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merc

@ merc @sh.itjust.works

Posts
4
Comments
1668
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Peak Internet Culture

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  • It does provide nearly unlimited access to knowledge. But, the Internet user needs to bring their own ability distinguish knowledge from strongly held ignorant opinions.

    If you're an eye surgeon you can probably use the Internet to find out the newest techniques in eye surgery. You probably have enough knowledge of your own to spot fraudulent things, and to know where the real information can be found and how it can be vetted. OTOH, if you're an eye surgeon, you might know nothing about farming, so you might not be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. If you're not careful you might come away believing some crazy farming-related conspiracies.

  • Peak Internet Culture

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  • In the past there were gatekeepers. That sounds like a bad thing. In some ways it was. But, at least Walter Cronkite wasn't allowed to go on a rant about the chemicals turning the frogs gay.

  • 'Millennials are not punk kids anymore' — Ocasio-Cortez sees a 'generational tidal wave' driven by anger over economic futures sidelined by boomers | Fortune

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  • The answer is guillotines. Make the rich scared enough about losing their lives and they'll voluntarily surrender some of their power. The trick is to scare the rich without the rest of the death and chaos that were part of the French Revolution.

  • Your bad art is better than AI slop [Sophie Labelle]

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  • Something about using an LLM to make art and wanting people to appreciate them for that.

  • Your bad art is better than AI slop [Sophie Labelle]

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  • Nobody said that your nerdy cousin should do it for free. Give him/her $10 or something.

  • 'Millennials are not punk kids anymore' — Ocasio-Cortez sees a 'generational tidal wave' driven by anger over economic futures sidelined by boomers | Fortune

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  • And there is anger at being ignored

    Hey now, being ignored is the Gen X identity, millennials don't get to steal that!

    But seriously, although the whole "generation names" stuff is BS, people are influenced by what things are like when they were growing up. People who had access to the Internet when they were kids are naturally going to see the world differently than those who didn't.

    It has also been a consistent fact that older voters vote more. So, as "Millennials" get older, they'll probably vote more, like every group does.

    The real question is whether those votes will matter. I'm not going to claim that there's no difference between democrats and republicans. But, in the past the democrats and republicans that won their primaries were both heavily constrained in what they were allowed to do after taking office by powerful special interest groups. So, a democrat might be more likely to vote for something like more federal funding for the arts, and a republican might be more likely to vote for something like more tax cuts (without lowering spending of course), neither one would likely vote for an increase in the minimum wage because the people who fund their campaigns don't want that to be considered.

    This time, it could actually be different. There's enough anger out there that people who aren't owned by the wealthy are surviving the primary process. Some "traditional" democrats are either finding their courage, or are getting scared of what might happen to them if they don't stand for the things their constituents care about.

  • 'Millennials are not punk kids anymore' — Ocasio-Cortez sees a 'generational tidal wave' driven by anger over economic futures sidelined by boomers | Fortune

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  • Capitalism isn't the problem, it's wealth inequality. Do you think things were better back under the Manorialism system? No capitalism there, but the rich owned vast manors and the poor who worked their lands were born there and had to work that land for their entire lives.

    All capitalism did was to give a shred of social mobility where none existed before.

  • TIL that the term "Jaywalking" was invented in the 1920s by the auto industry to shift the blame for accidents from drivers to pedestrians

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  • One of the most surprising thing in old timey movies is that streets were truly mixed-use spaces, people walked there, rode horses, sold things from carts, etc. I guess that was possible because horses and horse-drawn carts were slower than cars, plus horses would generally try to avoid crashing into something, even without orders from their rider or driver.

    I always thought that a "street" and a "road" were synonyms, until I heard the term "stroad" from Not Just Bikes. It turns out that in modern planning, a street is meant as a paved path intended to provide local access to homes, shops, and other things. A road is supposed to be a way to get from A to B. A "stroad" is a derogatory term to refer to a street that has been combined with a road, so you get high speed traffic that wants to travel through an area next to homes and businesses.

    Stroads are the worst of both worlds because you end up with people who just want to get through an area dealing with kids playing, cars turning onto and off the path, other drivers slowing down to spot an address, etc. It also sucks for the locals because the way onto their driveway or school has to deal with large volumes of high-speed traffic.

    IMO we're not going back to horses and carts. High speed movement of people is here to stay. But, we really need to use modes of transport that separate people who are passing through on their way somewhere from people who are exercising, playing sports, shopping, hanging out outside their homes, etc.

