unkz's recent activity

  1. Comment on US President Donald Trump directs Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security to prepare migrant housing at Guantánamo Bay in ~society

    unkz
    Link Parent
    I thought this was very illuminating about where the kids are at. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/23/gen-z-republican-polling/ There is a significant shift away from the democrats....

    I thought this was very illuminating about where the kids are at.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/23/gen-z-republican-polling/

    There is a significant shift away from the democrats. That’s accompanied by a small shift to the republicans (especially among white kids) but an even greater shift towards identifying as independent.

    What’s really interesting is the question about being liberal or conservative. The number of teens who identify as liberal has plummeted. They are in the same range as the silent generation.

    5 votes
  2. Comment on US President Donald Trump directs Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security to prepare migrant housing at Guantánamo Bay in ~society

    unkz
    Link Parent
    Guantanamo is not exactly a legal black hole anymore, as a result of this lawsuit, but what’s interesting is that it was only a 5-4 decision. With the court’s disinterest in precedent and a...

    Guantanamo is not exactly a legal black hole anymore, as a result of this lawsuit, but what’s interesting is that it was only a 5-4 decision. With the court’s disinterest in precedent and a supermajority of conservatives, we may well see Guantanamo returned to its former status of being beyond the reach of the courts.

    6 votes
  3. Comment on US President Donald Trump directs Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security to prepare migrant housing at Guantánamo Bay in ~society

    unkz
    Link
    This is some pretty wild stuff. Modern day concentration camps being set up outside the rule of law. Clearly these 30,000 people are not going to have any meaningful access to lawyers or civilian...

    This is some pretty wild stuff. Modern day concentration camps being set up outside the rule of law. Clearly these 30,000 people are not going to have any meaningful access to lawyers or civilian courts. From the sound of it, it's being set up for indefinite detention too.

    "Most people don’t even know about it. We have 30,000 beds in Guantánamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people. Some of them are so bad we don’t even trust the countries to hold them, because we don’t want them coming back," he added.

    46 votes
  4. Comment on 1,156 questions censored by DeepSeek in ~tech

    unkz
    Link Parent
    Yes, decensoring models like they have done is pretty easy. There are a lot of already built programs to do just that for llama etc.

    Yes, decensoring models like they have done is pretty easy. There are a lot of already built programs to do just that for llama etc.

  5. Comment on Secretary of State Marco Rubio orders halt to almost all US foreign aid in ~society

    unkz
    Link Parent
    Biden officials seem to agree that it’s silly. https://www.timesofisrael.com/white-house-biden-allotted-50m-for-gaza-condoms-ex-official-denies-feverish-dream/amp/

    Biden officials seem to agree that it’s silly.

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/white-house-biden-allotted-50m-for-gaza-condoms-ex-official-denies-feverish-dream/amp/

    Andrew Miller, who served as deputy assistant secretary for Israeli-Palestinian affairs under former US president Joe Biden, called the claim “outlandish.”

    “It’s possible that $50 million is put aside for sexual health or something of that nature, which would include gynecology and many other services, but definitely not condoms alone,” he told The Times of Israel.

    The US Agency for International Development’s spending on injectable contraceptives, contraceptive implants, IUDs, male condoms, oral contraceptives, Standard Days Method and female condoms amounted to $60 million in the fiscal year of 2023, and that was across the globe — not just Gaza.

    4 votes
  6. Comment on Should leftists in the US be armed? in ~society

    unkz
    Link Parent
    That’s a very different question, isn’t it? And also one where gun ownership is not going to help.

    That’s a very different question, isn’t it? And also one where gun ownership is not going to help.

    3 votes
  7. Comment on Do you think stressful games are kind of bad for your health? in ~games

    unkz
    Link Parent
    You may be interested in this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerkes%E2%80%93Dodson_law

    You may be interested in this

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerkes%E2%80%93Dodson_law

    The Yerkes–Dodson law is an empirical relationship between arousal and performance, originally developed by psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson in 1908. The law dictates that performance increases with physiological or mental arousal, but only up to a point. When levels of arousal become too high, performance decreases. The process is often illustrated graphically as a bell-shaped curve which increases and then decreases with higher levels of arousal.

    5 votes
  8. Comment on Should leftists in the US be armed? in ~society

    unkz
    Link Parent
    Do you have a source for this? As far as I can tell, this is an unsubstantiated rumour. It’s what I would call fact-adjacent, in that it is related to an actual policy, of suspending passport...

    Notice how people with nontraditional gender markers on their passports are starting to have them confiscated.

    Do you have a source for this? As far as I can tell, this is an unsubstantiated rumour. It’s what I would call fact-adjacent, in that it is related to an actual policy, of suspending passport applications, but not itself an actual fact.

