dual_sport_dork

dual_sport_dork OP , 23 days ago to 3DPrinting in Alternative Printer Uses

No. It's a Moto Z4, which is compatible with Motorola's "Mods" ecosystem which are a variety of accessories you can stick to the back. For data transfer they connect to those pads via pogo pins.

There are battery extender backs (which I have), a full-on gamepad case (which I also have) and also a 360 degree camera, a backplate that adds wireless charging, a mini projector, a beefed up speaker back, and an entire replacement Hasselblad camera you can stick on it as well. There was going to be a slide out physical keyboard module, too, which unfortunately turned out to be vaporware.

dual_sport_dork OP , 23 days ago to 3DPrinting in Alternative Printer Uses

Has anyone else found a use for their 3D printer that wasn't exactly listed on the label?

dual_sport_dork , 24 days ago to Technology in A PR disaster: Microsoft has lost trust with its users, and Windows Recall is the straw that broke the camel's back

The thing is, during the 95/98/ME/XP/Vista days Microsoft had less competition in the consumer computing space, smart phones weren't really a thing, and a PC was "the" way to get online. Nowadays everyone and their dog has an iPhone or Android device instead, and ever dwindling numbers of people even bother to have a PC anymore. So in modern times, there is a nonzero possibility that on a consumer level at least, Microsoft might finally slide into irrelevance. That's not to say they'll go out of business anytime soon, but they might not be able to remain the Microsoft we've known so far for too many more years.

Nerds use Linux. A lot of people who want to buy an off the shelf computer that "just works" buys a Mac. And everyone else just uses their phone for everything.

Microsoft doesn't actually do anything (except make the XBox, I guess) that non-corporate users give a shit about except "make computer machine go" and "stupid subscription ribbon bar program I need to use to open files work sends me."

This is why M$ has been so gung-ho about their path to enshittification in recent years, I'm sure. This is a profitability thing. They see the writing on the wall that just selling operating system and office suite licenses to rubes is not going to remain a profitable business model much longer. Instead, they have to scrape and datamine and sell adds and push subscriptions and all the rest of it for alternative recurring revenue, because no member of the public will willingly pay for a Windows license anymore. I sure as hell won't... If I need Windows, I'll pirate it. And there's no way they are shifting as many OEM licenses as they were in the early 2000's. People aren't buying computers like that anymore.

dual_sport_dork , 24 days ago to micromobility - Ebikes, scooters, longboards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobility in China's electric farm trucks are very different than ours. I went there to see how

Even if they did, they'd never sell. Everyone in America is so batshit insane with the expectation of everything NOW-NOW-NOW that practically no one would tolerate a "truck" that can't do 120 MPH or 0-60 in 4 seconds.

On the more prosaic side, there is no way in hell these things would pass American crash safety tests nor comply with vehicle equipment and safety regulations without a significant redesign that would add a lot of complexity and cost. Maybe you could get them rammed through as "motorcycles." They would have the same stigma as motorcycles among the general populace. These things would be absolute litigation machines in the US.

dual_sport_dork , 25 days ago to Technology in Microsoft Sued For AI Article Accusing Innocent Man of Sexual Misconduct

To err is human. But to really fuck up, you need a computer.

dual_sport_dork , 25 days ago to Technology in Microsoft Sued For AI Article Accusing Innocent Man of Sexual Misconduct

Say it with me again now:

For fact-based applications, the amount of work required to develop and subsequently babysit the LLM to ensure it is always producing accurate output is exactly the same as doing the work yourself in the first place.

Always, always, always. This is a mathematical law. It doesn't matter how much you whine or argue, or cite anecdotes about how you totally got ChatGPT or Copilot to generate you some working code that one time. The LLM does not actually have comprehension of its input or output. It doesn't have comprehension, period. It cannot know when it is wrong. It can't actually know anything.

Sure, very sophisticated LLM's might get it right some of the time, or even a lot of the time in the cases of very specific topics with very good training data. But its accuracy cannot be guaranteed unless you fact-check 100% of its output.

Underpaid employees were asked to feed published articles from other news services into generative AI tools and spit out paraphrased versions. The team was soon using AI to churn out thousands of articles a day, most of which were never fact-checked by a person. Eventually, per the NYT, the website's AI tools randomly started assigning employees' names to AI-generated articles they never touched.

Yep, that right there. I could have called that before they even started. The shit really hits the fan when the computer is inevitably capable of spouting bullshit far faster than humans are able to review and debunk its output, and that's only if anyone is actually watching and has their hand on the off switch. Of course, the end goal of these schemes is to be able to fire as much of the human staff as possible, so it ultimately winds up that there is nobody left to actually do the review. And whatever emaciated remains of management are left don't actually understand how the machine works nor how its output is generated.

