R3qn65's recent activity

  1. Comment on Apple to partner with Google for Gemini access on iPhones, Apple Intelligence to power on device assistant in ~tech

    R3qn65
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    Woah. I knew they were struggling with apple intelligence, but even so - unexpected.

    Woah. I knew they were struggling with apple intelligence, but even so - unexpected.

    10 votes

  2. Comment on Peter Thiel's new model army. The Palantirisation of the UK military is a national security disaster. in ~society

    R3qn65
    (edited )
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    I don't really know how else to respond here other than "no, it's not." I don't want to defend Trump here. What he's doing is reprehensible. But it's, totally separately from that, false that the...

    this is showing "NATO securing the arctic" in the same way that carrier groups just happen to sometimes choose to do "navigation exercises" off the coast of Taiwan. It's a diplomatically acceptable pretext that allows some level of preparation in case the worst happens - and some level of posturing - without locking any side into overt escalation.

    I don't really know how else to respond here other than "no, it's not."

    I don't want to defend Trump here. What he's doing is reprehensible. But it's, totally separately from that, false that the UK and Germany are posturing with force against the US.

    Edit: I totally agree with your edited comment!

    1 vote

  3. Comment on Peter Thiel's new model army. The Palantirisation of the UK military is a national security disaster. in ~society

    R3qn65
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    For what it's worth, the headline there was really misleading. The plan is to deploy NATO troops to show that NATO is securing the artic because Trump's argument has been that NATO isn't taking...

    the UK government, along with Germany, are currently leading plans to deploy more troops to Greenland, to deter US aggression

    For what it's worth, the headline there was really misleading. The plan is to deploy NATO troops to show that NATO is securing the artic because Trump's argument has been that NATO isn't taking the artic seriously. It is not to secure the arctic from the US.

    It seems like don't integrate critical services from a potentially adversarial company under the jurisdiction of a potentially adversarial government and don't give that company, and by extension that government, deep access to sensitive data should almost go without saying? A lot of us old school nerds are more careful than that about our mundane day-to-day digital lives...

    This is getting way into the weeds, but I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding among most people -- inlcuding the author of the original article, given the Tesla analogy -- as to how services like this work. The UK isn't giving Palantir their data. They're licensing software from Palantir to analyze data they already have. Palantir can't actually see the data. It's roughly the difference between using chatgpt (your data goes to openAI's servers) and using a local LLM that you control (you didn't make the model, but your data doesn't go anywhere.)

    Now, I understand your argument about backdoors. I don't think that's super relevant here because the UK is already part of the 5 Eyes and the US's closest ally, but I get where you're coming from.

    4 votes

  4. Comment on Peter Thiel's new model army. The Palantirisation of the UK military is a national security disaster. in ~society

    R3qn65
    Link Parent
    Of course I can. :) it was a little hyperbolic, but not much. You responded in a couple of comments but I'm going to roll my reply into one. Almost everything else is tangentially related at best....

    You can't seriously be of the opinion that the Tesla analogy was "literally the full argument" of this article, can you?

    Of course I can. :) it was a little hyperbolic, but not much. You responded in a couple of comments but I'm going to roll my reply into one.

    Almost everything else is tangentially related at best. Starmer doesn't call the special military operation in Venezuela a violation of international law - what does that have to do with palantirization of the military? The noncompetitive tender is not at all unusual for a unique product offering, which Palantir is - a more experienced analyst (I'm referring to the journalist here, not you) would know that. Same thing with the whole "it's more than a contract, it's a strategic initiative" thing - I laughed at that. "New strategic initiative" is boilerplate language, it's not real.

    Alternatively, in the event of a major breach of trust between nations when contracts stop mattering, how does the UK know what actions can be taken against them using this software, without them being able to do anything about it?

    Ironically this is what I was hoping the actual article would be about. Kudos to you for grasping the meat of the matter, seriously. This is the key question, yeah.

