cecilkorik

@cecilkorik@lemmy.ca

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Whatever happened to the blockchain/smart contract 'revolution' we were told about?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Vaporware turns out to be vapor. Shocking.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I tried Servo, the undercover web browser engine made with Rust⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  It is crazy. And maybe it could be distilled down, but maybe because of what it’s become and how it’s used, that’s just not an option anymore. The context is that the “web” that browsers are browsing has grown from mere rich text and links into basically a fully distributed operating system. There are entire software suites that exist only through web protocols now. Literally anything you used to be able to do on a Desktop OS you can now do directly on the web, often at very close to bare metal performance levels. And over the years and decades the standards have evolved to not just enable that anymore but to actually require that level of functionality. It has become completely expected to have javascript APIs allowing extensive and instantaneous DOM manipulation, HTML5 canvas and storage and WebGL available, they’re not just “optional addons” you can pull in with an extension or that a text based browser might not bother to implement, they’re a core part of the web and little will be functional without them.

  So when you’re building a “modern” web browser what you’re effectively really doing is implementing an entire cross-platform OS, sandboxed and virtualized for security within any host OS you choose to support.

  Of course technically “the web” is still backwards compatible with the old pure HTML, no javascript, no CSS, web 1.0. There’s nothing stopping anyone from writing such a simple site today, and those websites are still out there. And that’s still sort of where you have to start with projects like Servo, because that’s just the basic level of absolute minimum functionality. But it’s taken a long time to build all the features of the modern web and so of course it’s going to take a long time for a new browser engine to implement all of them or even enough of them to actually start supporting the most commonly used websites.

  While there are definitely a lot of quirks related to handling old sites and the various inconsistencies and incompatibilities that developed over the years, I don’t think that’s the real sticking point on developing a new web engine at this point. I think the issue is simply the fact that the web does so much and is such a comprehensive technology platform, and if you tried to simplify it, to make it easier to develop browsers, you would lose a lot of actually important functionality for developing websites that allow them to do the things they are doing today. Granted some of those things I wouldn’t mind losing either, but a lot of them are legitimately required for what we do with the web now and what we expect it to be able to do.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  So - if it cools the place from, say, 29 degrees outside to 22 degrees inside, that’s the same as warming it from 15 degrees outside to 22 inside?

  Oh my, not at all. If it runs for 1 hour continuously in cooling mode that’s going to be electrically largely equivalent to running for 1 hour continuously in heating mode (again, provided it’s not variable speed). Even then the electrical load will vary slightly according to various conditions. The actual temperatures achieved though, depend entirely on the thermodynamics of the system (both inside the pump itself and your whole house and the environment it’s in) which are extremely dynamic and complicated. There are almost no simple, linear relationships you can use to approximate what is actually going on. Even the approximate calculations that HVAC installers do called “Manual J” are hugely idealized and oversimplified. You’ve got things going on like solar heat gain through windows, heat losses through insulation, and heat transfer through gaps in the insulation, air losses through vents and doors and windows and gaps that are specific to your individual home and that you can’t even really measure accurately. It’s a very difficult thing to even attempt to compute or simulate no matter how much we try to develop models that accurately estimate things. On a larger scale, this is why we still struggle to accurately predict the weather.

  Only the next bill will tell

  That’s a reasonable position. You can make all the estimates you want but at the end of the day the only thing that really matters is what you get billed for and that will tell you the truth about what’s actually happening in your house, environment, climate, and situation. I would be confident that given the same temperature conditions you really won’t see much practical difference in electrical usage between a heat pump in cooling mode and an air conditioner (if anything they tend to be somewhat more efficient just due to better design and higher build quality). But you won’t know the true situation until all the measurements are actually done and posted to your bill, and even then you won’t be able to directly compare them because there are so many other variables that are always changing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s exactly the same as an air conditioner, and no: it uses the same amount as when it’s heating. The compressor is either running, or it’s not, plus or minus a little bit depending on how hard it’s actually working to compress the gases at the temperatures and pressures involved. Unless you have a variable speed or dual stage compressor, in which case the power usage may be somewhat proportional to the amount of cooling or heated actually needed since it will slow down for smaller amounts of heating or cooling. Otherwise, the main difference in power usage and power efficiency is how long it runs to achieve the desired temperature.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  run any game at max settings, 4K, future proofed (at least for a while)

