Hamartiogonic

Hamartiogonic , 8 months ago to showerthoughts in The "i" in Linux and Linus have different pronunciations even when they shouldn't.

Yeah, me too. I was like: “dude, you just listen to the sounds, convert them to letters and you’re done. Why is everyone so excited about someone having learned the alphabet. That’s literally first grader stuff.”

Then I realized how bad it really is in English.

Hamartiogonic , 8 months ago to showerthoughts in The "i" in Linux and Linus have different pronunciations even when they shouldn't.

English is such as mess that you actually have spelling contests to prove it. Try that with most other languages, and it’s going to be exciting for all the first graders who just learned the alphabet. Anyone older than that will be bored to death in the contest.

Hamartiogonic , 8 months ago to world in When will Mickey Mouse enter the public domain?

Title suggestion: Minnie and the Invasive Kraken

Hamartiogonic , 8 months ago to mildlyinfuriating in This toilet paper at my work

If those numbers are real, that means that going with the cheap paper ends up being 50% more expensive in the long run.

Hamartiogonic , 8 months ago to mildlyinfuriating in This toilet paper at my work

This is the raw material real toilet paper is made of. Similarly, you could also buy sewing thread to make your own rope. Not the most practical idea really, but it is possible.

Hamartiogonic , 8 months ago to technology in Light-Speed Spaceships Would Have Trouble Phoning Home

The thing is, we don’t know is the speed limit is a hard problem.

Maybe will struggle with it for centuries or maybe we’ll find a way to avoid the problem within the next 130 years. Maybe we’ll find a way to bend space so that you don’t really need to travel very fast. Maybe wormholes become a viable option. Maybe we’ll build hyperspace gates or something like that.

Or maybe none of that is viable and a thousand years later we’re still struggling with the speed of light wishing there was a way around it.

At some point, microbes and immunology were a complete mystery. People dying after surgery was a hard problem and nobody knew how to fix that. Turns it, all you need is ethanol and penicillin, but we couldn’t even imagine it at the time.

Hamartiogonic , 8 months ago to technology in Light-Speed Spaceships Would Have Trouble Phoning Home

We use ions for a bunch of stuff like Li-ion batteries and various other chemical engineering marvels on a daily basis. I wonder how new is the idea of ions anyway?

Wikipedia has this to say: “Svante Arrhenius put forth, in his 1884 dissertation, the explanation of the fact that solid crystalline salts dissociate into paired charged particles when dissolved, for which he would win the 1903 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Arrhenius’ explanation was that in forming a solution, the salt dissociates into Faraday’s ions, he proposed that ions formed even in the absence of an electric current.”

We’ve built so much on top an idea that’s only about 139 years old. Before that, it must have been pretty difficult or even impossible to explain large parts of chemistry we use every day.

I wonder how would you imagine the future of chemistry in the early 1800s? Could you imagine that nowadays we leach gold from a mineral that doesn’t even look golden at all? Could you imagine that we can pull aluminium from rocks that don’t even look metallic in any way? Could you imagine that we use it to build all sorts of things like cans, door frames and airplanes? What about surface coating of materials to give them corrosion resistance, different colors or scratch resistance. In the past 139 years we’ve done all sorts of absolutely wild things with ions.

If you start studying chemistry in 2023 you’ll probably hear about ions during the first lecture and later you’ll build all sorts of wonderful things on that bit of information.

Hamartiogonic , 8 months ago to technology in Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"

More people should let the service provider know that their contract sucks and that they refuse to pay for the service under the proposed conditions. Most people don’t even read the contract, so I don’t think the situation is going to improve any time soon.

Hamartiogonic , 8 months ago to technology in Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"

The world is full of bad contracts. It’s truly sad that we decided to accept them without making numerous alterations here and there.

Hamartiogonic , 8 months ago to technology in Reddit now blocks signed out VPN connections.

A bit like Lemmy, but worse in every way.

Hamartiogonic , 8 months ago to technology in Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"

I agree that the analogy isn’t perfect. As you pointed out, people sneaking in are taking space from people who would be willing pay for the service.

If you could somehow sneak into Netflix and take some of their bandwidth or their ability to provide the service to paying customers, then the analogy would work. In reality though, people pirate Netflix shows and movies by torrenting, and that has no impact on Netflix’s bandwidth.

The way I see it, circus and digital videos are a service. You are supposed to pay for both, but you can easily see both of them for free. Comparing these two with stealing just doesn’t work IMO.

You could also compare it with watching a football match from the other side of the fence. Although, in reality, you wouldn’t get a very good view of the game, whereas torrenting movies gives you a great view. Interestingly, the football example doesn’t involve trespassing, but you still get to enjoy a part of the service. All analogies break at some point.

Hamartiogonic , 8 months ago to technology in Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"

If that was a normal purchase, then that’s clearly theft.

If it was art leasing, there’s probably a long contract with details about a situation like this. No matter what the contract says, the local law might still disagree with that, so it can get complicated. The art company might be violating their own contract, although it is unlikely. The company might be within the rights outlined in the contract, but they might still be breaking the law. You need a lawyer to figure it out.

Hamartiogonic , 8 months ago to worldnews in EU approves ban on destruction of unsold clothing

There are always a few people willing to pay a crazy price for some crazy nonsense garbage. I think it’s ok to make few shirts like that, but you have to make sure you actually sell all of them. Better not manufacture more than you can sell.

Hamartiogonic , 8 months ago to worldnews in EU approves ban on destruction of unsold clothing

They should try making only 100 shirts instead of 1000 where 900 end up not selling fast enough.

Hamartiogonic , 8 months ago to technology in Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"

Normally people pay to see the circus, but you could just sneak in though. It’s not exactly stalling, so what do you call that? The circus is still there, but you didn’t pay for it.

If lots of people start doing that, the circus probably won’t have enough money to keep on performing. Maybe they’ll get rid of the more expensive bits and just keep the cheaper ones in the future.