TranquilTurbulence
@TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip
- Comment on What are some FOSS programs that are objectively better than their proprietary counterparts? 5 hours ago:
Depends on your criteria. For slightly more demanding calculations, Calc just can’t handle it like Excel does. Then again, using spreadsheets for demanding calculations is just asking for trouble.
- Comment on If trump shaved his head and didn't wear any makeup do you think you would recognize him? 1 day ago:
That’s not as problem if Russia grants him asylum. Worked just fine for Bashar Al-Assad.
- Comment on Am I going crazy, or has people's spelling gotten awful lately? 3 days ago:
What? I didn’t know this was rare. This thing is brilliant. Why would it be uncommon.
- Comment on Am I going crazy, or has people's spelling gotten awful lately? 3 days ago:
If you’re talking about my messages, it’s because I swipe too fast and don’t check the message 9 times before posting. All sorts of weird nonsense slips through every day, some of which I edit later.
If you’re talking about how native English speakers spell, you’ll find all sorts of weird mistakes that seem to stem from the fact that English is pure chaos, and navigating this mess is about as easy as programming with a magnetized needle and a hard disk platter. The way I see it, mispronouncing every word in a consistent manner helps me remember how they are written. The trick is to use a consistent spelling system of another language to form an auditory memory of the spelling.
So in my mind, every word comes with three entries: what the word means, how it’s pronounced and how it’s written. Memorizing a combination of letters is hard, but memorizing a funny sound that you can later decrypt back to a sequence of letters is easier. That connection has to be 100% consistent, which is exactly what English can’t offer, but many other languages come pretty close.
If your first language happens to have a fairly consistent spelling system, you can totally use it to memorize how English words are spelled. Native English speakers are obviously completely screwed, and that’s why spelling bees are a thing and why this post exists.
- Comment on What is anti-propaganda? 1 week ago:
That’s a good point. The information would have to be factual and compressive, which is a tall order. You could still miss some details unintentionally, with would mess things up.
Stating your biases up front is a reasonable compromise, so let’s go with that. If you’re reading a Nazi blog, you know what their biases are, so you can take that information with the appropriate grain of salt. If you’re listening to a space lizard podcast, a few hefty spoons should do it.
- Comment on What is anti-propaganda? 1 week ago:
So, it doesn’t matter what the bias is. It’s still propaganda. The opposite of that would be a balanced view without any bias. So, would that also imply restricting to just factual information?
- Comment on How do you answer the question "What's new with you?" when nothing happens in your life? 1 week ago:
If it’s someone I haven’t seen in years, talking about the big picture should be interesting enough. You know, like where I live, what do I do for a living etc.
If it’s someone who definitely knows all that, I can mention something small but recent. Like, I just bought some weird carrot salsa, and it was surprisingly good.
- Comment on Should a movie released in 1995 be considered an "old" movie? 2 weeks ago:
Time is relative. A 5 year old software is ancient. A 100 year old stone church is very recent.
- Comment on Could human stomach acid be bioengineered to break down microplastics? 2 weeks ago:
If they live in the presence of HCl, they could also make some fun organichlorides. Those products could be simple organic solvents that damage the cell membranes. They could also be more or less toxic compounds, maybe even comparable with chemical weapons.
- Comment on Could human stomach acid be bioengineered to break down microplastics? 2 weeks ago:
You could make them capable of eating plastic, but what would the byproducts be? You would need to make sure the byproducts aren’t toxic.
- Comment on Other than a faulty charging port, is there any reason to use a wireless phone charger over wired? 2 weeks ago:
Wow, I’ve never had any issues with USB ports breaking on any of my phones. Which one of us is the outlier?
- Comment on OpenAI's viral Studio Ghibli moment highlights AI copyright concerns 3 weeks ago:
Our current AIs are kinda pathetic, and might realistically only replace mediocre artists. However, people who buy art, can’t tell the difference between good art and mediocre art, so the financial impact could be felt by a larger number of people.
It’s a bit like comparing factory made clothes to properly tailored ones. We still have both, but machines have clearly won this race. Besides, only very few people appreciate tailored clothes so much that they are also willing to pay for them. Most don’t, so they wear cheap lower quality clothes instead. I think the same will happen to music and paintings too.
- Comment on OpenAI's viral Studio Ghibli moment highlights AI copyright concerns 3 weeks ago:
Ok, now I’ve finally come to a conclusion about this debate. When a human learns to draw or write in a particular style, there are no copyright issues. However, when a machine does the same, you need to compensate the people who made the training data. Here’s why.
The training data is an essential component of of the model. It’s like building a house with bricks you didn’t pay for. If you’re building something like a house, ship, software or a machine learning model, you need to pay for the materials that are required to build it.
- Comment on How likely is the US government going to identify and arrest every online user who have disagreed with the current administration? 4 weeks ago:
At that point, there will be no evidence of your disappearance, so legal details don’t even matter. Anyone who brings up such evidence, will also disappear.
- Comment on Are old people usually attracted to other old people? 4 weeks ago:
Yes. These two are different things. Most people experience both, some only one of the two, and Jaiden experienced none of that.