  You do understand how excessive that is right? Like “any game max settings 4k” on its own is already like asking for a Formula 1 car, asking for it to be future proofed on top of that is like asking for not just any Formula 1 car but one that can dominate the next 5 seasons.

  That said, if you truly do believe your daughter needs this is can’t live without max settings 4k on every game imaginable, then your friend did a good job trying to meet your requirements.

  … but is it truly necessary? Only you know the answer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OpenAI Seeks Additional Capital From Investors as Part of Its $40 Billion Round⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  And of course they will get it, because many fools and their money are easily separated.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Hater's Guide To The AI Bubble⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  We let tech and advertising companies whose ultimate goal and generator of revenue is to sell things to users by convincing them of things, and they created LLMs that they are using to sell LLMs to users by convincing them that the LLMs are great, something they are in fact uncannily good at. Finally, we have closed the loop. The sales pitch is the product. The product is the sales pitch. Everyone will just fall down the AI rabbithole and never come out again, all productive work will cease, all dollars will be consumed. ???, profit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I really want to like the new ff7....but it's just so buggy.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That sounds annoying. The old FF7 is also buggy, but mostly in funny and delightful ways.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are password managers secure to use?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There are weaknesses and attack vectors, but they are in my opinion more secure than almost all realistic alternatives. If you think you’ve come up with a better system, by all means, implement it. I commend your skepticism of following the herd and may it serve you well. But beware of pursuing security through obscurity. People recommend password managers because they are one of the best solutions available for navigating this complex threat environment we live in and they are appropriate for most people’s situations.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨7,818 titles on Steam disclose generative AI usage, or 7% of Steam's total library of 114,126 games, up from ~1,000 titles in April 2024⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Elevator music is a surprisingly profitable commercial niche. For that matter, there are always going to be soulless, insipid, overused imitations of real art that gets turned into staggering commercial success precisely because it’s bland and meaningless. “Live, love, laugh” for example.

  Not everything has to have meaning and significance, but we also have the right to judge it when it should.

  The problem with AI is that a lot of artists literally rely at least to some extent on the money that flows from that soulless commercial drivel, either with their eyes fully open to the situation, or by convincing themselves that it does have meaning to somebody, or just themselves if nobody else. They need to pay the bills and put food on the table and a huge source of that comes from commercial art work which has a high bar for visual impact and a very low bar for ideas or meaning.

  If AI replaces the meaningless filler content of the art world, how do artists survive if that’s their bread and butter? It’s never going to directly replace real human art, but if it removes their meal ticket, the outcome will still be the same. Soon there will be almost no real human artists left, as they’ll start to become prohibitively expensive, which will drive more people to AI in a self-reinforcing feedback loop until only a handful of “masters” and a bunch of literal starving artists trying to become them without ever earning a penny. The economics of the situation are pretty dire and it’s increasingly hard to picture a future for human art that doesn’t look bleak.

