kescusay

kescusay , 1 year ago

To the second group, I always want to say, “No you didn’t. You turned out as someone who thinks hitting kids is acceptable.”

kescusay , 1 year ago

I mean, I guess you could get that camel through the eye of a needle by liquefying it first. Maybe the same step could be taken to get Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg into heaven.

kescusay , 1 year ago

Wait, is that real? A literal “RentAHitman” website?

kescusay , 1 year ago

the nuts have a panic attack if they’re not constantly armed.

That’s the real issue, here. These guys are absolutely fucking terrified 100% of the time. They pack heat in order to feel like something besides a helpless babyman.

I have never even once felt like I couldn’t possibly pick up a head of lettuce and some yogurt from the supermarket without some moral support from a gun. It’s just fucking bizarre.

kescusay , 1 year ago

Ouch. Guess I touched a nerve. Look, carry if it makes you feel better, but statistically, you’re in more danger from your own guns than you are from anyone else. The same cannot be said for seat-belts, smoke detectors, and fire extinguishers.

kescusay OP , 1 year ago

I read the article, and I’m still not sure.

kescusay OP , 1 year ago

I have to admit, it’s actually funnier this way. I think I prefer not to know, which allows me to imagine the car experiencing a video game glitch that put it there.

kescusay , 1 year ago

In defense of YouTube…

The thing is, you absolutely can still find stuff like that. The trick is to search for stuff you like, and train YouTube’s algorithm to find more stuff like it. I’ve got mine trained enough that my feed mostly consists of stuff I actually do want to watch.

Some of it is from “content creators,” yes (although nothing from the well-known ones), but a lot of it is just random things I happen to have an interest in.

Okay, that said, YouTube’s default feed can suck my hairy scrote. It’s astoundingly bad.

kescusay , 1 year ago

Thank you for clarifying. I’ll have to think about it, but at first blush, I’m completely in agreement with you.

kescusay , 1 year ago

Unmoderated? You want a Neo-Nazi community? Because that’s how you get a Neo-Nazi community.

kescusay , 1 year ago

So… Yes, then? You do want a Neo-Nazi community? Weird.

kescusay , 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

Blue door is a monkey’s paw. You go back in time? You butterfly-effect shit you didn’t intend to.

• Buy a bunch of Bitcoin? A series of unanticipated changes means people figure out it’s a pyramid scheme early and by around 2017 or so, the last Bitcoin miner shuts down. But hey, at least video cards are affordable!
• Bring back Lotto numbers? Well sorry, buddy, but just by breathing the air differently, the air currents where the numbers are drawn are affected, and you’re left with zilch.
• Got kids younger than 10? They don’t exist anymore! If you try to have them again, you end up with other kids who are similar, but not the same as the ones you loved… and have deleted from the timeline.

The answer to these time-travel opportunities is always to run screaming from them. But hey, at least with this one you’ve got an alternative where you become an instant millionaire! Take the $10 million. Don’t fuck the timeline up.

kescusay , 1 year ago

So, here’s the deal… We’ve all been spelling it wrong for this entire time.

In the Gummyverse, the bears really are bear-sized. They’re legit. You wouldn’t want to fight one, no matter how squishy they look. They’re apex in their domains.

But…

What we have been mistakenly calling gummy “worms” are on another level entirely. They are mystic, ancient, and quite eldritch. If you find yourself in the Gummyverse, you do not want to run into these things. They’re not worms.

They’re wyrms.

kescusay , 1 year ago

“Microsoft tells employees to use Linux.”

kescusay , 1 year ago

Well, “plenty” probably just consists of teams such as the WSL development team. I highly doubt anyone in sales, marketing, or development for anything Windows or Windows-application related uses Linux exclusively.

kescusay , 1 year ago

Jesus, that headline looks like someone threw a bunch of words into a blender.

kescusay , 1 year ago

Not sure how that would work. Would he appeal on the grounds that he had terrible lawyers or something?

kescusay , 1 year ago

I doubt it would be an effective strategy at this point. The lawyers are literally just doing what Trump instructs them to do - often after telling him very clearly that it’s a stupid idea. Not sure how well “My lawyer didn’t tell me that was illegal loudly enough” is going to fly.

kescusay , 1 year ago

It was never really all that innovative a company. What Apple has excelled at in the past is making an idea really polished and well-integrated into the Apple ecosystem in ways that feel a lot more natural than most other implementations, to the point that it comes off as innovative - even if it’s a feature everyone else has too.

