mayniac (u/mayniac) - Readit News

mayniac commented on The failure of self-checkout technology bbc.com/worklife/article/... · Posted by u/LaksiMati

guappa · 2 years ago

I've had the checkout machine reject my backpack as an approved container. So I had to balance everything on the tray, pay, THEN bag everything.

Another thing I really hate is that I've seen locked exit barriers that open when scanning the receipt. In sweden there is a real disregard for workplace safety :(

I guess other than "honoring the people who died in the disco fire in the 90s in the local museum", there is no will to do anything practical.

mayniac · 2 years ago

Supermarkets here usually require an employee to approve backpacks. You put your bag on the scales, hit a button saying it's a bag, then an employee comes round to confirm.

In practice, it usually takes longer to get an employee's attention and have them come press the button. So I don't bother. It's usually quicker to bag everything at the end, and I tend to get fewer "unexpected item in the bagging area" issues when balacing everything on the scales.

mayniac commented on The Reason Why Are Trucks Getting Bigger toddofmischief.blogspot.c... · Posted by u/yasp

robin_reala · 3 years ago

My car can happily seat 4 adults (so let’s say 250kg) and weighs a touch over 1000kg, so the ratio is 0.25. 0.1 would mean that a car that seats just 4 adults weighs 2.5 tonnes, which seems extreme?

mayniac · 3 years ago

The average weight of a mid-sized sedan is about 1,500kg, and the average weight of all American cars is closer to 1,900kg. A 4-seater close to 1,000kg is exceptionally light by modern standards. The Mazda MX-5 is a 2-seater which is famous for being lightweight, and it also weighs a few kg above a ton.

Also going off maximum human capacity isn't great in context, as the average car journey has <1.5 occupants. Not to mention if this was codified, car manufacturers would simply put folding seats in the trunk.

mayniac commented on Can we stomach the latest emerging food innovations? bbc.com/news/business-590... · Posted by u/adrian_mrd

sandworm101 · 4 years ago

I have read similar accounts, only to later discover that the reviewers are vegan/vegetarian etc. If these are to displace beef, to kill the beef industry, then they need to win over the BBQ crowd. When the not-meat hotdog starts competing with the meat version at US ballparks, then I will take notice.

mayniac · 4 years ago

Another non-vegetarian here. I made a veggie hotdog last week which was close enough to the real thing that I would struggle in a blind taste test. Hot dogs are super easy to immitate, they're mostly not meat anyway.

Also ancedotally, I recently took a meat-eating friend-of-a-friend to a vegan fried chicken place. They said it was close enough that they wouldn't be able to tell the difference after a couple of beers. And they had recently worked in KFC...

I'd hazard a guess that the reason veggie hotdogs haven't appeared at US ballparks has less to do with the food itself, and more to do with cultural attitudes towards vegetarianism, especially amongst sports fans. Call it toxic masculinity if you want, or just stubbornness.

mayniac commented on Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing economist.com/united-stat... · Posted by u/furrowedbrow

kortilla · 4 years ago

> It's not a choice. You have a (metaphorical) pistol to your head to engage with the system as it is, die, or be killed.

This is ridiculous. In the US people constantly quit to start small businesses, work for other businesses, or just not work at all. There is zero threat of violence if you choose not to work.

Additionally, there is no concept of debt slavery at all outside of the military (which is probably the most successful socialist institution in the US). There is no forced labor to pay down debt.

> private property in absentia (ultimately based on theft, might I add)

Based on theft from who? If I grow some cucumbers in my garden, who have I stolen them from?

mayniac · 4 years ago

>In the US people constantly quit to start small businesses, work for other businesses, or just not work at all. There is zero threat of violence if you choose not to work.

SOME people. Median savings are ~$4k, realistically the average person needs access to credit (which they may not have), a strong support network, or some other way of surviving longer than 2 months without work.

