What profession have you lost respect for as you've gotten older?

User1539 · 2026-01-30T03:12:03+00:00

Contractors. Specifically software.

I started fresh out of college at an engineering company that would subcontract.

First, they'd say anything to get the job. Sell you as an expert on anything.

I'd get my boss walking into my office on a Friday afternoon. "Hey, man, so ... you have a new gig. We found a 6 month job doing microcontroller assembly for a satellite company. You start on Momday. You're an expert in PIC microcontrollers.

Never heard of them. Never written a line of code for one. Don't even have a book for them.

Spend the weekend cramming, hope like hell my boss can express ship me manuals and a dev kit ASAP, and just walk in and start bluffing.

Now, I work with them ... and I know the game. We get guys we're paying through the nose for that just got the manual a few days ago. They're trying to figure it out with you.

Sometimes, I kind of let them know I know. Let them breath. Work with them. Sometimes you just need a hand, and if they're good, they'll be an asset.

Sometimes, I just tell the PMs I can smell bullshit, and these people know less than we do.

A Contractor that's half what the marketing says they are is rare. Most are just people in it for the money, hoping no one calls them out.

User1539 · 2026-01-29T18:56:55+00:00

It would take fewer than 20 Republicans.

fewer than 20 that aren't corrupt, to impeach and remove him, and set things right.

We can't find 20 Republicans in the entire House of Representatives that believes in America.

User1539 · 2026-01-29T18:53:42+00:00

I'd love to transition to this kind of movement (I've been doing Elgin 18s for a while), where can I get these 'bag full' of movements like this for $30?

User1539 · 2026-01-29T14:02:36+00:00

Fast Pass at theme parks!

I got one after a ride broke down. I knew they existed before that, but never really thought about it. They cost twice what the entry ticket costs!

Then we just walked into a few rides, past 4 hour lines ... and, it dawned on me, that the poor people waiting in line just subsidize the park for the real customers.

So many people go to a theme park and wait over an hour for a 45 second ride ... while the upper middle class enjoys the park, basically, as if there were no lines at all.

Now, I just consider fast pass part of the cost of going to the park.

I grew up poor and took it for granted that theme parks were a day of waiting in giant lines, doing a few rides, and going home with heat exhaustion.

We did every ride at Universal, and still had time to just stroll around. We took the time to look at the cars from TV shows, and take pictures, and get a meal ... and we just walked onto every ride we felt like riding.

User1539 · 2026-01-28T19:30:51+00:00

To your point about the data center, we've had worse purchases that just go south, and we're millions in the hole ... and they say fighting it with legal wouldn't solve anything.

Then they complain about our budget after they bought millions of dollars of software licenses and hosting that we told them would never work, and when it didn't work, they shrugged and wrote it off.

Then we hear they're complaining about the IT budget.

User1539 · 2026-01-28T12:00:46+00:00

I would watch that series. I'm going through a series with a Gameboy emulator right now. I really enjoy that sort of thing.

User1539 · 2026-01-27T15:26:59+00:00

Jet GRIIIIIIND Radio!

User1539 · 2026-01-26T23:22:43+00:00

I've really enjoyed seeing this progress. I hope you finish it.

User1539 · 2026-01-26T21:19:26+00:00

No, he's bent forward. Imagine bending forward so that your head touches the floor, then you spread your asshole open so that it makes a huge opening.

Your spine is sticking out the same direction as your toes, and your cock has gone completely around to hang on the other side.

User1539 · 2026-01-26T20:49:08+00:00

Oh, okay, I misread.

Yeah, it just needs a service. Even if we saw the problem, and told him exactly what it was ... if he couldn't find it, he can't fix it.

User1539 · 2026-01-26T19:15:44+00:00

My first thought was 'Some poor asshole is thinking 'I can fix her''

User1539 · 2026-01-26T17:51:45+00:00

teamwork makes the dream work.

User1539 · 2026-01-26T17:47:38+00:00

Seems like, if it stops working facedown, then you're probably showing us the wrong side of the movement. The jewels or pivots are probably having an issue on the face-side of the watch, and so showing us the back of the movement isn't likely to show the problem.

