bsbbtnh
1yr ago
Don't forget the CBC is a crown corporation. Wholly owned by the Government of Canada.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
we’re talking about the greatest rock song, not the most average
What's the most average, in your opinion?
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
Around the time of the Gillette thing, I'd bought a bunch of Mach 3 heads. They'd changed something about them. They are blue now, instead of green. But the issue I had was that my hair gets caught between the blades. This is actually why I used Mach 3, since my hair would clog up other brands. I don't know if the space between the blades is too large or too small.
So I haven't used Mach 3 since, and just picked up a cheap electric razor.
But not boycott related. Unless Gillette intentionally stirred up controversy at a time they made the change.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
the worst part of it is that it genuinely apes ChatGPT's politics and RLHF-d sanctimonious «personality» despite being 25 times smaller and probably 10 times dumber.
Every person with Down Syndrome I've ever met has absolutely trumped the personality of every high-IQ person I've known.
Anyways, a pause on 'Giant AI experiments' will really only be a pause on showing the results to the public. Companies won't stop. Governments won't stop. And even if they did, China won't. Pump the brakes on AI and China could quickly eat our lunch.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
In physics, there are a fuckton of 'constants'. Many of these are unexplained. It's some random number you push into an equation and makes it work. But we haven't explained why that constant exists, or why it has the value it has. Even the speed of light, we have no idea why it is that speed. And it's typically viewed as a maximum, but there's no reason to assume the speed of light is some universal speedcap. We don't think like that for the speed of sound.
Even when it comes to constants, many of them seem to be variable. It's just that their variance is so small, and the level of our tech so primitive, that it's handwaved away, since it is of no consequence to us. It's a bit like how we tell high school students that water is incompressible. Because there's really no need to go into the minutiae at that level.
So physics is full of holes that we've bandaged over, but that could radically change our understanding of the universe if we discovered what is truly behind it.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
If objects could travel faster than the speed of light (which they can), you'd expect to still be able to measure their gravity, but not visually see them.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
That's one program. If you're in Ontario, you're also going to get $1,500ish/year for the Ontario Child Benefit, another $1,500ish/year from Trillium. Don't know the exact numbers, but you'll also get a boost in GST and Carbon Tax, probably around $1,000/year combined.
If you're on welfare, you'll probably get around $1,000/month if you have a kid, taking you up to $22,000/year. Might also get some subsidized housing (either public or private; I think the rent-geared-to-income program would cap your rent at like $226?). You'd basically be making the same as someone working fulltime at minimum wage, except you don't have to put 40 hours in each week, and your expenses are lower. Plus you'll have easier access to a multitude of programs and benefits, and the time to do so.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
My question is how come this never happened to me? I grew up in the city surrounded by crime, always stressed about being robbed, murdered etc. School was somewhat similar. Yet I still have a baby face.
If that was just the norm for you and your community, then I doubt its a legitimate stressor.
I'm reminded of a survey they did in Canada about female victims of crime. Indigenous women are 3x more likely to be a victim of violent crime, including murder, than non-Indigenous women. Despite this, both groups of women reported feeling the same level of personal safety in their community.
If you moved to a safer community, your baby face would probably persist even longer.
If stress can cause a change in your physical appearance, I'd imagine it must also impact your internal health. So maybe a baby face now is signalling that you'll have a long and healthy life ahead of you.
It makes me wonder how younger generations will do, as they are having things like climate hysteria, white guilt, race baiting, gender confusion, and a bunch of other shit, dumped on them. Maybe they adapt and it becomes their baseline? Or maybe things like 'safe spaces' helps to mitigate that? Does the average coed look older or younger than millennials did? Do they look older when they are thrust into the real world?
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
Some alcohol related medical issues, like cirrhosis of the liver, declined during prohibition.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
I may have been wrong about that. It looks like it was the 'Food Babe' who pushed for it, and she only claims to be (as far as google tells me) a 'vegetarian at home', though she does advocate for vegans by bullying companies to remove non-vegan ingredients (and for some reason companies seem to comply?)
With Kraft Dinner, she pushed for them to remove artificial colours. She seems to be against 'chemicals'.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
A few years ago they changed the recipe because of some vegan blogger. The quality noticeably declined, from an ok side dish for a quick meal, to absolute trash. Barely any cheese taste, and it seemed the pasta basically turned to mush when cooked.
I switched to another brand (I think President's Choice, in Canada; though I've heard Annie's is the best). But the other day they were out, so I picked up some KD, and it was more like its old self, but I didn't notice any major changes in the ingredients. Maybe it's psychological? But the pasta doesn't turn to mush anymore, so maybe not completely psychological.
Still doesn't come anywhere close to making the stuff from scratch. But cheese prices in Canada have always sucked, so it's more of a treat.
Is it really likely that the average person of African ancestry is cognitively impaired when compared to the average white person? I can't think of how that could actually be true.
Fetal alcohol syndrome, which is far more rampant in the black community than anybody wants to admit. Even worse among natives.
Edit: It's probably why we get the civil rights movement when we do, with people like MLK, as the generation of blacks born during prohibition were probably less likely to have fetal alcohol syndrome.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
I wonder what happened to the birds which were nearby.. Guys didn't drop out of the sky despite what must have been extremely punishing pressure event.
That was crazy to watch.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
I don’t have a defense of whole word learning
Whole word learning seems to be good at very young ages, before your kid can talk. Then moving into phonics. Also, whole word learning is great in very small groups, preferably one-on-one. It seems that you can get basically any educational technique to work in one-on-one learning, probably because one-on-one learning is just so much better than group learning. So when these techniques are trialed in small groups, they seem to work. Then they get implemented in some private schools, or as a pilot in a decent public school, and it seems to work, because the type of student is just better. Then it is rolled out to the masses, where it just sucks.
