Sterile_Technique

Sterile_Technique , 3 days ago

He always supported Israel... I think the 'until' is in reference to Israel's more recent and more blatant attack on Gaza - prior to that, Biden's support for Israel wasn't nearly as flagrant as it is now.

Like, no one would bat an eye if I told them I support my wife's decisions, but if she started breaking into the local NICUs and stomping on people's babies, my continued support for her decisions would be a tad sus. ...especially if I regularly said "honey could you tone the baby-stomping down a bit?" as I handed her a new pair of baby-stomping boots.

I'm not a both-sides'er (unless I'm talking to a trumpanzee in an attempt to steer votes away from Agent Orange). My vote is going to Biden and I encourage anyone reading this to do the same, but our complicity in the genocide on Gaza is genuinely upsetting, partly because it's complicity in a fucking genocide, and partly because this WILL cause voter disengagement and could hand that other dipshit the presidency on a silver platter.

Sterile_Technique , 10 days ago

Meh, worse case scenario they drive us to extinction. We've had the wheel this far, and are doing our best to set the planet on fire / speed run different ways to mass murder each other anyway. I say give the robots a shot.

Think of it like an experimental medication on a terminally ill patient.

Sterile_Technique , 19 days ago

Yeah if someone's benefitting from a placebo effect, the worst thing you can do is point out that it's a placebo. If you convince them it won't work, then you've just destroyed the therapeutic effect their brain was giving them. Just shut up and let the placebo do its thing.

Sterile_Technique , 19 days ago

Depends on the setting. In a nurse-patient situation, you don't ever bullshit them in the hopes of tricking them into some kind of benefit.

If your grandpa is raving on Facebook about how acupuncture is working better than opioids for post-knee-replacement pain management, then... "Hey that's great you found something that works for you!"

YetAnotherUser makes a good point about not enabling a culture of scams or pseudoscience as well.

Discretion is key here.

Sterile_Technique , 19 days ago

Dry needling doesn't (always?) use electricity. I've had it done too, and the explanation I got was that it basically just pisses off the underlying tissue to promote an inflammatory response and thus blood flow to the target area.

Sterile_Technique , 23 days ago

So all the AI enshittification of Google results was just 4D chess all along!

Sterile_Technique , 23 days ago

It'll herd users to the new product. It's like when reddit enshittified its mobile web page to move folks to its app. Both reddit; but they shot themselves in one foot to shift weight over to the other foot.

Sterile_Technique , 23 days ago

Sorry, initial post was meant to be more cheeky than anything else: Basically saying AI folks like OpenAI have seriously damaged the quality of Google's search results, and in doing so established demand for a new search option... and now they're announcing a competitor to Google.

One foot (google) was shot to shift traffic over to the other (whatever this new shit is). Wasn't meant to imply Google is in on it... the reddit analogy might just be muddying the waters, but the analogy was reddit as a company to search engines as a category.

Sterile_Technique , 23 days ago

Well no... but also yes!

Sterile_Technique , 24 days ago (edited 24 days ago)

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/774042f4-f19d-49d3-9d3c-f1e348803bae.png

Neck is the last of that guy's worries... his shoulder is dislocated as fuck!

Edit - Looking closer, I think his radius and ulna might be flipped too. Yeah this guy's not having a good day.

Sterile_Technique , 28 days ago

Overbooked. This is the airline industry we're talking about.

Sterile_Technique , 1 month ago

1. Does AWOL mean something other than "Absent without leave"? Cuz that's a weird way to describe a computer algorithm.

2. ...aight so I'm definitely not a theologist, but... according to christianity, or catholocism specifically... is there actually any rule against using gatorade for a baptism? I'd assume it just says "water", but there's water in gatorade. Sure there's also other shit in gatorade, but there's other shit in tap water too. Even distilled water isn't going to be 100% pure.

And if gatorade's cool, where do they draw the line? Could you baptize a baby with honey? Or drop a steak onto the kid's face (there's water in those too!). Does it even have to be liquid water? Like what if you just threw some icecubes at the kid, or blasted some steam in its face??

So many questions!

Sterile_Technique , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

the idea of “washing”, or “being washed”, so solid water or water in solids would not count.

You could make a solid (HA!) argument for exfoliative or percussive removal of debris from the kid's head via scraping or knocking the nasty-bits free via the holy projectiles.

Sterile_Technique , 1 month ago

"That's not piss."

- Alter boy

Sterile_Technique , 1 month ago

It’s better, cuz it’s got electrolytes.

It's what souls crave!

So like, ice X at 60 gigapascals and -120 °C?

What's the worse that could happen?

Sterile_Technique , 1 month ago

Iirc FlexT9 was ducking (nope, not fixing it this time, rofl) great for the... Galaxy S2?, but then Swype bought em out and it's been downhill ever since.

So... it's not that the tech is bad, it's that it's being hamstrung somewhere.

Sterile_Technique , 1 month ago

At least in the US, the healthcare system is fucked-and-a half with staffing issues alone. With boomers on the way out of the work force and into the fucking ER, we're in trouble.

