HelixDab2

@HelixDab2@lemm.ee

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"What Is Your Dream for Mozilla" - Mozilla is doing a survey, questions include "What is most important to you right now about technology and the internet?"⁩ ⁨⁨24⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago⁩:

  And what, exactly, is positive about it, that has no associated negative outcomes?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"What Is Your Dream for Mozilla" - Mozilla is doing a survey, questions include "What is most important to you right now about technology and the internet?"⁩ ⁨⁨34⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago⁩:

  IMO, there’s no such thing as responsible AI use. All of the uses so far are bad, and I can’t see any that would work as well as a trained human. Even worse, there’s zero accountability; when an AI makes a mistake and gets people killed, no executives or programmers will ever face any criminal charges because the blame will be too diffuse.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"What Is Your Dream for Mozilla" - Mozilla is doing a survey, questions include "What is most important to you right now about technology and the internet?"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago⁩:

  They seem to have a foregone conclusion that AI is a positive thing, rather than something that should be eradicated like smallpox or syphilis.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Caves⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ll keep that in mind. I live at a high enough altitude that I’m literally in the clouds pretty often (e.g., when it’s overcast everywhere else, I’m in pea-soup fog), so cedar is one of the prime choices for anything that’s going to be outside, just to keep it from rotting.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Caves⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Sadly: no attic. I need try making an attractive bat roost for them. I wonder how bats feel about cedar, since cedar is rot resistant?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Caves⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I love seeing the bats coming out at night in the summer; I can see them in the front clearing, swooping around after moths. I’ve got a bat house, but I think that it’s been vacant for years; I need to find a better way to attract them to my home.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Biden thinks Trump voters are trash.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s a human being at every stage of development

  Based on what? Religion? Jewish thought says that a child only exists once it draws breath.

  In cases where they didn’t consent to sex, it still doesn’t make sense to kill them.

  So, to be clear, once a person has already been deprived of their freedom and liberty by one person, they should continue to be deprived of their liberty?

  Riddle me this: where would you stand on forced organ donation? That is, you’re a tissue match to me, and I need a kidney. Would you be okay with being legally obligated to undergo surgery and give a kidney to me so that I can live? To make it a little lower stakes, would you be okay with being legally obligated to donate blood every eight weeks in order to preserve the life of people that need blood and blood products to live? Why, or why not?

  How is that different from someone being obligated to undergo the risk of carrying a pregnancy to term if they don’t want to be a parent, and especially if the were sexually assaulted?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Typing monkey would be unable to produce 'Hamlet' within the lifetime of the universe, study finds⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Well. technically he was an ape rather than a monkey.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You have a bad friend if he isn't willing to help you bury a dead body or if he is willing to help you.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It really depends on where you bury the body. Once you get out of developed areas, it gets very hard to track things down. Take this example; she was missing for two years, and her body was found in a tent, in a sleeping bag, just two miles off the Appalachian trail, which is one of the busiest hiking trails in the US. If someone was actually buried out there, the odds that they’d ever be found are very, very poor.

  Admittedly, carrying a body off trails through fairly dense forests ain’t gonna be easy. If you were going to do it, I’d say start by getting an old car with no GPS, get some paper maps, make sure that you leave all of your electronics at home so that there’s no electronic trail of where you’ve been (especially your cell phone!), and only use cash for gas, etc. while you’re driving to your body dump site. Assuming that the body isn’t recovered for at least a year, you’re likely in the clear.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨In the era of remakes and remasters, what niche game would you like to see receive the treatment?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The entire Ultima series for sure. I think those were the first CRPGs I played. I loved Ultima: Underworld I & II, but I was never able to get Ultima VII: Pagan to run properly on my computer. (And, holy fuck, that was 30 years ago.)

