merc
@merc@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on Seals the deal, once and for all. 1 day ago:
Asimov’s mysteries always hinged on the laws of robotics. It always seemed like a robot did something, but if the laws of robotics were in force that couldn’t have happened. But, it was always explained in a way that left the three laws intact.
The “I, Robot” movie abandoned the 3 laws of robotics when convenient to the plot. That takes away the entire tension that made Asimov’s stories interesting.
- Comment on Radon 2 days ago:
A lot of managers are pretty useless. Some degree of management is needed because you can’t just have 10,000 individual contributors all reporting directly to the CEO. But, a lot of managers get where they are by schmoozing, claiming credit, shifting blame, avoiding responsibility, etc.
- Comment on Radon 4 days ago:
Is this a war on being specific?
If a fisherman says “I operate the winch on a bowpicker tuna fishing boat”, is that a bullshit job?
If a middle-management yes-man who exists only to fluff his boss’ ego describes his job as “I encourage excellence” does that mean his job is no longer bullshit?
- Comment on Stop stressing my GPU and start hiring artists 1 week ago:
What was that?!
Flying saucer.
Oh.
- Comment on Stop stressing my GPU and start hiring artists 1 week ago:
Were you thinking “I can’t believe this is WoW” or “I can’t believe how good this looks?”
Because, I haven’t experienced the first one. To me, once I’m in the game, there really seems to be an amazing consistency in how things look. After a while things look “realistic” but in a “realistic for WoW” way. Like, obviously Orcs and Demons are not realistic, but the consistency is so strong that how things look, and move, and behave is so strong and predictable.
- Comment on Stop stressing my GPU and start hiring artists 1 week ago:
The trouble with photorealism is that you very easily stumble into the uncanny valley. In addition, something that often looks “photorealistic” today will look really dated in a few years.
If you go with artfully styled games, it can actually be much harder. You need to adopt a consistent artistic style and have that style be used by many different artists. Unlike with photorealism, there isn’t always going to be a reference available. You have to watch that over time, and as the scope of the game grows, the style remains consistent. But, when it’s done well, it can be amazing.
One of my favourites in terms of artful styling is the game Interstate '76. It came out at a time when full motion video cutscenes were the style of the day. You’d have low resolution graphics, and then come in with a VHS-quality cutscene with real actors and real sets. Then back into low resolution graphics. Interstate '76 chose an amazing artistic style, then did in-engine cutscenes, which kept the style consistent.
The other master of this, IMO, is World of Warcraft. It must be a gargantuan undertaking to have a game with that many different models and to have a consistent style for all of them, but they mostly do. They often do out-of-engine cutscenes, but their style is so consistent that their cutscenes just look like even more detailed shots from that same world.
- Comment on Feynman rules 1 week ago:
Why does gravity cause two things to attract? Why does the strong nuclear force hold protons together? Why is the speed of light 3 x 10^8 m/s and not half that, or 1000x as fast?
It’s often possible to figure out how certain initial values of the universe cause it to behave in certain ways. But, as for why those initial values are the ones that they are, that’s like asking about angels dancing on the head of a pin.
- Comment on Bank Workers, Rejoice! 1 week ago:
But we’re not talking about getting money in the future. We’re talking about getting full ownership of a house in the future, while being able to live in it for the full 50 years that it is being paid off.
The bank also isn’t talking about getting money in the future, they’re getting a steady revenue stream for 50 years.
So, I don’t see how this really applies to 50 year mortgages.
- Comment on Bank Workers, Rejoice! 1 week ago:
Poor timing? You bought at the absolute peak of something known as The United States Housing Bubble. Your experience is not typical. You’re one of the unlucky people who had the absolute worst timing possible.
The idea of using a home as part of your retirement should be a lie, but unfortunately for the vast majority of people it isn’t. The world would be much better off if people only got what they paid back when they sold their houses. But, the reality is that most people have been absurdly lucky and their homes have been going up faster than all but the best stocks on the stock market. You just happened to be someone who jumped on the ride at exactly the wrong time.
- Comment on Come the fuck on.... please? 3 weeks ago:
but it never spilled over into politics quite to this degree.
Sure. But, look at the media environment. From the founding of the US to the invention of radio, there were newspapers. Sure, there was a strong element of yellow journalism, but to print a newspaper you still needed a printing press so it wasn’t a free-for-all. Then with radio, and then TV in the 50s there were only a handful of sources of information for everybody to follow. It’s only really since the 2010s that the media environment has been a free-for-all with anybody able to put up their own podcast, or put up videos on YouTube, or have their own blog, or post on Twitter, or whatever.
