HelloThere

@HelloThere@sh.itjust.works
0 Post – 204 Comments
Joined 1 years ago

Reddit refugee

Go to a hardcore show.

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In a word, yes.

OK, so pay for it.

Pretty simple really.

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I can understand Apple refusing to do repairs under warranty, or even invalidating a warranty, if someone has broken their phone after digging around inside without knowing what they are doing, but bricking a phone the person owns through a software lock is absolutely insane and stinks of attempts at service capture and fighting right to repair laws.

Yet another reason I'll never give them a penny.

Fairphone gang rise up!

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I don't want to be all old man yells at cloud, but back in my day popular games were played a lot because they were primarily enjoyable for the story, the achievement of completing a particular level or boss, playing against friends, etc. And sure, you'd have the odd bad parent trying to claim their kid was addicted to Counterstrike 1.6, but it was broadly speaking nonsense. The vast majority of games were offline, or had very limited online modes built around direct competition with other players (FPS, sports games, etc), and publishers would get all their money from the initial sale, with only a few games having expansion packs, most notable The Sims.

But in the early 2010s a few things changed:

  • broadband internet became ubiquitous in markets with high levels of existing gamers
  • distribution of games swapped from physical media to downloads
  • 'everyone' had a pretty powerful computer in their pocket making it much more accessible
  • a bunch of people in the industry started reading about positive psychology - the idea that you can create habits through rewards - and apply them to video games to increase playtime
  • those mechanics turned out to be very powerful in driving particular user behaviours, and started to be targeted at monetisation models - and so we got loot boxes, etc

So we went from a situation where video games were fun for the same reasons traditional games, or sports, are fun, to one where many video games include a lot of gambling mechanics in their core gameplay loops - loot boxes being the obvious one, but any lottery-based mechanic where you spend real money counts - in an industry with no relevant regulation, nor age limitation.

It is definitely possible for people to get addicted to these mechanics, the same way people can get addicted to casino games, or betting on horse racing, especially when for some games that is literally what the developer wants.

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I agree that pornhub, et al, should be liable for abuse their platform distributes, but how on earth is AI meant to help in sex trafficking?

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How do they know if the source of data is hotspot? I'd imagine there is a way to stop your phone grassing on you.

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They do in the UK - where are you?

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And they smell bad too!

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The vast majority of gas boilers use electronics to function. In a powercut they are also dead.

Now if you're talking diesel generator back ups, then far enough.

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It's almost like low quality mechanisation is something that should be resisted. I wonder where I've heard that before...

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"All the gear, no idea".

This applies to pretty much every hobby or interest I've had. It describes people who start a new thing, and immediately go out and buy "the best" equipment, which they do not have the aptitude to use.

For example, a few years ago I started kayaking, and joined a local club which has kit hire available for most kit, especially the expensive bits (kayaks, paddles, helmets, paddles). Kit hire is insanely cheap, literally £1 an item per day, so you'd need to hire a kayak hundreds or thousands of times for it to be cheaper to buy your own boat. Hiring also allows you to play around with loads of different makes, models, and shapes of boat to find what works for you.

When new people join the club they have two intro sessions, in which, in a purposefully stable boat, best case scenario, they do a mile on calm, slowly moving, water, some figure 8s, and don't capsize.

Context for people who have never kayaked before, at this stage literally no one can paddle in a straight line. Hell, most people end up spinning around 180 degrees after 3-5 stokes as their dominate side overpowers. Trying to turn the kayak is scary because you have to lean over (like a bike) but you don't want to go for a swim in the river, so you don't lean far enough, which makes the kayak feel less stable. Overall for most people starting out it's an enjoyable time, but with a lot of nervousness and trepidation.

The club provide a list of kit recommendations for people starting out, all of which is related to clothing to keep you dry-ish, and costs max £100. Both the club officials, and the members, continuously tell people to not go out and buy loads of stuff immediately and how the majority of members hire the boats.

But every year one or two of the newbies decide they absolutely love it and next week come back having spent a few grand on their own kayak, paddle, and high-spec clothing (dry suits, etc), and proceed to spend the next 2 months absolutely hating their lives because they don't have the skill to paddle the kayak they've bought, continually capsize because it's "so unstable", and ultimately quit through frustration.

The record for this is when someone bought three boats - whitewater / river, sea, and playboat - each of which require different skills, some of which are mutually exclusive (in a river kayak you lean left to turn left, in a sea kayak you lean right to turn left). To their credit, they've stuck at it, and were either very lucky in buying boats which fit their style, or are just sticking with them and learning how to paddle them through sheer insistence. Either way, fair play.

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A 20 year deal, with no power produced until 2028?

Either MS really do know something we don't, or this bubble has grained a layer of strontium.

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It's an old, bad, joke on the two definitions of revolting.

Or, who.

