lvxferre

lvxferre, 10 days ago

It would be better if you shared a pic of that “ugly mess”. That said I think that it should be fine (rule-wise) to ask it here.

For now, tips that I can give you:

• Focus on a theme for that build. The simpler the theme, the easier to get.
• Find good combos of blocks, and use them somewhat consistently for a feature of your build. For example: I personally like building walls with stone bricks + wood (it’s cheap for survival, and it looks good), while the roof is mostly Nether bricks;
• Don’t fight against the terrain. Some terraforming is fine; but flatting it all out will make your build look out of place.
• Use pictures for reference. Copying is 90% of creating.
• Too much detail is as bad as too little. Find a good balance.

lvxferre, 10 days ago

It is not so bad that it’s an “ugly mess”. It’s simply cluttered. The shape looks good even if a bit weird, the issue are your choices of blocks, they’re clashing with each other, and you’re using a lot of different types so it’s really hard to combo them.

I’d suggest you to make a creative mode copy of your world and try the following, see if you like the results:

• Replace those birch logs with spruce, so they contrast better with the birch planks. Either keep them all with their bark, or remove it from all of them. If you feel that the build becomes too colourless, barkless acacia logs are also an option.
• Replace the yellow and red concrete with the same type of log that you picked above.
• Pick one between basalt, plain stone, or that white stone (I think that it’s modded marble?). The mix is fine in the right building because it’s just stone, but when you’re combining it with other elements it’s making it look too busy.
• I’m not too hot on the usage of concrete + bricks like you did in the right. Perhaps it would be better to stick to one or another.
• That amethyst doormat needs to go. It makes your sight gravitate towards the floor.
• Consider replacing those torches in the building with lanterns, hanging from the roof. The ones nearer to you are a bit trickier, I’d probably try to replace them with froglight or shroomlights.

lvxferre, 10 days ago

People downvoting this post: don’t shoot the messenger.

I’ll copypaste what I said in !redditmigration about this topic:

As I mentioned in the kbin comm about redditfugees: I think that the platform stopped being sustainable, and that changes like this - either trying to increase engagement or appeasing power users - are only a symptom of that.

They won’t work, by the way, because of the trust thermocline (the impact of an act violating the users’ trust is considerably greater, if there’s a backstory of trust violations).

…excuse me while I grab some popcorn. I’m loving to watch this.

---

Fun comment (from a user) in that thread:

Because it’s a Reddit Product Decision, you can always expect one step forward, two steps back, and four steps off in a random direction that makes no sense.
FAQ
Can people who used all their gold due to your short-sighted mistake get it back? Haha, no.
Are you offering any compensation? Sure, we’ll give you some free bullshit. And it expires, so make sure to Drive Engagement and Interact with Posts before the end of the year!
Wait, you’re replacing the stuff you made arbitrarily expire with a different arbitrarily-expiring currency? You know it.
Can you use Gold that people give you on other posts? Absolutely not. Gold you are given goes into a big pot where it will remain, serving no purpose, unless you’re like the 0.1% of people on this site who ruthlessly and relentlessly farm for gold and karma. If you’re one of those people, you can financialize your Reddit experience, earning upwards of, like, five bucks!
I run a subreddit that provides resources for people in mental health crisis or other major medical issues. Can I turn off gilding to stop people boosting bad or unsafe answers? At Reddit, we believe that consumers deserve choice, and in this case, the choice they deserve is to seethe and cope. You absolutely cannot turn this shit off.
You’re at least blacklisting the really high-risk subs from the new old Gold program, right? Yes. What happens when you inevitably miss a sub and end up causing massive headaches for mods? They can contact us at the Mod Help PO Box in Anchorage, Alaska. When the intern checks the mail in 6 months, we’ll get right on it.
What if I’m not eligible for the Contributors program? Go fuck yourself.
Does it work on Old Reddit? What do you think?

---

Additional detail: did anyone notice that you can’t log through old.reddit any more? I don’t even have an account there any more, but if you try it, here’s what you get:

https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/ed93becd-22a5-4973-899e-25d571b0eb53.png

They are already actively removing functionality from old.reddit!

lvxferre, 10 days ago

They take labour into consideration because less time spent serving a drink = you can serve more drinks = we can replace two of you with one.

lvxferre, 13 days ago

I got the same issue months ago, with Mint. I have a script to switch audio outputs, and it stopped working after… apt upgrade! Apparently what used to be called “hdmi-stereo” is now “hdmi-stereo-extra1”, no idea why.

In the case of my script, once I got what was going on, I solved it with a simple “if” statement:

<span style="color:#323232;">if [[ $(pactl list sinks | grep extra) == "" ]]
</span><span style="color:#323232;">  then declare -g mainProfile="hdmi-stereo"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">  else declare -g mainProfile="hdmi-stereo-extra1"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">  fi
</span>

(My system uses pulseaudio. Don’t ask me why. I’m not touching it with a 3m pole.)

lvxferre, 13 days ago

• 2kg wheat flour
• 1kg cornmeal
• 1kg flaked corn
• 1kg chuño
• 1kg eggs (around 15 large ones)
• 1kg jerky
• 400g lard
• 400g grating cheese
• 400g powdered milk
• 300g tomato paste
• 200g sugar
• 1kg salt, seasoning, dry yeast, and vitamin C tablets (for the drinks)

Total: 9.7kg. I can comfortably carry 10kg just fine. The first four items already give me around 18 Mcal, enough for the whole week, the rest is just fluff to get comfy.

