medgremlin

@medgremlin@midwest.social

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What a shocker!⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I think it’s important for people to recognize the toxic effects of general misogyny and phenomena like Gamer Gate have on gaming communities. To this day, I see plenty of cis-male and trans-femme gamers wonder about why there are so few cis-women in gaming spaces without recognition of what gaming communities are like towards young women and girls who express interest. Nothing quashes your desire to join a community quite like incessant harassment, abuse, rape/death threats, and doxxing.

  (To be clear, I am not insinuating that trans-femme folks have an easy time of things, but I can say they outnumber cis-women in gaming communities like Arma by a factor to 2 to 1 or greater. There are 3 trans-women in my Arma group and I’m the only cis-woman there.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I can get a 430 hearing on any family member I want. Hell i can even testify if someone else needs one. So tell me why I can't go through the legal system to get an invasive one for Trump?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m pretty sure that’s a state-by-state code. I know in California PC5150 is the code for removing someone’s rights for being a danger to themselves or others for the purpose of a compulsory mental health examination.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Upset about progress⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  The environmental impact of using generative AI is obscene. I don’t have the source for the claim, but I’ve seen an estimate that an AI generated image creates as much damage as a gallon of gasoline being burned for substantially less actual use.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What a shocker!⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Welcome to being a woman on the internet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What a shocker!⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  One thing I don’t understand is why the built in tools for self managing are insufficient, such as mute and block. If willing, I would be open to hearing your experience with that.

  These tools have improved immensely over the years. It was particularly bad in those days because there was no option for private or party voice chat and a lot of games came with 3-day trial cards for Xbox Live which allowed people to make tons of sock puppet accounts to evade blocking.

  I don’t really play FPS’s any more and I haven’t turned on an Xbox in about 7 years. I just play on PC now, almost exclusively with a gaming community on discord comprised of online and IRL friends. My experience is very curated now and the games I play either have minimal social interaction or are well known for their welcoming communities (eg Warframe). It felt a little bit like admitting defeat, but shutting off the public mic and just sticking to private VCs and servers has been a good way of dealing with it. I certainly don’t get rape and death threats with a side of doxxing these days.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What a shocker!⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I played a lot of Halo on Xbox live as a teenage girl in the late 2000’s. I sincerely wish they were more stringent about cracking down on assholes. A lot of the rules were in place to attempt to discourage some of the atrocious behavior I was subjected to.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Socially inept, introverted employees. How do you survive the workplace? Because I’m in dire need of some serious advice.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  If you cannot bring yourself to listen to small talk and engage with people regularly, I don’t think healthcare is the right field for you. I’m fairly introverted myself, but I turn that around to listening more than speaking and responding thoughtfully to the things I hear. I believe that I can speak with some authority on this as I have worked in healthcare (mostly ERs) for years, and I am going to be graduating medical school soon.

  I will say this bluntly: as a physician, I would be hesitant to trust a nurse that cannot engage with others. Not only is healthcare a team sport, patient care is 90% social interaction. If I can’t trust you to engage with my patients in a way that is reassuring and comforting to them, I don’t want you involved any more than strictly necessary. The fact that you can’t get along with your coworkers is the canary in the coal mine for how you are likely interacting with patients.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I have the pixel watch 2, and waterproofing is very important to me when it comes to a smartwatch. I work in healthcare and have to wash my hands upwards of 30 times a day. If I had to take off my watch every time or gamble on a rubber flap adequately covering the charging port, it simply would not be worth the hassle.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Need a keyboard with a dedicated "slop" button⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  The comment was referring to preferred pronouns as just “pronouns” because the cultural zeitgeist has conflated the two. There are tons of right wing assholes that say that they “refuse to use pronouns at all” without processing the difference between “preferred pronouns” and the grammatical construct of pronouns as a whole.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hertz' AI System That Scans for "Damage" on Rental Cars Is Turning Into an Epic Disaster⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s been around for quite awhile. I use Turo more than I use regular car rental services because you actually get to choose what car you’re getting and the prices are better.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hertz' AI System That Scans for "Damage" on Rental Cars Is Turning Into an Epic Disaster⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Use Turo. You can rent basic or fun/interesting cars directly from the owners.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK Employers do NOT verify your total work history unless you're applying for a government position.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I put month and year for start and end dates and keep my CV updated regularly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK Employers do NOT verify your total work history unless you're applying for a government position.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I work in the medical field, and everything you are saying is complete nonsense. If you’re applying for medical school or nursing school or something, talking about that experience can be part of a personal statement or entrance essay, but it has no place on a CV or resume. To a certain extent, taking care of loved ones should be a basic requirement for being human, not a special experience or qualification for any kind of job.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK Employers do NOT verify your total work history unless you're applying for a government position.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This is highly industry-dependent. When I was working in IT and systems admin, I had a lot of contract/temp jobs that were still valuable experiences. My resume after finishing university would have been blank if I left those 3-6 month contracts off because that’s how you get your foot in the door in a lot of fields.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do you still remember?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I just use nonsense answers or answers that make absolutely no sense to anyone else. (Inside jokes and the like)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Men are opening up about mental health to AI instead of humans⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I think the pay issue is a big contributor. Women are more likely to accept lower paying jobs, particularly ones like caring professions or teaching, whereas men have a tendency towards higher paying jobs (in part due to the lack of support for pregnancy, parental leave, and childcare expenses).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Men are opening up about mental health to AI instead of humans⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The problem with that is you are then putting the burden on a member of that hated group to present themselves as a paragon and suffer all the vitriol and abuse that gets hurled at them until the hateful person hopefully snaps out of it.

