ultimafan · HackerTrans

قبل 4 ساعاتdiscuss

I agree with this wholeheartedly, it's harder to notice this in a field you are a professional in, but what really opened my eyes was noticing how often friction kept me from making mistakes in hobbyist metalworking/woodworking projects. More than once I've either made or didn't make mistakes based entirely on if the tool I "needed" for the next step was in arms reach or a walk across the garage and a search through multiple toolboxes.

ultimafan

قبل 5 أيامdiscuss

Except cheating in games isn't the equivalent of steroids in the gym, since they let cheaters do things that literally no one can without them. And steroids at least have the argument behind them that you still have to put the work in (it's not "free" gains like cheats are, that guy that looks like Arnold is still putting hours into the gym every week to look like that, you can't just take steroids and look the same if you aren't willing to put in the effort)

A much better analogy would be showing up to a weightlifting competition with a construction crane and thinking competing with it against human lifters is fair.

ultimafan

قبل 7 أيامdiscuss

Not just CS, I don't think people realize how prevalent cheating is in any multiplayer game. The issue is compounded by the fact that many high skill ceiling games are plagued by "micro cheats" being used by players that are already fairly decent at the game even without them, making it borderline impossible for casual players to tell if what just happened to them was a fair skill gap or someone cheating.

I don't play multiplayer games anymore for that reason. Too easy to go on an emotional tilt where you feel like you're suffering from paranoia and suspecting too many players of cheating. It's absolutely ruined competitive games for me.

ultimafan

قبل 4 أشهرdiscuss

I think you and the previous comment are talking about different types of drones- the smaller commercial quadcopters used in the Russia-Ukraine conflict can be shot down with shotguns fairly effectively.

Both sides have been seen with one member of a squad carrying around an issued shotgun in an anti-drone role- the fact that it shoots pellets in a cone is precisely why it's so effective. Skeet shooting is a great example of how relatively small fast moving targets can be hit consistently at range with a shotgun and they are usually using much smaller/lighter pellets with poorer velocity/range, I would assume the loads used in an anti-drone role are bigger.

ultimafan

قبل 11 شهرًاdiscuss

I feel like bigger studios have definitely been playing it safer in the last 10-15 years. You used to see a lot more unorthodox ideas and mechanics or just flat out bizarre premises that I'm sometimes baffled even got the green light to go ahead. Today for the most part that kind of daring seems mostly relegated to the indie space. Everyone else looks for the safest option they hope will sell.

ultimafan

قبل 11 شهرًاdiscuss

Product/tech fanboyism has always existed, sure, not going to argue that point.

But I don't remember it ever being getting anywhere near as heated or pushed in real life conversations. That kind of borderline religious fanaticism mostly lived in online spaces.

ultimafan

قبل 11 شهرًاdiscuss

I think a large amount of AI skeptics are just tired. I'm what you would call in the AI skeptic camp and the most I'll contribute to in person conversations anymore is feigned indifference towards the topic or something along the lines of "Oh, I haven't really been keeping up with AI news lately."

For me personally (and maybe for others as well?) there's two parts to this. The first is that it's exhausting to constantly be pulled into "debates" with staunch pro-AI supporters who can't accept that you have some reason to be against it or agree to disagree and move on from the conversation. The second is that I've noticed that even mild anti-AI sentiment lately seems to make people (especially tech people) see and treat you as an anti-science luddite or conspiracy theorist.

It's easier to just pretend I don't care or that I'm not interested in public than be a skeptic.

ultimafan

قبل 11 شهرًاdiscuss

Eat it- plenty of people hunt boar for the meat just like other wild animals. I'm not the biggest fan of the taste but have friends that enjoy it.

ultimafan

قبل 11 شهرًاdiscuss

The biggest thing I miss about smoking myself and smoking being common and prevalent in general is the social aspect (you immediately both have at least one thing in common and 5 minutes of free captive time with each other)

Stepping outside for a smoke on the job, at parties, while out running errands, in foreign countries as a tourist, to kill time outside an appointment waiting room, etc. was a guaranteed way to strike up an unexpected conversation with all manners of characters from all walks and levels of life that I wouldn't have had the chance (or courage or social skills I suppose) to do otherwise.

