The Sand Trap - 2023-06-06

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Rydwolf Programs

12:50 AM

→ 18 messages moved to Par for the Course Comics and Film Co.

Half a millenium ago, a vast trade network connected the continents of the world by sail, in a way never before seen. Three centuries later, the telegraph enters the picture, allowing cheap and instantaneous communication across vast distances, uniting the world in a way never seen in history. Now, advanced communications and computing technologies allow the world's most important messages to reach mass audiences on a rapid timescale.

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And we use it for this

I see no issues here

a perfectly reasonable request

1:11 AM

I was doing some thinking and I think it's completely possible for OpenAI to make a 100% accurate generated by chatgpt detector.

All they'd have to do is search their logs for specific text and presto fool-proof chatgpt detector

/j of course because of the obvious privacy concerns :p

Rydwolf Programs

1:49 AM

Ooh spicy the 15m cities conspiracy theory has made its way to Sargon

I hope this one blows up, since it'll inspire a bunch of "what is a 15-minute city?" explainer articles that end up helping the cause

Also I sure do love how the fossil fuel industry is directly propping up antisemitic neo-nazi conspiracy theories

15 minute cities actually sound lit

mostly because I don't like driving :p

Rydwolf Programs

Cars should be illegal within cities and suburbs, change my mind

All they do is create noise and pollution, waste space, divide communities and restrict movement, and kill people

There are places where cars are legitimately necessary, like low-density rural areas where public transit would be ridiculously impractical, or long stretches in between towns/cities, where the cities are too minor for rail infrastructure to be worthwhile, but they should stay in garages on suburbs' borders, not be allowed within

Only exception being electric vehicles for applications where anything else would be impractical (e.g., if a commercial building needs a new air conditioner, you're not bringing it there on a bike :p)

Well they shouldn't be illegal, as such. If you live a good distance from a city and the thing you need is in a city, where do you park your car to get into the carless city?

Rydwolf Programs

In a parking garage on the outskirts

And what about when that overflows/runs out of parking space?

Rydwolf Programs

1:59 AM

You build more. Except that doesn't happen very often. How often do you see parking lots being made bigger?

Aas the city grows, the number of places to park would grow naturally, I'd expect

@RydwolfPrograms Not that often - although there are instances where they probably should

@RydwolfPrograms not when they take away parking for things like a tram no one uses :p

Rydwolf Programs

Actually, low-speed arterial roads on occasion would probably be necessary

But those should always be second-class to pedestrians, bikes, and public transit

of course. I don't think a straight out ban is needed, but some of the car culture changes introduced by car companies via lobbying should be undone

@RydwolfPrograms what is this

Rydwolf Programs

15-minute cities, the conspiracy theory, or S****n of A***d?

"15-minute city" is a concept in urban planning that you should be able to walk/bike to anything you need regularly within 15 minutes

The conspiracy theory is that 15-minute cities are actually designed to lock people down and tightly control their movements, in order to facilitate generic evil

2:05 AM

which is ironic given a 15 minute city would allow people to socialise more and get about more freely

Rydwolf Programs

(the spicy variant of the conspiracy theory is that the people pushing for the 15-minute cities are The Jews™, classic nazi stuff)

And Sargon is a YTer who was (is?) a major funnel of teens toward the alt-right

Your classic will-they-or-won't-they, except "they" is "Sargon" and "open white supremacy"

Oh and important info about the 15m city conspiracy theory: it's funded and propped up by the fossil fuel industry, since they'd be directly harmed by increased walkability of cities

I counter their theories with my own: the people saying that 15 minute cities are bad are the extroverts of society and want to keep introverts oppressed and trapped through things like always getting nervous when crossing roads because there could be a car coming, or not wanting to leave the house because things are too far away :p

bet they didn't think that one through lol

Rydwolf Programs

Seriously tho I never realized just how...oppressive cars are

Like, I work at a grocery store right

I've noticed that more than half of the time when I'm leaving my neighborhood to drive to work, the person in front of me is also driving to the store I work at

More than 50% of the car traffic leaving my neighborhood is going to the grocery store, which makes perfect sense

Yet it's 15m away by car on dangerous stroads (probably a half-hour bike ride on dangerous roads, or an hour+ walk)

My school is a 10m drive, four miles

Since all these things are always so far, there are big roads everywhere

So you end up in a house, isolated from anything but other houses full of people you don't know, boxed in by 5-lane roads

