SuperImprobable's recent activity

  1. Comment on Ads for AI sex workers are flooding Instagram and TikTok in ~tech

    SuperImprobable
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    When it's a real person it's hard to know if they are being exploited or not. That issue doesn't exist with the AI bots.

    When it's a real person it's hard to know if they are being exploited or not. That issue doesn't exist with the AI bots.

    25 votes

  2. Comment on Report: Potential New York Times lawsuit could force OpenAI to wipe ChatGPT and start over in ~tech

  3. Comment on Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office. in ~life

    SuperImprobable
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    My company has exactly this right now. If you come in 3 days a week you get a dedicated office. Still more than half choose to WFH. I prefer to come in because I'm only 20 minutes away by car and...

    My company has exactly this right now. If you come in 3 days a week you get a dedicated office. Still more than half choose to WFH. I prefer to come in because I'm only 20 minutes away by car and I focus better in that isolated environment. The ones who don't come in tend to have longer commutes: they live farther away and some don't even own a car which at least doubles the time. Most days I don't see a single team member. Meetings are all online, even for those of us who came in. The exception being meetings with middle management who seem to mostly come in. So no, even if you give people a choice between coming in and getting an office and WFH, many will still choose to WFH.

    3 votes

  4. Comment on Starter tool set for someone starting out in ~life.home_improvement

    SuperImprobable
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    A battery tester. I was surprised when I got mine how many times only one of the batteries in a device was dead and the others were still good. I was throwing them all out and now I only need to...

    A battery tester. I was surprised when I got mine how many times only one of the batteries in a device was dead and the others were still good. I was throwing them all out and now I only need to toss the one that's dead. I agree with the other comments to go for rechargeable most of the time. But with their lower voltage there are some mechanical devices that don't work well with them. And with pricier lithium AA's you can get a longer life out of them for cases where you want to avoid recharging regularly.

    EDIT: oh, also a two or three step ladder. Great for reaching things that are just out of reach.

  5. Comment on US tax code blamed as wealthy see major retirement account gains in ~finance

    SuperImprobable
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    c.f. Peter Thiel's 5 billion dollar IRA which contains many pre-ipo shares of palantir, stripe, Facebook, and others.

    c.f. Peter Thiel's 5 billion dollar IRA which contains many pre-ipo shares of palantir, stripe, Facebook, and others.

    6 votes

  6. Comment on US tax code blamed as wealthy see major retirement account gains in ~finance

    SuperImprobable
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    What if someone moved to a high income area five years before retiring? Do they still get the higher amount? What if someone moved to a lower income area in say Florida before retiring? They would...

    What if someone moved to a high income area five years before retiring? Do they still get the higher amount? What if someone moved to a lower income area in say Florida before retiring? They would have paid in higher amounts but now can only access lower tier levels of income?

  7. Comment on Selected works of renowned Iranian painter, Mahmoud Farshchian in ~arts

    SuperImprobable
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    Thank you, I had zero awareness of Iranian art before watching this.

    Thank you, I had zero awareness of Iranian art before watching this.

    4 votes

  8. Comment on How a drug maker profited by slow-walking a promising HIV therapy in ~health

    SuperImprobable
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    I think in theory there shouldn't be anything stopping one of their competitors from making one of these "improved" drug versions. Though the competitor would not be able to release it until the...

    I think in theory there shouldn't be anything stopping one of their competitors from making one of these "improved" drug versions. Though the competitor would not be able to release it until the original drug patent had expired. While the original patent holder could release their own improved version at any point. I suppose in reality the competitor might benefit the most by just selling their new patent to any improved version to the original manufacturer. The original patent holder also probably has a lot more private data available to them to guide them in the right direction for how to make improvements giving them a large advantage. They know what failed in the original development, they know what side effects patients are having, and lots of data from the original trials as well.

