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[-] viralJ@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

What does 'rolling encryption' mean (if it's possible to ELI15).

[-] viralJ@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

I still think your promoting the view of "this is obvious to me so it should be obvious to everyone". Even your explanation would be confusing for someone who's not an IT guy - what does it mean "end my user session?" People rarely go to the start menu to deal with their computers' "on-ness", they just press the hardware button that has an incomplete circle with a line on top or often no marking or label at all. Or they close the lid and that makes them think of their laptop as "off".

[-] viralJ@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Honestly, even though I use computers for work all the time, I don't think I ever talk about logging in or out or switching it off or restarting, other than when I'm getting some help from IT.

Chances are you were clothes with aglets a lot, and aglets keep the integrity of your clothes, but there is also a good chance that you don't know what aglets are because the average person doesn't talk about them until they lodge somewhere in their washing machine.

[-] viralJ@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

I can't really sympathise with you here. You're clearly an IT guy, so the difference between log out, restart and shut down is as natural to you as breathing. For the average person is not that intuitive. For many people the computer is "on" when they press the power button and enter their username and password. And the blurring of the distinction is increased by most people having a smartphone where just lifting it up to your face wakes it up and logs you in (technically) at the same time.

I know you're explaining it to them, but if that's not something that they live and breathe, they're just going to forget the explanation. I'm a molecular biologist, so to me the differences between genome, transcriptome and proteome are bleeding obvious, but I have a colleague who's not a scientist but needs to become familiar with these terms. I explained them to her last week in an meeting that lasted an hour, but this week I had to do that again. She's not stupid, it's just all very abstract to her.

[-] viralJ@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

If you Google Steven Pinker, it should show you links to his websites, articles, and books.

[-] viralJ@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I see you never got a reply to your question. I am obviously biased in favour of Pinker, but my perception is that "liberal hack" (and other epithets) is a mindless insult that people throw at him when they don't like to uplifting message that he's communicating, but can't find anything logically or factually wrong with his arguments or his presentation of data.

The closest I saw someone trying to have a legitimate case of showing Pinker misrepresenting reality, was the criticism of this passage (also from "Enlightenment Now"):

What proportion of pairs of ethnic neighbors coexist without violence? The answer is, most of them: 95 percent of the neighbors in the former Soviet Union, 99 percent of those in Africa.

(i.e. only 1% is at war)

Critics pointed out that, at the time of Pinker's writing, the number of countries in Africa at war was X, and X divided by the number of all countries in Africa is much greater than the 1%, so clearly Pinker is lying. But firstly, the passage talks about ethnic neighbours, not countries, of which there is much more in Africa and the former Soviet Union, and secondly, there is almost always more neighbours than there is countries in any region. For example in Australia, there are 5 states, but 6 borders (pairs of neighbouring states), so if Queensland went to war with New South Wales, 60% of the states would be at peace, but 83% of pairs of neighbours would be at peace.

Edit: grammar

[-] viralJ@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Remember that there are biases at play here. There's the negativity bias (we worry more about bad things happening, than we are uplifted about good things happening), and the media bias to report the worst. As Pinker wrote:

News is about things that happen, not things that don't happen. We never see a journalist saying to the camera, "I'm reporting live from a country where a war has not broken out". (...) As long as bad things have not vanished from the face of the earth, there will always be enough incidents to fill the news, especially when billion of smartphones turn most of the world's population into crime reporters and war correspondents.

Combine the two, and you will naturally have all media preferentially report (and often blow out of proportion for the views and clicks) bad news over good news.

Edit: typo and grammar

[-] viralJ@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago

What is your 6 year old laptop's make?

[-] viralJ@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago

I actually can't complain. It's not perfect, but I'm far from being as outraged as the OP. I used to love SwiftKey, it was amazing with text prediction, even when you had two languages on at the same time (I'm bilingual, so it was really handy). Since Microsoft bought it, it started going downhill and when I found that I can't just transfer my settings when I get a new phone, I switched to Gboard. Again, not perfect, but not terrible either. I will try out some of the recommendation from this thread though.

[-] viralJ@lemmy.world 16 points 5 months ago

Could someone ELI5 (if possible) what passkeys actually are?

[-] viralJ@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I'm a molecular biologist, but I'm into so many branches of science! I love maths (arguably not science) - the elegance, the consistency, and pi that pops up everywhere. Physics - the laws that actually govern the universe and it's most basic level. Chemistry - the science of change where so much emergence happens. Biology - the science trying to solve the actual mysteries of life. Psychology, especially evolutionary psychology - understanding what makes us tick and how it came about. And linguistics - the science of the original sharing app.

Edit: typo.

240

I once applied for a job where one of the requirements was "minimum 5 to 10 years experience in X". My friend told me to submit a CV saying I have 3 to 6 years experience in X and see if they shortlist me.

-7
submitted 9 months ago by viralJ@lemmy.world to c/funny@lemmy.world
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viralJ

joined 1 year ago