dhork
@dhork@lemmy.world
- Comment on So, I was supposed to be a twin, but my twin was absorbed in the womb, which is known as "Vanishing Twin Syndrome", but i have a few questions about this 10 hours ago:
I’m no radiologist, but yeah. That makes the most sense. And I bet the doctors would have presented it in a positive way for your mother at the time, to prevent her from feeling any sort of guilt in regards to not knowing she was pregnant, and how it might have affected your twin.
- Comment on So, I was supposed to be a twin, but my twin was absorbed in the womb, which is known as "Vanishing Twin Syndrome", but i have a few questions about this 10 hours ago:
It could also be plausible that your twin was not viable, and did not develop in utero. So when she says they found your twin in the ultrasound, perhaps what they saw was whatever remained after the earlier absorption.
- Comment on So, I was supposed to be a twin, but my twin was absorbed in the womb, which is known as "Vanishing Twin Syndrome", but i have a few questions about this 11 hours ago:
Makes much more sense if this all happened at 7 weeks vs. 7 months…
- Comment on 11 hours ago:
Oh, well it definitely is, at least in the US. They’re not getting paid below minimum like waiters are, but tipping is still customary. Normally it’s only the ones with the towels on the other end getting tipped, though. I always assumed that they all split the tips equally, but I guess I don’t know.
If I were taking a car there knowing it needed extra work on the front end, I definitely would bring tips for both ends.
- Comment on 12 hours ago:
It’s definitely a bit lazy. But everyone is allowed to be lazy sometimes. Or maybe you’re short, I guess, and legitimately can’t get to the top of your car.
The real question is: how well did you tip? People in these types of service jobs have an easier time doing that sort of thing if they get something extra out of it.
- Comment on YSK Article Five of the United States Constitution 14 hours ago:
The statewide convention seems to be an interesting approach, but one that is easily ratfucked by a party intent on doing so. Your links mention the process used in various states, including New Mexico, where the state convention is simply composed of the state legislature.
Most states seem to hold an election, though, where they put all candidates on the ballot and allow people to vote for all of them. So, envision a long ballot with 100 sets of “for” and “against” names, and voters have to vote for each one. Yes, they could make it simpler, but they probably won’t , in an attempt to make it so complicated that one side can seek to invalidate votes cast for the other.
It seems to give the veneer of democracy, but still provide enough ambiguity for the State government to put its thumb in the scale. I’d like like to see some state say “The convention is every eligible voter, and the election on a strict yes/no vote determines the findings of the convention”. Maybe California can do this, they are big on statewide referendums.
- Comment on YSK Article Five of the United States Constitution 17 hours ago:
There are no rules at all to a constitutional convention, any rules are set by the delegates themselves. The last time we had one, they were charged with revising the Articles of Confederation, and decided to rip the whole thing up and write the Constitution. And this time, they have an official ruling that “money is speech”, which will guarantee a ton of corporate cash flowing in to influence it.
Conservatives here have been looking to the convention process as a way to rip up parts of the Constitution they don’t like. They can rewrite anything they want, and revoke rights we’ve had for hundreds of years. Yes, they still need 38 states to adopt it in the end, but as I covered above, they have complete control of many of the states they need to accomplish this.
And if this happens, what happens to the 12 Liberal states who do not go along with these changes? They will likely just leave, and make their own new country, with the original principles intact.
At least the amendment process only changes one thing at a time. A convention will blow it all up, and likely result in the country splitting in two. The only bright spot may be that it might be done without resorting to a civil war first.
- Comment on YSK Article Five of the United States Constitution 1 day ago:
www.ncsl.org/…/state-minimum-wages
34 states have set wages above the Federal minimum, which means that 16 feel the Federal minimum is not too low.
- Comment on YSK Article Five of the United States Constitution 2 days ago:
You need to look at it a bit differently: it’s not that 38 states are needed to approve amendments, but rather that only 13 states are needed to block them. And Republicans have been very effective at electing politicians at the state level. Republicans have total control of 28 State Legislatures, and also hold the Governor’s seat in 23 of them.
