ThrowdoBaggins's recent activity

  1. Comment on GM ends OnStar driver safety program after privacy complaints in ~transport

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    But also this story will have already contributed to that sense of fatigue from things being terrible, so the next company that comes along and does the exact same thing will have less pushback,...

    But also this story will have already contributed to that sense of fatigue from things being terrible, so the next company that comes along and does the exact same thing will have less pushback, and then it will become normalised…

    3 votes

  2. Comment on Reddit, AI spam bots explore new ways to show ads in your feed in ~tech

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    I’ve been thinking about this too — I don’t have the skills or experience to know if it would actually work but I’ve been toying with an idea for a while where rather than pay some price and get...

    I’ve been thinking about this too — I don’t have the skills or experience to know if it would actually work but I’ve been toying with an idea for a while where rather than pay some price and get unlimited access for a month (the current model) you could have it like pay for unlimited access to XYZ articles.

    Maybe instead of $10 for a month, I pay $12 for 12 articles — way too high a price for a single article, really, but if the two options were side-by-side when I tried to access something paywalled, I’d definitely be tempted to grab the once-off, don’t-keep-harvesting-from-my-bank-account, more expensive option. Plus, they’d get more of my dollars right now, which I feel like is a win for the business too.

    1 vote

  3. Comment on I just switched to an iPhone, what should I do to make the most of this change? in ~tech

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    As someone who has stuck with the much lower powered iPhone SE because of the home button still being the way to switch apps, I can tell you that if the swipe gesture fails once in 50 attempts...

    As someone who has stuck with the much lower powered iPhone SE because of the home button still being the way to switch apps, I can tell you that if the swipe gesture fails once in 50 attempts that’s still too often for my tastes. I want the phone to just do what I want without thinking about it, and every swipe-from-the-edge-in-some-way gesture that Apple has introduced over the years has some failure state that’s infuriating, so anything to avoid that is a positive in my books!

  4. Comment on I just switched to an iPhone, what should I do to make the most of this change? in ~tech

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    Yeah agreed, especially about when there are two intersections near each other. I’ll often hear something like “in 500m keep left” when they actually only mean “don’t take the exiting/merging...

    Yeah agreed, especially about when there are two intersections near each other. I’ll often hear something like “in 500m keep left” when they actually only mean “don’t take the exiting/merging lane” but I swing all the way over to the left lane… and then 100m later it tells me to take the next exit and I’m already two lanes over and no chance I’ll make it!

    3 votes

  5. Comment on I just switched to an iPhone, what should I do to make the most of this change? in ~tech

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    I really feel like that’s one that Apple should take steps to limit, like they’ve done with location tracking and sharing pictures. Giving granular access where the app can only have A) a single...

    I really feel like that’s one that Apple should take steps to limit, like they’ve done with location tracking and sharing pictures. Giving granular access where the app can only have A) a single contact number and first name, or B) all names and numbers and email addresses, or C) full access that it currently grants.

    1 vote

  6. Comment on The internet used to be ✨fun✨ in ~tech

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    I’m isolating at home with Covid and booted up my ancient laptop to play Old School RuneScape — and it’s not the same, you’re right. Even if I was somehow approaching it from the same place, the...

    I’m isolating at home with Covid and booted up my ancient laptop to play Old School RuneScape — and it’s not the same, you’re right. Even if I was somehow approaching it from the same place, the kinds of people playing the game today are mostly veterans who remember the good old days, and therefore also know off by heart the most efficient methods to level up the various skills. I’ll never again be the noob who thought a level-12 pure mage pvper was the epitome of cool, and I’ll never again be able to live the experience for the first time of creating a brand new character to try out being that cool mage, because I’ve lived it and done it and it can’t ever have that same sheen as it once did.

    That said, I’m still having fun, because it’s still a game I enjoy regardless of how easy it is today to look up perfectly verifiable facts about the game on the wiki.

    5 votes

  7. Comment on What's a game that you feel is almost great? in ~games

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    Ohhh you’ve highlighted something that I was aware of but never put the two together! I was always waiting for that game to have its “oh crap, we’ve got a lot of building piece on top of each...

