And, unlike engineers in manufacturing whose deep-pocket corporations bought an exemption, Engineers in the A/E/C field are licensed. And if you screw up you can lose your ability to work in your field…forever.

But, also, this describes every response to a ML prompt.

You could say the same for a finite element model. A junior engineer with just 4 years of training can solve, explicitly, the deflection at the center of a slender, simple-simple beam of prismatic section and produce an exact (if slightly incorrect) answer. Building a FEM of the same can solve the problem and take longer (to make the model) with similar accuracy, both of which are good enough for design work.

Only a fool wouldn’t have a FEM around though, as it can solve problem that would take centuries for a human to solve. They may as well make a cartoon with the child digging a 3” hole in beach sand and then showing a backhoe making a jagged edged hole of the same size.

I’m pretty sure that middle bit is like a springform pan. The handle is not solid - you squeeze it to make it sit in the waffle maker but when you remove it, it opens a bit to release. I have no room for this in my kitchen but am intensely intrigued. I might buy a new house so I can get a bigger kitchen and have a place for this.

I’ve yet to find a modern use for usenet as I’m not in the habit of downloading everything as it comes out, nor of looking for content within a few days of release. Often I’m looking for 2-5 year old content or back catalog, and usenet has been a uniform landscape of incompletes, even with two blocks on independent providers (or they were when I bought the data blocks).

A llama?!? He was supposed to be dead!

[Raises hand]

I don’t have time to fuck with managing a seedbox to make ratios and community participation bullshit (looking at you, abt). I don’t even have time to fight incompletes on a usenet block. Let me drop a Benjamin in your “donation” box every couple of years and I’ll cover part of the server as long as I can find what I need, when I want it, in the quality I’m looking for.

I have subscriptions to a few of the big boys through legal cross-marketing deals; it’s still better to know that my shows will be waiting for me on my server if and when I ever get around to watching them.

If I spend half an hour to find an implement a workaround (because finding ways around YT’s advertising is not my hobby) then I’d have to watch 60 unskippable 30 second ads to break even, every single time they upgrade their cat-and-mouse. I don’t watch that much youtube in a month, probably not in 3 months.

11. When you die at the palace, you really die at the palace
12. Try the mulled wine
13. It’s good to be the king
14. A gentleman’s cuffs should be even with the tip of his penis
15. Jews can joke about whatever they want if they’re the scriptwriter

Re: reasonable levels - You can have fail safe or fail secure. Those are two mutually exclusive options. Locking people out of content, whether it be consumers or a partner organization (like a theater) is the price of security (fail secure).

There is no condition where mild DRM is valuable to anyone. For consumers it constitutes a hurdle to use of content they have purchased without hindering non-purchased copies from being reproduced and distributed. No DRM allows the latter; unbreakable DRM ensures the former will be substantially affected at some point.

But Meta can already do that through user accounts or through a honeypot/passive instance, correct? All public conversations are open, as are all public user profiles.

The only solution is to fight it and kill it.

That’s like saying the only way to get out of being hit by flying debris is to eliminate all wind on the planet. As much as we like to think of Threads as some corporate being, it’s not. It’s a hundred million people that are made of meat and have day jobs like you and me - the wind - and a few million bots and controlled accounts which attempt to influence [whatever their master wishes] - the debris. The debris is already here, and it’s people too - just people with nefarious or profiteering intent. It (debris) happens whenever there are enough people (enough wind) to stir things up.

Cutting yourself off from people is the only way to prevent it because it’s an inherent function of humanity.

Honestly - I almost never game on my work setup. Heck, most of my game time is on my steamdeck. And for some stuff (space dogfighting in E:D, for ex) VR is the way to go. I hate how low res VR is, but the ability to put my head on a swivel to see around me beats using the hat any day.

Nah, the “little” one is a cheapo 43" TCL. FWIW, the big one does full 4K @ 120Hz w/ HDMI VRR (scaled by the set to the 8K panel) with <6ms input lag. I haven’t broken into the ultrawide gaming setting, but I think it just shrinks the 4K space to an U/W (21:9 or 32:9) pixel count given to the OS/GPU so you can game at the game’s “full screen” option into a “smaller” panel. They still refresh at 120Hz.

It’s a 2x2 grid of 37" 4K monitors, or a 4x4 grid of 18.5" 1080p displays. It would be more productive if the desk were 3-4" further away and the monitor were 4" below the desk instead of 1.5" above it, as the top 10" or so is impractical to use while sitting except as a status area. OTOH, I welded up the custom mount to my lifting desk, so I can stand and raise the desk so that the keyboard is on the actual desk instead of the tray. In that configuration it maximizes my usability of the screen.

I mean, if you had the chance to hop in and game a bit on this in the evening, you’d probably do it - right?

LOL - right? Everyone has to find what works for them. To this day I’ve never figured out how anyone can be productive with a touchpad, for example. 🤷

Well…um…. Ok, it’s Ikea. I used to have a drawer system I built, but I just moved from a 400sf office in my basement to this 100sf room closer to the family. The desktop is ikea, too, on a motorized base. I did have to weld up a custom mount so that the monitor stays at the proper level as I go from seated to standing, so there’s that.

My viewing distance is 36" to the center of the screen and the pixel pitch is only 0.66 arc minutes, or about 1.5x the resolution of 20/20 vision. My vision is (corrected) slightly better than 20/20 and I can’t see pixels from where I sit. I can see jaggies in single pixel lines which aren’t dithered (i.e. AutoCAD), but I have to look for them. 8K may be useless for couches, but on a monitor it’s pretty fucking glorious.

On the contrary, this is my setup for more than a decade. I’ve tried several mechanicals and haven’t really been pleased with them. I thought the Logitech Master MX would be nice compromise but it wasn’t durable enough, and the lack of tactile feedback made it feel mushy. Oddly, the moderate pitch and short throw (but with the slight actuation resistance) of the Microsoft Designer keyboard is my Goldilocks keyboard. It may not be obvious, but the keyboard “tray” is 3 feet wide - quite a bit bigger than standard. I made it from 1/4" aluminum plate and put it on full extension slides because I couldn’t find a commercial one I liked. It sits right at a neutral wrist position for me (I’m a palm rester) and the mat is a nice 3.5mm neoprene. There’s even a tray heater so my mousing hand doesn’t get cold on long CAD sessions.