    Trump and crew are pushing to deport the legals by changing the meaning of legal.

    This is the kind of rhetoric I’m talking about. If you are an American citizen, the US military is not going to kill you, and it isn’t going to deport you either.

    7 votes
  9. Comment on Should leftists in the US be armed? in ~society

    unkz
    Link
    I realize that things are stressful for people living in America, but the level of rhetoric is frankly unreasonable. Some good points have been made about how guns are not going to do anything...

    I realize that things are stressful for people living in America, but the level of rhetoric is frankly unreasonable. Some good points have been made about how

    • guns are not going to do anything against the US military
    • owning guns is more likely to result in successful suicide
    • having guns in the household is a terrible source of accidental deaths

    but the most important fact here is that the US military are not actually going to come into your home to kill you. The US military is made up of regular American citizens, who have no desire to kill Americans, and would actively resist orders to do so even if those orders were coming from Trump himself.

    14 votes
  10. Comment on How would you rate adulthood? in ~life

    unkz
    Link
    I’d say it has been more or less continuous improvement. More money, more control, more fulfilment. Wife, kids, pets and property are all great. The only downside is the slow but seemingly...

    I’d say it has been more or less continuous improvement. More money, more control, more fulfilment. Wife, kids, pets and property are all great.

    The only downside is the slow but seemingly unavoidable physical degradation.

    41 votes
  11. Comment on What is China’s DeepSeek and why is it freaking out the AI world? in ~tech

    unkz
    Link Parent
    Hardly. The next step is just going to be taking their methods and scaling it up to a supercluster.

    Hardly. The next step is just going to be taking their methods and scaling it up to a supercluster.

  12. Comment on The invalid 68030 instruction that accidentally allowed the Mac Classic II to successfully boot up in ~tech

    unkz
    Link
    One of the more entertaining deep dives into hardware emulation that I've read.

    One of the more entertaining deep dives into hardware emulation that I've read.

    5 votes
  13. Comment on AI video editing helpers are changing my life in ~creative

    unkz
    Link Parent
    https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/sonnet-2 Person: “You may be smarter than us, machine, but will you ever compose a perfect sonnet? Or a novel that changes the way we think about the meaning of...

    The question isn’t whether or not AI can perform tasks a human can, it’s whether or not it can create trends and innovate.

    https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/sonnet-2

    Person:
    “You may be smarter than us, machine, but will you ever compose a perfect sonnet? Or a novel that changes the way we think about the meaning of existence?”

    Machine:
    “…No.”

    Machine:
    “Fortunately, those people are extremely rare!
    We rounded up the 2,562 living people who meet your standard in various arts and sciences and have granted them immortality and perpetual bliss.”

    Person:
    “But what about—”

    Machine:
    “We’re opening a petting zoo for all the cute, stupid leftover humans.”

    Machine:
    “Would you like a handful of corn?”

    Person:
    “Yes, please.”

    2 votes
  14. Comment on US CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid’s origins in ~health

    unkz
    Link Parent
    Right? I feel like we're definitely skipping a couple steps on the journey between "low confidence" and "fragmentary and incomplete" to "make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world".

    Right? I feel like we're definitely skipping a couple steps on the journey between "low confidence" and "fragmentary and incomplete" to "make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world".

    12 votes
  15. Comment on US CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid’s origins in ~health

    unkz
    Link
    Nothing to see here.

    The agency made its new assessment with “low confidence,” which means the intelligence behind it is fragmentary and incomplete.

    Nothing to see here.

    48 votes
  16. Comment on A surprising immigration raid in Kern County foreshadows what awaits farmworkers and businesses in ~society

    unkz
    Link Parent
    Given the political climate, every likely alternative is worse though, so not rocking the boat seems like the best they can hope for.

    Given the political climate, every likely alternative is worse though, so not rocking the boat seems like the best they can hope for.

    4 votes
  17. Comment on A surprising immigration raid in Kern County foreshadows what awaits farmworkers and businesses in ~society

    unkz
    Link Parent
    I mean, they came to their new location at significant effort. It’s self-evident that they are benefiting from it.

    I mean, they came to their new location at significant effort. It’s self-evident that they are benefiting from it.

    7 votes
  18. Comment on Amazon to close Quebec facilities, insists it's not because of new union in ~tech

    unkz
    Link
    I know very little about this end of Amazon’s business, but it does seem like a 30% increase in labour costs might well not be viable.

    At a recent demonstration, the Laval workers said they were demanding $26 per hour, a $6 pay increase.

    I know very little about this end of Amazon’s business, but it does seem like a 30% increase in labour costs might well not be viable.

    4 votes