Politicians used to be able to do backroom deals. Those used to get a bad name, but to a certain extent it was a good thing, because at least they were dealing, instead of causing things to come to a deadlock. Now, if anybody dares to talk to someone on “the other team”, they get raked over the coals.
Russia was found to be sponsoring the NRA
Sure, they spent some money, and had some success. But, they hardly needed to push. The NRA’s goals were already aligned with Russia’s. The NRA has over 5 million members, and they were hardly upset with the direction Russia was pushing.
the rise of evangelicals as a voting group seems to be a co-ordinated world-wide phenomenon.
Not to me. There doesn’t seem to be much coordination there. There are just grifters seeing an opportunity.
I’d argue that those same elites thrived more under stable economic growth than an unstable one
It’s hardly the first time that an elite and powerful group tried to use a movement or a politician to further their interests and then found out that they couldn’t control what they’d unleashed.
- Comment on Come the fuck on.... please? 3 weeks ago:
I think you’re overestimating the influence of Russia and China and underestimating the dysfunction in the US.
- Comment on Come the fuck on.... please? 3 weeks ago:
Civilization is doing pretty well outside the US. If the US disappeared tomorrow, the rest of the world would do significantly better. I don’t know how the world will deal with climate change, but without the US it would be easier to make progress. The tech firms blowing up the AI bubble, and invading our privacy are nearly all American. A lot of the private equity firms destroying the world are also American. If the US could hurry up and finish collapsing, the rest of the world’s civilization could just move on.
- Comment on I hear he's homeless too. 3 weeks ago:
Giuffre agreed to a multi-million pound out-of-court settlement in 2022.
- Comment on I hear he's homeless too. 3 weeks ago:
It sounds like the king (his brother) is stripping him of his titles and kicking him out of the royal residence. But his brother (as non-king) is letting him stay on a property on an estate he owns as a private citizen, and paying him a kind of allowance out of his own “private” money.
- Comment on I hear he's homeless too. 3 weeks ago:
Andrew is expected to move to a property on the king’s Sandringham estate near the northeast coast and receive private financial support from his brother.
I wonder if he (Andrew) actually owns anything in his own name. The funding for the royals is complex. The “working royals” get about $100m per year as a percentage of revenues from the Crown Estate as a kind of salary / per-diem to do their “jobs”. The Crown Estate had about £16.5b in assets, so the amount they’re paid is only a tiny fraction of its value. The king also gets money from the Duchy of Lancaster which includes land in Lancashire and Yorkshire as well as properties in London. Whoever’s the Duke of Cornwall gets paid from the Duchy of Cornwall which is land in South-West England. Some things you’d think would be owned by the country are actually privately owned by the monarch, like many of the palaces. They also own estates like Sandringham and Balmoral.
So, the monarch owns a lot of stuff privately, which is passed down to the next monarch. The current Duke of Cornwall (often the crown prince) has a billion pound private estate, which then gets passed to the next Duke when the current duke dies or becomes the monarch.
But, I wonder what the rest of them own. It sounds like the monarch is a multi-billionaire, the Duke of Cornwall is just barely a billionaire, and the rest of the royals get paid huge amounts in a sort-of “salary” if they’re willing to do royal-type work (cut ribbons, make speeches, etc.) but they don’t actually own much of anything.
His ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, who had been living with him in the 30-room mansion, will have to find a new home.
That’s interesting. I wonder what that situation was like, and what she’ll do.
- Comment on Where is modern Punk? 3 weeks ago:
Rage Against the Machine aren’t quite punk, but they’re heavily punk-influenced. It’s amazing that they were such a huge commercial success.
As to whether they’re sellouts, that’s really complicated. They did generate a ton of profits for the machine they raged against. OTOH, I never would have heard their music if they hadn’t been signed to a major record label.
- Comment on Ok, boomer 4 weeks ago:
Who was born in 1961 making him…
- Comment on Fictional 4 weeks ago:
What were digits 10 to 59 like in Babylonian?
- Comment on Fictional 4 weeks ago:
IMO it should be called “base 9+1”. It is a “base 10” system because each order of magnitude is 10x as big as the previous one. But, the key thing is to know which digit is the last one before you roll over.
- Comment on Fictional 4 weeks ago:
Is your issue with metric, or with the fact that everything in life uses a base 10 (which should really be called a base 9+1) system?