  But also The Elder Scrolls: Arena, TES: Daggerfall, TES: Battlespire, TES: Redguard, and TES: Morrowind. The first two TES games would be challenging to make, given that many of the areas were randomly generated, rather than being designed.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨In the era of remakes and remasters, what niche game would you like to see receive the treatment?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Having seen the trailer for Gothic, it looks good. I really hope that it’s actually good.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it okay to take drugs to make yourself a better person? Does it make a difference if "better" is mental or if it's physical?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Example: roids. Used appropriately, they can help improve your body.

  Correction: they can improve aspects of your body, at a very, very steep cost. Pretty much all oral anabolic steroids are C17α-alkylated, and they’re hepatotoxic (i.e., cause liver damage). All steroids will fuck up your lipid profile to one degree or another, and all of them can cause heart disease, specifically hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Boldenone in particular will sharply increase red blood cell production, which in turn increases blood pressure, and can cause strokes. All of them will shut down the hypothalmus-pituitary-testicular axis (HPTA) feedback loop in men, leading to testicular atrophy. Most AAS will cause hair loss in men that are sensitive to DHT. AAS can fuck up your hormones enough that men can start lactating (!!!). High doses of testosterone can cause gynecomastia, because testosterone aromatizes into estradiol. In women, all AAS will cause some degree of virilization.

  There are not very many IFBB pros that make it to 80; if you want your candle to burn brightly, it’s going to burn out fast.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Pretty sound reasoning here.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I believe that’s correct; but it’s not all handguns, only a very, very few. Any handgun that’s gas operated (and there are, like, five) is definitely still going to fire.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Biden thinks Trump voters are trash.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If banning them wouldn’t significantly affect firearm deaths, then why are Kamala Harris and the majority of the Democratic Party pushing for it?

  There are several reasons. First, the times they are used in crimes, they tend to create much higher casualties than you would otherwise be likely to see. The combination of a vry high velocity intermediate cartridge with a box magazine makes it very easy for a novice shooter to expend lots and lots of bullets, bullets that are generally more deadly than a pistol-caliber firearm. Secondly, it is a slippery-slope; they want to ban these now to make more extensive bans in the future seem more acceptable, esp. to courts. It’s a way of creating precedent. Third, for people that don’t grow up with firearms, they just seem more scary than wooden-stocked, full-power rifles. And last, all politicians, across the board, seem to want to maintain the supremacy of state-sponsored violence; Dems want to ban guns, Republicans want to give cops ever heavier firepower.

  Again: neither side seems interested in directly addressing root causes for violence, which are largely economic. Fix the wealth disparity in this county, eliminate the systemic racism that limits access to opportunity for non-white people, and end toxic masculinity, and you eliminate most of the gun homicides. From speaking to a criminal defense attorney that specializes in gun rights, the biggest single thing the gov’t could do to sharply reduce gun homicides would be to entirely end the way on drugs.

  However, given the number of states that have very little or even no restrictions on abortion,

  FIRST - I misspoke/I was wrong. Each trimester is roughly 12 weeks. The absolutely earliest viability is about 22 weeks, or close to the end of the second trimester. Earlier than that, and a fetus is little more than a tenant that’s not paying rent.

  This article isn’t saying what you think it’s saying. Yes, there isn’t a time limit, but most or all states do not allow abortions after fetal viability. That is, if a fetus can survive outside of the womb–heroic measures or not–you aren’t getting an abortion. Does it seem unreasonable to you to allow abortion when a fetus can not survive independently? If so, why does that seem unreasonable? Do you believe that any person should be legally required to use their body for the benefit of another person?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Biden thinks Trump voters are trash.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Easily.

  First, banning assault-style rifles wouldn’t be ‘disarming’, unless you’re going to argue that any regulation of firearms is disarming. Is it dumb? Sure. Would it have any significant effect on firearm homicides? No; even most mass shootings are committed with handguns. (For the record, I own multiple assault-style rifles, and I compete in action pistol (USPSA, IDPA, etc.) and two gun matches regularly, in a non-ban state. I do oppose rifle and feature bans, because I oppose regulating tools rather than changing material conditions.)