  9. Comment on ChatGPT can be broken by entering these strange words, and nobody is sure why in ~tech

    SuperImprobable
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    It seems more likely the vocabulary was trained off of reddit but maybe the actual model didn't have that data so those tokens are perhaps randomly initialized and never saw an update.

    It seems more likely the vocabulary was trained off of reddit but maybe the actual model didn't have that data so those tokens are perhaps randomly initialized and never saw an update.

    9 votes

  10. Comment on What are your favourite bean recipes? in ~food

    SuperImprobable
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    Mexican bean salad: very versatile. Mix different types of beans, onion, peppers, corn, some spices and oil and vinegar. It goes well as a side dish, but I like it so much I even eat it as a light...

    Mexican bean salad: very versatile. Mix different types of beans, onion, peppers, corn, some spices and oil and vinegar. It goes well as a side dish, but I like it so much I even eat it as a light meal sometimes.
    https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/14169/mexican-bean-salad/

  11. Comment on It's a small thing, but browsing on mobile would be a bit smoother if there was an option to switch the "Comments" and "Actions" buttons under each post in ~tildes

    SuperImprobable
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    I'm just learning that I guess I hold my phone differently than other people. I'm right handed but I hold my phone in my left hand. I just tried my right hand to make sure and yeah it felt really...

    I'm just learning that I guess I hold my phone differently than other people. I'm right handed but I hold my phone in my left hand. I just tried my right hand to make sure and yeah it felt really awkward. I think I do this because most of the time I hold with my right hand and click links and scroll with my right hand and swipe-to-type with only my right hand. Maybe also because if I'm going one handed its usually because I'm using my dominant hand (right) to do something else, so my phone is in my left hand.

    2 votes

  12. Comment on Nostalgia -- what programs do you miss? in ~tech

    SuperImprobable
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    For some reason what came to mind was a software called interactive physics that my high school physics teacher gave me a copy of. It looks like it's still available and still looking very retro....

    For some reason what came to mind was a software called interactive physics that my high school physics teacher gave me a copy of. It looks like it's still available and still looking very retro. It lets you set up 2d objects like balls and ramps and levers and springs. You can draw them any shape you want. Then you push play and see how gravity and collisions happen on your creations.

    Another one that comes to mind is Encarta, the encyclopedia software. Sure Wikipedia has more breadth, but there was something it that brings me nostalgia. Maybe it was just having that amount of knowledge available at my fingertips for the first time. This was before Internet encyclopedias.

    2 votes

  13. Comment on Why can't we stop homelessness in the US? Four reasons why there's no end in sight in ~life

    SuperImprobable
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    I wanted to fact check this thinking maybe infant mortality or low birth rates were more responsible than "people living longer than ever". However, it seems there's a lot of truth to this. This...

    I wanted to fact check this thinking maybe infant mortality or low birth rates were more responsible than "people living longer than ever". However, it seems there's a lot of truth to this. This article about Sweden shows life expectancy at birth is up about 8-9 years since 1970 and life expectancy at age 65 appears to be up a similar amount in the chart. https://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subject-area/population/population-projections/population-projections/pong/tables-and-graphs/life-expectancy-at-birth-and-age-65-by-sex-and-projection/

    This article about Australia claims "Between 1970–72 and 2002–04, reductions in mortality of people aged 50 years and over have been responsible for 70% of the male and 73% of the female increase in life expectancy at birth"
    https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/f7a76dce3f8dc0a3ca2571b00013d99c!OpenDocument

    Between this document from 1970 : https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/lifetables/life70.pdf
    and this current life expectancy table: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
    It looks like male life expectancy in the United States at age 50 is up about 5 years, which is no small feat!

    2 votes

  14. Comment on Why can't we stop homelessness in the US? Four reasons why there's no end in sight in ~life

    SuperImprobable
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    The municipality still has to plan for the additional demands on water, sewer, schools, fire, police, street traffic, etc. It's not as simple as relaxing zoning.

