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 Sorry, groceries. 1 week ago:
The first mistake was shopping hungry. Those groceries are: a box of ice cream sandwiches, 24 cans of root beer, and a bag of beef jerky – teriyaki style.
- Comment on (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞ 1 week ago:
We agree entirely.
Without the ability to exert control and therefore reinforce the definition, borders are as arbitrary as any other law. They are created by people, enforced by people, and if we change our mind then they can go away. It’s not some intrinsic property of the planet.
While I’m ranting, the definition of a relic or artifact is equally arbitrary. As well as the definition of a people. And ownership. At any point in history, these definitions will be different. Right now we’ve defined it in such a way that we’ve decided that it is socially acceptable to return relics to people who live inside geographic areas where the relics originated from. This is also arbitrary.
But as long as people, decide to exert force to reinforce this definitions, there is true as any other law.
- Comment on (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞ 1 week ago:
When I was in grad school, the philosophy of science students would egg me on with things like: “I’ll buy you a beer if you can prove the electron is real”. I’d like to think I’m carrying on their tradition in science memes.
- Comment on wtf 1 week ago:
One time, I was in the arctic doing some research. On a snowmobile, in winter, we crest a hill and see a couple of wolves pigging out on a caribou. I’m riding in the toboggan, and I start telling at the driver: “go go go!” They proceeded to chase our snowmobile for like a mile, with no hope at all of catching us, but running anyway. Like dogs chasing tires, I think they had no choice. Instincts are strong.
- Comment on (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞ 1 week ago:
Countries and borders are an arbitrary concept created during the peace treaty of Westphalia.
Those relics belong to dead people.
- Comment on Absolute unit 2 weeks ago:
By approximately the wingspan of a pterodactyl
- Comment on Caption this. 4 weeks ago:
Funding bait
- Comment on The Expanse: Osiris Reborn Announcement Trailer 4 weeks 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. 4 weeks 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. 4 weeks 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 5 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. 1 month ago:
Yeah, if they’re dead serious about it, this is much funnier. In the haha, society is so fucked sense.
- Comment on Ingenuity 2 months ago:
Also in this picture. Blurry reflections of you on the toilet
- Comment on floats away in disgust 2 months 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* 2 months 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* 2 months 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 3 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 3 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 3 months ago:
See also: Adolescence and the backlash to that show.