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KevonLooney

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Man survives being lost in California mountains for 10 days by eating berries (www.theguardian.com)

As McClish told it, the 34-year-old outdoors enthusiast from Boulder Creek, California, lost his bearings after beginning his hike the morning of 11 June. He had not informed anyone else of his plans, so it would not be until the afternoon of Thursday, 20 June, that the unkempt-looking hiker was found at the bottom of a remote...

KevonLooney ,

Good point. He was probably walking in circles.

Yes, you can just walk out in a day. Not only are there a ton of trails, there are roads and people living in the mountains. There’s all kinds of hippie retreats in those mountains. He must have been going in circles in one small area.

KevonLooney ,

Clever Hans (German: der Kluge Hans; c. 1895 – c. 1916) was a horse that was claimed to have performed arithmetic and other intellectual tasks. After a formal investigation in 1907, psychologist Oskar Pfungst demonstrated that the horse was not actually performing these mental tasks, but was watching the reactions of his trainer. He discovered this artifact in the research methodology, wherein the horse was responding directly to involuntary cues in the body language of the human trainer, who was entirely unaware that he was providing such cues.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans

KevonLooney ,

They said AI would take you places. They never said they were places you wanted to go.

KevonLooney ,

It would be only those countries that give trump money. Guaranteed.

KevonLooney ,

That’s a shit circle. I figured most of their articles were already written by LLMs.

KevonLooney ,

It’s both. Trying to erase actual issues people care about (race / gender / culture / sexual orientation) doesn’t work. You can’t just say “don’t worry about it”. Not all struggle is class struggle. People actually care about their culture.

KevonLooney ,

That’s what someone who doesn’t care about race, gender, etc. would say. You may not care because none of those affect you negatively.

KevonLooney ,

Digicel uses subcontractors they call “community liaisons” to meet with gang chieftains

So, they bribe them.

KevonLooney ,

This just means the chefs / wait staff had to work a little harder for nothing. They’re making the food and obviously not getting a tip.

KevonLooney ,

I’m just saying that isn’t coming out of the pockets of the “corporate restaurant”. A lot of stuff gets thrown away anyway. The real people who are “paying for” the free food are restaurant workers who want to clean up and go home.

KevonLooney ,

It’s takeout.

Amazon Mulls $5 to $10 monthly price tag for unprofitable Alexa service, AI revamp (www.reuters.com)

Amazon (AMZN.O) is planning a major revamp of its decade-old money-losing Alexa service to include a conversational generative AI with two tiers of service and has considered a monthly fee of around $5 to access the superior version, according to people with direct knowledge of the company’s plans.

KevonLooney ,

Amazon never could figure out how to make that profitable on it’s own

They are so dumb. Every house could use their products, they just need to charge normal prices. Everyone has light switches in every room. Imagine if most new houses came with “Alexa” switches and electric plugs.

They tried to make money on a few hobbyists who could set it up for themselves. They needed to go after the construction market. Charge half of what they were charging and sell a ton to every house in America. It’s not an iPhone. It’s a basic device to turn on the lights.

KevonLooney ,

The idea is that with the “kill switch” the US Government would take any blame for the shutdown. Right now the Biden Admin and Congress have successfully switched that around so TikTok looks more unreasonable. There’s no demand that they “shut down”, just that ownership be located where they are subject to US law.

Disney told L.A. residents to move to Florida for a planned campus. They did, it was canceled and now they're suing (www.latimes.com)

Walt Disney Co. continues to face fallout from its scuttled plans to move 2,000 California employees to a proposed Florida campus — a controversial decision the company reversed last year following the return of Chief Executive Bob Iger....

KevonLooney ,

I believe this scene is actually making fun of Hitler and the Nazis. Donald has to screw together the artillery shells and salute each time because here are repeated pictures of Hitler on the conveyor belt. He does a poor job.

Remember that Hitler was a politician who actually existed. People made jokes that made fun of him.

