Fondots

@Fondots@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What happened to cylindrical plugs?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The first words in the body of his post are “barrel jacks” so to me it definitely reads like he knows exactly what they are and they are what inspired his post.

  Since other, probably more common, names for “coaxial power connector” include things like “barrel plugs” and “barrel connectors” and such terms are used pretty frequently in the article you linked.

  The rest of it feels like he’s just trying to explain the concept to people who aren’t as familiar with them.

  But otherwise I agree with your comment, the lack of a standard is a big reason. In my various bins of wires, cables, and adapters I can find plenty of different mismatched wall warts with the same connector but otherwise wildly different specs. You don’t really want to be mixing and matching those all willy-nilly.

  Also they’re overall a fine connector if all you need to do is deliver power to something, you only need a hot and neutral wire and the corresponding part of the inner and outer part of the plug (I feel like I’ve seen some that have a ground too, but don’t quote me on that, I’m not going to go digging through my bins to confirm that)

  But nowadays we also often need a way to carry data to/from the device in addition to charging it. So to carry those data signals in addition to power you’d need more connections in the plug. You’d need to either have a couple pins inside the barrel which would need to be lined up properly which kind of negates the convenience of it being omnidirectional like OP wants (think maybe something like a ps/2 or S-Video plug) or you’d need to have multiple concentric rings which would make the plug bulky, probably too much so to conveniently fit into something like a cell phone.

  Now a lot of the devices we’re charging by USB don’t necessarily need or even support any sort of data through their ports, and so could be charged or powered just as well through a barrel plug. So why USB?

  IMO a lot of it comes back to iPods. For a lot of us who were around in the pre-smartphone days, that was our first experience with something that charged over USB. I seem to recall that apple didn’t even include a wall charger with them (pretty sure I remember a Foamy the Squirrel flash animation where he ranted about that) you just got a USB cable and either charged it off your computer or you went out and bought a wall adapter.

  I’m sure that was a cost-cutting/cash-grab attempt by apple. They could sell you an iPod without a charger and save a few pennies there, and then also sell you a charger for even more money.

  Around that same time, phones were also getting USB ports, or some proprietary connectors that you could buy an overpriced cable to connect it to a computer via USB so that you could pull your .5 megapixel flip phone photos off of it and post them to your Myspace. Often they came with a charger that had a mini or micro USB port or the proprietary connector on one end and was hard-wired to a wall wart on the other end.

  I’m sure some bean counters at Nokia or Motorola or wherever decided “why the hell are we going to add 5¢ to the production cost of a phone to have a charging port and a USB port for data when USB already can deliver 5v of power? Just build the phone battery around that and nix the charging port”

  And I’m sure that played out with plenty of other devices that needed power and data connections- GPS, PDAs, etc.

  And so from there, people started having an iPod and cell phone in their pockets that both charged over USB, and before long they’d have a USB charger at home, at work, in their car, in every room in their house, so other devices kind of latched onto that as sort of a marketing thing “you don’t need to keep track of a separate charger just for this thing, you can use the same one you charge your phone with”

  And of course before too long TVs, game consoles, AV receivers, etc. all got USB ports too.

  As I recall, it mostly started with things that made sense, things you were probably using with your phone or computer anyway- Bluetooth earpieces, mice, keyboards, etc. then sort of branched out into everything else over the years.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  You got a typo for mastodon (mastadon)

  I don’t really have any input on how it is to self-host, but I’ve been playing around with friendica a bit and I think that has a lot of potential and may be worth mentioning. I think it has a lot of potential as almost a unified fediverse portal in addition to its obvious purpose of being a Facebook alternative, from what I’ve seen it seems to play pretty nicely with a lot of other fediverse services, and also supports RSS feeds

  It needs some polishing, I think the default UI is pretty wonky, but there’s a lot of functionality there if you can be bothered to figure it out.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK: Gas stoves cause cancer⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I overall agree with technology connections on this with two caveats.

  I have, in my day, used some truly craptastic electric stoves that seriously struggled to get a normal sized pot of water to a rolling boil. This was definitely the cheapest, crappiest stove that an Airbnb owner could possibly find to furnish the kitchen with.

  I’ve also used some really crappy gas stoves but none have struggled that hard. So I think if you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for budget brand stoves, you may find yourself really frustrated with some electric options.

