zaphod
@zaphod@lemmy.ca
Just this guy, you know?
- Comment on Let's discuss: Mass Effect 2 weeks ago:
It’s all about tone. The original comment was incredibly combative and hyperbolic (“I utterly loathe Mass Effect. I consider it one of the worst pieces of science-fiction ever created.”) so much so that it would easily be mistaken for flamebait given the thread was likely to attract fans of the series.
It certainly didn’t strike me as the start of an open-minded conversation.
But in hindsight I should’ve just downvoted and moved on rather than commenting as I did, so that’s on me.
- Comment on Let's discuss: Mass Effect 2 weeks ago:
Ahh yes, the old “sticks and stones” defense that completely ignores human nature and basic decency.
- Comment on Let's discuss: Mass Effect 2 weeks ago:
Funny, I feel the same way about Fallout and The Witcher. Just… don’t get the appeal. As always, to each their own. Hence why I generally try avoiding yucking other people’s yums.
- Comment on What do you personally use AI for? 3 weeks ago:
I don’t. Played with it a bit but as a capable writer and coder I don’t find it fills a need and just shifts the effort from composition (which I enjoy) to editing and review (which I don’t).
- Comment on Biden signs TikTok “ban” bill into law, starting the clock for ByteDance to divest it 3 weeks ago:
Oh please. The anti-TikTok hysteria has been going on much longer than the Israeli invasion of Gaza.
Agree or not with the anti-China rhetoric about TikTok, but at least argue about the facts and not inane conspiracy theories.
- Comment on I was handed this lovely flyer while grocery shopping 4 weeks ago:
Not funny once you realize all doctors are actually lizard people in human skin suits performing experiments on us. QED sucker!
- Comment on [Long interview] Star Trek Discovery's Wilson Cruz Keeps Making Television History 4 weeks ago:
But you gotta love the next paragraph:
Two episodes before we shot Hugh’s death [scene], they called me in. They were kind of cagey about it. They said, “Listen, this is Star Trek. Nobody really dies.”
- Comment on Discovery will be the first Star Trek show in half a century to end without a single Jonathan Frakes appearance 2 months ago:
The focus on drama over logic completely shallows out the allegory until it’s JUST a gay couple being contemporarily gay on screen
Yeah. That’s my damn point.
Maybe there is no allegory.
Maybe it’s just a gay couple on screen.
Like Nichelle being just a black woman in an elevated position on screen.
Why is that such a problem for you?
- Comment on Discovery will be the first Star Trek show in half a century to end without a single Jonathan Frakes appearance 2 months ago:
So, putting a gay couple on screen and just having it be a normal aspect of who they are is “blandly doing the cultural issues”?
Was putting Uhura, a black woman on the bridge of a starship on a show airing in the 1960s, also “blandly doing the cultural issues”?
- Comment on That gourmet luxury blend... 2 months ago:
Ah, see, I’m Canadian so that only works like two months out of the year when we’re able to emerge from our igloos…
- Comment on That gourmet luxury blend... 2 months ago:
Times like this I’m glad I have not one but two friends who are backyard beekeepers. They are more than happy to give away the enormous amount of honey they collect each year…
- Comment on That gourmet luxury blend... 2 months ago:
Gentle heating in a hot water bath or the microwave will liquify that honey again.
- Comment on Discovery will be the first Star Trek show in half a century to end without a single Jonathan Frakes appearance 2 months ago:
Jesus Christ. The show has one non-binary character and a gay couple and suddenly they’re relying on “cultural hot topics”.
Fuck right off already.
- Comment on Please Stop 2 months ago:
I stand corrected. One project in Italy and two proofs of concept that never went anywhere.
Truly revolutionary.
- Comment on Please Stop 2 months ago:
Did you seriously not read the conclusion?
This author believes it is technologically indefensible to call Fossil a “blockchain” in any sense likely to be understood by a majority of those you’re communicating with. Using a term in a nonstandard way just because you can defend it means you’ve failed any goal that requires clear communication. The people you’re communicating your ideas to must have the same concept of the terms you use.
