papasquat's recent activity
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Comment on I miss technology that was meant to be used as a tool in ~tech
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Comment on Nation's largest urban battery is being built in Daly City, California in ~enviro
papasquat Link ParentPumped hydroelectric needs a very specific terrain layout to work. There are very, very few places where its viable. There are entire regions of the country where it's not feasible because of a...Pumped hydroelectric needs a very specific terrain layout to work. There are very, very few places where its viable. There are entire regions of the country where it's not feasible because of a lack of elevation or development patterns or geology.
In contrast, you can put battery storage literally anywhere you have space. You can also continually scale its energy and power capacity over time as demand grows by just adding more units.
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Comment on Used electric vehicles are a bargain right now in ~transport
papasquat Link ParentWell, their power trains don't. They still have regular car stuff, like brakes, suspension, steering, electrical systems and so on.Well, their power trains don't. They still have regular car stuff, like brakes, suspension, steering, electrical systems and so on.
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Comment on Boomer hate in ~society
papasquat Link Parent"Home Ownership" as the path to financial independence is a relatively new concept, and a very minor blip, localized almost entirely within the US, and for a very brief period of 40 years or so...."Home Ownership" as the path to financial independence is a relatively new concept, and a very minor blip, localized almost entirely within the US, and for a very brief period of 40 years or so.
Post WW2 economic dominance is an aberration that's tainted a lot of people's view of what normal is, and how the entire rest of the world lives.
For the vast majority of places on earth, for the vast majority of human history, the idea that it's a norm that people own 1600 sq ft+ homes is absolutely insane. That became the norm in the US for a while because we had more purchasing power than any modern country on earth ever. We maintained that dominance via globalization for the next half century. We're starting to see other places catch up, and that massive head start no longer be so relevant.
I think the next 50 years will require a dramatic reshaping of what the American Dream looks like for most people.
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Comment on Here’s what the world had to say about the AI economy in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentWell, let's break down the list, because it doesn't actually seem that foolish after really thinking about it. Heavily dependant on the social media of course, but in general, I think I probably...Well, let's break down the list, because it doesn't actually seem that foolish after really thinking about it.
social media
Heavily dependant on the social media of course, but in general, I think I probably trust things I read less on social media than just random chance. It's virtually all ragebait and nonsense, so this one makes sense to me.
elected officials
In the US, on a federal level, I think most of us can agree that most elected officials are literally professional con men at this moment in time. I tend to automatically assume whatever a federal official says is the exact opposite of the truth at this point and I'm usually proven correct. State and local vary by municipality, but in my case, it's mostly true for them as well.
community leaders, faith leaders
This one is honestly surprising to me. I'm not religious or involved with community groups, but why would you be involved in those organizations if you didn't trust their leaders? They're voluntary for the most part
and civil servants
Highly dependent on most civil servants. For the most part, they're informed and professional, but I have had experiences where it was clear that they just wanted me to go away, and they were intentionally misleading me to get me lost in the gigantic cogs of bureaucracy. It doesn't happen to me often, because I'm basically what society assumes is a "default human being", a middle aged married straight cis white male with a steady job, no major health issues, and no criminal record. The further you deviate from that "default", the more problems I'd expect you'd have with civil servants.
Even though LLMs are going to hallucinate and affirm your stupid ideas, depending on circumstances, I'd trust its answer more than a lot of the people listed above. Doesn't seem that foolish to me overall.
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Comment on Here’s what the world had to say about the AI economy in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI wonder what people are thinking of when they say AI. I think I'd agree with the statement that AI made daily life better, but I'd be talking about the ML algorithms that make modern search...I wonder what people are thinking of when they say AI. I think I'd agree with the statement that AI made daily life better, but I'd be talking about the ML algorithms that make modern search engines work well, the ability for my smart cameras to detect people instead of random shadows, my car's lane keeping assist functionality, a lot of the ML functions software I use at work uses to detect anomolies and so forth.
LLMs are largely negative, although I do find them useful sometimes. That doesn't really outweigh their content polluting search results though. They still have a pretty minor impact on my life other than supply chain shortages though.
If I take the sum of "AI" as a whole though, yeah, mostly positive.