    Elder Scrolls Online: the yearly expansion release system created many subpar quality content due to time-constraints, its releases are very formulaic

    Ohhh you’ve highlighted something that I was aware of but never put the two together!

    I was always waiting for that game to have its “oh crap, we’ve got a lot of building piece on top of each other, it’s time to stop the 'new content' mill for a hot minute and go back and polish up everything that we’ve already released” that I’ve seen other games do (with varied success)… but that never came, so I always felt like I was playing a game that was nearly ready but not finished, even though it was never actually unstable for me, and never really flagged as “early access” or anything… it just lacked that “give your developers a minute to breathe and take it all in and spot what needs improvement” level of polish.

    1 vote

  8. Comment on Tokyo starts ride-hailing service — but it may not be what you expect in ~transport

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    Maybe I haven’t been paying attention to taxi prices near me, but haven’t ride share services basically price-matched the taxi industry by now? They have a brand reputation and an easy in-app way...

    for the same price as a taxi?

    Maybe I haven’t been paying attention to taxi prices near me, but haven’t ride share services basically price-matched the taxi industry by now? They have a brand reputation and an easy in-app way to report dodgy drivers, but other than that, I feel like taxis have adopted the in-app features that Uber first shook up the taxi industry with…

    1 vote

  9. Comment on An FDA-approved device offers a new treatment for tinnitus in ~health

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    I’ve also heard of tongue-based sight for people with zero sight, where a camera embedded in a pair of glasses they’re wearing is connected to an electronic tongue-pad, and over time the brain...

    I’ve also heard of tongue-based sight for people with zero sight, where a camera embedded in a pair of glasses they’re wearing is connected to an electronic tongue-pad, and over time the brain readjusts and realises that it can make sense of the patterns and provide (very limited) sight.

    I’m wondering if the tongue has more nerves-per-area and therefore higher resolution and sensitivity which makes it particularly suited to this kind of neurological re-wiring stuff?

    4 votes

  10. Comment on In Berlin, I experience icks I never thought possible in ~travel

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    The way you talk about Berlin here, I’m wondering if it has any parallels to Australia’s Canberra? I’ve never been to Germany but I’d love a comment from someone familiar with both, is there a...

    The way you talk about Berlin here, I’m wondering if it has any parallels to Australia’s Canberra? I’ve never been to Germany but I’d love a comment from someone familiar with both, is there a commonality?

  11. Comment on Can noise canceling headphones be effective against non continuous noise such as music? in ~tech

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    I’m not sure what white noise generator you use, but on iOS I use RainyMood to sleep (the app, not the website, although they’re by the same people) and it has individual volume sliders and...

    I’m not sure what white noise generator you use, but on iOS I use RainyMood to sleep (the app, not the website, although they’re by the same people) and it has individual volume sliders and toggles for the rain elements. For example, I have the rain sound about 60%, thunder about 40%, and bird chirps toggled off.

    I can play music (or a podcast) through Spotify at the same time, and they don’t seem to conflict or switch each other off or clash. I think the rainymood isn’t set up as “music” because the media controls don’t allow me to pause rainymood from the Lock Screen, but it can keep playing even when I switch to other apps or lock the phone.

    2 votes

  12. Comment on What cooking techniques need more evidence? in ~food

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    I get the same impression, except for the ones that explicitly try to factor in “less dishes” as a selling point. However my personal preference changed dramatically when I moved into a house that...

    I get the same impression, except for the ones that explicitly try to factor in “less dishes” as a selling point. However my personal preference changed dramatically when I moved into a house that had a dishwasher, because it’s so easy to just pop all the little measuring bowls etc into the dishwasher when I’m done. Now I’m more aware of how much bench space I need than dishes I create, and it’s been interesting to see how quickly my own mindset changed in that regard!

    5 votes

  13. Comment on What AI tools are you actually using? in ~tech

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    Your comment has got me thinking about the corporate world and neurospicy accessibility, bouncing around my head all day. I think in an ideal world where writing an email took little effort, then...

    Your comment has got me thinking about the corporate world and neurospicy accessibility, bouncing around my head all day.

    I think in an ideal world where writing an email took little effort, then I’d absolutely be the kind of person to write two parallel emails: one in regular corporate speak, and one in concise dot points, and the person on the receiving end could pick whichever one they prefer.

