"a decision and action appear to takes place milliseconds before the conscious mind is aware of it, but phenomenologically it feels like you made that decision before the event happened."

I certainly don't know, and I don't think the research answers that question yet.

But from what I've read its research that raises many more questions than it REALLY answers.

For example, what if the consciousness feedback loop is not "aware" of the decisions (its "output") until they've been dumped to memory and looped around and come back in as "inputs".

So that doesn't necessarily mean you don't consciously make decisions, it just means you aren't yourself aware you made it until after you made it.

In web programming terms, suppose "consciousness" is the local application state view, which is a reflection of the data on the server "memory" and has all your data labels and field contents showing (including the logs of its decisions). Imagine too that a "decision" is like activating a call to the server to make a an update to the back-end database.

So based on the data in the local state, and the running software, the local app "decides" to calls the server and make an update. Lets just say, it just does it -- in particular it doesn't feed that information back to the local state object, no UI is updated, no labels are changed. Yet.

The local state is not updated with even the record that it made the call until it gets the state update from the server a few milliseconds later.

Then, if you are a brain researcher monitoring the application state (aka consciousness), you'll discover it doesn't "know" it called the server, until after the server has been called and returned.

The point is: just because we don't know what we decided right away doesn't necessarily imply that we didn't decide. The brain is an organic system that evolved over millions of years, perhaps having consciousness run a few milliseconds behind is perfectly serviceable solution for the problems it evolved to solve.

Perhaps its even advantageous, waiting for the awareness of the decision to propagate through consciousness before emitting the decision to the rest of the body might cause enough action latency that we're polar bear or sabre tooth tiger food. Better to get the body acting act as soon as the information is there -- there's simply no survival advantage to waiting for it to get dumped back to memory and updated in the consciousness first.

Or maybe consciousness is an illusion, so we can watch a show that aleady happened with no impact on the world around us... but that seems relatively useless in a world with polar bears and sabre tooth tigers.

My concern is the opportunity to lie.
An empty room is tough to gauge the size of (even in person).
A staged room, with a bed and dresser gives you a better idea of how spacious or not spacious the room is, and how you might furnish it. This is valuable information when forming an opinion about the house and its suitability.

Realtor photos already have a fisheye problem with a lot of the pictures and video as they trying to show more of the room at once which causes scale to be tough to determine.

Add AI staging to that and it is even more problematic, because they can stage it with furniture that isn't scaled correctly. I've seen some AI staging where things are just scaled wrong, like the bedroom dresser is only 4" deep, and couches are sunk into walls. But its not obvious to look at it. Or there's two cars in the garage but they're 15% smaller than they'd actually be so it looks more spacious. OR there's two large couches with a large coffee table between them with a fireplace off to the side, and room to walk around it all and then you realize that either the fireplace is 8 feet high and 12 feet wide and the ceilings are 25' high ... or the furniture is scaled to 25% actual size.

You didn't say what size the TV is though or where you sit.

I have an 85" TV in my media room and we sit quite close to it maybe 8-9' away from it.

The difference between 4k and 1080p is very noticeable when watching 4k content. I also use this screen for gaming, and text is noticeably clearer and sharper and easier to read at 4k from the couch (shout out for factorio).

Most movies and games don't really benefit though. I'm just happy when i get good actual 1080p content without lots of compression and other artifacts.

If you are buying a TV to put over the fireplace (too high to sit close comfortably) and/or your living room is laid out that your seating is 15' - 20' away, and you are putting in a 44"-55" TV... you aren't really going to see a difference from 4k.

That's the key: for 4k to be really 'worth it' the TV needs to be BIG and you need to be pretty close to it.
And once you have that - then the content really matters too.

I have yet to see use case for 8k. The same BIG + CLOSE argument for 4k vs 1080p applies but now it needs to be even bigger. And there's practically no content.

"I'm assuming any domestic worker at this point has to be physically here for some reason."

I wouldn't assume that. The reason could simply be that the hiring manager wanted the team member local to make them easier to manage and interact with. Sure it cost more than offshoring them, but the onshoring cost could have been justifiable. Now there's a 100k new reasons to reconsider it.

There will be cases where they really do need to be physically onsite, security as you suggested being one reason. Having to interact with physical hardware/assets as part of their role is another. In some cases they'll pay the 100k for the h1b, in some they'll hire an American... in others they'll figure out an offshoring solution, in others they'll just eliminate the position entirely.

I'd be very surprised if there is much of a net increase in jobs for American's as a result of this policy.

"repairable"? Its a system on a chip. For the most part ... either it works or it doesn't. There's not much to repair. That said.. yeah, I've got an intellivision flashback that died pretty quickly - so i guess its a valid concern.

I'm disappointed in the game selection on the Spirit. It doesn't have the Dungeons and Dragons games (which also go by minotaur and crown of kings to avoid licensing the DnD name).

It does say it sports a usb port for "game expansion" - so maybe there's a way in there. (official or otherwise).

HDMI and wireless are nice though. I really can't be bothered to hook the original one up with its its whole ancient antenna hookup system. The flashback was nice while it lasted because it was at least RCA. I use jzintv now on a PC.