I think one of the negatives of the term AI has always been its fuzzy definition which constantly changes in colloquial usage. I strongly suspect that people are only thinking about LLMs and diffusion based image generation models when they hear AI.
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Comment on Suggest media in which the antagonist is an idea or an abstract concept rather than a person or intelligent entity in ~talk
papasquat LinkFor All Mankind: An alternate history/sci fi show by Ronald D Moore, famously of Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica pedigree. Imagines what happens if the space race of the 1960s never ended, and...For All Mankind: An alternate history/sci fi show by Ronald D Moore, famously of Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica pedigree. Imagines what happens if the space race of the 1960s never ended, and all that entails. In this world, the Soviet Union never collapses, different countries tip the balance of global power in interesting ways, and intense global investment in space exploration technology pushes the trajectory of tech in different ways.
There isn't really a clear antagonist at all, but one of the major themes of the show is overcoming bureaucracy, bigotry and human ignorance. Much like Star Trek as well, the show is aspirational at times; the world it takes place in hits a lot of social justice milestones a lot sooner than we did in the real world, and has overcome a lot of issues we still struggle with. It's a great series.
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Comment on Getting permission from your significant other in ~life
papasquat Link ParentYeah, I think saying "gotta check with the boss" pretty clearly leans on gender stereotypes and traditional roles, even though it's pretty innocuous. To illustrate that, I've never heard of a...Yeah, I think saying "gotta check with the boss" pretty clearly leans on gender stereotypes and traditional roles, even though it's pretty innocuous.
To illustrate that, I've never heard of a woman saying that about her husband when her friends ask her to do something.
We live in a world of gender roles and sexism, it's impossible for anyone to not absorb some of that even if you're aware of it and make a conscious effort to avoid it.
I don't think it's a big deal overall, although it would be nice to one day live in a world where people don't make assumptions about your personality or relationship dynamic based on your gender.
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Comment on Getting permission from your significant other in ~life
papasquat LinkI wanted to make another comment because this touches on a pet peeve of mine that I really hate. That's using tired gender stereotypes as a sales tactic. Very often, I'll be in situations where...I wanted to make another comment because this touches on a pet peeve of mine that I really hate.
That's using tired gender stereotypes as a sales tactic. Very often, I'll be in situations where I'm likely to be sold to with my wife. That could be walking around home depot, going to a trade expo, going to a really touristy spot on a vacation, and so on.
My wife and I are very similar in that we're both extremely skeptical of people approaching/cold calling/advertising to us about anything, but especially when they're clearly selling something. Both of us would rather just immediately say no, and if we want the thing that is being sold, we come back later after actually weighing our options and deciding if it's a good deal.
One thing that sales people do, and I'm very sure this is intentionally taught at their stupid training retreats, is to try to use my wife against me. They'll say things like "oh, well I understand, your husband doesn't like to spend money, that's rough", or "you know you're supposed to take care of your lady right? Don't you care about making her happy?". They'll try to sell directly to her and cut me out of the conversation if they don't feel they're getting anywhere with me, or they'll try to form an "alliance" with my wife to get her to help them pitch me.
Thankfully, this basically never works, but the entire idea of it is really disgusting to me, and using it will 100% guarantee that I'll go out of my way to never do business with their company again.
It draws on the same old well of tired stereotypes thats behind "wife=bad" humor, or "happy wife happy life" , "gotta ask the boss" and so on. The idea that women are humorless hags with full control of their husband's life and wallet, and that a husbands role is to desperately perform for their wives for the rest of their life to escape being bitched at and nagged.
It's not the kind of relationship dynamic that anyone I know would ever want to be in, and it annoys me when people not only assume that that's the dynamic of my relationship, but try to use that assumption for personal gain.
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Comment on Enjoying reading in the age of LLMs in ~humanities
papasquat Link ParentIt depends on what type of writing you mean. There are certain types of writing that AI already has largely supplanted. Low level copyrighting is completely done by AI now, and the current models...Personally I don't see AI writing supplanting human writing.
It depends on what type of writing you mean. There are certain types of writing that AI already has largely supplanted. Low level copyrighting is completely done by AI now, and the current models are way more capable than they ever needed to be to create that work.
I imagine a lot of technical writing will also be completely taken over by AI as well.
Most summarization, translation, and report writing are in the process of being taken over by AI as well.
