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This AI Startup "Copied" an Open-Source Project and Got Half a Million Dollar Funding by Y Combinator
  • $500,000 is nothing to billionaires, or even people who make hundreds of millions a year. It's a lot to average folks like us, but to them it's the equivalent of going to the casino with money they can afford to blow.

    But I do think you're right about passing it on to the greater fool. They bet it'll be the next hot product, regardless if they know it sucks or not. Then some bigger bag of money will come in and buy it up, thinking they'll be able to somehow milk a sustainable profit out of it. You'd think by now that VCs would be smarter about the boom and bust of tech startups, but alas...

  • Amazon tech workers leaving for other jobs in response to return to office mandate
  • Iirc, didn't the article say that was one of many hypothetical scenarios they try to plan accordingly for? Like you said, it's been awhile since it came out, so I could easily be wrong. I imagine it won't be a problem any time soon, though. There are always desperate people, and simply changing policy to allow rehiring people that had previously been fired/quit would open eligible candidate pools back up.

    Or, y'know, they could just make working there not be miserable.

  • Rocca Imperiale, Italy, at night
  • It wasn't that heavily edited. Like I said in another comment, a quick Google image search shows tons of official photos that were shot with a similar style. It just looked like it had a long shutter exposure making the lights look a lot more vivid/bright than natural and the bottom had been altered in a way that seemed to try and avoid auto copyright detection. Anyway, people are welcome to believe what they want.

  • Rocca Imperiale, Italy, at night
  • My man, it is. It's only slightly altered. Like I said, there's dozens of images online that look the same. I imagine the glitch at the bottom is an attempt to avoid auto copyright detection bots.

  • Rocca Imperiale, Italy, at night
  • Altered photo, sure. But this is a famously known city and suggesting it's just an AI image is ridiculous. You can literally take 1 minute to search this city name and see countless night time images similar to this one.

  • New Steam Agreement gets rid of forced arbitration and waivers for class action lawsuits
  • They're only doing this because of the class action being brought against them. It's cheaper to let this go to court than to try and settle tens of thousands of individual arbitrations. In fact, there are plenty of companies now reversing course and realizing how badly forcing arbitration can backfire.

    Edit: For those unaware: https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/video-game-giant-valve-hit-with-consumer-class-action-over-pricing-2024-08-12/

  • Most Amazon workers considering job hunting due to 5-day in-office policy: Poll
  • I guess the anecdotal evidence I've seen among all my peers and social networks contradicts those numbers, so we can agree to disagree. It's easy to massage those stats, especially with the advent of bullshit jobs like "AI prompt engineer," as an example.

    Anyway, good luck to anyone that gets laid off. Shit sucks regardless, and that was really my main original point.

  • Most Amazon workers considering job hunting due to 5-day in-office policy: Poll
  • Oh for sure, it's just that lots of folks want pure WFH so they can live wherever they want, especially since the cost of living near these companies tend to be stupid expensive. So while hybrid is better than nothing, it still greatly reduces flexibility in that regard.

  • Most Amazon workers considering job hunting due to 5-day in-office policy: Poll
  • I should clarify that I was referring to the US. And I have to also disagree it's voracious for all tech workers, that's why I said depending on your specialty within the IT field. Hell, there was just a post on the r/cybersecurity subreddit the other day with hundreds of comments agreeing that it's not a great time right now in the US. It hasn't just been FAANG companies laying off tech workers, it's been all over:

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilsayegh/2024/08/19/the-great-tech-reset-unpacking-the-layoff-surge-of-2024/

    These are not isolated incidents. According to Layoffs.fyi, 384 tech companies have laid off more than 124,000 employees in 2024, adding to the 428,449 tech workers who lost their jobs in 2022 and 2023.

    That's over 500,000 tech workers in just under 3 years. A huge chunk of job postings for IT jobs are just ghost jobs, meaning they're perpetually posted without actually ever intending to fill that slot. There are lots of reasons why companies do this, but that's off topic and lots of articles already cover the topic, e.g. https://stackoverflow.blog/2024/07/15/the-ghost-jobs-haunting-your-career-search/

    Anyway, hopefully this slump recovers soon.

  • Project 2025 mastermind allegedly told colleagues he killed a dog with a shovel
  • Look at the big, brave man over here who killed an animal with a shotgun. So hard and difficult, I bet you could kill a grizzly bear with one arm and save the whole village if needed.

    And for the record, I come from a family of farmers. My grandparents lived in bumfuck nowhere in the mountains of Appalachia, their house didn't even have indoor plumbing until the mid-90s. I've gone hunting, I'm not a sheltered urbanite who thinks the police will magically solve everything. What I essentially said was, only a fucking sociopath humblebrags about slaughtering a dog that with a shovel because it entered his yard and the cops wouldn't come deal with it. A shovel isn't exactly a clean, quick death. Was the dog aggressive? Did it show any signs of aggression? Or could he have easily lured it away or into an enclosure until a shelter could take it (and yes, euthanasia is a far better death than having you head bashed in with a fucking shovel).

  • Most Amazon workers considering job hunting due to 5-day in-office policy: Poll
  • This is just Amazon's way of cutting employees without having to pay severances/unemployment. Those workers looking for new 100% WFH jobs are in for a rude awakening. The market is not what it was a couple of years ago. Tons of companies have moved back to onsite or a hybrid model, requiring 1-2 days in office per week.

    And if you're in IT, good luck. Thousands of IT layoffs this year alone, so there's a lot of competition in that field, depending on your specialty. My job forced us back to a 3 days in-office per week policy about a year ago, but we were getting a new director who promised more flexibility, so I decided to just passively look for jobs here and there versus really trying. I now wish I had focused more aggressively on looking. Ah well, 'least I still have a relatively reasonable job, which is more than many can say.

    Anyway, good luck to them. Fuck these parasitic C Suites and fuck this corporate and governmental anti-WFH movement.

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  • Thanks for the detailed response. Based on this and other replies, I'll ensure to continue ignoring his videos if they ever pop up in my Recommended lists. I miss the golden age of YouTube (late 2000s/early 2010s) when awesome channels like CGP Grey, Rocket Jump, etc were able to thrive on the platform, versus nowadays where only the clickbaitiest channels flourish.

  • We Finally Know What Creates Static Electricity, After Thousands of Years
  • Oh for sure, I fully understand that there are tons of things/mechanics we take for granted every day that we don't actually know how it/they work(s) at the most fundamental level. Static electricity just seemed like a pretty important one that I'd just assumed it was well and thoroughly researched/understood.

    Anyway, completely agree with you that this breakthrough is great news and that there are some exciting practical applications that may emerge as a result, particularly the more that model is understood/completed.

  • We Finally Know What Creates Static Electricity, After Thousands of Years
  • I had no idea this was unknown, and it's even crazier that the model for it is still not complete even after this breakthrough. More power to them, being able to fully understand triboelectricity and eventually fully controlling it will be great. Hopefully they're able to crack the rest of the mystery soon.

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  • Is there a reason people hate him? I don't watch his videos and I've only caught clips here and there, but isn't he mostly known for giving away money and helping people out? It's entertainment exploitation, for sure, but I'm sure the people he's helped out don't care much. I'd rather someone making money off of giving away money than someone making money and being an asshole to everyone.

    Genuine question, I don't have any investment in defending him.

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    bassomitron @lemmy.world
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