It’s more than that - he failed to create PayPal so his group bought a competitor, he didn’t found Tesla or spaceX - he claimed he did, then reached settlements with the actual founders to not contest his claims. He did start the boring company. It didn’t get off the ground because he can’t build a team

NASA doesn’t have effective control of their budget anymore. Congress holds the purse strings and uses them like a harness

NASA gets funding to do something - like go to the moon, or track CO2 emissions. But it comes with strings - sometimes you have to build a certain component in a certain congressional district, sometimes Congress chooses the design you have to use

It’s a problem of politics and corruption. When the public supports NASA, they have more autonomy. When NASA gets a blank check, they do more with it - reusable rockets aren’t a new idea, and when they cancelled the shuttle program NASA had brain drain. Some of those people founded spaceX - Elon didn’t start it, he came in when they were getting off the ground, just like with Tesla

That’s not what arbitration is. This doesn’t stop valve from reaching a settlement, it stops them from using fake privately funded bench trials

Binding arbitration means the results are legally binding, non-binding arbitration means a judge needs to approve the arbitration results before it’s final. Sometimes it’s with an off duty judge, sometimes anyone can be the arbiter

Regardless, on one side you have a repeat customer, on the other you have someone who will probably never be back - there’s a built in conflict of interest

Just gonna say, I find this kind of thing adorable

I will relentlessly make fun of them, but it’s endearing and I’ll go off on anyone else making fun of them

I eat the joints of bones - further up they tend to splinter and taste more chalky, but the joints are delicious and satisfying once you get past the ick factor. I thought even the cartilage was gross as a kid, but at some point instincts kicked in and my body told me it was a great idea. I knew marrow was nutritious and some people ate it, but I still don’t find it that appealing - joint bones are one of the most satisfying things ever though, I highly recommend gnawing on the end of a chicken wing

Just because of your comment, I grabbed some tree bark to try… Cinnamon sticks. And holy shit, I just wanted to try it out, but I couldn’t stop. It just splinters at first, but once you start grinding the flavor kicks in and it just melts - 10/10, it’d be easy to eat enough to make yourself sick, but I’m going to be trying this again

And FWIW, I’ve never had a cavity. I brush my teeth every morning but otherwise only if I feel I need to. I slightly cracked a tooth once, but my dentist was great and told me to use fluoride toothpaste and hold off on a crown - it’s been a decade and it hasn’t bothered me in years

Trust your body. Yes, gnaw on bones and tree bark - not all of it, your body knows what is edible and what isn’t. If your instincts say “gnaw on this”, and it’s not made of plastic or metal, give it a try… If you take it slowly, what’s the worst that can happen? Probably a tummy ache

I really don’t get how people so easily accept this. This is an engineering problem, not a law of the universe… How would someone possibly prove something is impossible, particularly while the entire branch of technology is rapidly changing?

I don’t agree with that at all - that’s how art works. You take ideas and techniques and copy them, adding your own twist in the process. Art is about more than the aesthetic - the backstory is what gives it value. Stealing that is plagiarism, everything else is artistic inspiration… If you add nothing new you’ve made a cheap knockoff, which is very different from plagiarism

Palworld has its own lore, its own type system, its own battle mechanics, and as far as gameplay it’s nothing like Pokemon. All it has in common is many creatures you capture in a ball, with designs largely based on IRL animals and Japanese folklore. They’ve made something new no matter how you slice it

No, no… That’s how they got into statehood in the first place, you can’t be taken over by billionaires if they already own everything. And there was nothing defacto about it, I’m pretty sure Dole kidnapped a princess and everything

…are you implying that mass gas chambers aren’t an effective way to kill people?