If you're talking about writing that people consume for pleasure or enjoyment though, I think some of that may be taken over, but there will always be a market for human written work. The issue is always going to be actually trusting that it really was human written. There's no way to verify that, nor can there ever be, because of the nature of text.
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Comment on Getting permission from your significant other in ~life
papasquat Link ParentI don't think the boss description is apt, because bosses have control of their subordinates, but their subordinates don't have control over them. In a healthy relationship, neither partner wants...I don't think the boss description is apt, because bosses have control of their subordinates, but their subordinates don't have control over them.
In a healthy relationship, neither partner wants to disappoint each other, so they each have some degree of control over one another. That doesn't fit with them being a boss at all.
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Comment on Getting permission from your significant other in ~life
papasquat LinkI think it likely is option 2, which is pretty sad. I'm married, but if I got a sense that I needed permission to do things, I don't think I'd be married for much longer. When someone asks me if I...I think it likely is option 2, which is pretty sad.
I'm married, but if I got a sense that I needed permission to do things, I don't think I'd be married for much longer.
When someone asks me if I can do something that's going to take a while, I don't ask permission, but I do talk to my wife to see if we have anything planned. If she says yes, I will tell them no 99% of the time, because keeping plans with my wife is more important to me than whatever the other thing is. If the thing we have planned is something we're both kinda meh about, and the alternative is great, I'll tell her that I'm going to do the other thing.
I'm an adult, I don't need anyone's permission to do whatever I want.
Part of being an adult is accepting that you have responsibilities though. One of those responsibilities is caring about your spouses feelings, and if I just randomly decided to do things that impact plans we've already made, I wouldn't be living up to that responsibility.
The only issue I ever have with my wife on this front is that sometimes, she will make plans up in her head and not tell me until right beforehand, or have some sort of an expectation that we will do something on a certain day but never let me know that, so if I do something, even after I tell her about it, it disappoints her.
I've had conversations with her about it, and it's just her personality. She's a lot more passive and less willing to actually ask for what she wants than I am, so I have to be careful to not just trample all over her ideas. She's gotten better about actually communicating her future plans with me as well.
It could be that a lot of people are in a similar boat and just use the "permission" thing as shorthand for that.
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Comment on Artemis II April 1 launch in ~space
papasquat Link ParentWell to be fair, when you look up from Earth's surface all you see is empty space forever in all directions too. The view from the far side of the moon would sorta be more similar to a view from...Well to be fair, when you look up from Earth's surface all you see is empty space forever in all directions too. The view from the far side of the moon would sorta be more similar to a view from Earth than the view from the near side would be.
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Comment on How to turn anything into a router in ~comp
papasquat LinkI've gotta say, it's cool to know how to do all of this stuff manually, but for most people, this would be completely impractical. It's the whole reason why firewall/router distributions like...I've gotta say, it's cool to know how to do all of this stuff manually, but for most people, this would be completely impractical. It's the whole reason why firewall/router distributions like pfsense exist.
You can install an ISO, and have all of these features instantly available with a great cli configuration system and web GUI to manage it.
There's no well in hell I'd ever manually install and configure each individual component of a router/firewall myself. It doesn't seem practical just about anywhere.
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Comment on "CEO said a thing!" journalism in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentSure, but this is sort of a "broken clock is right twice a day" situation. Most of the things Musk and Trump say will happen, do not happen. The fact that every so often, what they say will happen...Sure, but this is sort of a "broken clock is right twice a day" situation. Most of the things Musk and Trump say will happen, do not happen. The fact that every so often, what they say will happen does happen doesn't suddenly mean everything they say is news.
Given their track record, we'd be better off regularly reporting on the result of a coin flip.
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Comment on Haliey Welch interview (Hawk Tuah) by Channel 5 in ~life
papasquat Link ParentI had a similar opinion a while ago, because I used to really like all gas no brakes. I looked into it further because I didn't really want to feel so conflicted about him. My conclusion was that...I had a similar opinion a while ago, because I used to really like all gas no brakes. I looked into it further because I didn't really want to feel so conflicted about him. My conclusion was that it looks really bad for him, and he almost certainly raped at least one woman, and had a long pattern of behavior that really rode the line of consent. I don't have time to dig it all back up right now but if I remember, I'll edit this comment.
