Grauwacht
5mo ago
I'm only slightly embarrassed to admit that I based my opinion on this ChatGPT answer:
Quantum mechanics (QM) underpins much of modern technology, especially in semiconductors, computers, and electronics. Here’s how:
- Semiconductors & Transistors Transistors, the building blocks of computers, rely on quantum effects like electron band gaps in semiconductors. Quantum tunneling and electron energy levels determine how silicon chips function, enabling microprocessors and memory storage.
- Lasers & LEDs Lasers work because of stimulated emission, a QM principle where electrons in atoms jump between energy levels. LEDs (light-emitting diodes) rely on QM to convert electrical energy into light efficiently.
- Computers & Microelectronics Quantum mechanics dictates how electrons move in circuits, affecting everything from chip design to data storage (like flash memory). Modern processor fabrication (like Intel’s 7nm and 3nm chips) requires quantum tunneling models to control electron behavior at microscopic scales.
- Magnetic Storage (Hard Drives & MRI) Quantum mechanics enables Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR), a phenomenon used in hard drives to read data from magnetic disks. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) exploits nuclear spin states, a QM property, to create detailed images of the body.
- Quantum Computing (Future Impact) Unlike classical bits (0 or 1), quantum bits (qubits) use superposition and entanglement to process information in new ways. This could revolutionize fields like cryptography, AI, and simulations for materials science. So, while QM started as abstract math in the early 20th century, it now drives the technology behind modern life.
Grauwacht
5mo ago
Who is funding fundamental research into topics like quantum mechanics that don't yield an immediate benefit but is still highly useful for society? The private sector probably wouldn't fund this research because the benefits accrue to a lot of competitors as well. Citizen-scientists can't fund it.
Grauwacht
9mo ago
Currently, computers are better at chess than humans. Still, nobody wants to watch the computer world championship and many people want to watch the human world championship. In some jobs it's not just about being better. Maybe more such jobs will exist in the future?
Grauwacht
1yr ago
The original law seems overly broad anyways. Why shouldn't I generally be allowed to conceal myself, as long as I'm not doing anything wrong? This kind of overly broad suspicion against the public is a sign of sick, low-trust society. Why not construct the law the other way around? Mask wearing is allowed unless committing a crime, being on a protest, etc.
Grauwacht
1yr ago
I pick red because I care more about not dying than I care about idiots and idiot-saviors not dying 🗿
Grauwacht
16d ago
Not true for games in general. All games currently available are gutter trash, even the (relatively) good ones, even the classics! I can easily imagine a game that is way, way better than anything currently on the market. The only problem is actually coding the thing. There are so many possible improvements based on world reactivity, AI, physics, emergent gameplay, etc. I think, for people in the future, games available today will look like Pong looks to us.
Grauwacht
11mo ago
you can no longer accuse a man of rape if you willingly spend time with him alone
I was with you for the power analysis but this is just unhinged. It's not that hard not to rape a woman, even if you are alone with her and you have a lot of vitality.
Grauwacht
1yr ago
This has got to be one of the most pointlessly evil bills ever. And I say this as someone who is very much not vegetarian.
You WILL kill ze pig. You WILL kill ze chicken. You WILL kill ze cattle. And you WILL be happy.
Grauwacht
1yr ago
My point here isn't "Russia Good Actually" but that Western states very often are extraordinarily repressive, at least by the standards of the United States (but not so much by the standards of the world as a whole). There's an idea that because Western nations generally have some form of democratic government they don't repress minority groups, and I don't think that's true at all.
That's true, but the extend of the repression is simply not comparable between the West and Russia. If you are an influential person who opposes the status quo in Germany, you may have trouble getting a bank account, the media may lie about you, other parties may not want to cooperate with you, you may get expelled from the country if you are a foreign national, and the other parties may try to ban you. You can also go to jail if you express certain opinions, but this is relatively easy to avoid and doesn't hamper your political action much. This is all very bad. Conversely, if you are an influential person who opposes the status quo in Russia, you will get assassinated or put in the Gulag. Sometimes both. Further, the range of not expressible opinions is broad with unclear boundaries. Real opposition parties don't exist and elections are faked anyways.
Grauwacht
1yr ago
It solves the problem insofar that an 18 year old having sex with a 17 year old is perfectly reasonable by anyone's standards but an 18 year old having sex with a mid teen is already pretty sus.
Grauwacht
1yr ago
True, but I think we have to grade on a curve due to the "one-drop rule".
Grauwacht
1yr ago
Suppose that we take an extreme example of this. If one person votes Blue, he dies. But if even one person joins him, nobody dies. I think even the most hardened Red would concede the case for picking Blue. After all, your risk is very low, since there's a very high chance someone else will join you.
On the other hand, the chances of actually saving anyone is small since enough people will vote for blue anyways. I don't think there is a single scenario, other than me being very concerned with the people I am trying to save, where I would pick blue.
Grauwacht
7d ago
Maybe that's naive, but isn't it kind of stupid to announce a secret stealth bomber mission by putting it before congress? Just seems counterproductive.