If 'AI' algorithms can help manage the dumpster fire, bring it on. Growing pains are expected, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't explore its potential.

Sterile_Technique , 1 month ago

We should be using to its potential, which is a deliberately vague statement cuz I have no idea what its potential is; but I'd guess there's some overlap in what it's capable of and what nurses and doctors do. Displacing their focus from those areas to things that more urgently require their attention is a good thing, provided we're using algorithms for things that are actually appropriate for algorithms.

I know a lot of folks don't trust AI, but what we're calling "AI" today is basically just a spell-checker on steroids, so using it effectively includes knowing when to say "I know you want that word to change to 'deer', but I legit need it to say 'dear'" and hitting that ignore button.

...so yea basically what you said. Human makes final call. At least for now; if we ever get actual AI (the thinky sentient kind we see in sci-fi) then we can start delegating more and more advanced interpretive tasks to it as it demonstrates its ability to not fuck them up (or at least, fuck them up less frequently than its human counterparts).

Sterile_Technique , 1 month ago

Fair enough. It's vague enough that there's some subjectivity at play here... in my brain, it's broken into two categories: 1) algorithmic stuff that includes EVERY example of "AI" currently at our disposal, with "AI" being more of a marketing term than an actual description of what it is; and 2) intelligence that's artificial, which doesn't exist yet, but is theoretically possible and will most likely manifest as a creation of something from category 1, a point that is dubbed the "singularity" that marks the start of a snowball of self-improvement that eventually matches and surpasses what our own noggins are capable of in every way. And we kinda just hope #2 develops in a way that's compatible with our own survival and comfort.

My money's on climate collapse or nuclear explosions or all of the above wiping us out before we make it to #2, but I guess we'll see.

Sterile_Technique , 1 month ago

I've got coworkers who literally think Elon is humanity's savior. This came up today (shared a pic of a tesla w/ a bumper sticker that said "I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy..." and they IMMEDIATELY started gargling his metaphorical balls).

There's a tiny sliver of market that represents the overlapped portion of 1) hopeless rednecks, and 2) people interested in owning an electric vehicle... that's Tesla's target customer. It's gonna saturate in a hurry, but it's also a cult-like following of cash cows eager to be milked. My money's on Tesla's performance steadying out and maintaining a not-great but not-bad-enough-to-tank-the-company level of financial success.

Sterile_Technique , 1 month ago

What's the cost of not spending that money?

For this quarter of the fiscal year? Not jack shit, and that's about as far out as decision making under capitalism goes.

We're fucked.

Sterile_Technique , 1 month ago

Pretty much how non-billionaires who give a shit about climate change feel about climate change...

Sterile_Technique , 1 month ago

Recently made a thread asking about these, lots of good info in the comments if anyone's interested:

https://lemmy.world/post/13998736

Sterile_Technique , 1 month ago

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/fe63b2b8-0004-4dc9-85a0-09fc218cd467.png

Sterile_Technique , 1 month ago

First 4 slides trigger microbiology class PTSD.

eye twitch

Sterile_Technique , 1 month ago

That's barbaric... no creamer?!

Sterile_Technique , 1 month ago

*goes aaaaaaall the way back to that fucking fish that first evolved proto-lungs*

*kicks it back into the water*

This is for the greater good, you little bastard!

Sterile_Technique , 1 month ago

Way too much work. I just want the one that set the branch for this timeline's iteration of mammals: get it eaten, fast forward to today's timeline and see if Lungfish B managed to evolve into a dominant race that doesn't brandish shit like greed, racism, religion, aggression, etc.

If things look the same or worse, go back and punt that bitch back into the water too, and see how Lungfish C does.

Sterile_Technique , 1 month ago

In all fairness, the qualifier to be considered a gang is a low, barely existent bar when you consider all of its definitions, especially ones like "A group of people who associate regularly on a social basis."

So... Cops? gang. SCOTUS? gang. Boy Scouts? gang. Lemmy? gang. Classroom of 1st graders? gang. You and your coworkers? gang. A literal family? gang. ...you get the gist.

tldr, you (and everyone else) are literally gangsta!!

Sterile_Technique , 1 month ago

"Hey, stop being evil! ...also here's like an entire military's worth of bombs n' shit so you can keep being evil."

Sterile_Technique , 2 months ago

Makes me miss Xfire. Feature-rich, customizeable, great quality, overlay feature that didn't suck, no bullshit. It was orders of magnitude better than Discord ever was.

...but not popular outside of gaming; and ofc the other big tech companies litigated the fuck out of it, so it never really took off and now it's gone. Boooooooo

Sterile_Technique , 2 months ago

They use that candle to burn your house down. There are better ways to light your path.

Sterile_Technique , 2 months ago

The woman crying in this comic isn’t the religion that’s “burning down your house”

Oh... what religion is it?

Sterile_Technique , 2 months ago

Not in the market for a smart watch, but noted: don't buy Fitbit.

I see some love in this thread for Garmin... Any other good options?