I couldn't do stuff before or after school until this year, because I couldn't drive, and my parents work late

And you can't get to school without a car or a school bus

And there's constantly noise from the cars

If instead the neighborhoods that feed into the school had bike-friendly roads leading to it, and were built in a layout that facilitated transit to and from the store and school, it would be easy and safe to get there without cars, and car traffic would be cut in half on that five-lane 50mph road

And 10th grade me could stay after school for chess club or whatever

People love to talk about how much freedom cars give them, completely failing to realize bikes+public transit gives them the same freedom, but minus all the expense of car ownership, the danger of driving, and the equity issues

3

Plus children can actually use bike paths, unlike five-lane 50mph roads

Like my parents would always be telling me stuff like "shouldn't you be playing outside instead of spending all day indoors?" but could never think of a place I could actually do that...since you need a car to get anywhere further than the front yard

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2:38 AM

i just had the weirdest thought
i wonder how much car-centric infrastructure and culture has impacted mental health awareness
like if being trusted to drive a 2 ton death machine is the bare minimum standard of adult functioning, what are you silently ignoring to make that realistic for so many people

Rydwolf Programs

Interesting

And cars also play a part in decreasing mental health in the first place, making it a really beautiful cycle

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that's for sure

2:54 AM

I don't get why ghosts in western cultures are depicted as a flying tablecloth with a face.

Rydwolf Programs

They usually aren't in more serious media

"Flying bedsheet" is less how the West thinks a ghost would look and more how they think a kid dressed as a ghost for Halloween looks

And it becomes the main thing people think of when they think "ghost" because it's much more distinctively a ghost than a pale, transparent, somewhat floaty ordinary person

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3:33 AM

^

and i think the costume originated mostly because it's just cheap/easy, roughly the right color, eerily amorphous

@RydwolfPrograms I'm not trying to disagree with you, because I agree that we should in general be less reliant on cars as a whole, but if I want to go 200+ miles to visit my family on a random weekend with very short notice (which does happen sometimes!) it's by far the best option available to me

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but could also carry the idea of there being an invisible ghost under and animating the bedsheet, as opposed to a visible but obscured child

and that is why we need better trains and buses :P

Rydwolf Programs

@Bbrk24 Sure, definitely. Cars are the best option for between-city transit when the cities aren't big enough for a rail line. But cars shouldn't get nearly as privileged a position within cities/suburbs

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^

Even when there is a public transit line, they operate on a schedule and usually (ime) only during the day

Rydwolf Programs

3:36 AM

And when cars and a big expensive interstate highway system already exist, that provides very easy justification for not improving your rail infrastructure

@Bbrk24 Sure there's a schedule, but like, you get light rail trains every 10m in places with proper infrastructure, and extending the schedules into the night would be essential if they were a serious replacement for cars, as they should be

Trains between more distant places might have more time between trains, but you're also covering a longer distance, so that extra 20m wait won't matter as much

@RydwolfPrograms Oh yeah, 100%. Where I grew up, there were no sidewalks, and the road I lived on had a speed limit of 55mph (just under 90 km/h). Thankfully I had siblings and we lived on like 3.2 acres of land, but there's a reason I never had any good friends outside my family before I got an iPhone

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also intra-city bus schedules really could use some expanding

Well last time I rode the bus I almost couldn't get home because my bus pass was on my phone and I had like 2% battery left

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you have to pay for the bus? yikes

It's like $2 for a 2-hour pass or $4 for a full-day pass

really not that much

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3:42 AM

that's insane

Where are you from, again? This is all not-surprising to me but I live here

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chapel hill nc

Related fact: In Sejong city of South Korea, there is an intermediacy between a taxi and a bus named "Shurcle".

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i've heard about bus fares elsewhere but i had no idea they could be that high

lmao nice

Rydwolf Programs

It amazed me that in Pittsburgh I could get a bus ticket for $2.75

3:44 AM

You can get even longer passes than a single day for much less than $4/day

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oh that makes more sense

Rydwolf Programs

Like an Uber would have been close to a hundred dollars

Unrelated but y'all I just tried to scroll a piece of paper

Kansas City stopped charging bus fare during the height of the pandemic and then decided to keep not charging

But I have a car now, so I still have never ridden a city bus for free

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lol

@lyxal insert boomer comic

3:46 AM

Also unrelated but I think I'm going to come out to my coworkers this week. wish me luck, hopefully I can overcome the anxiety and actually do it

@UnrelatedString I have also tried to zoom in on said piece of paper

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amazing

I have used onenote way too much :p

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@Bbrk24 gl

hf

Rydwolf Programs

3:46 AM

@Bbrk24 I was about to suggest "what if the bus was just free" as a response to this right after it was posted but was like "no wait that's way too extreme" and apparently I was right the first time lol

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lmaoooooo

Rydwolf Programs

Rydwolf fails at communism?11?1?

