AbouBenAdhem

@AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Random Choice in Newcomb's Paradox⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  You could go further: what if you used a weighted coin instead of a fair coin? That is, both you and the superintelligence know that you’ll pick the single box with probability p, but neither of you know the coin’s outcome until you flip it.

  What’s the ideal value of p in this case? Is it not arbitrarily close to 1?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Y'all ever have intrusive thoughts about accidentally dropping stuff in storm drains? (particulary when you have your phone out) And like if that happens, wtf is someone supposed to do?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  This is the fear that induced me to get a gravity hook.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Road to the Dark Ridge⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Striking but physically inconsistent, since the grass appears to be lit by a second sun out of frame to the right.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come some Corporation or some Business don't sponsor a protest? Like McDonald's sponsoring that No Kings protest. Or a hotel giving free room and board to protestors and so on?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Civil unrest is the one situation where corporations hope everyone forgets they exist.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Don't poor people split the bills on dates?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  When rich people dine, they bill it to the shareholders.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are defense attorneys ‘good people’?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They’re not breaking their clients out of jail, they”re just collecting and presenting any evidence that conflicts with the prosecution’s narrative. Juries and judges depend on someone performing this role so they can make an informed decision.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What’s the difference between anarchy and libertarianism?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  True—but it’s not “intervention” when it’s doing what they want.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What’s the difference between anarchy and libertarianism?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  (American) libertarians believe all the ills of modern capitalism ultimately stem from state intervention, while anarchists believe they stem from hierarchical relationships between people.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come most celebs/influencers go broke with in a short amount of time earning a couple million? Why not invest in local stores or offer money for a percentage of said store why not perpetualy money⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Celebrities tend to have very unpredictable cash flows, but most things the wealthy spend money on (including local investments, etc.) come with loans that need to be paid regularly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What Phone do you guys use?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d never use an iPhone if my phone were my main device—but I just want a phone/camera that I don’t have to think about beyond those specific functions, and for that an iPhone works fine.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If we cured all forms of cancer with the ease of taking a pill, what would be the next thing medicine would put the biggest focus on?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Curing the side effects of the anti-cancer pill.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why am I not Irish⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  How hard have you tried?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨In the Movie Sinners, how are the vampires able to attack them without being invited in?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Grace keeps pushing Smoke to take the vampires head on, before they go to her store and kill her daughter. When the others refuse, she forces it by inviting them in.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How to I prove to someone that the U.S. moon landing wasn't staged?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Explain why the US hasn’t gone back in so long, and why with modern technology it seems so difficult?

  The Apollo program took 4.5% of the US budget. NASA’s entire budget now—including space telescopes, earth satellites, and interplanetary probes—is less than half of one percent.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are there regions of the world where local men and women have divergent accents?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  One of the many controversial claims about Pirahã is that female speakers can’t use the phoneme /h/, always substituting /s/ instead.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Why would OP’s mother bring up the ultrasound in the first place if she were deliberately trying to conceal anything?

  I could see the twin being stillborn and the doctors thinking it was easier to tell the mother it had “vanished”, though.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Westerners, what's your impression on the Chinese Diaspora? And what does the people around your area of residence think of the Chinese Diaspora?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I live on the edge of my city’s Chinatown (Oakland, California) and it’s an important part of the local culture. I’ve lived, worked, and studied with Chinese/Taiwanese nationals, and if they weren’t there I’d feel like something was missing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What books have a lot of useful information should I get? (I mean like a Wikipedia thing with vast knowledge, but non-electronic.)⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Penguin publishes reference “dictionaries” of various subjects, that are more like mini-encyclopedias. I’ve got ones covering mathematics, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and literary theory.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is #FFFFFF white, but mixing red green and blue paint is black?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not sure I’m accurately visualizing exactly what you’re describing, but I know from experience working with a two-color offset press that the results are quite different if you print two colors in two passes vs one pass (in which the inks are combined on a “blanket” where they effectively mix together before being transferred to the paper all at once).

  In the first case, the result is exactly what you’d expect from a subtractive color model; but in the latter case, the mixed ink that ends up on the paper is no darker than the component inks. The hue is similar whether overprinted or mixed, but the saturation is reduced in the mixed example.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is #FFFFFF white, but mixing red green and blue paint is black?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  In theory mixing a bunch of those 3 colors together, you can eventually get down to black, in practice your pigments aren’t perfect

  This is a common misconception, but it has nothing to do with imperfections in the pigments. The real issue is that you don’t want each of your primaries to block a full third of the visible spectrum—you want each to block a narrow band of frequencies that overlaps as little as possible with the sensitivity curves of the other cone cells in your eyes, in order to produce fully-saturated colors. The tradeoff is that intermediate frequencies aren’t blocked by any of the primaries, which is why we need to add black.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is #FFFFFF white, but mixing red green and blue paint is black?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Other comments are discussing additive vs subtractive colors, but that’s not accurate if you’re talking about mixing paints. Subtractive printing (CMYK) works by overprinting transparent inks, where each ink removes a different part of the spectrum. But mixed paints differ in two critical ways:

  • Paints are opaque, not transparent. Unlike subtractive inks, paint doesn’t invariably darken the color it’s painted over—instead it completely or partially replaces the underlying color.
  • Subtractive inks are applied to the substrate one at a time—they’re not pre-mixed and applied in one pass. If you mix paints before appying them, you get more of an averaging than subtraction or addition.
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do you cut a cucumber so that the round slices don't roll all over and off of your cutting board?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Cut the slices at a slight angle so they tilt over if they roll.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why does most American's give shit to the French when if not for them we would have lost the revolution?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The Fall of France and the Vichy regime were pathetic, but the French Resistance was legendary.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨do most people really like the taste and smell of eggs?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think eggs, potatoes, and tofu are in a similar category: there are so many drastically different ways of preparing them that it’s impossible to generalize; and when someone does, I just suspect that they haven’t yet found the exceptions.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Am I financially enabling child labor in 3rd world countries by buying second hand fast fashion?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It depends on what you would have bought otherwise—you presumably buy a limited amount of clothing, so what purchase is it replacing?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Sending letters via post to friends in the same city wasn’t uncommon—but beyond that, you could leave messages at common locations. Like if you both go to the same shop once a week, you could leave messages for each other with the shopkeeper.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why there is no clock that displays time 4:20:69 ?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  They’ve made prototypes, but it never made it into production because the workers keep taking smoke breaks.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How does capitalism differ from crony capitalism?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What you’re describing isn’t capitalism per se, but a free market. They tend to be correlated, but you can have either one without the other. Capitalism strictly speaking is about private ownership of production—when private investors control industry and reap all the profits after wages and taxes.

  Crony capitalism is when investors influence the state to reduce wages and taxes, and to manipulate the market at the expense of rival investors.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is anyone else having a hard time sympathizing with Americans?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s fair to judge people for the collective actions of a group they’ve voluntarily joined—a political party, a military, an occupation, etc.

  But when you look at the behavior of a country (or any other group that people belong to by birth), you’re seeing what any other group of humans would do when raised in similar circumstances. You can judge their institutions and their leadership, but when you judge them as people you’re judging all of humanity.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If the color of the Sun was orange, wouldn't the clouds and everything white also be orange? My friend is adamant that 30 years ago the "real" Sun was orange but got replaced with a white LED.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  30 years ago?

  So right about the time The Truman Show came out?