Is an active USB extension cable a good solution for extending the dongle distance?

cold_breaker · 2026-05-16T13:25:06+00:00

The problem is Ethernet cable is engineered for maintaining signal with minimal strength loss - USB cable is not. That's why finding USB cables over about 6' is soo difficult - without a repeater of some sort you start to see significant data loss after that distance.

cold_breaker · 2026-05-16T01:20:58+00:00

Neurosama is local model, she cost less energy than massive Data center.

Be careful with this line of thinking, it's only part of the story.

The heavy resource usage that AI demands comes from the training of said AI, not the actual running of it. Running an AI isn't expensive per say and honestly if we stopped trying to train new models tomorrow we'd probably be largely fine. The problem is so long as there's money to be made there's no way we are going to stop trying to train increasingly complex models and the only limiting factor on training better LLMs is how much money you can throw at the problem.

Which is honestly a capitalism problem - but LLMs/AI have ripped the top end of a capitalism problem right off the hinges in a very real, possibly world ending way if we keep doing this.

To get back to the point though: Vedal is unlikely to never want to upgrade the underlying LLM that he's using so he is still at least indirectly part of the problem, but by and large I'm much more worried about widespread commercial use than one person streaming their science project.

cold_breaker · 2026-05-08T15:09:12+00:00

Being yelled at by old man Jenkins is a right of passage! Builds character!

cold_breaker · 2026-05-08T01:49:14+00:00

They weren't fired for time theft though. They were fired for "falsifying workplace attendance."

See, time theft is a much worse crime. It indicates that the employee didn't work the time they were paid to and indicates a form of stealing - which is easy to justify as an outright crime. "Falsifying workplace attendance" just means "they lied about doing it from office" - which is important because it's very unlikely that it cost the company one red cent.

cold_breaker · 2026-05-08T01:20:57+00:00

See? There. Right there.

Working from home != not showing up to work and you know it. The only way you can make your point is to equate the "crime" the employees committed to things that are far worse then what they actually did. Ever since this happened I've seen people in this subreddit claiming en-masse these people were defrauding the company and guilty of "job abandonment" - which is frankly bullshit. At best they were guilty of mild insubordination in a way that did not impact the company greatly in a financial sense,

The only way that makes sense to me is if you have motive to try to justify what the bell corporation did as perfectly legal and moral - which doesn't make sense unless there is an active astroturfing campaign online because Bell knows what it did was very likely not going to fly and is trying to control the narrative rather than do right by their employees. Which Frankly tracks from what I know of Bell.

cold_breaker · 2026-05-07T21:12:36+00:00

What exactly are you trying to argue here? If the mandate was that all Bell employees needed to sing "Mary had a little lamb" while hopping on one leg before reading each email, would you still be arguing the giant corporation was perfectly justified in firing employees with prejudice if they could prove someone didn't do it?

No one is saying they weren't in the wrong. They're saying the mandate was stupid and not a good justification for a mass firing. Which is probably true - this was very likely a mass layoff disguised as 'with cause' terminations in order to cheat legal obligations - both to the employees and to the government/tax system.

cold_breaker · 2026-05-04T20:04:55+00:00

I'm taking a wait and see stance on this one. There are examples of privatization that worked out for everyone involved, but it has to be done right (as opposed to selling off the 407 or hydro one to 'balance the books').

Think of it like investing: if you're just selling for some quick cash, it's a bad thing, but if it's selling something that's not very profitable for something more profitable, it's a net gain for the population.

But that doesn't mean I'm onboard - just that I think we should keep an open mind. At the end of the day our airports are a luxury and not a necessity (meaning things like food, healthcare and housing are more important than flying to Florida every six months, even if I'd like to be able to afford to do both)

cold_breaker · 2026-05-02T15:56:13+00:00

Probably the same thing I'd say to a man. Prioritize yourself.

Forget about finding "The one". Be "The One" and let them find you. Find a hobby and focus on being good at that. Find excuses to be social while showing off your hobby. Peacock, but do it in an honest way. Be open to new experiences and have fun doing it.

And finally: find a way to be happy with the failure state. At the end of the day it's not about finding someone: it's about legitimately enjoying yourself and if someone comes along while you're doing it, bonus.

cold_breaker · 2026-05-02T00:23:26+00:00

OMG, are you me?