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Comment on "CEO said a thing!" journalism in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentIt's not really news. It's advertising. "CEO said a thing" is not something that actually happened, or will actually happen. It's press, released by the company. No different than the article...It's not really news. It's advertising. "CEO said a thing" is not something that actually happened, or will actually happen. It's press, released by the company. No different than the article "Breaking: Coca-Cola is refreshing on a hot day, according to The Coca-Cola Company".
If you want to make it news, you need to do some actual analysis of what the statement likely means.
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Comment on Air Canada CEO will retire this year after his English-only crash message was criticized in ~transport
papasquat Link ParentThis is kinda crazy to me, but I admittedly don't have the cultural background, since I'm American. For most of our far saner history than the current administration, the US had no official...This is kinda crazy to me, but I admittedly don't have the cultural background, since I'm American.
For most of our far saner history than the current administration, the US had no official language, but we're a defacto bilingual nation as well; 19% of Americans speak spanish (not too far off from the proportion of Canadian French speakers, and way more in absolute terms). The idea of the CEO of a company being fired for not speaking Spanish is so wild of an idea to me.
I guess that may have something to do with the fact that Spanish language use in the US is growing, not shrinking, and maybe some racism thrown in.
I'm curious, do you think it would be a similar situation if it was the inverse? That is, if there were a CEO that only spoke French, would people ask for his resignation?
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Comment on Haliey Welch interview (Hawk Tuah) by Channel 5 in ~life
papasquat Link ParentHonestly, I never had anything against Hailey Welch. I think she's totally fine as a person, and her crypto scam very obviously seems like something she signed up to do without fully understanding...Honestly, I never had anything against Hailey Welch. I think she's totally fine as a person, and her crypto scam very obviously seems like something she signed up to do without fully understanding the implications. She's about a thousand times better than many of the other influencers that are more successful than her who continually and intentionally use their audience as flocks of sheep to be harvested.
I didn't, and probably won't watch the interview because I can't really do Andrew Callahaghan anymore, but it feels really weird for him to do sit down, critical interviews with controversial figures. Usually someone who does that sort of thing has to have a positive or at least neutral moral standing to pull it off well, since you're effectively casting judgement on someone for something they did wrong.
The whole thing doesn't really work for me because yeah, Hailey did scam a lot of people out of their money on behalf of some people who scammed her too, but like... Andrew's a rapist.
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Comment on Scientists uncovered the nutrients bees were missing -- colonies surged fifteen-fold in ~science
papasquat Link ParentCurious as to why you think it's related to the economic system. Like, if we lived in a socialist country, people would continue to need to grow crops, and the most efficient least labor intensive...Curious as to why you think it's related to the economic system.
Like, if we lived in a socialist country, people would continue to need to grow crops, and the most efficient least labor intensive way to pollinate them would still be to do that beehive shuffle.
Its done that way right now because it's more profitable, but that's just a translation for "least labor intensive" in a market economy.
How would a different system of governance/economy change that?
There's a difference between "should" and "can realistically expect". Like, okay, you care about the options the software and hardware you use give you, most people don't though.
Do you also care enough about where your food supply chain comes from? Do you spend hours researching and visiting farms where the stuff from your grocery store is grown/harvested? Because some people do that too. Most don't, but some do.
Do you care about how your power is being generated, or do you just flip a switch and expect it to be on? There are people who research their local power plants and utility energy mix and lobby to get it changed.
Do you care about how police enforce laws in your city? Do you map out crime statistics, and review recent cases and abuse complaints by pulling public records requests? There are people that do that too.
Same for healthcare, or fire rescue, or water supplies, or... I don't know, elevator safety. There are literally hundreds of thousands of little aspects of modern life that a handful of people care extremely deeply about and spend a lot of time being concerned with. Some of them are inheritely dangerous and kill people regularly if they're not being taken care of adequately.
I personally don't do any of this, because while i recognize they're important, I don't have the time, energy, expertise, or interest to devote the significant amount of my life it would take to be overly concerned with even one of them.
No one has the time, energy, or interest to focus on all of them, so the idea that everyone should focus on software configurability is absolutely arbitrary. There are thousands of things that you, in theory, should focus on deeply, but the standard of living we currently enjoy would be impossible if we were all generalists.