    The municipality still has to plan for the additional demands on water, sewer, schools, fire, police, street traffic, etc. It's not as simple as relaxing zoning.

    2 votes

  15. Comment on First time homebuyer who just closed on a house, does anyone have any general advice? in ~life.home_improvement

    SuperImprobable
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    I would also add that often times if the only thing stopping you doing it yourself is that you don't have the tool needed consider that the tool is usually cheaper than one visit from a...

    I would also add that often times if the only thing stopping you doing it yourself is that you don't have the tool needed consider that the tool is usually cheaper than one visit from a professional! As one example, you can buy a pole to wash your second floor windows for $20-$40. It will cost much more than that to pay someone else to wash them.

    5 votes

  16. Comment on US Redditors to earn real money for gold, karma in ~tech

    SuperImprobable
    Link Parent
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect

    The overjustification effect occurs when an expected external incentive such as money or prizes decreases a person's intrinsic motivation to perform a task. Overjustification is an explanation for the phenomenon known as motivational "crowding out". The overall effect of offering a reward for a previously unrewarded activity is a shift to extrinsic motivation and the undermining of pre-existing intrinsic motivation. Once rewards are no longer offered, interest in the activity is lost; prior intrinsic motivation does not return, and extrinsic rewards must be continuously offered as motivation to sustain the activity.[

    12 votes

  17. Comment on What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking? in ~food

    SuperImprobable
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    I have found I can get away with not bothering to split them up. I move the whole thing to a bigger plot. Then I just go super aggressive on the pruning. I leave like two tiny little leaves on...

    I have found I can get away with not bothering to split them up. I move the whole thing to a bigger plot. Then I just go super aggressive on the pruning. I leave like two tiny little leaves on each stem. If some of them don't survive, that's fine and achieves the same result.

    2 votes

  18. Comment on Can someone please explain like I'm five how or whether the energy needs for technical civilization in the future can possibly be met? in ~talk

    SuperImprobable
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    I live in the Seattle area where our power lines go under many tall trees before reaching our neighborhood. Unfortunately there are strong windstorms a few times a year that cause widespread...

    I live in the Seattle area where our power lines go under many tall trees before reaching our neighborhood. Unfortunately there are strong windstorms a few times a year that cause widespread outages across the region so repairs are not quick. Our little section only has a couple hundred homes so it gets prioritized near last. In the past few years we have had two five day outages. This is in a suburban neighborhood, not a rural area. But tall trees grow like weeds here and shed lots of material for taking down lines. This year I purchased a portable generator so at least I don't have to throw out everything in my refrigerator when this happens. By chance, we actually had a four hour outage this morning for some unknown reason.

    4 votes

  19. Comment on What mattress brand do you recommend? in ~life.home_improvement

    SuperImprobable
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    We weren't satisfied with most of the easy to find brands. So I did some looking for less popular brands and found King Koil. We bought a king size probably 6 years ago and it has held up very...

    We weren't satisfied with most of the easy to find brands. So I did some looking for less popular brands and found King Koil. We bought a king size probably 6 years ago and it has held up very well. I think it might be more common in the Northeast but on the West Coast you have to look up nearby retailers.

    2 votes

  20. Comment on Those of you with standing desks, how are finding them and would you recommend? in ~life

    SuperImprobable
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    I don't use it that much, but I always feel like I'm doing something good for myself when I do. First bonus, which I didn't think of until I had a standing desk: even when you're sitting you can...

    I don't use it that much, but I always feel like I'm doing something good for myself when I do. First bonus, which I didn't think of until I had a standing desk: even when you're sitting you can adjust the desk height to exactly the perfect height. You no longer have to live with a nonoptimal chair height that is set to match your desk height because now your desk height is fully adjustable.
    second bonus: messing with cables behind the desk is easier when the whole desk lifts, ha. But that does remind me you'll want a good cable management system to affix things to the underside of the desktop.