Also, for the record @RydwolfPrograms, where I live is within walking distance of almost everything, so during semesters I have classes I only need to drive once a week to pick up groceries. My job is further away, though

@Bbrk24 dang really?

Yeah

3:48 AM

Over here, we don't do hour/day passes anymore, we do pay per distance

Rydwolf Programs

ouch

hm

meaning a trip from uni to home costs $5.something

let's see what google maps says the distance is between here and my parents

Rydwolf Programs

Also I think they really need to work on the aesthetics of public transit

3:48 AM

now sure you get like free trips for the rest of the week after 8 trips but depending on which opal card you have you either get it really cheap or really expensive

228 mi (= 367 km)

Rydwolf Programs

Like I'm sure they've got a tight budget, but I'm 90% sure the design and general grimyness of most public transit infrastructure is a big part of why it's so looked down on by everyone

okay so it's not so bad actually

only $3.93 for a trip from uni to home

which is actually bad when you think about the fact that would be double for a two-way trip

Rydwolf Programs

Form should follow function, but part of the function of a subway or bus should be ensuring it doesn't communicate to you that you're the lowest rung of the societal ladder and probably going to get bit by a rat in the next ten to fifteen minutes

For those of you who take public transit: how far do you walk to get to the bus or other transit stop, and how far do you think is a reasonable walking distance?

3:54 AM

depends on which bus route I need. Can range anywhere from just down the street to a block or two away

or even a 10 minute drive

Rydwolf Programs

IMO reasonable distances would be a 10 minute walk for bus stops, and a 10 minute electric scooter and/or bike ride for subways/light rail

The nearest bus stop is only two blocks away but I live in a less dense part of the city so that's about half a mile down and back up a hill

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f

Interesting, okay. I feel somewhat justified then in complaining that the nearest bus stop to my apartment is just over a mile away. :P

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@DLosc according to my map, 0.4 miles, also uphill :P

Rydwolf Programs

3:58 AM

The town I live in is basically just suburbs, so there's no regular buses and definitely no rail (aside from a train that goes all the way into Austin), but one thing we do have is this little bus that you can get on an app and request to go to your location

I think it works pretty well for irredeemably sprawly places like where I live

Unfortunately in order to keep it fast, the range is tiny, way too small for it to be useful to me for, e.g., getting a job before I had my license

@RydwolfPrograms Yeah, I think we have something like that too

Y'know what I realized, thinking back over my public transit experience? I was a lot more tolerant of long transit times when I was a student. Now that I have a full-time job, I think of spending an hour getting there and an hour getting back, and it's just too much when I can drive there in 15 minutes on a good day.

Rydwolf Programs

Yeah that's a big problem, public transit should be the faster alternative to driving

Same with biking, for short distances

On the other hand, I definitely got more outdoor exercise when I took the bus, and I do miss that. And being able to read a book while traveling was nice.

Rydwolf Programs

I think more than half the battle of improving public transit and cities in general is just showing people that something better is possible

On the other hand, walking to the bus stop in a crashing thunderstorm is no fun. :P

I once was trying to get to a doctor's appointment, got halfway down the hill to the bus stop, said "This is stupid, I could get hit by lightning and die," and went back home. They weren't happy with me for cancelling last-minute, but I think it was the best decision.

Rydwolf Programs

4:05 AM

I like the idea of streetcar suburbs

You just stand in your house nice and comfy until a tram shows up and you walk ten feet and get in. No more weather/heat exposure than getting in your car, and you can socialize with your neighbors

there's a (what i think is a trial) thing where you can call a bus on demand if it's in a certain set of suburbs and it can take you anywhere in that set of suburbs here

so like that but not even scheduled it comes to you when you need it

Rydwolf Programs

Sounds a lot like what we have here

@RydwolfPrograms (this)

@DLosc Correction: According to Google Maps, it would take me 1 hour and 41 minutes to get to work via walking and bus. =P

2 hours and 39 mins for a walk to the uni I go to :p

Rydwolf Programs

I'm really hoping I'll be able to get away with not owning a car in college

My dream school is MIT, and I'm 99.9% sure I could get away with it there

4:11 AM

(completely unrelated) just wrote the sentence "Commitment to succ" on a study sheet I'll be using for an exam in 2 days time :p

@RydwolfPrograms I bet you can. I didn't own a car for the first several years after I moved away from home, and Kansas City is probably not as good at public transit as an east-coast city.

