disappointed permanent resident of The Future

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

colubrina:

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nevereverbird:

e75cdcad05786e25308555b9760c503554319a45

Tags:

#hmm #I like the aesthetic‚ but…it’s hard to settle this out into words… #…it’s not safe to go straight there‚ even if you could #the single best argument in favour of technological progress is that if we do not‚ we will die in mere decades #I don’t mean the species; I’m not talking about extinction #I mean each of us‚ individually‚ is mortal #that’s a problem #it is the ur-problem #and while I wish we could have the best of both worlds #and I do think we should strive to make this the best of both worlds #when I think about life as a hobbit vs the life I have… #…at least this way I have a chance #seven percent of all the people who have ever lived‚ it is not too late to save #oh‚ I hedge‚ as hard as I can afford to #I do want to buy the mes who are *forced* to adopt non-industrial lifestyles time #every day is valuable (well‚ except the days with colds) #but in the long run‚ to take up that life by *choice* would be to condemn myself to death #tag rambles #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #death tw #apocalypse cw #aging cw #disappointed permanent resident of The Future

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

whirlwindwonderland:

science-bastard:

pfffft, you call yourself a supervillain but you’re STILL using chrome? dumbass! everyone knows REAL evildoers switch to firefox!!

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I already reblogged this post but this tag made me laugh for 10 minutes

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#I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog #((this amusement not to be taken as expressing an opinion regarding the statement itself))

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

toskarin:

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a remote work site made the brilliant decision to hook their automated ad account — which responds to any tweet that mentions remote work and remote jobs — up to gpt-3

the result is people pioneering new forms of attack in real time

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#I don’t know how to tell if this is legit #but nostalgebraist knows a lot more about this area and seems to think it is #so I’m tentatively going with ”real” #GPT #proud citizen of The Future #disappointed permanent resident of The Future #computer generated text #although more as a category tag than a cw

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

headspace-hotel:

impishtubist:

kispesan:

Genuinely can’t stand the new favouritism towards video format. You want me to spend a whole two minutes listening to someone say out loud a paragraph I could read in 20 seconds?

(This is about tiktok. I hate tiktok.)

It’s not just tiktok, it’s everything. I’m tired of clicking on news articles and instead finding it’s a video I have to watch. I’m tired of being sent to a video when I want to learn about a new thing instead of an article I can skim in less than a minute. You mean you want me to sit through an entire video, listening for the one kernel of information that’s buried in there that I’m interested in? Nah, man, life is too short to waste it like that. I don’t know why any of you like videos lmao.

Thank god someone said it holy fuck!!! I hate video formats!! Hate hate hate!

And it is legitimately impossible to find information on certain subjects in non-video format. “Internet lore” subjects are almost exclusively the domain of videos. Minecraft redstone tutorials? Fuck you, here’s a video.

Watching things is for some reason something I cannot get my brain to do. I don’t watch tv or movies because passively looking at a screen is not engaging enough and I get distracted, and I can’t just glance backward like you can with a book.

This is an accessibility issue. I’ve been required to watch films for classes before and had to break them up over multiple days, listen to their audio while playing minecraft or some other activity to occupy my hands, or just straight up bullshit using wikipedia summaries and stuff.

You know how when little kids try to explain something to you, they stop and start their sentences over and take forever to finish the explanation? That’s what video format is like for me. It’s just SO SLOW and takes FOREVER to get to the point compared to reading, and if I miss something or get distracted, I have to rewind the video and try to go back and catch it again.

And I can’t quickly, visually skim a video to see if it will have the information I need. If I hit skip, I might miss something important. I can’t go through the subheadings like I can in a written piece of text. There might BE an outline with subheadings for the video, but skipping forward might make me miss the handful of frames they’re displayed in. I can’t screenshot a sentence in a video so I can look at it later when I need it.

I also just process less when i’m watching a video. If I’m not doing something else while listening to the audio, I’ll miss a LOT. Information in video format just feels more ephemeral in my brain.