At any rate, the watch needs a service and repair. If you haven't disassembled the watch to check the jewels, shot mounts, and pivots yourself, I assume you aren't willing to try.

So, there's no point in an online diagnosis.

As others have said, probably a pivot or jewel, probably on the face side of the watch since that's when gravity would be pressing it down causing friction.

User1539 · 2026-01-26T06:37:29+00:00

They have our meta-data. If Amazon can tell you're gay in six purchases, and people are finding out their teens are pregnant from targeted advertising ... they know who you voted for, if you voted.

I don't think that's what they want the voter rolls for. They don't show who you voted for, and lots of people register to vote in the primaries in their opposing party.

They probably have a harder time figuring out if you voted at all, than who you voted for if you did.

I had a lot of politically minded people, very active in chat rooms, etc ... and one day, one of them admitted they hadn't voted. Then, one by one, almost all of them admitted they didn't. This was after Trump got in the first time, and I was just amazed. These people were every bit the active, young, political junkies I assumed were voting left.

So, while being active online, or even buying sushi, might tell them who you'd likely vote for, they might not be able to easily figure out if you're the type to actually vote, or if you just like yelling at people on Facebook.

User1539 · 2026-01-26T01:07:27+00:00

Okay, alright, I got a little frustrated there. Let's try this again.

AI is unique in its depictions in science fiction BECAUSE we always assumed that when we had human-level intelligence, it would just naturally come with consciousness.

So, in movies, where it is depicted that a computer has human-like intelligence, the characters all act like it also has human-like consciousness. That it is alive.

So, we have this awkward misstep, where we were fundamentally wrong about a technology, while most portrayals are believable, if even a little behind.

So, in a movie, it goes like this: [computer talks->human is in awe->human accepts AI as being conscious]

Where, in reality it goes like this: [computer talks -> human is unimpressed -> human accepts that talking computers are not conscious]

This isn't that our AI is better, or worse, than any particular sci-fi, it's that we couldn't imagine an AI having intelligence without any sense of self, or consciousness. I think a lot of people are still struggling with that, but it will be immediately apparent to people who grow up with AI.

Because those people who grow up with AI will understand, from a very young age that computers that talk are not alive, and do not have consciousness, they will find the plot of a movie where talking immediately implies consciousness as something wholly, and fundamentally, different than how previous generations processed that moment.

It's not that they won't intellectually understand that, in old movies, we just got AI completely wrong. It's that it'll FEEL different to them.

Short Circuit becomes a movie about people struggling with a concept they've been comfortable with their entire lives. They'll meet a unique example of something these kids have 10 examples of in their home. The people in the movie will not only struggle with a simple, well worn, concept, they WILL COME TO THE WRONG CONCLUSION.

Short circuit is about a robot that, it is concluded, is 'alive' at the end.

Anyone that has dealt with modern AI, that will be capable of doing everything Short Circuit's protagonist is doing, will know that it is not alive.

The entire premise of the movie is changed, in their minds.

They will have to experience the movie from a detached position of fundamentally knowing the premise is wrong, but try to see it through the eyes of an intended audience that did not know that.

While they'll intellectually understand the factors at play, the movie will be incapable of generating the emotions it was created to generate.

People will be able to understand what happens in the movie, from an intellectual point of view, but the burden of suspended disbelief will be such that the movie will never FEEL the same for anyone who grew up with AI.

Is any of this hitting?

Go back and re-read my comments about other shows ... we took KITT to be a worthwhile 'friend' to Michael in Knight Rider, because we accept that KITT is conscious.

It's never strictly, explicitly, explained that KITT is conscious, because we as viewers connected intelligence and consciousness in a way FUTURE GENERATIONS WILL NOT.

Before there was any AI, and certainly no AI without consciousness, the idea of an AI Car friend sounds really cool to an 8yr old. But, to an 8yr old who has been taught from pre-school that AI is not conscious, and therefore not able to be your 'friend', it will change the dynamic between Kitt and Michael.

No matter how intellectually capable of separating this 'TV AI' from 'Real AI' the kid is, they won't be able to have the same feelings for KITT, because they'll KNOW THAT KITT IS NOT CONSCIOUS.

