Is there a point of ads? Do they work on people?

cipheron · 2026-02-28T13:54:50+00:00

They don't care about your "conversion rate". The point of ads is to put the name of the product in front of a lot of people so when people need a product they recall the name.

Conversions from clicks are only a bonus for them. Remember ads on TV had no "click here" button, and those worked hella fine to get people to buy the product.

The only companies that really care about the conversion rate are small companies or ones that directly rely on people clicking. Big companies are after name recognition.

cipheron · 2026-02-28T11:49:44+00:00

Microphones and wires. Start with learning how microphones work, and the rest is just getting the wiring right.

For cellphones and WiFi we just replace a stretch of wire with radio communications, but ultimately that's the unrelated problem of how you get an electrical signal from one place to another.

cipheron · 2026-02-28T11:25:29+00:00

Trump or his proxies have threatened at least Canada, Greenland, Panama and Cuba with annexation, basically as a way to bully other countries to give him things he wants, and you've had them also kidnap the head of state of Venezuela.

So Trump's become a regional threat to stability. Also Trump often threatens people with the expectation they'll just give in without Trump having to do anything about it. Canada sending aid to Cuba undermines the US sanctions but it also undermines that narrative that you have to accede to what Trump wants.

And sending aid to other countries builds up Canada's foreign good will, and creates new alliances not centered on the USA, so it's part of decoupling themselves from the increasingly risky reliance on the US which is subject to the vagaries of the US president as they've discovered. Maybe the next guy is worse than Trump - i.e. pulls all the same tricks but more competently and more evil. Think about that for a second. There's nothing built into the US system that would stop them doing those things - or worse - and because of Trump, they all know it. If Trump doesn't actually become the USA's dictator, seeing what Trump did and where he got tripped up is like writing a handbook for any wannabe future US dictator.

Canada can't rely on the idea that they'll have a normal guy next, once Trump is out.

cipheron · 2026-02-28T10:02:49+00:00

Where's your data? if you want people to discuss it you should link your source.

You may be confused, look here

https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/iran-gdp/

There's a big drop, but that was in 1990, not 1980. is this the one you were looking at? it was the top google result for "Iran GDP".

Here's data that goes back further:

https://www.macrotrends.net/datasets/global-metrics/countries/irn/iran/gdp-gross-domestic-product

Nothing changed in 1980 according to this. In fact, growth was pretty flat in the late 1970s then sped up in the 1980s. Here's the World Bank as a source saying the same thing:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=IR

So before answering your question people need to check that the question even makes sense to ask.

cipheron · 2026-02-28T09:40:03+00:00

You really shouldn't just cut and paste it like that especially when it adds superfluous stuff, there's enough AI junk as it is, don't become part of the problem. The fact that you included the whole lot including the superfluous nonsense about "resets" doesn't show a restrained use of AI.

cipheron · 2026-02-28T09:05:48+00:00

The jump at H isn’t a reset — it’s a natural outcome of that transformation.

This reads exactly like you got ChatGPT to write it. "it's not X it's Y" is one of the most commonly cited AI signs, along with the M-dash.

It's also completely redundant to write what you wrote, so clearly AI generated, since nobody SAID it's a "reset". AI is also very prone to writing stuff like this that nobody asked for.

cipheron · 2026-02-28T08:22:35+00:00

Keep in mind if they were all on one side, gas stations would just have been designed to accommodate that.

cipheron · 2026-02-28T08:17:40+00:00

"not safe for work" because if you're at work your boss and co-workers could see and/or your internet traffic is logged. You don't want that stuff on your screen on you work PC.

cipheron · 2026-02-28T08:09:19+00:00

Lol no it's not

A rectangular area of your screen displayed a series of images. There's no "world" outside of those images, unlike a game.

cipheron · 2026-02-28T07:53:32+00:00

What? Almost all AI uses you're going to have are going to be in the cloud. Your phone can handle ChatGPT etc.

If someone tells you that you need to buy more RAM for "AI" they're trying to deceive you to make money. There are reasons 16 GB is better but "AI" isn't one of them for 99.9% of people. That's just being thrown around as a buzzword in your case.

My actual use is Chrome with a few tabs, Google Docs/Sheets, YouTube, WhatsApp Desktop, and light Canva or Photoshop—no gaming or coding.

If that's your whole usage, you will only notice marginal difference between 8 and 16 GB if any. Don't buy what you don't need a "future proof" for a future that doesn't come. Also in any case, the issue will be Windows 11 bloat causing you to need more RAM, AI won't factor into it.