  I’m planning to do my part to make sure exclusively human-made art is always the choice I’m going to make and pay for, but there are bigger forces at play here than you or me and I don’t think they’re going to push things in a happy direction. The enshittification of art will happen, is already happening, and we’re just along for the ride.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why doesn't the Trump administration simply edit the Epstein files and release them?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The problem with lies is you have to have a good memory. You need to make sure all the lies line up and don’t leave holes in your story that reveal the lie underneath because ironically the smaller the slip the more damning and harder to explain it can be. That applies to falsifying documents too. It’s actually more dangerous to try and create something fake because now you need fake evidence for all the fake stuff you’re putting in there, and you need to hide any evidence or corroboration that points to the stuff you’ve removed, and it all gets really complicated and really error-prone really fast. Liars survive by keeping things simple enough that it can’t be challenged, or in Trump’s case, by hiding all the small lies behind big obvious ones, like “there are no Epstein files” which everyone knows is a lie but the lie is so big it’s immovable while all the juicy details are buried underneath.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How did websites like TinEye recognize cropped photos of the same image (and other likened pictures), without the low-entry easyness of LLM/AI Models these days?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  We didn’t call them AI because they weren’t (and aren’t) intelligent, but marketing companies eventually realized there were trillions of dollars to be made convincing people they were intelligent and created models explicitly designed to convince people of things like the idea that they are intelligent and can have genuine conversations like a real human and create real art like a real human and totally aren’t just empty-headedly mimicking thousands of years of human conversation and art, and immediately used them to convince people that the models themselves were intelligent (and many other things besides). Given that marketing and advertising literally exist to convince people of various things and have become exceedingly good at it, it’s really a brilliant business move and seems to be working great for them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How did websites like TinEye recognize cropped photos of the same image (and other likened pictures), without the low-entry easyness of LLM/AI Models these days?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  We didn’t call them AI because they weren’t (and aren’t) intelligent, but marketing companies eventually realized there were trillions of dollars to be made convincing people they were intelligent and created models explicitly designed to convince people of things like the idea that they are intelligent and can have genuine conversations like a real human and create real art like a real human and totally aren’t just empty-headedly mimicking thousands of years of human conversation and art, and immediately used them to convince people that the models themselves were intelligent (and many other things besides). Given that marketing and advertising literally exist to convince people of various things and have become exceedingly good at it, it’s really a brilliant business move and seems to be working great for them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s the fun part, you can’t. A lot depends on the details here. You’re looking for a one-size-fits-all answer to a very not-one-size situation.

  In 99% of cases a major crime like a kidnapping that I know I didn’t have anything to do with should be reported immediately, and “speaking to the police” only ceases when I become aware they have decided to suspect my involvement. In the other 1% of cases, I have understood how bad it looks and I’m talking immediately to the best lawyer I can find and letting them do all the talking from the beginning.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come nobody does anything about North Korea?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s not a lack of empathy as much as a kind of educated empathy. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as they say. We historically have a notorious and awful track record of nation building, and I think a lot of people believe this boils down to the fact that it’s very difficult to impose a national identity on people from outside, even with direct, physical intervention. We have tried to get around this at times by only supporting what we believe are legitimate independence movements which clearly already possess a strong national identity. Unfortunately even those tend to devolve into ethnic cleansing campaigns and dictatorship as soon as we leave. And if we don’t leave, then we have to stay there forever and we have to keep interfering every time things threaten to go off the rails and then it becomes paternalistic colonialism.

  Keep in mind too that a lot of people living under oppressive regimes are genuinely damaged people and there is nothing but time that can heal those wounds. They are traumatized, they are angry, they have lost loved ones, they have been subjected to horrors we can only imagine and clinically document, without feeling the fear and emotional scars those things inflicted on millions of people. If you suddenly give them back power again, even small amounts of power, it is in human nature for many to seek revenge for what they’ve gone through (and not always against the right people). They’ve learned how to operation within the context of a deeply flawed and dangerous regime, and as resilient as the human spirit is it still is difficult to teach new ways.

  At some point, people have got to learn to stand on their own two feet and find a way to build an equal, fair and just nation for all of themselves, by all the people and for all the people. While we certainly can do a better job of supporting this, we can’t do it for them and our attempts to do so have typically ranged from highly questionable to disastrous and extremely counterproductive. We fought for our own freedom, and it is not out of selfishness that we tell them they must fight for their own too. It’s not that we enjoy the fighting, it’s that as awful as it is, it appears necessary to get that hostility out into the open and understood to be as awful as it is, for a successful outcome to be possible.