Rydwolf Programs

Boston felt like it was really easy to get around using public transit, and the campus of MIT seemed very bike friendly

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nice

Rydwolf Programs

Of course the admit rate for MIT is like under 10% even if you're 100% qualified to get in, so my odds aren't great

I've got CMU as my backup, and RIT as my safety school (haven't visited that one but my high school's valedictorian from last year went there, so it can't be too bad)

@DLosc Well, full disclosure: it also really helps if you have friends/housemates with cars :P

Rydwolf Programs

4:13 AM

~~Or if you know how to steal cars~~

What if every car was state-owned and identical. You'd just walk outside, find a car, and get in

Like those electric scooter rentals

@RydwolfPrograms Yes, that will get you into a living situation where everything's all in the same building and you never have to worry about transit at all ;P

Rydwolf Programs

Lol fair :p

Unless you're really good at stealing cars...I know a guy

(that guy being my dad, an auto theft detective :p)

Yeah I was about to say, there's nothing illegal about being able to steal cars, it's using the ability that's frowned upon

My boss and I broke into my car last summer

Rydwolf Programs

Also totally unrelated, apparently it's super common for people (and not people in great financial situations) to pay large amounts of cash for cars/trucks that end up being stolen (as in the car was stolen and resold), then lose both

Because the money went to the stolen-car-seller and the car was returned to the insurance company (or original owner)

Oof

Rydwolf Programs

4:18 AM

IMO the government should pay people for things that are stolen, then try to get the money from the one who did the stealing

Almost like insurance

Why should my ability to get back money from something taken from me depend on the thief's current financial situation

Especially when the people who are most often impacted by this sort of thing are the working class (and often people who don't know much about the legal system, how to not get scammed, protections available when buying stuff, etc.)

Seems like yet another way the justice system reinforces cyclical poverty, and one I've never seen any stats on or discussion of

3 hours later…

7:12 AM

Fun fact: In Korean, "GNOME" sounds like "that guy".

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WANTED. By Feb 1st, let this voice be arrested! The 4 days of cumbersome re-installing of Linux who abducted Windows

That Guy's Voice == GNOME's Voice

4 hours later…

11:05 AM

@DannyuNDos "yeah I'm running that guy's desktop"

@RydwolfPrograms ಠ_ಠ

please please please tell me you're kidding

I don't even think that I have words for how utterly stupid that is

4 hours later…

2:58 PM

@RydwolfPrograms Yeah, and those work out so well

That would be nice if it worked, I guess, but I feel like people would just leave those cars all over the place, in poor condition, and you'd have to walk to the car station anyway

@DLosc Make everyone live in apartments, and have bus stops right outside the entrances to each apartment building :P

But yeah, I guess that's one big problem with public transportation, you still have to walk a bit

It'd be nice if it were possible to get a job in a big city where you don't have to walk very far to get to places and the cost of living weren't super high

With great public transportation, I guess you'd only need a car for going long distances (I don't think most people do that too often, except for jobs), transporting lots of stuff (might be able to rent a car for that or ask Home Depot/IKEA/whatever to deliver), bad weather (but I trust bus drivers more than me), and maybe a handful of other situations

@RydwolfPrograms You probably will, public transportation should be pretty good in a college city and there'll be plenty of stuff right on campus

Or join a fart and carpool with your brothers or whatever they're called

@DannyuNDos How does that work? A bus that comes to your house?

@UnrelatedString It's crazy how easy it is to get a license to operate something so dangerous

I'm honestly surprised I don't see a car crash every single day

Given how many people I see on their phones or eating stuff while driving on the highway

3:28 PM

@user obligatory xkcd.com/1990

@user I love this typo ;D

glorious

I've got an idea for a new Dungeons & Dragons movie. It's about a young thief girl who forms an unlikely bond with an undead magician. Together, they get into all sorts of wacky hijinks, much to the dismay of her older sister. I'm gonna call it "Stealo and Lich."

