Macha's recent activity
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Comment on UK Green Party wins Gorton and Denton by-election, pushing Labour into third place in ~society
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Comment on UK Green Party wins Gorton and Denton by-election, pushing Labour into third place in ~society
Macha LinkThe projections beforehand were pretty much 30/30/30 for Greens/Reform/Labour, but the actual results are Greens: 41 / Reform: 29 / Labour: 26 . A lot of Labour's campaigning was about vote...The projections beforehand were pretty much 30/30/30 for Greens/Reform/Labour, but the actual results are Greens: 41 / Reform: 29 / Labour: 26 . A lot of Labour's campaigning was about vote splitting on the Left letting Reform get by in what would traditionally be a very left wing seat. I think it's interesting just how much the Greens outperformed.
It's also a little embarassing for Starmer personally as he blocked the current Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, running for fear it would put Burnham in a position to challenge Starmer. Likely Burnham would have been a much stronger candidate, both as he has a lot more name recognition and is generally seen as more left wing than the current labour leadership.
It's causing some strife within Labour as Starmer released a statement basically insisting labour is being outflanked by left extremists and needs to push a message of left unity, while the left wing faction in the labour party have been using it to call on labour to be more left wing.
It feels like the combination of the perception that Labour was shutting out their left wing candidate due to internal politics, while also having been more right wing in government meant they lost a bunch of left wing voters in this seat. In the last while they've been mostly focused on attracting right wing Reform voters (who already have plenty of right wing parties to choose from...) so some interesting implications for Labour's future strategy and future election results.
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UK Green Party wins Gorton and Denton by-election, pushing Labour into third place
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Comment on California’s new bill requires Department of Justice-approved 3D printers that report on themselves in ~hobbies
Macha Link ParentMaybe also jurisdiction dependent? Both major hardware stores here only sell electric models. There’s an online builder supplier that sells a PAT model with implies you might be able to get the...Maybe also jurisdiction dependent? Both major hardware stores here only sell electric models. There’s an online builder supplier that sells a PAT model with implies you might be able to get the powder somewhere, but notably they don’t sell any themselves. Seems you might have to go through the same channels as for getting it for guns here.
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Comment on Discord: Getting global age assurance right: what we got wrong and what's changing in ~tech
Macha Link ParentWell I think the pause is because the losses were more than they expected. Maybe with a little embarassment at Persona being breached. That said, they're probably hoping by waiting they can...I cancelled that, of course. clearly whatever data they get from this supersedes the losses from all the subscriptions being dropped.
Well I think the pause is because the losses were more than they expected. Maybe with a little embarassment at Persona being breached.
That said, they're probably hoping by waiting they can eventually have their cake and eat it too.
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Comment on California’s new bill requires Department of Justice-approved 3D printers that report on themselves in ~hobbies
Macha Link ParentCountries which don't have the rest of the gun supply chain legal would make it more difficult surely. I imagine it's a lot harder to 3d print gunpowder or bullets than a single use gun barrel.Countries which don't have the rest of the gun supply chain legal would make it more difficult surely. I imagine it's a lot harder to 3d print gunpowder or bullets than a single use gun barrel.
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Comment on Discord: Getting global age assurance right: what we got wrong and what's changing in ~tech
Macha Link ParentIn the end it boils down to “we’re waiting until we can try convince you to be less mad”. The same concerns still exist, and if their plan in the second half of the same year is to just try the...In the end it boils down to “we’re waiting until we can try convince you to be less mad”. The same concerns still exist, and if their plan in the second half of the same year is to just try the same with more time spent on blog posts, I don’t see why the reaction should be different
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Comment on A rant about how devices handle users with language backgrounds other than English in ~tech
Macha Link ParentToo much software thinking a naive string.split or string.join is sufficient for CSV handling :(Too much software thinking a naive string.split or string.join is sufficient for CSV handling :(
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Comment on Humble Bundle Books: (Almost) the entirety of Discworld for $16 in ~books
Macha (edited )Link ParentIt's a satirical fantasy setting which uses its fantasy world to explore real world issues. It starts off in real swords and sandals territory and over the course of the series undergoes an...- Exemplary
It's a satirical fantasy setting which uses its fantasy world to explore real world issues. It starts off in real swords and sandals territory and over the course of the series undergoes an industrial revolution. Lots of interesting looks at how a fantasy world reacts to that kind of change too.
As for reading order, the community has made this guide:
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/1c/10/d9/1c10d9e1c5800ead1dd17223125f9ecb.jpg
There's basically 7 major subseries:
- The witches: Explores the rural kingdom of Lancre, particularly through the eyes of the witches who, while they are magical, are more sort of folk healers, amateur psychologists and sort of detached oracles who guide society while only partly being in it.
- Death: Explores the adventures of Death, the grim reaper who is curious about humanity and thinks of himself in ways as tending to it.
