Staross's recent activity

  1. Comment on Olympic committee announces a broad ban on transgender athletes and athletes with differences in sex development in Women’s events (gifted link) in ~lgbt

    Staross
    Link
    As I understand the reasoning is : Genetic factors improves your performance (e.g. via more testosterone) That's not fair ! So we should prevent people with "genetic advantage" to compete The...

    As I understand the reasoning is :

    • Genetic factors improves your performance (e.g. via more testosterone)
    • That's not fair !
    • So we should prevent people with "genetic advantage" to compete

    The issue I see is that probably many top athletes have genetic advantages, should we ban them too ? it seems to me the reasoning above applies. Of course that's not gonna be done because the issue is politically/socially motivated rather than concerned with principles. But it's pretty clear to me that there's no fairness in top-level sport, unless we introduce some kind of "genetic group" with penalties or classes like for the paralympics. Excluding people isn't fair either btw. Maybe paralympics is the future.

    Elite endurance athletes represent a small but important group in the study of sports genetics. These athletes are typically distinguished by their participation at the highest levels of competition, (e.g., Olympic Games) and are characterized by a high maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max), a key determinant of endurance performance.

    Genetics plays a key role in determining elite athlete status, particularly in relation to VO2max. Studies of the heritability of VO2max and its response to training suggest that genetics accounts for 44% to 68% of the variation in this trait among athletes, with adjusted heritability estimates of 44% to 56% when controlling for factors like body weight and fat-free mass. As a polygenic trait, VO2max is influenced by multiple genes and polymorphisms, each of which affects different physiological systems, such as the cardiovascular system, the musculoskeletal system, and the respiratory system. Numerous polymorphisms have been associated with endurance performance and the status of elite endurance athletes, some of which have been highlighted in this review.

    https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11641144/

    7 votes

  2. Comment on Reddit will implement human verification to tag and combat bots in ~tech

    Staross
    Link Parent
    People copy-pasting text is fine, that's artisanal botting, the issue is more with the industrial scale people that can spawn 10k bots in a few minutes.

    People copy-pasting text is fine, that's artisanal botting, the issue is more with the industrial scale people that can spawn 10k bots in a few minutes.

    17 votes

  3. Comment on Reddit will implement human verification to tag and combat bots in ~tech

    Staross
    Link Parent
    Because you can identify a couple of obvious bots doesn't mean there's tons of hard-to-identify ones you don't see. Lizard people ? Or maybe it's just LLMs that ramped up bots numbers and make...

    Because you can identify a couple of obvious bots doesn't mean there's tons of hard-to-identify ones you don't see.

    My only question at this point is who's ring-leading all this behind the scenes.

    Lizard people ? Or maybe it's just LLMs that ramped up bots numbers and make people react.

    5 votes

  4. Comment on Hackers expose the massive surveillance stack hiding inside your “age verification” check in ~tech

    Staross
    (edited )
    Link
    I think we are in dire need of a system that : Can prove you're an actual citizen from a country (to prevent botting & disinformation) Prove you're above some age Doesn't provide any other...

    I think we are in dire need of a system that :

    1. Can prove you're an actual citizen from a country (to prevent botting & disinformation)
    2. Prove you're above some age
    3. Doesn't provide any other information

    I don't think that's a particularly hard problem to solve technically if you have a trustworthy government that isn't corrupt to the core by the oligarchy. It should be clear to us that the issue is the corrupt government and not having some safety on the internet in principle. Just lobbying against safety without that context seems a bit dangerous to me.

    6 votes

  5. Comment on Spotify's strong revenue isn't reflected in its stock market performance – investors fear growth will stall, while artists are voicing frustration over what they consider a miserly compensation system in ~finance

    Staross
    Link Parent
    I think the biggest variable they can play with it the recommendation algorithm, to make people listen to more diverse music. There's also education (do editor picks, reviews, etc) and social...

    I think the biggest variable they can play with it the recommendation algorithm, to make people listen to more diverse music. There's also education (do editor picks, reviews, etc) and social features like diversity score that could push people to get a bit out of their comfort zone.

    2 votes

  6. Comment on The fifty most underappreciated movies of the 21st century in ~movies

    Staross
    Link
    Control and Only Lovers Left Alive were good (as I remember, I want to rewatch Only Lovers Left Alive). Wolfwalkers was nice but no as good as the studio other movies imo. Wuthering Heights was...

    Control and Only Lovers Left Alive were good (as I remember, I want to rewatch Only Lovers Left Alive). Wolfwalkers was nice but no as good as the studio other movies imo. Wuthering Heights was ok, but I didn't like it covers only part of the story.

    2 votes

  7. Comment on I don't "get" soulslikes, but I'm interested in Bloodborne in ~games

    Staross
    Link
    If you have a good PC you can play it with Shadps4, for glorious FPS.

    If you have a good PC you can play it with Shadps4, for glorious FPS.

  8. Comment on Elon Musk says SpaceX will prioritize a city on the moon instead of a colony on Mars in ~space

    Staross
    Link Parent
    I kinda blame people that talk about it, just ignore these type of noises.

