dhork
@dhork@lemmy.world
- Comment on Is This Social Media? 6 days ago:
Since so many people are here because they consider the other platforms to be too enshittified, I like calling Lemmy “Antisocial Media”
- Comment on A real question about trans athletes and records 1 week ago:
Every organized sport has some sort of governing body, and that body is concerned with making sure competition is fair. (And taking bribes, right, FIFA?) The people who organize the sport should be able to determine what is fair for their sport. Often, there will be some scientific basis for allowing some people and not allowing others, based on hormones or something like that.
The decisions should be made by people who know the sport and decide what fair competition might look like, not by asshole politicians looking to push an agenda.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 week ago:
Is your dad elderly and needs care because of his age? In the US, depending on the state you live in, you could be considered a “family caregiver” and might be able to collect additional benefits. Some states give out a bit of money to these family caregivers if it keeps those elderly people out of the care of the state.
- Comment on President Trump shows President Zelenskyy and President Macron his 4 More Years hats 1 week ago:
There will be elections. There have to be, in order for the new Congress to be seated.
The only question is how ratfucked they will be…
- Comment on President Trump shows President Zelenskyy and President Macron his 4 More Years hats 1 week ago:
Why not? There are other Trump’s who are eligible. If Junior runs, they don’t even need to change the banners. They dont even need to hide it, they can have big “Donald Trump ~jr~ for President” banners still. Dad can go campaigning, and they can make perfectly clear who will make the decisions.
- Comment on What if a billionaire wants to help you? 2 weeks ago:
It’s a scam. Do not engage. If a billionaire really wanted to send you money, they can pay for the lawyers and accountants to make sure it is all above board. Maybe thry make a foundation and give you a cushy job there. That’s how actual billionaires do it.
Ironically, if it weren’t a scam, then crypto can be the safest way to receive any funds. If you securely generated your own crypto wallet, and sent him an address on a reputable blockchain to send funds to, and he actually sent them, then the money is yours, forever, no backsies.
Of course, that’s not how crypto scams work, either. They always guide you to use a wallet that they control (and can drain funds out of easily), or tell you to send crypto to them first to unlock something.
- Comment on What brush is the human equivalent of a dog slicker brush? 2 weeks ago:
Looks like you want a brush with super hard bristles. I guess some places sell wild boar bristle brushes, I wonder what the boars think of that…
- Comment on Whatever happened to the blockchain/smart contract 'revolution' we were told about? 4 weeks ago:
VISA handles 65,000 transactions per second. That’s one of the major reasons we’re not seeing more widespread adoption.
I thought they were gonna fix that by running a bunch of bar tabs
- Comment on At this point who in the world could stop Trump over doing something totally illegal? Like lets say using bunker buster bombs to destroy DEM cities? Or is USA communially FUCKED? 4 weeks ago:
The US President is not subject to laws, when acting in his official capacity, unless at least 1/2 of the House and 2/3 of the Senate vote to impeach him. So winning the election is a license to do illegal things, if you have enough political support.
- Comment on Is it possible to sell semi-old computers/parts? 5 weeks ago:
I collect old stuff too. There are only a handful of things that have been useful over the years, mainly USB devices. People who work with hobby embedded devices can also make use of RS232 serial equipment. It might be worth holding on to a single old monitor that can also do VGA. Or a single SATA DVD drive in case you find some old discs you need to read. I have a box of C-64 stuff I am never getting rid of. The kids will have to figure out what to do with that when I am gone.
But all those old ISA cards? Parallel printer port cables? Zip drives? Yeah, nobody wants them. Maybe you can list those old Apple talk dongles on eBay and make a hundred bucks, but you also have to deal with shipping them and stuff.
Just be careful when disposing old drives. I have a stack of busted drives that I won’t get rid of because I don’t know if anyone will be able to pull the data with the right equipment. Every now and then if I get too bored I take one apart to play with the magnets, I figure it’s safe to discard the platters if I scratch them up good.
You may want to look for local “electronics recycling” places. They might charge a fee, and if they find something they can refurbish and sell they will do it. But then you have more space to accumulate new stuff.
- Comment on Why do some companies like a utility put out ads? 5 weeks ago:
I bet the local energy provider is owned by a large conglomerate, and they want you to think that the company is locally managed and any profits they make go back into the community, instead of to the Corporate Overlords…
This can be particularly important for heavily regulated industries, as their profits are contingent on the local politicians continuing to like them. So while I am sure a significant portion of their budget goes to greasing palms to make sure politicians take care of them, they also need to make sure the voting population is not hostile to them, so that they don’t get some grass roots movement going that elects hostile politicians.
- Comment on To win the show Alone, could someone smuggle a GPS locator inside of their anus? 5 weeks ago:
Then that’s more feasible. It also means that it doesn’t have to try to operate while safely stowed. The contestant can remove it and then turn it on. They might even be able to strategically bury it somewhere. The small amount of dirt above it will attenuate the signal, but if buried in a place with an open view of the sky they will get a much stronger signal than they would in a building.
We are spoiled with how quickly the GPS in our phones work, but they already have a good idea where they are from the cell towers, and they can also get information on which satellites are in view from the Internet. If the GPS receiver had to work without access to those resources, it may take minutes to get a fix.
Then, it also has to get communicate the position data: if there is no cell service, that would have to be some sort of satellite communication or other long-range thing.
