• 8 Posts
  • 37 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 10th, 2023

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  • Isn’t Reddit currently messing up things with search? And yeah I’d agree with the stable users comment. We shall see what the next few months look like to tell.

    I think that the adoption will mostly work in steps. Lemmy is currently functional, not pretty, not stable, not well moderated, not well integrated with federation, and poor discovery but it is functional.

    Hopefully the next time a wave hits, Lemmy will be more mature and ready to take in more users who will already have communities set up even if they’re small.

    I’m concerned though given the slower pace of updates that’s often complained about though.


  • Tbh it’s the reason I asked. I expected results to look about like this but I’m really interested in the graphs of posts vs active users.

    Posting has exploded. I assume a good portion of that is bots. Bots posting news or reposting memes probably. However, a good portion of that must be users posting as well right?

    I don’t think that retaining about half of the users that joined in the massive wave is bad actually, it’s the trends that come next where we see what happens. If that line keeps going down for the rest of the year, the platform is probably in trouble.




  • And for good reason. If they trusted user input and took it at face value even for just the current conversation, the user could run wild and get it saying basically anything.

    Also chatGPT not having current info is a problem when trying to feed it current info. It will either try to daydream with you or it will follow its data that has hundreds of sources saying they haven’t invaded yet.

    As far as covering the companies ass, I think AI models currently have plenty of problems and I’m amazed that corporations can just let this run wild. Even being able to do what OP just did here is a big liability because more laws around AI aren’t even written yet. Companies are fine being sued and expect to be through this. They just think that will cost less than losing out on AI. And I think they’re right.








  • It really isn’t. Many salient points here that you breezed over. Focus on the US because that’s who we need to fix right now. Solar panel waste is a big problem. Does the US recycle them? Or anything? No not really. They recycle 10% of them.

    Now that doesn’t kill the idea, but I would need to see the US sign laws to recycle them or improve that rate before I’d believe that the panels wouldn’t end up wasted.

    Next: wind turbines killing bird populations is real even if it’s a minor concern because it stacks on everything you mentioned. Our estimates aren’t great but the ecological impact of these turbines is not well understood over the whole of the US. I like them more than solar, sure, and they’re better than fossil fuels absolutely. Just wish we can understand that these two have issues we need to solve to deploy them everywhere.

    As for the land comparison, that’s not a great statistic. The parking lots will only get bigger in the US, I promise. Cars are too prevalent. Maybe in 30 years, not now though. So we have to increase land use. I have yet to see US cities do much more than putting the turbines on pasture land and they usually choose undeveloped land in the middle of nowhere. So yes, valid concern.

    The thing about transport is fine if they’re equal, I’m not about to fight you on something you’re this passionate about.

    As for the uranium ore extraction problem, my point is that it’s a problem that the west actually has a chance at fixing. They can mine their own uranium, they can find other sources. Meanwhile china owns most of the solar power production. Most of the panels are made by slaves. The cobalt mines involve entire countries worth of human rights issues.

    I don’t dislike the use of solar and wind, I just feel that the takes here have been far from balanced when nuclear has some real advantages if you’re being honest about the weaknesses of current renewables.



  • While I agree that these renewables can be effective, they have many problems that stop me from supporting them over nuclear even at a lower cost.

    We aren’t recycling solar panels enough, so I’m not optimistic that heavy metals won’t be polluting our dirt in the future. Wind still is killing birds and uses massive amounts of land. And that’s before we get into the cost of transporting these things from china which requires pollution from shipping and also kills wildlife. And then on top of that, there’s a very real human rights problem as solar currently is made mostly by slaves at multiple steps in the supply chain.



  • Walmart, the biggest grocery retailer in the entire United States, uses face tracking in the majority of their stores in several sections, and we’re concerned about their Wi-Fi?

    The Wi-Fi seems like such a minor problem compared to them collecting massive amounts of data off of something you aren’t consenting to explicitly.

    Like you walk into their stores and they can know: How often you visit, what items you buy, what payment method you use most often, what items you looked at and what aisles you visit, who you bring with you, what your kids look like, what disabilities you may have, size of your household, and whatever else they want. There’s basically no respect for any privacy in their stores.

    The US is a privacy nightmare in competition with China. Most of the US doesn’t have any option over their privacy. You just don’t get it here.


  • Yeah I find most of this to be similar to what I’ve heard so that’s good confirmation, thank you.

    The reason I’m considering it now is that: 1. I believe it will be applicable to industry and will raise my initial pay and work out in the long run. 2. I don’t want to work through a masters. 3. It will only take me 1 year to do it. And 4. I have a way to pay for it so I expect it to accrue very minimal debt. I have about $25k debt from my bachelors but I expect not much more to come from my masters from scholarships/assistant for a professor.

    So I’m viewing this as more of a deal, I wouldn’t consider a masters if any one of these things weren’t the case probably.


  • Wow this is good feedback. I’ll just give some short thoughts on what you said, but thank you for all of that. I’ll also use your comment to give more info about what I’m doing.

    1. My program is on the civil side of engineering and is most applicable in space exploration and crossover with other engineering fields. I expect industry would find most of the skills I’d use valuable.
    2. I’ve heard this and I’m prepared, but luckily I’m not doing a thesis if I go for this. I’d be writing papers instead.
    3. One of my goals is to establish good contacts, so this is good to hear
    4. I’m trying to avoid this actually, I’d rather not work and do school at the same time
    5. Very much heard and I’m not considering a PhD unless I find myself either enjoying research or I have a career application for it.
    6. I do actually have a research assistantship lined up so paying for a masters shouldn’t be a problem.




  • Agreed, totally depends on how much you watch. But shopping used DVDs and like I said banding together with friends to buy content eventually begins to work out better for you.

    I’m not someone who consumes tv and movie content en masse so it works out for me to do this and for a lot of people who watch a season or two of a show a month, it’s not that much more expensive to own.

    What I meant about the capitalism concept is that the core idea isn’t about enjoyment or getting to watch what you want. It’s not about convenience anymore. This is a capitalistic cycle where it stops innovating and starts to poison it’s consumer.

    So shows will now be splintered across services, shows will get cancelled for being less profitable, and the overall quality will dip because we’re driving art to the bottom price. Whatever makes shareholders more money. And is this true? I feel like it is. Quality of shows has dipped quite a bit to fit the streaming service pricing.

    We can argue about whether people want that or not, but it’s basically just what’s been done with every other consumer item. Dominate the market, lose money, get the subscribers, and then make their experience shittier over time.


  • Oh let’s be real here, this is what capitalism does. It chooses the worst possible option for entertainment because it’s what makes the most money. What makes the most money is not making you happy, but getting you to stay subscribed.

    Let me tell you the real secret. You know what it costs to rent a movie online? And stream it? And then never watch it again? Yeah now justify that against streaming services.

    I’ll tell you right now, go get Plex. If you don’t already use a media server, start. Because chances are that you don’t actually watch 90% of what’s on those services. So that $15 a month for content you don’t own could easily be $20 a month on content that you do actually own. Not to mention there’s no ads involved and you can stream as many devices as you want from anywhere. Get friends to pitch in and it’s even better.

    The ONLY argument for this is convenience of all the shows at your fingertips. Except now that’s not the case and they’re on different services, screw it, either pirate the media or buy it used on disc.