itdepends's recent activity
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Comment on Google lays off hundreds of ‘Core’ employees, moves some positions to India and Mexico in ~tech
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Comment on Online shopping - how convenient is it actually? in ~life.style
itdepends Link ParentWell experiences will vary according to how and where people live. I can get most things on the day because I live downtown in a large city and have both a car and a motorcycle, get off work while...Well experiences will vary according to how and where people live. I can get most things on the day because I live downtown in a large city and have both a car and a motorcycle, get off work while the stores are still open and I don't mind spending the time it takes.
Also, if I'm not at home I'll have to get down to the hub to pick up my order anyway, "leave it at the porch" is not an option here.
Others live differently and make different choices and I get how online shopping can be a much more enjoyable and practical experience for them.
As an aside I've ordered some things to be delivered at my now-former workplace so I'll be doing the Where's My Package treasure hunt soon enough :)
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Comment on Online shopping - how convenient is it actually? in ~life.style
itdepends LinkI only buy online things that I simply cannot buy at a physical store. Since I live in my country's capital there are enough stores nearby that this is a pretty rare occurrence. My latest online...I only buy online things that I simply cannot buy at a physical store. Since I live in my country's capital there are enough stores nearby that this is a pretty rare occurrence. My latest online orders were some very specific motorcycle jeans (from the manufacturer) and a few books that were not immediately available here (from Amazon).
I don't really like ordering online because deliveries can be a mess and it's just not the same as actually holding/seeing the product in person. I'd say I'm doing "hybrid shopping". I'll search and compare things online, look at reviews etc to pick a product. Then I'll use a large shopping portal/aggregator website to find the best price at a physical store a reasonable distance away, to go and physically purchase the item.
And yeah I too enjoy purchasing the item and as soon as the transaction is complete having it at hand ready to use instead of waiting any crazy number of days.
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Comment on In Berlin, I experience icks I never thought possible in ~travel
itdepends LinkThis entire thing speaks more about the author rather than Berlin. It's just a failure to deal with their cultural baggage and honestly a very naive and spoiled attitude that says that a foreign...This entire thing speaks more about the author rather than Berlin. It's just a failure to deal with their cultural baggage and honestly a very naive and spoiled attitude that says that a foreign city shouldn't be foreign, just better in the specific things I'm looking for.
They'd probably be better off moving to a different city in their home country.
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Comment on I have an issue with the 3 Body Problem in ~tv
itdepends LinkBoth issues are explicitly referenced and explained in the show. We're shown and told that the sophons were a major undertaking, and the characters directly say that they can be anywhere but not...Both issues are explicitly referenced and explained in the show.
We're shown and told that the sophons were a major undertaking, and the characters directly say that they can be anywhere but not everywhere, they're limited by the speed of light and it does take them time to do things.
I feel perchance you've identified too strongly with the human characters, who feel they're up against an omnipotent god.
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Comment on I have an issue with the 3 Body Problem in ~tv
itdepends Link ParentYou should stop watching because that is not a hard left turn, it's maintaining the course of the books that goes way beyond the sophons in terms of wild sci-fi stuff, and it sounds like you're...You should stop watching because that is not a hard left turn, it's maintaining the course of the books that goes way beyond the sophons in terms of wild sci-fi stuff, and it sounds like you're looking for something more grounded.
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Comment on I have an issue with the 3 Body Problem in ~tv
itdepends Link ParentA secret is not a lie. It is implied that they communicate with telepathy which is not "like words, but silent " but instead a sharing of your thoughts. Presumably they can avoid sharing that...A secret is not a lie. It is implied that they communicate with telepathy which is not "like words, but silent " but instead a sharing of your thoughts.
Presumably they can avoid sharing that thought unless specifically enquired.
Imagine it like blushing when something is mentioned. As long as you steer clear of the subject you're fine, the moment it is brought up everyone knows you're blushing.
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Comment on VHEMT: the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement in ~life
itdepends Link ParentApologies in advance if this comment gets too sci-fi but we're already deep into hypotheticals and philosophizing. Let's consider these two assumptions: There's nothing special about human...In their ideal world, humans voluntarily choose to reduce their numbers or even extinct themselves entirely. B
Apologies in advance if this comment gets too sci-fi but we're already deep into hypotheticals and philosophizing.
