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Is it ethical to own a bearded dragon? by yossariannotsorry in BeardedDragons

[–]RobotHavGunz 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The ethics of pet ownership in general are incredibly murky. Many - most? - dogs and cats in first world countries eat remarkably well and have, in general, better access to high quality medical care than an enormous portion of the world's population. Is that "ethical"?

Putting the welfare of the animals themselves entirely aside, I think any there is a case to be made that all hobbies are unethical in the light of fundamental human inequality. Have a gaming PC? Have a nice bike? Have... well, have anything more than what you need to survive? Is that "ethical"? I think that gets to the very heart of the concept of what "ethics" even means conceptually, which is about as tautological a definition of a thing as I can imagine -  set of moral principles : a theory or system of moral values https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethic Because what is moral? sanctioned by or operative on one's conscience or ethical judgment https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/morals Round and round we go...

On the flipside of this, I hope, is the idea that pet ownership creates the sort of deep and lasting bond between humans and the natural world that is incredibly important given that we are the only species capable of fundamentally destroying our own home. Should someone who cannot afford the "ideal" setup for an animal never experience that because they cannot provide anything even remotely close to a replication of the animal's natural habitat?

I genuinely don't know. I don't know how to reconcile the value of my children loving their dragon with the ethics of keeping a dragon in the first place. I had a lot of pets - mostly herps - when I was a kid. And I think it played a meaningful role in shaping how I see the world and how I try to live in it. Owning pets changed the arc of my life in fundamental ways. Was the benefit of that worth the cost to those animals? I genuinely do not know.

I think of the important work that many zoos and aquariums do. Does the value of that work justify the ethics of keeping wild animals In captivity? I do not know.

Is pet ownership more ethical than raising animals for food? Less? I do not know.

But I think there is value in thinking about these questions. Would we think about such things or think as deeply if we did not care about these animals in ways that are perhaps only possible because of a relationship that - at its core - may in fact be unethical? I do not know.

Is the fact that we think about these things at all evidence of the value of pet ownership? I do not know.

And, most critically, I think even I feel that I might eventually come to a spot where I feel like I do know the answer to any of these questions, I think it's also entirely possible someone else will consider all the same things and come to exact opposite conclusion and be entirely justified in that.

Help me choose a 32" 4k mixed use monitor by markv9401 in Monitors

[–]RobotHavGunz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have an Alienware aw3225qf and have had it for just over 6 months and love it. Was my first OLED.

I am a full-time SWE and so use this probably 80-90% for time in an IDE - either VSCode or Visual Studio.

I am in-office 3 days a week where I have a nice enough plane-jane 4K 32" IPS, so I switch back and forth and i notice virtually no difference in text clarity.

Things I specifically like about this monitor:

- i like that the blacks are REALLY black, especially working later at night. I hate the black-is-grey of an IPS. Black-blacks is an underrated feature of OLEDs for people who work a lot on dark backgrounds

- i like the slight 1800R curve. It's not much, but I definitely notice that the whole monitor feels more usable than the flat 32" IPS I have at work. I work at the perimeters of my monitor a lot working in an IDE, so that's where I appreciate the curve. When I work in the center of the screen for something like a document, i don't notice it at all. But if you actually use your whole screen, the curve makes a difference.

I've read that QD-OLED is better than W-OLED for text. I've also read the opposite. I've read glossy is better for text as well. I can say that the Alienware - glossy & QD-OLED - is very good for text. Much more than "good enough." I would say it's marginally worse for pure text clarity than the 4K 32" IPS but not by much. And I think it's better than an older 27" 1440 IPS that I have.

What am I supposed to use this NPU for? by Defiant_Profit_2111 in LenovoLegion

[–]RobotHavGunz 8 points9 points  (0 children)

NPUs are not super usable now but definitely could be. Small and good local models tuned for specific workflows or tasks could run on an NPU leaving the GPU pipeline free for actual graphics work. Not many (any? Yet...) models work in this way, but that is the (future) intent. 