If the time period was longer I’d probably worry about vegs, but I’m not carrying something that is mostly water if I have water from the island.

Your list will be likely very different from mine as it’s for two people and you probably don’t go through tomato paste as quick as I do. Also 10kg is something to carry comfortably, if you aren’t picky on carrying a lot of weight for short amounts of time you could add way more food to the list.

lvxferre, 14 days ago

If you’re in doubt if some content violates the rules, report it, and let the mods decide if it’s okay or not okay. That is not abuse of the report function.

Include a short description on why you’re reporting some piece of content. Specially in larger comms, the mod queue can get really large. If reasonable mention the rule being violated; a simple “r1 off topic” goes a long way.

Context is everything. If what a user said only sounds bad in a certain context, say it. If the user is clearly problematic due to their profile, say it.

You’re probably better off not interacting with the content that you’re reporting.

Don’t boss the other users around. It’s fine to be informative; it is not fine to act as a moderator when you are not one. If moderative intervention is necessary, report it.

Stop giving shitty mods a free pass. Honest mistakes happen; but if the mod in question is assumptive, disingenuous, trigger-happy, or eager to enable certain shitty types of user, spread the word about their comm being poorly moderated. And don’t interact directly with the comm. I think that at least here in the Fediverse we should demand higher standards from our mods.

lvxferre, 14 days ago

I have definitely erred in this regard several times!

I think that everyone did this at least once, so don’t worry too much. Still, it’s less work for the mods if you don’t do it.

lvxferre, 12 days ago

If your description of the events is accurate: that’s a shitty mod, and a good example of what I wrote in the last paragraph. We should be denouncing this sort of crap, and avoiding comms where it happens.

It’s not always so easy to assume that mods are going to be fair. Reporting people comes with a risk.

I’m not assuming that the mods are going to be fair. I’m taking into account that shitty mods do a favour to you when they out themselves, as they’re basically showing you which comms to avoid.

lvxferre, 14 days ago

When I wake up I notice that I was dreaming once or twice per week. It’s always weird dreams. Weird as in:

• aliens spitting on trees
• tomato fighting in the library, killing and burying the old librarian, to resurrect a god
• using a rolled newspaper as a magic wand, triggered by the word "photon"
• a vulture digging gold nuggets from my liver, a la Prometheus
• a pig praying (stupid dream bilingual pun)
• my cats preparing popcorn (I don’t even like popcorn)

lvxferre, 15 days ago

I’ll mostly share tips regarding what you said, OK?

Quite a few programs still rely on files in ~/.config/. So if you feel like the options in a program are “missing”, give its config file a check. (To see hidden directories: Ctrl+H)

There’s another MS Paint alternative called Kolourpaint. I personally prefer it over Drawing; once you install it you’ll need to install quite a bit of stuff from the KDE environment, but I think that it’s worth.

The super key can be configured to your taste. For example mine brings up composing, so if I type Super+e+1 I get ɛ, Super+a+1 I get ɐ, so goes on. (I open the menu with Alt+F1, by the way.) As implied, as a further tip - if you need certain characters you can create custom keystrokes through a file called .XCompose.

lvxferre, 16 days ago

Yup, I also think that it’s a retention tactic. Not the first one: karma, user profiles, that new year crap etc., they all boil down to “we’re giving you reasons to consistently come back, and produce content for us for free.”

The timing hints me that the Reddit userbase is getting a lower rebound ratio nowadays. i.e. user goes there to see some junk, then forgets about the site.

lvxferre, 16 days ago

„Im so inconvenienced by the piece of trash i bought wanting to stay a single piece of trash” // Humans as they discovered they made a small continent out of trash in the ocean. If it bothers you so much then stop buying plastic trash.

People are clearly complaining about how the feature was implemented. Not the goal (to keep it as a single piece of trash).

lvxferre, 16 days ago

So? (implied: “I dun unrurrstand u’re point”)

I’m highlighting that the other user is missing the bloody point of the complain.

People want less plastic waste, sure. And yes, less consumption is a way to achieve so - no shit Sherlock “riodoro” Holmes. However, in this specific case the design solution was done so poorly that it inconveniences the user by a lot, and it isn’t even reducing (first R) the amount of plastic being used, it’s just in the hopes that people actually recycle (third R) that small piece of junk there.

Is this clear now?

lvxferre, 16 days ago

Bloody snitch. People like this are why dogs don’t talk IRL!

lvxferre, 16 days ago

I still play SimCity sometimes. The SNES version. There’s something beautiful on slowly building your city, solving problems that arrive, and when you’re don… oh wait you’re never done! (Not even with the Mario statue.)

