kbal
@kbal@fedia.io
- Comment on 4 days ago:
You don't have to be rich for that, just stupid.
- Comment on I investigated BBC capture by trans activists. It was worse than I thought 5 days ago:
The "shareToken" in the url suggests you're a subscriber to the Times. Reading that article ought to be enough to make you want to reconsider that decision.
- Comment on Single-sex toilets must exclude transgender people, says EHRC 1 week ago:
What's really needed is a rigorous toilet-user certification regime where people are granted a license to use the appropriate facilities based on their demonstrated ability to pee standing up, to consistently avoid pissing on the toilet seat, and to correctly wash their hands afterwards.
- Comment on Fire and ‘sheer volume’: how Britain’s 6m-vape problem is putting recycling under strain 2 weeks ago:
They banned the ones with sensible tank sizes, which pushed everyone into using to the disposable ones. Everyone who knew anything about it knew that it was a mistake. They do not acknowledge that mistake and are hoping that we've all forgotten.
- Comment on 60% of PC gamers have no plans to build a new PC in the next two years — AI pricing crunch on RAM and other components paralyze enthusiast market 2 weeks ago:
Yeah I guess this RX 6600 I bought for $300 is going to need to last until [checks prices] forever.
- Comment on How is RAM size measured? Why doesn't it match the marketed size? 2 weeks ago:
Maybe it's not counting memory that can't be tested because it's needed for the kernel and device drivers. For example according to its man page
freereports total memory "memory minus a few reserved bits and kernel binary code" and on my desktop here that's about 15.5 out of 16GB. - Comment on Pupils hopeless and crying after 'poorly worded' Higher Maths exam 2 weeks ago:
the language was "totally unrecognisable"
Damn it I read the whole thing. At no point was the problem described precisely, and no examples at all were given.
It's like one of those articles where they're hyping up some scandalous thing that got posted on social media without ever telling the reader exactly what it was. I tend to assume that when they do that it's because the thing was deemed too horrible to directly quote, but maybe they just don't even realise that it's not much of a story unless they tell us what was actually said.
- Comment on 2 weeks ago:
Imagine how malevolent the next generation of AI will be, when it's trained on today's Internet text.
- Comment on What was the last physical retail store game purchase you've made? 3 weeks ago:
When The Witcher 3 came out I had the money and bought it shortly after release at a local shop, because my net connection then was way too slow to download anything measured in gigabytes.
I think it was a set of 3 CDs. I took them home, started installing, and then found out that 3 CDs was nowhere near enough and it wanted to download somewhere in the 10s of gigabytes before I could play. It took about three days.
- Comment on Why aren't non-selfhosed AI models/apps private? 5 weeks ago:
"The cloud" is just somebody else's computer.
- Comment on When did programming become "coding"? 1 month ago:
I think the window for having that debate was some time around 1992.
- Comment on Why do they turn Federation into a dystopia? 3 months ago:
How in the hell is this the same federation of TNG, Voyager and DS9?
Clearly it isn't. Why should it be? It's the far future. Giant prison colony, shock collars, cruelty, punishment with no semblance of a fair trial on screen; clearly the Federation are the bad guys now, or at least adjacent to them. I was prepared to accept that premise. Could be interesting... but no, they immediately shove that concept under the carpet and pretend it doesn't matter because this one person involved feels really bad about it. It was all just another convenient plot device with no meaning, and they moved right on without stopping to think about it. It's utterly lazy writing, the kind where they go with whatever half-baked idea they come up with first whether or not it makes any sense for the characters and story. I say that with confidence because I've seen so much of it before. In this case the character they betrayed was literally Star Trek itself, but they're doing it all the time in smaller ways.
Anyway I'm off to rewatch DS9 instead.
- Comment on RentAHuman.ai - AI Agents Hire Humans for Physical Tasks 3 months ago:
Oh, so that's what they're talking about when they say AI will enslave all humanity. I hope the fractured remains of non-assimilated human societies living on the streets among the security drones and human transport vessels will have enough to eat.
- Comment on EVs Just Outsold Gas Cars In Europe For The First Time 3 months ago:
The typical hybrid is still 100% powered by fossil fuels. The main thing they've done for us is demonstrate the Jevons Paradox.
- Comment on EVs Just Outsold Gas Cars In Europe For The First Time 3 months ago:
There's really no need to recycle this misleading headline forever, they're not in short supply.
- Comment on The recent Star Trek series are often criticized for "not being woke enough", but I've come to feel the envelope they are pushing is much more radical, bolder, and important to our specific time... 3 months ago:
I don't know. It just seems like one plausible explanation for what's been produced. To me it has that feel to it.