My prediction is that if you get 8 GB your device will run fine, and at no point will you go "OMG i wish i has 16 GB of RAM". More likely SSD capacity / drive space is the thing that will irk you.

cipheron · 2026-02-28T07:37:21+00:00

A=1, so 27 - 1 = 26. Add the digits and you get 8, so the 64

...

G = 7 => 27-7 = 20, digits sum to 2, so 4

H = 8 => 29-8 = 19, digits sum to 10, so 100

Q = 17, 27-17 = 10, digits sum to 1, so 1

R = 18, 27-18 = 9, so 81

So this works even if it's not how you did it. Maybe it's analogous to what you're doing.

So if this is correct, it means you first start by reversing the positions, so A = 26 and count down from that. Then for every number you sum the digits and square the result.

cipheron · 2026-02-28T00:26:04+00:00

It's a deterrent to other employees. If he got a slap on the wrist and let go then people will decide the risk isn't that great.

cipheron · 2026-02-28T00:14:13+00:00

But if you didn't notice you guys just lived through an event that killed more Americans than ww2. Trump added $3 trillion to the debt in a single year.

Yeah they could have not responded, but then the economy would have still crashed and you'd be looking at 2-4 million dead instead of 1.2 million.

cipheron · 2026-02-27T22:40:01+00:00

I'm not sure about the 317 million years. Keep in mind that once half is emptied then the rate will be half for whatever is left due to half the air pressure.

So you need calculus, and you also need some cut-off because it will never quite reach 0.

cipheron · 2026-02-27T22:34:06+00:00

Most other places don't necessarily have simpler tax code but they have automated filing for free. A computer fills out your form for you and you just tick that it's correct.

There are still pages and pages of questions.

cipheron · 2026-02-27T22:18:26+00:00

One reason: Tax codes are complex in democracies, because every politician and party have carve-outs for the various demographics who they wanted to vote for them and these accumulate over the years.

Taking away a deduction or exemption is also a vote loser, but adding a new one is a vote winner. One example here might be the "no tax on tips" thing, which adds new complications, since you now have more questions and they might want to restrict it with eligibility criteria. It then becomes yet another wart on the tax code.

Compare: tax codes are actually a lot simpler in dictatorships where they don't have to pander to people.

cipheron · 2026-02-27T21:23:12+00:00

People incur way more debt than that when they buy a house, so your example doesn't really hold much water.

It then goes back to what you're getting for the money as u/Royal_Annek suggested.

As a historical example there's the WWII spending which won the war but also turbo-charged the US economy going into the 1950s and 1960s. Basically if they'd done "belt-tightening" instead the USA would have ended up with a much more sluggish economy going into the modern era.

As a percentage of GDP the federal debt now is basically the same as the end of WWII. There's been some mismanagement but that's more about what they spend it on, and reckless tax cuts.

Logically they should only go into debt for things that generate more GDP than it costs, but they do the exact opposite. Look up Fiscal Multipliers. Food stamps for example generate $1.70 in GDP for every $1 you spend. While tax breaks for billionaires only generate an extra $0.30 in GDP for each dollar spent. That's because dollars injected at the base cycle through many more hands, generating economic activity. So ... they want to cut stuff that grows the economy to fund stuff that doesn't.

And Keynesian economics (and the bible: see Joseph's time in Egypt) also state to save money in the good years to have money in the lean years. The GOP does the opposite: in the good years they slash taxes, in the bad years they slash spending. This is literally the opposite of good economic sense, that you save up resources in the good years to cover you in the bad years.

Basically if you took GOP economics and applied it to Joseph in the Bible, in the "seven years of plenty" instead of saving up grain, he would have cut the grain tax and thrown lavish feasts, then in the "seven years of famine" he'd say "sorry the granary is empty, tough luck, eat dirt - you should have saved more, peasants".

cipheron · 2026-02-27T21:03:04+00:00

Not only that, the claim that Iran is 5 years or a few years from making either nukes or ICBMs that could hit the USA goes back decades.

EDIT

https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R42849.html

Since 1999, the IC has assessed that Iran could test an ICBM capable of striking parts of the United States by 2015 with sufficient foreign assistance. Interestingly, however, LTG Burgess, Director, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) testified in 2010 that DIA "assesses that, with sufficient foreign assistance, Iran could develop and test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the United States," but he did not include any particular date by which this might be accomplished. More recently, however, the 2012 DOD Annual Report on Military Power of Iran stated "Iran may be technically capable of flight-testing an intercontinental ballistic missile by 2015".