  On the other hand, even that hasn’t helped in Israel/Palestine where it seems like we’ve tried almost everything and failed. The fact is, nobody has the answers. We don’t know the way to fix this. We are always trying, even when it doesn’t seem like it, but we have to be abundantly cautious that we’re not making it worse, because we often are.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨VC behind ‘996’ work culture debate says 5-day weeks won't build billion-dollar startups⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  “As you can clearly see on this chart I made of the value I put on things, the value I put on my own work is the highest, and the rest of you are very low, and you should feel bad that I don’t value your work! What are you going to do about it? Work harder? Haha, that will just make my value go up even higher!”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨VC behind ‘996’ work culture debate says 5-day weeks won't build billion-dollar startups⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  “I work this hard, everyone should work this hard!” – someone has no idea what hard work is.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The signatures are still coming and it's already making an impact⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It will be hardly any work once a law passes, because they’ll make sure it is. Everyone knows where the proprietary code is. It doesn’t just get merged in “by accident” unless you are a really shit developer (and to be fair some are).

  Besides, no one is saying they have to open source it. To be honest, the outcome from this petition that I would most like to see is simply a blanket indemnity to the community attempting to revive, continue and improve the software from that point forward. If the law says that it’s legal once a software is shut down, for the community to figure out a way to make it work again and make it their own, and puts no further responsibilities on the “rights holder” at all, I think that honestly solves the problem in 99% of cases. It would be nice if they gave the community a hand, released what they could, and tried not to be shit about it, (and I know some of them will be shit about it, but we’re pretty resourceful), as long as they’re not trying to sue every attempt into oblivion I think we’ll make a lot of progress on game preservation and make the gaming world a much better place.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨32, f. Are there any dating sites that are actually free and don't suddenly force me to pay to actually use the site?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  From my understanding (and experience) dating apps/online dating in general is dead, fucked up beyond repair by capitalism, toxic incels, predators, scammers, crooks and most recently AI. No technology can possibly survive such an onslaught and most of them wouldn’t profit from doing so. They have a financial incentive to attract repeat customers.

  In person meeting and dating should be the obvious alternative, but apparently nobody goes out socializing anymore since COVID and nobody can afford hobbies because of the economy and chronic social malaise and terminal online doomscrolling has broken people’s ability to form human connection anyway so I think civilization is probably just ending after these last few generations, frankly.

  If there is a useful option I’d love to know what it is too.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I am looking to broaden my youtube channels that I follow. What female channel are you following?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  In absolutely no particular order:

  www.youtube.com/@VBirchwood - historical fashion/lifestyle
  www.youtube.com/@EmmaThorneVideos - a self-described “silly little guy” (hint: not a guy) politely mocking religion and other stuff that deserves mockery
  www.youtube.com/@darbinorvar - woodworking and maker stuff
  www.youtube.com/@AtRachelGilmore - Canadian independent journalist
  www.youtube.com/@AnnaRudolfChess - originally chess (she’s an international master and chess commentator) and video games but after a long mental health hiatus, lately more mental health discussions and variety
  www.youtube.com/@LauraFarms - farming, obviously
  www.youtube.com/@SpaceMog - astronomy, astrophysics, space
  www.youtube.com/@karilawler - retro computers/video games and programming
  www.youtube.com/@acottonsock - Playing The Sims with sometimes inappropriate commentary
  www.youtube.com/@EngineeringwithRosie - engineering explainers with an emphasis on renewable energy
  www.youtube.com/@BeckyStern - electronics maker stuff
  www.youtube.com/@aprilclucks - incredibly deadpan sarcastic Australian life advice and mockery of everything and herself too usually

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do so many homes in rural areas have a front yard full of junk?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Just because they look rusty and old doesn’t mean they’re junk, but even if they are, there will be no urgency to dispose of them. Most people who aren’t minimalists don’t dispose of things except for aesthetic reasons, unless they’re out of room. Many rural people have a relatively narrow scope for aesthetics that doesn’t include what you might call the front yard, and being rural, it’s really hard to run out of room. Therefore, there is no urgency to dispose of stuff that has become “junk”, and when you do, you will probably do it all at once, as a project, once you start feeling like you’re running out of room, which takes quite awhile, so you’re very likely to see the development of the junk pile in its intermediate stages.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a term for something like Imposter Syndrome, but instead feeling like it’s other people conspiring to give you an illusory taste of success with intent to pull it away and screw you over?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think that’s just called capitalism.