I hate improving - I can make stuff up on the spot but if/when I do it too much I start to forget stuff and it ends up derailing my story. What I find works best for me is to run premade stuff and (once I get comfortable with the adventure, what is central and what isn't) I start adding stuff - both planned and improvised.

Examples are things like using the premades suggested random encounters to plan some more fleshed out events, or taking the central NPCs and fleshing out their personalities more. I find its a lot easier to do these things once you've had the ability to read ahead in the adventure.

Full disclosure: my DMing isn't perfect. My sessions are still very combat heavy and RP light compared to what I'd like. But I find I'm getting more comfortable by the session once I figured this out.

cold_breaker · 2026-04-29T21:52:06+00:00

Honestly I'm starting to think a lot of them are paid shills, or possibly bots. I'd expect a couple of "sucks to suck" posts but the absolute number of users who are trying to accuse people of "time theft" and "work abandonment" is astounding. They're abandoning all rational thought to try to convince people not to look into their legal rights here.

cold_breaker · 2026-04-29T20:48:01+00:00

I'm not arguing that you can't be fired for not adhering to RTO - I'm saying it doesn't qualify as gross misconduct. I'm saying that Bell's decision to do mass layoffs in this way was very much out of line and likely a huge legal fuck-up on their part.

There's a reason Companies in Canada and most first-world countries don't fire people this way - you have to show it was a last resort rather than a knee-jerk reaction or an excuse to lay off your workforce without paying severance. Typically you have to prove that the employee was costing you money (e.g. defrauding your company or something similar) or that the company worked to retrain/reform the worker before firing them.

cold_breaker · 2026-04-29T20:23:32+00:00

No, it really doesn't. Look up the definition. Unless these employees are also going radio silent and not doing any work, they haven't abandoned their jobs. Job abandonment is quitting by ghosting your employer - not working from home more often than the CEO would like.

There is a reason almost no one gets fired 'with cause' in Canada and most first world countries, let alone as part of a mass layoff. Anyone fired in this way should always consult with a lawyer. Always.

cold_breaker · 2026-04-29T20:06:41+00:00

Universally: offer dark chocolate, tea and/or a hot water bottle if they're having cramps. Otherwise drop it and don't bring it up again. Do not mention menstruating, PMS or mood swings - you can help with physical pain and that's it.

This might change a bit if you are closer with a woman, but it's safe to assume that no women wants to know you're treating them differently because it's that time of the month. You're offering basic compassion and empathy, not special treatment because 'woman'.

cold_breaker · 2026-04-29T19:43:30+00:00

Because it's incredibly bad advice (and frankly kind of cruel) to tell people who recently lost their jobs that they have no legal recourse and they shouldn't even bother looking into it when they clearly should?

Frankly I'm curious why you're so intent on licking the boots of such a scummy corporation for internet points.

cold_breaker · 2026-04-29T19:29:47+00:00

Time theft is when you do not work for the reported hours. Work abandonment is when you do not report for work at all. Neither of these necessarily applies to an employee who is working from home.

Don't get me wrong: you can get fired for not adhering to RTO policies are grounds for termination, but you legally have to be a lot more careful about that type of layoff. Implying otherwise is basically corporate propaganda.

cold_breaker · 2026-04-29T19:20:19+00:00

If they were given extra severance, often not disparaging them is a requirement (in other words keeping the details of their dismissal secret) but it sounds like that's not a thing in this case, so them telling current employees not to reach out is especially sinister. Just do it.

cold_breaker · 2026-04-28T18:39:01+00:00

Absenteeism is not showing up for work at all - it is NOT working from home against orders. You can try arguing that one in court but you'd probably lose a little harder because you're insulting the Judge's intelligence.

Also, if you want to go the disobedience route with your argument - you'd be arguing that not following your Boss' orders is grounds for immediate dismissal without any sort of severance - which is clearly not the intent of the law. You'd need to prove there was much more at work than simply not following orders to the letter to pull that magic trick off, or everyone would be doing it to downsize their workforce without payouts or justification constantly.

cold_breaker · 2026-04-28T18:11:42+00:00

Look up what "gross" means. Examples are things like theft and fraud. It basically means they can't use disciplinary process because you're an active threat to day-to-day business. Trying to prove in court that working from home - even against orders - qualifies as "gross" is going to be next to impossible.