    The point is this: there may be serious questions about using Palantir. You yourself raised at least two good ones. I'm disappointed by the article because the article doesn't raise any at all. With respect, you obviously hate Thiel and Palantir, and so you already agree with the author, which I think is why this article is more convincing to you.

    1 vote

  5. Comment on Peter Thiel's new model army. The Palantirisation of the UK military is a national security disaster. in ~society

    R3qn65
    Link Parent
    Well, I'd disagree that it's substantial. I guess maybe a better way to put it is that I was expecting a piece by an author experienced in national security. Here's what I mean -- I think it's...

    Well, I'd disagree that it's substantial. I guess maybe a better way to put it is that I was expecting a piece by an author experienced in national security. Here's what I mean -- I think it's reasonable to argue that you don't really own a Tesla or don't really own any other subscription-based thing you can't fix yourself. That's what right-to-repair is all about, right?

    But if you don't own your Tesla, that means you don't own all things Car in your life. The Tesla is the whole category of Car for you. If it stops working, you're screwed. It's an absurd analogy for a military contracting a service with a software company that focuses on intelligence analysis. If Palantir stops working, the UK military still owns all their data. And, obviously, all the actual guns and planes will still work. It's much more like a business contracting out garbage removal services or something. If it suddenly stops, that's bad and garbage is going to pile up, but the business doesn't just freeze and die.

    I'm not saying there's no conceivable way to make the analogy work, but "think about Tesla! [taps head]" isn't sufficient. You know? If the author was more experienced with what these contracts look like or what these companies actually do for militaries, I think the piece would've looked very different.

    4 votes

  6. Comment on Peter Thiel's new model army. The Palantirisation of the UK military is a national security disaster. in ~society

    R3qn65
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    I was really disappointed by this one. For a piece that opens by criticizing pro-palantir puff pieces, it was disappointing to see that it's basically an anti-palantir puff piece. It's rage bait,...

    I was really disappointed by this one. For a piece that opens by criticizing pro-palantir puff pieces, it was disappointing to see that it's basically an anti-palantir puff piece. It's rage bait, not a serious reflection.

    What will it mean to embed American software into the UK military? Well consider, Tesla. You don’t really buy a car when you buy a Tesla, you rent the software that remains the property of Elon Musk industries who can choose to immobilise your car or any feature of it at any time.

    This is literally the full argument. It doesn't mention even once what Palantir will actually be used for, what the terms of the agreement were, etc. It's not really clear to me how this entails "the palantirization" of the UK military.

    10 votes

  7. Comment on What’s a point that you think many people missed? in ~talk

    R3qn65
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Respectfully, this is a misunderstanding of how taxes work. Here's a propublica investigation of the hyperwealthy. It is very critical, and even so concedes that they pay millions (sometimes...

    The problem in the US with taxes is the 1% and such cannot be taxed, because they do not "make" money

    And most (if not all?) of [Warren Buffett's] employees pay more taxes than he does.

    Respectfully, this is a misunderstanding of how taxes work. Here's a propublica investigation of the hyperwealthy. It is very critical, and even so concedes that they pay millions (sometimes billions) in taxes. The issue isn't that they don't pay tax, it's that the growth in their wealth on paper outpaces how much tax they pay, so their effective tax rate is extremely low. That sucks, but it's also a really hard problem to solve. Elon Musk's net worth comes from the amount of Tesla stock he owns, right? It's not cash he can go spend or whatever. So often he (and others) have massive increases in their paper wealth but it's not real money until the options are exercised. And when he sells the stock, he does get taxed. He paid $11 billion in 2024.

    So in raw numbers, the ultra wealthy pay more taxes than anyone else. The issue is that as a percentage of their wealth, it's quite small. I know this sounds nitpicky but it's important to understand what the issues are and what they aren't!

