the human *ears. we need both ears working together to determine the source of a sound.

teamwork makes the dream work, people.

that man, he had a plan, for the canal…

crap i messed that up.

because people can’t misuse laws for pet euthanasia in order to get an early inheritance, or to get their toe in before a will changes.

in many scenarios, euthanasia does make sense but there is ample opportunity for greedy people to misuse such laws. it would be hazardous to enact such a law unless adequate protection is provided.

is this not just affirming the premise of the sixth book? that’s the whole reason why Potter found the Prince’s spells so fascinating. school subjects are not meant to entertain. they are meant to teach.

also, as book five attests–as well as does the subject of history of magic–some syllabi and some subjects were way more boring than others.

my main gripe would be that nobody taught english or any other form of formal communication at hogwarts. i dunno how they all just didn’t end up speaking like Hagrid.

is this our timeline’s version of “there are no atheists in foxholes”?

and what about big PCs?

bot users? yes!

human users? well, yes.

that aphorism about pots and kettles needs to be reworded to human beings calling other species “invasive”.

no metaphor would be more fitting.

perhaps you ordered it off their website and clicked “reject all” to the pop-up?

huh. so global warming does have some benefits.

what? and ban all flights to australia?

this team is truly the invertibles.

you are correct for now. but one can foresee the day when ai is mandatorily baked into the computing experience. and this is something that isn’t too far into the future, either.

the hope is that having limited hardware makes it difficult to have such mandatory “value adding services” forced upon you.

the roots of your response may lie in derision, but it is–in essence–accurate.

i did have a chromebook immediately before the mac mini but i switched for two reasons: (1) the androidification of it really slowed things down and (2) i just gave up on chrome as a browser around then.

some of us have such simple needs that a low-powered machine is actually viable. one can understand how that may seem worthy of scorn to other users, but it works for me and i wouldn’t change that behaviour even if it means that i have lost the respect of random internet users.

i’ve had an 8gb m1 mac mini since the days of the pandemic and it runs just fine for my use. i’ve not had any issues whatsoever with it.

if 8gb ram is a barrier to ai services running in the background, then personally for me those are machines to use exclusively.

(aside, if ai is so intelligent and all, why can’t it figure out how to run itself on lesser memory?)

fucking humans!

no, concrete wall.

inquiry: i’m just catching up with the boxing day matches highlights, and there’s a heavy smoky cloud visible in multiple grounds.

what is it? just condensate? a fog? mist? or were those matches played in new delhi?

wow, premium in the usa is expensive. it’s a little under $3 per month here in india for the family plan and even that’s after a recent 16% hike. the individual plan is even cheaper.

i guess these rates are in store for us as well in the future?

why, though? the choice of the year ending on the 31st of december is wholly made by man–nothing in nature dictates that choice.

if anything, the original calendar had february mopping up after all the other months (which is why the fewer days as well as the tacking on of the leap day there). we’ve already advanced the end of the year by an arbitrary amount of two months. what’s one more week?

unless, of course, you’re saying that the year in review does not take into account the last week of 2023. in which case, yes, you’re right.