  Secondly, Roe v. Wade never allowed all abortions up to the point of birth. Roe v. Wade specifically balanced the rights of a person-to-be against the person that had to run the risk of pregnancy and birth, and said that prior to viability–broadly speaking, the end of the first trimester, but realistically more like 27 weeks–the rights of the women overrode the state interest in protecting the not-yet-life of a potential person. Beyond that, the overwhelming majority of all abortions that happen after the first trimester happen because there are defects incompatible with life, or because there’s a complication that will kill the woman if she does not terminate the pregnancy.

  I’ll also note that if you really wanted to reduce rates of abortion, you would ensure that schools taught comprehensive sex education–including accurate, factual information about birth control and how to use it (e.g., none of this ‘abstinence only’ bullshit)–as well as making birth control widely, easily, and affordably available to all people.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why don't we just gather up all the ocean's trash and all the nonrecyclables, put them in a rocket, and launch it into the sun?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  So, um, 400M rockets.

  Yeah, that ain’t happenin’.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why don't we just gather up all the ocean's trash and all the nonrecyclables, put them in a rocket, and launch it into the sun?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think you wildly underestimate the amount of trash we’re be talking about here. This wouldn’t be a rocket, this would be thousands, or hundreds of thousands of rockets. And that’s just the start.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The grand prize⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Going with your 5’ x 5’ x 5’ size, that should weigh about 132,624 pounds, or about 66.3 tons. The price, as of 2018, was about $30,000/ton. That works out to be about $2M.

  Still a pretty heft prize.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I can imagine the "will you be using the mobile app?" question to get cheaper food is going to devolve into the Mark of the Beast and someday no one will be able to buy anything without using the apps⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I have considered getting a burner phone that I pay for in cash only, having it utterly unconnected from my real life, and turned off and stored in a Faraday wallet when not in use just so I can use the ‘digital coupons’ that food retailers keep pushing. I use a loyalty card because all they get from that is my buying habits–groceries–plus an address. But access to my phone? Absolutely not.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK that United has significantly escalated their war against basic economy passengers⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They signed up to be the lowest of the overly-entitled rentacops out there. that’s on them.

  Exactly my point.

  The FCC (FAA? I may have that wrong)

  I’m pretty sure that the TSA falls under the Dept. of Homeland Security, as does Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

  realize they aren’t pasty-whites and then it’s mean to minorities.

  You see that makes it worse, right? You’ve got a lot of non-white people signing up for the job of a rent-a-cop so that they can abuse the same kind of authority that is leveled against the populations that the job attracts. It’s like a black kid on the south side of Chicago looking at the ways that CPD abuses suspects and say, goddamn, how do I get into that gig?

  And this just reminds you that if they could get other jobs then they will.

  Eh. Maybe some of them. Maybe. But policing attracts a specific kind of person that wants that job; sometimes it’s people that are genuinely white knights, but they generally get run out pretty fast. More often it’s people that want authority. Given that TSA pay ain’t great, and that we’re in an era–temporarily, if Trump wins–of historic high employment, I don’t think that too many of the people in the TSA are really stuck there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Brazilian Wandering Spider⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  FWIW, even if it only cause a four hour long erection, that is not what your partner is going to want.

  Trust me on this.

  After an hour–usually less than half an hour, IME–it’s not going to matter how much lube you have, they’re going to be hurting. You’ll be frustrated, they’ll be frustrated and in pain, and no one is going to be happy. Maybe there are a very, very few women that like getting pounded for over an hour straight, but I haven’t dated one yet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK that United has significantly escalated their war against basic economy passengers⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It is neither Dean nor Sam.