  Also, my home stove is a somewhat less craptastic electric stove, but still not at all high end. I find that for some of my cookware the burners are too small resulting in some serious hotspots in the middle while you can barely cook on the outer edges even after letting the pan preheat for a decent amount of time. You’re always going to have some amount of a hotspot with almost any stove, but this one is really drastic, and I’ve never experienced anything so bad on gas stoves, probably because the heat escaping around the edges manages to heat the outer parts of the pan a little better.

  I’m not exactly pining for a gas stove, and I can’t have one in this house even if I wanted one, but it is a little frustrating sometimes as someone who likes to cook, which technology connections has admitted is not one of his many niche interests.

  My next stove will be induction, and probably every stove I ever buy after that.

  I guess the overall takeaway from this is, if you’re buying an electric stove and actually like to cook, don’t cheap out and make sure you get one where the burners can handle the size cookware you might use.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨are terfs actual feminists or do most transphobic women just call themselves that?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think you’re going to get into some “no true Scotsman” territory here pretty quickly, there’s not exactly a worldwide organization that determines the “feminist agenda” or a universally agreed-upon checklist that determines that you are or aren’t a feminist if you check so many boxes. It’s going to depend a bit on who you are, where you come from, etc.

  For example, if you come from some sort of backwards ultra-conservative Christian background, it might be fair to call you a feminist just because you think women should be allowed to wear pants instead of a dress, because in that context you are, even if most of the rest of the world has long-since moved past that stage of feminism.

  I think most if not all TERFs probably hold some amount of views that could be called feminist from certain perspectives. Whether or not they mesh with any of the more mainstream views on feminism is a different matter entirely.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Recreate old chess pieces⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t have any specific recommendations for software or services, but I do have a couple general thoughts on this problem

  How many pieces are missing and how ornate is the set?

  If you have at least one of every piece the easiest course of action is probably to 3d scan them. A scanner is probably a bit pricey to buy just for this one project, but if you ask around you can probably find a hobbyist or makerspace that will let you use theirs.

  If you can’t find a scanner, as long as your set isn’t too ornate, most chest sets are probably pretty easy to model for the most part. Except for the knights which are of course horses which are a weird irregular shape, most chess pieces are essentially cylinders and cones of various sizes stacked on top of each other. With a little quality time taking measurements with some calipers and some youtube how-to videos, you could probably learn enough to make a pretty decent model pretty quickly.

  You might even be able to carefully trace your pieces onto a piece of paper or maybe use a contour gauge to do the same, scan that tracing into your computer, and create a 3d model from that profile. Heck, you might even be able to just take a picture of the pieces then trace them on your computer.

  It’s been a long time since I’ve done any 3d modeling personally, but something like that is a feature in a lot of software I’ve used.

  Then you’d just need to add some details- a slot cut into the bishops hat, some crenulations at the top of the rook, a cross on top of the king, etc. which should all also be pretty straightforward to model

  Again, if you ask around at makerspaces and such you can probably find someone willing to take up the challenge or help you figure out how to do that.

  Of course if your set has a lot of textures and details you wouldn’t be able to capture them that way, like if your pieces have a face or otherwise aren’t rotationally symmetrical, or the rook has a brick pattern, etc.

  And if you need to model the knight, that’s going to take some more advanced modeling skills unless it’s a really simple and kind of abstract horse.

  If you are missing pieces entirely, unless you can track down another set to use as a reference, you’re going to have to recreate them from scratch. You can take some styling cues from the other pieces- like the bases are probably all pretty much the same, but beyond that you’d kind of have to work off of memory and eyeballing them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do the femcels and the incels not.... date each other?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Because they mostly all have terrible personalities and would find each other totally unbearable just like the rest of us do.

  They also generally don’t really want to date any sort of actual human that exists in the real world. They want to date a perfect parody of the opposite sex, incels are looking for someone who looks like Barbie (or whatever their idea of a perfect body type is, some go for a the petite almost childlike look after all) who wakes up looking like she just left the salon, who is totally subservient to all of his wants and needs, never speaks up unless it’s to stroke his ego, a perfect cook and maid, an oversexed freak in the sheets, who will bear however many children his twisted ego wants to inflict on the world but never gain a pound or show any stretch marks, wrinkles, or grey hair

  In short they don’t want to date a real person, they want a real doll who does their laundry and squeezes out children.

  And they’re convinced that these mythical creatures exist out in the real world but that someone is conspiring to keep them from them, because obviously they’re the perfect example of masculinity and why wouldn’t these perfect females be flocking to them otherwise?