And whether or not you do have the wealth or support network needed to choose not to work is determined mostly by who your parents are. This isn't a fair system.

mayniac commented on Being Poor (2005) whatever.scalzi.com/2005/... · Posted by u/sturza

tomcooks · 4 years ago

It's a basic need for survival and it's beyond my comprehension how it can be considered a chore.

I say this as a person that lived homeless and that comes from a line of people that had to make do with scraps.

I guess it could also be cultural, who knows.

mayniac · 4 years ago

>that comes from a line of people that had to make do with scraps.

That line is long. It only takes one generation feeding their children a diet of pre-made meals and snacks to break it.

mayniac commented on Piracy is not theft, Lost sales don't exist, says Minecraft creator (2011) torrentfreak.com/piracy-i... · Posted by u/ROARosen

junon · 5 years ago

They changed it so as to invalidate old cracks. Whether or not it was harder is up for debate.

There were certainly better ways to do DRM at the time (even now) that Adobe was well within their monetary limits and interests pursuing. But of course, it was still cracked.

Also, for a hundred buck fee and some TPB/Demonoid credit, it's almost always worth it to a cracker to go after a flagship product.

There's also the running theory that Adobe was the one to release some of the cracks, namely because new releases of the Creative Suite back when it was new would be cracked nearly "instantly".

It's speculation, but the above theory would make a lot of sense - and, in my opinion, that's exactly what ended up happening, and what made Photoshop the industry leader over a pretty decent selection of alternatives at the time (though admittedly PS had already mostly established itself at the time anyway, but it could have probably been swayed).

mayniac · 5 years ago

I believe all this as well. If they wanted to, Adobe could invest heavily in DRM that would take at least a few months to crack. But it's far cheaper to stick a login wall in front of download pages and support forums, monitor for corporate email addresses, and spend the money on going after companies that pirate their software. e.g. https://www.theverge.com/2015/1/29/7948241/forever-21-pirati...

mayniac commented on Tech barons like Jeff Bezos want to colonize space and the oceans theguardian.com/commentis... · Posted by u/bezout

neolog · 5 years ago

The costs of leaving a big social network to start your own are huge -- you can't interact with anybody.

mayniac · 5 years ago

You can set up a phpBB instance on a shared hosting provider for <$10/month. Interact with anyone who wants to interact with you. Don't even really need any technical knowlege, just a credit card.

People do it all the time, but they keep themselves to themselves and you don't find out about it.

mayniac commented on Woman dies during a ransomware attack on a German hospital theverge.com/2020/9/17/21... · Posted by u/bmcn2020

marton78 · 5 years ago

Holding a university ransom is not much better..

mayniac · 5 years ago

It's definitely better than holding a hospital ransom. It's very unlikely that anyone will die if you spread ransomware in a university.

mayniac commented on Woman dies during a ransomware attack on a German hospital theverge.com/2020/9/17/21... · Posted by u/bmcn2020

mullingitover · 5 years ago

Ransomware groups targeting hospitals should be pursued with the same zeal that governments pursue terrorists, even if lives aren't lost.

mayniac · 5 years ago

They didn't target the hospital:

"The cyberattack was not intended for the hospital, according to a report from the German news outlet RTL. The ransom note was addressed to a nearby university. The attackers stopped the attack after authorities told them it had actually shut down a hospital."

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/17/21443851/death-ransomware...

mayniac commented on Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu... · Posted by u/nojs

skrebbel · 5 years ago

> decades-long subversion campaigns

I get where you're coming from, but by phrasing it this way you draw up the image of a secret cabal of influential marxists waging a "campaign" via gullible students. That's not really doing the rest of your argument justice.

As always, the much more likely story is that these students are gullible and silly totally by their own means.

mayniac · 5 years ago

>I get where you're coming from, but by phrasing it this way you draw up the image of a secret cabal of influential marxists waging a "campaign" via gullible students.

Probably because the "cultural marxism" conspiracy theory originated from the Nazi conspiracy theory of "cultural bolshevism". The idea that Marxists are subverting Western society is a delusional theory pushed by far-right lunatics.