Sterile_Technique , 2 months ago

Most redditors who aren't willing to bend over and take whatever Spez wants to shove into their asses have already switched to Lemmy.

We'll get a few stragglers, but I wouldn't expect much of a reaction at this point.

Sterile_Technique , 2 months ago

Can't overstate how much I miss silence.

Fucking tinnitus, dude.

Laying in bed at night: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Outside during a calm snowfall: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

...don't really notice it 99% of the time, but every now and then you KNOW you shouldn't be hearing a single thing, and that's when the fucking ringing REALLY gets maddening.

Sterile_Technique , 2 months ago

Yeah people have absolutely been contesting the use of the term AI in videogames since it started being used in that context, because it's not AI.

It didn't cause the stir it does today because it was so commonly understood as a misnomer. It's like when someone says they're going to nuke a plate of food - obviously nuke in this context means something much, much, much less than an actual nuke, but we use it anyway despite being technically incorrect cuz there's a common understanding of what we actually mean.

Marketing now-a-days is pitching LLMs (microwaves) as actual AI (nukes), but the difference is people aren't just using it as intentional hyperbole - they think we have real, actual AI.

If/when we ever create real AI, it's going to be a confusing day for humanity lol "...but we've had this for years...?"

Sterile_Technique , 2 months ago

beginning of the end for him.

Naw, imho it was the Thai kiddy-submarine incident. He seemed at least semi-plausibly not horrible up until then; but then firmly established himself as just another piece of shit billionaire when he couldn't handle some diver stealing the spotlight from him.

Sterile_Technique , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

Here's a couple. Not a regional porn ban = more rape like previous poster said, but this is the most relevant data I could find. ...and this data isn't great. My main takeaway from this search is that we need to direct some actual research into what access to porn does vs doesn't do. Also specific categories of porn - I wouldn't be surprised to learn that sexual violence increases with consumption of porn that glorifies rape; but then if porn made a point to model good practices around things like obtaining consent, I'd wager sexual violence probably decrease.

TLDR, it's a complicated question, so take these with a grain of salt, but among the most credible sources I found, they trended toward porn and rape NOT being positively correlated.

"Victimization rates for rape in the United States demonstrate an inverse relationship between pornography consumption and rape rates."

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222552404_The_pleasure_is_momentarythe_expense_damnable_The_influence_of_pornography_on_rape_and_sexual_assault

 

"The results showed that in none of the countries did rape increase more than nonsexual violent crimes [during a period of increased access to porn]. This finding in itself would seem sufficient to discard the hypothesis that pornography causes rape."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2032762/

 

Not really a good block of text to quote, but the gist is: "Porn doesn't cause rape, but there's more going on than just direct cause and effect"

https://vawnet.org/sites/default/files/materials/files/2016-09/AR_PornAndSV.pdf

Sterile_Technique , 2 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

Sterile_Technique , 2 months ago

I mean, I'm here specifically because of enshittification. Had reddit actually gotten better over time, I'd still be there; but every year came with another handful and anti-user bullshit. Finally threw my hands up, said fuck it, deleted my account, and started scouring the internet for an alternative. Eventually stumbled into Lemmy and haven't had a reason to look back.

......I don't think my story here is especially unique, either. Seems just about everyone here is a pissed off ex-redditer, so enshittification is hot on all of our brains.

Sterile_Technique , 2 months ago

Republicans LOVE to use vets as a prop when it's convenient.

They'll also stab vets in the back if they're convinced doing so would own a lib two - see: republicans block PACT act, denying healthcare to veterans in an effort to spite the blue team.

Sterile_Technique , 2 months ago

Speaking as a veteran (US), it's always awkward to be on the receiving end of our weird-ass military worship culture.

Like, if you want to support the troops, then vote some cash over to the VA so they can afford to replace those sketchy fucking elevators... don't just stare at me like you're ready to suck my dick every time I try to buy some lunch from your business; I already feel like a weasel for taking that 10% discount, but I'm too broke to let shame get in the way of that.

But yeah, people feeling obligated to thank us, via cultural norms or employment mandates (yikes), kinda goes against the whole freedom shtick anyway.

So, thank YOU for pushing back against that BS.

Sterile_Technique , 2 months ago

I mean, the thing we call "AI" now-a-days is basically just a spell-checker on steroids. There's nothing to really to trust or distrust about the tool specifically. It can be used in stupid or nefarious ways, but so can anything else.

Sterile_Technique , 3 months ago

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/94726ef1-6a8f-4900-b2dd-259767d932c6.png

Sterile_Technique , 3 months ago

"Hi thank you for holding, this is--"

"Please hold while your client becomes available. This service brought to you by Google No-U.."

Staticy jazz music

Sterile_Technique , 3 months ago

Oh it gets so much better than that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzjTCUbYnq8&ab_channel=seronymus

Sterile_Technique , 3 months ago

I've been pouring my life into the Internet since before Quora existed.

There was never a time I recall Quora not being shit. All it ever did was dilute search results.