  And I’m not certain exactly what sort of fictitious Superman feels are after, but the same overall sentiment applies.

  Or else they’re just deeply in the closet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK, that on most smartphones, if you press the power button 5 (or more) times in quick succession, you can quickly call emergency services.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know all of the minute technological or legal details about how and why our systems work the way I do. At the end of the day I’m a user of the systems, and not really privy to all of the technical and policy decisions happening behind the scenes.

  I believe that handset gps based location is part of the Next Gen 911 (NG911) standards that are in the process of rolling out. Different agencies and corporations that own and maintain the infrastructure are in different stages of implementing that in different places. I don’t really know what the timetable is on all of that is, if there even is one, I’m genuinely not sure if there’s any set in stone date where everything everywhere must be fully ng911 compliant by then.

  The handful of counties around me are definitely in different stages of rolling it out, my dispatch center has had text to 911 capabilities since well before I started there 6 years ago, and I’m pretty sure one of our neighboring agencies only got the ability to handle it within the last 2 years or so. Another neighboring county is or is about to get video capabilities, which we don’t have yet.

  I suspect that the current state of the regulations is that new phones must have the ability to send that gps data, but I don’t think it needs to be turned on by default, and I don’t think dispatch centers are required to make use of it yet, but again I’m not sure.

  The current state of it where I work is we get it on a lot of our calls but not all. It’s also kind of a hacked together system where it comes through on a web page and not directly integrated into our phone or CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch) systems. I believe the new CAD we’re upgrading to will have it fully integrated, but last I heard that is probably still a couple years away.

  Phone networks are kind of a mess, countless different companies, contractors, and different levels of government, have all been working together (or sometimes against each other depending on your point of view) to patch together old legacy systems to the new stuff coming out- copper, fiber, analog, digital, cellular, satellite, VoIP, etc. And different levels of government have more or less funds available to them and allocate those funds differently, so the wheels of government, as they say, turn slowly. I work in a relatively wealthy county with a pretty large population in a highly developed part of the country, so we’re probably towards the leading edge of the new tech rolling out compared to some dispatch center in the backwoods middle of nowhere (I have had to talk to dispatchers all over the country and occasionally even in other countries, there are definitely some with better capabilities than we have, and there are also some where you get the distinct impression that you’re talking to one of two old ladies sitting in a trailer behind the police station sharing a carton of Virginia Slims and entering calls into a computer with a faded sticker proudly declaring that it’s Y2K ready.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK, that on most smartphones, if you press the power button 5 (or more) times in quick succession, you can quickly call emergency services.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Hanging up will send your info to them and they will call back to make sure there isn’t an emergency.

  911 dispatcher here

  This will depend a bit on agency policies and technological capabilities as well as what emergency info you’ve filled out on your phone and unable to be shared in an emergency call

  At my agency we get a lot of butt dials, our policy for hang ups or open line calls from a cell phone is that as long as we didn’t hear anything suspicious (someone yelling, gunshots, etc) we will usually disregard the call. If we have an open line we’ll listen for about 30 seconds or so and if nothing sounds off we’ll disconnect and continue about our day. If something sounds fishy we’ll stay on the line/call back, and we’ll send police to the area if we have a good location.

  There’s a couple exceptions, like certain wifi calling or femtocell setups are treated as being from a landline because we have a solid address, so we’ll always dispatch police unless you stay on the line and confirm that there’s no emergency.

  And our discretion comes into play a bit. We might ignore 1 or 2 hang ups from the same number, especially since the calls may not even ring through to the same calltaker so it may not be obvious we’ve gotten multiple calls until we’ve gotten a good handful.

  Different agencies policies on that will vary. I know one of our neighboring counties will always send police to the area when they get a hang up whether or not they heard something suspicious.

  And as for the information that’s shared, by default all we get is your phone number, carrier, which cell tower it hit off of, and an approximate location based on cell tower triangulation (which is kind of hit or miss, sometimes it’s really accurate, other times it’s basically useless)

  If we need to we can contact the phone provider to try to get subscriber info. That can take a while and can be hit or miss too, like if you haven’t updated all your information with them, if you’re on a family plan with other people, or if you’re using a smaller provider that is really just reselling Verizon/T-Mobile/AT&T service, it can make it a little hard to accurately track down who actually owns that phone.

  If you’ve called recently, we can try to look up your information from priors on your phone number.