    The best way to do that is public transit, especially light rail and subways which pack a lot of people into a really efficient people-mover. Subways additionally move the people-mover underground to an area where there's nobody who isn't trying to travel. Light rails are easier to build, but they have to share the above-ground with people doing other things. But, at least when they're on rails the only shared space is the rail, and the pedestrians know that as long as they're not standing on rails they don't have to worry about the light rail vehicles.

    For North America, giving up cars might be too difficult, at least in the short term. But, it seems like in newly built neighbourhoods, the least they should do is make it so every second "street" is pedestrian / bicycle only. Or, maybe allow local vehicles but with an incredibly low speed limit, less than 10 km/h and a rule that they must yield to pedestrians at all times. That way someone can still pull into their driveway but they'll only drive half a block on the local street to get there.

  • The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

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  • You ate at the onion.

  • The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

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  • Yes, then (as expected) the companies passed on the cost to their customers.

    If there were a competitive marketplace, retailers would be offering refunds to their customers or putting on huge deals so that annoyed customers didn't switch to a rival retailer.

    But, when Amazon has some massive chunk of the market, what happens if they piss off a customer? What are they going to do, go to the mall? The mall closed a long time ago.

  • Deleted

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  • Blondies? Pound cakes? Cheesecakes? Honestly, none of those appeal to me. They all seem like such bland treats.

    Vanilla is a good flavour enhancer. I love it as an addition to something like a chocolate mousse or an egg nog. But, on its own it's as exciting as white rice, or spaghetti without sauce.

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  • The disease caused the decease.

  • Removed

    Jackpot

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  • Oof. The first few seasons were good, but it was pretty weak long before it hit season 8, let alone its final season 11.

  • Removed

    Weird and F'd Up

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  • The library is still there. The books are still free. There's no charge for admission.

    Admittedly, the card catalogue is now covered in slop, so it's a bit harder to find things. But, everything's still there.

  • Mark Zuckerberg's Pivot to AI Is Blowing Up in His Face Spectacularly

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  • If it takes multiple billions of dollars to create a product that is useful for a niche group of pen and paper RPG players, that product is probably not going to succeed.

    But, also, if Facebook didn't have such an unassailable monopoly on social networking, small, focused social networks that targeted a niche group of people might have a chance of surviving.

  • Mark Zuckerberg's Pivot to AI Is Blowing Up in His Face Spectacularly

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  • And Google built a search engine. Everything else they've tried to build has failed, other than maybe Gmail which was just a Yahoo Mail / Hotmail clone. Everything else that has been successful has been an acquisition: Maps (Keyhole), YouTube, Android, Google Photos (Picasa), Doubleclick...

    We really need robust antitrust. How many of these acquisitions would be thriving companies in their own right, competing with the big tech giants if the tech giants hadn't been able to absorb them.

    Google+ is an example of what happens when companies have to compete instead of acquiring other companies. Google poured billions into it and it flopped completely.

  • Welcome to America, where you’re never quite sure if your senator is dead or not

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  • Dunno, I don't see an "about" link or something.

  • Welcome to America, where you’re never quite sure if your senator is dead or not

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  • My instance got rid of the tesseract frontend, and I don't much like the default frontend. I was using the old-reddit style frontend, but it was having massive issues. It was not posting comments at all, then double posting comments, not loading comments, etc.

    Funny enough, that was actually familiar from the old Reddit days... though it was never quite that bad.

    Anyhow, I abandoned the old-reddit frontend for now because it was just too buggy.

  • Welcome to America, where you’re never quite sure if your senator is dead or not

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  • So are all Americans who live outside the USA, and are taxed but receive no representation.

  • Welcome to America, where you’re never quite sure if your senator is dead or not

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  • Indeed, if McConnell were in perfect health and a Democratic senator were in this position, McConnell would be leading the charge to ensure they resigned.

    No, McConnell wouldn't "ensure someone resigned", he'd use some procedural trick to remove them from office and have a Republican of his choosing fill the seat. And, he'd do it even if he knew full well that the person was alive, conscious, fully in possession of their faculties, but somehow unable to defend against that kind of a dirty trick.

    The governor of Kentucky should simply replace McConnell, and if it turns out that McConnell is, in fact, up to continuing to serve in the senate, he can fight to get his seat back.