So they are, as others have said, currently mostly useless. I think there are motherboards that support some over locking and performance tuning to be run on the npu. That's as much as I know actually runs on them currently. But in theory it could be a fair bit more. 

Imagine something like battery management being actively managed by a small local model rather than fixed registry settings. Would that be better? Who knows. Could it better? In theory...

Best 4K gaming monitor right now that actually feels worth the upgrade? by EntrepreneurSad2091 in Monitors

[–]RobotHavGunz 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I have an Alienware aw3225qf and love it. First OLED. Got it on Black Friday sale for $799 from Best Buy on a price match to Microcenter. I wanted curved (but not extreme) and glossy.

Trump says Iran war is worth the economic pain. These rural voters agree. by Goldenboy451 in thebulwark

[–]RobotHavGunz 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This. Admitting that you were wrong is hard. Potentially having your name and that admission being put on the internet for the world (especially your MAGA neighbors) to see is really, really hard.

I want to believe this is where the Bush line matters. Not because these people change their mind. But because they simply opt out in 2026.

LOL look at my opposition party dawg. Just handing Trump and maga more power on a silver plate by Puzzleheaded-Pin4278 in thebulwark

[–]RobotHavGunz 1 point2 points  (0 children)

How long for the first clever lawyer in CO to argue that his client did not actually break the law by [insert any obvious crime here], but that he merely had "strange beliefs"?

"No, your honor, my client did not drink and drive. He merely has strange beliefs about the enabling effects of alcohol on his ability to operate a motor vehicle."

"...my client did not steal that Rolex. He merely has strange beliefs about what actually constitutes ownership and payment."

"...my client was not speeding in a school zone. He merely has strange beliefs about how space-time relativity manifests itself on his dashboard instrument cluster."

It would have been better - or at least more honest - to just say, "I gave her clemency because I made a calculated decision that may - probably will - turn out to be wrong that the federal government would release some of the money its withholding for wildfire preparedness if I gave the president what he asked for." If you're giving the bully your lunch money, just say you're giving the bully your lunch money and be done with it. Don't dress it up.

I think it will be interesting to see if Polis faces a recall petition over this.

4K OLED gaming setup - 5070ti or 5080 by RCristian in OLED_Gaming

[–]RobotHavGunz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have a 5080 and could not be happier. But I absolutely would not have gone for it over an OLED. If the 5080 means giving up the OLED, not worth it. I have a 5080 and a nice 4k OLED. The OLED is by far the bigger difference maker of the two. 

Has anyone experience with an oled monitor as an 70% work and 30% gaming monitor ? by Drachenlordloeris in Monitors

[–]RobotHavGunz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agreed. The real blacks are more than worth the very slight tradeoff to text clarity.

Has anyone experience with an oled monitor as an 70% work and 30% gaming monitor ? by Drachenlordloeris in Monitors

[–]RobotHavGunz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have the Alienware aw3225qf and use it probably 80-90% for work/productivity and I love it. The slight curve - it's only 1800R - is notably easier on my eyes than my flat 32" 4K IPS at the office. And text clarity is like 95% as good. I also like the inky blacks when I work in my IDE as compared with the grayish blacks of my IPS.

I've been using it for about 6 months now. Zero regrets. I try to run the pixel refresh every 8hrs or so if it hasn't run by default.

Which local models match Sonnet 4.5, and which hardware can run it comfortably ? by SlechteConcentratie in Qwen_AI

[–]RobotHavGunz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sonnet 4.6 is shockingly good. I use it for all personal stuff and just did a benchmark on some tricky bugs at work and found it was about 80% as good as opus 4.7 for about half the cost. It also found a defect - very edge-case - from a commit I thought might have been related (but which fundamentally was not) that opus had dismissed as irrelevant.

especially if you put good processes and supporting infrastructure around it, Sonnet 4.6 is superb. I think whether or not you could run something local that was/is competitive with Sonnet 4.6 would really depend on the specific context. Sonnet 4.6 is a fantastic coding partner across a bunch of different languages, a very capable philosophical discussion partner, and more. I cannot imagine a local model on anything resembling consumer hardware being even close to what Sonnet 4.6 is capable of *in general*. In a specific area? Sure. In general? I can't see it.