  If you’ve filled out your emergency/sos info, and enabled it to be shared with us, we can access that, It also often gives us access to a more accurate location for you, but otherwise we only get what you’ve put in there. If you haven’t kept your name, address, emergency contacts, medical info, etc. accurate and up to date there, that’s another stumbling block for us. We can sometimes work backwards from what info is there, if we have your name and age we can try to narrow things down, but if you have a common name it can be hard to tell which 27 year old John Smith is the one who called us.

  Do with that what you will, fill out your emergency info or don’t depending on what you’re comfortable sharing with us, consider how it might be used to save your life if you’re, for example, in a car crash and too hurt to speak to us, or how an oppressive government might use it to track you down at a protest (from 911 we can’t just access data on random people’s phones unless they call us, and we can only request a ping on a phone number from your phone company under certain circumstances, and that’s a bit of a process and all it returns is your location based on cell tower triangulation, which again isn’t always very accurate. Police and certainly the feds have a bit more leeway than we do, though I don’t know the extent of that, and if they set up a stingray or similar device I have absolutely no idea what they might be able to access)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is a metaphor you like in your language?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Esperanto

  krokodili- verb, literally something like “to crocodile”

  It means when an Esperanto-speaker speaks in a language other than Esperanto while amongst other Esperanto-speakers.

  No one’s quite sure why that’s the term for it, most likely because crocodiles have a big mouth.

  When I learned that, it suddenly made a lot of sense why Duolingo taught me the word for “crocodile” so early.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I still don’t think companies serve you ads based on spying through your microphone⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It kind of sounds like that article is about the “hey Siri” feature getting activated accidentally, like if it picks up something that sounds similar to the trigger phrase and starts recording

  Which is still a big security/privacy issue, but not exactly the same as if they’re just turning the microphone on whenever they want to listen to you and serve you ads

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I still don’t think companies serve you ads based on spying through your microphone⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think that most of the big tech companies are listening to your microphone (I’m not ruling it out entirely, and I’m certainly there are some smaller sketchier companies that are doing it)

  But I think most of the time most of the time they don’t need to

  They know what ads you’ve seen on your phone/computer, what you’ve been googling, the websites you’ve visited, where you’ve used your credit card, what shows and movies you watch, and where you’ve been (from gps locations, or from what wifi networks and Bluetooth devices you’ve been near or connected to) and what ads, playlists, stores, products, etc. you were exposed to while you were there, and of course who you talk to and all of that same information about those people.

  That’s all going to influence the things you think and talk about, they probably have a pretty good idea what kind of conversations you’re going to have well before you do.

  And don’t get me wrong, that’s creepy as fuck.

  I think most of it comes down to people not even realizing how much data about ourselves we put out there and all of the ways it can be collected and used to build a profile about you.

  And honestly I think they can probably get better data from that most of the time than from trying to filter out background noise and make sense of what you’re talking about through your microphone.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are the inside parts of toilets universal?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Pretty much exactly what you probably think they are, I think they’re mostly a thing for people living off grid and maybe some RVs

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are the inside parts of toilets universal?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Sort of

  For most toilets there’s universal fittings that will work just fine, you may need to adjust them a little bit, but they’re made to be adjusted, and they’ll work just fine with most toilets.

  If you have the original factory parts in your toilet, they may not be adjustable, and if you tried to swap them into another toilet they may not fit/work in other brands/models, or they may kind of work, but maybe not quite right.

  There are a handful of brands that don’t tend to play well with the universal fit parts, I want to say Kohler is one, and if you go to a hardware store, most likely they’re going to stock the universal parts, then a couple of the most common oddball brands.

  There’s also of course some weird toilets that are just totally different- pressure assisted flush, composting or incinerator toilets, etc. that aren’t even working on the same principle as most toilets, but I think the odds are that if you have one of those, you know that already.