    9 votes

  8. Comment on Far Cry 5 | When gameplay and story fundamentally oppose each other in ~games

    R3qn65
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    FC5 lost me forever at the second "suddenly these guys, who you've been slaughtering by the hundreds, overpower you and capture you because we need to show you this cutscene" event. I think there...

    FC5 lost me forever at the second "suddenly these guys, who you've been slaughtering by the hundreds, overpower you and capture you because we need to show you this cutscene" event. I think there are a couple more after that.

    9 votes

  9. Comment on Hooters | Bankrupt in ~food

    R3qn65
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    Haha, that's just Americans!

    aggressively friendly, cheerful, upbeat ... unnatural

    Haha, that's just Americans!

    7 votes

  10. Comment on "Visa" gift cards - What should I be looking at? in ~finance

    R3qn65
    Link Parent
    For what it's worth, this is a pretty significant misrepresentation. That's not really a thing. In some cases law enforcement can, with a warrant, get something like OnStar data or lojack data to...

    with law enforcement able to purchase paid tracking systems to see where my car goes on the regular

    For what it's worth, this is a pretty significant misrepresentation. That's not really a thing. In some cases law enforcement can, with a warrant, get something like OnStar data or lojack data to see where your vehicle has been. The warrant is really important here.

    In other cases, in cities with sufficient numbers of traffic cameras, they can review that without a warrant to see where you've been, but in that case you're on public roads, visible in public, which isn't really the same thing as collecting your personal transaction data.

    3 votes

  11. Comment on "Visa" gift cards - What should I be looking at? in ~finance

    R3qn65
    Link Parent
    In a word, no. Most (all?) major credit card companies don't sell transaction data at all and those that do sell only anonymized data in bulk. There are, as you would expect, legal restrictions on...

    In a word, no. Most (all?) major credit card companies don't sell transaction data at all and those that do sell only anonymized data in bulk. There are, as you would expect, legal restrictions on that sort of thing.

    3 votes

  12. Comment on "Visa" gift cards - What should I be looking at? in ~finance

    R3qn65
    Link Parent
    Got it. In that case by far the most logical answer, IMO, is to use a credit card number anonymizer. Some services (Google pay, etc) already do this for free.

    Got it. In that case by far the most logical answer, IMO, is to use a credit card number anonymizer. Some services (Google pay, etc) already do this for free.

  13. Comment on What’s a point that you think many people missed? in ~talk

    R3qn65
    Link Parent
    Is that settled theory? Honestly my interpretation of the observer effect was "and nobody really knows for sure why that happens," but if we've figured it out, cool!

    Is that settled theory? Honestly my interpretation of the observer effect was "and nobody really knows for sure why that happens," but if we've figured it out, cool!

    2 votes

  14. Comment on What’s a point that you think many people missed? in ~talk

    R3qn65
    Link Parent
    Apart from this just being fraud, as @saturnV said, it also wouldn't work very well. Respectfully, this is one of the rumors come up with by people who don't really understand how taxes work. If I...

    Apart from this just being fraud, as @saturnV said, it also wouldn't work very well. Respectfully, this is one of the rumors come up with by people who don't really understand how taxes work. If I donate $5M, it doesn't mean that I have to pay 5M less in taxes. It means my taxable income is lowered by 5M. And the IRS limits how much you can reduce your taxes to a certain percentage of your income, so you can't even reduce your taxable income to zero via charitable contributions. (For a property donation like this, you could only lower your taxable income by a maximum of 30%).

    So in the art fraud scenario, you'd have to spend money to buy something, do fraud to get it appraised higher, donate it (and what charity is accepting high-value sculptures or whatever??), and then all you've done is spend money and commit super obvious fraud to lower your taxable income by a certain amount. It just doesn't make sense.

    6 votes

  15. Comment on "Visa" gift cards - What should I be looking at? in ~finance

    R3qn65
    Link
    To answer any question like this it's really helpful to know who specifically you're hiding from and what level of detail you're trying to hide. As a random example, you mention using a visa gift...

