments against it are unanswerable" (gifted link) in ~humanities
Promonk Link ParentFrom my understanding, one of the major contributing factors to the rise in the popularity of Christianity in the Roman world was its appeal and accessibility to the lower classes. Many of the...From my understanding, one of the major contributing factors to the rise in the popularity of Christianity in the Roman world was its appeal and accessibility to the lower classes.
Many of the mystery cults that flourished in the first and second centuries CE required some amount of wealth to participate, as animal sacrifice was often a component of their central rites. If you were a devotee of Mithras, for example, you would likely have to contribute toward the purchase of a sacrificial bull. This was in line with the orthodox religious observances of the time, in which the wealthy held a privileged position by dint of their ability to give high-value offerings.
The central rite of Christianity on the other hand has always only ever required some bread and watered wine, two things which even the poorest plebeian could scrape together. Together with Jesus' teachings to eschew worldly possessions, his disdain for commerce in the temple, and his insistence that the meek shall inherit the earth, Christianity offered a compelling deal to the impoverished and otherwise disenfranchised of the early Empire.
That's certainly not the whole story, but I contend it's an important factor.
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Comment on Apple set to become third-biggest laptop maker this year in ~tech
Promonk Link ParentRAM isn't fragile, exactly, but there isn't a day that goes by in my shop where we don't have at least one bad module or integrated memory IC on a system board cross a bench. It's fitting that the...RAM isn't fragile, exactly, but there isn't a day that goes by in my shop where we don't have at least one bad module or integrated memory IC on a system board cross a bench.
It's fitting that the reliability of RAM is under discussion, because a few years ago a big part of my job was to test DIMMs and SO-DIMMs in isolation. I remember getting thousands of modules of registered and ECC memory and testing them one by one in a specialized device with an automated test sequence. I've tested literally thousands of memory modules, and yes, the vast majority of them were still good, even after thousands of hours of continuous operation. I've also had modules die because one person handed it to another. Electronics be weird like that.
The point I made before about SBCs and integrated systems (by which I mean systems with primary components all soldered together on a single PCB, slightly distinct from the technical definition of "SBC") is salient: these boards are almost never actually repaired. When a system using them is fixed, it's almost without exception done as a component-level repair with the faulty board slagged. This is regardless of whether all the other components on the integrated board are good or not, which makes every potential point of failure a reason for perfectly good electronics to be destroyed. It's a monumentally wasteful paradigm, and it's more than in an abstract moral sense of "it's bad to be wasteful." Individual ICs aren't lifted from boards because the economic incentive simply isn't there. It would be cheaper energetically to salvage components, but it's more labor-intensive and requires some specialized knowledge and experience, and the OEMs have constructed their supply chains specifically to discourage the practice. Apple has been a major force in that shift.
Mind you, it doesn't have to be that way, it's just the way that the economic system has been constructed. The manufacturers like it because it simplifies their RMA processes and grants them almost complete control over access to parts, which in turn allows them to control lifecycles. You will throw away your system–because that's essentially what recycling is–and buy a new one, simply because that's the way they prefer it. The true cost of that paradigm is hidden under actuarial calculations, logistics partnerships, regulatory capture, subsidies, and a host of other not-entirely-aboveboard machinations.
So yes, you do get performance gains by packing everything together on a single board, but the cost of that performance gain is far greater than is immediately apparent. We also simply don't know if there are other ways to boost performance and keep Moore's Law chugging along for another decade, because the incentives simply aren't there for the manufacturers to find them. They're actually disincentivized from doing so.
I'll leave it at that for now. I've been trying to write this reply on my breaks, so apologies if it's a bit disjointed. I could probably have done a better job if I'd just sat down to put my thoughts down in one go, but such is not my lot at the moment.
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Comment on Apple set to become third-biggest laptop maker this year in ~tech
Promonk Link ParentFunny, I think exactly the opposite! I don't think the throughput gains of integrating memory are worth the loss of modularity. I suspect I have a very different perspective on this subject...Funny, I think exactly the opposite! I don't think the throughput gains of integrating memory are worth the loss of modularity.
