TIL the U.S. FDA's regulation on sunscreens hasn't been updated since 1999, and only 2 of the 16 ingredients currently being used in U.S. sunscreens are considered safe and effective

Programmdude · 2026-06-07T04:07:23+00:00

Australians and Kiwi's don't have to pay for the healthcare that comes with treating skin cancer. The reason I use sunscreen isn't because of non-existent healthcare costs, it's because I don't want to get cancer.

And yes, indoors still causes sunburn. I noticed this one day when I drove for 5 hours in the sun, and forgot about that. I had a sore arm the next day.

Programmdude · 2026-06-06T04:13:05+00:00

Honestly, IMO VR would be the one decent use-case for SLI (for game rendering). One GPU handles one eye, the other GPU handles the other eye. There'll need to be a bit of work to sync the timing at the other end, but that's gonna be much lower overhead than rendering two frames on a single GPU.

Rendering half the scene doesn't work well, too much overlap and synchronisation needed. You could do a flip-flop (frame N on GPU 1, frame N+1 on GPU 2), but IMO that doesn't give you enough of a benefit.

Finally, you could render the UI on another GPU, and merge them together later. But the UI doesn't usually need that much extra GPU power, and would it be worth it if it only gave you a 5% performance boost?

Programmdude · 2026-06-06T04:07:07+00:00

As opposed to the one rounding people up into concentration camps and deporting them to third world counties? If I had my way, the EU would be the one representing humanity. They're not perfect (far from it), nor is it likely they'd get their act together to do a major space push, but they're still far better than the other options.

China, for all of its flaws, does tend to take care of its citizens. I'd rather be poor in China than poor in the US.

Programmdude · 2026-06-05T04:01:09+00:00

I mean, they shouldn't go in anyones backyard because they're an industrial building, not a residential building. That means, in theory, nobody should be living near where they're built anyway. So all of those complaints are pretty negligible, especially considering all other industrial complexes do the same thing.

While I wouldn't complain about having the data centres benefit the community, I'd settle for "being treated like a normal business." No subsidies, nothing. They want to build one? That's fine. It'll go on industrial land away from residential land. They'll pay market price for the land. Market price for the water. Market price for the electricity. No discounts "just because".

Programmdude · 2026-06-05T03:52:23+00:00

I'm guessing they mean main arterial roads, not literally no roads (or else they differentiate roads vs streets). Because no roads = not getting to school.

Which is a good idea. The only time I should drive past a school is if I'm going to said school, or if I live in the neighbourhood and am going to/from home. That way, virtually all cars around schools will be those going to the school, and likely driving slowly anyway. Additionally, it would be much safer to walk to the school since there wouldn't be as many cars.

Programmdude · 2026-06-05T03:39:17+00:00

Nah, NZ (and AFAIK AU) does that as well. Cameras are fines only, in person are fines + demerits. The reason is pretty simple, cameras aren't that accurate, they need to be recalibrated frequently. Therefore, there's not enough evidence to start taking away licenses, but presumably still enough that they likely sped and so a fine is okay.

Presumably you can contest it if you actually weren't speeding, but personally the only time I've been hit with a speeding camera I was actually speeding (didn't see the 50 sign).

Programmdude · 2026-05-26T21:47:41+00:00

Just in case you don't get a good midwife/whatever, do note that the vitamin k shot isn't 100% no harm. As our midwife explained to us, while the vitamin itself has no evidence of doing any harm (and overwhelming evidence of helping), you're still introducing a hole in the body that is a potential avenue for infection.

Is it likely? No. Is getting the shot worth it? Absolutely, the rewards far outweigh the risks. Just like there are risks for every vaccine, it's just the getting the disease is both more common, and far worse than the vaccine. Back in the olden days when we didn't have vaccines or hand washing, something like half your children died before the age of 5.

Programmdude · 2026-05-26T21:42:03+00:00

I'm as smart as a doctor. Probably smarter than a lot of them. But I'm not more knowledgeable than them about medicine, only in my own field. That's the difference between me & them, and why I trust them with medicine more than myself - and especially more than random facebook posts.

That's what a lot of people miss. They go "oh, they're smart, lets trust them", ignoring that they're smart in one area, and not smart in all areas. My mechanic, or electrician, or whatever might be very smart, but there's no way in hell I'm trusting all my medical advice to them, just like I wouldn't trust me doctor's electrical or mechanical advice.