I'm no fan of the current copyright law - the Statute of Anne was much better - but let's not kid ourselves that some of the richest companies in the world have any desire what so ever to change it.

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I'm going to try and go in with a positive view of "yay more futurama" rather than expecting any specific thing.

If I dislike it, then that doesn't stop the old episodes existing.

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Everything in the UK since about May 2015.

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"If you were just more positive you'd not be complaining about being depressed all the time".

And/or

"Have you tried just being happy for once?"

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If you know exactly what you need, then specs are great. Proven solutions for known problems are awesome. Agile is pointless in that circumstance.

But I can count on one hand the number of times stakeholders, or clients, actually know what they want ahead of time and accept what was built to spec with no amends.

When there is any uncertainty, changing a spec under waterfall is significantly worse. Contract negotiation in fixed price is a fucking nightmare of the client insisting the sky is red when the signed off spec states it's to be green.

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I wrote this originally for the other thread but it was deleted.


To start with, it's clear that your self-esteem is very low, and you've internalised an intense criticism of yourself. If you can access one, please speak to a professional, licenced, therapist.

They will be able to help you build a staircase out, but it will take time. Please try and resist the snake oil salesmen who offer quick solutions, which are designed to fail to keep you coming back.

To answer the question, at 13 I had developed a crush on a girl in my class, and I was not chill about it. To be clear, I didn't do anything bad, but it was intense and with 20 years of hindsight she didn't deserve it. I'd always be staring at her, I'd try to sit near her, I'd set really really obvious MSN status messages about her. During a particularly dark patch I literally carved her name in to my arm with a compass. Throughout all of it she was nothing but kind, and consistent. She didn't love me. She avoided being around me as much as possible to not give any hint there might be something. She never mocked or teased me.

There were two girls I knew who would speak to me. They were in relationships with two of my close friends, and were "safe" from possibly becoming the focus of my affection, but also kinda stuck with me because not spending breaktimes in school with your bf would be a scandal of the highest order.

Over the next 4 years we'd have various conversations, and they'd try and help me realise that what I was doing towards my crush, a) scared off a lot of people, and b) made it very clear to girls who may have had a crush on me (which I refused to believe was possible because I was destined to die cold and alone) that I wasn't interested in anyone else.

So by the time I was 17 I had basically alienated myself from all the other girls in school and convinced myself that all my worst thoughts about myself were true, because, well, yeah, obviously.

Then two things changed.

First was that I finally accepted that whatever other reasons there were for my situation, my behaviour was making it worse, and that I could at least stop doing that. It wouldn't solve everything, obviously, but it would allow things to be a tiny bit better. I needed to chill the fuck out, and let go of this obsession with my crush.

And the other was that, because by this point these two girls were my friends, not just my friend's gfs, the idea of just speaking normally to women wasn't scary. Flirting was still terrifying, but some switch flipped in my mind from women being only something to attract and sleep with, like some sort of conquest, to being people just like me who are perfectly happy to just talk about stuff, just like my guy friends. Because I really valued their friendship, I realised that it made me happier than whatever the fuck I was doing to myself about my crush.

So by being more chill, I'd be less sad, and by just being friends with people I liked, I'd be happier. Win win.

After a few months of being a bit more chill, and focusing instead on just being a person who it was nice to talk to and be around (yknow, not constantly trying to look down someone's top) I was at a tiny local gig of maybe 30 people that my friend's band was playing at. One of the girls in the group I was with had spotted a girl we didn't know, was our age, but didn't go to our school. She was enjoying the our friend's set, but seemed to be on her own. She introduced herself to this girl and asked if she wanted to hang out with us, that the band were our friends and that I (because I did a bunch of computer stuff for them, like burning cds, storing recordings, etc) could give her a free CD and can probably answer any questions she may have.

This meant we got talking, we had a good evening, at the end of the gig I asked her for her email/msn so I could add her to the newsletter for gig announcements, and that I'd be happy to send her new songs. She gives me it. While I think she's beautiful, I have no intention to use it for anything else. That would be the actions of a creepy mf, and I was chill now. She's just a person who happens to like a band I'm involved with, nothing more.

Over the next, I dunno, 6 months or so, we go from talking occasionally to every day. She introduced me to Ghibli anime, which gave us even more to talk about.

I end up talking about her all the time to my friends, male and female. They all encourage me to ask her out. I quite literally have a panic attack. I'm terrified that by asking her she will hate me and I'll lose a really close friend, by being a creepy twat like before. I bitch for weeks about how it's bullshit that men are meant to make the first move, and one of my female friends finally snaps and says something like "you just said you were up until 3am talking to her about what porn you both like and that she'd really like to try X/Y/Z out, but doesn't have anyone to do it with. How can you not see that she's super in to you?!"

