America democratically elected this chud. His moves appear to be about creating some sort of legacy that we’ll all look back on fondly one day. He craves a peace prize and when it doesn’t arrive he proceeds to threaten the committee. Delusional doesn’t come close to explaining this pathology.
Who would have thought that populating walled gardens and other enshitified services is a terrible idea?
One of the fundamental problems is that our leadership is becoming increasingly illiterate in technology. In order to leverage the economies of scale for large systems we need to either content ourselves with enshitified corporate solutions or enable collectivised approaches. Wikipedia is an excellent example of this, more of that please.
I don’t think a physical SIM is a guarantee that the phone number remains intact. The SIM is a token in the system that links a piece of hardware to a phone number and that link is maintained by the carrier. My phone spontaneously stopped being able to make calls and receive SMS. I went through the usual steps to rectify it but no dice. The carrier had to manually reconnect my number because it had become a victim of their periodic cull of disused numbers. Took quite a few calls over a period days to achieve this. ‘yes I have turned it off and on…’ ad nauseum.
The conversations in the Waking Up app are high quality and the participants are either well informed or experts. It’s meditation focused but they talk about many adjacent topics such as neuroscience, time management and philosophy. Hundreds of hours of content.
I suppose it depends what the program is for. If it’s UX then probably not a lot of use to know advanced maths. I was thinking about the process of creating mathematical models of physical systems and embedding them in an ECU or creating encryption schemes or deriving models from large datasets. Maths trains us to think logically. Computers are fundamentally logical and must strictly obey mathematical rules if we want answers.
Maths is the cornerstone of engineering and science. It’s probably one of the most versatile skills. Add physics and you have a control/electrical engineer. Add computer science and you have a programmer. Add economics and you have an equity trader. Maths alone has huge scope in research.
In Derbyshire, UK, we have three bins with different colour lids.
Green- domestic waste, generally bound for landfill, sometimes waste to energy. Anything can go in here but we are deterred from putting toxic material such as batteries in this bin.
Grey- recyclable material such as paper, metal and glass. Some have separate containers for glass.
Brown- garden waste. This one is optional and there is an additional £40 annual fee to use the service (the others are included in the council tax).
Appliances can be left by the roadside and a privately operated metal recycling company will eventually find these. Many scrap yards will buy cars and pay by the kg for the metal. I got about £200 for my 1996 Volvo V40 (~1400kg). Anything else can be disposed of at municipal waste processors which is free for domestic users and charged for commercial waste.
Probably a lot of noise coming from the incels.
5G causes Corona virus is a favourite. Most of the biblical claims but those are too obvious. Excluding religion and conspiracy theories, expensive speaker cables produce sound quality that is superior to cheap cables. Turning a phone off in an aircraft improves safety. My daughter’s teacher confidently informed me that bicycles are more dangerous than cars. That was probably the most depressing and stupid.
One of the abiding childhood memories of hugging my mother is that it felt like hugging a tree. She obviously didn’t like it but wouldn’t reject the hug and it never prevented me from doing it but it struck me as odd, even as a ten year old. My dad would hug us normally and hold hands. Later on I realised that we’re probably all autistic and have sensory issues. These days I love hugs with my daughter and she always seeks my hand to hold.
I would imagine most drug use is recreational and I’m not implying anything about your usage pattern. I do like drugs and getting high from time to time but the habitual use of drugs was a bad sign that I ignored for years. Addiction is a problem, especially if we hide, deny or condemn it. We’re all imperfect and yet deserving of love and respect.
Making something nice out of junk and repairing things is immensely satisfying. Lately I’ve turned a fallen tree into wood shingles to clad an outbuilding and installed a reclaimed ornate window.
Getting into cooking, which is most rewarding when done with family and friends. Today’s recipe is spinach and ricotta pasta.
I love programming and there are endless things to build in that world. Currently making a log burning stove control system using an Arduino, sensors and servos.
The rest of my recreational time is spent gaming on a pc, World War Z right now, love a co-op.
I smoked a lot of weed as a young adult. Looking back on that time I believe that I was escaping from the endless intrusive thoughts. Focusing my mind on any sort of work was difficult and I used all sorts of substances to get by. My typical usage profile is to find something appealing and use the shit out of it until it becomes a problem, spend time recovering and repeat with the next chemical. After recovering from heroin addiction it became obvious that it was not normal behaviour and I sought medical advice. They diagnosed ADHD and many of the past events started to make sense. I use routine to bring order to my life. I meditate to calm the mind. The medication allows me to focus and prioritise tasks. I think of my life in two starkly distinct chapters, pre and post diagnosis. I feel happy and the thought of taking substances seems like a strange thing to do.
Good call. I can’t remember if kahneman talks about it in the book but there is a fascinating experiment on people who have had a procedure that severs the connection between the left and right hemispheres (epileptics). They exhibit the impulsive tendency to explain away sensory evidence that contradicts their previous statements. The theory is that speech centres inhabit the left brain and in the absence of a measured analysis by the right hemisphere they just make something up without apparently thinking it through.
I bought a plasma cutter and a GPU. In the past I would get used GPU from eBay because it’s cheaper but the demand for them has made the market a little crazy and there’s very little price difference new vs used (UK). The price performance sweet spot seems to be AMD 9070xt (£550, ouch).
The plasma cutter is an old three phase machine that no one wanted because it’s 400V. However, looking at the circuit diagram there’s very little difference between single and 3-phase configuration so the plan is to convert it to a domestic supply or cannibalise the internals and torch assembly.
I mostly got fired for being a bad employee but my employers were no angels either. One of my first jobs was repairing computers and the money was garbage. Eventually learned that I was the lowest paid in the dept so put a sign on my desk with my salary. It was embarrassing for the manager when clients came to visit so they gave me more money.
It would not be surprising if found to be true. Difficult to see how the current business model operates at a profit. Their long term goal is the usual loss leader model until a monopoly is achieved and then slug us with ads, sell all the data, hike the price, etc. Sickening to watch them cosy up to fascists. They are probably supplying any and all the agencies with intelligence scraped from their user base. If Facebook were a person they would be a psychopath.