- The Watch: Explores the police force of Ankh-Morpork as the city becomes increasingly metropolitan. Very often explores themes of integration and inclusion.
- The Wizards: There's two types of stories in here, the more metaphysical which is often ultimately about why magic can't solve everything and then the travel diaries which show off the other cultures of the setting.
- Industrial Revolution: These focus on the impact of technology and modernity in this fantasy world and lots of focus on who try to benefit from the change. Like The Watch, it's largely set in Ankh-Morpork, so it shares a lot of characters with the later Watch books
- Tiffany Aching: This is effectively the YA sequel series to the Witches. The YA designation may put a lot of people off, but it's not dumbed down, the only really YA thing about it is the protagonist being a teenager. Like these are
- The Science of Discworld: This is a sort of half pop science and half novel series where they use the wizards accidentally creating a non-magical world that they can observe to explore various real world physics and also some meta-commentary on how observers view worlds different to their own.
Most of the books are relatively independent for their main plot and message, but characters from earlier in their subseries are going to reappear. I think the only subseries where reading in order is really mandatory are The Watch and Tiffany Aching though, you can read the other subseries out of order if you don't mind some spoilers. The books aren't thrillers or mysteries though, so it's usually not a big deal. The one exception is the first two books (The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic) are a sort of duology.
My suggested starting point is either "Guards, Guards" (the first Watch book) or "Equal Rites" (the first Witches book) which will give you a good taste of if you'll like those subseries and should continue or not.
As for books to skip, honestly most of them are very good. There's a couple of ones that are commonly considered weaker though:
- The first two books (The Colour of Magic / The Light Fantastic) are before Pratchett really found his voice, so they're sort of him trying to be "Douglas Adams, but fantasy". It's enjoyable, but it's not what the series is known for, and is weaker than when the series really finds its feet.
- The Amazing Maurice. While the Tiffany Aching books are "YA" books that are perfectly enjoyable for adults, I think Maurice doesn't quite achieve that so it's more childish.
- The last few books (Unseen Academicals, Raising Steam, The Shepherd's Crown) - by this stage Terry Pratchett was clearly suffering from his Alzheimers and the books do suffer. That said, I will defend Shepherd's Crown for bringing some closure to the story and I guess his editor probably did more to whip that one into shape after he passed.
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Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of February 16 in ~society
Macha Link ParentAh, I guess I normally just don’t see it so earlyAh, I guess I normally just don’t see it so early
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Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of February 16 in ~society
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Comment on Something big is happening in ~tech
Macha Link ParentHere's one plausible way the training sets are already approximately "the entire internet" there's not much more data to feed into these high end models The AI companies are already wildly...there's no plausible way for it to get worse;
Here's one plausible way
- the training sets are already approximately "the entire internet" there's not much more data to feed into these high end models
- The AI companies are already wildly unprofitable, the investors insist they stop doing expensive activities like training new models and instead raise ROI on the current models
- This means raising prices (especially on stuff like the Claude subscriptions) which means the good models are too expensive to use for many tasks
- so a lot of stuff tries squeezing into Haiku/GPT-mini etc., or cheaper to run models which just aren't as good as the bigger models.
And there's your enshittified AI that goes backwards
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Comment on Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month in ~tech
Macha Link ParentIt's not "not being friended by strangers" it's "strangers friend requests go into a other folder" which they will be accustomed to looking in as so will their initial friend requests from their...It's not "not being friended by strangers" it's "strangers friend requests go into a other folder" which they will be accustomed to looking in as so will their initial friend requests from their friends.
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Comment on Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month in ~tech
Macha Link ParentIn 7 years, they might have incrementally moved to just outright asking to know your ID and keep it on file with the way some of these regulations are trending. :(In 7 years, they might have incrementally moved to just outright asking to know your ID and keep it on file with the way some of these regulations are trending. :(
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Comment on Something big is happening in ~tech
Macha Link ParentI'm not a founder of an AI startup, have generally felt that its been a waste of time for a long time, but I think this latest round of models (Claude 4.5 family especially) and Claude Code and...I'm not a founder of an AI startup, have generally felt that its been a waste of time for a long time, but I think this latest round of models (Claude 4.5 family especially) and Claude Code and inspired tools have been kind of the "ok, fine I'll use it in the day job" moment for me.
I'll copy my comment from another site on how I've felt about various tool and model combinations:
ChatGPT 3.5/4 (2023-2024): The chat interface was verbose and clunky and it was just... wrong... like 70+% of the time. Not worth using.
CoPilot autocomplete and Gitlab Duo and Junie (late 2024-early 2025): Wayyy too aggressive at guessing exactly what I wasn't doing and hijacked my tab complete when pre-LLM type-tetris autocomplete was just more reliable.