    I kinda blame people that talk about it, just ignore these type of noises.

    6 votes

  9. Comment on What do dreams mean? in ~science

    Staross
    (edited )
    Link
    If I remember correctly there's a couple of important things to know about dreams : We have a huge recall bias, most dreams are forgotten and we recall only a few. People that study dreams...

    If I remember correctly there's a couple of important things to know about dreams :

    1. We have a huge recall bias, most dreams are forgotten and we recall only a few. People that study dreams seriously need to wake up subjects randomly during the night with an alarm so they can note their dreams. So when you're thinking "I usually/often dream about X", it's probably not accurate.
    2. Aggression is an universal and frequent dream topic, a possible function for this could be to "train" safely to handle these situations in the waking life.
    3. We don't really know the function of dreams so skepticism is warranted, plus there's lots of BS on the topic.

    To help shed light on the role of culture in dreams of physical aggression, the SDDb also includes sets of dreams from non-Western people, which can be analyzed in the same way. For the Mehinaku people of the Amazonian rain forest, a collection of 383 dreams had 22.5% with at least one reference to physical aggression. For a group of Nepalese college students, their dreams (535) had 18.1% with a reference to physical aggression. Three groups of African church members reported dreams (142) with a 19% frequency of physical aggressions. These findings are close enough to the SDDb baselines overall figure of 17.6% to suggest that culture is not a decisive factor in this aspect of dream content.

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dreaming-in-the-digital-age/202105/aggression-in-dreams

    Revonsuo's threat simulation hypothesis, whose premise is that during much of human evolution, physical and interpersonal threats were serious, giving reproductive advantage to those who survived them. Dreaming aided survival by replicating these threats and providing the dreamer with practice in dealing with them.[51] In 2015, Revonsuo proposed social simulation theory, which describes dreams as a simulation for training social skills and bonds.[52]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream#Theories_on_function

    2 votes

  10. Comment on Гражданская Оборона - Вечная весна (Ладони) (2022) in ~music

    Staross
    Link
    This video still haunts me, incredible footage.

    This video still haunts me, incredible footage.

    1 vote

  12. Comment on Youtube channel recommendations 2026 in ~tech

    Staross
    Link
    Moth Light Media, biology/natural history : https://www.youtube.com/@mothlightmedia1936 Miles K. Donahue, philosophy, podcast style but high quality : https://www.youtube.com/@mileskdonahue Levi...
    2 votes

  13. Comment on Let's talk orchestrated objective reduction! in ~science

    Staross
    Link Parent
    Yeah if you could specifically switch off the quantum coherence it would be evidence for the view I think, but that's probably very hard to do (since anesthetics have a lot of effects).

    Yeah if you could specifically switch off the quantum coherence it would be evidence for the view I think, but that's probably very hard to do (since anesthetics have a lot of effects).

    1 vote

  14. Comment on Let's talk orchestrated objective reduction! in ~science

    Staross
    (edited )
    Link
    To me the biggest issue is what the quantum computation inside of neurons are supposed to explain. As far as I know the non-quantum models of neurons work just fine, so there's not much in the...

    To me the biggest issue is what the quantum computation inside of neurons are supposed to explain. As far as I know the non-quantum models of neurons work just fine, so there's not much in the behavior of single neurons that need explaining. Then we know how neurons communicate between each other and that also doesn't need much explanation, and it also seems dubious quantum states could be transmitted via electrical spikes & neurotransmitter release. If the answer is consciousness, well mere quantum computation in microtubule just doesn't explain consciousness at all so that doesn't help either.

    5 votes

  15. Comment on Looking for audio recording advice in ~hobbies

    Staross
    (edited )
    Link
    In addition of hardware fixes, you could "get" a copy of Izotope RX 10 or similar and use the de-reverb feature in there, it seems to work quite well. Also check diy booths :...

    In addition of hardware fixes, you could "get" a copy of Izotope RX 10 or similar and use the de-reverb feature in there, it seems to work quite well.

    Also check diy booths : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWgLCPaOAzo

    2 votes

  16. Comment on Crustation - Purple (1997) in ~music

    Staross
    Link
    A little-known gem from the trip-hop era, still sounds fresh almost 30 years later (damn I'm getting old...).

    A little-known gem from the trip-hop era, still sounds fresh almost 30 years later (damn I'm getting old...).

    1 vote

  18. Comment on Rosalía's LUX is NPR Music's No. 1 album of 2025 in ~music

    Staross
    Link
    I listened to it a couple of time but it didn't really grab my attention, but at least it's original and quite well done for such a popular artist.

    I listened to it a couple of time but it didn't really grab my attention, but at least it's original and quite well done for such a popular artist.

    1 vote

  19. Comment on Showing Teeth - Labyrinth (2025) in ~music

    Staross
    Link
    First song from a new trio (guitar, drums + vocals), quite fun. YA YA YA YA !

    First song from a new trio (guitar, drums + vocals), quite fun. YA YA YA YA !

    1 vote