  Besides, a motorcycle is far more fuel efficient; I typically get about 40-45mpg, v. 12mpg for a '67 Impala.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK that United has significantly escalated their war against basic economy passengers⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s very hard for me to care if cancer rates for TSA agents go through the roof; they willingly signed up for that shit, so fuck 'em.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK that United has significantly escalated their war against basic economy passengers⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Regardless; the TSA was caught lying about the capabilities of the machines, and I’m just not willing to step foot through one. The ionizing radiation doesn’t worry me, because I was never flying frequently enough for it to be an issue.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do cell phones have a data limit but home internet doesn't?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Lots of home internet does have a data cap, but you might not realize it. Typically what will happen is that, once you hit your cap, you’ll be rate throttled. That throttle might not affect most video streaming since Netflix is really good at video compression, but you’ll see the hit if you are, for instance, downloading large games from PSN, Steam, etc.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK that United has significantly escalated their war against basic economy passengers⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I refuse to fly domestically anymore just because the TSA is all security theater, I refuse to go through their backscatter x-ray, and I’m not interested in their enhanced groping. I will ride my motorcycle 1000 miles in a single day rather than take a plane anywhere.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Magic Mineral⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You misunderstand. Before tetraethyl lead was removed from gas–in the 70s, I think?–engines were not nearly as good as they are now. My dad was doing really, really well to get 100,000 miles out of a car in the 60s and 70s; you used to see a service station attached to every single gas station, because of how much service cars needed. Now, 200,000 miles is close to the minimum that people would expect with only preventative maintenance. It’s nearly unheard of for people to need to replace valves and regrind valve seat now, except for high compression, high RPM engines (esp. supersport motorcycles). But that was just normal before the mid-70s. My dad has done multiple full teardowns on engines before the 80s, replacing head gaskets, piston rings, valves, and so on. These days that’s almost unheard of.

  I think that the most intensive valve maintenance that I’m aware of that’s common right now is cleaning carbon off for some of the direct injection engines. I know that it’s an issue with Volkswagon cars, but most cars don’t do DI. You’d have to check technical service bulletins (TSBs), but most cars are very trouble free compared to what you could expect prior to the 80s.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is Andrew Yang involved at all in Harris's campaign?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  IIRC, Yang ended up being pretty far right as far as Democratic candidates went; not who I would want in a cabinet-level position.

  Beyond that, he really doesn’t have direct political experience, and being in a cabinet does require pretty solid abilities at managing politics. Or, it does if you want to be effective. The gov’t isn’t a business, and it shouldn’t be run the same way a for-profit business is run. To that end, I don’t think that politics and public service is really Yang’s wheelhouse. If he wants to cut his teeth on state politics, and then move up to the national level, he’s welcome to prove me wrong. (Not that he gives a shit about my opinion. But I think he’ll have a hard time getting elected without getting lower-stakes experience first.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can someone give me an overview on the Jill Stein situation?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Honestly? No idea. Didn’t watch the debate, because the kind of thing that would make me vote for Trump isn’t going to come out in a debate. Would it surprise me, given that Trump is so eager to slob the knob of any authoritarian, like Orban, Putin, or Erdoğan? Not even slightly. Stein at least–and this shows just how goddamn low this bar is–doesn’t praise authoritarian leaders.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why did it take so damn long for humanity to "learn" how to draw/paint realistic images?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Most people can see color well enough, the difficult part is understanding how to translate that to a flat, uniform surface that doesn’t emit light.

  Most people think they see color, light, and shadow well enough. But they don’t. They know what color a thing should be, or what they perceive the color to be, and so they can’t see the way that the color really is. I think that part of the genius of a painter like Lucien Freud was that he was showing you the colors are they really are (…kinda of…), rather than the way people think they are. Highlights on a face aren’t just going to be lighter; they’re going to have different hues, depending on your light source. Flattening colors out to black and white seems easier, until you realize that you can have two wildly different colors that have almost identical values, and so you have to introduce some unnatural contrast in order to make a distinction between objects. Hell, B&W in general requires increasing contrast and fucking around with your virtual white and black points, or else your drawing looks flat and lifeless.

  Photography–particularly film photography, where you don’t have software interpreting the image–can be a useful tool in seeing this. Without any filters, you can examine detail areas of an image and see how reflected light, and how shadows, are changing the hue of what you’re seeing. Your brain automatically makes adjustments, unless you’re really looking. And training yourself to really see what’s actually there, versus what you expect, is a very challenging process.