  Also I haven’t played with any toilets that were manufactured that way, but I did retrofit one of my toilets to be a dual-flush. Those kits seem pretty universal, but probably double-check before trying to put them in an oddball toilet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Launching c/Latvija, the community for Latvia on the Fediverse! Calling all Latvians and those interested in Latvia and the Baltic countries to join and support us.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Is not potato man, is secret police. Such is life.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come the US does not put a bounty on Putin like they did Bin Laden?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m obviously not planning a Pennsylvania secession movement anytime soon, but just in case it ever comes to that

  General policy, not necessarily Pennsylvania specific, in no specific order:

  Universal healthcare (including all vision, dental, psychiatric, addiction treatment, gender affirming care, etc.) constitutionally enshrined access to abortion and birth control, abolish the death penalty, legalize all drug use with pardons for all non violent drug offences, huge corporate, wealth and inheritance taxes and major tax cuts for anyone making under 100k/year per person, major investment in nuclear and renewable energy, bans on fracking, free college or technical education for all up to a bachelor’s degree or equivalent certifications, UBI, low-income housing, major police reform, a ban on homeschooling except when necessary due to medical issues and a ban on private and charter schools except for very specific magnet schools that cater to particular vocations and enormous amounts of oversight and regulations on those schools, absolute separation of church and state (Churches and religions get no more legal recognition or exemptions than any other private social club would be entitled to,) a plan to phase out all reliance on non-renewable energy, down-payment assistance for first time homebuyers, high speed Internet access as a human right, major public health spending (we will get hit with another pandemic eventually, and there’s a damn good chance it will be far worse than covid,) a ban on corporate ownership of housing, basically all government services and requirements will be free of charge, legal recognition of poly marriage, election reform with ranked-choice voting, and major gun reform (too much to go into detail here but mainstream republicans and democrats would both hate my gun plans)

  And probably a few dozen other major points, but thats what I could spout off from the top of my head

  Pennsylvania-specific (disclaimer, I’m based out of the Philly area, so my opinions are the strongest about this region, and I’d need to read up on most of the rest of the state):

  High speed rail connecting, at a minimum, Philly, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Scranton, state college, and Erie

  Commuter rail along the Schuylkill connecting philly and reading (side note/fun fact: the legal remnants of the old reading railroad company, yes the one from monopoly, that used to connect those two and other cities, is now a chain of movie theaters, with locations mostly in Australia, New Zealand, and California) probably as an extension of the Norristown high speed line which we’re also going to reroute to have a stop inside the King of Prussia Mall

  Really more rail in general, but that seems like a good starting place and we can continue building out a network from there.

  The sixers are staying put, if they want a new stadium they can put one in the existing sports complex. We’re also going to cover vine street and reconnect the two halves of Chinatown.

  This is very low priority, but I’d like to find a constructive use to refurbish the SS United States instead of turning it into an artificial reef.

  We’re doing away with the PLCB bullshit, you should be able to buy beer, wine, and liquor at any grocery store.

  We’re getting rid of any remaining blue laws- not being allowed to hunt on Sundays, dealerships not being able to sell cars, etc.

  An absolute ban on confederate imagery except for museums, historical reenactments, etc. I see more confederate flags being flown in parts of PA than I have in a lot of the actual south, what side of the mason-dixon line do these idiots think our state lies on? Especially in this hypothetical scenario since we’re not even going to be part of America after this is all over and I don’t want any of these shitheads getting the wrong idea that our movement is some sort of “the south shall rise again” thing.

  Really we’re just generally going to finally drag a lot of Pennsyltucky kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

  Major infrastructure spending. I’d say this should be a general not-pennsylvania-specific issue, but holy shit have you seen the state of some of our roads and bridges? You can usually tell by feel the exact moment you cross over the state border.

  We’re really going to lean into being “Penn’s Woods” and preserve our natural resources and wildlife. We have some amazing parks, forests, etc. here and I want to make sure it stays that way. You can barely drive 10 minutes through much of the state without crossing some small river or stream, and I want all of those waterways to be clean and teeming with life. I’ve never seen our state amphibian- the eastern hellbender, in person in the wild and I’d like to fix that.

  Some goofy, not totally serious proposals

  Mehmet Oz is not allowed to set foot on Pennsylvanian territory.

  Any building in Philly taller than City Hall must have a William Penn statue at the top. We finally managed to break the curse with the Comcast building and we’re really going to cover our bases.

  We may look into annexing the south jersey shore.

  An official Pennsylvanian English dictionary covering the Philly, Pittsburgh, NEPA, and other dialects, covering definitions, spelling, and pronunciations of such words and phrases as : Yinz, youse/youse guys, jawn, Schuylkill, Bala Cynwyd, Conshohocken, heyna, jeet, water (“wooder,”) creek (“crick”) and many others.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come the US does not put a bounty on Putin like they did Bin Laden?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Do they control a territory? Do they claim to be the official government of that territory? Can they back up and defend those claims? Do the civilians living in that territory overall recognize their authority as the government of that territory? Do other nations recognize them as the government of that territory?