Grauwacht
2mo ago
I understand that point, I don't understand why white babies are doing better with white doctors: "the study did see a survival benefit with racial concordance between physician and patient, however it was only with white infants and physicians".
Grauwacht
2mo ago
My main gripe with current day models is their lack of consistency. On the one hand, they can do very impressive things that save me hours of work, on the other, they can fuck things up in simple ways and it costs me hours of work to fix it. I was using Claude to program a scene in Godot and the file was showing a parsing error at line 1. I let him try to fix it multiple times, started new chats, etc. Then I just looked at the file, noticed a comment in line 1 starting with # and thought "maybe that's not allowed". I took the comment away and the file was fixed. It's insanely frustrating when the AI fucks up such a simple thing. The main benefit of AI is that you can just let it rip and create something without knowing what you are doing. If I have to check the code all the time for fuckups, it really drags on productivity.
Grauwacht
1yr ago
I don't think most people can cook that well. Everyone can put a frozen pizza in the oven or cook Ramen. But you wouldn't be proud of that. Are you sure that your sense of pride is completely independent of your environment? I would guess that you would feel somewhat less proud if everyone else was a 3* chief. Then, being proud of what would be considered a moderately complex dish today would be equivalent to being proud of cooking Ramen.
Grauwacht
1yr ago
The mainstream media, which we're assured rarely tells [https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-media-very-rarely-lies](outright lies), decided to find the exact dividing line between an outright lie and "still technically the truth". You can be the judge of whether they succeeded. For just one of many examples, Joe Scarborough ran a segment where the words "Trump warns of a bloodbath for America if he loses" were emblazoned on the bottom of the screen.
I find it amusing that every time someone snarkily invokes Scott's post, they provide an example that perfectly makes his point. Trump did warn of a bloodbath, so Joe didn't make it up. The media is very, very, misleading but they indeed rarely lie.
Grauwacht
2yr ago
I'm probably preaching to the choir, but this is utterly backwards. The default is that men can't compete in women's sports. If you want to assert that some set of procedures the man undergoes makes it fair for them to compete, that is what has to be demonstrated. One study with n = 8 doesn't cut it. I'm sure that a wokeist would screech in rage that obviously transwomen are women, but such claims are just definitional assertions that are not-even-wrong and convey no information.
I think even this is too charitable. Imagine if we proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that one-armed men perform the same in basketball as women. Should they be allowed to play in the WNBA? No... of course not, because they are men! They still had this advantage, it doesn't matter at all that they have some sort of compensating disadvantage, this is simply not how this works. The exact same thing is true for trans women.
Grauwacht
2yr ago
When I return to a thread and sort by Top, comments I have previously collapsed don't stay collapsed.
Grauwacht
1yr ago
Is it not better to have a clear win condition, so you don't even need to have the argument about what counts as winning?
Yes, I realize that some people consider using ashes in Elden Ring as cheating. Clarity is a matter of degree. I have, for example, never heard anyone complaining about beating Sekiro in any semi-normal way as cheating. Btw. the Cuphead easy mode doesn't count because it doesn't let you advance in the game. That's why I put it into the list of "hard games".
Grauwacht
1yr ago
I don't think you are going far enough with the bathroom argument. If cis-men are dangerous to women, so are trans-women because both are male. Malicious actors don't need to factor into it. If we disallow cis-men from entering women's bathrooms, so should we disallow trans-women. Otherwise, it's discriminatory against cis-men.
Grauwacht
1yr ago
That list of people seems pretty based. I must admit, I don't understand the Guardians argument here. Does Lightcone have to pay back the money because they invited bad people or because the money was sent fraudulently? If it's the former: lol, if it's the latter: Why even talk about the bad people for 90% of the article? I mean, imagine they were a pro social justice foundation or whatever. Would this mean that they shouldn't pay back the fraud money?
Grauwacht
1yr ago
I find it odd that you have a very similar ranking of the FromSoft titles with Sekiro on top, yet you still disagree with my point. In my view, Sekiro is the best title in part because it is so tight. There is a limited amount you can do in terms of grinding to defeat the bosses. So you just have to... uh... git gud. In contrast, in Elden Ring you can basically make the game as easy or as hard as you want by using ashes or meta builds. This makes the game more accessible in the same way that a dedicated easy mode would have made it more accessible. At the same time, it creates the risk of having overtuned bosses like Malenia. You couldn't have a Malenia type boss in Sekiro because almost nobody would beat it. So it is exactly the tightness, that a bounded difficulty level brings, that may have made Sekiro the better game.
Full agreement on the second paragraph. Comparison with others is part of the enjoyment for some people.
Sure, the flanderization of Dark Souls is bad. Sure, some people have dumb opinions and justify it with git gud. I wouldn't blame it on the lack of easy mode though.
I am generally against taking an established franchise to a completely new direction that alienates many of it's old fans, whether that be adding an easy mode or making it insanely hard. Therefore, I would reject it on these grounds. A better example would be creating a new franchise that is so hard that I can't beat it. I am perfectly fine with this shrug
It seems to me that this is pretty squarely within the "technically the truth" category. It follows the same logic as the other examples of misleading headlines: If you had more context, you would interpret it completely differently.
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