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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: September 6th, 2024

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  • I don’t really get this. Why is it such a big deal if your OS has setting where you enter your age, and the OS then sends that to websites? Face scanning or demanding uploads of photo IDs is an immense privacy violation. But simply having your OS have a setting you can use where you provide a number, a number that you’re completely free to alter or report whatever value you want? I really don’t see the issue with this.

    This seems like a pretty easy way to give parents some control over their kid’s online activities while also not infringing on privacy. The parents can set up the OS and give an account to their kids that lists their ages as under 18. If they want their kids to access the web without restrictions, they simply don’t have to create an under 18 account on the computer. And even if your OS has to report an age to access a website, if it’s all based on self-reporting, you can just self-report a false age.

    We tend to think in binaries, as this is convenient. We tend to view all digital age verification as horrible and equally horrible. But this? Just giving parents a way to give their kids a minors-only account, and have websites respect that OS-level flag? This is nothing like bills that require uploading face scans or photo IDs.

    Sure you can speculate a slippery slope. But that is a fallacy for a reason. It tends to wash out all nuance and make you conclude everything is absolute evil forever.





  • Of course, we know how this will actually go down. AI generated works are going to be much cheaper to produce. Therefore they’ll be me more profitable if they can sell at the same price. Barnes and Noble thus has a strong incentive to not carefully label AI works as AI-generated.

    Ideally they would all be in their own section. AI-generated works are only allowed in the part of the store that is labeled as such. That’s the proper way to do this.

    But that’s not how it will actually be done. Buried somewhere in the fine print inside the back cover of the book will be a long paragraph, one sentence of which mentions the work is AI generated. Or the inside back cover will have a QR code labeled “notes on this work,” and there will be a hundred page long legal disclaimer that briefly mentions the book is AI generated.








  • There’s ultimately really no reason for them to completely dismantle democracy. Republicans know they can lose big in 2026 and 2028 and still regain power in just a few years. It’s already guaranteed that whatever Democrats get elected won’t really do anything to change the circumstances that resulted in Republicans winning. And they will not prosecute Trump and his co-conspirators for their crimes. And Democrats don’t offer the working class anything, so the Republican message of “we’ll make other people’s lives worse to make your life better” resonates with people. They’re the only party actually offering to help people.

    There’s just no reason for Republicans to abandon democracy all together. They’ll happily tilt the scales heavily in their favor, but completely abandoning democracy would mean civil war. And they’re already doing quite well in our existing flawed democracy. Why risk it all when you’re already winning?

    Ultimately living standards are declining because of increased wealth inequality. And Democrats aren’t going to do anything to fight that. So Republicans at most will be out of power for another cycle.

    Republicans don’t need to destroy democracy. They’re already in complete control in our current system. And Democrats, if elected in 2026 and 2028, are already promising to do everything in their power to make sure MAGA returns to power in 2032.





  • It also has to with the tyranny of distance. People end up trapped in shitty jobs that aren’t right for them. They end up in roles where they aren’t doing the things they want to do or where their talents truly lie. Economically, this causes them to be much less productive than they could be in a position that’s a better fit for them.

    And the main reason people end up trapped in jobs is the tyranny of distance. Maybe there’s only two employers in your town that can really use your specific skills. For someone who owns a home, moving costs tens of thousands of dollars. And often you can’t find out a position won’t be a good fit until you actually work there for awhile.

    Work from home overcomes much of this tyranny of distance. It allows employers and employees to find much better matches for each other, unconstrained by physical distance. And for this reason, shitty employers hate it. Shitty employers thrive on transaction/switching costs and employee lock-in.




  • I’m working to set up my new workshop. We moved into a new house a few months ago, and I’m finally getting to setting up the shop in earnest.

    I’m setting up the shop in a 3 car garage. The garage has a one car bay and a two car bay. I want to be able to actually park a car in the one car bay. So I built a large wall separating the two bays. The wall covers probably 2/3 of the width. The rest will be covered by a curtain. The two car bay will be the actual woodshop area. The one car bay will be a place to park a car and will serve as a finishing space. The wall and curtain will keep sawdust contained within the two car bay. The wall also serves as a tool wall. Here’s what the wall currently looks like:

    From the other side:

    The wall is about 10’ wide and 12’ high.

    In my old shop I had even more on the wall. But I’m trying out moving most of my bladed tools into a tool chest. I was going to build one, but I found this old steamer trunk by the side of the road. From the manifest glued to the back it looks like it was used by an air force airman in the 1980s to ship things home from Japan. I’ll be using it as a tool chest. I wanted to put wheels on it. But as it’s a bit of an artifact I didn’t want to actually modify the trunk itself or drill into. Instead I built a little cart for it to roll around on.

    After I finish here, the last big step in setting up the shop will be installing the dust collection system. And I went overboard on this. This is very much a dream shop setup I’m building out. Currently in a bunch of boxes strewn about the shop is an entire Oneida Dust Gorilla and a network of piping to service the various machines.