I suspect I have a very different perspective on this subject though, as I've spent the last decade or so as a computer hardware repair technician. "Indestructible" RAM sounds like a great thing, and I hope I get to see it before I die. I've certainly never seen it yet.
It should be noted that completely integrated SBCs sound like a great idea, until you consider the sustainability of making entire computers indivisible disposable goods. Having worked in both the repair and recycling sides of the industry, I can assure you that whatever you think about refurbishment and recycling is almost certainly incorrect. Almost no one does board-level repairs anymore–to the point where you have to pay a premium in time and money just to find someone capable of doing it– and it's certainly not done for consumer-grade integrated systems like the ones you're talking about. What happens is that SBCs are slagged for their precious metals, which then go into building more SBCs. That's a horrendously energy inefficient process, which is why "recycle" is the last term in the mantra "reduce, reuse, recycle." It's the thing you do when all else fails, not the first resort when a whole unit goes belly-up.
This is a particular bugbear of mine born of years of frustration with my chosen career, so I won't afflict you too much with my pronouncements on the subject. Suffice to say, the paradigm for which you're advocating es no bueno, and for more reasons than just some amorphous conception of "ownership."
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Comment on USA to mandate surveillance tech for new cars also determing fitness to drive by 2027 in ~transport
Promonk Link ParentI didn't show you the door, I suggested you take a break. If you're getting confrontational vibes from your interactions here and that bothers you, you don't need to keep subjecting yourself to...I didn't show you the door, I suggested you take a break. If you're getting confrontational vibes from your interactions here and that bothers you, you don't need to keep subjecting yourself to it. That does no one any good.
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Comment on USA to mandate surveillance tech for new cars also determing fitness to drive by 2027 in ~transport
Promonk Link ParentIf this is the impression you get of Tildes, perhaps you should take a break from it. This isn't Reddit.But at this point I imagine Tildes folks will come out of the woodwork and tell me why I am wrong and bad and personally offensive.
If this is the impression you get of Tildes, perhaps you should take a break from it. This isn't Reddit.
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Comment on What are your go-to meals that you cook? in ~food
Promonk Link ParentEven allowing that maybe you get farmer's market produce, or organic heirloom variety produce, or whathaveyou, 3 whole carrots seems an absurd amount of carrot for the rest of the amounts you...Even allowing that maybe you get farmer's market produce, or organic heirloom variety produce, or whathaveyou, 3 whole carrots seems an absurd amount of carrot for the rest of the amounts you give. If I made this thing with the carrots available to me it would turn out as lightly sauced carrot on carrot with a side of carrot.
I like the concept and do something similar myself, but I'd have to turn the root veg down by a factor of like six for it to sit well with my crew.
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Comment on Millions of Americans may now also be considered Canadian under a new law in ~society
Promonk LinkI wonder how much it would cost to get this figured out. My grandmother was born in Canada, and I'd certainly be interested in dual citizenship. I've never had much contact with that side of my...I wonder how much it would cost to get this figured out. My grandmother was born in Canada, and I'd certainly be interested in dual citizenship. I've never had much contact with that side of my family though, so I imagine it might be a bit tricky to get all the ducks lined up right.
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Comment on Palantir employees are starting to wonder if they're the bad guys in ~society
Promonk Link ParentI'm surprised the Tolkien estate hasn't made enough of a stink about it that I'd have heard. They're usually pretty protective of J.R.R.'s IP. Like, I'm sure if some brothel in Nevada had named...I'm surprised the Tolkien estate hasn't made enough of a stink about it that I'd have heard. They're usually pretty protective of J.R.R.'s IP. Like, I'm sure if some brothel in Nevada had named themselves "Bilbo Baggins's Love Hole," the lawyers would've come swarming out like Uruk-Hai, but a transparently evil surveillance company gets a pass for some reason.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Promonk (edited )LinkBought Chants of Senaar on Friday on a whim because it was on sale. Played through it over the weekend. On the whole, I'd say it's worth the $12 sale price. There's pretty much zero replayability,...Bought Chants of Senaar on Friday on a whim because it was on sale. Played through it over the weekend.