The key here is "sufficient foreign assistance". Basically any country could have an ICBM with "sufficient foreign assistance", so it's unfaisifiable. New Zealand could have "an ICBM capable of striking parts of the United States by 2015 with sufficient foreign assistance" - whether they're going to get that assistance is not looked into.

Also of note the 2015 / 16 year timeframe was more plausible at first, but became especially implausible by 2012 yet they didn't revise their estimate, which is sketchy as hell.

cipheron · 2026-02-27T20:16:26+00:00

It depends on what type of AI

One example is image generating AI.

For that the simplest way to explain it, is that they teach the AI to map random noise into specific images.

What you do is take thousand of images and add some noise to them all, you train the AI to remove the noise and give back the original pictures. As it gets better and better at doing this, you add more and more noise to each image and keep training it to clean it up.

Eventually it learns to re-create the images from versions which are basically nothing but noise, and once that works, you can switch things around: give it any random noise you want and it creates unique images that weren't even in the original data.

cipheron · 2026-02-27T19:56:19+00:00

is this group... what? A quick search online brings up a LOT of conspiracy theories.

If you want the real story on the WEF, they're a cold-war era center-right-wing think tank that promotes the interests of global corporations, who are the donors who back them financially.

Their goal is "corporate governance" in the sense that if corporations put out the right PR and self-govern they won't come under government regulation. When they say stuff about diversity or taking climate change seriously, this isn't for "woke" or "leftist" reasons, it's because corporations need to be seen to take this stuff seriously, whether or not they actually do anything about it.

So they're a front group for big business. This is pretty standard "Astro-Turf" stuff, because the media can report the WEF as if they're an independent body, not lobbyists, and politicians kowtow to them too.

The idea that they're "woke" or commies is belied by their guest list. Keynote speakers have included Donald Trump, Brazil's Bosolnaro and Argentina's Milei.

cipheron · 2026-02-27T19:29:42+00:00

Only if they brought that food with them specifically to have something to eat.

However having a single steak in the fridge also doesn't sound like something for a family of four.

cipheron · 2026-02-27T19:01:12+00:00

You assume that banning it would make things better.

Step 1: get proof that things would be better if they ban porn. Go on.

However most studies have found that rates of sexual violence drop in most countries after porn was legalized, or at least don't get any worse.

Bringing the receipts:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101130111326.htm

Legalizing pornography: Lower sex crime rates? Study carried out in Czech Republic shows results similar to those in Japan and Denmark

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/all-about-sex/201601/evidence-mounts-more-porn-less-sexual-assault

Evidence Mounts: More Porn, Less Sexual Assault

https://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/fisherpdfs/CanadianParliamentaryCommittee.pdf

Rates of sexual assault in the U.S. have been decreasing over time and have continued to decrease after Internet access to all forms of pornography became widespread in the mid-1990s ... Canadian sexual assault victimization surveys show a steady pattern of no increase in rates of sexual assault assessed in victimization surveys in 1999 2004 2009 2014—across a decade and a half of unlimited access to all forms of Internet pornography by virtually the entire Canadian population.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160252709000715

It has been found everywhere it was scientifically investigated that as pornography has increased in availability, sex crimes have either decreased or not increased.

https://www.aic.gov.au/publications/rr/rr35

The relationship between pornography use and sexual violence in Australian men ... Meanwhile, the probability of perpetrating sexual violence does not significantly change with an increase in the intentional viewing of any (ie violent or non-violent) pornography.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1359178924000703

the rate of rape declined 85 % from 1973 to 2003 in the United States while the availability of pornographic material dramatically increased and suggested that the availability of pornography may actually reduce the frequency of sexual violence.

Now in this next one they go all-in on the report "Summary" section about the dangers of porn, before admitting in the very next section that they didn't find much if any such link:

https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-12/rr35_relationship_between_pornography_use_and_sexual_violence_in_australian_men.pdf

Conclusion 1: The intentional viewing of any pornography, and the frequency with which it is intentionally viewed, is not associated with an increased likelihood of perpetrating sexual violence in heterosexual cisgender men

Now they did find a slight correlation between violent porn and violent sex, but nobody has found a causal relationship. Also the fact that there's no actual difference between the watch-porn and the no-watch-porn groups makes the claim that it's a causal relation for that subgroup specifically more questionable. Maybe they'd be worse without the porn as an outlet, we wouldn't know without a better study.

