kacey's recent activity
-
Comment on What change would make you quit Tildes? in ~tildes
-
Comment on What change would make you quit Tildes? in ~tildes
kacey Link ParentThank you for the heads up! But I'm already quite up to date on the legalities of the situation, and the intent was to do all the initial classification myself. Additionally, the design wouldn't...Thank you for the heads up! But I'm already quite up to date on the legalities of the situation, and the intent was to do all the initial classification myself.
Additionally, the design wouldn't allow data to leave Tildes' backend/frontend, since off-premises processing brings in a bunch of additional privacy protection concerns.
-
Comment on Breadmaker update: one year in! in ~food
kacey LinkApologies for proposing a suggestion without hearing a question on your part, but I ran into a similar issue myself with my homemade bread, and I had a tolerable workaround if it's of interest?...The second is that my recipe is not as good when I have to halve it! In the damp season, I had to throw away a few half-loaves, as mold loves my poor little bread, and the bread does not survive well in the fridge.
Apologies for proposing a suggestion without hearing a question on your part, but I ran into a similar issue myself with my homemade bread, and I had a tolerable workaround if it's of interest?
Freezing bread works really well, and it reheats perfectly in the microwave (or a toaster if that was its destination to start with)! Slicing it all at once is a pain, however.
-
Comment on Clanker: A word for the machine in ~tech
kacey Link ParentAugh, this reminds me of why I dislike the portrayal of demons in Frieren so much XD please excuse my rant (but please do pen a response if this is of interest!) An entire species that appears...Augh, this reminds me of why I dislike the portrayal of demons in Frieren so much XD please excuse my rant (but please do pen a response if this is of interest!)
An entire species that appears human, pretends to have empathy (but really doesn't), and is genetically evil reaaaalllly raises the 'ol hackles. It would be modestly acceptable if this were used by the author to tell an interesting story -- eg. to examine how such people could form a productive society, or as a lens through which to understand human emotion (or even Frieren's own struggles with replayability!) -- but instead they're an acceptable target, so that there's a villain species with which to populate the stocks every week.
The vibes have always felt off with that one, as well as it being a literary let down.
-
Comment on What change would make you quit Tildes? in ~tildes
kacey Link ParentQ: I'm not a contributor, but I was idly debating fiddling with the source code and proposing some sort of tag suggestion logic. That necessarily winds up touching upon AI/ML stuff, but I don't...Any implementation of generative AI / LLMs or systems that run on them
Q: I'm not a contributor, but I was idly debating fiddling with the source code and proposing some sort of tag suggestion logic. That necessarily winds up touching upon AI/ML stuff, but I don't want to ruffle feathers ... may I ask if that's too close to the sort of thing you were thinking of?
-
Comment on What change would make you quit Tildes? in ~tildes
kacey Link ParentJust thinking out loud, but if people were running e.g. openclaw agents to autonomously trawl the internet for potential sites to exploit (free ad exposure, scams, etc.), couldn't that be an issue...Just thinking out loud, but if people were running e.g. openclaw agents to autonomously trawl the internet for potential sites to exploit (free ad exposure, scams, etc.), couldn't that be an issue regardless of community size? Put another way, if the cost of exploitation is next to zero and requires no human involvement, does that not seem like a potential threat ...?
Although I guess a bunch of bluesky and mastodon have stayed safe from that, so perhaps I should put my fears to rest 😅
-
Comment on How to prevent mold growth under weight mats in ~life.home_improvement
kacey Link ParentHah, no worries; I spend too much time on building youtube -- this is far from common knowledge 😅️ and to be fair it could easily be a bit of both!Hah, no worries; I spend too much time on building youtube -- this is far from common knowledge 😅️ and to be fair it could easily be a bit of both!
-
Comment on How to prevent mold growth under weight mats in ~life.home_improvement
kacey Link Parent(I'm not aphoenix :3 sorry to butt in) That imo looks like efflorescence, either from human-salt or otherwise! Could always be the case that a bit of moisture consistently pouring into that area...(I'm not aphoenix :3 sorry to butt in)
That imo looks like efflorescence, either from human-salt or otherwise! Could always be the case that a bit of moisture consistently pouring into that area was enough to help drive it out of the concrete, which I'm also assuming is unsealed.