So, any amendment that manages to get through Congress (and the filibuster) will have to be approved by a bunch of these State Republicans. So pretty much any policy that that can be considered liberal will be DOA.
In fact, Democrats have more to worry about in the other direction. They only hold 18 State Legislatures, holding the Governor’s seat in 16 of them. That is perilously close to the threshold of not being able to block amendments. If Democrats lose just a few more of those sale states, the the next time Republicans hold majorities in the House and Senate, they may be able to force amendments through that the blue states don’t like.
- Comment on Facebook is absolutely cooked 3 days ago:
Beep boop
- Comment on Urgent research needed to tackle AI threats, says Google AI boss 3 days ago:
I Do My Own Research, thank you very much!
- Comment on Facebook is absolutely cooked 3 days ago:
Which has more bots?
- Comment on All U.S. Social Security numbers may need to be changed following a massive breach that is already being investigated as a national threat 1 week ago:
I’m less upset that all SSNs might end up compromised and more upset that no one is going to get punished for it. If a career Federal Employee did this, they would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
But since it was Elon’s friends who did it, everyone in power will just shrug and say “who knew this would be such a big deal”…
- Comment on “Not Ready for Prime Time.” A Federal Tool to Check Voter Citizenship Keeps Making Mistakes: SAVE tool keeps mistakenly flagging voters as noncitizens 1 week ago:
Voting Blue? No Vote For You!
- Comment on BMW’s Newest “Innovation” is a Logo-Shaped Middle Finger to Right to Repair 1 week ago:
If you can afford a BMW in the first place, you can afford the blinker fluid subscription…
- Comment on BMW’s Newest “Innovation” is a Logo-Shaped Middle Finger to Right to Repair 1 week ago:
If BMW truly wants to innovate, they should work on fixing their turn signals. They must always be in a state of disrepair, because I rarely see a BMW driver use them…
- Comment on For the past 3 years Ben Ward has been remastering the financial game Wall Street Raider created by Michael Jenkins originally on DOS in 1986: This is the Story of Wall Street Raider 1 week ago:
It’s a remarkable story. I wonder what it is that makes the game so hard to port to other systems. It’s probably not structured the way a program in a modern language would be. Is that why so many devs struggled with it?
- Comment on Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash 1 week ago:
That company’s name? Plock. No, it’s not just Flock with a Sharpie mark over the “F”, trust us!
- Comment on Carl Sagan's 9 timeless lessons for detecting baloney 1 week ago:
Maybe, in the Before Times when people could agree on facts. But what about when one side has their own, hand-crafted “alternative facts”, along with a media universe that amplifies them? Then this all falls apart, because they insist their made-up facts are true.
- Comment on What's going on with Olympic skiers and penises? 1 week ago:
Did you read the articles attached to the headlines?
They found that ski jumpers can get a measurable advantage is thier suits are loose fitting, because it increases drag. As a results, their suits are carefully regulated and they are made based on a full body 3D scan.
It’s been speculated that some ski jumpers may have been taking injections meant to increase the size of their flaccid penis before that scan, so that it will be included in the scan, and then if they are back to normal size before the competition, it has the effect of their suit fitting more loosely and increasing drag.
- Comment on Discord will restrict your account next month unless you scan ID or face 1 week ago:
Legally, they can’t be sure you didn’t sell the account, even if the email address is the same.
Not defending the policy here, it’s bullshit. But I’m simply pointing out that they have excuses to beat any logic you throw at them. Logic has nothing to do with it, so it can’t be beaten by logic either.
- Comment on This whistle fights fascists | How thousands of 3D-printed whistles are derailing ICE. 2 weeks ago:
I’ve seen whistles with the number for the local rapid response hotline printed right on them. Must have been one of those fancy multi-filament printers.
