dhork

@dhork@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Whatever happened to pickup artists? Did they evolve into alpha males or ascend to a higher plane?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  My quick take is that all that stuff mattered when people had to go out to find other people: to parties, bars, concerts, and other public places. They had to actively attract people to initiate a conversation. Now all those third places are dying, and most couples meet online, which means they have done all the superficial selection stuff already, which changes the game.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How are computer chips designed?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Is there like a programming language of some sort where a compiler converts syntax into circuitry layouts?

  You are looking for something like System Verilog (Or VHDL).

  Both these languages let you describe hardware. They can both go down to the circuit and transistor level, but people won’t write that by hand. Rather, they will write code that is a description of digital hardware (flip-flops and the logic between them), and then let tools synthesize their description down to individual logic cells and simple functions. Often, chip fab houses have “standard cell libraries” that implement the most common logical functions, and the tools stich them together based on the higher level description.

  Then there is all the verification that needs to be done, not just verification that the design is doing what it needs to do at all times, but that every individual chip is make correctly. Defects do happen, and you want to find them as early as possible in the process.

  Lots and lots of expensive tools and specialized knowledge! A good middle ground are FPGAs. These are special chips with lots of generic logic building blocks, and ways to programmatically make connections between them. You can write the same VHDL or Verilog for FPGAs, butt the tools map the logic to the FPGA vendor’s chip instead.These still require tools and specialized knowledge, but much cheaper than a fully custom chip.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Would one run faster without arms?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  It depends on how big your arms are. I bet you can run around with a pistol but not with heavy guns…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are there really no stupid questions?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Sea Lioning comic

  Probably not the very first use of the term, but it’s how I came to learn about it

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Help figuring out my pressure washer?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Percussive maintenance

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are some good uses the new ballroom can have after the Trump regime is over?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  “Modernizing” being euphemism for planting lots of listening devices for his friends in Russia paying customers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there any way the average American can insulate themselves from the AI bubble bursting?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I will be the contrarian in the room and say that you shouldn’t really do anything different – unless you know that you are going to need that money in the next year or two.

  Let’s take the S&P 500. Yes, we know there is an AI bubble, and the same 7 tech companies are knee deep in it. But it turns out that bubbles make money, until they don’t. In fact, a good chunk of the growth in the S&P over the past two years has been in those 7 companies.. If you had made this bet 2 years ago, you would be a big loser now.

  So what do you do? Don’t panic sell. You can’t time the market. Sell when you need the money for something else. Sell when you have a purpose. But don’t be too upset when the bubble finally bursts, and it all dives 25% (or more!) . That was never real money anyway.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Introverts of our era spend their time on their computers, but what did introverts do before? Like when literacy rates were lower (pre-1950s)? Or before the printing press?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Introverts probably had it much better back then. You couldn’t physically take your work home with you. Your news came once a day, to the front porch, and was not constantly bombarded at your eyeballs. When you were home, you only interacted with your immediate family, unless you had someone physically over to visit. Or if someone called in the telephone, which you could always just not answer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How does Edward Scissorhands pee?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Carefully

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How would you quickly describe Lemmy to a non-fediverse person?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  What would win in a fight, a hundred Lemmy-sized Reddits or one Reddit-sized Lemmy?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How would you quickly describe Lemmy to a non-fediverse person?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I call it “socialist Reddit” or “anti-social media”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Was the fall of Rome this stupid?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFC_White_House

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Define a while? Last I knew, the Schengen area lets US citizens on the Visa Waiver program stay for a rolling 90 days out of 180. So, you could go for nearly six weeks before leaving, then once you stay out for six more weeks and some days fall off your ledger you can come back.

  You can play games and leave the Schengen area but not go back to the US. The UK has its own requirements,and since you likely meet them you could go there and chill for six weeks waiting for your Schengen access to time out.

  This all implies that you have the means during this gap year to fund it all yourself. If any country suspects you are working without authorization, they will escort you back to the US, albeit in a much kinder fashion than we are doing it to their citizens.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You handle it by not worrying about it, and living every day to the fullest. Nobody knows how long they have. Why spend it fretting? .

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is This Social Media?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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 ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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 ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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 ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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 ⁨months⁩ 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 ⁨months⁩ 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?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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.