pjwestin
@pjwestin@lemmy.world
- Comment on Tried naming the states from memory as a European 20 hours ago:
I world have labeled you guys, “Frasier.”
- Comment on Tried naming the states from memory as a European 1 day ago:
Yeah, seriously. At least call us, “Revolutionary War Reenactors,” or, “Cold NYC.” I’d even take, “Southern Quebec.” But lumping us in with Montana and the Dakotas? That’s some bullshit.
- Comment on YSK that Gerrymandering allows politicians to choose their own voters. In many countries, it's illegal. Gerrymandering is common in the United States 6 days ago:
Do you mean one and two? Two and three are clearly different, as three has no pattern other than disenfranchisement. I agree that one and two are both valid ways to divide the squares visually, but the text is stating that one is, “perfect,” and two is, “compact but unfair,” implying that the goal should be getting each political group some representation. That is still allowing politicians to pick their constituents, and even if it’s more fair than three, it still built to serve the candidates, not the voters. Compact (i.e. a system that divides districts entirely by geography and population, without consideration towards demographics or political alignment) should be the actual desired outcome.
- Comment on Meet the AI vegans: They are choosing to abstain from using artificial intelligence for environmental, ethical and personal reasons. Maybe they have a point 6 days ago:
I don’t use A.I. because I’ve had nothing but negative interactions with A.I. Customer service bots that fail to give adequate responses, unhelpful and incorrect search result summaries, and, “art,” that looks like shit hasn’t made me want to sign up for ChatGPT or Gemini. For most people, this isn’t a moral stance, it’s just that the product isn’t worth paying for. Stop framing people that don’t use A.I. as luddites with an ax to grind just because tech bros spent billions on a product that isn’t good yet.
- Comment on YSK that Gerrymandering allows politicians to choose their own voters. In many countries, it's illegal. Gerrymandering is common in the United States 6 days ago:
Everyone’s been doing either one or three for decades, the fascists are just more effective at it. What’s changed is that they’re doing it in a non-census year with the explicit goal of changing the outcome of the 2026 midterms. The only states with have unbiased districts are the places where people have passed ballot measures against partisan districting, but Democrats have been just as happy as Republicans to pull this shit.
- Comment on YSK that Gerrymandering allows politicians to choose their own voters. In many countries, it's illegal. Gerrymandering is common in the United States 6 days ago:
Number 2 is the actual ideal, not number 1. Number 1 represents, “good,” gerrymandering that politicians argue for, but it really only serves them. They get to keep highly partisan electorate that will reelect them no matter what, which means they can be less responsive to the will of their voters. They only have to worry about primary challengers, which aren’t very common, and can mostly ignore their electorate without issue.
It’s also important to note that this diagram is an oversimplification that can’t express the nuances of an actual electorate. While a red and blue binary might be helpful for this example, a plurality of voters identify as independents, and while most of them have preferences towards the right or left, they are movable. The point is that actual voters are more nuanced and less static than this representation.
Number 2 is how distracting would work in an ideal world; it doesn’t take into account political alignment at all, but instead just groups people together by proximity. A red victory is unlikely, but still possible if the blue candidate doesn’t deliver for his constituents and winds up with low voter turnout. It also steers politicians away from partisan extremism, as they may need to appeal to a non-partisan plurality. That being said, when literal fascists are attempting number 3, we’ll have to respond in kind if we want any chance of maintaining our democracy, but in the long term, the solution is no gerrymandering, not, “perfect representation,” gerrymandering.
- Comment on How Coldplay actually sounds 3 weeks ago:
That’s certainly how I feel about Parachutes. Solid little album, even if it’s not reinventing the wheel. I feel more mixed about A Rush of Blood to the Head. Some of their best tracks are on that album (The Scientist may be their best song), but a lot of it is forgettable, and Clocks just sucks, don’t know how that became a big single. I thought X&Y was pretty meh, and then I stopped listening.
- Comment on How Coldplay actually sounds 3 weeks ago:
I don’t know, maybe? When I was in high school the girls were all listening to emo. Once pop-punk went out of style (pretty much the minute Sk8ter Boi was released), most of the girls I knew pivoted towards Death Cab for Cutie or Dashboard Confessional. I was having a sad-boy period and other sad-boys I knew got me into Radiohead, Interpol, Coldplay (again, those first two albums), the Shins, and the Strokes.
- Comment on How Coldplay actually sounds 3 weeks ago:
I got the impression they were more of what bro-dudes listened to when they were sad rather than what sad-boys were listening to, but only exposure to them was Chasing Cars. I got the impression they were closer to The All-American Rejects than, say, The Shins or Interpol or any of the other shit I was listening to when I was my most insufferable teenage self.
- Comment on How Coldplay actually sounds 3 weeks ago:
20 years ago they were what teenage sad-boys were listening to when they got bored of Radiohead and The Postal Service (and I mean that in the nicest way possible). Then after X&Y they kinda became electronic/synthpop for the clinically depressed.