- Comment on Consumer hardware is no longer a priority for manufacturers 2 weeks ago:
It’s not totally out of the realm of possibility. Michael Dell did it, after all, but he did it in a different time.
And Dell is actually a good case study for all this. It went public rather quickly after it started growing, but grew a bit stagnant by the 2000’s. So much so that 2013, Michael Dell orchestrated a leveraged buyout of his own company (with the help of venture capital) to make it private again. He pretty much admitted that the changes he wanted to make to the company would be impossible while it was still public. It stayed private for a while, but went public again as part of some deal made after it acquired the parent company of VMware.
Another notable thing is that Carl Ichan owned a large chunk of Dell, both in its first public incarnation and in its private incarnation. When Dell tried to take it private, Ichan challenged the plan, and thought about putting in his own bid, only to back off when he decided it wasn’t worth the effort to revive the company. Still, he was publicly against Dell’s buyout plan but was outvoted by other shareholders. Yet, he must have still held a part of the private company, because Ichan also protested it’s second plan to go public, and forced Dell to increase its terms to the private holders.
Michael Dell is no saint, but I conclude that he realized that the company meant more than a spreadsheet, and needed a purpose to justify its existence. He also realized that in order to sustain a business over the long term, having to constantly sustain quarterly numbers may be counterproductive. I think Carl Ichan, on the other hand, only cares about Number Go Up, and doesn’t care at all about how the company makes that happen. Over the long term, that will never be sustainable, but fuck you all, he got his bag already.
- Comment on Consumer hardware is no longer a priority for manufacturers 2 weeks ago:
This is yet another thing I blame on American Business sacrificing itself on the altar of Shareholder Value. It’s no longer acceptable for a public business to simply make a profit. It has to grow that profit, every quarter, without fail.
So, simply having a good consumer product division that makes money won’t be enough. At some point some executive will decide that he can’t possibly get his bonus if that’s all they do, and decide they need to blow it all up to chase larger profits elsewhere.
Maybe we need a small, private company to come along and start making good consumer hardware. They still need components, though, so will have to navigate getting that from public companies who won’t return their calls. And even once they are successful, the first thing they will do is cash out and go public, and the cycle starts again.
- Comment on Australia said to grant US access to Australians’ biometric data 2 weeks ago:
Crikey
- Comment on Given the Onion's purchase of Infowars was rejected by a judge a while ago, I think at this point they should just buy the company anyway through a very hostile takeover. Seriously! 3 weeks ago:
What’s your question?
- Comment on YSK the four rules of firearm safety 4 weeks ago:
These are good practices for anything that shoots projectiles, not just weapons. I replaced some baseboard trim in the house a few months ago, and was extremely careful regarding where I pointed the air nailer, particularly when it was under pressure.
- Comment on If WWIII broke out tomorrow do you honestly believe america would win? 5 weeks ago:
- Comment on YSK that no form of United States ID, no matter how valid, guarantees protection when ICE decides you look like an immigrant. 5 weeks ago:
I think you are confusing the legitimacy of their positions and their message. Their positions are legitimate because, unfortunately, they gained their positions legitimately, either through elections or some other documented process. That’s on us, ultimately. That makes what they have to say a matter of public record, and newsworthy.
The message is utter bullshit, and at least in some cases, not what their voters intended when they cast their vote. But how will those voters ever know if the message is never broadcast in the first place?
I believe it is possible to report the Administration’s positions, while also attempting to hold them to account. The alternative is for the media to ignore it altogether. But we all know Conservative media won’t do that. If other media simply refuses to cover the Administration entirely, that doesn’t invalidate their message. Only by letting us know what they are saying as well as how bonkers it all is, do we have any chance of emerging from this.
- Comment on YSK that no form of United States ID, no matter how valid, guarantees protection when ICE decides you look like an immigrant. 5 weeks ago:
The problem is that, as US government officials, their words matter. Their official statements are newsworthy, even if they are lies. The media can’t really ignore what they say. They can, however, illustrate when they are lying, even if this Administration throws a hissy-fit over it.