KevonLooney ,

That guy’s in Canada. America’s hat doesn’t get that funding.

Dell said return to the office or else—nearly half of workers chose “or else” - Workers stayed remote even when told they could no longer be promoted. (arstechnica.com)

Big tech companies are still trying to rally workers back into physical offices, and many workers are still not having it. Based on a recent report, computer-maker Dell has stumbled even more than most....

KevonLooney ,

Exactly. Employees are not cookie cutter duplicates. The more productive ones always have more options, even when you treat them all the same. This is worse for the company than firing people randomly.

Taiwan to acquire more than 1,000 armed drones in new US arms sale (www.cnn.com)

The United States has approved the $360 million sale of more than 1,000 small armed drones to Taiwan, as the self-ruled island claimed by China aims to strengthen its asymmetrical warfare abilities with an eye on successful tactics used on the battlefield in Ukraine....

KevonLooney ,

Taiwan will receive 720 Switchblade missiles and accompanying fire control systems worth $60.2 million

That’s $84K per drone missile. Those are comparable to the ones you mentioned. Also, you quoted the internal Lancet price for Russia. Their export price is $35K (and I feel like you are going to have to wait a long time to get any).

The “Altius 600” is the $1 million one. It’s much heavier and has a bigger payload.

KevonLooney ,

Does China realize that they don’t look tough by doing this? Do you see American Marines beating up Mexican Coast Guard members? No. Because that’s what an insecure country does.

What is China doing about Israel and Palestine? Nothing, because the current Chinese government only cares about advancing Chinese interests. They are transactional.

KevonLooney ,

These are the people that everyone thought wouldn’t convict Trump. Convicting a white collar criminal is an easy warmup compared to this.

KevonLooney ,

This poll is weighted toward older conservatives. Of course the answer is going to be what a conservative thinks. Lots of polls are doing this now, even though older conservatives are not the largest group.

There’s a huge difference between an older conservative Cuban man in Florida and a younger Mexican woman in LA.

KevonLooney ,

They wouldn’t have to do this if Amazon just paid more. Do investment bankers have a union? Do they work long hours? I wonder why? ($$$)

KevonLooney ,

Ukraine used to be part of the Soviet Union with Russia. They have a lot in common culturally. That’s why people are comparing them.

This is progress in the right direction, but people’s minds don’t change just because lines on a map do. But this is progress.

KevonLooney ,

Reminder that Biden is decriminalizing weed:

www.politifact.com/…/decriminalize-marijuana/

KevonLooney ,

Most likely no:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mysticism

KevonLooney ,

My friend, the screenshot has blue electricity and a picture of a nebula: two things that do not use quantum effects. This is most likely sensationalized.

KevonLooney ,

There are no “time cops” because even existing in the past changes things. It’s impossible to change the past and return to “the present” that you know. It would be a completely different timeline even if you just observe.

KevonLooney ,

They are. And they’re comparing glorious revolutionary China to the dastardly imperialist pig dogs in the US.

Tankies are a confused bunch.

US aircraft carrier counters false Houthi claims with 'Taco Tuesdays' as deployment stretches on - AP (apnews.com)

“I think it’s been about two or three times in the past six months we’ve allegedly been sunk, which we have not been,” Hill told The Associated Press during a recent visit to the carrier. “It is almost comical at this point. They’re attempting to maybe inspire themselves through misinformation, but it doesn’t work...

KevonLooney ,

Al Jazeera is both:

  • Sponsored by the Qatari government
  • The best journalism in the Middle East

Don’t trust their reporting on Qatar, but everything else is pretty good. While other networks rely on second hand info, Al Jazeera will send reporters into literal war zones to find out the truth.

KevonLooney ,

And that’s why only Chinese stuff is banned, not all ex-US drones / electric cars.

China only has themselves to blame. They intentionally break WTO rules regarding unfair subsidies for their domestic companies. Plus they steal technology and ideas from every company manufacturing there. It doesn’t matter for toasters or t-shirts, but high tech stuff is more important.

