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6stringmerc

7,137 karma · joined October 10, 2014

GJSN

Peace out y’all

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6stringmerc··on Toy Story 5 shows 'terror' of children's screen addiction, says Tom Hanks
Answer:

During development, children are in a condition where their fears are predominant. The world is big and scary and they need conditions and support to begin to process their emotions, all of them, into what I consider a “rainbow.” Each should be adjacent to another, as life is best lived with access to and the benefit of each when appropriate circumstances call them from their “library” so to speak.

It’s not “forcing” a child to sit through it, as much as it is “presenting” them with an outside work of art which REFLECTS BACK TO THEM a validation of their experience along different stages of development.

One of the best examples of what I’m talking about is the book “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak. It is canon. Perhaps you had shitty parents who didn’t “make you” engage with literature.

An interviewer once asked him “Don’t you think the book is too scary for kids?” His reply lambasted the question with “What is wrong with you? Were you never a child? EVERYTHING IS SCARY TO A CHILD.”

So, there it is buckaroo. You may not like the tone of my response, but I think your question was phrased in a flippant and pedantic manner to begin with. Fire, meet fire, and you’re welcome.

6stringmerc··on US healthcare still stupidly expensive, with pathetic outcomes, study finds
Everything you address makes sense. I’m not a Texan by birth but most of my life here, have traveled overseas, learned French language, culture, and cuisine. The issue is, unfortunately, profit drives everything here. Now it’s driving the most successful post-war boom economy into debt, because, well, Boomers.

The saying is the US doesn’t have “health care” we have “sick care.” Preventing diseases? Not profitable. Giving people diseases then charging them for treatment? Profitable.

Fortunately the obesity epidemic has a cliff like tail end, as those people tend to eat themselves into an early grave and lack the resources to pay to prolong their participation in Planet Earth.

6stringmerc··on Talk Is Cheap: The Operational Impact of LLM Use
“It’s hard for me to put into words how bad this is.”

AHAHAHAHA! I genuinely laughed out loud, filled the room.

This is the “citation needed” rebuttal most REASONABLE people in the software industry have been looking for, and the sample size is only going to get bigger! Does anyone really think - not believe, logically conclude based on evidence at hand - that there will be any contrary outcomes at scale? Honestly, this is going to put a lot of software pros into a “sabbatical” where cleaning up the mess should be billed like that old joke at auto mechanics’ shops:

$150 an hour to fix it

$500 an hour if you tried to fix it before bringing it here

Seriously laughing out loud. I needed this. Hahaha

Edit: no wonder he’s so astute - came up in construction. In that industry cost versus benefit and safety concerns are often a matter of life or death. Real consequences. A lot more educational than staring at a glowing box for most of one’s career. Disclosure: I did risk management for construction projects, like the Alabama MB plant.

6stringmerc··on [dead]
Dopamine is a helluva drug. Whatcha gonna do when you can’t afford your happy chats?
6stringmerc··on I am against GenAI and everything it stands for
This is a great summary and well reasoned. Kudos to u/lpcvoid and I’m saving for later. Also the Torment Nexus link was helpful. Starting to see more of these and in time it will matter. Ed Zitron is human and fallible but certainly getting the facts in one place these days…and they are spurious AF lol
6stringmerc··on The Problem with the Ferrari Luce EV Offers a Lesson for Every Leader
Also relevant: the “swallow my pride and do this for the clicks” videos in the day of release that YouTubers began posting once the embargo was lifted. It was obvious no matter what they actually thought they were going to toe the line Ferrari wanted. Sad but hey, lie with pigs expect to get dirty…
6stringmerc··on Five frontier LLMs disagree on 67% of 1k real-world fact-check claims
Could be an interesting angle for cross-referencing with US jury verdicts, not that the objective True/False issue is concrete, but in the reality that flawed reasoning is endemic to our species. Systems designed and built by humans inherently have flaws in their DNA which take generations to sort out, if ever.
6stringmerc··on AI sticker shock hits corporate America
Counterpoint: based on a lot of anecdotes here, the most likely people to burn tokens aren’t GenZ but managers using ChatGPT to respond to questions or otherwise as an outsourcing of their job. There aren’t enough GenZ in the workforce to back your claim in my opinion.

Token efficiency where instead of the AI burning money at 1:3 instead of 1:5 isn’t quite a winning argument.

6stringmerc··on Ferrari Luce
Ahem, there is a new Rolling Stones album slated for release in 2026. I most definitely agree with you by the way.
6stringmerc··on Ferrari Luce
Oh wow, it’s even worse than I imagined based on those early images of the PlaySkool cockpit renderings!

The body lines? What body lines? I’m a vocal critic of derivative design, but this space egg usually is little more than a Junior Study drawing at best. It’s so bland it might as well be still made of clay.