I finally pluck up courage to ask her out on a date, just a meal in town, she immediately accepts. I have a panic attack in the restaurant, I am sick multiple times. It was by all accounts a terrible, terrible, date. I think I spent more like talking to the toilet than her.

She suggests we go for a walk around instead. Which we do. I spend the rest of the evening hoping that we'll find a corner shop that is open so I can get some gum, but we don't find any. We wander around town, getting physically closer with each passing bench, she tucks her self in under my arm "because it's cold" (in June?!). When she has to get her bus home, I can tell she wants me to kiss her. I cannot kiss her, our first kiss, fuck, my first kiss ever, with whatever remnants of stale sick are on my breath. She may be down, I am not.

I give her a big hug and peck on the cheek, say I had a great evening, panic attack aside, and please call me when you get home so I know you're safe.

An hour or so later the phone rings, and we end up again talking in to the early morning, as things get increasingly explicit.

The next week I ask her if she wants to be my gf. She immediately accepts. I invite her to the friend-who-told-me-she-was-in-to-me's 18th birthday party in town. Probably half of our class have been invited, including many of the girls I'd alienated myself from. This time I eat very little to make sure there is nothing to puke up should I have another panic attack, and get some gum. She arrives after me, and my friend would later claim "how did HelloThere get a girlfriend?" was something people spoke to her more about than her actual birthday.

Later, I walked her to her bus, and this time we did kiss. It was similateously the most under, and over, whelming experience of my life to that point. Physically it was pleasant - we both knew that she was my first kiss, and that I wasn't hers - so the fact that I didn't immediately smash my teeth in to hers was a win. But emotionally it was a rollercoaster. I don't want to suggest that from that point on I was some sort of Cassanova, because I am not at all, but the amount of validation I felt in those 15 seconds or so was immense. This was the proof that this person I thought was incredible actually did like me. Why? No idea, I'm literal human garbage, but she thinks I'm not! Holy fuck! Or she's in to garbage. Either way, yay!

Over the next 4 months or so we tick off the rest of the firsts, and gave our virginities to each other.

You asked specifically about sex. Losing my virginity was one of the least enjoyable sexual experiences I've ever had in my life. But I'll cherish it forever. Emotionally, like the kiss, it was everything all at once.

We broke up after about 18 months. I'd moved away and gone to university, and had moved on. While I was the one who broke up with her, the aftermath I handled terribly and was just a prick. I left horrible voicemails and would later drunk text non-apologies - she ultimately blocked my number, Facebook, everything. And she was right to.

After a few months I had calmed down and got better at regulating my emotions, and eventually I went to therapy and got help with abandonment and esteem issues.

Many, many, years and 3 more failed relationships on, I'm 9 years in to a very stable long term relationship with someone I absolutely adore. My single goal is to not repeat the same mistakes as before, and we tackle everything as a team. If we're feeling uneasy we speak to each other and help each other. I'm so proud of what we have built together. She is the smartest, most empathetic and kindest person I know. I count myself so lucky that she is my best friend, a willing big spoon, and I get to play with her boobies. It's incredible.

But it all started with me accepting a sliver of responsibility for myself, that I had a small ability to make things better, and if I did then maybe others would respond positively to it, and want to be around me.

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Wat.

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Definitely not a bubble...

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"Not your keys, not your bitcoin" has been a saying for over a decade now and for good reason.

Do not leave crypto on exchanges.

People who are shocked about Coinbase saying this, honestly, shouldn't be fucking about with crypto in the first place as they clearly do not understand what they are doing.

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I'm guessing they don't feel the time to do a fair re-review is worth it on older devices with less, but higher than 0, new users.

Most people who are interested in those devices already have them, so a change in score doesn't really make a difference.

The short answer is that the name for "old world" countries in a language isn't translated, it is simply what "we" call "them", not what "they" call themselves.

Using Greece as an example for English, English has a lot of French influence, which in turn had a lot of Latin influence. It is believed the early Latin (ie modern day Italian) peoples first met Graecians, a tribe likely from Boeotia in modern day Greece, and used the name to refer to all people from the same place. By the time of the Romans, this was the name and was then spread throughout the empire, including back to Greece itself.

A more modern or current example would be how people often called The Netherlands, Holland. Same idea, just several millenia apart.

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Be the change you want to see.

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Same goes for shellfish - unrefridgeated it can go nasty quickly, and if you live in a hot environment that's gonna be even faster.

I agree with most of this, but this bit

If your employees are serving customers, let them take frequent 10 minute breaks to use their phone or be away from humans.

Is comically absurd.

GenZ are not the first people to have things they'd rather be doing than work, or to be tired due to human interaction. The latter is called emotional labour and has been a thing across all service industries for literally a hundred plus years.

I'm not saying that people don't need breaks, everyone does, especially in jobs which are physically/mentally tiring, but to say people need frequent breaks solely to check their phone is derisible.

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Which is bad management because it stops you being in control of who leaves and who stays.