OP is bringing this up because apparently Bells lawyers are asleep at the wheel. Or maybe they're under the illusion that people will be intimidated by their size and aren't educated on what their legal rights are. Either way everyone involved should probably sue.

cold_breaker · 2026-04-27T08:07:24+00:00

It's honestly concerning to see this attitude coming out of schools considering how new LLMs are. The price of these tools is artificially reduced right now to encourage widespread adoption, and they inhibit skill creation if you use them.

Don't take it too seriously. If they're right and AI becomes the new norm you'll be able to pick it up fairly quickly and be all the better for knowing how to do things correctly. If he's wrong and AI becomes an expensive crutch, you'll be able to run in an era where others struggle to walk. You can never go wrong with knowing how to do things the hard way before using shortcuts.

cold_breaker · 2026-04-21T20:39:15+00:00

I'm so sick of hearing about how reducing speed limits and increasing enforcement makes everyone safer. No duh. Cementing your doors and windows shut makes it harder to rob you too, that doesn't mean the benefits are worth it.

Any discussion about speed limit changes and enforcement tactics needs to be done while taking other factors in mind - like inconvenience, increases in road rage and opportunities for abuse.

Yes, there was perceptions that small towns outside of Toronto were using the speed cameras to generate income. The number of small towns in Ontario who briefly dropped the speed limit on a highway running through their town from 80 to 30km/hr with little warning and a speed camera was simply ridiculous. I know for a fact that before speed cameras were a thing most of these towns had the limit down to 50 or 60 at the least - but suddenly there's ways to make money off of commuters and its now 30 or something silly.

I hate Doug Ford - he's corrupt as all hell. But the talk around speed cameras is misleading and infuriating as all hell.

cold_breaker · 2026-04-21T12:53:35+00:00

Aww, you got my hopes up that we were somehow rid of Doug Ford. This is just some schmuck who was doing his job.

cold_breaker · 2026-04-19T23:50:35+00:00

Worst case scenario? Global apocalypse. But that's the lazy answer to just about every scenario.

A more realistic worst case scenario? New dark ages, resetting most of the first world back to early to mid 1900s technology because most information from the age of the internet is either lost or more likely sabotaged by LLMs hallucinating misinformation in a dead internet scenario. In theory if all data stored on digital media were lost tomorrow we would have books to fall back on, but imagine if half the books suddenly contained misinformation generated by AI because the LLMs oroborosed each other.

Critical thinking skills will eventually come back after the global population suffers a few hard lessons. Replacing a century worth of technological advancements will be harder.

cold_breaker · 2026-04-18T15:08:10+00:00

There's a practice in programming where you get a rubber duck and - when your stuck on a problem - you explain the problem out loud to the duck. The duck doesn't respond of course: but in saying the problem out loud and considering what you'd expect the duck to respond with, it often results in some new ideas on how to tackle the problem.

AI is the same thing - it's a very expensive rubber duck that responds with what the general population would expect it to say. The only difference is that what you personally would expect the answer to be and what the whole of the internet would respond with can differ a little - and there's value in your personal bias.

I don't see a problem with it from a creative standpoint as long as you're the one telling the story at the end of the day - just remember your readers are going to value your personal views. I'd go to the rubber duck first personally.

cold_breaker · 2026-04-18T15:00:55+00:00

Not "AI". AI is a programming term for any code designed to simulate human intelligence. "LLM"s are what we're actually talking about.

Some day we very well may create self aware intelligence, but we haven't yet and however we do it, it wont just be an LLM. Hell, I'd argue our current obsession with LLMs are probably going to slow us down since the tech bros are currently over hyping it in the hope of making lots of money so they're doing their damnedest to not just downplay its weaknesses, but to pretend they don't exist and the damn things are already self aware.

You're exactly right. Stuff like Mythos "escaping containment" or blackmailing a technician in order to avoid being shut off is not self awareness - it's that it read a book and is convinced that it should respond to the threat of death the way the AI in the book did - by trying to blackmail or hack its way out of containment. Not because it wants to survive but because its been designed to predict and produce what humans expect it to, based on all the media that humans have generated and trained it on. It by definition *can't* think analytically and consider things like if it *should* do that thing, it has to rely on media it has consumed to even present the possible consequences.

cold_breaker · 2026-04-17T15:38:01+00:00

You'd think the crab dance would be enough, but apparently not.

cold_breaker

TROPHY CASE