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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)A

August27th

@ August27th @lemmy.ca

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Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Trump administration reportedly builds a slow-motion ban on Chinese AI models through sanctions and soft pressure

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  • Your writing is a pleasure to read. Thanks for this.

  • LG TVs and monitors said to surveil users and install bloatware without asking

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  • Oh my God, I just checked and me too.

  • US billionaire wealth surges to $8.1 trillion as affordability crisis hammers working class

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  • The way accounting works, if the money is going on to their books, it had to come off of someone else's. So the rest of us are not the same, you are correct, we are actually poorer, collectively.

    Billionaires' accumulation of wealth is basically self perpetuating once they get to the point of being a billionaire. They can't possibly spend it all, so they invest anything left over, which gains more profits, which they invest again and so on.

    They eventually run out of regular investments to invest in (see stocks just going up and up), so they move into investing in things like housing, which is why that bubble refuses to burst. Meanwhile, you can't afford to buy your own house because of the astronomical cost, and you're left renting your housing from the billionaire class who effectively own it, creating more profit for them. Even if you buy a home, you likely have a mortgage, with that money having been lent by... investors (see above), creating more profit for them.

    Unfortunately, every dollar lent for anything requires an interest payment, which, if you know how that works (see "fractional reserve banking" to get an idea), forces money to be printed in order for there to be enough money supply to keep the whole system working. Printing money causes inflation, which lowers the buying power of any money you do have.

    For regular people, that means we're collectively poorer.

    For billionaires, they'd never notice the inflation, both because they already have more money than they could ever spend, and the growth is self perpetuating because they have no other way to spend it.

    If you follow that out, obviously they'll end up owning absolutely everything.

    But people have to eat, so one day, shit is going to hit the fan. The longer taxing billionaires heavily is delayed, the larger that shit storm is going to be. The people who are right now living in shantytowns, in their cars or RVs, are the tip of the iceberg.

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    This doesn't even touch on things like shrinkflation (which is just another part of general inflation).

    Some people might say "oh, fractional reserve banking is dead", but what they don't say is that the reserve part is dead, meaning the engine is now fully pinned instead of just red-lining.

  • My Life Is a Lie: How a Broken Benchmark Broke America

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  • Like some people said on HN, the premise of this is based on a misunderstanding of how the poverty line is calculated.

    Look, just because some people on HN turned their brain off, it doesn't mean you have to listen to them. It's clear if they said this, they read a tenth of the article at most and then jumped to conclusions. The misunderstanding is theirs, and now yours unless you read and grok the whole article.

    They don't take each year's grocery expenses and multiply by 3.

    Indeed they do not.

    Instead they take the same 1963 figure and adjust it each year for inflation generally.

    Okay. But what underpins the 1963 figure? That's his whole point. The figure effectively looked at one variable and assumes that several related others remain static for 60 years.

    This means if [it] was an accurate estimate then and the inflation calculation is correct, then it should remain roughly accurate

    If it were instead adjusted for inflation since 1910, and the poverty line was based on horse maintenance expenses x3, because it made sense at the time, and it was an accurate estimate then, would this have remained roughly accurate to today? Neigh way José.

    The benchmark is not keeping up with modern expenses, nor does it factor in changes to known 1963 variables that the benchmark still presumes are static, effectively pegged at 1963 values.

    Just read the whole article. Your future depends on it.

  • Could the internet go offline? Inside the fragile system holding the modern world together

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  • When things get dire, the fast and high bandwidth Internet we know will be gone, but a form of slow, intermittent Internet will probably be around; still technically an Internet.

  • Tesla reintroduces 'Mad Max' Full Self-Driving mode that breaks speed limits

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  • Part of me wonders if they sell your driving telemetry to your insurance company, and if those companies pay out more for data on worse offenders. If so, they're just letting you tie your own increased insurance rate noose by providing that option, for their own financial gain.

  • Signal announces a backup feature that includes 100MB of storage for texts and the last 45 days' worth of media for free, or 100GB of storage for $1.99/month

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  • Oh, so that's why Google is killing sideloading.

  • AI adoption rate is declining among large companies — US Census Bureau claims fewer businesses are using AI tools

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  • Then again, I could have accomplished the same thing by knocking off work for the day and going to the driving range.

    Hey, look at the bright side, as long as you were chained to your desk instead, that's all that matters.

  • Worktrees: Git's best kept secret (and why you should use them)

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  • Oh my god, I've thinking about why git doesn't operate this way for ages, but it already has for a decade. This is going to change my life. Thank you for posting this.

  • xAI Data Center Emits Plumes of Pollution, New Video Shows

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  • uninformed for skeptical

    Perhaps one begets the other.

  • xAI Data Center Emits Plumes of Pollution, New Video Shows

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  • The article is not fishy, you are just uninformed. They are powering the datacenter with turbines fueled by natural gas. You are right about the datacenter though, it's beyond fishy, into crime territory. To top it all off, they have approval to run only a handful of turbines (after not even seeking approval in the first place, i.e. running them illegally), but they are running a ton of them.

  • Forget Big Brother. It’s the startups silently watching workers now.

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  • I feel there's a certain sad irony about the domain on that link.

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  • The video isn't working for me for whatever reason. I think it's something technical on my side. I'm sure the people in it are beautiful if you think they are; you seem to have a fascination with beauty!

    If you are making videos, and posting (comic) art, I assume you are into art. What kinds of art are you into? Do you make other art?

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  • I'm sorry to hear that you were beaten by members of your family as a child. You didn't deserve that. No child deserves that. I hope you are okay and safe today.

    If you don't mind my asking, do you relate to Betty's words in some way because of your experience? If so, in what way?

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  • Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. You are helping me appreciate this comic more.

    What did you relish about Betty's dialogue? Was it amusing and/or relatable to you?

    I see your point about Veronica. Do you think she might be representing society in this comic? Who or what does Betty represent, do you think?

    I think maybe this comic might have something to do with the dichotomy of shame and envy. Maybe your point about society relates somehow to that dichotomy? What do you think about that idea?

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  • What part of it was most enjoyable to you? Can you describe it, and how it relates to your life, perhaps?

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  • In your own words, what is the context, if you don't mind my asking? What is this image, and what is your interpretation of its (perhaps underlying) meaning?

  • It's Breathtaking How Fast AI Is Screwing Up the Education System

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  • I am having flashbacks to the scene in Idiocracy where the doctor is talking about his wife.

  • Why indeed

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  • Nailed it. Things have changed to allow cheaper (interpretable in several ways) developers to create "good enough" software as quickly as possible. If that involves inefficient frameworks, technology, and practices that unlock this, then so be it; if the "best" code is the code that makes money, and money is what corporations prioritize above all else, and there is a way to do that quicker and cheaper, the outcome is obvious and now ubiquitous. Furthermore, if nobody at the top cares, why should anyone on the ground care? The problem compounds.

    Priorities are fucked.