Some IT guy, IDK.

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 5th, 2023

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  • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.catoScience Memes@mander.xyzAcademic writing
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    6 days ago

    I think the point is that academic writers use large terms, despite using them wrong, when diminutive ones would suffice.

    They use big words for the sake of using big words. Whether they make any sense whatsoever, is entirely beside the point.

    The text, as I understand it is essentially saying the same thing, using big words to obfuscate that they’re actually saying something rather boring and simple, which also has the point of obfuscating the meaning of the text to anyone who isn’t an academic; aka someone who isn’t used to such nonsensical word play.

    There’s a good reason I’ve avoided any work in academic fields. They incorrectly use terms, which just muddies the water on what the hell they’re actually saying. Not only because the terms are big/less known, but because they’re often used wrong.

    IMO, academics are morons who like to sound smart.

    … Do you concur?


  • This… Is actually a pretty good idea.

    There’s a few meme images around that Celsius is how water “feels” and Fahrenheit is how people feel (and Kelvin is how atoms feel), which isn’t entirely off base…

    But frankly, I would support human scale more than Fahrenheit. I live in a country with Celsius, and my only real gripe with it is that whole degrees are not very precise. You have to go to half-degrees, or even 1/10th of a degree to get reasonable precision on temperature.

    Just seems like the human scale would work well for 90% of use cases, aside from science where we should be using either Celsius or Kelvin.





  • Fair enough.

    There are certainly aspects of desire that can be viewed as non-emotional. Not even just in sexual desire, but in general. Like, “I want a cookie” doesn’t have to be an emotionally driven sentiment. Having want/desire does not necessarily mean an emotional drive for that thing.

    Also, there are many ways to miss someone. If I were separated from my partner for a long period of time, her presence would be missed. Beyond the obvious physical intimacy, having someone around to talk with that I trust and value the opinion of; and someone I can share humerus stories with, or memes/quips that I heard or made. Or simply the knowledge of having them near in case I need assistance in any capacity. It’s a comfort.

    There’s more to it than just intimacy, and emotion; though, being an inherently emotional human, I recognise those aspects in myself as well.

    I admire the Vulcans. I think they’re on to something.


  • My opinion, since modern Vulcans suppress their emotions, the only logical reason to have a mate is procreation. So the vast majority of society is “straight” as a result of that logic.

    At the same time, I would argue that it is an illogical activity to exclude someone of value to society based on who they have chosen to mate with. Logically, unless their choice of mate somehow affects their job/employment/task (whatever you want to call it), I don’t see a logical reason why their choice in a mate would matter to anyone else.

    The only logical argument I can find in all of this, is that choosing a mate based on feeling/preference, instead of logic, might demonstrate that an individual is more emotional and therefore less logical. And I think we all know how Vulcans feel about things that are not logical and/or things that act upon their feelings…

    Personally, I don’t see that having a preference in a mate, even one that steps outside the heteronormative, is a flaw in their logic. If you enjoy your time with your mate, and that makes you a better, more productive individual, then I fail to see a problem.




  • I made this decision when I purchased a house… Or rather, the bank purchased it, I just live here and pay them instead of a landlord.

    I went with DeWalt and I don’t really have any regrets. I had one of the really basic 12v drills from them for like 10+ years. It mostly rattled around my car’s trunk during that time. I’ve purchased two additional batteries for it, one was shortly after I bought it, so I’d always have a charged battery on hand, the other to keep on the drill. When I needed to swap, I’d just take the dead battery into my home at the end of the day and charge it overnight, then dump it back in the car the next day.

    I used it mainly for computer stuff, since I work in that industry… Racking equipment in server racks, opening computers, etc. Rarely did I need to actually make holes or anything with it… The third battery was purchased when the original battery that came with it, stopped working. The drill and two remaining batteries still work fine, though I don’t really need/use them anymore.

    I might “donate” it to a young relative someday, for now it collects dust in my basement.