-
Comment on How to prevent mold growth under weight mats in ~life.home_improvement
kacey LinkGood call to ask and check! That said, please bear in mind that mold requires food, moisture, and warmth to grow -- even if that were mold, and it were stuck under the mat, it'd be missing food...Good call to ask and check! That said, please bear in mind that mold requires food, moisture, and warmth to grow -- even if that were mold, and it were stuck under the mat, it'd be missing food and wouldn't be an issue. At a complete guess, the awful smell is just some bacteria growing off of the ... liquids that would seep down between the mats.
That said, a couple thoughts!
- May I ask if you know if your basement has a vapour barrier laid down beneath it? If you have an old building, there probably isn't one. If that's the case, slapping a layer of plastic above it could be trapping moisture coming up from the ground, too.
- Getting some air movement under the floor could help it dry out faster + might assist with hosing the place down periodically, so maybe laying some drainage mats under the foam tiles those could be helpful?
-
Comment on Website is unhappy in ~tildes
kacey Link ParentGetting paged on the weekend sucks; I hope you bug your boss for some time off, or maybe a juicy bonus come review season! (srsly, tho, thank you for keeping this boat afloat :3)Getting paged on the weekend sucks; I hope you bug your boss for some time off, or maybe a juicy bonus come review season!
(srsly, tho, thank you for keeping this boat afloat :3)
-
Comment on Lost in a sea of HVAC in ~life.home_improvement
kacey (edited )LinkWhen I started reading your comment, my first thought was, "you should probably consider mini splits" XD if aesthetics are the main concern, note that you can get them installed with concealed...When I started reading your comment, my first thought was, "you should probably consider mini splits" XD if aesthetics are the main concern, note that you can get them installed with concealed ductwork in closets (example) or as a minimal recessed ceiling cassette.
From a home performance perspective, one of the upshots to mini splits is that they're zoned by default: I'm guessing, by the fact that the home is 1100sqft, that this is an older building without an air sealing retrofit (and maybe without insulation)? Since that'll make it even harder for your HVAC system to keep the building consistently cool, the mini splits are probably also being specified because they can ramp up very effectively to keep up load. Central ductwork -- unless you also pay for some extra dampers, on top of a fantastic air sealing and insulation job, especially if they're running through unconditioned spaces where air leakage, moisture, and potential mold intrusion are a concern -- also have the side effect of having to freeze the entire house in order to make hot spots comfortable.
(do also note that additional dehumidification may be specified for your climate, on top of the heat pump air handler retrofit)
Right, so, how do you make it work anyways XD I'm not American nor do I live anywhere near you, but you might be able to get some recommendations for HVAC designers + installers from the manufacturers or local supply houses. Especially the former will be over the moon to tell you about people who can sell you a system. Also, the Home Performance YouTube channel (briefly: an HVAC consultant (not an engineer) discusses this stuff and also avoiding mold, improving air quality, etc.) has a voluntary list of contractors which might be a decent starting point.
Closing thoughts:
- You reeeeaaaally do not want a mold problem. Your HVAC installer should be insured and offer a long warranty, so if those people are rejecting a furnace retrofit in favour of mini splits, it might be worth digging into their arguments against the former since they're likely attempting to be risk averse (and avoid a potential lawsuit). Everybody loves money, so if you're offering a blank cheque and they're still turning down the central ducted solution, that should be a red flag. Understanding what's giving them pause indicates what you might want to have fixed anyways.
- You can almost certainly find someone to slam a heat pump in, but it's mostly a question of whether it'll work well for your particular situation. Without asking a billion questions, it's hard to say for certain.
- Good luck, this is probably gonna be really expensive 😅
(edit) FYI I'm not an HVAC professional, but I'm building a house and am cutting every corner imaginable, which to do safely requires thoroughly understanding what is below the corner before lopping it off. I'm likely going with a split system (shocker, I know) due to my low loads and tightly built home, so I can only start to comment on potential issues with a central air system.
-
Comment on How I feel about LLM (AI) writing in ~tech
kacey (edited )Link ParentI don't think this is done unilaterally, ime 😅 when I (rarely) share an article, I include excerpts so because skybrian does it, as I'd found it useful. But it's just a cultural thing, and tonnes...[...] have the submitter share excerpts and comments about the article to frame the discussion. [...]
