31337
@31337@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on Performative Perp Walk 1 day ago:
Looked it up, and looks like a local criminal justice reform non-profit bailed him out earlier this year. Looks like he’s still awaiting trial though, is on an ankle monitor, and they keep resetting dismissal hearing dates.
- Comment on Performative Perp Walk 2 days ago:
Yeah, the company I was working at got bought out and then they layed the entire tech team and pretty much everyone else. Co-founded a business with coworkers, but it’s not bringing in any revenue and not sure it ever will being in very much, so have been applying to jobs. Only got a few interviews, then ghosted afterwards. I’m guessing a part of it is I have a criminal charge pending, and the first thing you see on Google when you search my name and town is one of those mugshot websites. Maybe I should go into construction, lol.
- Comment on Performative Perp Walk 2 days ago:
Yeah, the criminal justice system in the U.S. causes immeasurable harm. From a probation system designed to keep you in the system, to cash-for-kids-like schemes that I’m convinced are more common than has been prosecuted, to coercive delay tactics. All of which I have personal experience with. I’ve currently been out on bail for 2 years, and someone else in my county has been in jail without trial for 5 years because he can’t afford bail. Not to mention the horrible conditions in many jails and prisons, slave labor, nearly complete lack of rehabilitation, and the system milking the incarcerated’s families for money. I can’t think of any other word to describe it than evil.
- Comment on Memories of a bygone era 2 weeks ago:
- Comment on Wait, my body's own heat is enough? Always has been. 3 weeks ago:
Pipes are often in crawl-spaces or other outer extremities of structures indirectly heated by the warmth coming from the living spaces of the structure, so 55F is a good rule of thumb in some climates.
- Comment on Let people just use what they want, okay? It's their choice. 3 weeks ago:
I’ve seen this term on Mastadon. I’m actually confused by it a bit, since I’ve always thought replies are to be expected on the Internet.
I think women have a problem with men following them and replying in an overly familiar manner, or mansplaining, or something like that. I’m old, used to forums, and never used Twitter, so I may be missing some sort of etiquette that developed there. I generally don’t reply at all on Mastadon because of this, and really, I’m not sure what Mastadon or microblogging is for. Seems to be for developing personal brands, and for creators of content to inform followers of what they created. Seems not to be for discussion. I.e. more like RSS than Reddit (that’s my understanding at least).
- Comment on Why does it seem most people, mainly conservatives, against Trans people? Unless I am wrong I never heard of one shooting up a school church or whatever. The ones I have met have been pretty cool. 4 weeks ago:
I think I’ve heard there are a lot of genetically male, but born female people in sports. I wonder if the same people are against those people playing in sports.
Idk how many transphobic people just care about specific issues. There’s a lot of “groomer” rhetoric, hate, and general disgust. It’s easy to get people to hate what they don’t understand; and a lot of media is trying their hardest to cultivate hate against trans people to create an out-group, so they can control the in-group.
- Comment on In the US, is this actually the moment past the point of no return? 4 weeks ago:
Meh, I would’ve given 3/5 stars to U.S. democracy since the Voting Rights Act. Stars taken away for FPTP, gerrymandering, campaign finance, “lobbying,” and the electoral college. I believe we’re going to go to 0/5 stars with completely rigged elections rather than just manufacturing consent and lightly tipping the scales like they’ve been doing.
- Comment on In the US, is this actually the moment past the point of no return? 4 weeks ago:
Yeah, I think this could be the end of free and fair elections in the U.S., and there’s no coming back from that without a revolution. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think most of us will directly be killed by this change; our lives will just be shittier. It’ll be like living in Russia. Given how utterly incompetent the administration is looking, and the things they say they’re going to do (mass deportation of a significant part of our workforce, blanket tariffs, gutting social safety-nets), we may speed-run an economic and societal collapse. That could sow the seeds for a horrible and bloody revolution.