- Comment on How Coldplay actually sounds 3 weeks ago:
Cut Coldplay some slack, this was the funniest thing that’s happened in a while. Plus, Parachutes is…fine…A Rush of Blood to the Head has a couple of good tracks. Everything after that is pretty trash, but those first two albums were good to mid.
- Comment on Why democrats under Biden administration didn't release Epstein files? 3 weeks ago:
First, Bill Clinton is almost certainly all over them, and older Democrats still think of the Clintons as the epitome of Democratic success. Some of the old guard is still trying to push focus away from the Epstien files. Just two days ago, Nancy Pelosi was calling the Epstien files a distraction, which is a bat-shit crazy thing to say about evidence that could prove that your opponent was involved in a pedophile ring.
Second, Epstien probably has some sort of ties to the intelligence community. I don’t know that I believe all these stories about him being a secret Mossad asset, but I think its very possible that the someone in the CIA was using him. Alex Acosta, who prosecuted Epstien in 2008, claimed that he was told to back off because he, “belonged to intelligence,” and they’re clearly withholding a lot of information, there’s definitely something they don’t want people to know. Anyway, since 9/11, the Democrats and Republicans have had basically the same position on the intelligence community (essentially, abject deference), so if the CIA says that it would be a national security risk to release the files, the Democrats aren’t going to release the files.
- Comment on Instant and overnight are synonyms and antonyms depending on context. 4 weeks ago:
Shit, that’s a good one.
- Comment on We really don't want to talk about our problems 5 weeks ago:
Then again, have you seen reality?
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
Well, I wasn’t even thinking about that, but now I’ve got a whole new thing to be self-conscious about.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
People are right in saying it’s context and consent, and it’s not completely gendered. Men’s swimsuits are basically just boxer shorts. Normally I’m not self-conscious about that, but a few months ago I signed up for a toddler swimming class with my son where I wound up being the only Dad, and suddenly I felt a bit exposed. I think the normalcy of walking around in nothing but a small pair of shorts kinda evaporated once I was the only man in the room.
- Comment on Yes, this is what people did back then 1 month ago:
I mean, I feel like that one has some cascading effects that really fucked things up for pretty much everyone on the planet, so if you ever find yourself hurled back in time, you might consider it.
- Comment on Yes, this is what people did back then 1 month ago:
None of you said, “prevent 9/11.” For shame.
- Comment on If you have used this you are immune to all disease. 1 month ago:
OK, so it sounds like they died out in the 70s?
- Comment on If you have used this you are immune to all disease. 1 month ago:
I’m pushing 40 and I’ve only ever seen these in movies. I feel like they haven’t been in use since the 60s.
- Comment on Switch 2 Breaks Records By Selling Over 3.5 Million Units In Four Days 1 month ago:
Yeah, I’m not happy about the Switch 2, but the amount of cope is unbelievable. I’ve seen multiple people claiming, “the Wii U sold out a launch too,” even though the Wii U sold worse than the Wii on opening weekend. The sales might still fall off a cliff in a month, but breaking the PS4’s record for launch sales is not a great sign.
- Comment on Who did this 😂😂😂 2 months ago:
Mine were always hooked up to our PC. A lot of Age of Empires 2 played through those things.
- Comment on Who did this 😂😂😂 2 months ago:
Ah, shit, I had those speakers.
- Comment on >:)> 2 months ago:
I mean, it it has pupils like that, it has a wide field of vision. That’s the whole point of rectangular pupils. I would assume that having front-facing eyes would also give it depth perception, but maybe it needed that for making difficult jumps or something?
- Comment on The U.S. Just Ran a Solar Storm Emergency Drill. The Real Deal Would Be a Catastrophe 2 months ago:
Not sure, though, how this ploy would work out for our fine fellows in South America and Canada, the ones currently belabored with being the closest neighbours…
Fuck Mexico, I guess.
- Comment on Love this 2 months ago:
If you’re able to live on your own over the age of 90, you’re killing it.
- Comment on AI models routinely lie when honesty conflicts with their goals 3 months ago:
Relatable.
- Comment on The ‘Profound’ Experience of Seeing a New Color 3 months ago:
There’s a Lovecraft story about this exact thing. It doesn’t end well.
- Comment on AI models routinely lie when honesty conflicts with their goals 3 months ago:
Same.
- Comment on It really is just reddit <3 3 months ago:
I think mods should remove misinformation, but to my mind, for something to rise to the level of, “misinformation,” it needs to be egregiously false and harmful, like vaccine skepticism or election denial. Removing a comment, which is effectively true but debatably incorrect from a wonkish perspective, and labeling it misinformation? That’s bullshit.
If they wanted to remove comment where he says, “blue Maga,” whatever. Not the way I would run a community, but whatever. If they want to ban him for posting screenshots from the automod, OK, I guess he was poking the bear at that point. But the only reason to pull that other comment is because it contradicted their worldview. That’s bad in most communities, but in a news community, it’s unacceptable.