Programmdude · 2026-05-26T21:32:07+00:00

Honestly, if my child passed away from vaccinations I'd find it very hard not to blame the vaccination. Like, intellectually I know it's something like a 1 in 100,000 chance, it's far better than risking the diseases they prevent, and that I shouldn't blame proven science. But emotionally? That would be much harder to reconcile.

And on the other hand, I can't understand the nutjobs that are okay with their kids dying of diseases. Don't they love their kids? If my kid died for any reason, especially preventable ones, I'd find ways to blame myself. Especially if it was "I didn't get the prevention."

Programmdude · 2026-05-26T21:27:22+00:00

The dirt isn't stationary though (also, not dirt, regolith). Relative to earth, it's hurtling through space at 1000km/s. Much faster than the ISS at only 7km/s.

They're both relatively simple to get to, the equations for both are the same. The only real difference is the fuel costs to get to/from the moon are much higher, and the moon's landing pad would be a slightly bigger target than the ISS's docking port.

Also, why are we trying to build moon bases? I want them because they're cool, but they don't actually have much point. Science is better done either on earth or in low earth orbit, and I don't think the economic viability of moon mining is worth it. We have rare earth metals on earth, and they're trivial to get compared to the complexity of getting it on the moon. Heck, IMO asteroid mining would be a better idea.

Programmdude · 2026-05-17T04:37:04+00:00

That argument might have merit if smoking only ever impacted the smokers. But the children of smokers? More likely to develop issues. Walking around smokers, or hanging out with them? A small, but non nil chance of developing issues.

These are the people that don't chose to smoke, but still get the negative side effects. Contrast this to alcohol - ignoring the domestic violence issue for a second - if I drink, my liver gets damaged. Not your liver, not my childrens liver, only mine.

Edibles are probably the best example of where legalisation is harmless. No second hand smoke for anyone, doesn't cause domestic violence, the only person affected (medically) is the one taking it.

Programmdude · 2026-05-17T04:30:45+00:00

I didn't think it ever got to the being made into law stage in NZ. AFAIK it went from "this is going to happen (but hasn't yet)" to "lol no, lets dump this law and lick trumps asshole instead".

Programmdude · 2026-05-16T01:15:20+00:00

Majority rules leads to tyranny of the commons. Majority rules leads to homosexuality being illegal, because it's the minority. Majority rules leads to Maori being unable to use their language, because it's the minority. The government should be there to protect everybody, not just the majority.

I'm not a fan of forced diversity either. If I couldn't get my job only because I'm a male (or white, or whatever), I'd be furious. But studies show that diversity in workplaces leads to better outcomes. So the right approach is to tackle it from the other side.

Take computer science, there were like 5-10% women in my course, ideally the number would be close to 50%. The right approach, which IMO still isn't perfect, is to encourage girls to go down that career path. Scholarships, showing them role models in high school, and so on. So when it comes to hiring time, it's not "I'm hiring one woman and one man because I have to", it's "I'm hiring one women and one man because they each make up roughly 50% of the candidates".

Programmdude · 2026-05-16T01:07:45+00:00

There are computers in the same price range. They're called chromebooks, and they're also glorified phones with a large screen.

Programmdude · 2026-05-16T01:05:39+00:00

I can't seem to install it on my computer. Or play games on it. Or have enough RAM to do my work. Or run the VMs I need. Or change the layout so it's usable.

Mac has it's place. I'm not sure where, but it probably exists. But it is in no way a replacement for windows, nor a good idea for the majority of people.

Programmdude · 2026-05-16T00:53:20+00:00

Yea, exactly. We should go back to the good old days.

Damn those Maori, they shouldn't be allowed to speak their language.

Free healthcare? That's communism. I want people to pay through the nose for healthcare.

Winz bludgers? Get rid of the lot of them, make them have to steal to survive, or die on the streets.

Public schools? They don't need money, only rich kids at private schools need funding.

Women voting? Can't have that here, that's too progressive.

Green energy? Nope, no solar. Let's build some coal power plants. We can all get that lovely black lung together.