Or, maybe I’m wrong and the important institutions will somehow hold against a christo-fascist party controlling all branches of the federal government and a president with immunity. If there are still are free and fair elections, then congress could block a lot of things in 2026, and start repairing some of the damage in 2028.
Still, it does not bode well that the U.S. elected these people in the first place, and at best, the U.S. will slowly crumble for decades.
- Comment on Half-Life 2 is currently 100% for its 20th anniversary 5 weeks ago:
I remember liking Opposing Force and Blue Shift too.
- Comment on Anon falls through the cracks 5 weeks ago:
Happens when you’re not proud of what you’re contributing to. Probably most workers, tbh.
- Comment on Anon tries programming in Java 5 weeks ago:
Idk. Maybe it’s because I learned OOP first that it makes more sense to me; but OOP is a good way to break down complex problems and encapsulate them into easily understable modules. Languages like Java almost force everyone on the project to use similar paradigms and styles, so it’s easier for everyone to understand the code base. Whenever I’ve worked on large non-OOP projects, it was a hard-to-maintain mess. I’ve never worked on projects such as the Linux kernel, and I’m hoping it’s not an unmaintainable mess, so I’m pretty sure it’s possible to not use OOP on large projects and still be maintainable. I am curious if they still use OOP concepts, even though they are not using strictly OOP.
I also like procedural python for quick small scripts. And although Rust isn’t strictly OOP, it obviously borrows heavily from it. Haskell is neat, but I haven’t used it enough to be proficient or develop good sense of application architecture.
I’ve done production work in C, but still used largely OOP concepts; and the code looks much different than code I’ve seen that was written before C++ was popular.
- Comment on How do Americans win their country back? 1 month ago:
Ok, yes, I support actions like these, and they are good for community defense against small civilian fascist groups. There are not the numbers to counter organizations like FBI, DHS, or national guard though. Things are a bit different when the fascist group you’re trying to counter is the federal or state government with the will to kill and immunity from their actions.
- Comment on How do Americans win their country back? 1 month ago:
The left is such a small population in the US, it’s irrelevant. If we are to believe Trump’s rhetoric, any group that becomes too much of a nuisance will be deemed “the enemy within,” and be shot.
- Comment on US Democracy 1 month ago:
Things are quite different. While Trump was in office, he did multiple things that were worse than what Nixon did, and was never forced to leave office. I think our institutions were stronger back then. We didn’t have a very good democracy when Hoover was president, and it took many decades for the Voting Rights Act to get passed (which has recently been weakened by SCOTUS, and will probably be weakened much more). I think we’ll regress quite a bit. Republicans obviously want more of an autocracy/oligarchy. I think it’s a very real possibility we have Russia-style “elections” in the future, and I don’t even know how you come back from that. Assuming democracy isn’t completely destroyed, it may take many decades of fighting and changing the minds of the people who aren’t disenfranchised to get back to where we were. Hell, even civil war is on the table if Trump follows through on some of his more egregious promises (i.e. if he deems Democratic state governments as the “enemy within” and tries to use the military to depose them).
- Comment on Calculatable 1 month ago:
NCalc+ is pretty good. I don’t use it for anything complicated though.
- Comment on If Trump wins the election thru fraud how can the democrats refute it and prove they won? Or will it just be like another Jan 6 and four years of whining like Trump? 1 month ago:
IMO, the U.S. will become similar to Russia. It’s not some sudden societal collapse scenario; just an oligarchy with high levels of corruption and incompetence. Most people will conform or keep their heads down to avoid the consequences of stepping out of line. If you’re in a possibly targeted group, you may want a valid passport though. And it’s always been a good idea to keep at least a months worth of non-perishable food on hand in case of supply chain disruptions. Possibly stuff like emergency propane heaters and a propane tank could be useful too (they’ve been useful for me in the past already without an authoritarian government or social unrest). Knowing your neighbors and helping eachother out in little ways is probably the most powerful thing though.