Let's consider these two assumptions:
There's nothing special about human selfishness. If in millions of years other species advanced to our stage they'd be just as catastrophic to the environment. This is impossible to prove but given what we've observed in nature (no species checks itself, famine and other catastrophes or feedback loops do it for them) and that any earthen species will follow the same path of competition etc that humans did, I don't think it's such a wild assumption.
A technologically advanced civilization (one more advanced than our current one) is the only way life on this solar system survives major catastrophes.
Then it only follows that humans voluntarily "abdicating" their position and going extinct is actually counter-productive for the long-term survival of life. Life which, while we speculate can exist elsewhere, has never been proven to.
Or more playfully put, when the asteroid comes you want humans to science up some Bruce Willis shit (or at the very least dig some bunkers and fauna/flora vaults) and punch it in the face; you won't be looking to cows to save the only known instance of life in the universe. When the sun explodes you want to be grazing in some off-world colony or space habitat, not getting vaporized on this doomed hunk of rock.
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Comment on Finland has remained the happiest country in the world for the seventh year in a row, according to the annual World Happiness Report published on Wednesday in ~life
itdepends Link ParentI think the problem is more fundamental. Look at it this way, you either accept that this indeed is a report that's supposed to measure happiness or that this is just a collection of responses to...I think the problem is more fundamental.
Look at it this way, you either accept that this indeed is a report that's supposed to measure happiness or that this is just a collection of responses to specific questions.
In the second case, we have a "a thermometer is measuring the temperature of the thermometer" situation. It's not a happiness report, it's a collection of data largely around life and lived experiences, and in order to simplify and publicize it, it got smacked with the "Happiness Report" moniker.
In the first case, you open up a vast field of further questions, qualifications and controls this should have.
a) The answers do not appear to be weighted at all. “Have you donated money to a charity in the past month?” gets a 0-10 score. “Did you experience the following feelings during A LOT
OF THE DAY yesterday? How about Sadness?” gets a 0-10 score. Why is donating to charity related to happiness? I could be happy like a pig in shit and never give anything to anyone because that's simply not part of my character.b) No accounting for cultural bias. Let's take two extreme stereotypes and pretend they're 100% real. The distant, introverted, reserved Fin and the loud, open, extroverted Greek. Given the exact same quality of life I bet their answers would be wildly different. For any given thing one might be more prone to say "yeah it's fine" the other might be more prone to say "it's completely terrible". One might think a life where all their basic needs are met is pretty great and nothing to complain about, therefore they're happy. The other might associate happiness with active celebration. One might have a "can't complain" mentality, the other might have a "complain constantly about everything" mentality.
Personally I ascribe to the first explanation. It's just a bunch of questions and the report measures the answers to those questions, only to then get labelled as the be-all end-all report on Happiness. The final ranking doesn't really mean anything.
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Comment on My marriage is non-monogamous, and I am considering approaching a friend to propose a relationship with him. I would appreciate some advice from monogamous people (and reasonable people in general.) in ~life
itdepends LinkOK so perhaps this is not too helpful but I feel there's a blindspot in all this that is not being examined. You're asking monogamous people how they would feel and that's great, however you...OK so perhaps this is not too helpful but I feel there's a blindspot in all this that is not being examined.
You're asking monogamous people how they would feel and that's great, however you cannot be certain how this specific individual might react. And the thing is: Are you sure you are equipped to be able to read his reactions correctly?
Monogamy is not a different flavour of ice-cream it is very fundamental to one's character and reinforced by society as the only way things are or can be.
Even within groups (say "monogamous people") expectations, reactions and behaviours vary. I'd expect the differences to be amplified x10 between a monogamous and a non-monogamous person. Like, what holding one's hand means, what flirting means and the weight it carries, how you carry yourself when around a person you've slept with, those are all things that I assume are interpreted differently between monogamous and non-monogamous people. There's a huge difference in how each perceives sex, relationships, bonding, etc. Are you sure you'll be capable of understanding how he's perceiving things?
So, say you talk with your friend, you make your case very clear and very reasonable.
But you're still asking him to come to you in a sense, you're not reaching for monogamy, you're asking him to step into the world of non-monogamy. Something he's not experienced with and might flat-out not be compatible with him as a character.
Are you sure you'll be able to tell when "fine" means "fine" and when it means "but I can't understand why we fuck but you don't want to act like we're dating?" Are you sure things that appear very standard and expected to one of you will not be aggravating to the other and are you sure you'll be able to catch on to that? Are you sure he even understands what he's getting into?