Someone sent me a video essay about the history of 2b2t (the minecraft server) but I haven’t watched it yet even though i’m really interested in it.

My heart breaks at the thought of all the information out there that I can’t crack my way into because the only way it’s preserved anywhere is in video format

Tags:

#yes this #that excuse for communication called speech #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #disappointed permanent resident of The Future

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

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andmaybegayer:

Right. Elastomeric half-facepiece respirators as an alternative to disposable filtering facemasks. I highly recommend getting one.

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Mug for scale, in both cases.

Basic pitch: since I got this I have been much less anxious wandering out and about in the world and I have not worried nearly as much about infection as I have while wearing practically any other mask, because you can fit-check yourself every time you put it on and be practically assured that everything you breathe is going through your filters. This is also cheaper and produces less waste than disposables in the long run, and are more comfortable for long-term wear. Downsides are that it’s pretty big and bulky, and some models are particularly hard to talk through, it requires some basic maintenance, and you might not be able to get the one you want if you have very particular needs or if you absolutely must have filtered exhalation as stock.

Longer pitch: What’s different about these masks, pros, then cons, in more detail, plus what to look for when buying, and finally less-effective semi-reusable alternatives that are less eye-catching.

Keep reading

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#have you heard the Good News of our Lord and Saviour #no but seriously they’re right and they should say it and also I learned some new things from this post #love the concept of a normie-passing/office-dress-code-compliant mask hiding a silicone seal on the inside‚ might have to look into that #I’d vaguely heard of the HF-800 already but I might have to look *more* into that‚ God knows my speech clarity needs all the help it can get #(even though it *would* suck to have to give up my beloved 7502) #(I hate changing models on my prosthetics) #(the glasses I’m wearing right now were discontinued in 2012 and I was like ”what do you *mean* you *discontinued* my *body part*”) #(I have backup glasses that are as similar as I could find) #(and nobody *else* can tell when I’m wearing them versus my primaries) #(but *I* can tell and it’s Terrible) #I *want* box filters but they’re literally twice as much as discs and I don’t think I can stomach the extra $12/pair #given that I’ve managed *this* long on carrying an umbrella and a plastic bag everywhere and being careful when dishwashing #(*knocks on wood*) #tag rambles #illness tw #proud citizen of The Future #disappointed permanent resident of The Future #transhumanism #the more you know

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~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

spacefroggity:

Weird peeve time. Calling lab grown gemstones “fake” is stupid because it’s the same shit just not formed naturally. An artificially grown diamond is the same shit as a natural diamond it is the exact same material bro it’s all fuckign carbon

spacefroggity:

It’s carbon it’s pretty and it didn’t involve slave labor what’s not to love??? Hi I’m having geology opinions tonight apparently. And I’m right

spacefroggity:

There is so much bullshit in the diamonds industry to be mad about tbh. It also ties into the bullshit of the wedding industry as a whole but we don’t have the time to unpack all that

val-ritz:

not even going to lie, the day i learned i could get like 15 lab grown rubies the size of dimes for $20 is the day i spent $20 on rubies, and i have never once said to myself “man, i wish this cost $1,600 and the lives of eight children to produce”

fuckyeahmineralogy:

We are a pro-lab-grown mineral blog here, not only is it massively cheaper but massively more ethical as well in many cases.

thegreenpea:

another very cool lab grown gem is Moissanite. It has a 9.25 on the mohs hardness scale where diamond is a 10. Moissanote also has a 2.69 refractive index in comparison to diamond’s 2.419 and here is the difference

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and the best thing about moissanite? It is all lab grown and it costs only a fraction of what diamond costs. So fuck the diamond indsutry and buy lab grown gems which cost significantly less

rubixpsyche:

Also it’s just cool to think of some mad scientist lookin person doing shit against the law of the universe and making pretty gems for you. Like cmon. This shouldnt be allowed probably. But humans really be like on gOD i want some shiny an just started MAKIN em

dadzathechaosgod:

for years people wanted alchemy, well now we have alchemy and we’re making gemstones out of it and suddenly “it doesn’t count” anymore

Tags:

#…there’s something interesting here about the clash between gems-as-decorative-shinies and gems-as-store-of-value #if you were wearing jewellery because it was beautiful then increased availability is an improvement #but if you were wearing jewellery to display wealth‚ and jewellery becomes cheap‚ then it ceases to fulfil its function #more sympathetically‚ if you used to take comfort in the idea that if you ever hit financial rock bottom #–(and‚ especially‚ if you were ever cut off from access to the local financial system)– #you’d be able to get by through pawning your jewellery‚ and jewellery becomes cheap‚ you’ve lost that safety net #(a safety net your ancestors and/or past selves paid good money for‚ money now wasted) #((a few months back I had my mom help me go through the jewellery I’ve accumulated as gifts over the decades #and figure out which ones are valuable and which ones are costume)) #((I store the valuable ones separately from the others so that I can grab the container and run)) #((because silver is a better trade good than steel even if they’re equally shiny)) #((the world is full of stories of refugees who got the starting funds for a new life by selling the jewellery they wore when they escaped)) #I know a whole lot of people place a whole lot more value on decoration than I do #so I expect cheap gemstones are still *net* good #but I see the downsides here #tag rambles #jewellery #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #adventures in human capitalism #proud citizen of The Future #disappointed permanent resident of The Future #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #death tw? #this probably deserves some other warning tag but I am not sure what

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

rustingbridges:

ime one of the upsides of gas is that as long as you have gas or electric your home has heat and cooking capability

also I’ve never had a gas outage. presumably they run those underground? whereas I’ve lived in places where you were, at some point, definitely going to have the electric out for hours

…how is your heat set up? Is that from having a gas stove?

I have an electric stove and a gas furnace (also a gas dryer and water heater), and I would have said the exact opposite: one of the *downsides* of gas is that your heat needs *both* gas and electricity to work, and fails if either is missing.

(Not that gas has ever been missing, true, but “works when electricity is out” is like the *one* major advantage combustion-based heating can have, and it can’t even fucking do *that*. It had one job! What am I paying all this carbon for, if not that?!)

(I can*not* fucking wait to get a heat pump and some hybrid solar.)

Tags:

#disappointed permanent resident of The Future #reply via reblog #domesticity #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers

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~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

prokopetz:

celestialyearning:

prokopetz:

It’s funny how whenever a major media site publishes a bloviating thinkpiece about The Rise and Fall of Tumblr, their elaborately justified list of things about Tumblr that modern social media users hate just happens to be perfectly, one-to-one identical with a list of things about Tumblr that make it difficult for advertisers to harvest personally identifying information about individual users. Like, exactly who do y’all think you’re fooling, buddy?

“Tumblr died because people just hate websites that don’t have intrusive advertising built into the platform!”

I especially like the ones that frame arguments to the effect of “having no functional ability to curate your user experience is actually a good thing because people are inherently lazy and content recommendation algorithms can be trusted to act in everyone’s best interests“.

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#Tumblr: a User’s Guide #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what #the number of robot-vacuum reviewers who think ”not cloud-dependent” is a *downside* is… #…I guess not ”boggling” because see above‚ but it’s *displeasing* #I will instead go with the recommendation of paranoiacs on Reddit†‚ who are much more reasonable #(although I am not sure yet if I will be buying one in the foreseeable future) #(Mom has expressed interest in the idea too‚ so I might frame it as a present for her) #(maybe for the big six-oh) #((in addition to my traditional birthday gift to her of a fancy quiche)) #(((I mean‚ the decision may not end up being mine to make with all the supply-chain shit‚ but at the moment it *does* seem to be in stock))) #†Eufy RoboVac 11S #tag rambles #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #domesticity