MimicSquid's recent activity

  1. Comment on A strong El Niño may be coming. Global Warming is changing its effects. in ~enviro

    MimicSquid
    Link
    I liked the graphics, and it's a decent global overview, but it's basically saying "Here's how it was. It could change, we don't know." over and over again.

    I liked the graphics, and it's a decent global overview, but it's basically saying "Here's how it was. It could change, we don't know." over and over again.

    5 votes

  2. Comment on Red Hot Chili Peppers sell music catalogue for $300m in ~music

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Perhaps they're at a point in their lives where a flat payout will matter more than managing the catalog for the long term and the extra profit that may or may not accrue from that? At some point...

    Perhaps they're at a point in their lives where a flat payout will matter more than managing the catalog for the long term and the extra profit that may or may not accrue from that? At some point their fans will age out, and then what value is their music?

    3 votes

  3. Comment on What radicalized you? in ~talk

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    The way I talk about it is by talking about incentives regarding covering a story. How many people would, unprompted, talk about something that they did that was evil or embarrassing? Not very...

    The way I talk about it is by talking about incentives regarding covering a story. How many people would, unprompted, talk about something that they did that was evil or embarrassing? Not very many, if they were smart. They'd want that kept quiet. How many people would say those kinds of things about their boss in public? Again, basically none. So what if everyone we trust to find all of the evil or embarrassing things in society work for a single guy or a small group of powerful people? Would they publicly report on these evil or embarrassing things, knowing they'll lose their job, or will they fill the airtime with other things that seem/are important but won't get them fired? When hiring and firing most of the world's reporters is controlled by a small group, you'll only ever hear the things those guys wouldn't fire someone for reporting.

  4. Comment on Tildes Survey #3: What country were you born in? (Results) in ~talk

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    All things being equal, I think "Ireland" is a freedom word people worked hard for.

    All things being equal, I think "Ireland" is a freedom word people worked hard for.

    1 vote

  5. Comment on Why I find woke criticism of veganism and effective altruism so outrageous in ~society

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    (This is a tangent about Charity Navigator.) Having worked with nonprofits who cared deeply about their score, I find that Charity Navigator is a great tool, but its usefulness really depends on...

    (This is a tangent about Charity Navigator.)

    Having worked with nonprofits who cared deeply about their score, I find that Charity Navigator is a great tool, but its usefulness really depends on whether nonprofits fit the specific model that they're expecting. One spent almost all of its money on programs that involved a lot of easily categorized external labor and costs, and it had a great Charity Navigator score because CN cares about admin vs. program costs. A second was primarily an advocacy group for a given demographic's interests, and so had a very large communications department relative to its size. It meant that they could easily have a press release out to all of the local news outlets within hours of any event that was relevant to their interests, could provide soundbites and interviews to reporters, had staff to table at events, talked regularly to all of the local politicians, etc, etc. But it wasn't labeled as "program" work, because it wasn't about a particular program, it was just everything about how their organization operated and handled by internal staff. And their CN score was poor because they hadn't consistently done their accounting in a way that CN wanted to see it.

    Was the one with a better score a better place to donate because their score was 20 points higher? It depends on your priorities, sure, but I wouldn't say that they were significantly more effective for having a higher score, they were just easier to measure and fit more easily into Charity Navigator's heuristic.

    And beyond that, the efficacy of an organization that doesn't serve your interests is kind of irrelevant. If you love dogs and are indifferent to people getting malaria, a local pet shelter can be the choice that's right for you. Charity benefits from thoughtfulness.

    4 votes

  6. Comment on Dutch YouTube creators behind Alberta (Canada) separatist videos getting millions of views in ~society

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    You know? Fair enough. It's worrisome either way, and governments are at least theoretically responsible to their citizenry.

    You know? Fair enough. It's worrisome either way, and governments are at least theoretically responsible to their citizenry.

    3 votes

  7. Comment on ‘Hocus Pocus 3’ in works with Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy back in ~movies

    MimicSquid
    Link
    Eeehhh. In mu opinion Hocus Pocus 2 was one of the weaker sequels pandering to people who were kids in the 90s. It didn't have anything new to say, and was just trying to hit the notable bits of...

    Eeehhh. In mu opinion Hocus Pocus 2 was one of the weaker sequels pandering to people who were kids in the 90s. It didn't have anything new to say, and was just trying to hit the notable bits of the first movie a second time. I really don't know why I would bother seeing a third one when it really just looks like they're trying to take another bite of the same nostalgia apple.

    9 votes

  8. Comment on Dutch YouTube creators behind Alberta (Canada) separatist videos getting millions of views in ~society

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Given how irresponsible Google is when considering flagrantly incorrect DMCA claims, I would worry that would just be a way for every government to censor anything they disapproved of.

    Given how irresponsible Google is when considering flagrantly incorrect DMCA claims, I would worry that would just be a way for every government to censor anything they disapproved of.

    4 votes

  9. Comment on What's your dream job? in ~life

    MimicSquid
    Link
    I'd like to be a trust fund administrator with a very relaxed remit; making sure that all the wealth of the richest people in the world was put to good use building infrastructure and other public...