    To answer any question like this it's really helpful to know who specifically you're hiding from and what level of detail you're trying to hide. As a random example, you mention using a visa gift card to buy liquor so nobody is tracing your bad habits. That's fine, but credit card providers don't see what you're buying, only what you spent, so if you're buying liquor at a regular grocery store nobody would know anyway (besides the grocery store). And similarly, you don't want to buy visa cards in cash because it's not worth it. That's fine too, but then you're not really hiding anything from e.g. a government effort against you because they could put those details together pretty trivially.

    I guess the fundamental question is this:

    Honestly, I mostly would like to use this card to do online things with apps I honestly don't want to be attached to (specifically Discord, and I'd like to recharge TouchTunes, but... that's more of a secondary option).

    Are you trying to hide your credit card number from discord or hide discord from your credit card company? Which one and why? Understanding that will help people give better advice.

    5 votes

  16. Comment on Texas A&M, under new curriculum limits, warns professor not to teach Plato in ~humanities

    R3qn65
    Link Parent
    To be fair to the NYT, the term is used three times in the article. The first two times were in quotation marks and the third time was in an implied quotation, since it was a paraphrase of what...

    But what in the seventh circle is it doing in the New York Times, outside of quotation marks, as though it's perfectly ordinary speech?

    To be fair to the NYT, the term is used three times in the article. The first two times were in quotation marks and the third time was in an implied quotation, since it was a paraphrase of what the censured professor had told them.

    11 votes

  17. Comment on Life: Your personal year in review for 2025 in ~life

    R3qn65
    Link Parent
    No, I think your interpretation is reasonable. It's philosophy so someone can always quibble with you, but stoicism is intrinsically linked to community and surroundings. To be certain there's an...

    Have I been misconstruing these two the whole time?

    No, I think your interpretation is reasonable. It's philosophy so someone can always quibble with you, but stoicism is intrinsically linked to community and surroundings. To be certain there's an immense focus on the person/self/daemon, to @papasquat's point, but I'd argue that you can't pull a stoic completely out of the context of what surrounds them.

  18. Comment on Buying a lotta RAM now, as an investment ... thoughts? in ~tech

    R3qn65
    Link Parent
    Generally, I agree with your operating principle here, but bonds are a completely different financial instrument, not a product. Investing in defense primes instead of government bonds doesn't...

    Generally if you want to get into investing for a profit it's better to buy shares in the companies that make the thing rather than the thing itself. Don't buy RAM, buy stock in companies that produce quality RAM. If demand goes up big time, they make a killing and so do you. Don't buy gold, buy stock in companies that mine the gold. Don't buy US bonds, invest in US defense contractors, etc.

    Generally, I agree with your operating principle here, but bonds are a completely different financial instrument, not a product. Investing in defense primes instead of government bonds doesn't really logically make sense.

    11 votes

  19. Comment on What video games would you say have the best stories? Feel free to suggest more than one. in ~games

    R3qn65
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    I can't believe I forgot about rdr2. What a great game! I can still watch some of the opening scenes in the snowy mountains like a movie in my head.

    Red Dead Redemption 2, especially if you get the high honor ending. Arthur Morgan might be one of the most well written characters in gaming, though the rest of the van der Linde gang aren't lazily written at all by any measure. It's a real emotional journey to follow a man who struggles to hold his dysfunctional found family together while knowing there's no longer a place where they belong in the current age.

    I can't believe I forgot about rdr2. What a great game! I can still watch some of the opening scenes in the snowy mountains like a movie in my head.

    2 votes

  20. Comment on Not-so-humble brag: What are you proud of that you don't normally get to talk about? in ~talk

    R3qn65
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    Haha, that rules. Good for you!

    This year I became a graffiti artist with an unconventional medium. Not sure how much I want to say as it's technically illegal (although I can afford to pay the fines and the police in my city are famous for not doing anything).

    Haha, that rules. Good for you!

    3 votes