On the whole, I'd say it's worth the $12 sale price. There's pretty much zero replayability, but that's to be expected of a deductive puzzler like this.
The linguistic puzzles are pretty well thought out and the progression of clues you receive is mostly well-organized, and leads to a organic-feeling process of discovery. The "languages" themselves are generally pretty logical and regular in their rules, enough so that you can make inductive leaps with some confidence, but not to such an extent that it trivializes the puzzles. For example, you can infer certain features that distinguish a place name glyph from a glyph denoting a type of person, or one denoting an object from one that serves a grammatical function within a construction (such as pluralization etc).
I do have a few minor gripes, however. One is that the PC's walk speed is just the tiniest bit slow for the amount of ground you're expected to cover. That's not unusual for this sort of high-concept, artsy-fartsy game, but I feel there's just a bit too much backtracking in the expected progression path for it to not be at least a small friction point. There's an impressive sense of scale to the thing– you're essentially climbing the Tower of Babel, after all–and I can understand slowing things down in spots with interesting vistas for the player to drink in, but then don't make me cross the same forced vista at a snail's pace four times in the main progression path. Just don't. I shouldn't ever think to myself, "huh. That's interesting, now I'd really like to play the game. Please just let me play the game."
Another minor gripe is the manner in which you lock in translations. The game uses an Obra Din-style journal with illustrated items that you can associate with specific glyphs. Once you've correctly associated all the glyphs for a page with their respective illustrations, all glyphs for that page are confirmed and are then auto-translated in dialogues. That would be a fine way to go about it, except for a few problems: for one, you have to have encountered every glyph on a page in the world before that page becomes available for you to even see, let alone notate. In more than one case, I had finished with one linguistic group's region and moved on in the main path long before I ever found the specific gate to trigger the last translation page for their language. That means that the last word for those specific languages are never used anywhere else, and only exist to gate translation completion for other glyphs. To make matters worse, expressions in the game world aren't translated into the player's native syntax and grammar until all the glyphs within them are marked as completed, even if you know what they mean. So it could happen that a key expression that could elucidate the next step in progression is syntactical gobbledegook because you haven't encountered a completely unrelated glyph that's only ever used once, and thus can't complete the translation page. It would be like not being able to make sense of the word "want" because you've never encountered the word "fire" before. The logic of it is goofy, but could be overlooked as being in the nature of a video game were it not for the fact that certain side puzzles are very difficult to solve without the game acknowledging mastery of a "language." Again, not a game-breaking hurdle, but a friction point nonetheless.
The other minor gripe is that some of the illustrations of concepts represented by glyphs are only vaguely related to the concepts the glyphs represent in actual speech/expressions, and are not strictly consistent. One example that springs to mind is the image of a person looking in a hand mirror. Twice in the game world you see this same exact image used to denote "searching," while the translation journal uses it to mean "beauty." To be fair, the image is used once in the game world to denote "beauty" as well, and quite prominently too, but stricter consistency would've been nice. Again, not game-breaking, but a little annoying.
The last criticism I have is really a matter of individual preference, or maybe it's down to how I specifically played through the game. There are five "languages" in the game that require translation. The first four require a lot of exploration and experimentation to figure out, but the last one lacked challenge almost completely. Without giving too much away, the process for translating just the final script requires some understanding of the other scripts. I suspect they were trying to incentivize mastery of earlier scripts/languages, but if you've completed every translation prior to reaching the final zone like I did, the last language becomes trivially easy to decode. I get what they were going for, but as you're strongly incentivized to complete translations before reaching that zone, it all kind of falls flat (for that one zone, at least).
Still, it's a fine game with some interesting visuals and a unique approach to puzzles. I essentially 100%ed it in just under 12 hours, so I feel the $12 I spent on it was justified. I don't know whether I'd spring for the $20 MSRP, though.
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Comment on Which covers did it better than (or put a fresh twist on) the original? in ~music
Promonk Link ParentMore than Disturbed's "Sound of Silence" (with which I also vehemently disagree), I'm surprised you left off what is to me the poster child of "covers better than the original": the Jimi Hendrix...More than Disturbed's "Sound of Silence" (with which I also vehemently disagree), I'm surprised you left off what is to me the poster child of "covers better than the original": the Jimi Hendrix Experience's cover of "All Along the Watchtower." It's so iconic that I'll wager even most Dylan fans think of it as Jimi's song.