- Comment on Did it really used to be common for guys to go to a bar every night like in Cheers or The Simpsons? 4 weeks ago:
Wow. My local library mostly has books. No board games. No media stations – there are some (old) computers you can use to browse the web, so I suppose you could watch media there, but it’s set up as a desk, not a couch or something. You can borrow some games, but not game consoles, and there’s definitely not a spot to play the games on-site. Definitely no VR rooms. There’s one branch of the library in the city that has 3d printers. One branch that has a “music editing station” with a music keyboard attached to a computer. One branch has a high quality, large format scanner for scanning historic docs. Definitely no kitchen or playground.
The idea still seems to be that libraries are supposed to be quiet places where you can read books or study. Any media is meant to be consumed with headphones on, so obviously no shared listening of any kind. They do loan music, video games and movies, but they’re meant to be brought home. You can borrow a lot of musical instruments, but again, there’s no place to play them on-site because the library is a quiet place for reading or studying.
I think it would take a major mental shift for people here to consider libraries as places where you might do something non-quiet, and/or non-serious. And something like cooking on-site would be seen as completely non-librarylike.
- Comment on Did it really used to be common for guys to go to a bar every night like in Cheers or The Simpsons? 4 weeks ago:
I’ve been to the Y, and at the moment it doesn’t seem overtly christian. But, as long as that “C” is part of the name, and especially as long as “Christian” is part of the mission statement, it can potentially become a lot more unfriendly to non-Christians.
That document you linked to says that some YMCAs are overtly christian, and talk about the problems that causes:
Ys that have a strong Christian identity may find that non-Christians are uncomfortable with explicitly Christian language, imagery, and activities. Proselytism is an especially sensitive issue.
For example, several survey respondents express discomfort with colleagues offering Christian prayers or reading Bible verses during the “mission moments” that begin Y staff meetings
- Comment on Did it really used to be common for guys to go to a bar every night like in Cheers or The Simpsons? 4 weeks ago:
I do think there’s a special thing about church that is this bigger than yourself experience
I’m pretty sure that’s only the case if you’re a believer. And, in general, people who aren’t believers don’t go to church, so you’re selecting for a group of people who want to believe in something bigger than themselves.
- Comment on Did it really used to be common for guys to go to a bar every night like in Cheers or The Simpsons? 4 weeks ago:
The Y is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to put Christian principles into practice
- Comment on Did it really used to be common for guys to go to a bar every night like in Cheers or The Simpsons? 4 weeks ago:
New Brunswick?
- Comment on Did it really used to be common for guys to go to a bar every night like in Cheers or The Simpsons? 4 weeks ago:
Well, definitely not a Christian association.
- Comment on #environmentalist 4 weeks ago:
The really bad experiences I’ve had with straws is at movie theatres. In that case you’re given a pretty big drink in a flimsy cup, and you’re slowly drinking it over a couple of hours.
There’s no way that the paper straw holds up in those circumstances. You also don’t want to drink without the straw, because the cup is so flimsy that if you try to drink from it like a regular cup/glass it’s likely to collapse. I have permanent metal / rubber straws at home, but of course I never remember to bring them with me when I go to a movie, since I only go a couple of times a year.
The only solution I’ve found is to take 3-4 paper straws with me, and change them out over the course of the movie.
- Comment on Did it really used to be common for guys to go to a bar every night like in Cheers or The Simpsons? 4 weeks ago:
In the show Clarkson’s Farm, Jeremy Clarkson is looking around, trying to buy a pub. At one point they talk about wanting to have a pub with a little grocery store attached. Clarkson’s girlfriend explained why that was common at one point in Ireland. It was because in the past men would get paid, go immediately to the pub, and drink until their paycheck was gone. If there was a shop attached to the pub, they could hand in an order at the shop before they started drinking. And then, even if they drank away the rest of their paycheck, they’d still be handed a bag of groceries before they were kicked out and had to stumble home.
- Comment on Did it really used to be common for guys to go to a bar every night like in Cheers or The Simpsons? 4 weeks ago:
I like that in the US, New England (NE) is in the North East (NE).
- Comment on Did it really used to be common for guys to go to a bar every night like in Cheers or The Simpsons? 4 weeks ago:
Also, in places with significant winters (including Northern Europe) parks aren’t an option in winter.
Northern Europe seems like the kind of place that would realize this is a problem and invent some kind of community building which was open in the winter and had a shared kitchen, a stock of board games, a court for indoor sports, etc. That’s certainly not going to happen in the US.