troyunrau

@troyunrau@lemmy.ca

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Not all PDFs are documents; some are apps! Insurance company sent me a form to sign as a PDF with JavaScript. Is it a tracker?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Your assertion that the document is malicious without any evidence is what I’m concerned about.

  At some point you have to decide to trust someone. The comment above gave you reason to trust that the document was in a standard, non-malicious format. But you outright rejected their advice in a hostile tone. You base your hostility on a youtube video.

  You should read the essay “on trusting trust” and then make a decision on whether you are going to participate in digital society or live under a bridge with a tinfoil hat.

  In Canada, and elsewhere, insurance companies know everything about you before you even apply, and it’s likely true elsewhere too. Even if they don’t have personally identifiable information, you’ll be in a data bucket with your neighbours, with risk profiles based on neighbourhood, items being insuring, claim rates for people with similar profiles, etc. Very likely every interaction you have with them has been going into a LLM even prior to the advent of ChatGPT, and they will have scored those interactions against a model.

  The personally identifiable information has largely been anonymized in these models. In Canada, for example, there are regulatory bodies like OSFI that they have to report to, and get audited by, to ensure the data is being used in compliance with regulations. Each company will have a compliance department tasked with making sure they’re adhering.

  But what you will end up doing instead is triggering fraudulent behaviour flags. There’s something called “address fraud”, where people go out of their way to disguise their location, because some lower risk address has better rates or whatever. When you do everything you can to scrub your location, this itself is a signal that you are operating as a highly paranoid individual and that might put you in a bucket. If you want to be the most invisible to them, you want to act like you’re in the median of all categories. Because any outlying behaviours further fingerprint you.

  Source: I have a direct connection to advanced analytics within insurance industry (one degree of separation).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Not all PDFs are documents; some are apps! Insurance company sent me a form to sign as a PDF with JavaScript. Is it a tracker?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Wow, your paranoia is dialed up to 11.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Daydream Commute⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Fingers

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Trump wins the election thru fraud how can the democrats refute it and prove they won? Or will it just be like another Jan 6 and four years of whining like Trump?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The premise here is that Trump loses but refuses to back down, attempting to forcibly claim victory. If Trump legitimately wins, there is a different path. Then…

  Assuming multiple systematic failures occur simultaneously, including any of: actual voter fraud, fraudulent electors, congress refusing to certify, a captured supreme court acting in favour of Trump, or actual insurrection on or before Jan 6th.

  I actually expect the US Military to step in. Every member is sworn to uphold the constitution. But if the constitution has been discarded, then I’d expect them to step in to restore it.

  Failing that, the US likely fractures and we leave the Republic phase.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Alan Wake 2 still hasn't quite made its money back, according to Remedy's latest financials⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Considering how well received this game was, perhaps it is more about marketing or misunderstanding the genre appeal?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Candy is distributed boo-nomially⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Needs imaginary component

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Stop whining. Do it yourself.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Counterpoint: Sometimes you can kickstart a community that you want to see just by consistently posting content. !science_memes@mander.xyz is my favourite example – it was essentially one person who created that entire community (and it’s since been diversifying somewhat – at least there’s traction in the comments).

  But to reinforce your point: I did !spacemusic@lemmy.ca and tried to do the same thing, but it sort of petered out. But it’s way way more niche.

  Rome wasn’t built in a day. Just engage with the content you like and build some places for content you’d like to see.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨That chicken's name? Joe Rogan⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Excerpt from Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood:

  “This is the latest,” said Crake.

  What they were looking at was a large bulblike object that seemed to be covered with stippled whitish-yellow skin. Out of it came twenty thick fleshy tubes, and at the end of each tube another bulb was growing.

  “What the hell is it?” said Jimmy.

  “Those are chickens,” said Crake. "Chicken parts. Just the breasts, on this one. They’ve got ones that specialize in drumsticks too, twelve to a growth unit.

  “But there aren’t any heads…”

  “That’s the head in the middle,” said the woman. “There’s a mouth opening at the top, they dump nutrients in there. No eyes or beak or anything, they don’t need those.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The room where it happens⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  wut

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trick OR Treat⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Add flavoured salts for more variety. I’m partial to Tajin or Montreal Steak Spice.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ah yes, regression⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  How can you argue with a word like "best’ anyway ;)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Should you trust that doctor?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s never lupus

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Honey⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I rarely judge someone for ignorance unless it is wilful. I pretty harshly judge people who cannot assimilate new information. Over time I think I might be evolving from INTP->INTJ as I age. I used to have more patience and would try to encourage people to learn and adjust.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Don't fret, check your spam folder⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I run a small business. People in my spam folder have really high opinions of my business. They all want to invest or something… Mostly harvesting my LinkedIn profile for keywords.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Expedition 33 Dev Confirms $50 Price Is Correct, '30+ Hours of Main Game'⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If it’s a game I’m going to get hundreds, or sometimes thousands of hours from, then I’ll pay more. If you look at price per hour spent on entertainment, it’s hard to compare. However, you often have to wade through a bunch of shitty overpriced games to find those gems.