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Comment on Esoteric Ebb | Fully Ramblomatic in ~games
Promonk Link ParentDidn't he move to California some years ago?Didn't he move to California some years ago?
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
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Comment on NASA’s Artemis II crew flies around the moon (live broadcast) in ~space
Promonk Link ParentI had forgotten that they already had a target region until you mentioned it. Your comment just reminded me of why they've chosen the southern pole. I was kind of thinking aloud in text, I guess....I had forgotten that they already had a target region until you mentioned it. Your comment just reminded me of why they've chosen the southern pole. I was kind of thinking aloud in text, I guess.
I also remembered that one of the largest impact craters on the near side is around the south pole, so I expect that was another reason.
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Comment on NASA’s Artemis II crew flies around the moon (live broadcast) in ~space
Promonk Link ParentIIRC, the reason for choosing the south pole is because they expect to find water near there. They'll certainly pick a spot with line-of-sight to home.IIRC, the reason for choosing the south pole is because they expect to find water near there. They'll certainly pick a spot with line-of-sight to home.
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Comment on NASA’s Artemis II crew flies around the moon (live broadcast) in ~space
Promonk Link ParentEven then, I wonder whether it would be better to avoid satellite comms altogether, considering the whole benefit to building installations on the far side would be to shield from radio signals...Even then, I wonder whether it would be better to avoid satellite comms altogether, considering the whole benefit to building installations on the far side would be to shield from radio signals from Earth. I'm fairly certain we could filter out known comms signals, but I don't know enough about radio to say whether you lose anything by doing so.
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Comment on NASA’s Artemis II crew flies around the moon (live broadcast) in ~space
Promonk Link ParentProbably not, at least not for a long while. I doubt the first lunar bases will be sited on the "dark side," though there are good reasons to have installations there eventually.If we get a base on the moon then sure, that's probably worth it...
Probably not, at least not for a long while. I doubt the first lunar bases will be sited on the "dark side," though there are good reasons to have installations there eventually.
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Comment on Zombo.com - Now under new management in ~tech
Promonk Link ParentIt's one redditor spinning a yarn without providing any receipts whatsoever. I rate the story only slightly more likely to be true than someone's Harry Potter fanfic in which their OC rescues the...It's one redditor spinning a yarn without providing any receipts whatsoever. I rate the story only slightly more likely to be true than someone's Harry Potter fanfic in which their OC rescues the universe then celebrates with a threesome with Ron and Hermione.
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Comment on Nearly half of the US data centers planned for 2026 are getting delayed or canceled because nobody stockpiled enough transformers and circuit breakers in ~tech
Promonk Link ParentI suppose that's one way to look at it. Another might be that there's a huge rush to build out infrastructure to support an anticipated demand that will very likely never materialize, and...I suppose that's one way to look at it. Another might be that there's a huge rush to build out infrastructure to support an anticipated demand that will very likely never materialize, and externalities like this could be the catalyst that makes the bubble more apparent earlier.
But sure. Let's get them inference models nice and tight for the Big Kablooie. Maybe the inconceivable will happen and they'll accidentally churn out an AGI to make moot the mess the tech bros and trillion-dollar tech conglomerates created. I'm beginning to think that's the real goal anyway.
Is that the case, though? Even theoretically? Canada isn't as gung-ho about "freedom of speech" as the US, but you still have strong provisions to protect political speech. If it were a Canadian outfit pushing this agenda, they would presumably have some protections under law for voicing their political agenda (the accuracy of factual claims being another matter).
From what I can tell, most liberal countries have freedom of expression carve-outs to protect from foreign influence campaigns, whether state-sponsored or otherwise. I would bet it would be hypothetically less tricky to take action against foreign influence wrt civil liberties than it would be against domestic actors.
Of course, the actual feasibility of doing so is a matter of political will and the inertia of bureaucracy, but we were already kinda talking hypothetically.