  It’s not a totally black and white issue

  If I hypothetically rallied up a group of supporters who share my views and ideals and start carrying out terrorist attacks to force the government to address the issues I’m championing, I don’t think many would consider me to be a government. I’m still acknowledging the authority and legitimacy of the government, and am just acting in opposition to it.

  If my goal is to seize control of a territory, let’s say Pennsylvania, I’m starting to look a bit like a country. But unless I have the support of enough Pennsylvanians, and have the resources and manpower to back up my claim, and can get other nations to recognize it, it’s a pretty empty claim.

  If I manage to win over the popular support of the citizenry, they may start to regard me as the legitimate ruler of Pennsylvania, however just because they’re willing to follow me, doesn’t mean that anyone outside of the state is recognizing my claim. Other countries aren’t going to engage in diplomacy with me the same way they would with other nations, they’re going to continue regarding Pennsylvania as part of the US until I manage to actually have control over the territory. That means in some way removing the existing government from power, and more importantly defending my claim from the US government, who isn’t going to just roll over and accept my claim.

  So let’s say we manage to take control over Pennsylvania, the citizens support me, we’ve ousted the previous government, and are generally filling all the roles you would expect a government to handle, and at least for now we’re somehow managing to hold off the US government and defending our claim to Pennsylvania.

  At this point, we’re the defacto government of Pennsylvania. However we still lack recognition. The US government is still trying to retake control and has not recognized our independence, nor has any other country, we’re seen as rebels, warlords, etc. by the rest of the world. We’re essentially on our own, unable to trade with other countries.

  From here let’s imagine a couple different scenarios

  1. Some countries start to recognize my legitimacy. They offer to support my regime and to open up trade. Popular support from my citizens remains high, and we’re managing to hold off the US government. At this point we’re in a situation not unlike Taiwan or Palestine. Whether we’re a legitimate government is going to depend on who you ask around the world, with answers ranging from that we’re a group of rebels trying to secede from the US to having their full support and recognition as the legitimate government of an independent nation.

  2. Our rebellion is a resounding success. The US backs off, recognizes our independence, other countries also recognize our independence, maybe we even join NAFTA. It would be hard to argue that we’re not a legitimate government at that point.

  3. I start to lose the support of Pennsylvanians, and they stop recognizing my authority, even though I still manage to maintain control over my territory by force. Some countries, especially those that are not friendly to the US, may still recognize my claim, although in the eyes of most of the world, I’m probably just a terrorist or warlord.

  4. The US government is successful in ousting me, I manage to flee to a country that recognizes me as the legitimate ruler of Pennsylvania or at least is willing to tolerate my presence, and I set up a government-in-exile. I continue to conduct myself as though I am the ruler of Pennsylvania, maybe some Pennsylvanians and other people and countries throughout the world continue to recognize me as such, but without the ability to actually exercise that authority over my territory, it’s a pretty empty claim.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Phonebooks⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Same goes for a lot of generic-sounding “A” business names- Acme, Apex, Ajax, A+, American-whatever, etc.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do I know if a medical issue should be addressed by a Clinic Visit, Urgent Care, or the Emergency Room?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I work in 911 dispatch, it drives me nuts how many people lose consciousness for various reasons, and then when they come to they say they’re fine and don’t need to be checked out.

  There’s maybe some very narrow exceptions for people with known conditions that they’re already managing with the help of a doctor and they know exactly what’s causing it.

  But in general, if you’re losing consciousness that’s a bad sign and you need to see a doctor about that ASAP

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Someday, when society goes fully paperless, paper cuts will be a thing of the past⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  We definitely called them cardboard cuts, can’t say how universal it is but every job I’ve where I’ve handled a lot of boxes it seems to be in pretty common use

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Someday, when society goes fully paperless, paper cuts will be a thing of the past⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Cardboard cuts are absolutely a thing, like a paper cut on steroids.

  I used to work in a warehouse and spent most of my day opening, resealing, making, and breaking down boxes. Spend enough time around them and the boxes will get you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come drug dealers seem to have a messed up house or at least a messed up car with a bunch of trash in it?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The house behind my parents has had a string of terrible tenants. Loud assholes, people who let their dogs run loose, people with unruly kids, etc.

  Otherwise a pretty decent neighborhood.

  There was a younger dude living there for a while, kept kind of weird hours, but my parents never thought much of that, figured he was going to school, working night shift somewhere, etc. Mostly kept to himself, never bothered my parents in any way, always dressed professionally, etc.