I don't think this is done unilaterally, ime 😅 when I (rarely) share an article, I include excerpts so because skybrian does it, as I'd found it useful. But it's just a cultural thing, and tonnes of articles are posted without excerpts. I agree that it's cool that it's become a cultural thing, though, for the reasons you outline!
-
Comment on ‘It’s shameful’: New York’s elite lash out at Zohran Mamdani’s second-home tax in ~finance
kacey Link ParentI spent a couple seconds on Google searching "difficulty setting up worker cooperative" and it turned up this reddit post, where a tech worker asked about what makes starting a cooperative...The general idea that people just spontaneously produce good outcomes left to themselves is trivially debunked by the lack of worker cooperatives competing in the market.
I spent a couple seconds on Google searching "difficulty setting up worker cooperative" and it turned up this reddit post, where a tech worker asked about what makes starting a cooperative difficult. Response:
It's not that the legal setup is that much harder, the tougher part is finding capital. The traditional startup model is that a small number of wealthy folks contribute the capital and own the large majority of the company, getting full control as well as most of the hoped-for profits.
Worker coops can't sell control (otherwise it wouldn't be a coop anymore), so they need to either get the capital from the worker-owners (tough since most people don't have that kind of money to risk), get people willing to buy non-voting shares (a tough sell for wealthy folks used to control), or take on debt (tough if you don't have assets and a track record).
Not impossible by any means - it's something I'm working on myself - but definitely a challenge!
^ that feels like it refutes the notion of a trivial debunk, at least? But may I ask if you've run into anything else concrete which could constitute a systemic disadvantage against co-ops that can't be traced back to investors wanting to exploit labour? For instance, in papasquat's example, the business owner takes out cheap loans then squeezes employees for profit. In the linked example, private equity cuts out the middleman and refuses to finance business owners that will not crush labourers for cash.
... also I read the rest of your comment, which I'll acknowledge, but not address if that's acceptable. Hopefully you'd agree that it's acceptable to mutually disagree on a topic.
-
Comment on Nobody understands the point of hybrid cars in ~transport
kacey Link ParentAah, gotcha! I mean hypothetically steel wheeled vehicles are more energy efficient in many situations. But my guess has been that it's probably because busses are seen as inferior to trains,...Aah, gotcha! I mean hypothetically steel wheeled vehicles are more energy efficient in many situations. But my guess has been that it's probably because busses are seen as inferior to trains, socially, even if they're near identical in throughput and accessibility (with BRT). People can just develop weird notions sometimes and cling to them.
-
Comment on Nobody understands the point of hybrid cars in ~transport
kacey Link ParentI think there's some objection to the overhead wires being unsightly? Plus, rarely, someone will try to cut the catenary lines down for scrap, but I haven't heard of that happening for years. Re....I think there's some objection to the overhead wires being unsightly? Plus, rarely, someone will try to cut the catenary lines down for scrap, but I haven't heard of that happening for years.
Re. The hybrid battery busses, there are actually some on the way! I believe the next fleet refresh will use them.
-
Comment on Nobody understands the point of hybrid cars in ~transport
kacey (edited )Link ParentJust piping in briefly, but the Vancouver trolleybuses are actual busses -- not a rail in sight! Iirc they're more common in places with steep grades, since they maintain traction much better, and...Just piping in briefly, but the Vancouver trolleybuses are actual busses -- not a rail in sight! Iirc they're more common in places with steep grades, since they maintain traction much better, and as a cyclist it's great not to have to dodge another road hazard (slick rails in the rain) -- the few parts of the city roads with rails in them are death traps during the rainy season.
-
Comment on OpenAI's WebRTC problem in ~comp
kacey LinkI'll try to add more later, but if they hate the audio transport so much, why not push audio buffers over RTCDataChannel? It's how you do arbitrary data transfer with WebRTC. Maybe it gets QoS'd...I'll try to add more later, but if they hate the audio transport so much, why not push audio buffers over RTCDataChannel? It's how you do arbitrary data transfer with WebRTC. Maybe it gets QoS'd badly by ISPs ...?
Also I don't follow how Discord implements a bunch of extra protocols for their web clients ... I guess they're saying that they wrote their own WebRTC server, and instead of putting in placeholders for the features they didn't like, they implemented a full stack ...?