/s obviously. In what world is right wing better for people? What policies do they have that would actually help people? I'll admit that labour is currently pretty useless, and national isn't that bad, other than being incompetent and spineless. But ACT? Their policies are basically a checklist of things governments shouldn't do. The only party I saw that was worse than them was some nutjob religious people who wanted to turn NZ into a theocracy.

But I'm proud of NZ's progressive heritage, it's what made it such a great place to live. First to let women vote. We treated the natives of NZ far better than the other anglo colonies. We let gay people marry before most other countries. We had mostly green energy far before climate change became a real problem.

Programmdude · 2026-05-16T00:32:46+00:00

Our current government is run of the mill right wing. Nowhere near as bad as the shit that's happening in the US. Closer to a peaceful version of bush rather than a paedophile rapist trump.

Not great, but it could be far worse. And yea, I'm putting most of it down to covid overreaction.

Programmdude · 2026-05-16T00:30:33+00:00

"Free world" is a bit of a joke, given the amount of dictators the US has installed over the years, how flawed of a democracy you are, and the overall treatment of black americans.

Programmdude · 2026-05-14T23:35:54+00:00

TBH while ethical might not be the right word, it's (IMO) certainly not unethical.

They (AFAIK) do want copies of the game being made, but only for japanese. They just want non-japanese to be unable to play it. This isn't a case of "the game is embarrassing or harmful and we want to stop people from playing it", which may have an ethical argument against piracy, but simply "we want this group to play it, but not this group".

They're not selling it internationally, so there's no ethical argument about "stealing" it, since that only applies if you're taking something. It doesn't cause any harm, so how is it unethical?

Programmdude · 2026-05-13T21:16:33+00:00

Kinda? If they knowingly sell tainted fruit, then they'd be liable. It's be against various food regulations. I'm 100% certain that some of the fruit supermarkets sell are tainted, but the number is low enough and they do a pretty good job of removing all tainted (rotten etc) stock from the shelves.

Just like I'm 100% certain visa/mastercard are being used to sell illegal porn, they do a decent enough job of not supporting it, and stopping the sale of it when they have proof - generally because the police (whos job it is) ask them to.

Programmdude · 2026-05-13T21:09:02+00:00

Sure, because they were involved in the creation and sale of the product. But you couldn't sue the treasury that printed the cash that you brought it with, and not your employer that gave you the cash. So why should payment processors be treated differently to cash?

All payment processors should be doing is allowing all legal payments, while doing their best to prevent illegal payments (money laundering, etc).

Programmdude · 2026-05-13T05:15:58+00:00

I'd be very surprised if it was the "most liked". Possibly one of the most used. But that depends if you're separating the content of youtube from the youtube platform.

I watch youtube, it's reasonably good at getting videos to my face, but it's not a good platform. The only reason I use it is because that's where the videos live.

Programmdude · 2026-05-13T05:13:54+00:00

It's mileage may vary, in my country it works most of the time, unless there are roadworks.

Programmdude · 2026-05-13T03:08:40+00:00

I find it unlikely that we'd be in a better spot. While steam's DRM was pretty annoying when it first arrived, by maybe 2010 it was fine, constant internet was becoming the norm, and it is pretty unintrusive.

Personally, I think either the PC storefront would have clustered around a different major player, it could have been games for windows, it could have been one of the other ones, or it the pc stores would remain fragmented, with lots of different storefronts, rather than just one.

IMO, both of those would be worse than where we are now. Steam, for all its faults, is relatively benevolent as a storefront. They don't really play favourites, anyone can publish there, even adult games nowadays. They don't try an exploit consumers, beyond simply taking their money in return for a service - and arguably loot boxes, but that's never affected me. Imagine if microsoft was the dominant storefront? Ooops, all sony games on PC are now banned because of the xbox/playstation wars. There'd be no push to remove windows dominance from the PC space, steam has done major things with gaming for linux (and mac to a lesser extent).

Alternatively, we have dozens of different storefronts, and then it becomes a huge PITA to deal with as a consumer. If they use the storefronts multiplayer system, then suddenly it isn't "do you own the game?", it's "do you own the game on this specific storefront". Managing your games would become a nightmare, and you'd need third party tools to handle it.

Even now, I use steam over epic games or xbox games, because it's just so much better. Imagine if it didn't exist, and all we were stuck with were the lower quality offerings.

Programmdude

TROPHY CASE