The best way to watch EEAAO is knowing nothing about it. Its never going to be what you expect and if you go in expecting too much, you’re likely to be disappointed. Sounds very much like the hype might be why you feel the way you do.

Personally, I love it because there is more than just weirdness to it. It manages to have quite deep and emotional moments that fit naturally amongst everything that is going on. For example:

It’s this deeper side and the depth and realism of the characters that really elevate the movie for me and lead to me still thinking about it months later. That’s why it’s more than just a cult hit IMO, but you aren’t wrong if you disagree.

Walking pollution: …

That’s right, bike pollution is less than walking (or running) pollution in terms of CO2 per mile travelled. Cycling typically burns ~⅓ of the calories compared to making the same journey on foot and there’s a direct link between calories burnt and CO2 produced.

Cycling at 12mph takes roughly the same energy as walking at 4mph. You emit the same CO2 per minute, but get there in ⅓ of the time. Running at 12mph takes 3 times the effort of cycling at 12mph. You’ll get there in the same amount of time, but breath out 3 times as much CO2. Bicycles are more efficient than our own two legs - how cool is that!

Power line adaptors aren’t bad, but they are hit or miss. If they hit, they’ll work well and solve all your problems for minimal cost and effort. If they miss you’ll probably never get them working properly. It’s a bit of a gamble, but I wouldn’t rule them out.

Wireless range extenders/access points/mesh networks are the reverse. They’ll almost always work, but they make the inherent problems with WiFi worse. More latency, more congestion, more interference. They’re not without downsides.

Running a cable so you can move your router to a better location would be my number 1 choice. Ideally somewhere where you can plug multiple devices (TV, consoles, pc, etc) into it so they aren’t competing with the devices that really need the WiFi.

Talk to your landlord and tell him you’d like to install a network socket so that the whole house gets better WiFi, and that you’ll leave it behind when you move so it won’t leave any mess and will benefit future tenants too. Most landlords I’ve tried this with have jumped at the chance.

Failing that, dropouts suggest interference rather than just signal problems. Try running a channel monitor on your phone and see if there’s anything using the same channels as your WiFi, try switching to another channel and look for anything happening that coincides with the drop-outs (microwave, certain lights, electric motors running, etc).

Lastly a better modem might just do the trick. I’ve found that anything running OpenWRT is ten times more reliable than most other options, particularly when placed under heavy load or difficult circumstances.

Reminds me of the debate following the release of The Life of Brian between Michael Palin and John Cleese against Roman Catholic journalist and satirist Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southwark, Mervyn Stockwood. The Month Python guys run rings around them because the film makes fun of organised religion, not Christian beliefs. Good Omens was similar. It doesn’t attack God or Christianity, it pokes fun at humanity, and at the angels and demons that have gained human traits.

Link to the debate if you’ve never seen it: https://youtu.be/ZYMpObbt2rs

What are your underlying models of the world built out of? Because I’m human, and mine are primarily built out of words.

How do you draw a line between knowing and understanding? Does a dog understand the commands it’s been trained to obey?

Lemmy’s simpler algorithm still has the same the problem though. That’s been seen time and time again on Reddit. Humans will actively curate a feed of content they find engaging and avoid content they disagree with. This leads down exactly the same rabbit holes as if you let an algorithm curate a personalised feed for that user.

I guess the common through line is bigotry. Whether it’s directed at Christians, Muslims, women, gays or trans, it is all the same to him.

You’re surprisingly close to the mark. Bigotry is an ugly word for it, but there is a human tendancy to view the world as in-groups and out-groups. The groups that we’re a part of are better than those other groups and anyone who says otherwise is an idiot.

Anti-theists thrive on being superior to people who believe in religion. It’s not a big jump to replace those religious people with a different outgroup. Being superior to gay people or women or people who like marvel movies satisfies the same base need to feel better about yourself by looking down on someone else.

Do you ever sort posts by “hot”, “active” or even “top 6 hours”? They’re all algorithms that predict what you’re interested in. Less complex than something like YouTube or Instagram, but the same core principle.

The amount of content published on the internet each day makes some kind of sorting necessary. Browsing YouTube by “new” would be a cluttered mess, even with fairly narrow categories. Over 11,000 hours of new video are posted every hour - we need some way to automatically sort the wheat from the chaff, and that means some sort of algorithm.

So how do we build an algorithm that delivers what we want, without giving people too much of what they want if they want something potentially harmful? As far as I know, nobody has found a good answer to that.

Thanks for the recommendation, it looks interesting but sounds like it pretty much agrees with what I’m saying.

Algorithms do what they are designed to do, but nobody knows exactly how society will be impacted by that. On the surface, delivering people with a feed of information that matches their interests seems like a good idea. The problem is that people are often interested in divisive topics and reinforcing their existing views, so anything that makes it easier for people to find these topics has a divisive and radicalising effect.

You’re my mostly right about society but the problem is not algorithms, it’s echo-chambers. The KKK wasn’t driven by an algorithm but still radicalised people in the same way - once you’re able to find a bubble within society that accepts your views, it’s very easy for your views to grow more extreme. Doesn’t matter whether that’s fascism, racism, communism, no-fap or hydrohomies - the mechanisms work the same way.

Reddit was arguably no more algorithm-led than Lemmy or Mastodon, but that hasn’t prevented the rise of a whole list of hate-fueled subs over there. The root problem is that people with Nazi tendancies find pro-nazi content engaging. The algorithm isn’t pushing it upon them, it’s just delivering what they want.

There probably wasn’t any huge bullet for you to dodge, but you did the right thing regardless. It’s not worth risking your own safety, particularly when you’re gut feelings tell you something isn’t quite right.

If you still feel guilty and want to help people, make a donation to one of the many good homeless charities. £17 donated today will give someone in need a bed for the night, even if it’s not the stranger who approached you.

I installed Microsoft Office on your parents computer…

Word to your mother

$1.50 per year iirc. They posted a whole load of monthly stats with the annual user income mixed in amongst them so that it didn’t seem so bad.

The big question is how? The algorithms aren’t the root cause of the problem, they are just amplifying natural human behaviour.

People have always fallen down these rabbit holes and any algorithm based on predicting what a person will be interested in will suffer a similar problem. How can you regulate what topics a person is interested in?