(the author probably can't say much due to NDAs, so some imprecision is likely understandable)
-
Comment on Woman covertly filmed for 'humiliating' social media content - then told to pay for removal in ~tech
kacey Link ParentSorry, I don't feel qualified to comment on much in this thought. Hopefully someone more level headed and competent will come around 😅 this stood out, though: I'm curious what technology you're...Sorry, I don't feel qualified to comment on much in this thought. Hopefully someone more level headed and competent will come around 😅 this stood out, though:
We have the technology for social media companies to identify and remove comments that say degrading things about people featured in a video like this.
I'm curious what technology you're thinking of? Women are degraded and dehumanized in such a myriad of ways I'd be stunned if even an LLM could keep up without completely shutting down 99% of your average social media interaction.
"Amusingly", in casual research for this topic, I ran into the Wikipedia category page for pejorative terms for women, which is ~80% longer than the equivalent for men (and the latter seems to include many terms I take to be gender-neutral, so the actual ratio is likely much larger, but ymmv). Really feels like one would be fighting an uphill battle by attacking this problem at the leaves, so to speak.
-
Comment on Why I find woke criticism of veganism and effective altruism so outrageous in ~society
kacey Link ParentFair enough! As noted, I'm completely unaware of the author's other works, so all I have to go off of are his linked words. Typically I'd assume that a professional (?) writer would make clear...The lack of the word "all" prior to using the term? There are obviously vegan and EA leftists that Matthew Adelstein (the author) is aware of, is friends with, and has co-written with. Maybe I'm biased from knowing the author in question, but he never said anywhere that this criticism is exclusively from leftists and constitutes what all leftists say. Obviously the biggest opponents of vegan causes are conservatives, but they are less hypocritical in their responses, as they are mask-off ghouls on all of their positions.
Fair enough! As noted, I'm completely unaware of the author's other works, so all I have to go off of are his linked words. Typically I'd assume that a professional (?) writer would make clear that distinction, but I guess it's super implicit to everyone else.
Are you a vegan?
If you put a gun to my head, yep! I don't like to associate in groups, but since you're asking me a direct question, I lean further into that one that out of it. I repeatedly fail -- especially when my favourite restaurant slips ham into their tofu sandwiches (>:|) -- but I do all the vegan things (avoid meat and animal byproducts, leather, etc.). This is transgressive, but I extend forgiveness to myself (and others!) when I screw up or have to pause for a moment due to health issues (it's effectively impossible in my area to get cost effective, prepared, vegan meals, so it's oatmeal for every meal otherwise). That also goes for any prepared food with sugar as a listed ingredient, since it'll often use bone char, and eliminating everything that has not been marked with the big 'ol V is outside of my budget. Then there's veganic farming, which is not even in the same postal code as my budget!
Feel free to call me whatever you'd like, however! I've almost certainly been called worse.
The charitable reading of your comment is that Adelstein is moving from "anti-vegan leftists are wrong about veganism" to "anti-EA leftists are wrong about EA" which I wouldn't find as objectionable as the original claim.
Thank you for reading my comment charitably; I hope that we are both doing the same! I was being hyperbolic to make a point, as I felt that Mr. Bulldog (Adelstein?) was equally exaggerating his points for effect. I do not think you dense, fwiw, I just expect that I'm making unexpected arguments -- coated in a crunchy layer of sarcasm, which never helps with comprehension -- and that's likely hindering our ability to communicate.
First, we can care about more than one thing at a time, and if you care about donating to charity at all, it seems good to care about your contributions being effective and high-impact.
[...]
Like a Marxist revolutionary party or something? Are we not allowed to participate in charitable giving unless it is to The Correct Leftist Revolutionary Movement™ (which is, incidentally, incompatible with all other leftist revolutionary projects). I don't think we have a good reason to think there's a project like this that just a little bit of funding away from transforming the lives of the global south, the working class, and factory farmed animals, such that in expectation it does the most good to donate to them.I dunno! I'm neither rich enough to be an Effective Altruist, nor a marxist, or a leftist! I'm just sitting on the sidelines musing about how a movement that promotes "using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible" -- as depicted in this article, I am really not into this subculture, so maybe you can dig up some alternate views -- apparently doesn't expend effort dismantling the institutions which gave them inequal power and influence to start with. It's terribly fascinating. The implicit conclusion seems to be that the Effective Altruists' perspectives' are superior, since the alternative would be giving the power of self-direction (i.e. shitloads of money) to the rest of us, which per their stated philosophy must mean that doing so is a globally inferior alternative than deciding for them?