(Emphasis mine)
- Comment on Please Stop 2 months ago:
the technology itself has its use cases.
Cool.
Name one.
I mean, it’s been, what, 15 years of hype? Surely there must be a successful deployment of a commercially viable and useful blockchain, right?
Right?
- Comment on Twitch "isn't profitable" admits CEO, in wake of recent layoffs 4 months ago:
This is essentially admitting that the cheap money dried up as interest rates returned to normal and now they’re in trouble.
This is basically the story of the last year in tech and while the fed has indicated rates aren’t going to rise and further and may start to decline in 2024, we’re unlikely to return to the ultra low rate environment that’s existed for the past 15 years.
I fully expect we’ll hear a lot more stories like this as Silicon Valley companies are forced to actually operate as profitable businesses.
- Comment on Star Trek: The Deep Space Nine episode that predicted a US crisis [bbc.com] 4 months ago:
Is it prophetic, or do we have a techno-capitalist elite that looked as those books as a roadmap rather than a cautionary tale? Hmm…
- Comment on Google confirms it just laid off around a thousand employees 4 months ago:
ZIRP - zero interest rate policy. Very common term for anyone following macroeconomic policy since 2008.
I desperately hope I don’t have to explain the rest.
- Comment on Google confirms it just laid off around a thousand employees 4 months ago:
Because FAANG is the entire economy? Please.
Step out of the SV bubble and you’ll see the economy is fine. The fact big tech was dumb and overextended themselves during and shortly after COVID while relying on ZIRP to fund those expenditures doesn’t mean everyone else did.
- Comment on Google confirms it just laid off around a thousand employees 4 months ago:
If you’re so sure you should run off and short the S&P 500.
- Comment on OpenAI says it’s “impossible” to create useful AI models without copyrighted material 4 months ago:
IMO the right compromise is to return copyright to its original 14 year term. OpenAI can freely train on anything up to 2009 which is still a gigantic amount of material whole artists continue to be protected and incentivized.
- Comment on Teslas Have a Minor Issue Where the Wheels Fly Off While Driving, Documents Show 4 months ago:
You mean the front fell off? Damn, Elon should move into ship building…
- Comment on How do you get the dry boogers out if you don’t pick your nose? 6 months ago:
Neti pot/nasal rinse bottle, twice a day on the recommendation of my asthma specialist.
- Comment on Nintendo of America President: “Everyone Has the Right To Form a Union” 6 months ago:
Beat me to it. Here’s the quote in context:
I think we’re on the right path in terms of ensuring we’ve got a work environment and culture that allows people to be productive, to have balance in their lives, and to grow within the company. Everyone has the right to form a union, and certainly in the future, wherever it takes us, we’ll respect that. But we’re very much focused right now on how to create the best work culture and environment we possibly can.
We’re always listening to our workers and we want to make sure we have both formal and informal ways of getting worker feedback and understanding the needs of our employees and where we can improve. And we always act on that feedback. And, as I said earlier, there is always a right to form unions and we respect that.
Well, yeah, congrats, he basically just stated the law: yes, everyone (in the US and many other countries) has the right to form unions. To “respect that” is to acknowledge that right.
I know the bar is damn low for good corporate behaviour, but man, it’s apparently way lower than I realized…
- Comment on Voyager and Paramount Plus 8 months ago:
One of many reasons I prefer keeping my own media collection: full control over the playback experience.
- Comment on Tale as old as time 8 months ago:
That’s actually why can rewatch TOS endlessly but TNG only occasionally. TOS is that light popcorn fare that’s entertaining but you don’t take very seriously. TNG is serious sci-fi that challenges the audience often with very difficult subject matter. The latter is objectively the better show but if I’m looking for something to throw on for casual fun, for me it’s TOS all the way.
- Comment on Which particular episode(s) of Star Trek do you find yourself going back to? 9 months ago:
TOS: The Immunity Syndrome.
I have no idea why. Seriously. It’s inexplicable.