No other country does this, especially not with government support.

KevonLooney ,

That’s the problem, you’re only talking about houses (and probably in an expensive part of the country). Apartments are a simple solution to that in expensive places. Also there are lots of houses under $300K , just not where you’re looking.

I had a better idea that would allow people to buy their own homes that they are currently renting:

  1. Every home gets appraised to determine what it would sell for. This is done by the county and is used for property taxes too.
  2. Every renter is allowed to buy a percentage of their primary residence from the owner. The owner has no choice in this. It’s a requirement for being able to rent a property.
  3. Renters can pay as little as $100 extra per month and the county puts their percentage ownership on the deed. If the home is sold, the renter can’t be kicked out involuntarily. If they do leave, they get the percentage of home value they own.

Pros:

  • This would avoid the issue of high interest rates hurting primary homeownership.
  • This would blunt the impact of corporate landlords having a monopoly where they refuse to sell. They are forced to sell at a fair price.
  • This would create a simple decision between owning their home and spending money on luxuries or eating out.

Cons:

  • This would hurt small landlords who would have their property bought out from under them. This is actually a good thing because the benefits of rising property values are now shared.
  • The implementation is hard. This is actually a good thing because bad landlords would sell property they didn’t want to manage, lowering prices for renters who want to buy.
  • It would cost the county money to hire appraisers. But this could be paid for by increased property taxes due to better appraisals.
  • Property taxes would go up for landlords. But this would be good, as it encourages them to sell the property. This appraisal process and increased property taxes wouldn’t affect people who just lived in their home without charging rent.
KevonLooney ,

Retaliatory tariffs are not really allowed by the WTO. They are really destructive for trade and just create scenarios where a third country is used to bypass the tariffs.

China has been proven to steal technology for years, it’s just that the benefits of manufacturing there outweigh the costs on an individual company level. No one company can “sue China” as you suggest. They’re too big and can just ban that country from manufacturing anything there. So most companies put up with it.

Your comment actually illuminates the need for US government action. Since no particular company is actually hurting China, they can’t be individually retaliated against by the Chinese government.

Kremlin bots spam internet with fake celebrity quotes against Ukraine (kyivindependent.com)

Russian bots with a Kremlin disinformation network published 120,000 fake anti-Ukraine quotes falsely attributed to celebrities, including Jennifer Aniston and Scarlett Johansson, in one day, the independent Russian media outlet Agentsvo reported June 15....

KevonLooney ,

But it doesn’t work as well because you can block entire instances. These people self identify by choosing the instance so it’s easy to just block all posts and comments, even those from people you’ve never seen before.

KevonLooney ,

It’s not my responsibility to fix everyone in the world. It’s good that these people sequester themselves. They can yell at each other.

Lemmy has good tools for blocking bad users and communities / instances. That’s sufficient for now. Better moderation will help too.

KevonLooney ,

It is about the money. That’s what a lawsuit is.

KevonLooney ,

Lawsuits don’t “shut people up”. You can stop someone from defaming you, but you can’t sue to end a radio show. Usually sane people stop talking to stop digging their hole deeper, but Alex Jones isn’t sane.

Lawsuits only assign monetary damages. That’s how they work.

KevonLooney ,

In America, the coalitions are created before the election based on party. “Republicans” and “Democrats” need to be thought of as right and left wing coalitions.

KevonLooney ,

Yes, this is exactly it. You are calling when other people are calling. You are the congestion.

If you call before 11 AM you will have a much better time, as will the customer service operators.

KevonLooney ,

That’s not going to solve the problem. Guns are not like cars, a necessary evil in some places. The purpose of a gun is to kill or maim something. Target practice is practicing putting a hole in something living. Handguns should be banned and all sales of long guns should be regulated for hunting purposes.

If guns were all about “target practice” and “self defense”, there would be a ton of pellet guns and rubber bullets sold. No attacker is going to double check whether you’re holding a pellet gun or a real one. They’re going to run tf away.