Copilot Edit/early Cursor (early 2025): Ok, I can sort of see uses here but god is picking the right files all the time such a pain as it really means I need to have figured out what I wanted to do in such detail already that what was even the point? Also the models at that time just quickly descended into incoherency after like three prompts, if it went off track good luck ever correcting it.
Copilot Agent mode / Cursor (late 2025): Ok, great, if the scope is narrowly scoped, and I'm either going to write the tests for it or it's refactoring existing code it could do something. Like something mechanical like the library has a migration where we need to replace the use of methods A/B/C and replace them with a different combination of X/Y/Z. great, it can do that. Or like CRUD controller #341. I mean, sure, if my boss is going to pay for it, but not life changing.
Zed Agent mode / Cursor agent mode / Claude code (early 2026): Finally something where I can like describe the architecture and requirements of a feature, let it code, review that code, give it written instructions on how to clean it up / refactor / missing tests, and iterate.
But that was like 2 years of "really it's better and revolutionary now" before it actually got there. Now maybe in some languages or problem domains, it was useful for people earlier but I can understand people who don't care about "but it works now" when they're hearing it for the sixth time.
And I mean, what one hand gives the other takes away. I have a decent amount of new work dealing with MRs from my coworkers where they just grabbed the requirements from a stakeholder, shoved it into Claude or Cursor and it passed the existing tests and it's shipped without much understanding. When they wrote them themselves, they tested it more and were more prepared to support it in production...
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Comment on Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month in ~tech
Macha (edited )Link ParentI’d expect the opposite honestly - I think that’s more a fig leaf to try reduce negative feedback like when reddit promised to explore custom css on new reddit. Especially given that I expect...I’d expect the opposite honestly - I think that’s more a fig leaf to try reduce negative feedback like when reddit promised to explore custom css on new reddit. Especially given that I expect people who do not choose to share their activity with discord are overrepresented here
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Comment on Looking for a particular kind of computer speaker in ~tech
Macha LinkLogitech Z150? https://www.logitech.com/en-eu/shop/p/z150-compact-stereo-speakers.980-000814 -
Comment on Hair loss open discussion in ~talk
Macha LinkMy father and all but one of his brothers had quite pronounced hair loss by their early 30s so I always assumed it was prey inevitable for me. On that side it’s pretty much just my grandad and...My father and all but one of his brothers had quite pronounced hair loss by their early 30s so I always assumed it was prey inevitable for me. On that side it’s pretty much just my grandad and that one uncle who dodged it. But nearing my mid 30s and no signs yet, while my younger sibling is starting to see the signs (though even for them they’ve outlasted my fathers generation). Maybe I’ve dodged it temporarily, maybe I’ve lucked out and will follow my grandfather.
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Comment on Steam Hardware: Launch timing and other FAQs in ~games
Macha (edited )Link ParentLet's spec out an equivalent machine: CPU: "Zen 4 6C/12T CPU up to 4.8ghz": Ryzen 7500F, $159 GPU: "AMD RDNA3 28CUs with 8GB VRAM": RX 7600, $275 RAM: "16GB DDR5": Patriot 2x8GB kit, $200 Storage:...Let's spec out an equivalent machine:
CPU: "Zen 4 6C/12T CPU up to 4.8ghz": Ryzen 7500F, $159
GPU: "AMD RDNA3 28CUs with 8GB VRAM": RX 7600, $275
RAM: "16GB DDR5": Patriot 2x8GB kit, $200
Storage: "512GB NVMe SSD": This no-name 512GB NVMe SSD, $80So we're at $700 for just the core components.
But of course we're not done yet.
Motherboard: AsRock B650M, $125
PSU: No name 700W PSU, $40
Case: No name mATX case, $60So that's $935 for an equivalent build, minimum. And to be clear, I wouldn't buy that case, PSU or SSD personally and would expect that the Steam Machine's are better than what I got by sorting price lowest to highest on NewEgg
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Comment on Any software engineers considering a career switch due to AI? in ~comp
Macha Link ParentIf you lay people off with a clear signal that "fuck you, were moving all the jobs to India" then you may also lose the people you still want to keep (even temporarily) if they see which way the...If you lay people off with a clear signal that "fuck you, were moving all the jobs to India" then you may also lose the people you still want to keep (even temporarily) if they see which way the wind is blowing. Similarly, if people had been overworking themselves because they feel they would be rewarded for "giving 110%" then that may also discourage that. On the other hand, maybe the execs want to make their employees feel under threat and they have fewer options to make it easier to take unpopular actions like RTO or reduced bonuses. That's all to say that there's a messaging game about how you present layoffs to the remaining employees too.
Judging by your username, I think we might be from the same country.
I think between your party struggling to take off and the greens showing they can beat Labour in their home turf, it’s sort of good if the greens get a boost to being the obvious left wing choice given the FPTP system in the UK.