I currently have usb adapters for both the original system controllers and the littler ones that came with the intellivision flashback a few years ago - works very well.

But wireless would be nice, so I might still buy it for the controllers if someone figures out how to get them working with a PC.

Aargh...

Are we only counting pets that were actually mine? Or do family pets count? I've no idea what i would have originally used.

If its the first its LA... or maybe I put L.A. or maybe Los Angeles or sometimes i misspell it Los Angelos... so maybe i did that.

If its the 2nd one, then its St. John's... but maybe I put in St Johns without the apostrophe and period? Does that matter? I might even have put in Saint Johns...

Oh... wait... does it want the city I lived in when the pet was born, or the city the pet itself was born in? Because if the latter then its Mt. Pearl... although i might have put Mount Pearl? Actually that's just where the pet's mother's owners lived.

And I think now you understand why I'm totally locked out of my account in the first place. Good luck getting in.

I own, but do not operate, a few IT companies that manage corporations in the $600MM-$1B receivables range.

Based on our own help desk ticket software, our clients have opened 40% fewer tickets since ChatGPT was rolled out to every desk and phone. 40%. I expect another 40% drop (total 80%) by next year as end users just manage things themselves.

I won't downsize as the tickets aren't really generating revenue as much as headaches. One of my engineers had a broken PDF file that took her 6 hours to fix, and the end user spent 6 days trying to fix it themselves with Ai.

But -- the basic stuff? Reboot your computer stuff? Email rejected because you mistyped a domain name stuff?

You don't need a human, and we would probably have outsource that stuff to India anyway next year if not for ChatGPT etc.

I spend quite a bit on Discord server services, but I'm out.

GFY, Discord and governments, for mandating this bullshit nonsense.

Talking to people in public isnâ(TM)t harassment.

Talking to people on taxpayer funded grounds also isnâ(TM)t trespass.

Tax funded?

Not private property anymore.

Zuck didn't fall asleep at the wheel. He was driving straight for the cesspool, wide awake, and on purpose from the beginning. Anyone who couldn't see where he was going was simply not looking.

I don't disagree, but if you want to supplant the public square with an online space, it needs to be decentralized and ideally should actually belong to the public.

"It uses less electricity than a modern frig"

So that seemed incredible; but after doing some research it is plausible (with caveats). I have a few questions:

1) What 'modern' fridge are you using for comparison? There is a substantial difference between 1982, 2002 and 2022.
2) What are the volumes of the two fridges being compared?

The average 1940s fridge looks to be only 6-8 cu ft; while the average 2000s fridge is 20+ cu ft. Even if it slightly beats the modern fridge on total electricity, it's probably only cooling 1/3 to 1/4 the volume

For example in the 1940s you might be around 400kWh; but if its 7cu ft, its only getting 57kWh/cu ft/year; and comparing it to a 550kWh fridge from 2002 cooling 21 cu ft for 26kWh/cu ft/year. (And that's a 20 year old not particularly efficient "modern" fridge... you could get that down to 300kWh annually on a new fridge if you buy specifically for efficiency)

Sure the 1940s fridge might beat that not particularly modern or efficient "modern fridge" on total use but it's still not really a win unless you only need 7 cu ft. And if all you need is 7 cu fit, in 2025 you can get 8 cu ft for 167kWh year. (60% less electricity)

cites: some data on 2025 fridges
https://shrinkthatfootprint.co...

data on refrigeration energy usage and capacity over time:
https://www.researchgate.net/f...
https://appliance-standards.or...

Fair comment, but the point stands that it's in there and sooner or later it will.

That's such an arbitrary calculation. The big turning point was in the 70s energy crisis when energy star became a thing. And there is a huge efficiency jump from 1970 to 1980; sure 2020s appliances are significantly more efficient than 1980s appliances but is a logarithmic improvement curve and there's no justification to buy one every 10 years.

I bet it uses 4-5x the electricity of a modern one and is slowly leaking Freon too. Nice flex!

You probably could pay for a new basic fridge in a couple years with what you are wasting in electricity to run that old one.

Get a new one without an ice maker and just use ice trays and it'll be rock solid too. (The vast majority of the reliability issues across ALL brands are in the ice makers.)

This is retarded.

1. It isn't for profit healthcare that is the problem, it's THIRD PARTY PAY.
2. I don't use third party pay, ever, for healthcare. I've been insured nonstop for over 30 years, and NEVER ONCE has my insurer paid my doctor.
3. Even when I've had emergencies, I still called around, negotiated a fair cash up front rate, paid cash up front, and billed it to my insurer. My cash up front rate was sometimes below any co-pay negotiated with my insurer, lol.

I just recently had some elective surgery that would have cost me about $2000 on my annual deductible, but I was able to cash pay a negotiated rate of $400 including a follow-up "free". I submitted the $400 to my insurer and they reimbursed me.

Third party insurance exists because YOU VOTERS demanded the HMO Act of the 1970s, which tied health care to employment, and then employers outsourced it to third parties.

Health care is remarkably cheap in the US (cash pay, negotiated) and I don't have to wait months to see a doctor when I call and say I am cash pay. They bump me up fast.