merc
@merc@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on 5 days ago:
and not much different from the movie Her
Did you misunderstand that movie? A relationship with an AI is never seen as normal in the movie. The protagonist is a pathetic, lonely man who is going through a divorce. He buys an operating system with an AI component who he then falls for. When he admits to his wife that he’s involved with his operating system, his ex-wife laughs at him for it. And, at the end of the movie, the AIs have evolved so that they’re no longer interested in humans and leave humanity behind to do their own thing.
There’s never a time, even in that movie, where AI relationships are something you’d want to admit to in public.
- Comment on Don't worry guys, it's just cosmetic 5 days ago:
1999:
- Comment on British public more likely to prefer Count Binface wins Clacton by-election than Nigel Farage 1 week ago:
Cool, definitely not my slogan though. He might have had it first, or he heard it from someone else like me. I just posted it because I like it.
- Comment on I agree with don 1 week ago:
Yes?
- Comment on 500,000 households cancel TV licence putting BBC future in jeopardy 1 week ago:
the number of adults still using its TV, radio and digital services remained at 94 per cent of the population
It really seems like something that should be handled with a tax.
- Comment on 500,000 households cancel TV licence putting BBC future in jeopardy 1 week ago:
Also, there would be potential conflicts of interest with those advertisers and the content.
- Comment on 500,000 households cancel TV licence putting BBC future in jeopardy 1 week ago:
The problem here is that they are used to the model where they sell a license to say Sherlock for US audiences and it’s Netflix that buys that for a huge pile of cash. Could they probably make a lot more by cutting out the middle man? Sure, but then they’d have to support all those users directly.
- Comment on 500,000 households cancel TV licence putting BBC future in jeopardy 1 week ago:
Broadcast TV may be a dying format. But, BBC is a lot more than broadcast TV. They do radio, they do podcasts, they do short form video content, they do streaming, they do VOD, they do web news and blogs.
IMO, that’s the problem with a TV subscription. A lot of people interact with BBC stuff on a daily basis on phones, computers, game consoles, etc. It’s hard to avoid seeing a piece of BBC content even if you don’t own a TV.
- Comment on British public more likely to prefer Count Binface wins Clacton by-election than Nigel Farage 1 week ago:
Make your vote Count.
- Comment on Anon invents a time machine 1 week ago:
Good point.
I heard a podcast recently (99% invisible) that talked about how the “60 degree” screw became standard in the world. Before that, there were many competing types of screw, which meant that there were all kinds of incompatibilities.
What they mentioned only in passing was that the British Empire already had a standard at 55 degrees. At that point, the British empire was huge. The smart thing to do would have been to simply adopt the British standard and make it the worldwide standard. Instead, the US forced the rest of the world, including the whole British Empire to adopt the new standard.
I imagine if the US hadn’t entered WWII the world might be using German standards, or it might be using British Empire standards, or maybe even Soviet standards, but it definitely wouldn’t be using American standards.
- Comment on Anon invents a time machine 1 week ago:
US stays isolationist
…
US takes Canada
Which one is it?
- Comment on He was no friend to the middle class 1 week ago:
Theoretically we can fire the president. That was one of the situations they considered when they created the system. They just didn’t understand that political parties were inevitable, and that they’d become so strong that a corrupt party would protect a corrupt president. And that that same corrupt party would corrupt the news so that ignorant people would believe their lies and keep voting for them.
It should be hard to fire the president though. Otherwise you know that Mitch McConnell would have found some way to fire Obama.
Really, we need political systems to be designed by mathematicians or scientists who understand Game Theory and can really figure out how to prevent collusion. A bunch of 20-something-year-olds in the 1700s did a fairly good job of coming up with a decent non-monarchy (both otherwise very similar to British) system of government. But, I would hope a new country starting today would not make some of the same mistakes.
- Comment on He was no friend to the middle class 2 weeks ago:
It’s not about “the elite” or anything. Jobs as a government representative are different. You can’t be fired from those jobs in a normal way because you don’t have a direct boss.