  Having been the sole woman in many male-dominated spaces, I gotta tell ya, it is a special kind of hell to try to be that positive example.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Men are opening up about mental health to AI instead of humans⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  From the commenter above talking about negative experiences with talking to women and female therapists, I think the real solution is that men need to be proactive about supporting each other. Ranting and raving about how women are terrible and don’t know how to help men with an undercurrent of expectations that women (especially a romantic partner) should fix everything is simply not a tenable mindset.

  As a woman who works in the medical field, I am keenly aware of my limitations when it comes to helping men with mental health issues. I think the real, effective solution is for men to start opening up to each other and supporting each other the way that women tend to do among themselves. I don’t mean this as “oh, men are terrible and they need to fuck off somewhere else with their problems”, I mean it as a sincere belief that the best people to help a man through emotional or psychological problems are probably other men given the shared socialization and perspective.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Men are opening up about mental health to AI instead of humans⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think the open internet is a great place to open up about your mental health either. Trusted family, friends, and medical/mental health professionals are the best resources. Entrusting something as precious as your mental health to AI or the internet is a profoundly bad idea.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do you think early humans survived without water bottles? Did they just live next to water sources all the time?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I do this now and didn’t have to as a kid…however, I have a weird kidney problem where my kidneys will just dump water, whether or not I have the water to spare. This means that I have a minimum water requirement of 4 liters a day. It’s not as bad as when I was on a really horrible medication that started the whole issue. When I was on that medication I had to drink about 4 gallons of water a day.

  End result: I have a stupid party trick where I can down a liter of fluid in about 10 seconds, and a gallon of fluid in about 5 to 10 minutes depending on how recently I’ve eaten. (I did give myself water poisoning once, but that took 8 gallons over about 14 hours)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨More like a bacterial infection imo⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The issue is that the title of the story implies that it was entirely due to the organism that the Irish people suffered so many deaths. Context matters and they framed this in the worst way possible.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨More like a bacterial infection imo⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The Irish people were growing tons of crops besides potatoes, but the British landlords took everything besides the potatoes as cash crops/taxes, leaving them only the potatoes to actually eat. There was more than enough food to prevent those deaths, but the Irish people weren’t allowed to eat it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is an example of a supermax prison? and how do you get sent there? And a regular prison in your state? Or what movies call club Fed which is the easiest? How do you get sent there?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That is astonishingly stupid.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is an example of a supermax prison? and how do you get sent there? And a regular prison in your state? Or what movies call club Fed which is the easiest? How do you get sent there?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Ft Leavenworth is the military’s prison. They don’t send civilians there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trump says a 25% tariff "must be paid by Apple" on iPhones not made in the US, says he told Tim Cook long ago that iPhones sold in the US must be made in the US⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  *Raise taxes on poor people. The billionaires can easily just fly to Europe for a shopping spree attached to their regular weekend jaunt and bring everything home in their luggage (if they cared about the prices of anything to begin with, that is).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  But when they’re really young you can do things like convince them that trees walk and that’s why trees in cities are in those little cages or pens. (They do actually use their roots to pull themselves around a bit, but it takes a very long time for the amount of movement to be noticeable.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The age group of children that gets put on leashes doesn’t have the brain development to feel shame or humiliation. Their brains have literally not developed the cortex that does that yet.

  From the age of about 2 to 4, my Dad made a harness out of climbing webbing for me and clipped the leash to a carabineer on his belt when we were out and about. We were constantly going to places like Haight St in San Francisco and hiking on the sea cliffs in Santa Cruz. I 100% would have gotten myself killed without that leash because I was very curious about the fishies in the ocean at the bottom of that 50-100ft high cliff, and my Dad was wrangling me and my sibling by himself while Mom was at work.

  I’m pretty sure there’s a picture somewhere of me leaning over a cliff being held back by the leash because I was a rambunctious little gremlin that was about 20 years off from having a fully developed frontal lobe.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"You can't just have Geralt for every single game" says his voice actor, and if you think The Witcher 4 making Ciri the protagonist is "woke," then "read the damn books"⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s why the trailer has me so hyped for this game. It looks like the game is going to be different because Ciri is the protagonist. Her experience, reactions, and approach to saving a young woman from being sacrificed are totally different than what Geralt’s would be. I hate it when games like Mass Effect are like “Oh! You can play as FemShep! That totally counts as representation!” even though it changes literally nothing about the story.

  I want more games that actually address the real and significant differences in the experiences and perspectives of different characters. I’m always disappointed when there’s a “female” option that’s just a re-skin of the male character with no changes in how the character interacts with the world and the story. (This happens a lot in non-video game media too.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Japan enacts the Active Cyberdefense Law, which permits the country's authorities to preemptively engage with adversaries through offensive cyber operations⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Did anyone else see this headline and immediately jump to Ghost in the Shell?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Oof⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I didn’t say they paid no taxes at all, but I was explaining how the bottom 50% of earners in the country pay very little, if anything. The 19.3% is the bottom 19.3% of earners in the country, not a percentage of the bottom half.

  I would argue that if you get everything (or most of your withheld taxes) back on your return…that means that you effectively didn’t pay federal income taxes or paid very little. If you get most of your withholding back every year, you could look at how you filed your exemptions on your I-9 and increase the number to the maximum allowable. I know some people that put the maximum allowances so that no federal tax is withheld from their paycheck and they just pay the balance at the end of the year when they file their taxes instead of getting a return.