  Okay, back to EU4 now ;)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Problem?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  We could award a certain percentage of grants and grad students should be able to get degrees doing replication studies. Unfortunately everyone is chasing total paper count and impact factor rankings and shit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Problem?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Ewww - the whole point of peer review is to catch this shit. If peer review isn’t working, we should be going back to monographs :)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨10001⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The author of this comic has a number of excellent coffee table compilations: www.tomgauld.com/comic-books-v2 (unaffiliated – I just like them :))

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Magic Mineral⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  As with all research papers published out of China, you take their numbers with a grain of salt. They report approximately 2000 cases per year of mesothelioma, and of those, only 15% are definitively asbestos exposure related. So about 300 per year. Of those cases, over 80% are asbestos industry (improper safety measures for repeated occupational exposure).

  Compared to fire related deaths prevented, it’s probably a good trade for China. Probably.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Magic Mineral⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Show my a neighbourhood pulverized into fine dust by any of the above – even the concrete. The physics doesn’t make any sense. The closest thing we have to this is wartime bombing, and then asbestos is likely your least worry. Anyway, you’re entrenched.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Magic Mineral⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Unless said hurricane, tornado, or flood grinds the material into a fine powder then you go around the neighbourhood snorting it – then if bound properly, it is just as safe (or dangerous) as fibreglass insulation.

  I’m not saying fill everyone’s attics with powdered asbestos or something.

  We use dangerous products all the time. For example, mercury in florescent lighting. But we regulate and generally speaking things are quite safe. But for whatever reason, as soon as anyone hears the word asbestos they freak out and no amount of explanations regarding safe handling will suffice.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Magic Mineral⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s pretty unlikely the homeowner is bulldozing the house themselves. So likely it’s handled by professionals.

  Epoxied asbestos is approximately as dangerous as epoxied fibreglass – add some dust suppression and have at it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Magic Mineral⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m pretty sure we could go back to using it, with more precautions in place, better binders, etc. Hell, it’s still used in many parts of the world, and it occurs naturally all over the fucking place. But, alas, lawyers would have to stop salivating at every mention of the word.

  In geoscience, we started using the word asbestoform to describe minerals with fibrous habits so we don’t get lawyers showing up to destroy all of our rock samples and turn every geoscience facility into a superfund site.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Temperatures⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’d be interesting to try to figure out if you were taught wrong, or remember wrong. Memories tend to drift over time, but it’s possible your college did you a disservice and taught you wrong… Not important. Nevertheless, I hope you’re having a great day someplace that is either 21, 69, or 295 ;)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Temperatures⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Where were you taught this? It’s pretty much incorrect.

  It is true that particles at higher temperatures have higher kinetic energies. But their velocities are so far away from light speed (usually) that relativistic effects like time dilation are entirely irrelevant.

  For reference, the surface of Pluto is about 40K. Some of the other dwarf planets a little further out are in the 21K range. Liquid hydrogen (used in many rockets) is 20K.

  69K is slightly warmed than liquid nitrogen (63K), and that is incredibly commonly used all over the world. And warmer than Pluto ;)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Temperatures⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s a system of linear equations that has an intersection point. It may not be exactly at 575, but they do intersect. Solving the equation gives 574.589, depending on how many decimal points you round to. So 575 is accurate enough within integer rounding.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨info dump let's go⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I used to have a roommate and we had this funny schtick. He would walk into the livingroom and ask a question. If he saw me take a deep breath, he knew I was about to launch into a long-winded lecture on the topic. So he’d see the inhale and pre-empt: “nevermind” and walk out.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Players are now less "accepting" that games will be fixed, say Paradox, after "underestimating" the reaction to Cities: Skylines 2's performance woes⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah. Particularly for a sequel where you have a direct comparison to a prior version, it needs to be polished.

  For a new title, this still applies if it is part of a family of games (see Imperator).

  Stellaris was broken in many ways on launch but had so much promise that we were willing to go through that journey with Paradox to see what would become.

  CK3 was actually playable out of the gate.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨We did it chat!⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Wow, I can feel that truck warming me right now!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Assuming I have time, and an audience that isn’t too entrenched, I will try to respond with with something that goes like:

  Science is both a method of acquiring new knowledge and a largely self-consistent model containing the already acquired knowledge. As we acquire new knowledge, we must update the model.

  If our sum of all knowledge was perfect, then we’d never update the model. But, over time, the model tends towards “better than before”.

  As it is physically impossible to be an expert in all things, at some point you have to trust that the people that have been updating or refining the model where it relates to their specific expertise are largely doing so in good faith and in accordance with the scientific method.

  This is not the same as faith. The model can be wrong in places and will get updated over time. This is a process. If you understand the process, then you understand science.

  (I sometimes will use different phrasing – the word “model” throws some people, so instead I’ll use “the whole body of knowledge” or something like that.)