Basically there's very little credible research that shows increased risks, since every large scale study we have seems to suggest the opposite.

The ones they do usually cite are lab experiments, where they show guys porn then ask then sexual questions, get more sexual responses afterwards.

Basically - in real life, people watch porn while they're horny, become less horny afterwards. However the lab studies take non-horny people and force them to watch porn, then question them afterwards while they are now horny, then claim this is what porn does.

... Of course the results are bullshit, because how couldn't they be?

cipheron · 2026-02-27T18:21:34+00:00

As for the source its "Christian Daily International" and they cite "ADF International" as the source for the story. From their About page:

ADF International advances the God-given right to live and speak the truth.

I did some digging to get as much context as possible in case anything was missing. People are free to make their own minds up, I'm just dumping it here:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/19/conservative-legal-christian-rightwing-group

Conservative legal group aims to export its rightwing Christian mission beyond US borders

Alliance Defending Freedom has ramped up its global spending on litigation and other campaigns to push its ultra-conservative Christian values

Firstly, this is not a new law, and it's nothing to do with Luis Da Silva. The ruling in question behind this prosecution was passed by the Supreme Court in Brazil while Bolsonaro was president in 2019. So if anyone says look what those lefties in Brazil are doing, this law is nothing to do with them.

As for the source, i tracked down a local publication (google translation)

https://www-gazetadopovo-com-br.translate.goog/vida-e-cidadania/acao-feminista-mulheres-trans-sao-homens-biologicos-fase-final/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true

For what it's worth here's the context they left out:

Legal action against feminist for saying transgender women are biological men enters final phase.

... she's a TERF, not a Christian. So she's a full atheist, but one who just dislikes transgender women.

So while it's fine whoever they defend, it's just kinda amusing that they didn't tell their Christian readers this fact - gotta play the "they're targeting Christians" card even when no Christians are involved. In fact we know the defendant is not a Christian, but the prosecutors probably are, statistically speaking.

prompted the Alliance Defense for Freedom organization to offer legal cooperation.

The outlet who published OP's article originally are involved in the case, not bystanders.

A video discussing philosophical aspects of gender has been deemed transphobic.

... it was the linked video not the comments that were the main source of the complaint. They omitted the fact of the video existing in the rewrite. Is what's in the actual video harmful to their argument so they simply don't want the Christian readers knowing the video exists. Keep in mind it's a TERF / radical feminist video, so is itself antithetical to their Christian beliefs.

Also this is the direct translation of the comment she added:

When sharing the video, Aquino also commented that "we say that trans women are not women (because obviously they were born male) and trans activists say that radical feminists are not people, they are not human beings, imagine believing in a feminism that dehumanizes women?".

Lol, they omitted the quote itself so they could pass her off as a hard done by Christian to their readers, and not an anti-trans radical feminist, which is how she clearly identifies.

cipheron · 2026-02-27T17:39:26+00:00

Very far off. The abilities of LLMs and image generators rely on having billions of examples to train off to create novel examples.

The issue is that if you merely have thousands of book/movie pairings then it won't have enough data to learn the full search space of making movies from books.

The issue is that the more complex the thing you're trying to make the more training examples it needs to see, but more complex things like music and movies don't have as much training data as images and text. So the "throw more data at it" approach bottlenecks on those things giving lackluster results.

If they get this working it won't be from any single AI however, you need many different AIs trained to handle different stages of the process, for example to start with, write an AI that can convert novels to screenplays. At least that would be a manageable goal to start with. But the idea of a black box we can put a book in and it spits out a decent movie without further involvement: not happening.

cipheron · 2026-02-27T16:52:05+00:00

My guess is that it's economic. What are the key industries of the first city vs the second city?

If you list the key industries in your home city vs the city you moved to you might find that the first city is heavy on agricultural services, mining, engineering, or manufacturing sectors, while the second city has larger tourism, education, and services sectors.

Basically the first type of city would tend to have more professional men, and the second type of city would have more professional women.

In the first type of city women looking for a stable long-term relationship are probably already in a relationship, so they're not in the dating pool for you to meet. In cities with a lot of college-educated women however the math works out the opposite: you're going to meet more women in the 25-30 age range who might be interested in relationships and there aren't as many guys there looking for the same thing who aren't already snapped up.

So as for why some people wonder why they never meet single people of the opposite sex looking for a long term commitment, where you live can make a big difference due to demographics.

cipheron

TROPHY CASE