The Bard in Green @ thebardingreen @lemmy.starlightkel.xyz

* Technology Consultant.

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2 yr. ago

In a properly designed vivarium, a system could only require cyclical sunlight for powering a self sustained computational unit on geological time scales, assuming all respective lifeforms were fully understood scientifically.

“I speak of none but the computer that is to come after me,” intoned Deep Thought, his voice regaining its accustomed declamatory tones. “A computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate—and yet I will design it for you. A computer that can calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer, a computer of such infinite and subtle complexity that organic life itself shall form part of its operational matrix. And you yourselves shall take on new forms and go down into the computer to navigate its ten-million-year program! Yes! I shall design this computer for you. And I shall name it also unto you. And it shall be called…the Earth.”

I'm one of a whole 2 users at lemmy.starlightkel.xyz and we're seeing lemmy.world content no problem right now.

It's not exactly what you're looking for, but have you read the Rosewater trilogy? It's not humans, it's aliens who are invading earth by replacing the cells in our bodies. They have a biological fungus based data network that humans mistake for telepathy and mysticism. It causes lots of "supernatural" effects, but it turns out they're all based on biological computation.

Set in Nigeria in the 2080s, by a Nigerian author.

Butter - I use it in pizza dough, taco meat, stir fry...

I know what brands of garlic powder to use. Nothing beats fresh garlic, but a pinch of the good stuff is worth 10 shakes of supermarket brand crap.

If you want to really understand HOW insane, play Gandalf.

Cleaning out a ball mouse.

My 14 year old son recently picked one up out of this big pile of old computer treasure I was given by a client and said "What's up with this mouse?"

Do I look like a sucker to you Illuminaut... eh, fuck it. They have it all already.

I just wanted to do some acid and have a good time man, but no, here I am, screaming my head off in the ER, being restrained by security guards.

The rich go insane because the people around them enable them to believe their own bullshit and set no boundaries with them. This is SUPER bad for humans psychologically and causes us to lose touch with reality. Something in our brains depends on that group consensus to affirm our concepts of self and beliefs and decisions and it loses calibration when it gets crappy feedback.

They’re the people who never would have touched it, because it was too technical, had too high a barrier of entry, and saw it as niche.

Yep. My dad uses Facebook, Reddit and Youtube now. I remember having conversations with him where he was confused about why anyone would ever want to use Facebook and what the point of Youtube is... it just wastes time. When I first exposed him to AMAs I thought he would be interested in, in like 2012, he was like "It's really cool that you can talk to this person, but there's so much noise and joking around... how are you supposed to follow it all?"

Now he posts on reddit for help with home improvement projects and watches youtube channels about classic cars and how to fix your garage door opener and talks about stuff he saw his other Boomer friends post on Facebook. He sends me unfunny Youtube videos of AI Deepfakes of Trump and Biden talking about how they pooped their diapers. It's a weird role reversal, because now I'm like "I've left every single one of those enshittified platforms." But it took him years to get on them. It would take him even longer to get off.

How do they dispose of hardware? I feel like a covert night time rescue operation is in order.

I literally just had a client ask where he should recycle all his old computers, thinking they were just garbage.

I ended up with a 6 year old Dell All-In-One that is now running Linux Mint and acting as a second TV (and it has a touch screen!), a four year old Asus Laptop with a dead battery (that he thought was totally dead because it wouldn't turn on unless it's plugged in) that is now running Linux Mint and acting as my video conferencing station, a 7 year old tower that I upgraded for him 3 years ago with 2 TB SSD that is now waiting for me to find a use for it, another old tower that I upgraded several years ago with 2 8TB drives so that he could archive vast amounts of mostly useless old businesses data he thought he might need... those are also waiting for me to think of a purpose for them... 3 nice big monitors (2 are VGA only, but I have some VGA to HDMI adapters)...

All for the price of taking a bunch of ACTUAL ewaste to the recycle center.

There's a renfair trubador song waiting to be written here.

I assume this van contains a superpositioned state where it might be full of candy or it might be full of duct tape and Velcro cuffs... but you can't know unless you get into it.

Your premise is that using reality to encourage people to do the hard things that they need to do is a kind of violence?

I think I'm done with you.

Enjoy your axe. I hope it keeps you warm at night.

No. I am encouraging him to do everything he can to proactively make his life NOT suck later. Those aren't the same thing, but it sounds like you have an ax to grind. I get it, I have a similar ax but I have to wonder if this ax is really serving you or are you just impotently angry at a world that gives zero fucks?

I don't think your ax is with me. I empathize with your position, The last thing I want is to guilt anyone. And reality is not your, not my, and not OPs fault. We don't have to like reality, but we do have to deal with it. Now the reality is that we live in a system that will reward us for maximizing our peak earning years and punish us for not doing so. I want to be clear that I am not a fan of this system. Not even a little bit. But that doesn't change the system, and sticking your head in the sand and yelling at people that try to pull it out isn't helpful for anything.

I don't think you should lie about freelancing and 100% agree about "not putting anything you aren't prepared to answer questions about"

If you're thinking about it as "lying" you're doing it wrong. You should think about it as “explaining what I was doing professionally, to learn, grow and strengthen my skill set during these periods of less active employment.” Is glossing over the vast majority of your time that you spent living your life instead of hustling lying by omission? Maybe… but “I wasn’t doing shit professionally because reasons” is not a message you want a potential employer to hear.

Ultimately, it’s absurd that looking for work involves wondering how many lies I can get away with. But that’s the game employers are playing, and honesty is not rewarded.

Don't think of it as lies. Think of it as "explaining what I was doing professionally, to learn, grow and strengthen my skill set during these periods of less active employment." Is glossing over the vast majority of your time that you spent living your life instead of hustling lying by omission? Maybe... but "I wasn't doing shit professionally because reasons" is not a message you want a potential employer to hear.

The other poster who said "never put anything on your resume you aren't prepared to answer questions about" is 100% right. Definitely think about what you're going to say, focus on the things you DID do, don't make up shit you DIDN'T do... resumes are supposed to be quick summaries anyway.