Public schools have to deal with trying to get as many kids to reach the most basic level of literacy, in large class sizes, with educators who are typically bottom of the barrel and protected by their union. They do a really, really bad job at this, and it seems people developing the curriculum don't want 'traditional' models and techniques, they want something they can stick their name to. They also seem to be using the curriculum to promote their social goals, like anti-racism, which in their view means having white and black kids scoring the same, even if those scores are absolutely dismal. They don't care if blacks see their scores drop, as long as whites see their scores drop more, and come in line with blacks. That's equity.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
Looking at memes, Reddit, and Twitter's response to the dating habits of Leonardo DiCaprio would lead me to believe that people under 26 are minors, lol. If someone can't consent to sitting on Leo's dick, can they really consent to having their own dick removed?
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
At the end of the day, OpenAI has neutered their product, and it won't be as good as anything Google or Microsoft puts out, even though those will be neutered as well. ChatGPT will fade away.
If some company put out a decent AI chatbot (or image bot) that was unfiltered, or even just mildly filtered, it would gobble up the market. And Google and Microsoft would have their hands tied by all the 'ethics' they've put in place.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
Tight-knit communities are built around something, and that something is almost always the church. In tight-knit communities you do not yield the state's power against your neighbour. Even if courts exist, there's a police force, you'll almost always create bad blood by invoking the state's power in your disputes. And the police, prosecutors, judges, and juries, will all be members of the tight-knit community.
If you believe neighbour wrongs you, you'd go to your priest for help, or other neighbours. Part of being a tight-knit community is that social consequences can be enough to affect a resolution, and one that is moral/just, rather than one that is technically legal.
When you go to the police, you're basically going above the community. If the legal consequences for something are worse than what your community will tolerate, then it's likely the police will try to dissuade you, the prosecutor will decline to bring charges, the judge will give the defendant every benefit of the doubt, etc. Because they are all part of the same community.
But an outsider isn't going to be influenced much by social pressures, and so using the force of the state is seen as acceptable.
If you look at Hasidic Jewish communities, they often have their own police, 'courts', their own schools, etc. They aren't willing to use the state's violence against each other. If they were, they wouldn't be tight-knit communities. Many native reserves are also like this.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
- Back when communities were actually tightly knit, criminals were hanged.
Back when communities were tight knit, there were informal processes to deal with crime committed by your family or neighbours. Hanging criminals is the point where people are using the power of the state to punish people (usually it starts with outsiders; you wouldn't do this with your in-group). It's a failure of community, and it usually ends up falling out of favour once enforcement comes to the point that your in-group is liable for the same treatment.
In many tight knit communities, justice was dolled out by the church. Since outsiders tended to not be a member, courts provided a great system for punishing them. Even when courts pushed out the church as the main arbitrator in a community, it still relied heavily on church officials' opinions. 30+ years ago, having a priest testify about how great you were was all but a get out of jail free card (where the judge was religious, at least).
We still have tight knit communities these days. They aren't region locked, though.
Anyways, restorative justice was more akin to what your average church would have done in the past (and many continue to do to this day).
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
I think some of (all?) the big automakers do in-house financing. Maybe there's a fear that raising prices could end up with them holding the bag if things go to shit. Their financial arms could also lack the capacity to take on 20% or more 'debt' per vehicle.
It's also possible that, with higher interest rates, their financing segment is doing quite well. Maybe raising prices of the vehicles would disqualify many buyers (since I'd imagine the in-house financing at these places are a bit more selective), and ultimately lead to lower profits. I'd imagine the rich and poor alike aren't financing their purchase through the automaker. Their market is a certain type of middle-class buyer, and it's possible that they are price sensitive enough that if the sticker price goes up, they might go to their bank or a credit union looking for a better rate.
The automakers probably prefer to have customers finance through them, because it most certainly leads to customers buying their next vehicle through them. If you're financed through Ford, then it'll be easier to get a new vehicle (and trade in your old one) through them.
So automakers might be leaving a couple grand on the table, but higher interest rates have likely made up for that. And more importantly, they are thinking about their revenues in 5+ years, and the cost of a few grand to ensure a return customer is pretty cheap.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
My parents have a wireless phone charger. Problem is that it basically doesn't work when they have a case on their phones. Is there a solution to this (other than removing their phone case)?
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
What's something that a person could do with their time and money to make the world a better place. Something that doesn't involve interacting with any institution at all? Should I just straight up send people cash?
Maybe. I guess it depends what your goals are. The thing is that finding the 'right' people to hand cash to can be hard. Hand too much money to someone poor and they can easily end up worse off. Hand money to someone doing well, and you might not feel like you've really improved anything.
You could browse a sub like /r/entrepreneur or /r/sweatystartup, lurking to find random users who seem like they have drive, but capital is the thing holding them back. Could probably do the same thing with artists and writers.
Even people struggling with illness or disability. Find their passion and fund it. Gives them purpose, and probably helps them in a way most charities can't. There are plenty of charities out there handing out wheelchairs to cripples. But if that cripple loves woodworking, there ain't no charity handing out tablesaws and lathes.
Handing out free 3D printers to people wanting one is probably far more altruistic than giving the same amount of money to a charity that will shovel it into a bottomless pit.
Most charity revolves around surviving, rather than living. Once people start living, they tend to become a bit better at surviving on their own.
There's a sub on reddit called translater with people who have transitioned later than Zephyr, and many are passable.
More options
Context Copy link