- Comment on Are old people usually attracted to other old people? 4 weeks ago:
You’re developing romantic attraction. It’s different from sexual attraction, but usually people think of them as one and the same.
- Comment on How are batteries recycled? 4 weeks ago:
They are shredded to small pieces. Magnet separates all ferromagnetic parts, like steel casings. There can also be other separation methods such as flotation. Various non-ferromagnetic materials such as zinc and manganese can be dissolved in sulfuric acid. In order to speed things up, leaching is done at an elevated temperature.
In the next stage, Mn and Zn are precipitated as hydroxides using submerging like sodium hydroxide for example. There are other options too. You could also melt the batteries and separate the metals that way. If you use pyrometallurgy instead of hydrometallurgy, you’ll be using a lot more energy.
- Comment on BYD announces charging tech that’s twice as fast as Tesla’s 4 weeks ago:
Ok, so what if you have basically another car battery there and discharge it at 10C or whatever? That should help with the fast charging of EVs, but it wouldn’t have a very long life span. Alternatively, you could have many batteries and discharge them at some reasonable rate. The problem is, you would need a lot of space for that. Maybe capacitors would take even more, IDK.
- Comment on BYD announces charging tech that’s twice as fast as Tesla’s 4 weeks ago:
Interesting. Any ideas which kind of batteries they use?
- Comment on BYD announces charging tech that’s twice as fast as Tesla’s 4 weeks ago:
What would you suggest then? Got something else in mind that can charge steadily while nobody is there, and then suddenly dump a whole lot of energy at 1 MW when someone needs it?
- Comment on BYD announces charging tech that’s twice as fast as Tesla’s 4 weeks ago:
If 500 kW didn’t put plenty of stress on the grid, 1 MW surely will. How about you install a some capacitors in each charging station to balance the load?
- Comment on Why can humans seemingly only imagine like 3 different forms of government in different flavors? 4 weeks ago:
Ideally, you would find a “philosopher king”, but that’s unlikely to happen. The next best option would be liquid democracy or some sort of direct democracy. If that’s not an option, you could switch to preferential voting that leads to a coalition parliament fairly often. Proportional representation works too. Basically anything other than FPTP.
- Comment on Why can humans seemingly only imagine like 3 different forms of government in different flavors? 4 weeks ago:
You could also look back. History has many examples of people governing themselves in various ways that differ from the systems used at the moment. Even within the spectrum contemporary democracy, there are several options to choose from. People could just look up what kinds of democracies are used in other countries and how they differ from the one used (or not used) in your home country.
I think we need a new radical philosopher who comes up with a new way of government, and starts promoting it actively. Actually, long ago, I heard one small political party doing just that. They wanted to switch to the kind of direct democracy used in Switzerland, which sounded nice. If people heard about someone proposing an alternative, they might at least consider it.
The way I see it, people aren’t really exposed to different ideas of this kind. They see the problems, but not the answers. People aren’t really proposing new solutions that much, now are they?
- Comment on Nothing against disabled people but how come I can't replace my arm with something augmented that can carry more weight? Also other parts? My disabled bro asked me this and got me thinking 4 weeks ago:
Anyone who has observed a robot vacuum struggle with minor bumps knows that even homes aren’t ideal for wheels. Some warehouse are ok though, but they were specifically designed with wheels in mind.
- Comment on Nothing against disabled people but how come I can't replace my arm with something augmented that can carry more weight? Also other parts? My disabled bro asked me this and got me thinking 4 weeks ago:
Bicycles are awesome. If you want one optimized for efficiency, get the simplest one. Going uphill will be annoying, but at least it’s always at peak efficiency.
- Comment on Nothing against disabled people but how come I can't replace my arm with something augmented that can carry more weight? Also other parts? My disabled bro asked me this and got me thinking 4 weeks ago:
LOL. You can go places with convincing arguments like that.
But seriously though, versatility is useful, but only up to a certain point. In niche cases, special tools make more sense due to the superior performance they offer. For example, running with a traditional leg prosthetic isn’t as efficient as running with a special running prosthetic. You know, those carbon fiber arcs that looks nothing like a leg (AKA “running blades”).
- Comment on Nothing against disabled people but how come I can't replace my arm with something augmented that can carry more weight? Also other parts? My disabled bro asked me this and got me thinking 4 weeks ago:
I can totally get behind swappable parts. Depending on what you’re doing, you could use different arms and legs specifically designed for the task at hand.
See also: Adam Smasher
- Comment on Nothing against disabled people but how come I can't replace my arm with something augmented that can carry more weight? Also other parts? My disabled bro asked me this and got me thinking 4 weeks ago:
I guess the only solution is to become a full borg. That way, everyone titanium bone would be rated to handle superhuman stress and you could cary much more.
- Comment on Why most countries are struggling to shut down 2G 5 weeks ago:
Yeah, I guess you’re right. Better just grind them to dust and recycle the metals.
- Comment on Why most countries are struggling to shut down 2G 5 weeks ago:
So, maybe there could be a government program for collecting old electronics and shipping them to places where people would still use them.