More into colony sim territory: Oxygen not Included, Dwarf Fortress, RimWorld. In special I’ve been playing the later quite a bit (1.4 version, up to Biotech), selectively breeding colonists to get superpawns.

lvxferre, 18 days ago

This would be great if Nintendo was genuinely concerned about encouraging the usage of a hostile platform. Sadly odds are that it cares about its brand way more than “those things” playing their games.

Nintendo didn’t provide one [reason], but it’s likely due to X’s increased API costs

I don’t think so. Even with the abusive costs the price would be rather small for Nintendo, in comparison with the advertisement of its games in Twitter. I think that it’s mostly a “eeeeew, Nintendo has X integration? Nintendo must be fascist.”

Either way it’s a positive.

lvxferre, 18 days ago

I think that it’s more like “Mike got a promotion *for saving our brand from unnecessary damage”. The whole thing stinks “muh brand” from a distance for me.

lvxferre, 18 days ago

My personal take is that the current generation of generative models peaked, for the reasons stated in the video (diminishing returns). This current gen will be useful, but progress-wise it’ll be a dead end.

In the future however I believe that models with a different architecture will cause a breakthrough, being able to perform better with less training. And probably less energy requirements, too.

lvxferre, 18 days ago

I don’t think that reinventing computers will do any good. The issue that I see is not hardware, but software - the current generative models are basically brute force, you throw enough data and processing power at the problem until it becomes smaller, but at the end of the day you’re still relying too much on statistical patterns behind the wrong entities.

Instead I think that the ML architecture will change. And this won’t be done by those tech bros full of money burning effigies, who have a nasty/stupid/disgraceful tendency to confuse symbolic representations with the things being represented. Instead it’ll be done by researchers in some random compsci or robotics lab, in a random place of the world. They’ll be doing some weird stuff like emulating the brain of a fruit fly, and someone will point out “hey, you see this feature? It has ML applications”. And that’ll be when they actually add some intelligence to those systems, i.e. the missing piece of the puzzle. It won’t be AGI but it’ll be better than now, at least.

lvxferre, 18 days ago

Not even another info transferring entity would solve it. Be it quantum computers, photonic computers, at the end of the day we’d be simply brute forcing the problem harder, due to increased processing power. But we need something else than brute force due to the diminishing returns.

Just to give you an idea. A human needs around 2400kcal/day to survive, or 100kcal/h = 116W. Only 20% of that is taken by the brain, so ~23W. (I bet that most of that is used for motor control, not reasoning.) We clearly suck as computing machines, and yet our output is considerably better than the junk yielded by LLMs and diffusion models, even if you use a really nice computer and let the model take its time producing its [babble | six fingers “art”]. Those models are clearly doing lots of unnecessary operations, while failing hard at what they’re expected to do.

Regarding research, my point is that what’s going to fix generative models is likely from outside the field of artificial intelligence. It’ll be likely something small and barely related, that happens to have some ML application.

lvxferre, 18 days ago

It’s a bit messy but the rule in question might be from

• the user’s instance
• the community’s instance
• the community itself

Typically when mods ban you based on violations of some global rule they’ll highlight it, e.g. “global rule 1”. And it’s good form to include the short description of the rule being violated as the reason for the ban (e.g. instead of “rule 1”, saying “rule 1 - uncivil behaviour”).

Without further clarification, however, it’s usually the community rules. Otherwise you’ll likely get banned from your account (if you violated the global rules of your instance) or from the instance where the comm is.

In the desktop, to see the community rules you check the side panel:
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/cd6ec317-acd5-44e8-91e2-ad6ad5429664.png

And for the instance you see them on the main page of the instance:
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/0482cb3f-ee8a-40e4-a29d-fa0747f8c86c.png

Props for reading the mod logs, by the way. And if you want to know who did what, this site shows exactly which mod or admin is behind which moderative action.

lvxferre, 18 days ago

If you’re referring to .ml, Rule 1 is saying anything they don’t like (criticizing an authoritarian regime, etc)

It’s a bit more complicated than that. Basically they distort every single rule, not just rule #1. Rule #1 is specially common because they label criticism against certain governments as xenophobia, but sometimes you get “rule #4” (because you insisted on a certain point) or “rule #2” (because someone said some stupid shit and you didn’t play along).

lvxferre, 18 days ago

That sounds unlikely.

Both squalus “shark, whale” and squamatus scaled are from Latin; typically this sort of phenomenon affects the native vocab, not erudite borrowings. And this sort of word merging is rather uncommon. Plus Old English /a/ ended as /æ/ in modern English, not as /ɪ/ (sound changes are typically regular).

Wiktionary tentatively connects it with “squirt”, that sounds a bit more likely.

lvxferre, 14 days ago

This was in r/linguistics, by the way. And the moderators there were doing jack shit to inform the users. Even if one of them works with NLP, so you’d expect the person to be somewhat well versed in both Linguistics and basic programming.

The worst part? It wasn’t even the only time that I saw this conflation. I think that people get caught in the words, and miss that they’re referring to different concepts.