  For an actual answer, I’d turn to the idiom of dangling a carrot which evokes the idea of an animal chasing a carrot being held out in front of it on a stick by its own rider, unable to reach the carrot since it moves forward as they do, but chasing it forward anyway.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨So if we're just good with careening into fascism 2.0 what does the future look like?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah people thinking the Democratic Party is going to save them are delusional IMO. They are part of it and many of them have been working towards the same goal. They are a false opposition at best. Not all of them, some of them are legit, like Bernie, and look how he has been treated by the Dem establishment. Any real resistance is marginalized.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Subnautica's Original Creators Have Been Removed From Unknown Worlds "Effective Immediately", As Krafton Makes Concerning Leadership Changes⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh good now maybe the Subnautica developers can go independent to make a spiritual successor that isn’t called Subnautica and isn’t garbage.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨In Canada, Nintendo is increasing the price of the original Nintendo Switch.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Fuck Canada in particular, as usual. It’s starting to feel a bit personal.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Steam Summer Sale 2025 has begun!⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  KSP1 is the bees knees and the modding community is still going as strong as ever. Still worthwhile even at full price.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  We don’t absolutely know what the future holds for our own planet much less the universe, so it’s impossible to answer this with any conviction, but based on my current understanding or the general scientific consensus, and the fact that the universe is expanding and that expansion is accelerating, no, by placing them at the edge of the observable universe and the effects of relativity, their hypothetical signals will never reach Earth and almost certainly not the Earth that we know of that’s orbiting Sol and full of humans patiently observing the universe for signs of their lost ancestors.

  But we don’t know with any certainty that the universe’s expansion or acceleration is going to continue indefinitely, we don’t even fully understand why it is happening. However, if the universe is infinite, and is going to last an infinite amount of time, well “infinity” is a very long time and you can’t rule out the fact that another wormhole could open and bring them (or their signals) home at some point now that you’ve proven such a wormhole can exist. So when you put all the things we do know and the things we don’t know together, I’d give them about 50/50 chances, with a margin of error of plus or minus 50%.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[Stellar Blades] This game completely broke them⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Most game media/advertising/reviewing is garbage and cannot be trusted. I play games that look fun. I have a particular definition of fun specific to me alone. I’ll watch actual gameplay to decide if it looks fun to me. I might watch technical reviews and benchmarks that tell me if my hardware will be able to play it. IDGAF what culture war moralizing poop that some idiots want to headline it with and babble about to get views on their articles and channels.

  I don’t think Stellar Blade looks like the kind of fun I personally enjoy so I’m going to pass, but I’m not going to judge or shame anyone who’s enjoying the fuck out of it because there’s nothing to shame. It’s a game. It’s made to be played and be fun for people to play. Have fun. Don’t worry about the drama storms. They’re pointless and devoid of meaning.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Flock Removes States From National Lookup Tool After ICE and Abortion Searches Revealed [404 Media]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The Party says 1984 has always been our guiding principle, just like we’ve always been at war with Eastasia. I certainly don’t remember a time when it wasn’t so.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨With all the animals that die in the sea, is it possible they get pickled in there?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Ocean salinity varies slightly but averages around 3.5%. Brackish water would be less than 3% as long as it’s saltier than freshwater, which is limited to 0.05%. Brine, which OP is asking for, is water with 5% or greater salinity. The ocean doesn’t get that high but salt lakes definitely can, the Dead Sea is almost 35% salinity. Also why it’s called the “Dead” sea, FWIW. Maybe you could pickle stuff there.