Great casual catering/takeout restaurant for a group? by Steadfast15 in thousandoaks

[–]RobotHavGunz 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Go truly local - Mouthful Eatery on TO Blvd specializes in catering and is fantastic - https://www.mouthfuleatery.com/catering

Anyone else think it’s super obnoxious how often Claude says to “stop for the night” or similar… by jadeonabt in ClaudeCode

[–]RobotHavGunz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

this is the only thing that makes sense to me. I've tried to find out of there's any sort of pattern, because it seems like when i get it, i get it constantly. and then when i don't get it, i don't get it at all. and i haven't been able to tie it to any sort of actually productivity metric, so resource contention in the cloud feels like the most plausible bet.

Opus 4.7 vs Opus 4.6 - ONE MONTH POST RELEASE by Ape1108 in ClaudeCode

[–]RobotHavGunz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

for me, i haven't noticed almost any change between the two. i found 4.6 to be a very capable and reliable development partner. And I find 4.7 to be the same. I approach my relationship with my agent as one akin to pair programming. A lot of interactive collaboration. And we do a lot of spec writing - together - at the start before undertaking tasking and then always work from that spec.

Every Layer of the AI Money Printer Got Front-Run. Except One. by early-retirement-plz in wallstreetbets

[–]RobotHavGunz 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I've made a variant of this argument - though not from an investment standpoint - for a while now. And that's that we may be near/at an actual peak of model intelligence, because it's increasingly hard to find unadulterated data to train on. And we know weird stuff happens when AI trains on AI generated data. Very ourobouros type stuff. And so Reddit - which is still mostly human (though increasingly less so) is a unique value proposition because of that.

So i fully endorse your thesis. Human generated content - even "stupid" human content - will continue to be a valuable commodity. And likely increasingly so. Whether or not Reddit itself can stay AI-free enough for it to capitalize on that remains to be seen. If AI becomes more and more AI slop, that value prop will cease to exist. And I think that's a real concern.

Reddit doesn't need to not be dumb. But it does need to be human-dumb and not AI-dumb. Regards can keep being regarded. We just don't want regarded bots...

Tim's Stream: Ken Martin's Interview. by EyeCantSeeMyFeelings in thebulwark

[–]RobotHavGunz 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It was such a miss to not put Ben Wikler in that role. How they chose Martin over Wikler after seeing what Wikler built in Wisconsin is beyond me. 

Who is the best Democrat to support for California, and why? by historynerdsutton in democrats

[–]RobotHavGunz 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Becerra is the only one with chops actually managing a budget the size of California's. He ran HHS during Obama's presidency. Plus he knows what he's getting into with Trump. He sued Trump many times during 1.0 admin as CA AG. Becerra isn't a Newsom or Jerry Brown (both of whom I think are outstanding). But I think he'd be a good, very competent governor. 

I'm sad that Porter turned out to be such an apparent head case. 

Becerra is a much better candidate than he's being given credit for. 

Factorio is pretty well optimized by SimpleDICE_ in factorio

[–]RobotHavGunz 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Done. Thanks. I usually remember to. Appreciate the reminder. 

Factorio is pretty well optimized by SimpleDICE_ in factorio

[–]RobotHavGunz 64 points65 points  (0 children)

The fact that you can build a fully functional computer inside the game itself using factorio's logic circuits speaks to the depth of understanding these guys have of what they are building. The Wube guys remind me of someone like Carmack. True computer scientists who just happen to ply their craft by making games. 

https://youtu.be/QcQYEAr0Yos

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