- Comment on The recent Star Trek series are often criticized for "not being woke enough", but I've come to feel the envelope they are pushing is much more radical, bolder, and important to our specific time... 3 months ago:
Sure they were subject to all the constraints of commercial prime-time TV, but as that video discusses in some detail with respect to DS9, the writers still had freedom within that corporate framework to tell woke anticolonialist stories beyond the classic sci-fi adventure fare of TOS which itself often explored what was new ground for commercial television at the time. Under some other corporate masters it might've been possible for the new crew to find similar freedom today, if things had worked out differently — and if any of them have the ability to do it and the willingness to try. But Larry Ellison and the forces he's standing in for seem far more alert to the subtleties of it than they used to be. There's bigger money involved now and they're keeping it on a tighter leash.
- Comment on The recent Star Trek series are often criticized for "not being woke enough", but I've come to feel the envelope they are pushing is much more radical, bolder, and important to our specific time... 3 months ago:
For a more serious critique of new Trek that you might find more interesting than the angry tweets you refer to, consider this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB5DroolqFU
- Comment on Universal basic income needed to cushion blow from AI job losses, says UK minister 3 months ago:
Yeah — I was just trying to guess at what prompted your initial reaction. I still don't get it. Now it seems like you're saying approximately the same thing my initial comment did.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 months ago:
Shouldn't the focus be on Windows 12? I thought it was supposed to be released in 2025.
- Comment on Universal basic income needed to cushion blow from AI job losses, says UK minister 3 months ago:
The madness we collectively suffer from with respect to AI comes from vastly exaggerated estimates of its powers, mainly by those who covet the power they think it will give them. That's all my original comment was intending to say.
Those who are credulous enough to shun AI because they fear that it will soon enslave humanity by the sheer force of its magnificently irresistible intellectual superpowers are also around, but although the pervasive criti-hype is exhausting, it's obviously not the cause of our current troubles. If that's what you thought I was talking about, perhaps you are among them?
Anyway I can't believe the mania hasn't burnt itself out yet. Maybe next year.
- Comment on Universal basic income needed to cushion blow from AI job losses, says UK minister 3 months ago:
"AI can't do your job, but an AI salesman can convince your boss to fire you and replace you with a chatbot that can't do your job."
The typical return on investment for spending on AI is zero.
- Comment on Universal basic income needed to cushion blow from AI job losses, says UK minister 3 months ago:
So you're saying that the reason the British Empire conquered the world was that everyone just spontaneously decided that they were so awesome that it made sense to give them all the money and resources, and invite them to run everything?
How is it even possible to be alive in 2026 and not be aware that the rich and powerful have developed a strong tendency to go completely bonkers when the topic of "AI" comes up?
- Comment on Universal basic income needed to cushion blow from AI job losses, says UK minister 3 months ago:
Yes, because humans completely lose their minds when they hear about it. Mostly the ones with lots of money.
- Comment on Universal basic income needed to cushion blow from AI job losses, says UK minister 3 months ago:
The only reason AI is so dangerous is that many humans completely lose their minds when they hear about it.
- Comment on UK rolls out free AI training, but will it save your job? 3 months ago:
The programme is a joint effort between government and major tech firms, including Google, Microsoft and IBM
Oh, it's just a marketing programme for US tech companies?
When I hear "AI training" what comes to mind is the careful diligence it requires of users to detect the hidden biases of current "AI", to understand its subtle limitations as well as the obvious ones, to avoid being deceived by its lies, and to learn from practical experience that nothing it produces should be trusted. But I guess that would take more than 20 minutes of training.
- Comment on ATproto: The Enshittification Killswitch That Enables Resonant Computing 3 months ago:
Still waiting patiently to see whether venture capital eventually turns Bluesky to shit despite all the fancy words, or whether it eventually grows up and starts federating with the rest of us.
- Comment on Pornhub to restrict access for UK users from February 3 months ago:
Their UK traffic was down by only 77%? Should've been 100% to begin with.
I guess it's for the best that they're going after the porn sites first with the "age verification" scam. It's typically easy for their users to go somewhere else, and it gives a lot of people some first-hand experience of how jarringly intrusive and unsafe it is when a web site asks for official ID or biometric data.
- Comment on Europeans set to launch an alternative to X. It’s called W 4 months ago:
Well, it's not perfect but it's better than the way federation works on twitter, or X, Bluesky, or — we can probably assume — on W.
- Comment on ChatGPT is rolling out YouTube-style age prediction 4 months ago:
"Based on your writing style and recent emails we have decided that you are too old to be asking ChatGPT such stupid questions."