Kerfuffle

@Kerfuffle@sh.itjust.works

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Could you compress text files by mapping a word to how commonly it is used and translating it with an application?⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  First just think about the logic of what I said before: if there are finite number of combinations in the link, how can you possibly link to a larger number of items? It’s just logically impossible.

  Then how is it that I was able to link to 800 words with 5 characters, (stripping aside the static portion of the links)?

  The fact that you were able to link to 800 words doesn’t really mean anything. somesite.com/a could point to a file that was gigabytes. This doesn’t meant the file got compressed to a. Right?

  There also might be less combinations for that site than it appears. For an 800 word chunk of grammatical English text, there are a lot less combinations than the equivalent length in arbitrary characters. Instead of representing each character in a word, it could just use an id like dog=1, antidisestablishmentarianism=2 and so on. Even using tricks like that though, it’s pretty likely you’re only able to link to a subset of all the possible combinations.

  Regarding compression in general, it’s a rule that you can’t compress something independent of its content. If you could do that, even if the compression only reduced the file by the tiniest fraction you could just repeatedly apply the algorithm until you end up where the problem I described is obvious. If you could compress any large file down to a single byte, then that single byte can only represent 256 distinct values. However there are more than 256 distinct files that can exist, so clearly something went wrong. This rule is kind of like breaking the speed of light or perpetual motion: if you get an answer that says you have perpetual motion or FTL travel then you automatically know you did something wrong. Same thing with being able to compress without regard to the content.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Could you compress text files by mapping a word to how commonly it is used and translating it with an application?⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  it would be possible to parse any program or any bit of software into its text equivalent and then generate the URL that attaches to this algorithm for that entire page reducing a thousand characters to 16.

  This can’t work. Let’s use a simpler example, instead of 16 characters for the link let’s say it’s a single digit and let’s say the content of the “page” is 4 digits. One digit has 10 possible values: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. 4 digits have 10,000 possible combinations. With only one digit to index into the 10,000 possible combinations, you can point to only 10 of them.

  It’s the same thing for pages of text. If you have a 16 character link and the content you’re trying to index with it is more than 16 characters then you can only point to some of the possibilities in the larger set.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a reason I should donate a kidney to a stranger now, rather than just waiting till I die, at which point both kidneys will probably be donated to strangers anyway?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  But as OP points out, someone will get that kidney eventually anyway.

  OP erroneously thought that but it’s not actually correct. The conditions where someone dies but their kidney is viable for a transplant are rare.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a reason I should donate a kidney to a stranger now, rather than just waiting till I die, at which point both kidneys will probably be donated to strangers anyway?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You now have a single point of failure, where you had redundancy before.

  On the plus side, someone else gets to continue existing.

  Or from the IT perspective: I have two important servers, one has a single drive, the other has RAID mirroring. The drive in the first server fails. I could take a drive out of the server with RAID and have two functional servers or I could keep the second one running on its RAID and have a server with redundancy (that hopefully/might not be needed).

  (I’m not going out and donating a kidney though, guess we can say it’s because I’m selfish.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Those who are against iOS and Apple in general, have you tried their devices lately?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It always surprises me how many people go for the self burn. Whining about a few paragraphs of texts is basically admitting their literacy level or attention span is pitiful.

  That said, people who don’t like Apple still have legitimate reasons. Stuff like being forced to use proprietary connector, their “walled garden”. Basically if you’re happy within the limits of how you think they should do stuff it’s great, but not everyone is. None of that has really changed.

  Use what you like though. People calling switching to Apple if that’s what you prefer a “betrayal” are being ridiculous.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it possible for someone to "become gay" or were they always predisposed to it?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If it was possible for gay people to “become straight” they abso-fucking-lutely would. The reason why they don’t is because it’s impossible.

  I don’t doubt that some would, but I’d actually be surprised if it was the majority. A lot of people see their sexuality as an important part of their identity and wouldn’t just give it up like that, even if doing so would make their lives easier.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Have the trees started turning colors earlier this year?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It seems weird, but I think getting hit by a truck mad it forget what month it was.

  Getting hit by a truck might have made it forget to keep living. Brown leaves don’t sound like a good sign.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Does anyone *not* love using their bidet?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Haha, well then! Though we may be kindred souls, I don’t think I’ll be looking to hang out and bond over our shared appreciation of… this kind of thing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Does anyone *not* love using their bidet?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This, but not ironically. Okay, might be too strong a word but it’s very effective for thorough cleaning and you get used to it pretty quickly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a more politically conservative part of the fediverse?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s also sad that this is what the fediverse thinks right wing is.

  Taking the US as an example: if you look at how often conservative/republican politicians oppose hateful people like Trump you’re going to find it… nearly doesn’t happen at all. They stood together and supported him.

  The problem actually isn’t that someone like Trump can get into office or some harmful and bigoted policy can appear for consideration. The issue is that it gets supported, it gets tolerated.

  At least in the US-y sense of left/right, I think this makes it fair to group those people together. I’ll stop doing that when there’s an apparent distinction.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a more politically conservative part of the fediverse?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Conservative makes no sense. It’s not changing for the sake of lot changing.

  I agree with this part completely.

  Liberalism is the same, it’s change for changes sake.

  Where is this coming from though?

  Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law. — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

  It doesn’t have anything to do with randomly changing stuff just for change’s sake.

  To be fair, we can look at the Wikipedia definition for conservatism too and see if there’s a more charitable way to interpret it:

  Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism

  I’d say the answer is basically no: this is just an indirect way to say “appeal to tradition fallacy”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is the consumption of Meat considered bad⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  And others don’t feel guilty for eating meat.

  Carrots are incapable of feeling anything: they can’t be affected in a morally relevant way. Animals have emotions, preferences, can experience suffering and can be deprived of positive/pleasurable experiences in their lives.

  Than you for recognizing that people have different feelings.

  Obviously this isn’t a sufficient justification for harming others. “I don’t care about people with dark skin, please recognize that different people have different feelings.” The fact that I don’t care about the individuals I’m victimizing doesn’t mean victimizing them is okay.