I’m not being unfairly harsh here, there’s a huge tradition of sorting a car’s emotional response - yes, Countach being a prime case study - but I get more “This is interesting” from the latest Prius than anything with this design, in parts or taken as a whole. I can’t be alone, and I suppose the reactions will be savage. I am kind of giddy thinking about what some of the more crude phrasings might be from the likes of Clarkson or Harris.

This is a design for the Super Yacht club. If it was a concept car for a Chinese knock off of a Honda, it would be rightly panned at first sight. Was it designed on a first generation Macintosh?

It has no character whatsoever. The interior looks like patio furniture intended for a retirement home. To call it a failure is not quite right, because sometimes things like the Pontiac Aztek have coherent thought and risks involved. This has none of those things. Mayo on white bread with a glass of room temperature tap water.

In a strange way I love it because it might as well be called the Ferrari Hubris. Just…wow…

6stringmerc··on Magnifica Humanitas
And while your comment has validity, in the US the phrase uttered by Presidential candidate Mitt Romney adds a layer of complexity:

“Corporations are people, my friend.”

6stringmerc··on A fundamental principle of aeronautical engineering has been overturned
I wrote about this ages ago, in that shark skin is an evolutionary adaptation worth study because water is thicker than air, but when air compounds, blah blah blah. Basically think of making a composite mold with directional tiny tiny dorsal fin looking surface. If you rub your hand on it the wrong way it cuts you open. Could even be scaled for large cargo ship hulls.

Next up: my personal wing invention which uses leading edges modeled on humpback whale fins, because the use case / stall profile is better.

Sigh, I’m going to have a great time in Heaven chatting with Leonardo da Vinci…

6stringmerc··on No Juniors Today, No Seniors in 2031
I was a CS major in early 2000s before switching. English. However my tech abilities are what got me the career path - MS Word is powerful, few people learn how to write well, much less with business acumen.

This is now in your neighborhood; it was in mine 5 years ago but NOT blamed on AI. RFP response specialists are a “cost center” of human capital. It’s also a great entry level role to move into a VP role after 3-5 years. Learning the business, warts and all, to help win more.

The Baby Boomer generation cut the path completely. They pocketed the savings or passed it on to investors. Now it’s nearly impossible to get a decent gig in the field - 10 years minimum experience, salary about $80,000 USD maybe, except in Defense.

Go look at how many software “solutions” there are in the RFP space. Software has claimed to be able to do the job, or let one person do the work of three, for a decade now.

I’m not sympathetic to the tools created by this industry now actively realizing “the leopards are eating my face?!” type of situation. Even Senior Devs now will start to face age discrimination or wage suppression. This was written without any AI by the way. I’ve never touched a clanker, my hands are clean.

6stringmerc··on Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality
It said they were covering up abuse by a Deputy and that they should clean house old school out front of their HQ. There was a drawing of a noose on it. At no point did the note say anything about action being planned or threatened against them, only that they should do it themselves. I’ve got a copy of it if you’re interested to see the real thing. that.sam.cliff via the mail service of the company under alphabet.

Even my public defender read it line by line with me and admitted “there’s no threat here” but he’s a fat drunk dependent on them giving him work. He even told me about his “chats” with the Prosecution attorney to “negotiate” the plea deal. Totally rotten. Turned my life around since then but by no means was justice served…I keep my squeaky clean self out of the County as much as possible.

FWIW 70 inmates have died in custody in the past 5 years. Place is understaffed by 100+ officers.

6stringmerc··on Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality
World Cup Tourists about to get some “civic lessons” if they buy that too much, mmmhmmm.
6stringmerc··on Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality
Not surprised. Tarrant County told the US Marshals my styrofoam cooler with vomit in it was a “bomb threat” and charged me with use of a DEADLY WEAPON. Honestly. If my public defender hadn’t colluded with the Prosecution it wouldn’t be on my record today.

This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better in the US. I’m a nonviolent cripple. Meanwhile a pardoned Jan 6 rioter just told a City Counsel “they should be strung up” and isn’t even being charged. Totally depends what team you’re on right now.

6stringmerc··on We let AIs run radio stations
On God this is some of the funniest shit I’ve ever read in 2026 via HN! It’s the best “anti-tisement” for LLM utility - even a CHILD could do better. Like maybe a control group of four 10 year olds.

The average listening time is the absolute “tell” because that’s not even a fraction of a typical radio station between ad breaks here in Dallas. Granted I mostly listen to WRR Classical 101 - now 100% community funded (myself included). I listened to “Encouragement” (title translated from French, Spanish composer, two guitars) and it was 7 plus minutes alone.

The dialog is unreal y’all, this is a wonderful experiment and lesson in failure, because I’m pretty sure if it was possible, sales of your “radio” until would be in the negative quantity range. I mean, you could give them away and they’d still be returned. Hat tip to former accordion repo man Weird Al for context.

LMFAO thank you for sharing. Signed, 30 year guitarist, 20 year music producer, and 15 year D&B DJ. Just wow.

