• 19 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 19th, 2023

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  • Andy@slrpnk.nettoLord of the memes@midwest.socialCrossover episode
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    5 days ago

    First, I agree with all of the above: within existing lore it seems obvious that the transporter wouldn’t be able to transport the one ring for several reasons having to do with magic.

    But also, this is just a reminder that I think the transporters in Star Trek are so narratively uninteresting. I like Trek, but pretty much in spite of the tech writing. The degree of magic in their technology just does nothing for me. I wish we had more fiction that was like a cross between Star Trek and The Expanse.








  • These are good questions. I don’t know. First, what state are you in? Second, does she have any coworkers? Also, does she know anyone in a similar field? If she went to school, does she know any classmates or teachers who might have advice?

    Also: can this be automated? Nowadays, you can have a large language model code a lot of things. Could she instruct one to write a python or bash script to reduce since of the work?

    Ultimately, I think she should keep looking for better work. But I know that can be challenging.





  • I’m from Pittsburgh. I think we ran a cross country meet in Hershey once.

    The amusement park and factory tour are all quite charming. It’s hard to recommend one make a dedicated trip, but if anyone is ever on a road trip nearby, it’s worth the detour to stop by for a day.

    Then again, my recommendation is 20 years old. It could be either better or worse now.


  • They were starting by putting a finger in zero and then dragging to the number. And for zero they were dragging all the way to the stop.

    You’re supposed to dial by putting a finger in each number hole and then dragging to the stop. So they dialed zero correctly, but only zero.


  • Andy@slrpnk.nettoNo Stupid Questions@lemmy.worldPhonebooks
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    2 months ago

    I had one in my room! Such a good feel to it. Same with picking up and hanging up!

    This was in the early 2000s, btw. They were already relics, but landlines were still commonly used when I was in high school, and it had such a handsome look to it and felt great to use. I have long thought that a product that would do incredibly well would be a cell phone charging dock where you put your phone in and while it’s charging it just acts like a landline rotary phone. The user experience is very, very gratifying, and if you’ve ever tried to hold a call while your phone is plugged into the wall you know how much better a solid headset with a coil wire would feel than that.


  • I’m 38. I remember a few times when I was a kid needed to call a classmate urgently. Like, maybe i needed to know what math problems we were assigned as homework. For folks I knew well, I might have their number written down in a book in a desk drawer, but for anyone else I would have to look up their last name in the white pages and read down a list trying to find the right number.

    Was their dad’s name Prescott? No, that’s not an ethnic match. Here’s a David. That sounds right. Oh! And it’s on Beacon! That’s the right neighborhood! That’s got to be it!

    I think about it all the time. You could find your teacher’s house and just go drop off a fruit basket or something if you wanted. It was crazy! It was just assumed that if someone wanted to find your house it was probably for a sensible reason. Why otherwise? If you’re paranoid or a public figure then maybe you’d choose to be unlisted, but for anyone else there’s no point in it.

    Simpler times, for sure. I’d still like to go back. I think it was worth it. The alternative doesn’t seem to work. We’re all getting constantly harassed with robo calls and stalked on line. At this point, the only people who don’t know where we live are the ones who might drop off a casserole. We’ve gained nothing.





  • Thanks for sharing this. I wasn’t familiar with this channel, not I’m liking it.

    I just read that this guy was part of Nebula and was forced out. It’s remarkable that he’s forced out for speaking openly and defending his beliefs when Isaac Arthur is tolerated despite having much more onerous politics but having them in secret. Smh.


  • Andy@slrpnk.netOPtoMemes@lemmy.mlMastermind
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    2 months ago

    Amen. It drives me fuckin’ nuts anytime – in business as well as in sci-fi and general discussion – when people envision a society made perfect because it’s run by a genius computer.

    For pretty much every challenge society faces, the major obstacle is not that we’re unsure what to do or lack the intelligence to solve. We already have all the solutions, it’s just that our decision making systems are completely disinterested in employing any of the solutions that we already have.

    It’s like, if you could get everyone to agree to listen to a computer, why not just skip the computer and get everyone to agree to listen to a combination of popular will and expert advice? Popular will and expert advice are like the supercomputer that runs society that we already have.