    I'd like to be a trust fund administrator with a very relaxed remit; making sure that all the wealth of the richest people in the world was put to good use building infrastructure and other public goods that provide immense benefit to society. I'd slap billionaire's names on a thousand hospitals and a hundred thousand public libraries if it meant they were left with basically nothing but a modest stipend and the public appreciation for having done the right thing.

    4 votes

  10. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Almost all of the gameplay will be match 3, so if it's not your thing it'll be hard to push through to the novel bits.

    Almost all of the gameplay will be match 3, so if it's not your thing it'll be hard to push through to the novel bits.

  11. Comment on Gothenburg promised to optimise school admissions with a piece of code. The resulting chaos showed how unaccountable systems are ruining lives. in ~tech

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    The problem is the scale and the speed with which the error propagated. If an administrator mismeasured the distance from a school to assign students to it, they'd still have time when assigning...

    The problem is the scale and the speed with which the error propagated. If an administrator mismeasured the distance from a school to assign students to it, they'd still have time when assigning students to the other schools to see and correct their errors. With a distance function error, unless the output is examined in detail to assess the real world consequences then the error is never actually assessed. People put data in and got answers out, but never thought about the middle. And then once they'd neglected to think about the consequences of their actions, they would rather fight a lawsuit than ever admit they'd made an error.

    10 votes

  12. Comment on Reddit reports 69% jump in revenue, topping analyst estimates in ~tech

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Because they can collect so much more data about people through the app, and thus profit more per user.

    Because they can collect so much more data about people through the app, and thus profit more per user.

    15 votes

  13. Comment on San Diego now has so much water that it's selling it in ~enviro

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    I used to think that people would do the thing that leads to broad conservation because it made sense, but these days I think that keeping individual water conservation a topic of discussion...

    I used to think that people would do the thing that leads to broad conservation because it made sense, but these days I think that keeping individual water conservation a topic of discussion matters because when individuals feel like they've got to conserve it makes them more willing to force conservation on industry. "I have to, so you have to, too." is a shitty basis for taking care of our resources, but it seems more effective than just talking about efficiency when it comes to building political will.

    4 votes

  14. Comment on San Diego now has so much water that it's selling it in ~enviro

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Right? Much like new people are always coming online and get to learn what fun little things there are on the internet, public health/welfare communication must be never ending because people...

    Right? Much like new people are always coming online and get to learn what fun little things there are on the internet, public health/welfare communication must be never ending because people forget, new people are born, etc. The only messages that persist are the ones that keep being said.

    5 votes

  15. Comment on San Diego now has so much water that it's selling it in ~enviro

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    The seriousness with which the population as a whole treats water conservation is the political will to enforce water efficiency on industries. And that seriousness comes from concerted effort to...

    The seriousness with which the population as a whole treats water conservation is the political will to enforce water efficiency on industries. And that seriousness comes from concerted effort to make people think about where their water comes from.

    16 votes

  16. Comment on Jet Lag Season 17: Taiwan Rail Rush | Trailer in ~hobbies

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Ep 6 - Taiwan Rail Rush That wasn't the only deciding factor. Where the challenges were drawn is random, and so it turned out that more stuff spawned to the north, but it wasn't an automatic win....
    Ep 6 - Taiwan Rail Rush That wasn't the only deciding factor. Where the challenges were drawn is random, and so it turned out that more stuff spawned to the north, but it wasn't an automatic win. If the challenges had gone down slightly differently at any point in the past, Episode Six would have looked very different. It's not (at least in this case) a failure of game design, I don't think. Just bad luck and a misplay.
    4 votes

  17. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    I found progression to speed up a lot in Vampire Crawlers when I started considering the choice of taking a gem or cashing out for 200g a lot more closely. Sometimes getting to the end is...

    I found progression to speed up a lot in Vampire Crawlers when I started considering the choice of taking a gem or cashing out for 200g a lot more closely. Sometimes getting to the end is valuable, but sometimes getting several hundred gold to put into durable upgrades is the better choice.

    2 votes

  18. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    I strongly recommend it for anyone who's looking for something different. It truly is.

    I strongly recommend it for anyone who's looking for something different. It truly is.

    3 votes

  19. Comment on The powerhouse of American citrus is suffering a brutal, unrelenting decline in ~food

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    You've heard of the Irish Potato Famine? That killed a few hundred thousand people because they were entirely dependent on a single crop that was vulnerable. There's nothing in particular that...

    You've heard of the Irish Potato Famine? That killed a few hundred thousand people because they were entirely dependent on a single crop that was vulnerable. There's nothing in particular that stops this from happening to some other crop, and only the variety of crops available minimizes the impact to the global food supply these days. It could still ruin a region, though.

    4 votes

  20. Comment on “Dungeon Crawler Carl” now available to libraries exclusively on Libby in ~books

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Honestly, I'd respect them more for going 70's B-movie quality practical effects than bad CGI. It would feel more true to the incredible intersection of gonzo science fiction and deep humanity...

    Honestly, I'd respect them more for going 70's B-movie quality practical effects than bad CGI. It would feel more true to the incredible intersection of gonzo science fiction and deep humanity that DCC has going on. Something about the visual quality of Red Dwarf would be perfect.

    9 votes