In fact, you're more likely to lose the people you actually want to keep when playing that game because they are the ones with the more employable skills, hence why they can leave in the first place.

The people who stay are those that are stuck, and can't get jobs somewhere else.

Edit : speeling and gramarr.

If this is all it takes to be annoying you either have the easiest time, or you're perpetually angry due to the most inconsequential shit.

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I noticed a lot more people starting using it over the pandemic.

Annoying AF seems a tad hyperbolic, no?

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But the shocking thing is that Apple may have inadvertently revealed that some of these core ideas are actually dead ends — that they can’t ever be executed well enough to become mainstream.

Given Nilay has a good amount of experience with headsets, I'm surprised at how surprised they appear to be with this statement.

Back when I was in uni in the late 00s, AR and VR were a big thing, to the point that we had a module on it as part of our course. Even then it was clear that any hardware that physically closed you off (digital pass through is still a physical barrier) fundamentally stops the feeling of an argumented reality and puts you firmly in a disconnected (from physical reality) headspace. As in, you feel like you're in a virtual reality.

Google cardboard, which Nilay references:

Apple is also making immersive versions of some of its Apple TV Plus shows, which basically means a 180ish-degree 3D video that feels like the best Google Cardboard demo of all time

Came out 9 years ago, and proved the exact same thing for 1% of the cost of a Vision Pro.

As others have pointed out since the announcement, Glass also failed even without having that physical barrier between you and reality.

Lastly,

Do you want to use a computer that is always looking at your hands?

Nope!

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I am not American, I'm British.

The purpose of my story was to try and explain how I didn't go from being a social pariah (and thus, undateable) to a loving relationship in one step, it took years and thousands of steps.

The hard truth is that you are right that your current self isn't ready for a relationship. But, as shown by asking the question in the first place, a part of you wants that to change, and by your other answers, a different part of you doesn't want that change.

Let's take another scenario. You could do a marathon. You may run it, you may walk it, you may roll in a wheelchair, but you could do it...eventually. Today, you can't. But today you may be able to run/walk/roll 1km. And tomorrow, or the day after, maybe 1.1km. And next week, maybe 1.2.

Eventually, if you manage to keep at it, you will, one day, be able to do something that today you cannot.

But wanting to is the first step, and a bit of you does want to.

So, step one, if you truly have no friends, are there people you like at work? What are your interests? Do you have a hobby?

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I'm not sure why I feel the need to preface this comment, but, I work in software, I get how hard a problem autonomous driving is, how genuine safety improvements over human drivers are highly valuable, and how perfect need not be the enemy of good.

However, the level of sheer blind optimism from the AV crowd is the same as the AI "leaders" and the crypto bros before them. How their statements are not straight up fraud is beyond me.

The reality of them needing to have a remote team of drivers intervening every 2 to 5 miles of driving, within an urban setting very much designed for cars, is so far away from the picture they paint.

No wonder the tech industry has a dog shit reputation.

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Regardless of if they do or don't, surely it's in the interests of the people making the "AI" to claim that their tool is so good it's indistinguishable from humans?

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Oh my god don't even get me started on this game.

Get this, you know how over time you get fatigue points and can only get rid of them by eating food items you've previously gathered? Well, when doing this one day last week my character nearly fucking died because of some race condition glitch where mid-swallow they tried to breathe for some unknown reason and because the devs, in their infinite fucking wisdom, decided that while there are two completely separate and incompatible systems for food and air, they must accessed via the same hole, but clearly not at the same time!

The mind boggles, I hope someone was fired for that blunder.

Offsetting aside, the claimed carbon emissions of 7-12kg CO2e feels super low for a smart watch.

For comparison, this recipe of Tomatoes and Chickpeas on toast, when eaten in season from local produce, claims to reduce the carbon emission of the single meal by ~2.5kg, and this article would suggest that a single serloin steak is 5-10kg of CO2e.

I know eating beef is high impact, but basically the same as a smart watch which requires mining of precious metals and numerous transcontinental shipments? Not a chance.

They don't, obviously, but what they do is charge when the spot price for electricity is low, and then discharge when it's higher.

While not exclusively the case, this drop in price most typically occurs when you have a higher amount of electricity being generated than being consumed, which is usually because of high amounts of renewables because the unit cost of renewables is essentially 0. For example, the middle of the day at peak solar, or windy nights. Fossil fuel generators are burning a commodity with a substantially higher unit cost, so they will mostly turn off (where possible) during these times.

This is why batteries are often counted under renewable, because they shift an abundance of renewable power in to times when there is less or none.

Personally I don't think we should really be considering the extensive use of rare earth metals as renewable, but that's a separate point.

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Mississippi, it isn't even close.

The calendar is lying when it reads the present time

https://youtu.be/KrrOY0vwuPE?si=GG-oPs47q9C5xqtF