You have to be able to perceive things from his POV as if you were monogamous, that's not an easy feat. He has to be able to perceive things from your POV as if he were non-monogamous, an even harder feat.
To me it sounds like a recipe for disaster, especially since you're talking about a close friend.
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Comment on Verge TS Ultra - The hubless electric motorcycle with sci-fi style and a great name in ~transport
itdepends LinkReally hard for me to determine where my valid criticisms based on experience start and where my crotchety old man "we used to push our bikes uphill both ways" whinging starts but honestly, this...Really hard for me to determine where my valid criticisms based on experience start and where my crotchety old man "we used to push our bikes uphill both ways" whinging starts but honestly, this seems pointless.
Making the wheels so heavy will definitely impact handling and all the whizz-bang gadgetry looks tacked on because "wouldn't it be cool" not because actual riders had actual needs and problems to be solved.
Unreal-engine driven display on the tank? Useless. That's a cool gadget whose purpose is being a cool gadget, not an improvement on a motorcycle. The only amazing high-fidelity picture you should be focusing on is the real world.
Ultramegananosensors that monitor everything? Unnecessary, I don't need a bike that lets me know every microminute detail of what traffic is doing around me, that is not making me safer, just causing distractions. To keep me safe it would have to act independently of me otherwise what's the point of detecting something that's too fast for my senses to catch and still looping in my slowpoke brain and nervous system for the solution? And bikes are not cars, you cannot tell a bike "slam on those brakes as hard as you can in case of impending collision" or "swerve hard around the obstacle" because the rider is on top, not strapped in, and part of the bike-rider system. No point saving the bike if you've yeeted the rider across 2 lanes onto an incoming semi.
Now, I am not one of those people saying "just learn to out-brake ABS and out-fine-control TCS" or whatever. Major manufacturers have been going ham with motorcycle electronics and exactly because they're major motorcycle manufacturers that are trying to sell motorcycles as an established brand, those electronics actually do useful things. ABS is a godsend and is now lean-sensitive, TCS is super-useful, radar-guided cruise-control is already in production models, non-budget bikes almost all have some phone-pairing capability. Things people want and need.
Verge are suffering from being unknowns trying to make a name for themselves and thus looking for some type of "hook" because god knows you won't build a fundamentally better motorcycle than Honda or Ducati for a reasonable price.
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Comment on Unpopular opinion: Capitalism is a better ideology than socialism or communism because greed is a more tolerable emotion than fear/envy in ~talk
itdepends LinkNot to be un-tildes-like or anything but you're just arbitrarily assigning emotions as drivers of economic systems and concluding that one is better than the other because one feeling is better...Not to be un-tildes-like or anything but you're just arbitrarily assigning emotions as drivers of economic systems and concluding that one is better than the other because one feeling is better than the other. It's just subjective opinions piled onto subjective opinions.
Why not say "justice" instead of "fear and envy", it could be just as valid. Why not say "empathy" or "fairness"?
But I think the larger point is that economic and political systems cannot be simply said to be driven by an emotion. Would you rather be happy and content under communism or capitalism? Would you rather be in a jealous rage in communism or capitalism?
It's irrelevant, what you're after is happiness, security, contentment etc not a specific system. Hence why people have been everything on the spectrum of human emotion under everything in the spectrum of systems of governance and finance.
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Comment on What are some highly praised comedians you don't find very funny? in ~talk
itdepends LinkNorm McDonald. I see people praising him and extolling his amazing skill and genius and I just don't get it. I get what he's going for, but I think it only rarely works.Norm McDonald.
I see people praising him and extolling his amazing skill and genius and I just don't get it. I get what he's going for, but I think it only rarely works.
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Comment on The West vs Asia: what drivers are taught about motorcycle brakes in ~transport
itdepends LinkKeep in mind that technically B is also wrong since optimal riding in non-track conditions says you first use a little rear brake and then squeeze the front. Otherwise I don't think there's...Keep in mind that technically B is also wrong since optimal riding in non-track conditions says you first use a little rear brake and then squeeze the front.
Otherwise I don't think there's anything substantial supporting the idea that the rear is more powerful, physics says the weight is transferred to the front and all research and of course motorsport shows that the front is massively more effective.
I will say however that "western" practice assumes you are riding a full-fat motorcycle, not a tiny underbone. Additionally in most of the west a motorcycle is more of a choice or hobby if you like, not a necessity. In that respect, if everyone and their grandma is ridinga small bike perhaps it's overall safer to teach using the rear because it's less scary, quite effective at low speeds on small bikes and when it goes bad it doesn't go as bad.