The way I see it, it’s just a form of therapy. People don’t walk in and sit silently, they talk about their problems and get vague reassurance that everything is going to be alright - or occasional advice when they’re way out of bounds

I don’t think it’s unethical to do that, so long as you operate in good faith with good intentions

If your whispered in their ear, then yes, if you’ve never heard English you can’t understand it

I didn’t see that in the post - lip reading would still that gap nicely, as would signing and speaking at The same time

I loved that the Gameboy was designed to survive a fall from the average shirt pocket. I love that the Wii controllers pushed gyroscopic technology so far that it allowed the explosion of quadcopters. I loved the idea of 3d through rapid aspect switching.

I loved when Nintendo pushed boundaries, not just through hardware but through gameplay. I enjoy and appreciate the Nintendo polish

I agree with your sentiment wholeheartedly - good gameplay is much more important than flashy graphics. But the polish was nice - pushing boundaries is what made the difference

Oh, I said that as a programmer all right. And that’s how I’ve approached AI - I ran it locally, and kept poking it until I began to get a feel for it. Until I could see patterns. Until I could put together a methodology

They exist. Word choice matters greatly. Shorter is better. Varied word choice is better. Less “orders” is better. Strange combinations of tokens can convey something in non-obvious ways. They all seem to have a very strong attachment to the name “Luna”

They’re as deterministic as any software is, if you run it in the same state with the same input you’ll get the same result, sometimes with minor wording changes

And software isn’t as deterministic as we pretend it is. Programming doesn’t require it either, luckily. Every program you’ll ever write is interacting with complex systems no one fully understands, and it will sometimes act unpredictably

Programming is about finding patterns in the chaos, then using them to get the result you want. You need consistency - not deterministic outcomes. You can program with anything you can find the patterns in - even human behavior or the physical world. You can program yourself.

You can treat AI like something unknowable, or you can find the patterns and put them in your toolbox

That’s how I look at AI. It will never (in it’s current forms) replace people, but it can turn a passionate creator into a one person army

Using AI is a form of programming - you turn the right words into action. Programming is magic, an AI user is a warlock

No, it has a recurring theme of transformation. You could read the first part as a trans allegory, but you could squint and do the same for Star wars or Harry Potter. It’s the story of the chosen one

Not everything written by a trans person is a trans allegory. Trans people can tell other stories…a trans allegory is about that specific personal journey, not just influenced by it

I used to love that sub. Then it started to be about legal responsibilities instead of morality… From there it really turned into a dumpster fire

The only time I’ve ever been banned on a forum because although I said the woman had the right to do what she did and the guy was clearly in the wrong, she needlessly escalated when empathy would’ve led to a better result for everyone

No explanation, just a temp ban. For advocating empathy and third path conflict resolution

The fediverse is just a barnacle on the larger Internet at this point. It has to become more - we need to make our own web

In fairness, humans do this too. Ever share a meal where someone has already eaten? People find it extremely off-putting. It’s to the point where pacing your eating to someone else will make them like you more

Stomachs aren’t necessary… You can jump straight to the large intestine. Even humans can survive like that

Obviously, they’re useful. It’s another stage of digestion, which means more energy and nutrients are extracted from your food. It widens your viable food sources, just like chewing does

But then, why would they be more stable when moving, even without a rider? If the steering is tight enough, you can push a bike to someone a good distance away. You can do it with a scooter too, although it’s a lot harder.

You can also look at a motorcycle. Their mass is far greater than a human’s, a person could never manage that. Those little RC motorcycles are the same, they don’t need some crazy balancing system to mimic humans, they just need to stay upright enough to get some speed going, then they balance themselves.

It’s the same with a wheel - the speed makes it stay upright, they can balance on the tiniest edge so long as they’re moving

It’s not a gyroscopic effect either, though that’s present. It’s a balance between rotation speed and the friction with the ground - the object as a whole has momentum, the rotation has momentum, and the contact with the ground balances the two. It’ll try to put it’s center of mass in line with these forces acting on it

Add in a human, and they can shift the center of mass on the fly. The vehicle’s speed is still pushing you upright - get on a bike with some good speed, and you can lean very far into a turn and ease off to return upright. Way more than you could if it wasn’t moving