Rottcodd

joined 1 year ago
[–] Rottcodd@kbin.social 85 points 1 year ago

Neither Gosar nor Trump have served in the military.

That pretty much goes without saying, but bears repeating anyway.

[–] Rottcodd@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

It's something I was never actually conscious of until I stopped and thought about it yesterday because of this thread. I've just always moved the scroll wheel in the way that it seems like it should work, and it works the way it seems like it should.

[–] Rottcodd@kbin.social 50 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

The thing you're apparently calling "traditional" seems natural to me.

I've never really stopped and thought about it before, but as far as I can figure, my brain expects the part of the system that does or would actually touch the surface to drag the screen in a particular direction through the simple workings of physics.

On a touchscreen, it's simple - it's my finger actually touching the screen and it drags the screen around exactly as I'd expect.

With a mouse, my finger isn't the important part because it's not touching the surface (or more precisely, the mousepad that substitutes for the surface). Rather, my finger is contolling the mouse, and the underside of the mouse is touching the surface. And as far as that goes, the "traditional" way it works is correct - when I move my finger downward on the mouse wheel, the bottom side of the wheel - the part that would actually be touching the surface if it was a purely mechanical system - is moving upward, so would drag the screen upward.

So to me, that's what's natural.

[–] Rottcodd@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

That's not a new thing though.

I first learned the wisdom of waiting until after the bulk of the bug-squashing was done before expecting to play a reasonably stable game with Oblivion, 17 years ago.

Granted that Cyberpunk 2077 was a particularly egregious example of the problem, but still...

[–] Rottcodd@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The thing I really can't understand, and a likely consequence of the ubiquity of apps, is all of the people who can't seem to function without them.

Like when the Reddit exodus to the threadiverse happened, people started immediately crying for Lemmy apps. And it doesn't seem to matter that much how bare-bones or unstable one might be - the important thing is that it's an app. That's all that seems to matter to them.

It's as if they aren't even aware of the fact that these are all websites, so they all work in a browser - as if to them, an app is a necessity and they can't figure out how to accomplish anything otherwise.

[–] Rottcodd@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Right, but that wasn't really my point. I mean "artificial intelligence," as the term has come to be used in this current world in which, for example, film and television producers want to have large language models write scripts, is a substitute for intelligence, in that people who don't possess actual intelligence want to use it to create strings of words with which to impress other people who don't possess actual intelligence. It's pretend intelligence by and for people who don't possess the real kind.

[–] Rottcodd@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Right, but that doesn't answer my question. If anything, it makes me more curious, since this isn't the first time he's been singled out for doing the same thing that virtually all of them do as a matter of course.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing - quite the contrary. Charging (and preferably removing from office and imprisoning) corrupt politicians is not only a good thing, but arguably the single best thing we could do as a nation right now. Official corruption is at the heart of virtually every single ill that this country currently suffers.

But it's notably a thing that's almost never prosecuted, in spite of the fact that it's not only widespread, but often brazen.

So again, I'm just curious what's special about him - why a government that generally turns a blind eye to corruption has chosen to prosecute this particular instance of it.

[–] Rottcodd@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I wonder what this is really about.

I have no doubt that the corruption is real, but that's sort of beside the point, since corruption is essentially universal in Washington. There has to be some reason that they focused on him specifically when they legitimately could charge pretty much anyone and everyone. Charging one Washington politician with corruption is sort of like charging one Burning Man attendee with drug possession.

[–] Rottcodd@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago

Yeah - I used to check in on it from time to time, and there were always new responses, and new people trying to argue with him, and he'd just run them in circles with hilariously overly literal (mis)interpretations of whatever they said. It went on for years.

I'm pretty sure I remember the admin deleting part of it while it was still active, and eventually deleting it entirely. It's a shame - it should've been saved for posterity.

[–] Rottcodd@kbin.social 58 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

Years ago, on IMDb, a poster called rabbitmoon kept a thread going for years on the Rambo board that is still the best I've ever seen.

The whole thing started with him posting that he was shocked when, about a third of the way through the movie, there was a scene in which a character was shot with a bullet from a gun. Then he countered, completely earnestly and deadpan, every response he got.

The original thread is long gone, and the only thing I could find of it is an excerpt that was posted on Reddit - LINK

[–] Rottcodd@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It just struck me that artificial intelligence is an accurate term after all, just in a different sense than the classic idea of a non-living consciousness.

It's "artificial intelligence" in that it's a substitute for real intelligence.

[–] Rottcodd@kbin.social 33 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Literally championing style over substance.

Suits are costumes. The point is to make people look classy and dignified even if they're actually skeevy assholes.

Genuinely classy and dignified people look it no matter what they're wearing.

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