The iPhone, for example, wasn’t the only smartphone around when it released, and not even the most capable one. It was missing a ton of features BlackBerry had. Heck, it wasn’t even the first touchscreen phone - that would be the IBM Simon, which came out in 1992.

But what the iPhone did was put it all into an attractive package that worked really well with Apple’s services.

So I don’t think the fact that they’re following on LLM development instead of leading will necessarily mean Apple’s version won’t end up in the lead.

(Disclaimer: I’m not an Apple fan at all and think LLMs are a terrible idea for most implementations they’re being put towards.)

kescusay , 1 year ago

Wait, what? I literally name-dropped the most successful smartphone in history prior to the iPhone. The BlackBerry predates the iPhone by almost a decade.

kescusay , 1 year ago

That’s a different subject. You said:

Before iPhone there were no successful smartphones.

I was responding to that. It’s factually incorrect. The BlackBerry existed first, it was a smartphone, and it was successful until competition from Apple (and eventually Android) rendered it obsolete.

I’m not arguing that the BlackBerry was particularly great. I’m not arguing that the iPhone wasn’t better in many ways. It’s just that claiming the iPhone was the first “successful smartphone” is just wrong.

kescusay , 1 year ago

Man, are you even listening to yourself, let alone reading what I wrote? You’ve confused me for someone who is claiming the iPhone didn’t have an impact on the world, and I never said that.

I said - please actually read this - that the BlackBerry was a successful smartphone before the iPhone. That’s it! That’s the entirety of my thesis on this topic. I’m not saying it was better (it wasn’t), I’m not saying the iPhone didn’t steal its lunch (it sure as heck did)… All I’m saying is that when you claimed there were no successful smartphones before the iPhone, that was inaccurate.

That’s it! That’s all there is to it!

Now, the appropriate thing to do here is to recognize the BlackBerry came first, recognize that it was profitable for years until better smartphones arrived, and say something like, “You’re right, that was an incorrect statement that I hadn’t fully thought through.”

Then we can put a pin in that particular topic, call it done, and discuss whatever other topics you’d like to discuss. I’m genuinely game for a debate on whether or not the iPhone was “innovative” or what the appropriate definition of the word even is. Seems like a really interesting discussion. But before I go down that path, I need to know that we have a shared understanding of what the history of these devices really was, because if we don’t we’ll just end up talking past each other.

kescusay , 1 year ago

I don’t hate you, and I’m not throwing hate your way. I’m just a little exasperated, that’s all.

Look… A smartphone is defined as a device that combines mobile telephone functions and computing functions into one unit. By that definition, the BlackBerry definitely qualified. If you’re using a different definition - for example, one that requires a full-body touchscreen and no physical keyboard - that’s fine, it’s just important that we agree on what we’re talking about. I’m using the traditional definition and you’re not, I guess.

That’s OK, just as long as we both know.

So let’s move on.

kescusay , 1 year ago

That’s a good one. I think there’s a lot that would be interesting to explore in both. For example, was the IBM Simon a smartphone? It had a touchscreen, apps, and network access way back in 1992. So what are the material vs. cosmetic differences between it and the iPhone? (Don’t worry, I’m not arguing that the iPhone isn’t both innovative and inventive in comparison, it’s just that there’s more gray area than people tend to realize.)

I guess what I’d most like to think about is three things:

• The difference between invention and innovation.
• The difference (if any) between innovation and cosmetics. (Not That I’m knocking cosmetics! They’re an important part of UX!)
• Where you perceive the original iPhone as being ahead in each area (innovations, inventions, and cosmetics)

Hey, also wanted to say I’m glad we’ve hammered this out.

kescusay , 1 year ago

To be fair, that marketing was backed up by the fact that at the time, it really was one of the nicest ones on the market.

It basically allowed them to re-brand RSS feeds with audio files as “podcasts,” too, and now everyone uses “podcasts” with no real notion what they actually are under the hood. That was something of a branding coup.

kescusay , 1 year ago

Yeah, this one’s utter garbage.

kescusay , 1 year ago

The thing to remember is population density. Yes, in rural areas you’ll see all sorts of conservative crap, but no one lives there. Those bright red areas outside city limits are vast tracts of mostly empty land.

kescusay , 1 year ago

It’s true, but with overwhelming turnout, the hand on the scale can be countered.