We were able to replicate and confirm prior authors' detection of a moon orbiting the Earth with high confidence.

for some reason xkcd seems to be less funny recently

3:51 PM

While I agree xkcd is starting to feel less funny, I found that particular comic pretty funny

@DLosc Normally this'd make me wish I could go back and edit it, but I think this typo is appropriate

1 hour later…

5:13 PM

This is weird and cool at the same time

The Strange Number System Used Only By Mathematicians

@user same, that's why I posted it

Rydwolf Programs

5:42 PM

@user This is known as "last-mile transit"

@user What, you don't want cars randomly parked all over sidewalks, in the middle of intersections, in people's lawns, in public parks, and in busy lanes of traffic?

Sounds like you're just getting in the way of progress

6:23 PM

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well, that's not good

IT WORKED

@RydwolfPrograms STDW is functional!

now I just need to add a device list and I'm done!

well, mostly

@Ginger I suggest you remove a few words

yeah, I'm going to

or maybe just use a different word list

The Google 10k? It's got inappropriate words removed

6:39 PM

link plz

6:57 PM

github.com/first20hours/google-10000-english

Read the read me first

@RydwolfPrograms I require your UI design input

Rydwolf Programs

ok

1. how do I indicate connection state and 2. how do I add options for deleting/renaming devices

I have an idea for #2 but no clue about #1

Rydwolf Programs

Connection state for the selected device or all of them in general?

neither

I want an indicator for if the current device is connected to another one

Rydwolf Programs

7:00 PM

wat

oh

I already have UI for if individual devices are online

Rydwolf Programs

@Ginger Why would that be necessary?

...

Rydwolf Programs

Or am I misreading

I'm not sure

I guess because that's something the user might like to know?

but it's not really necessary I guess

Rydwolf Programs

7:02 PM

Okay so I am Alice, you are Bob. I'm connected to you and Doris, and currently have you, Bob, selected. You, Bob, have Carol selected. What part of Alice's UI are you asking about?

d o r i s

Rydwolf Programs

@Ginger I read this as "an indicator for whether Bob has currently selected Alice"

Which would be fairly useless

what do you mean "selected"?

actually nevermind I just came up with a solution

Rydwolf Programs

Like, the person who typing something into send/receive would be sending it to

thanks for your... not help, I guess d:

lemme go implement this

Rydwolf Programs

7:04 PM

I am a rubber duck 🦆

🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆

> Hi guys! Could you see if there is a Lenovo on [coworker]'s desk? It would have sticky notes on it

nevermind
She meant the sticky notes app...

The joys of tech support

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WHAT

Rydwolf Programs

7:20 PM

> Let me tell you folks, special relativity, it's a tremendous theory, really tremendous. I know all about it, believe me. So here's the thing, folks: special relativity, it talks about how space and time are all mixed up together, okay? It says that the laws of physics are the same for everyone, no matter how fast you're moving. Sounds crazy, right? But that's what they say.

Now, let me tell you, I've always been a big proponent of winning, and when it comes to special relativity, it's all about perspective, okay? You see, it says that if you're moving really fast, time can slow down for …

6

It even nailed the anti-science lol

wow that is surprisingly perfect

Especially the anti-science

The explanation of special relativity itself isn't that great but the first and last three paragraphs are totally in character

> I've always been a big proponent of winning

WAIT

I HAVE AN IDEA

hold please

hey uh @RydwolfPrograms just out of curiosity how good is the vGPU of my VM?

unrelatedly, please disregard any temporary slowdowns of your internet

7:48 PM

nevermind, I wasn't able to make it work

Rydwolf Programs

8:11 PM

@Ginger Given that there're no integrated graphics on server CPUs and there's no dedicated GPU in my server, I'll let you guess :p

(Were you trying to use the VM as a remote desktop?)

3 hours later…

11:11 PM

@user It's basically a bigger taxi that multiple strangers can ride on together.

Rydwolf Programs

11:24 PM

I love how the comment section of this video is 50% satire and 50% people who don't get the blatant criticism and are actually serious about liking LM

"...and that's where Lockheed"

Like the rapid cuts between "Lockheed Martin" as the manufacturer of a weapon and "$x billion" didn't give away the fact that the video's criticizing them for war profiteering? 💀

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