Some of the most entertaining or thought provoking conversations with strangers in my life have been a result of this. Approaching random people busy with their random lives outside of a smoking area feels intimidating and often doesn't seem to have the same result (which makes sense- someone smoking is actively not busy)

And in the office, it always felt to me like the smoking areas were the only place you could get real, no bullshit answers from people across teams/divisions "off the record" about actual deadlines/timelines etc.

I've heard people say something to the effect of, just go hang out in a smoke spot and don't actually smoke to get the same perks but as an ex-smoker if I saw a non-smoker doing this I would definitely feel a bit weird about it / less open towards them.

ultimafan

قبل 12 شهرًاdiscuss

I feel like just about everyone knows of (through friends/family/community) or has experienced some form of life changing harassment, assault, blackmailing, scamming, or otherwise malicious activities that have happened over social media / online platforms and the perpetrators are rarely if ever caught or punished. And it feels like thanks to the AI boom these problems are only going to get significantly worse over the next decade or so, maybe longer, thanks to the ability for bad actors to easily scale their efforts and create more realistic lies/threats/setups using AI tools to accomplish what they might not have had the skills to do beforehand.

I have little doubt that people looking back in the future on the first few decades of widespread internet usage and adoption without guardrails in place will see it as a huge moral failure on society's part. We've created a system that has enabled predators, scammers, and the like all over the world to cause untold amounts of harm to victims they would otherwise never have encountered, and get away with criminal behavior that, lacking a physical out in the open component isn't seen or caught by anyone until the damage is already done.

Instead of slowing down or reflecting on if a 24/7 deluge of social media / entertainment / bullshit novelties are really worth the harm companies are just ramping up the potential for future danger in the name of profit with all these new AI tools for "innocent" purposes.

ultimafan

السنة الماضيةdiscuss

There's little doubt in my mind that for every person on websites like /pol/ that's taking the piss with subversive "be as offensive/absurd to the status quo as you can" style of humor there's at least one other person that's internalized those kinds of views as a genuine belief system.

I don't browse 4chan anymore though I did used to (a lot) years ago. Take what I say as anecdotal evidence but I used to chat with a group of people I met through a former friend that seemed to start with a similar mindset to the one you have and then went down the pipeline over a few years of unironically espousing the most absurd abhorrent kind of thoughts you'd see on /pol/ and feeling 100% justified in doing so. They had gotten so used to seeing and interacting with such content day in and day out that it became normalized for them and they started to think that such a large forum existing with people saying similar things validated the way they began to think and act.

I think my main takeaway for sites like /pol/ is that you can't really pretend to act one way for humor for extended periods of time without it rubbing off on you in one way or another and that there are too many young people out there that stumble upon places like that and adopt those views since they lack the world experience yet to have formed their own.

ultimafan

السنة الماضيةdiscuss

If the i8 suffers from a similar problem (I'm not familiar with the design of that car) that's equally baffling to me on BMW's part.

A car telling someone not willing to maintain it itself that it's time to take it to a service center is fine and all and probably would avoid a lot of headaches for people that aren't mechanically inclined. But a design that encourages tacking on labor charges or being unable to give your car a quick look over yourself seems awful.

ultimafan

قبل سنتينdiscuss

Wow, the lack of a hood is baffling, was that actually a conscious design decision or an urban legend?

Because in the case of the former I find it unbelievable that no one on the team, or even at Volvo that dropped by to see how the project is coming along (I assume they weren't shipped off to some isolated island to complete their work in complete secrecy) didn't say something. The first question at least 80% of people I know would have when looking over a car to buy for the first time is, "Can you pop the hood?" Not to mention getting at the engine to adjust or replace consumables like belts, fluids, plugs or even minor repairs.

I'm far more willing to believe this is just a small detail that simplified the production process for a one off prototype than that anyone thought this was actually a good idea.

ultimafan

قبل سنتينdiscuss

This is really the way to go. Most "cheap" tools will offer the same or similar performance to the name brand ones or like you mentioned you'll splurge on a nice one and realize you only need it for one or three jobs and the generic brand would have sufficed. I've been buying harbor freight tools for years I can think on one hand the amount of tools that have broken and it's usually not because they weren't up to par for the right job but because I did a hackjob and macgyvered them for something they were never meant for.

comments