Yeah, I see no flaws in this plan... Carry the fuck on, idiots.

dual_sport_dork , 25 days ago to No Stupid Questions in Is there any significance to people using emojis that match their skin tone?

That, and I think they trace a direct lineage back to the original Harvey Ross Ball smiley face, which was also yellow.

Me, I don't particularly care about matching emoji skintones to myself. Rather, I'm much more annoyed that I can't tune the 🏍️ emoji to match the color of my motorcycle. What a rip off.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to No Stupid Questions in Why do people throw out old motors, bicycles, anything metal into rivers and lakes instead of a junk yard or the trash system?

Mostly the second point. I would wager from experience that the majority of small man-portable conveyances that wind up at the bottom of lakes and rivers are there because they were stolen and thrown there. Bikes, motorcycles, rental scooters, shopping carts, etc. The reason is hooliganism, and the contributing factors are alcohol and teenagerhood.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to Technology in EcoFlow’s $200 PowerStream is so clever, you might buy a $4,000 solar generator

If one of these were made for the US market it would obviously be configured to work at the US mains voltage and frequency. (Europe is 50hz, US is 60).

Your home's power input is also 240 volts in the US, regardless of being split into two 120 volt rails at the breaker box. It would be trivial to hook up a 240 volt system if you really wanted to, albeit not through one of your regular 5-15/5-20 outlets. You'd have to do it via a dryer outlet or something.

Watts are watts. If the unit is capable of feeding 800 watts into your home's electrical system, the voltage is irrelevant provided it can supply sufficient amps. A normal US household circuit is 15 amps, so a hypothetical US version of this thing would have to supply ~6-2/3 amps at 120v rather than ~3-1/3 amps at 240v. No big deal. It's not even close to maxing out a single residential circuit on either continent.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to Games in Atari Acquires Intellivision Brand

You should read up on the Amico and in particular watch Pat The NES Punk's various videos on it. The entire debacle is hilarious.

The Amico is/was basically an investor scam. Yes, it did eventually turn into an actual product (which is crap) but it was never intended to be a serious contender to anything. The intent was for Tommy Tallarico to get his face published everywhere and pocket/embezzle a significant amount of investor and Indiegogo money.

The system itself is basically an out-of-date smartphone chipset running a cut down version of Android. Most of its games, as you would expect, are basically mobile trash. Other than emulated Intellivision titles, anyway. And mobile trash you have to pay up front for a console with bullshit controls to even play it on.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to Games in What are some eras of gaming that you've stopped feeling nostalgic for?

I agree on the N64, and the problem with it is that everyone is nostalgic for "the system," but in reality they're only nostalgic for Mario 64, Goldeneye, Conker, Mario Kart, Ocarina of Time, Banjo-Kazooie, Smash Bros., and Perfect Dark. It's not that the N64 has a top ten, it's that it basically only had ten good games total. And bangers though they may have been, everything else on it was crap.

I'm sure two or three people will pop out of the woodwork now to argue with me and insist that no, back in the day they really did love WCW Mayhem or 1080 Snowboarding or the butchered piece of shit version of THPS or Chef's Luv Shack or whatever the fuck, but that's the thing: It's always back in the day, when you were a kid and only owned four cartridges, and you didn't know any better because that's all you had. Nobody goes back to play any of the remaining 378 games now.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to Technology in Self-Driving Tesla Nearly Hits Oncoming Train, Raises New Concern On Car's Safety

He also said they were ready to manufacture the 2nd generation Tesla Roaster "now," which was back in 2014. No points for guessing that as of yet (despite taking in millions of dollars in preorders) they have not produced a single one.

Given this very early and still quite relevant warning, I'm astounded that anyone is dumb enough to believe any promise Elon makes about anything.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to 3DPrinting in Gridfinity 2x2 organizer for my bathroom

There are various tricks I could think of, but in Slic3r/Prusa/Orca/etc. I think I would just do an auto arrange on them with the spacing set to zero.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to Not The Onion in Trump's $60 Bible & Constitution omits amendments ending slavery and allowing women to vote

Me, I'm all about the 3rd.

I better not catch the king trying to quarter troops in my house. Whoop his ass, is what I'll do...

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to Not The Onion in Trump's $60 Bible & Constitution omits amendments ending slavery and allowing women to vote

And it's an equally amusing parallel that there are, depending on how you count, 17 or 18 commandments in the bible but everyone goes around acting like there are only 10. And then, there are 27 constitutional amendments but people go around acting like there are only 10...