Imagine if you could be fired by someone, say the president, if you didn’t show up. You know Trump would weaponize that to find a way to fire democrats. It’s the same reason that there aren’t laws that prevent someone with a criminal record from running for office, because that would encourage the president to come up with an excuse for getting their political opponents convicted of crimes, and therefore making them ineligible to run.
As a general rule, most political issues are supposed to be solved by elections. But, unfortunately, that leaves many situations where the public has to wait around for an election to try to right things.
- Comment on He was no friend to the middle class 2 weeks ago:
]Massie](en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Massie)
- Comment on I agree with don 2 weeks ago:
You were wearing it wrong.
- Comment on I agree with don 2 weeks ago:
If that escapes the bowl, you’re doing it wrong.
- Comment on I agree with don 2 weeks ago:
Oh, so you don’t poop standing up?
- Comment on Urine Luck 2 weeks ago:
I wonder what the limiting thing was. Was it your body’s ability to process the water you were drinking? So, if you’d had more to drink, it might not have been safe? Or was it that your body’s thirst signal was turned off, but you still could have processed more water, it just wasn’t necessary?
Do you remember if that one piss was dark yellow? I wonder if you were sweating so much that your kidneys were making very concentrated pee because the amount of “unclaimed” water in the blood was low, and most of it was going towards sweating.
That reminds me of going motorcycling in the summer. I was sweating buckets, but as soon as my body squeezed out a drop of sweat, it was immediately whipped off by 100 km/h winds. I remember drinking crazy amounts of water, and being surprised that I didn’t pee nearly as much as I was drinking. But, I still think I was peeing more than once per day.
- Comment on I agree with don 2 weeks ago:
So, don’t piss on other people’s floors. Aim better. You can still do that while standing up.
- Comment on I agree with don 2 weeks ago:
the acceptable amount for one to pee on their own floor willfully is none
Nobody’s talking about willfully peeing on the floor, we’re only talking about microscopic amounts of pee mist that could drift away from the stream when you’re peeing from 50 cm from the bowl instead of 10 cm from the bowl.
- Comment on I agree with don 2 weeks ago:
Every toilet I’ve seen has a big air gap under the seat.
- Comment on I agree with don 2 weeks ago:
Sitting down takes longer. IMO it also flows more easily if I’m standing. I’ll sit if I’m tired, or half-asleep, or whatever. I’ll stand most of the time to get it over with faster.
- Comment on I agree with don 2 weeks ago:
ass interruption
Do you have a cloaca?
- Comment on I agree with don 2 weeks ago:
You’re weird because apparently you don’t clean your bathroom floors.
Sure, microscopic amounts of pee gets on the floor. Then, every couple of weeks you clean your bathroom.
You know that when you flush a toilet you aerosolize a bit of the contents and they drift out and land around the room too. Does that bother you?
- Comment on They were right all along... 2 weeks ago:
You don’t have to have a group chat with your family.
- Comment on They were right all along... 2 weeks ago:
They don’t know how to use the phone? They don’t know how to use regular postal mail?
- Comment on They were right all along... 2 weeks ago:
They most definitely did not get it right.
Having said that, there is some value to being thoughtful about the adoption of new technology. Especially when it comes to kids, some parents are too quick to allow their kids to use smartphones, tablets, chatGPT, etc. without much supervision.
But, the prospect of having to forego virtually all modern technology or become exiled from the only family and community you’ve ever known is crazy. It’s really only cults that require that you shun people who have left the “faith”.
- Comment on Valid point 2 weeks ago:
Ok, what about other countries?
- Comment on Valid point 2 weeks ago:
That’s basically why I carry a wallet – as backup. I got used to leaving my wallet at home unless I was driving and I needed my license. But, then one time I spent 45 minutes shopping tried to pay, and for some unknown reason I couldn’t pay with my phone. Now, if the phone doesn’t work I have the NFC card in the wallet. If the NFC doesn’t work on the card, it also has a chip so I can insert it. If, for some reason, that fails too, I have enough cash for at least the main things I want to buy.
If I’m going out and not planning on doing a major shop, and don’t need to drive, the wallet stays home. If something comes up the phone will probably work, but it’s not worth the extra space to carry the wallet just in case.
- Comment on Valid point 2 weeks ago:
It’s not illegal to not have ID.
In which countries?
