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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • I like to think of the distinction in a de jure vs de facto way.

    If all the evidence we have of a species is them consuming autotrophs, then we do mental gymnastics and induce that they are 100% herbivores.

    Of course this also leaves room for an herbivore’s potential to consume heterotrophs, in which case our knowledge would have to update and reflect reality. Maybe 99% herbivore, 1% carnivore.

    And at that point, we may still do mental gymnastics and call species herbivores because that is their normal behavior, where their abnormal behavior is shown due to abiotic or biotic factors, perhaps from loss of habitat or removal/introduction of species in the food web, etc.

    Edit: for humans, I’d say we can classify different humans differently because of the times we live in (it’s so easy to be a vegan nowadays) and our natural, higher moral concepts and empathy.


  • The original commenter’s (OC’s) point has nothing to do with renewables’ reliability.

    It is entirely to do with generation vs demand. Grid operators could ask other generators like coal, nuclear, hydro, etc. plants to curtail so inverter-based renewables can export power, but that’s not likely because those producers can’t ramp generation up and down as easily.

    Grid stability is a problem when you have overcrowding of generation without enough demand on given feeders. This is moreso an issue with the utilities anyways and how they plan their transmission and substation upgrades.









  • Yeah I thought OpenAI came out and said that they modeled the voice of a different actress, and they don’t want to share their identity out of a respect for privacy.

    It could just be a coincidence that Altman tweeted the image from Her, and people made the connection between the voice and ScarJo, especially since she did something extreme similar in that movie.

    Could be coincidental. Could not be. We don’t really have the evidence to say either way, but maybe ScarJo’s suit will affect change so that better rights are granted to people and their digital twins.



  • The US has a representative democracy. We elect people by voting so that those people can represent our beliefs in the action of government without us being there to make sure our voice is heard and considered.

    While I agree that everyone should be more involved in civics, especially at a local level, it’s not really efficient for a society to implement a vanilla democracy. There are lots of other jobs like generating food/removing waste, generating energy/removing pollution, constructing/maintaining housing, transporting people including democratic representatives to and fro based on their obligations and desires, entertaining people so they can offset the pain in their lives and continue on with the struggle that is life, defend citizens from others or ourselves, etc.

    Having a group of people act out government on our behalf is a good thing because we can specialize in other things to allow them to do so.

    This all being said, there has been a disconnect with our representatives and with reality in general, so there is a giant need to reconnect with civic life in the US at all ages and at all levels for that matter.



  • They’re referring to how Thomas Edison created the first electric vehicles back in the 1800s. They might have had a future until Ford introduced assembly lines. Then the rest is history.

    The EV1 was the first commercial development in the US following the World Wars, but even before then you had solar EVs being made for science and eclectic racing before then. Think of those weirdly shaped cars only made for 1 driver that have solar panels covering the entire body of the car.

    Funny thing is that we’re now seeing some commercial (or soon to be commercial) manufacturers add solar panels in the same way. Just look to Hyundai and Aptera.






  • It’d be nice if we had retention elections for these judges. The executive branch nominates judges and the legislative confirms them, but I’d like to see a choice on my ballot every so many years after a judge has been installed asking whether that judge should stay in office or not.

    Funny enough, Wikipedia mentions how scholars are opposed to retention elections because the judiciary is supposed to be the most removed from public opinion and introducing that would lead to special interest groups swaying outcomes and generally breeding corruption. The squeeze is that we’re already seeing corruption in courts anyways because of the very branches that install judges in the first place. All you have to do is look at this article or the Supreme Court.

    Now the real question would be if Supreme Court justices should be up for retention. That’s a rabbit hole I’m not sure what the consequences would lead to. Seems like term limits are still appropriate.