troyunrau
@troyunrau@lemmy.ca
Centrist, progressive, radical optimist. Geophysicist, R&D, Planetary Scientist and general nerd in Winnipeg, Canada.
troyunrau.ca (personal)
lithogen.ca (business)
- Comment on Caption this. 1 week ago:
Funding bait
- Comment on The Expanse: Osiris Reborn Announcement Trailer 1 week ago:
Colour me cautiously optimistic
- Comment on YSK: Condé Nast Parent Company is a Major Owner of Reddit, You Should Avoid their Publications (Wired, Ars Technica, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue,...etc) as Much as Possible. 1 week ago:
Corporate journalism is digging (no pun intended) its own grave in many cases.
A feedback cycle where no one wants to pay for content, so advertisers are needed to fund their staff, which means clicks and engagement become the metric of success. But, the solution is either publicly funded news (largely unpopular), or regulating the open internet (more unpopular). So, yeah, the death of corporate journalism is coming.
- Comment on YSK: Condé Nast Parent Company is a Major Owner of Reddit, You Should Avoid their Publications (Wired, Ars Technica, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue,...etc) as Much as Possible. 1 week ago:
I wrote for Ars for a brief period, on Linux topics. This was prior to the digg exodus. As a writer, I got a set rate for each page of content, with an expected average word count per page. I’d get a bonus anytime my story hit the front page of digg, slashdot, or similar aggregater. It happened a few times.
But that bonus incentive meant I was encouraged to specifically write stories that would resonate with those audiences. It wasn’t fraud or a scam – it was free market economic pressure. But the effect was the same – I was tailoring my content to maximize aggregator exposure.
I began to submit my own stories to Slashdot and similar, because a minute of my time could pay me $100 or whatever.
I am not sure that reddit is biased towards these publications as much as they are likely intentionally gaming the algorithms, and encouraging their writers to do the same – write content you know will hit the frontpage. I don’t think it is wrong necessarily, but it certainly isn’t organic.
That said, Ars generally has very high quality content due to some very good reporters. Eric Berger comes to mind. So it could be both effects: quality and gaming the system.
- Comment on science never ends 3 weeks ago:
Understand that science is a name given to both a method, and to a mostly self-consistent body of models that can be used to make useful predictions. Science doesn’t get things wrong. Science gets iterated upon.
- Comment on It's very friendly and well behaved. 4 weeks ago:
Yeah, if they’re dead serious about it, this is much funnier. In the haha, society is so fucked sense.
- Comment on Ingenuity 1 month ago:
Also in this picture. Blurry reflections of you on the toilet
- Comment on floats away in disgust 1 month ago:
Sodium walks into a bar, orders a drink and tips the bartender an electron. The bartender asks what it is for. Sodium says: “nothing. Just feeling positive today”.
- Comment on *hands to an undergrad* 1 month ago:
Also, typically notoriously hard to fence, cause nobody knows what the fuck they’re going to do with a gamma ray spectrometer or whatever.
- Comment on *hands to an undergrad* 1 month ago:
I work in scientific equipment. It helps to focus oneself to occasionally imagine the box as being full of $100k in $100 bills, when I debate whether to leave it in the car or take it inside overnight…
- Comment on Fallout 76 is currently testing the one thing that makes every game better: fishing 2 months ago:
You say pickerel and know about Goldeye. Manitoba or Minnesota or similar? ;)
- Comment on I was a British tourist trying to leave America. Then I was detained, shackled and sent to an immigration detention centre 2 months ago:
That would qualify as work according to the US gov. Because by doing these chores, you are potentially causing someone to not need to pay a nanny or whatever. Be careful how you define work – you don’t need to be directly paid.
- Comment on Fallout 76 is currently testing the one thing that makes every game better: fishing 2 months ago:
I hate fishing games. Just chance games to waste time. But I also hate fishing so…
- Comment on Caption this. 2 months ago:
Rotate
- Comment on U.S. Has Spent $40 Million to Jail About 400 Migrants at Guantánamo 2 months ago:
Be glad they haven’t realized they need to make their bigotry efficient. That desire leads to gas chambers.
- Comment on 90s band alignment chart 2 months ago:
Fair enough. Allegory can still be sexual though. Layers.
- Comment on 90s band alignment chart 2 months ago:
Autocorrupt
- Comment on 90s band alignment chart 2 months ago:
Starfucker and other songs would be considered quite horny. But it’s always more “rage sex” than sexy sex. So I mostly agree. Except when I don’t ;)
- Comment on 90s band alignment chart 2 months ago:
Big Naked. Nine in Nails. Marylin Manson. Our Lady Peace, Alanis Morissette. There’s quite a few that could be both. But, alas, this is only a two axis graphic ;)
Also, how to tell I grew up on Canadian radio…
- Comment on 90s band alignment chart 2 months ago:
Yeah, no kidding one of the most depressing songs ever: youtu.be/T69Yk6IccL0 – The end is the Beginning is the End (Batman and Robin soundtrack)
Also one of the best tracks ever.
- Comment on Apple’s AI isn’t a letdown. AI is the letdown | CNN Business 2 months ago:
This is because AI (vis-a-vis LLMs) became a religion to many, rather than a technology.
- Comment on Indian tech workers on edge about Trump's immigration policy 2 months ago:
It’s going to be much much worse than just “hard to get a visa” – this shitball is rolling downhill and anyone brown should be considering another country.
First they came for…
- Comment on Online gangs of teenage boys sharing extreme material are ‘emerging threat’ in UK 2 months ago:
Go poke your head into r/mensrights or similar. Basically everyone complaining that the show is going to get them cancelled or that the show misrepresented them or similar. It’s pretty rare to see any comments suggesting the show is provoking introspection. Instead it is defend and attack.
- Comment on Online gangs of teenage boys sharing extreme material are ‘emerging threat’ in UK 2 months ago:
See also: Adolescence and the backlash to that show.
- Comment on The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans 2 months ago:
Read this whole article and I guess what I’ve learned is: the idiots are in charge.
Where is the outrage to match “Hillary’s emails!”
- Comment on What Can We Do to Get Youth into Ham Radio? 2 months ago:
I found the most effective way to get a nerd into ham is: mention that ham radio is in the criteria to become an astronaut. Suddenly they’re doing the study courses all on their own. Granted, they have to already be a nerd. ;)
For the non nerds, the prepper angle seems to work with some.
The thing you have to deliver is the “why”, not the how. If they’ve decided they want to learn it, they will.
- Comment on Rockstar has some of the most restrictive mission design I've ever experienced 3 months ago:
A good contrast is something like Outer Worlds, where there is usually multiple possible outcomes. I think it comes from their Fallout lessons learned and GURPS background. Love the game design. (Dislike the combat, but that is a separate thing.)
- Comment on Doppler 3 months ago:
It’s very possible. Napkins are notorious for stealing orders of magnitude.
- Comment on Doppler 3 months ago:
I ain’t doing hyperbolic equations on my napkin ;)
- Comment on Doppler 3 months ago:
Instructions unclear, car stuck in dick.