ContrarianTrail @ ContrarianTrail @lemm.ee

Independent thinker valuing discussions grounded in reason, not emotions.

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1 yr. ago

It is, but it doesn’t always work that way. Driving an expensive car is also a symbol of wealth, but my first thought is that there’s no way you paid cash. To me, it signals poor financial choices, which isn’t typically what genuinely wealthy people do.

I definitely consider a band shirt an ad as well, but wearing one feels like a conscious decision to show your preference for that band and perhaps attract like-minded people. With clothing brands, however, it’s more about signaling wealth and status rather than admiration for the brand itself. You're wearing an ad and being oblivious to it.

I was conteplating between Unpopular Opinion and Showerthought but it feels more like an thought than an opinion and I don't think it's very unpopular either.

I never stopped calling it Twitter and I never will. Just like Facebook will always be Facebook.

I just listened to a podcast about assembly theory and I think that it kind of relates here too, though maybe not. If we start randomly generating text that is the lenght of the Hamlet, then Hamlet itself would be one of the possible, finite number of possibilities that could be generated within these parameters. Interesting theory nevertheless.

If we think about a screwdriver, the theory would argue that it couldn’t simply appear out of nowhere because its structure is too specific and complex to have come into existence by chance alone. For that screwdriver to exist, a multitude of precise processes are required: extracting raw materials, refining them, shaping metal, designing the handle, etc. The probability of all these steps happening in the right order, spontaneously, is essentially zero. Assembly theory would say that each stage in the creation of a screwdriver represents a selection event, where choices are made, materials are transformed, and functions are refined.

What makes assembly theory especially intriguing is that it offers a framework to distinguish between things that could arise naturally, like a rock or even an organic molecule, and things that bear the hallmarks of a directed process. To put it simply, a screwdriver couldn't exist without a long sequence of assembly steps that are improbable to arise by chance, thereby making its existence a hallmark of intentional design or, at the very least, a directed process.

That's a bit loaded question. By AI I assume you're refering to GenAI/LLMs rather than AI broadly.

• I use it to correct my spelling on longer posts and I find that it improves the clarity and helps my point come across better.
• I use Dall-E to create pictures I never could have before, because despite my interest in drawing, I just never bothered to learn it myself. GenAI enables me to skip the learning and go straight to creating.
• I like that it can simulate famous people and allows me to ask 'them' questions that I never could in real life. For example, yesterday I spent a good while chatting with 'Sam Harris' about the morality of lying and the edge cases where it might be justified. I find discussions like this genuinely enjoyable and insightful.
• I also like using the voice mode where I can just talk with it. As a non-native english speaker, I find it to be good practise to help me improve my spelling pronunciation.

How can you see what anyone writes on the platform if you're not on it? Wouldn't that by definition mean that you still use it yourself too?

My daily driver MacBook Pro has 8GB of RAM, and so far, that’s been perfectly sufficient for my needs. Some might argue that 8GB is inadequate for a 1,700€ device, but I don’t think most people would notice a difference. This focus on specs might make more sense with computers, but with smartphones especially, I never understood the obsession with performance. My mid-range Samsung handles everything instantly - I can’t think of a reason it would need to be any faster. Numbers on a paper seem irrelevant when it doesn't translate to everyday use.

I honestly don’t remember the exact details. I haven’t gotten it back from the shop yet, and they didn’t give me a parts list with me. Since it’s not my area of expertise, I just trusted their judgment on the parts. My budget was around 350 euros. I use a MacBook as my daily driver, and this PC is just for occasionally playing 10-year-old games. My main goal was to regain upgradeability with the motherboard swap, as my current one didn’t support modern components. Atleast RAM.

As far as I recall, the motherboard was an ASUS TUF Gaming something, with an Intel i5 processor and 16GB of RAM. I upgraded the GPU a few years back to an Nvidia GTX1660S

I'm happy to inform everyone, that I'm installing Linux instead

Yeah, the question would rather be 'when does it stop being the same thing?' It quite obviously no longer is if every single part has been replaced.

Also, depends on what one means by 'the same computer.' The computer I've been using for the past several years mostly still remains. Some of the parts have been replaced a long time ago of which few have been there longer than the original.

I always liked the feudal age, straw roof buildings in AoE2. I almost didn't want to move to castle age because the appereance of the buildings chage.

I'm the type of person who touches everything, bites their nails, eats food from the floor and rarely washes their hands. I have zero food allergies and I'm almost never sick.

Maybe I'm just lucky or maybe these are related. Who knows.

EDIT: Don't remember ever taking antibiotics either

My community (on other account) has 200 subs and it dies when I stop posting so I'd say the answer is more than 200

In my case I have around 500 blocked users and around 700 blocked communities. I make a new account around once a year and I'd rather not start from scratch with each one.

There's an 'Import/export settings' feature in your profile. It'll move your subscribtions and blocks but not comments, likes and such. Just your user settings.

Electric radiator is 100% efficient.

If your central heating works by heating coils with electricity then it's 100% efficient as well. If you heat all the rooms to the same temperature it makes no difference which one you use. If you use radiators but leave some rooms cooler than others then that's going to cost less money.

If your central heating works by burning oil / gas then that's probably going to produce heat for cheaper than electric radiators are. Same applies if it works by heat-pump. Those are 200 - 300% efficient.

Yes, I will keep calling this out.

Thank you. Really. I start losing my faith when enough times passes since I last time saw someone event attempt to make sense on Lemmy.

Having a net worth of 270 billion dollars is not synonymous with 'having 270 billion dollars'

Hardware 4 models have a radar on the front as well.