  He was probably the best neighbor my parents ever had in that house.

  Then one day cops raided the place, turns out he’d been dealing a lot of drugs out of there and had a punch bowl full of cocaine sitting out on the kitchen counter.

  Some of the other neighbors apparently had noticed some pretty sketchy characters coming and going from the house, they must have entered from the front door though, because my parents never really noticed anyone.

  My parents would still take the drug dealer over pretty much anyone else that’s lived there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do you ask for a haircut?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Shave it all off

  I’m bald

  I do go to get my beard trimmed occasionally though, I just describe what I’m looking for- I like the length, just kind of square it up a bit and make it look neat, and fade in my sideburns.

  It helps that I do a decent enough job of keeping it trimmed on my own, I just go in a handful of times a year before weddings and other fancy events when I need to look particularly nice

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jesus could have been an antique meme à la Chuck Norris that got waaaay out of hand⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I was hoping a hebrew-speaker would chime in to confirm that I at least wasn’t too far off-base with that part. Talking about languages I don’t know is always a little uneasy for me because every language has its own weird quirks and something is always lost in translation.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jesus could have been an antique meme à la Chuck Norris that got waaaay out of hand⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not sure why, but a lot of people seem to have a really hard time looking up information about stuff from the Bible. I remember probably about a year ago not too long after I first joined Lemmy commenting on a thread from some guy whose sister fell into some fundamentalist Christian flat earther bullshit and he was trying to figure out where she got her info from and said that he couldn’t find anything about “the firmament”

  It’s on like the first page of the Bible. And just googling “firmament” will get you plenty of good sources about the firmament and what it’s supposed to be.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jesus could have been an antique meme à la Chuck Norris that got waaaay out of hand⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not too sure where I first picked up the idea, for some reason I think it may have been one of the videos on the Useful Charts YouTube channel, but in general it all kind of fits together to me, and I of course kind of put my own little bit of spin into it myself. Unfortunately I don’t have exact sources to cite directly to where I first heard this theory put together.

  For starters you can go to the Bible itself with Mathew 27:16-17

  16 At that time they had a well-known prisoner whose name was Jesus Barabbas. 17 So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?”

  I misspoke in my earlier comment, and I edited it accordingly, the language would have been Aramaic, which is what most scholars agree is the language Jesus mostly spoke, although it is a pretty closely related language to Hebrew. I speak neither Hebrew nor Aramaic so I kind of just have to take it on faith that some of the people I’ve seen discussing this online have some idea what they’re talking about. You can kind of piece it together from some common bits of Hebrew “bar mitzvah” literally translates to something like “son of the commandments” and I believe in modern Hebrew, the word for father in “av” with “aba” being commonly used in some places/cultures.

  There’s also some that would say it comes from “bar rabban” (may be misspelling that) meaning “son of the teacher” instead of father, which you can compare to “Rabbi”

  This comes from an era when people didn’t really have official last names, depending on who you asked, Jesus could have been known by quite a few different names, Jesus the carpenter, Jesus son of Joseph/mary, the son of God, the teacher, the guy from Nazareth, the religious weirdo, the insurrectionist, of the house of David, etc.

  I believe in modern Hebrew “ben” is more often used as the “son of” prefix. And those sort of patronymic names are pretty common in semitic languages, in Arabic you’ve probably heard a few people with “bin” in their name. It’s basically the same idea as Irish/Scottish names that begin with mc/Mac/O’, or names that end in “son”

  As for Barabbas having been involved in an insurrection, going back to the bible we have Mark 15:7

  A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising.

  Israel experienced more than a few different Jewish uprisings/revolts/riots/insurrections/whatever name you wanted to call it. They weren’t exactly happy to be under Roman rule, and there were always a bunch of different political or religious movements trying to do something about it and usually not having much success. It’s not unlikely that Jesus is sort of a composite of several different folks making trouble for the Romans.

  I’m no scholar, my knowledge on this doesn’t really go a whole lot deeper than what I’ve said here, and I can’t say how widespread this particular little conspiracy theory is in academic circles, I won’t say that I’m totally sold on it myself, I’m very open to someone else saying differently, but it’s something to consider, and it looks like a hell of a coincidence to just be a coincidence to me

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jesus could have been an antique meme à la Chuck Norris that got waaaay out of hand⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  One of the interesting things that sticks out to me personally that len credence to the idea that the Bible is just kind of a bunch of half-remembered stories all mashed together is Barabbas- the guy that Pontius Pilate supposedly pardoned instead of Jesus.