But yeah these are just the musings of a spectator; as an individual without a large stake in this, I'm mostly going to be swept by the wayside anyhow, so I'm just enjoying the show.
-
Comment on Why I find woke criticism of veganism and effective altruism so outrageous in ~society
kacey Link ParentCould you quote a part of the article which indicates that it's aimed at only "leftists who provide awful critiques of veganism and effective altruism"? From my read, the author very clearly...So to address this, many leftists are effective altruists. The critique is aimed at leftists who provide awful critiques of veganism and effective altruism. This is a subset of leftists. And even non-EA leftist vegans constantly criticize leftists who are okay with paying for factory farmed animals, look at any leftist vegan online space.
Could you quote a part of the article which indicates that it's aimed at only "leftists who provide awful critiques of veganism and effective altruism"? From my read, the author very clearly delineates between "leftists" and "Effective Altruists", and never states that there's an overlap. Maybe their other works are more precise in their wording, but I'm unfamiliar with the authorship of Mr. Bulldog?
I've seen this take constantly, primarily from white liberals, defending their financial support of factory farming. Also the article linked an example of someone making this exact argument...
Eight billion people. Because this is the Internet, I can find you a person who genuinely believes with their whole heart that the Earth is sealed under a clear dome and flies through space as our little blue disc. I'll be more specific: in the thousands of people I run into IRL -- sometimes in spaces populated very heavily by people in vegan/animal rights circles -- I have never met a single soul who pushed the rhetoric that Mr. Bulldog dug up.
Can you link literally anything from the article you just read that could even possibly imply this?
I ... literally did. That's why we're discussing the first paragraph, which creates a false equivalence between the "leftists against veganism" argument and the "leftists against effective altruism" argument. I suppose to quote it again:
(emphasis mine)
A common talking point from leftists whenever veganism comes up is that veganism is white and privileged. These leftists see nothing wrong with eating the flesh of tortured innocent animals who didn’t want to die. What they find really objectionable is if you suggest that people should stop eating animals in a way that sets off their privilege alarm (a highly delicate instrument, never too far from going off). Similarly, the woke love to snipe at effective altruism as being white, privileged, neglecting colonialism, or whatever else the complaint of the month is.
The author creates a false narrative about leftists and veganism, somehow, and then links it to their argumentation against effective altruism. Which as I noted in my lead comment, is completely different to my primary argument against it: if you're so fabulously wealthy that you can donate large sums of money to vanity charity projects, the system is broken and you are behaving inherently undemocraticly. Hey, it can be effective, idc, but it seems that the truly most effective altruism would be donating towards groups that are attempting to end the systems which make it effective to start with.
I'm not even sure there's anything to say about this one...
Hey what the heck, I'll quote the article at you:
(emphasis mine)
And their critics, from within the comfort of their Marxist reading groups, talk endlessly and achieve nothing. Yet they have the nerve to lecture us about our behavior. What have the EA critics achieved that can hold a candle to the good that EAs do routinely? What has all this highfalutin theory achieved?
And to be clear, and break down my jokey tone a bit:
- "they're all poor" -> if they were rich, they could be effective altruists; alas the common folks must descend into marxism
- "marxists" -> literally in the text
- "elitists" -> if 'highfalutin theory' isn't anything less than a sideways glance at anti-elitism rhetoric, I don't know what to believe.
Sounds good! I was very worried when I said anything, so I'm going to stop saying anything now. This never had anything to do with other peoples' words or content; I was going to read through a few hundred articles, train up a classifier, and add tags myself.
I totally get that this is a hot button issue, and I'm very sorry to have said anything. Once again, I've made a mental note to never touch upon this subject again. Sincere apologies to everyone who saw my post and was concerned: I was attempting to contribute something potentially helpful, and was floating the concern first because I wanted to know before trying anything. Now I do! So at least I can take this one off the to-do list.