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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: August 22nd, 2023

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  • The semi-vertical ones help compared to a standard (horizontal) mouse, but as someone who had a lot of pain, they were not enough for me. For example, I had the Microsoft sculpt mouse, which came with their split keyboard (the main reason I bought it) and still experienced pain. Then I went more vertical to the Logitech Lift which was better, but did not eliminate the pain entirely. Finally, I now use the Evoluent Vertical mouse and now no longer experience pain in my mousing hand.

    The only drawback is when I used a standard mouse (totally horizontal), I used to switch hands and use it ambidextrously. Now I obviously can’t switch hands with these mice.

    I think for someone who doesn’t experience persistent pain, a semi-vertical mouse may be well enough.











  • This was the big discussion back when I still worked in insurance while years ago. The discussion was that insurance companies would not accept liability for the owners of self-driving cars because its not the driver creating the risk, but the car company and its programmers, but that car producers would have to insure their own vehicles. The discussion was how the industry will have to adapt to survive this change.

    Current models of insurance (and prices) is based on statistics, including the driver’s age, gender, location, and characteristics of the vehicle (make, model, age). Some companies give discounts if you are willing to give them telemetry on your driving habits. (Personally, I’m not willing, but at least that’s based on you individually rather than a statistical average version of you. )

    Those all to out the window when the car is self-driving. Driving behaviour is determined by the competence of the programmers who programed the car, which is entirely opaque to the public and insurers. An update can totally change the driving behaviour anytime, in ways no one can know. That is not an acceptable risk to a risk-calculating industry.

    When I was still around the industry, the current issue was exactly when did policy coverage start and stop for ride share drivers (the moment they accept a ride in an app or when a passenger enters the vehicle?). I have not seen a policy for a vehicle that has some autonomous mode, but I would imagine that, in these years since, wordings have been added that state a policy does not cover the owner when FSD is engaged. But I also haven’t seen that car companies are actually offering insurance either.

    So, owner or car company? Maybe both, but there’s a reason that Tesla specifically states that drivers have to maintain control of the vehicle, for exactly this reason: to disclaim responsibility.




  • A generation ago, Iran was not like this. Islam itself does not require any of this. An important part if Islam is that the Qur’an cannot be translated, so it is in a form of Arabic few people can really understand. People must depend on the mullahs to tell them what it says. (Which was once also what Christians said about the Latin Bible, though that makes even less sense than the Qur’an because the Bible was translated into Latin.) This is anti-women conservatives using the guise of religion to push their hatred on women and control the population as a whole. As you say, Christianity was once used in the same way, but it still is now, isn’t it?

    In the US, abortion is a bogeyman used to threaten women from getting healthcare (even to the point of death), and monitor and control their movements. It’s being done under the guide of “Christianity”. “Christianity” is used against people of different races (because they can’t really be Christian if they’re not white), actually other religions, sexuality, and gender. Yet, how much did Christ ever talk about these things?



  • I make the argument that Star Wars is not science fiction, rather a fantasy that takes place in space. Science and technology do not drive the stories, nor are they the solutions to the problems that arise. They are incidental and could just as well be replaced with actual magic. They tried to go the other way by explaining the force with midiclorians… Which was accepted by basically no one.