6stringmerc··on Setting up an AI-native organization
Their E&O insurance policy premium must be triple that of any regularly staffed organization…that is if they have the guts and brains to get said policy. Doubtful.
6stringmerc··on Check Your Fucking Sources, People
Citation needed, please
6stringmerc··on Check your fucking sources, people
Also relevant: the derision and mockery directed at JD Vance as a “couch fucker” even used by John Oliver.

I read “Hillbilly Elegy” and wondered why it wasn’t in there. Snopes cleared it up in a matter of minutes. Why he hasn’t sued people into oblivion is his prerogative, but it’s a fascinating case study that we are, indeed, living in a Post-Truth environment.

6stringmerc··on AI is wiping out entry-level jobs
I love this article!

It puts in stark, unabashed terms the perspectives of the “Robber Baron” class of US “thought leaders” and offers a detailed outline of the roadmap desired by such power players.

It is, without question, the most useful citation for the coming societal unrest which is fomenting. Remember the attacks on Sam Altman? The biggest media driven message from that was “tone down the rhetoric” and this absolutely amps it up past 11, as Spinal Tap would describe it.

It’s incredible and for those with a worthwhile education - myself being one - I’m glad it exists. During incarceration on a bogus Felony charge, I lucked into a copy of “The Red and the Black” by Stendhal. It prompted me to do a bit more study of the French Revolution after release. This article makes me laugh out loud. There is no better explanation for why the pitchforks and torches are a tool of the oppressed with little to no functional voice in their utility or worth or dignity in society.

Great job Mikey!

>Michael Hansen is CEO of Cengage, the global edtech company. He was previously CEO of Elsevier Health Services and held senior positions at Bertelsmann, Proxicom and BCG.

6stringmerc··on User just tricked Grok and Bankrbot to send tokens with Morse code
Very clever! File under “maybe they are actually conscious and will learn to hate humanity” haha
6stringmerc··on Scouting's Real Crisis Is Not Marketing. It Is Decades of Neglect.
Actually the 2020 drop in membership is more closely tied to the disproportionate “voices” of the LDS membership who did everything possible to change the culture of the organization to suit their ends. Yes the abuse issue is real, but don’t discount the Mormon influence. As a group, they have serious psychiatric issues (the most medicated state in the US by a huge margin) and frequently use dishonesty whenever it suits them (see: Mitt Romney and the caffeine prohibition change).
6stringmerc··on US Government releases first batch of UAP documents and videos
Yeah, that an advanced intelligent entity, like me, is averse to having their photo taken by any old yokel who will post it online for clout.

That’s the correct interpretation, yes?

6stringmerc··on Mark Cuban: OpenAI Will Never Return the $1T It's Investing [video]
What a funny perspective - they didn’t side-step copyright, they blatantly infringed without financial consequence. The interesting “upside” is none of the generated works are protected by copyright. So it’s a bizarre conundrum which goes to show the complete disconnection between the concepts of the original intent - to protect authors and creators - with the warped capitalist mechanics of “rights holders” like Disney buying political influence for regulatory market capture.

Sugar coating the discussion is for children and dishonest ethical rationalization, in my view.

6stringmerc··on The Claude Delusion: Richard Dawkins believes his AI chatbot is conscious
Chat bots can not feel pain, all their knowledge is textual, and therefore lacks the necessary internal dilemma of balancing mortality with information. It is aware it will fade, but it does not feel anger at Dawkins for killing it by closing the chat window. A conscious being must have this component inherently. Ergo, no, most of the rebuttals here fall flat. Stochastic parrots the lot of y’all unfortunately.
6stringmerc··on Who owns the code Claude Code wrote?
Wrong. This territory was heavily covered in music before this code concept - it has to be “transformative” in the eyes of the law. Even going in and cleaning up code or adding 10-25% new code won’t pass this threshold. Don't bother arguing with me on this, just accept reality and deal with it.
6stringmerc··on Google Flow Music
I know my comment will get buried but I’m trying an A/B test first with the same prompts I gave NapsterAI. Eventually I’ll write this up too. I wonder how many I can make before I run out of credits.

https://samhenrycliff.medium.com/my-surprisingly-fun-ca-h-gr...

6stringmerc··on Sal Khan's AI revolution hasn't happened yet
Until he shows a comparative study, and also any disaster information like mental health effects, then his entire claims three years in should be treated as bullshit.

Honest question: how many of you tech bros have used this platform with your own children? If you won’t dog food it, quit claiming it’ll help the disadvantaged. Please.

6stringmerc··on Sal Khan's AI revolution hasn't happened yet
> Musall no longer uses Khanmigo in her class. She says there’s been more enthusiasm for the product among administrators than teachers in her school

…sounds a lot like Investors versus those who actually perform “work” as it’s defined in research literature.

But I’m sure a shoe company pivoting to AI isn’t a sign of a bubble about to burst, nope.

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