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Comment on Marketing company claims that it actually is listening to your phone and smart speakers to target ads in ~tech
itdepends Link ParentI have the same questions. I'm no expert but if this claim were real then it wouldn't be the capability of just one specific marketing company unless they were explicitly installing malware in...I have the same questions.
I'm no expert but if this claim were real then it wouldn't be the capability of just one specific marketing company unless they were explicitly installing malware in people's devices. It would be a capability that everyone could leverage, right?
Additionally would a marketing company have the $$$ for the datacenters it would require to analyze voice from thousands if not millions of devices, 24/7? Wouldn't the users notice their phone constantly streaming data?
Sounds like marketing BS.
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Comment on Google announces Gemini model, claims it outperforms GPT-4 in ~tech
itdepends Link ParentNo problem. If you specified "Ancient Greek" it probably had a lot of training data in modern Greek and probably almost none in ancient so it just did what it could.No problem. If you specified "Ancient Greek" it probably had a lot of training data in modern Greek and probably almost none in ancient so it just did what it could.
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Comment on What surprised you the most about becoming a father? in ~life.men
itdepends Link ParentI hear you, my daughter can drive me nuts like literally no-one else on the planet. Kids will beat on the walls of your carefully crafted "Calm Reasonable Adult" persona day and night until it...I hear you, my daughter can drive me nuts like literally no-one else on the planet. Kids will beat on the walls of your carefully crafted "Calm Reasonable Adult" persona day and night until it gives. Because they're kids. They don't know what they're saying, they don't know they're being unreasonable. You can't avoid them or ignore them or tell them to fuck off, or whatever strategy you employ with random adults in your life. Sometimes they're being little shits and that's part of their job description.
The first time I heard "I don't love you, I only love mommy" it took me 3 days to get over it. Now, it sometimes still stings, but I usually laugh it off and say "It's ok. Even if you don't, I will always love you no matter what".
You're concerned about being in a sour mood after your kid was being a bit of a shit (excuse the expression) and punched you in the face. Sounds like you're doing just fine.
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Comment on Google announces Gemini model, claims it outperforms GPT-4 in ~tech
itdepends Link ParentUhm... not sure what your prompt was but this is modern Greek.Uhm... not sure what your prompt was but this is modern Greek.
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Comment on Grand Theft Auto VI | Trailer 1 in ~games
itdepends Link ParentI know, it just feels like sometimes people are comparing game engine capabilities in some theoretical vacuum. As if the engine that could render a person with a few more polygons and slightly...I know, it just feels like sometimes people are comparing game engine capabilities in some theoretical vacuum. As if the engine that could render a person with a few more polygons and slightly better textures in a blank background would be "better" than the engine that could do a slightly worse job but fill an entire city with NPCs like that.
What's the point if you're going to ignore what the graphics bring to the game, if you don't care about making the game world feel alive and interesting?
The graphics in the trailer in the context of just how many things are going on in each shot are amazing.
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Comment on Grand Theft Auto VI | Trailer 1 in ~games
itdepends LinkThat looks legitimately nuts, I'm astounded at the "eh, doesn't look that great" comments I've read online. The graphics combined with the sheer density of stuff packed into each frame are insane....That looks legitimately nuts, I'm astounded at the "eh, doesn't look that great" comments I've read online.
The graphics combined with the sheer density of stuff packed into each frame are insane.
In my mind there are only two ways they can fuck this up and not make it the absolutely uncontested GOTY and candidate for best game ever: One is if it runs like crap on its intended hardware or the density is severely degraded. The other is if 9/10 things you see are not things you can do. If I see a boat I expect to be able to commandeer that boat. If I see a gator in a corner shop I expect to be able to fight off gators in corner shops. If it's a vehicle I should be able to drive it, if it's a cool location I expect to be able to visit it, if an NPC is doing it in a cut-scene I expect to be able to do it (referring to activities not random animations).
But that's like saying that it's the animal handler's fault for not isolating the lion, keeping it well fed and making sure it's not exposed to any stimuli; it's not the lion's fault that it maimed 12 people.
Which yeah OK sure, but baked into that is the axiom that that's what lions do, they eat people so work your way around that. Not sure how well this maps to completely man-made and controlled financial systems. Seems like accepting that capitalism needs to be treated like a wild animal or a fire. Keep it under very tight control or people get hurt.