dhork
@dhork@lemmy.world
- Comment on Whatever happened to the days when shit just...worked? 6 days ago:
Honestly, I think the difference is how much software is in these things now. Everything is a computer. And software is something that is very cheap to do half-assed, but expensive to do well (and reliably).
TVs are a perfect example of this. The TV of 40 years ago had an analog tuner directly attached to a CRT. It did only one thing, and did it well. Today’s TVs are basically embedded computers with large screens. And the embedded software was probably written by the lowest bidder.
- Comment on If the US was partitioned, what new states would you want to appear? 2 weeks ago:
I didn’t make the graphic, I just stole/hotlinked it. I am very familiar with PA, although it’s main redeeming quality is that it’s not New Jersey.
- Comment on If the US was partitioned, what new states would you want to appear? 2 weeks ago:
- Comment on Why does no one in the bible have a last name? 2 weeks ago:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_Iscariot
Judas’s epithet “Iscariot” (Ὶσκάριωθ or Ὶσκαριώτης), which distinguishes him from the other people named “Judas” in the gospels, is usually thought to be a Greek rendering of the Hebrew phrase איש־קריות, (Κ-Qrîyôt), meaning “the man from Kerioth”.[17][9][18][19] This interpretation is supported by the statement in the Gospel of John 6:71 that Judas was “the son of Simon Iscariot”.[9] Nonetheless, this interpretation of the name is not fully accepted by all scholars.[17][9] One of the most popular alternative explanations holds that “Iscariot” (ܣܟܪܝܘܛܐ, ‘Skaryota’ in Syriac Aramaic, per the Peshitta text) may be a corruption of the Latin word sicarius, meaning “dagger man”,[17][9][20][21] which referred to a member of the Sicarii (סיקריים in Aramaic), a group of Jewish rebels who were known for assassinating people in crowds using long knives hidden under their cloaks.[17][9] This interpretation is problematic, however, because there is nothing in the gospels to associate Judas with the Sicarii,[9] and there is no evidence that the cadre existed during the 30s AD when Judas was alive.[22][9]
A possibility advanced by Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg is that “Iscariot” means “the liar” or “the false one”, from the Hebrew איש-שקרים. C. C. Torrey suggests instead the Aramaic form שְׁקַרְיָא or אִשְׁקַרְיָא, with the same meaning.[23][24] Stanford rejects this, arguing that the gospel writers follow Judas’s name with the statement that he betrayed Jesus, so it would be redundant for them to call him “the false one” before immediately stating that he was a traitor.[9] Some have proposed that the word derives from an Aramaic word meaning “red color”, from the root סקר.[25] Another hypothesis holds that the word derives from one of the Aramaic roots סכר or סגר. This would mean “to deliver”, based on the Septuagint rendering of Isaiah 19:4 (a theory advanced by J. Alfred Morin).[24] The epithet could also be associated with the manner of Judas’s death, hanging. This would mean Iscariot derives from a kind of Greek-Aramaic hybrid: אִסְכַּרְיוּתָא, Iskarioutha, meaning “chokiness” or “constriction”. This might indicate that the epithet was applied posthumously by the remaining disciples, but Joan E. Taylor has argued that it was a descriptive name given to Judas by Jesus, since other disciples such as Simon Peter/Cephas (Kephas “rock”) were also given such names.[24]
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
Why not just trade Alberta for Minnesota and be done with it?
- Comment on What is the difference between a managed switch and an unmanaged switch? 3 weeks ago:
Unmanaged switches are extremely dumb. They do simple things, and do them well.
Managed switches have lots of other shiny features, which is why they are more expensive. They also have to be configured to enable those features, which means you have to know how to drive them
- Comment on Texas pastor celebrates school's lowest vaccination rate in the state: 'We'll take it' 3 weeks ago:
And I’m sure once the measles outbreak hits his school, he will blame it o biological antifa warfare
- Comment on Microsoft Open Sources Zork I, II And III 4 weeks ago:
It’s a maze of twisty passages that gets there…
Infocom was bought by Activision, which later got merged into Activision Blizzard, which Microsoft later bought.
- Comment on Why does American media (and to an extent the American public) seem to only focus on one issue at a time? 4 weeks ago:
I think you are confusing what the purpose of media is. You think the media exists to keep the public informed. When, in fact, the corporate media in the US exists to sell ad space. You are not the customer, you are the product. Just like a chicken farm doesn’t exist for the benefit of the chickens.
So, as such, the job of the media (especially TV media) is to grab your attention so thoroughly that you stay for the ads. This creates a fine line between reporting on hyped-up scandals and ignoring larger systemic faults that might make viewers themselves feel targeted. It means that once a particular narrative is seen to grab attention, everyone runs with it. However, that narrative can’t go too far in turning off people on one side of the issue unless the “news” outlet aims to only cater to the other side.
This also, to some extent, explains the same washing of the President that is currently going on. This President is a thin-skinned crybaby, and will whine about any little thing. And his supporters follow his every word like a new Messiah. News outlets who want to cultivate a broad viewership base (to sell them ads, of course) can only go so far with certain storylines before his followers change the channel. (Of course, the joke is on these news outlets. No matter how they try to comply in advance, the fascists will come for them eventually…)
- Comment on Trump suggests Joe Biden’s prostate cancer diagnosis was a cover-up 5 weeks ago:
That’s what completed your Bingo card? Congratulations! I am still waiting on “President has a coronary event while on his solid gold shitter”.
- Comment on Trump suggests Joe Biden’s prostate cancer diagnosis was a cover-up 5 weeks ago:
OK, so now we know Trump is totally hiding his diagnosis from the public…
- Comment on Whatever happened to pickup artists? Did they evolve into alpha males or ascend to a higher plane? 1 month 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 month 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 month 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 month ago:
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? 1 month ago:
Percussive maintenance
- Comment on What are some good uses the new ballroom can have after the Trump regime is over? 1 month ago:
“Modernizing” being euphemism for planting lots of listening devices for his
friends in Russiapaying customers. - Comment on Is there any way the average American can insulate themselves from the AI bubble bursting? 1 month 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? 1 month 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? 1 month ago:
Carefully
- Comment on How would you quickly describe Lemmy to a non-fediverse person? 1 month 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? 1 month ago:
I call it “socialist Reddit” or “anti-social media”
- Comment on Was the fall of Rome this stupid? 2 months ago:
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months 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] 3 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? 3 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 3 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] 3 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 3 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 3 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.
