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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • I took some antenna theory courses back in the day and yes, you are correct. Some frequencies reflect off the upper atmosphere so there would be a longer effective range at higher incident angles (going into the top of the head) but it wouldn’t completely block radio waves. Going from memory, the wavelengths that reflect off the upper atmosphere are long enough that a tin foil hat wouldn’t cause much interference anyways.

    TLDR: Fashionable, but not practical.



  • I listened to an interview with a woman who researched aging and spent time interviewing lots of elderly people. The majority of those interviewed called their 60s the best decade of their life. I also dislike the myth that your youth was your peak and it’s all downhill from there. There’s good in all times of your life, lean into the experiences that are available at the time and don’t worry about how good the past was or how the future might be worse.






  • I heard a hypothesis that the first human made consciousness will be an AI algorithm designed to monitor and coordinate other AI algorithms which makes a lot of sense to me.

    Our consciousness is just the monitoring system of all our bodies subsystems. It is most certainly an emergent phenomenon of the interaction and management of different functions competing or coordinating for resources within the body.

    To me it seems very likely that the first human made consciousness will not be designed to be conscious. It also seems likely that we won’t be aware of the first consciousnesses because we won’t be looking for it. Consciousness won’t be the goal of the development that makes it possible.


  • Personally I think the biggest hurdle will be moderation and defederation as it pertains to the first amendment. I believe there was already a supreme Court case where blocking a user on Twitter (from an official govt account) was deemed unconstitutional. This precedent might mean a govt instance is not allowed to defederate with any other server unless they defederate with all(?) This is pure speculation on my part, but I can guarantee it would go to the courts.








  • A great point! I feel like the overarching end goal is a meritocracy - people are rewarded for their talents and hard work. I’d wager most people agree with this goal.

    The problem becomes disentangling history and circumstance from our ability to measure talent and hard work. The only way we know to break some social norms that hinder a true meritocracy is to unfairly manipulate the playing field in the short term, which in itself does not follow a meritocracy.

    I think there are a few main obstacles:

    1. Perceived talent and hard work that was actually the result of circumstance - those that think the system is currently working and therefore their position is justified.
    2. Lack of acceptance that the goal is long term / generational. Those that are unwilling to accept a temporary ‘manipulated meritocracy’ in the short term that would allow a better one in the future.

  • Yondoza@sh.itjust.workstoMemes@lemmy.mlBlockchain: the wave of the future
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    5 months ago

    The perfect use case is tickets to live events. One entity creates one NFT for each seat or spot available and can initially sell them. The owner of that NFT (ticket) can then do whatever they want with it without the need for a third party (Ticketmaster) to scalp the shit out of any subsequent transactions.

    Proof of ownership of a single ticket at the time of the event is the end goal, which is what NFTs do.

    Why this hasn’t been done is pretty baffling to me.

    What’s better, is if artists want to provide a subset of tickets that are not resellable they can. Those tickets will only be accepted if a single transaction has taken place.



  • Ooo there’s a great video on Minute Food about vanilla extract vs synthetic vanilla. It basically comes down to: if you cook the vanilla, synthetic will taste the exact same, if you never heat up the vanilla it might be worth getting the real stuff.

    I assume the same is probably true of most oils, if you use EVOO for salad dressings it might be worth it, but if you’re using it to saute you might as well use sunflower oil and save some money.