    When I replaced it, I got all 20v DeWalt everything. I bought a pack of tools that came with a couple of fairly basic battery chargers, a couple batteries, a hammer drill, impact driver, reciprocating saw, oscillating tool, a circular saw, and a portable light… It even came with a carry bag, which was promptly tossed in a corner and hasn’t been touched since, except to kick it further into the corner.

    After a short while of owning the house, we added a small (additional) set of batteries… I think 3 more? And picked up lawn equipment that’s also 20v from DeWalt. A string trimmer (aka a “whipper snipper”), and a hedge trimmer. I feel like I’m forgetting something… Oh well.

    The odd man out, so to speak, is the lawnmower, we ended up picking up a DeWalt mower, but it’s 20v/60v, so it will take either pack. We had all 20v so we just stuck with that.

    Then, I think last year? DeWalt released a snowblower, but it’s 60v only. So we had to get specific batteries just for that. The 60v ones are compatible with the 20v tools, but the blower will only take the 60v packs, so we have two 60v packs for it (and the lawnmower, I suppose, since they can take advantage of the extra juice), and 20v packs for everything else.

    Everything is cross compatible, with the one exception of the snowblower, so we’re all set.

    My experience with the 12v drill heavily biased me towards sticking with DeWalt.

    I won’t tell anyone to buy DeWalt or Milwaukee, or any other brand. You’ll have to make that decision got yourself. I don’t have any strong feelings about other brands because I simply don’t have the experience with them to have an opinion… Except Ryobi. Fuck Ryobi. My brother used Ryobi for a long time, and he had nothing good to say about them besides the fact that their tools are cheap. They’re cheap in every way. You’ll spend more trying to keep them working than you’ll spend simply by buying better tools. Don’t do it.




  • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.catoScience Memes@mander.xyzCrystals
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    1 month ago

    I looked and that seems right. I watched two videos on it, IIRC, and it was interesting and concerning.

    At the end of the day, I’m not sure how much sympathy I can muster for people who are so superstitious that they’ll buy that snake oil, but at the same time, the manufacturer is being incredibly deceptive. So I’m a bit split on the issue. At the end of the day, one thing I’m not uncertain about is that consumer protection should be stronger for such things.


  • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.catoScience Memes@mander.xyzCrystals
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    1 month ago

    I agree. Placebos can help too.

    Fact is, for it to work as a placebo, you need to believe it will work.

    I’ve had a few coworkers who had stuff like crystals on their desk because their partner believed in it. I understand why that stuff happens, the believer who (supposedly) cares about your well-being, gets benefit from it, and wants you to have the same or similar benefits from the same. But since they’re doing it to placate their partner and don’t personally believe, it’s just a rock on their desk.


  • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.catoScience Memes@mander.xyzCrystals
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    1 month ago

    I forget the YouTube channel name now, but I recall someone testing some of the cleansing bracelets, with “energy” and “healing” powers…

    It turned out that the energy was mostly in the form of radioactive materials, and the only thing you would be healed from by wearing it, was your continued life.

    Crystals, on the other hand, are mostly just inert and harmless. So if someone wants to keep a “healing” crystal or whatever on them or put it in their office or something, okay sure. It won’t do what it claims to, but it won’t hurt you.

    But if I see someone wearing a cleansing bracelet, I’m going to reach for my Hazmat suit (since I don’t own one, I’m just going to keep a safe distance from the person willingly carrying around what is very likely to be radioactive material), and reevaluate my association with anyone willing to buy such nonsense with absolutely no understanding that it’s probably harmful.

    I forget the radioactive material used. From what I recall, it’s not “drop and run” dangerous, but prolonged exposure is probably going to have some unpleasant side effects… Kind of like radon (it wasn’t radon… Radon is a gas with an extremely short half life IIRC, but it can be dangerous to have long term exposure - many years, and it’s in most homes… Buy a radon sensor folks, they’re not much more expensive than a good smoke detector).


  • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.catoScience Memes@mander.xyzNASA Ping
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    2 months ago

    They don’t use anything for their latency. I’ve looked into the space network they have, what protocols they use and what they do about the massive delays… Just a little bit, I don’t know it super well or anything, but from my understanding, the “network” they use is more about assurance than delivery speed.

    The publicly available version of what they use is called delay tolerant networking, which essentially uses a mesh of nodes that may, or may not be able to communicate to other nodes at any given time. As messages are sent, they are relayed from node to node as connectivity allows until they get to a base station for final delivery. It’s a bit like the mail system, but instead of large centralized sorting facilities, you only have local post offices. The message is sent from one office to another until it leapfrogs it’s way to the destination. It can wait at one post office indefinitely until a path opens up to the next one.

    In the case of delay tolerant networking, it basically sends it along to the next station in the mesh, and that station will confirm the delivery of the information, which is when the sender can remove the message from its buffer.

    Ideally, the nodes should have some type of non-volatile memory (like nvram) to store pending deliveries, so nodes don’t waste power trying to keep the information in their volatile memory (RAM).

    Terrestrialy, we use DTN for tracking stuff like the movement of animals in large and unserviceable areas (where mobile networks like LTE, don’t exist), such as deserts and undeveloped forests. As the trackers on the animals come within range of another tracked animal, updates occur, and when either gets near enough to a base station to upload the information, then the updates are sent out to the records systems.

    Don’t ask me how the logic works to figure out when to push data one way or another. I haven’t gotten that deep into the protocol yet.

    Anyways, for NASA, the information is sent to satellites, which relays to the rover eventually. In NASA’s case, they can directly transmit, from Earth, using microwave arrays, to the satellites in orbit around Mars if we want.

    I’m not sure on the specifics of how they have their version of DTN setup, so I’m only speculating at best.

    They don’t mitigate latency, they simply account for it, and work with that as part of the problem.


  • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.catoScience Memes@mander.xyzBreast Cancer
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    2 months ago

    IMO, the “black box” thing is basically ML developers hand waiving and saying “it’s magic” because they know it will take way too long to explain all the underlying concepts in order to even start to explain how it works.

    I have a very crude understanding of the technology. I’m not a developer, I work in IT support. I have several friends that I’ve spoken to about it, some of whom have made fairly rudimentary machine learning algorithms and neural nets. They understand it, and they’ve explained a few of the concepts to me, and I’d be lying if I said that none of it went over my head. I’ve done programming and development, I’m senior in my role, and I have a lifetime of technology experience and education… And it goes over my head. What hope does anyone else have? If you’re not a developer or someone ML-focused, yeah, it’s basically magic.

    I won’t try to explain. I couldn’t possibly recall enough about what has been said to me, to correctly explain anything at this point.


  • Putting aside the wtf of it all, looking at the house subjectively, it would be a decent, possibly great, starter home.

    The layout isn’t entirely insane, there’s a ton of space inside. It looks like the framing isn’t half bad… To my untrained eye, it has good “bones”. The interior design and aesthetic choices are questionable at best, even for the most “normal” looking areas, but buy a case of beer and invite your friends over for a weekend and get most of the interior ripped down, and drywall installed and painted, and you’re off to a good start.

    Don’t get me wrong, it would be a monster task. 4000 sq ft of siding to rip out and replace? Hell. That sucks.

    Replace a lot of the fixtures, mainly all the stupid ceiling fans, especially the ones so high up they won’t do anything, install some forced air HVAC or at least upgrade the Air conditioner situation and you would be having a grand time living in this place.

    I’d probably rip off most of the external siding too and replace that with something a bit more interesting too, but with all the money you’ll save by this being so inexpensive (compared to more palatable houses that are similar in size) and you’d get yourself a pretty nice place.

    That being said, as is, this place is at best, a lot of questionable choices, at worst, pure nightmare fuel.

    My partner thinks it’s a converted chicken coop. I can’t say that they don’t have a point on that one.