dan
@dan@upvote.au
Aussie living in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Coding since 1998.
Developer at Meta.
.NET Foundation member. C# fan
d.sb
Mastodon: @dan@d.sb
- Comment on Tell me what to do today, and I will report back. 4 days ago:
It can just be something small! Help a tourist with directions. Help an elderly person cross the road. Give a homeless person some food or water. Things like that.
- Comment on Tell me what to do today, and I will report back. 4 days ago:
Help someone in need.
- Comment on AI-QAEDA 1 week ago:
AI predicts the next token
LLMs specifically… Not all AI does this.
Even so, modern LLMs are more sophisticated and aren’t just chatbots any more, since their harnesses let them use tools - read and write files, browse websites, hit APIs, run commands, etc. That’s what makes them dangerous. Not all tools have good guardrails.
- Comment on Wild card, bitches! 1 week ago:
Why do the back wheels on American shopping carts not swivel like the front ones do? In Australia we have full 360 degree motion whereas US ones feel they have the turning radius of a truck.
- Comment on How big is the specific ocean? 1 week ago:
I miss Yahoo! Answers sometimes. A simpler time where dumb things were mostly contained in small niche areas rather than being broadcast to tens of millions of people on TikTok.
- Comment on We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas 3 weeks ago:
Yeah it’s definitely not as good as countries where university/college is fully covered by the government, but it’s also better than plenty of other countries too.
- Comment on According to the New York Times, Game of Thrones is the 6th best TV show of the 21st century 3 weeks ago:
one (1)
Thanks for the clarification.
- Comment on We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas 3 weeks ago:
Glad I went to university in Australia. For citizens, the government subsidizes it and pays 50-80% of the cost depending on the course (higher priority areas have better coverage). The remaining cost can be covered by an interest-free loan through the government (called HECS-HELP), and you only have to start paying off the loan once you earn more than AU$70k/year. The repayments are automatically withheld by your employer as tax, the same way they withhold income tax.
(there’s no interest, but the loan amount is adjusted for inflation once per year)
- Comment on New York sues prediction market Polymarket, calling it an unlicensed gambling operation 4 weeks ago:
They do still block US users from their main business. If you go to polymarket.com from a US IP, it says “Trading is blocked in the United States on polymarket.com”.
- Comment on New York sues prediction market Polymarket, calling it an unlicensed gambling operation 4 weeks ago:
I thought Polymarket was still illegal in the USA, but it turns out they launched a new, US-specific version by acquiring an existing licensed firm and focusing mostly on sports betting. Their main business is still illegal in the US.
- Comment on fish alignment matrix 4 weeks ago:
Depends on where you are in the world. In Australia it’s common to use what we call “flake” (gummy shark). It’s boneless, very mild in taste, and holds together well (doesn’t fall apart while eating it)
- Comment on Finally 4 weeks ago:
is so rich that
- Comment on Finally 4 weeks ago:
Elon Musk is so rich that
- Comment on To be happy… 1 month ago:
No… A convection oven’s fan just circulates the air. It doesn’t blow it directly onto the food.
- Comment on To be happy… 1 month ago:
Baking is letting the food sit in hot air for a while. Air frying is blowing the heat directly onto the food. They also vent the air to release excess steam and moisture, which is why air fried things are crisper.
- Comment on To be happy… 1 month ago:
Use it like a regular oven but reduce temperature by 25°F or 15°C and reduce cooking time by 20%.
- Comment on To be happy… 1 month ago:
Just power it using solar panels?
- Comment on To be happy… 1 month ago:
They’re impingement ovens, not convection ovens.
- Comment on non issue 1 month ago:
You can also get to this through the UI, too. It’s the “Web” tab.
- Comment on Flock is canceled—and its competitors are profiting 1 month ago:
They should have to get a warrant, because of the fourth amendment.
- Comment on Flock is canceled—and its competitors are profiting 1 month ago:
I agree. I don’t like that a private company is involved, at all. Companies should just supply the hardware, and not have full access to the system.
- Comment on What shall I watch next? 1 month ago:
Nah it’s a screenshot that’s at least ten years old. That’s a very old Netflix UI.
- Comment on Flock is canceled—and its competitors are profiting 1 month ago:
the alternatives do not include a nationwide search as part of their features
Yeah I think people would feel much better if the cameras were operated by the local police department, and they were the only ones that had access to it. ALPR cameras have been around for a long time, but it previously wasn’t an issue because access to the data was restricted. Other jurisdictions had to subpoena the data rather than being able to instantly access everything.
- Comment on Hot Ones trying to sneak in the package protection 1 month ago:
I don’t think this is even legal in some jurisdictions.
- Comment on Infuriating day of the week layout 1 month ago:
That would be an issue, but I’m a person of habit and it’s part of my routine now, so I don’t forget.
- Comment on Infuriating day of the week layout 1 month ago:
The way I solved this is by flipping the medicine container upside down after I take it, then flip it back around when I get up in the morning.
- Comment on Infuriating day of the week layout 1 month ago:
Week starts on Monday in ISO 8601, and thus in most programming languages by default.
- Comment on Love my fellow humans who leave presents like this 1 month ago:
There’s places that still use Styrofoam for food? I haven’t seen it in a long time.
- Comment on Every new interface being built right now... 2 months ago:
“You’re absolutely right!”
- Comment on There's No Reason to Buy a New Phone Anymore 2 months ago:
My wife upgraded from a Samsung S21 Ultra to an S25 Ultra but uses it mostly same way.
The one new feature I have seen her use is the AI person/object removal in the gallery. Samsung’s AI tools can run entirely on-device, which is nice (avoids sending the photos to the cloud and using an AI data center for the processing). I tried them while in airplane mode to confirm they do indeed work with no internet connection.
She upgraded because the old one had a pretty scratched screen (we installed a screen protector on the new one!) and the battery wasn’t lasting long any more. The official repair store that Samsung use in the US, UBreakIFix, don’t stock S21 batteries any more, and I didn’t trust myself enough to replace it myself.