- Comment on If Trump wins the election thru fraud how can the democrats refute it and prove they won? Or will it just be like another Jan 6 and four years of whining like Trump? 1 month ago:
Source? First I’ve heard of anything like this. I’d imagine a lot of things would have to be settled in court given the US’s strange laws giving states so much leeway in how they conduct federal elections.
- Comment on Why don't we have cool vending machines in the US? 2 months ago:
Factories I’ve worked at had vending machines filled with microwavable food (burritos, burgers, sandwiches, etc). All of it was pretty disgusting.
- Comment on Artifical Intelligence 2 months ago:
AI image generators have been around for a fairly long time. I remember deepfake discussion from about a decade ago. Not saying the image in discussion is though. I remember Alex Jones making conspiracy theories that revolved around Bush and lossy video compression artifacts too.
- Comment on Games industry layoffs not the result of corporate greed and those affected should "drive an Uber", says ex-Sony president 3 months ago:
Don’t know why society tolerates these dumbass parasites.
- Comment on First contact when? 3 months ago:
I think I’ve seen calculations that we could explore every star in the galaxy with self-replicating probes in something like a million years; and other civilizations could do the same.
- Comment on Balls 3 months ago:
There’s also Delecta Ltd, which is an Australian sex toy maker and a mining company.
- Comment on Why are vegan and gluten free items more expensive? 3 months ago:
For the things you mentioned, the vegan and gluten-free options are processed much more. Beef, for example, is arguably a “whole food.”
Gluten-free isn’t healthier unless you have specific conditions. Most people can handle gluten fine, and some vegan foods are primarily gluten (such as seitan).
Vegan isn’t inherently healthy, especially if your eating mostly processes foods. A primarily whole-food vegan diet is likely healthier and cheaper than most people’s diets though.
- Comment on Actors demand action over 'disgusting' video game sex scenes 4 months ago:
Meh, some of my favorite shows and movies have a lot sex scenes. Sometimes, they just add realism or contribute to aesthetics. Other times they show personality, relationship dynamics, are symbolic of other things, or are important to the plot.
I don’t see sex scenes as any different than other potentially “unnecessary” scenes, like a long shot of a dripping faucet, for instance.
But, yeah, most sex scenes in games make me cringe.
- Comment on The heart we can't neglect indeed 5 months ago:
Wealth isn’t zero sum, it’s created all the time (and at a rate literally not achievable simply by underpaying employees, to pre-refute the expected response).
Explain. In a very basic sense wealth is created by acquiring resources (some of which are finite), then adding value through labor. So, the way I see it, the workers are creating the wealth, then the business/owners/investors/shareholders take a significant portion of the employees’ surplus value of labor. I.e. there is a pie of value/wealth that an employee creates, and the more of that pie the business/owners/investors/shareholders get, the less the workers/wealth-creators get.
- Comment on Tea Time 5 months ago:
I’ve never used it, but the idea is that nutrient uptake will be faster than if someone just dressed the top of the soil with compost. The extra aerobic bacteria could also be beneficial.
- Comment on meme 7 months ago:
I guess most of what I’ve heard from her wasn’t “bad,” but it wasn’t “good,” I’d describe it as just “uninteresting.” It’d probably start annoying me if I had to listen to a full album of hers, because it’s not the type of music I enjoy at all.
- Comment on Solve a puzzle for me 7 months ago:
4o scores worse on some benchmarks than 4. 4o is just faster and uses less resources.
- Comment on Solve a puzzle for me 7 months ago:
One hypothesis is that having more tokens to process lets it “think” longer. Chain of Thought prompting where you ask the LLM to explain its reasoning before giving an answer works similarly. Also, LLMs seem to be better at evaluating solutions that coming up with them, so there is a Tree of Thought technique, where the LLM is asked to generate multiple examples of a reasoning step then pick the “best” reasoning for each reasoning step.