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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: December 23rd, 2023

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  • I do a lot of invasive species management. Many of the common names are “exotic” sounding and include “Asian”, “Chinese”, “Japanese” etc because they were marketed this way in the 20th century to appeal to gardeners and land managers who didn’t know better and just wanted fast growing, pretty plants.

    Now, in the current atmosphere of sinophobia I have often heard someone imply these invasives were deliberate sabotage. But it was westerners who imported these things. We wanted them, or at least wanted the plant that hosted the insect, or whatever. Also, by that logic we have “sabotaged” China with our invasives.

    I feel like as a society we are so inarticulate, hateful, and short-sighted that we no longer have the ability to solve complex problems.


  • MoonMelon@lemmy.mltoProgrammer Humor@lemmy.mlIs that bad?
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    1 month ago

    Maya and Motionbuilder run on Linux, but that happened before they were hoovered up by the monster. Autodesk just ignores that part of their portfolio. I know a few people who work/have worked on the Maya team and they’re talented, passionate devs, but management just doesn’t give a fuck about Media & Entertainment when Autocad and Revit are making so much money.



  • MoonMelon@lemmy.mltoFirefox@lemmy.mlublock ai slop list?
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    1 month ago

    It’s not just tech. Gardening, DIY, cooking, and similar popular subjects have been completely destroyed by this crap. If I see an AI generated header image or thumbnail I immediately backpedal now because I assume that means the text is bullshit too.

    The example stuck in my memory now is when I was trying to read about watermelon growing times and the article said they flower a week after germination.There’s now frequently this, “oh GOD DAMN IT *close tab*” moment when you realize it’s actually total slop. Like, “oh so this article is BULLSHIT bullshit.”


  • I see it as the continuation of a very old problem. Old school engineering didn’t have any standards until a bunch of people died over and over and the public demanded change. The railroads, construction tycoons, factory owners, mine operators etc all bitterly fought, and still fight, engineering safety requirements. Computer industries have continued this. They all oppose public action, hide negative information, and try to pin blame for conspicuous failures on individuals rather than systemic rot.

    I think also because of the relatively less visceral nature of software catastrophes we don’t have a culture of safety. That’s not to say software errors can’t cause horrific accidents but the power grid going down and causing a dozen people in the service area to die is less traumatic than a bridge collapsing and sending a dozen people into an icy river. That’s an extreme example but my point is that humans undervalue harms that are seen as less acutely, physically brutal and software just seems more abstract.

    Most of us aren’t working on power grid either, so when you start trying to quantify our software’s risks you have to speak to “harms” rather than just crimes like negligence, and then you expose this huge contradiction about how responsibility is allocated socially. Like, not only should engineers, pilots, and doctors have higher responsibility to prevent harm, but so should cops, journalists, politicians, billionaires, etc.

    So the risks are undervalued and both intentionally and unconsciously minimized. The result is most of us who’ve seen the inside are quietly horrified and that’s the end of it.

    I don’t know what the answer is except unignorable tragedies because that seems to be the only thing powerful enough to build regulations which are constantly being eroded.



  • I’m starting to think it’s something super specific to the particular hugo theme I’m using and how it wants users to insert custom js/css to get it all baked down into the right place in the final output. I’ll keep bashing on it, thanks for your help!

    Edit: OK this is kind of hilarious considering the community I posted to, but I actually think it works fine but something about my Librewolf setup is breaking it. It works fine in Firefox and Chrome, and since I jump around between them as I work I just happened to test in Librewolf right as I made this change. Not to get too far into the weeds but I think I’m going to just go ahead with not linking cloudflare. Thanks again.


  • Thanks fixed. Interesting jerboa and the web version of lemmy are developed by the same person but using the “code” button in the web frontend only uses one backtick. That might be worth a bug report.

    I’m actually trying to get away from github also, so maybe codeberg pages instead? This is a part of the process I haven’t done enough research into, I wanted to get the static site working locally first then “shop around” for hosts.




  • Something about how hugo is cooking everything down into a /public directory is breaking the overlay images (like the next/prev arrow). I’m sure I can track it down but since I’m pretty inexperienced this will take me some time (at cursory glance all the paths seemed good, so I’m not sure why it’s broken).

    I would also prefer to host it myself so maybe I should just do this…






  • It’s the same as learning anything, really. A big part of learning to draw is making thousands of bad drawings. A big part of learning DIY skills is not being afraid to cut a hole in the wall. Plan to screw up. Take your time, be patient with yourself, and read ahead so none of the potential screw-ups hurt you. Don’t be afraid to look foolish, reality is absurd, it’s fine.

    We give children largess to fail because they have everything to learn. Then, as adults, we don’t give ourselves permission to fail. But why should we be any better than children at new things? Many adults have forgotten how fraught the process of learning new skills is and when they fail they get scared and frustrated and quit. That’s just how learning feels. Kids cry a lot. Puttering around on a spare computer is an extremely safe way to become reacquainted with that feeling and that will serve you well even if you decide you don’t like Linux and never touch it again. Worst case you fucked up an old laptop that was collecting dust. That is way better than cutting a hole in the wall and hitting a pipe.


  • Yeah it’s technically better (crisper, higher res, etc) but the visual language is totally different and IMO worse. That fire just doesn’t look as hot, for example.

    Lighting as an art form is highly coupled with the given tech. Something as small as just changing the shadow method can require artists relighting a whole game. My guess is they aren’t doing this or maybe are pushing the stark lighting the same way depth of field, colored lights, lens flares etc got juiced in previous generations.

    That’s always wrong. The tech should service the art, not the other way around.