I find myself not understanding the concept of atheism. Who wants to explain it to me in a coherent way for a beginner? With a metaphysical substantiation please, if that is at all possible.
@ber@cbontenbal@dingodog19@philosophy There’s an apophatic tradition in the Orthodox tradition (Christian, not Jewish), though I’ve pushed the definition a bit. Also related, the distinction between weak and strong agnosticism.
I'm #autistic. The sound of the train blowing its horn as it passes my house makes me cover my ears in pain. But the throbbing bass of the engine that causes a deep pressure in my chest from the vibration makes me feel happy.
When I was a kid, I used to crank up the bass of my parents' stereo and sit directly against the woofer to feel that pressure. They would always yell at me to turn it down. I've always loved that feeling.
@brainpilgrim@markusl@sentient_water@Tooden@actuallyautistic@neurodiversity I am fine with eye contact as long as nobody mentions it and makes it awkward. Then I'm done. But I do spend a lot less time doing it than most people. I tend to look at the walls or people's mouths while I'm talking, with only the briefest glances towards their eyes.
@bookstodon I'm looking for book recommendations for an 11yo who reads at a much more advanced level. He likes sci-fi. He has read the Hitchhiker's Guide series and loved them. I think he would enjoy some more 'hard' sci-fi as well. He needs something challenging but without subject matter that is too mature. Thanks for any help! #sciencefiction#bookstodon
There was a poll that stated—Rowling’s opening line in the HP series is one of best in the world. Someone posted about how there are a bunch of other opening statements that are better.
Here’s one of my personal favorites, from Gabriel Garcia Marquez (English translated):
“It is inevitable. The scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.”
@shaedrich@negative12dollarbill@bookstodon when I was little and even today if I'm reading a series and the next book isnt out yet I read other books in the meanwhile but thanks for explaining why people are so mad about Winds of Winter. I cant imagine getting so tunnel visioned that I had to wait for George to finish before I reax anything else but I guess some people do live that way.
@negative12dollarbill@Montaagge@bookstodon I'm not sure if I'm the one missing the point here. Your observation is right - and so is what I said about book series, however, as I said, this is about J. K. Rowling. And at least in that point, she's not that special and for once, it's not her fault but ist how things work
I wish it would go on sale… ever. I’ve bought it multiple times across several platforms now, I really don’t want to spend $60 trying to get all the DLC on PC
It seems like Mastodon is losing its mindshare to #Bluesky among many academics.
I can't help but think this has to do with the self-imposed limitations of Mastdon — lack of quotes, ordered timeline, etc. Makes it less interesting to use, for no real advantage.
Sad, because the underlying decentralization is much more robust.
Personally, I think it's primarily a collective action problem: people don't come here because there's not enough people here.
Regarding friction, the lack of algorithms could be cited as an example, but maybe the lack of quote boost is a better one. As I said earlier, I often don't boost because I can't quote, but instead make my own post. The original poster doesn't know their post engaged someone and that's a disincentive for more posts.
ENS is the root for a very small number of top level domains, half a dozen? Everything else just gets passed to the regular ICANN DNS root because most people don’t monitor their DNS/ENS traces and it would be bad™️ if google.com didn’t actually go to google.com.
ENS is in a weird place because it’s a non-profit operating a namespace database that charges money to update the database, which is just ICANN with extra steps. Both are more distributed than the previous solution, which was Jon, but they’re still a singular organization providing oversight. ENS seems to be struggling to find a way to mesh the whole blockchain ethos with that it can’t just let whoever register google.com (/google.eth/etc.). That’s a social issue that requires negotiation/oversight, not a tech issue. Or at least not one they’ve solved yet.
Elon lied about the monkeys — and he shouldn't be trusted to put his Neuralink chips in human brains.
"They are claiming they are going to put a safe device on the market, and that's why you should invest," Ryan Merkley at the Physicians Committee, told Wired. "And we see his lie as a way to whitewash what happened in these exploratory studies."
Really heartbreaking reading what happened to the monkeys.
People quite rightly think of Elizabeth Holmes as a fraud for making false medical claims about what the Theranos machines could do. So why aren't Elon's claims at Neuralink being held to the same level of scrutiny?
... the Court finds the FTC has not shown a likelihood it will prevail on its claim this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition. To the contrary, the record evidence points to more consumer access to Call of Duty and other Activision content. The motion for a preliminary injunction is therefore DENIED.
Hi, we're a tech startup run by libertarian Silicon Valley tech bros.
We're not a newspaper, we're a content portal.
We're not a taxi service, we're a ride sharing app.
We're not a pay TV service, we're a streaming platform.
We're not a department store, we're an e-commerce marketplace.
We're not a financial services firm, we're crypto.
We're not a space agency, we're a group of visionaries who are totally going to Mars next year.
We're not a copywriting and graphic design agency, we're a large language model generative AI platform.
Oh sure, we compete against those established businesses. We basically provide the same goods and services.
But we're totally not those things. At least from a legal and PR standpoint.
And that means all the laws and regulations that have built up over the decades around those industries don't apply to us.
Things like consumer protections, privacy protections, minimum wage laws, local content requirements, safety regulations, environmental protections... They totally don't apply to us.
Even copyright laws — as long as we're talking about everyone else's intellectual property.
We're going to move fast and break things — and then externalise the costs of the things we break.
We've also raised several billion in VC funding, and we'll sell our products below cost — even give them away for free for a time — until we run our competition out of the market.
Once we have a near monopoly, we'll enshitify the hell out of our service and jack up prices.
You won't believe what you agreed to in our terms of service agreement.
We may also be secretly hoarding your personal information. We know who you are, we know where you work, we know where you live. But you can trust us.
By the time the regulators and the general public catch on to what we're doing, we will have well and truly moved on to our next grift.
By the way, don't forget to check out our latest innovation. It's the Uber of toothpaste!
@ajsadauskas@technology And don’t forget their enablers - the investors who pour in billions of dollars of other people’s money, the marketeers who hype these “disruptive” technologies and the copycats who naively follow them. “Disrupter” used to be a bad word - how that became a badge of honor is another of Silicon Valley’s mysteries. #disruptors#SiliconValley
The logical fallacy here being that, based on that context alone, you should care because you will have something to hide in the future. Saying you have nothing to hide is always used in the context of one’s sense of guilt, or lack thereof, based on past actions. A counterargument would then be to ask why you should be allowed to hide your future wrongs.
For many, the subject has nothing to do with that. It’s about not wanting to be monetized without consent. There’s also benefits in the form of protection against identity theft or social engineering. For others, the simple right to fundamental personal privacy itself is important - it’s about not having all of one’s life’s details on public display.
Also known as “none of your goddamn business.”
As a tangent, because it’s now stuck in my head and needs expression - the more thought you give to the problems introduced by technology that blur or step over this line, the more you realize how much harder it’s becoming to prevent outcomes where privacy is lost.
Only engaging AI under tightly controlled circumstances is one thing; having it in the background perceiving everything you say and do on your desktop is a very different conversation. No matter what assurances are given that your privacy is protected, almost every situation like it that’s arisen since the advent of personal computers has resulted in a loss of control through duplicity, intrusion, sabotage, bad design, or floundering integrity.
Microsoft and Motherboard manufacturers: Putting DRM chips on the motherboard.
User: Why?
Microsoft: No reason.
User: Most businesses would switch to a cheaper toilet paper to save $5, why are you shipping chips and developing software and technology to use these chips.
Microsoft: Oh we’re not going to force anyone to do anything, we just want the ability to. Look at this workaround that we expect 0.015 of our billions of Windows users to use.