  In some versions, Barabbas is given the first name “Jesus”

  And “Barabbas” could potentially come from “bar abba” in Hebrew meaning “son of the father”

  He was imprisoned and sentenced to execution due to taking part in an insurrection against the Roman empire.

  The two characters- “Jesus, son of the father, and sentenced to death for sedition” and “Jesus, son of God, sentenced to die for claiming to be king of the Jews” sound a hell of a lot like they’re referring to the same dude to me.

  That’s either one of the biggest coincidences in all of history, or someone heard two different versions of the same story and mashed them together.

  Or maybe it’s just sort of a 1st century version of the saying that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom-fighter.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Necromancy suddenly became possible, can the undead be called as a witness during court proceedings?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Going sci-fi, but I think I remember there being a thing in the altered carbon books that kind of relates to this.

  In that series most people have a device implanted that can store their consciousness, it can be backed up, etc. if you die your consciousness can be uploaded to a new body, maybe a clone of your own, maybe another spare body no one was using. They get around long space flights by just sending the stored consciousness into a new body at the destination, prisoners can be uploaded to storage and their bodies used elsewhere, etc. and the only way to reliably kill someone is to destroy that device, and if they’re rich enough they may have a remote backup so even that isn’t a guarantee.

  So murder victims are routinely uploaded into new bodies to testify at their own murder trials.

  Catholics oppose this though, they believe that your soul is separate from your consciousness and can’t be stored in that device, backed up, etc. and so to respect their religious rights they can’t be popped into a new body to testify.

  I imagine that necromancy would have the same and probably stronger opposition from a lot of religious people and we’d run into the same kind of legal issues.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do radio stations all seem to go on commercial at the same time?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, listening is totally allowed, just don’t transmit without a license. Depending on the radio there’s often a way to lock out the PTT button so you don’t accidentally key up.

  Programming the radio can sometimes be a bit of a pain in the ass, CHIRP is a free program that’s often recommended for baofengs, you’ll also need to figure out what repeaters are in your area so you know what frequencies to listen to

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do radio stations all seem to go on commercial at the same time?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Laws and regulations will vary a bit depending on what country you live in, but assuming you’re in the US the process is pretty simple but involves some studying

  Pass the test, buy a radio, start talking.

  There’s 3 classes of license- technician, general, and extra that give you permission to use different bands and modes, extra of course gives you the most options, technician the fewest. If you pass your technician exam you can usually go ahead and take your general exam right then and there, and if you pass that you can go ahead and get extra all in the same sitting.

  Finding somewhere to take the test is the tricky part, but if you look up amateur radio clubs in your area they probably have it published somewhere and I think the ARRL website has a list of places/clubs that do it and when. I think some of them have started offering an online test since covid but I don’t really know how that works.

  There’s a license/test fee, don’t remember what that is off the top of my head, I want to say around $40 but don’t quote me.

  As far as studying, there’s a lot of resources out there, apps, reference books, the FCC publishes the question pool they use for the test, etc.

  As far as radios, you can get a baofeng handheld for like $20 on Amazon, a lot of hams give them shit but they probably also have one or two kicking around because they’re so cheap. They don’t have a lot of bells and whistles but they’re probably the cheapest way to just start talking to other hams.

  Radios get expensive quick, that’s one of the reasons I haven’t gotten too into it, I have better things to drop hundreds or thousands of dollars on, but you can find some good deals on used equipment, ebay, flea markets, etc.

  Start with a baofeng, talk to other hams, maybe go to club meetings or events, figure out what else you want to do and go from there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do radio stations all seem to go on commercial at the same time?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t know the specifics of commercial broadcast radio, but I know with ham radio hams are required to identify every 10 minutes while they’re transmitting including automated repeaters that will usually do it in Morse code

  If you listen to some ham radio communications (sometimes it’s interesting, but usually it’s just old guys talking about antennas) every 10 minutes the repeater will beep out a bunch of Morse code and everyone rattles off their call signs

  For commercial radio I think it’s every hour so at least that often they’ll have to cut to “you’re listening to WXYZ 99.9 FM blah blah blah” which also provides a good segue to a commercial break.

  I’m sure most of them probably just schedule that at the top of the hour to make it easy for themselves