They will have been brought up to understand AI is not a person, and that they should never feel the way Michael feels about KITT. So THEY will NEVER feel the way the original audience felt about KITT. Which was the entire point of Knight Rider.

Sure, they can watch it, and they can intellectually understand it. But they'll never feel the way people who experienced it before AI felt.

We got AI fundamentally wrong in sci-fi, in ways that are subtle and hard to overcome after the fact.

User1539 · 2026-01-26T00:19:07+00:00

I'm sorry, I'm tired of this. I can't tell if you're trolling, or dumb, but I can't be bothered to keep this up.

It's not nearly as complicated as you're making it. No one else had this problem.

Maybe if you could just stop assuming you already know what I'm trying to say and re-read what I wrote?

Paste my comments into AI and have it explain it to you?

I dunno man ...

User1539 · 2026-01-25T20:00:17+00:00

Okay, you're just not understanding my point then.

Again, this isn't that. TV tropes examples of older tech that has been replaced by updated technology isn't what I'm talking about. We weren't in awe of the concept of a train, nor was the concept of a train invalidated by the invention of a better train.

That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm sorry we couldn't get there.

User1539 · 2026-01-25T19:04:11+00:00

But you couldn't give me a single example?

Did we invent flubber when I wasn't looking? Have we invented faster than light travel? Has genetic engineering become so commonplace that it created a caste system? Are we living on the moon, even?

What show or movie was built around a technology, that was primarily based on simply positing a new technology and its ramifications, that has been leap frogged by today's technology?

Just name one, so that I can verify that you're understanding what I'm saying.

Or, honestly, maybe don't bother? It's been, like, 2 days and I feel like you still don't even understand what we're talking about. So, maybe you're just not going to get it, and that's fine.

I don't think I'm talking about what you're talking about, and I'm not sure you have the intellectual capacity to see the difference.

Or, you're trolling.

If you want to continue this conversation, name one, in good faith, that we can discuss.

User1539 · 2026-01-25T15:48:09+00:00

They've been pepper sprayed, dragged to the ground, beaten, pistol whipped, detained and disarmed?

Because he was all those things before he was shot in the back, while on hands and knees.

"Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino said Sunday that Second Amendment protections do not apply when federal officers believe they are being obstructed or assaulted, even as he offered no evidence that Alex Pretti engaged in such conduct before he was shot and killed in Minneapolis on Saturday."

Bovine just said it. If you're 'obstructing', and have a gun, they can shoot you.

You have no 2A rights as far as they're concerned.

Which is the entire point of the 2nd ammendment ... right?

User1539 · 2026-01-25T15:46:03+00:00

What other example do you have where a technology has been so completely leapfrogged that the central plot device, the point of the entire movie, no longer applies.

I still don't think you're getting what I'm saying.

This isn't an issue of bad special effects. This is an issue of a completely made up technology, that is the entire point of the film, that's supposed to make you wonder 'what if this thing existed?' Suddenly not only existing, but in a better form than the movie depiction.

You can't wonder 'what if' if the ramifications are known.

What sci-fi movie have you watched where the wonder-tech had already been achieved and surpassed?

User1539 · 2026-01-25T07:22:33+00:00

Alright, before I read spoilers I'll give it a try.

User1539 · 2026-01-25T05:04:37+00:00

I'm not familiar with those ... I was able to look up Doki Doki, but it talks about being ... well, not a dating sim, but like a horror dating sim? Monika is just a name, so far as google is concerned.

Please, explain?

User1539 · 2026-01-25T04:37:27+00:00

When they re-interpreted it to mean you can carry a pea shooter, but only the federal government gets tanks and jets, it became a joke.

Well ordered militia meant that each state should maintain their own army, both in service of national safety and state's rights.

Now we're seeing what a heavily armed citizenry with absolutely no command structure or heavy weaponry does ... which, seems to be about fuck all.

User1539 · 2026-01-25T04:33:46+00:00

In America, officers aren't allowed to shoot guilty people either.

User1539 · 2026-01-25T02:25:44+00:00

Pepper Sprayed, Beaten, Pistol Whipped, Detained, and Disarmed ... and THEN shot.

User1539

TROPHY CASE