- Comment on To win the show Alone, could someone smuggle a GPS locator inside of their anus? 5 weeks ago:
Many of the trackers that would easily fit (like AirTags) don’t actually have their own GPS receivers, they piggy-back on the receivers in iPhones that are in bluetooth range (and also use those iPhones for the cell communication back to Apple).
- Comment on To win the show Alone, could someone smuggle a GPS locator inside of their anus? 5 weeks ago:
You may be surprised to find that GPS signals are quite low power by the time they get to Earth. Receivers employ a bunch of trucks to extract the signal out of noise. It does not take much in the way to attenuate them to the point where they are useless. If a receiver is embedded in a body cavity it is unlikely to work well unless it has a direct full-sky view – which is especially troublesome for that particular body cavity.
It might be easier to embed a tiny receiver in someone’s skin: in their shoulder, or the nape of their neck. A strategically-placed tattoo could help cover it up. The receiver would also need power so you would either need to embed a power source in it (which may be larger than the receiver itself) or work out some RF power source nearby. (But if you didn’t know where in the world they were, how would you know where to place the power source?)
- Comment on Is the periodic table still getting new additions? 5 weeks ago:
My (flawed and amateur) understanding is that they create new elements by smashing together atoms on particle accelerators to see if their nuclei stick. If you can create an atom with a new number of protons in its nucleus, in a manner which can be repeated, then you have created a new element.
The last new element that was created with a natural process was found sometime in the 1930s. Many of the artificially generated elements are extremely unstable. Our labs may be the only place in the universe they are made, that aren’t inside stars.
- Comment on [deleted] 5 weeks ago:
Asking about “return” is kinda useless in this context. AI is frequently being integrated into things that people didn’t ask for, and making them more shitty.
And while Bitcoin mining does generate a return, there is nothing inherent in cryptocurrency that says it must consume electricity to generate these returns. Ethereum transitioned to an algorithm which secures it’s network just as well for a fraction of the energy cost. Bitcoin only consumes so much energy because it’s developers are stubborn.
But to answer your question, people think that AI applications will consume fully half of all datacenter power by the end of this year, and if it does it will likely have a higher energy footprint than BTC.
- Comment on Is it sexist to say "I've never worn a wet dress before" 1 month ago:
She might be conflating it with a wet t-shirt contest
- Comment on When someone asks for help/asks what something is on Reddit and the top comments are just stupid jokes that don't answer OP's question 1 month ago:
Well, what is it?
- Comment on Andrew Cuomo wants to become Mayor of New York City. This is his driving record. 1 month ago:
Why does he hate the Bronx so much? He gets tickets in the other boroughs that have lots of Democrats…
- Comment on Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Platinum Edition is free to claim on Epic 1 month ago:
Did 7 get any better with the updates? I bought it on release but it couldn’t hold my attention for more than an hour, and I haven’t been back.
- Comment on When does Trump finally start taking accountability? 1 month ago:
Donald Trump has not been held accountable by anyone since his father died. Even when he was convicted of felony paperwork violations, his punishment was to get elected President (again!).
- Comment on If I found voter irregularities in my home district do I have to hire a lawyer to prove it.? Or just let it go and the Florida Orange win? 1 month ago:
I think your best bet would be to go to the local Democratic party. You don’t have the cash to contest this; they do. They also (depending on the local laws) probably have local officials on the local elections boards, so they are in the best position to evaluate your claims. There may be a simple explanation…
- Comment on What is the "dip"? 1 month ago:
Yup
- Comment on Why doesn't the US government just tax illegal immigrants a little bit more than the Average american? Then use those funds to fix infastructure or a new WPA of the 21st century? 1 month ago:
Interesting, I didn’t know this at all. Thanks for the links.
But I wonder how much longer this program can be kept up, now that this administration has made it clear they want all these people to leave, and will dispatch masked thugs to do so. Seems like applying for one of these TINs now is basically putting a sign on your back saying “Deport Me!”
- Comment on Why doesn't the US government just tax illegal immigrants a little bit more than the Average american? Then use those funds to fix infastructure or a new WPA of the 21st century? 1 month ago:
People who are in the country illegally do not have authorization to work. You can’t tax them at all, at least officially, without giving them the authorization to work.
Now, of course these folks are working, and either getting paid without their employers declaring them, or paying them and withholding taxes with fraudulent identities, both of which are illegal for the employer as well as the employee. So, unofficially, they may be paying taxes, but if the authorities knew they were illegal they would probably be deported, especially in today’s hyper ICE environment.
A solution like you propose would acknowledge the basic humanity of these people, which is against everything the ruling party here stands for. So it will never happen.
- Comment on Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? 1 month ago:
Stat Trek has always had Socialist Utopia vibes. And the new stuff on Paramount+ is undeniably woke…
- Comment on Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? 1 month ago:
It’s only logical
- Comment on Duke University lost NIH grants because they used the prefix "trans" in reference to disease transmission, transgenic genetic material, translational studies and signal transduction 1 month ago:
They will do nothing about this until crypto transfers are banned…
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
Yes, the system works, but it kinds sucks that it’s based on getting the biggest gorilla on your side, rather than which side is actually in the right.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
My experience is that managers don’t normally “overcompensate in the other direction” on purpose. After all, if they are friendly with someone, they will be inclined to help them.
Two exceptions:
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Bad managers make bad decisions generally, and usually for illogical reasons, so they might do this by accident.
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Owners of family businesses can be much harder on their kids when they first start out, because the owners mean to have the kids run the business when they retire, so want to do a “trial by fire”
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