KevonLooney ,

What is scale???

KevonLooney ,

Yes. One reason why new housing in the US is expensive is because there are way more regulations now than there were years ago. Houses now are much safer and built better. But that makes them more expensive.

KevonLooney ,

Remember that all of those regulations are for a reason. Sometimes the reason is "contractors donated money to an elected official, but it’s usually a good result. It’s better to have higher quality than lower.

KevonLooney ,

The bag is empty. That’s what the expression “left holding the bag” means. You just end up with an empty bag because you were cheated out of everything else.

KevonLooney ,

Add one more

Bannon put on notice that prison sentence may be 'the least of his problems' (www.rawstory.com)

Steve Bannon’s trial tribulations may have only just begun as he readies himself for prison and the district attorney who secured former President Donald Trump’s criminal conviction prepares to take him to court in New York, a former federal prosecutor said Thursday night....

KevonLooney ,

Alvin Bragg is the Manhattan District Attorney like on Law and Order. They deal with a lot of financial crimes because a ton of financial things happen on Manhattan. Also, a lot of famous people visit Manhattan, so a lot of famous crime happens to be committed there.

That’s the funny thing about Trump acting like he’s being targeted by the NYC legal system. He is just one in a long line of famous people convicted by NYC prosecutors. They have P Diddy coming up next and Giuliani later this year. Sprinkle in some organized crime and some standard homicide, and the Trump trial is honestly small potatoes.

KevonLooney ,

But humans have literally millions of years of social and cultural development in our brains. You think babies are a blank slate, but they are hardwired to be social and learn whatever their parents teach them.

You don’t have to teach a baby what a human face is. You don’t have to do anything but talk to a baby, or talk near them, to teach them language. Their brain automatically makes connections and creates new sentences.

Humans are experts at inference (moving from specific examples to general rules). That’s why a child will learn what a “doggy” is, and then refer to a cow as a “big doggy”. They’ve already internalized that a dog is an animal that walks on four legs. If you tell them ‘It’s a cow. The cow says “moo”.’ they will quickly get the idea.

I think the main problem with AI is we try to train it in a few months. Humans are experts at making connections and we expect it takes decades to train them.

KevonLooney ,

Italians, or at least Sardinians, already eat bugs. As expected, they make it into something delicious.

Casu martzu[1] (Sardinian: [ˈkazu ˈmaɾtsu]; lit. ‘rotten/putrid cheese’), sometimes spelled casu marzu, and also called casu modde, casu cundídu and casu fràzigu in Sardinian, is a traditional Sardinian sheep milk cheese that contains live insect larvae (maggots).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casu_martzu

KevonLooney ,

Nope.

  • Pay the Uber driver based on whether they get out of the car and help you with bags. $1 or $2 per bag. I used to do that job. Driving the car is not that hard. Everything else needs a tip.
  • To go orders get 5%. They are doing something for you. It’s not fast food.
  • Sit down food should be 20% minimum. Adjust based on the service, or the worst employees are getting paid the same as the best.
  • The other guy is right. You should tip based on the skill involved. Pouring a beer: $1. Making a mixed drink: $2 to $3.
  • You are tipping your barber too much. Avoid the chain and go to the local place where the barber gets 100% of the money, they just rent the chair. Tip 20% like normal.
  • Delivery apps are totally fine in areas with lots of delivery drivers.

Basically, tip based on effort. Or you will end up with people who do not put in effort. It’s true they don’t tip in Europe. But it’s much harder to get the attention of a waiter there. “Oh I’m sorry, am I interrupting your coordinated smoke break with all the other waiters? I just wanted to exchange money for food if that’s ok with you.”

KevonLooney ,

exposing customer names, phone numbers, email addresses, login IP addresses, home addresses, and order details.

So, nothing important? You know what else has names, phone numbers, home addresses, etc? Publicly available databases. It’s called a phone book. IP addresses? Please. It’s not static anyway and it might just lead to a VPN.

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