    Unfortunately that’s not a realistic option — if I interact with someone often enough to know they have a preference for the dot points, I’ll use dot points when it’s a message just for them. But despite only being in the corporate space for a few years now, I’ve already been trained to default to the corporate way of writing emails, especially if I know my emails are sent (or later forwarded) to several people that I don’t know very well.

    In the meantime, as much as it feels redundant to use two layers of an LLM to encode and decode the underlying message into corporate speak, I completely understand why it’s being used that way currently, and I don’t begrudge anyone running an email through a “dot-point translation layer” to better fit their own brain, be it neurospicy or otherwise.

    2 votes

  14. Comment on Discord to start showing ads for gamers to boost revenue in ~tech

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    Oh maybe that’s where I recognise your name from! I haven’t played PS2 in ages, originally on Briggs before it got shut down and now I’m on Connery, I think? Not to derail the conversation (but...

    Oh maybe that’s where I recognise your name from! I haven’t played PS2 in ages, originally on Briggs before it got shut down and now I’m on Connery, I think? Not to derail the conversation (but I’m absolutely derailing the conversation) but which server and faction do/did you mostly play?

    And back on topic, yeah lots of the guilds used TS I think because it had the smallest resource footprint, which was important as PS2 has never really been the most optimised/polished game…

    1 vote

  15. Comment on How have you embarrassed yourself recently? in ~talk

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    “Not an NPC, huh. I don’t think a protagonist would ever need to wear a shirt like that, ergo you are an NPC after all!”

    “Not an NPC, huh. I don’t think a protagonist would ever need to wear a shirt like that, ergo you are an NPC after all!”

    3 votes

  16. Comment on Vitamin D: the basics, Shannon’s story, the evidence in ~health

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    I believe vitamin D is synthesised when your skin is exposed to sunlight, to some extent, so I’m wondering if dealing with Disease XYZ causes the patient to go outside less often, which then...

    I believe vitamin D is synthesised when your skin is exposed to sunlight, to some extent, so I’m wondering if dealing with Disease XYZ causes the patient to go outside less often, which then causes the deficiency… and that there’s no causal link other than “feeling sick means you do less stuff that’s good for you”..?

    1 vote

  17. Comment on "The One Who Is". Who on Tildes recently called God by this name? in ~humanities

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    As a counter example; if Christians outnumber Jews 20:1 but 10% of Christians and 99% of Jews used the phrase, would you still say it’s a “predominantly Christian” saying just because of sheer...

    As a counter example; if Christians outnumber Jews 20:1 but 10% of Christians and 99% of Jews used the phrase, would you still say it’s a “predominantly Christian” saying just because of sheer volume? Or does the use-per-capita have more weight than just overall use?

    1 vote

  18. Comment on Suggestions on how to secure reasonable US Taylor Swift - Eras Tour tickets? in ~music

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    Probably both are true — I’ve certainly heard that particular venues are locked in, and I absolutely wouldn’t be surprised if a bunch of larger record labels would do the same

    Probably both are true — I’ve certainly heard that particular venues are locked in, and I absolutely wouldn’t be surprised if a bunch of larger record labels would do the same

  19. Comment on Reddit pops as much as 70% in NYSE debut after selling shares at top of range in ~tech

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    I know on an intellectual level that text is incredibly small on hard drives, but it’s bonkers to me that basically the entirety of Reddit up until 2023 could all fit on a disk that I can buy...

    I know on an intellectual level that text is incredibly small on hard drives, but it’s bonkers to me that basically the entirety of Reddit up until 2023 could all fit on a disk that I can buy these days for under $100 — that’s more information than I think I could read if I browsed for like an hour every day for the rest of my life!

    3 votes

  20. Comment on "The university campus is rapidly becoming a locus of infantilizing social control that any independent-minded student should seek to escape" in ~life

    ThrowdoBaggins
    Link Parent
    Perhaps your opening sentence could be edited for clarity? I’m certainly not suggesting it’s necessary, just throwing ideas around…

    Perhaps your opening sentence could be edited for clarity? I’m certainly not suggesting it’s necessary, just throwing ideas around…

    I'm one of those annoying people who advocates for kids to stop immediately going to college into debt after they graduate high school.

    1 vote