So I guess the answer is: VOTE. Vote like our lives depend on it, because they do.

kescusay , 1 year ago

It’s not great, but it’s also not a big deal. Kids flaunt their famous parents.

The difference here? Trump’s kids actually legit sold access, with their father’s enthusiastic consent* and involvement.

---

*The only time he’s ever cared about consent

kescusay , 1 year ago

Amazing. Not one word of that was true. Impressive accomplishment.

No, Hunter wasn’t doing “almost the same shit.” No, it wasn’t “worse.” And the reason it gets “shouted down” is because it’s lying bullshit, and we’ve got no reason to put up with that.

This “both sides” garbage - as if Hunter name-dropping his dad is identical to Trump’s kids literally selling access to theirs - with his enthusiastic involvement - is reprehensible. It’s disgusting, it’s sick, and it’s disingenuous.

kescusay , 1 year ago

I have no idea why they’re doing this. LLMs are a useful tool in certain areas, but they’re by no means ready as the sort of universal assistant tool Microsoft is trying to position them as.

I use GitHub Copilot to make writing boilerplate code faster and easier, and it works really well for that, but I can’t see any other computing tasks I engage in regularly benefiting from an AI assistant trying to get all up in my business.

kescusay , 1 year ago

Definitely. Humans don’t write that way unless they’re paid to. It reads like bland marketing material.

kescusay , 1 year ago

Can we pick the 1,000 people? I’ve got a few I’d like to send to Venus.

kescusay , 1 year ago

The emphasis is on “gradual,” here. If the jobs market stayed hot no matter what, and it was impossible to find workers for any open position, it would crater the economy in other ways. The goal is to have a roughly equal amount of jobs and people who want them.

If you have too many people and not enough jobs, you’ve got mass unemployment, which is bad for everyone. If you’ve got too many jobs and not enough people, you leave needed positions unfilled and businesses fail because they simply can’t get the employees they need, which is also bad for everyone.

Balance is key.

kescusay , 1 year ago

That said, we have to have a government that is actually willing to address unemployment. We’re lucky enough to have that now, but the moment Republicans get into office again, they’ll move as fast as they can to gut unemployment assistance and then wonder why the economy is in the crapper.

kescusay , 1 year ago

The really shocking thing here is that 31% of Republicans are still aware of reality enough to understand that Biden won legitimately.

kescusay , 1 year ago

Rudy was caught doing something revolting and vile? Must be a day ending in ‘y.’

kescusay , 1 year ago

Translation: Sabotage of Ukraine US Aid blocked by Senate Democrats

kescusay , 1 year ago

Except he’s been this way for years. Giuliani is just a scummy, despicable man.

kescusay , 1 year ago

Even if true - and the idea that it was a full-blown “civil war” is bullshit - that doesn’t accomplish what you clearly are trying to accomplish: Excusing Russia for its unprovoked invasion.

You can’t get around that, no matter how bad you insist on pretending Ukraine is. Russia invaded. They had no legitimate reason to invade. Full stop.

So, again, no matter how you deflect, the solution to all the problems laid out in the article start with step 1: Russia gets the fuck out of Ukraine. Nothing else can be solved until that happens. And clearly, it’s not going to happen willingly on Russia’s part, so they have to get their teeth kicked in and get beaten out of the country they’ve invaded.

Fortunately, that’s happening. :) Maybe after the current regime in Moscow falls, a better one will rise.

kescusay , 1 year ago

He didn’t die, therefore the poisoning was no big deal?

My god, I can’t believe anyone ever took you guys seriously.

kescusay , 1 year ago

Not one word of that has anything to do with Russia invading Ukraine. Nor does it excuse the act, or negate the fact that in order to make progress on any issue, the first step is still, and will remain, Russia getting the fuck out of Ukraine.

Nothing else matters, and nothing else can be fixed, until that’s done. All apologetics for Russia invading Ukraine should be immediately placed within the nearest appropriate orifice.

And… Lol. Ukraine is kicking Russia’s ass. Must suck for their paid apologists.

kescusay , 1 year ago

Nope, as much as you might like that, I - and the rest of America - are pretty damn resolute that the next step is Russia gets the fuck out of Ukraine. After that, we’ll be happy to talk about whatever reforms Ukraine needs, but first, step 1.

kescusay , 1 year ago

Yeah, I’m gonna guess you won’t get in trouble for it then.

kescusay , 1 year ago

Yeah, that sounds like a fully electric vehicle wouldn’t be a good fit, then.