WoodScientist
@WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on LinkedIn’s cofounder Reid Hoffman says seeking work-life balance is a red flag that you’re ‘not committed to winning’ 2 days ago:
This man is a sociopath. He shouldn’t be running a major corporation. He should be living in a rubber room.
- Comment on If restaurants just microwave their food can I just get the frozen version and cut out the middle man? 5 days ago:
Ah. Makes sense.
- Comment on Coin-sized nuclear 3V battery with 50-year lifespan enters mass production 5 days ago:
There’s radioactive and then there’s radioactive. It beta decays with particles that would only penetrate 5 cm of air or .01 cm of tissue.
You could get a thousand of these batteries, grind them up into a powder, explode them in a crowded place as an improvised dirty bomb…and you would still cause less harm than if you did the same with countless chemicals you can buy at the hardware store.
There are many forms of radiation. Something like this going into a landfill is perfectly safe.
- Comment on If restaurants just microwave their food can I just get the frozen version and cut out the middle man? 5 days ago:
There’s a lot more frozen food served at restaurants. And not just at crappy national chains like Applebees. There are different grades of frozen foods, and the better restaurants use higher quality ones.
- Comment on At least Quark had some integrity. 5 days ago:
The language of scientific literature is not the same as the language of everyday use. There’s a reason grad programs have entire courses dedicated to scientific communication.
- Comment on At least Quark had some integrity. 5 days ago:
Funny how trans people never have religious rights in these discussions. Or how they refer to “trans ideology” rather than trans religious or philosophical beliefs. If I were to opine on my beliefs of the soul/spirit, I would say I was created with a female spirit in a male body. If I have any religious belief, then it is a religious worldview where such a thing is possible. Yet trans people never seem to have their religious rights acknowledged.
- Comment on At least Quark had some integrity. 5 days ago:
Hell, a business or industry run primarily by men in their fifties and older can be referred to as “a boys club.”
- Comment on At least Quark had some integrity. 5 days ago:
I know, use the worst of all options, “lawyeress.” /s
- Comment on At least Quark had some integrity. 5 days ago:
There are obviously still contacts where the distinction is important.
- Comment on If restaurants just microwave their food can I just get the frozen version and cut out the middle man? 5 days ago:
I don’t think that’s really the spirit of the question. Not all frozen food are made equal. The stuff in restaurants is higher quality frozen food than what you typically find in the frozen foods section of your local supermarket.
- Comment on Christian the devil 6 days ago:
I think “fight wagon” is probably a better descriptor than simply “tank.”
Although, it’s funny in a way. At least in American English, we don’t really use the word “wagon” much anymore. And when we do, we’re usually referring to something like this:
So the idea of one of those bristling with guns is quite humorous.
- Comment on Christian the devil 6 days ago:
My favorite incidents of bungled auto transcription:
- On a a voicemail, the caller said, “this is _____ over at Rice’s pharmacy.” The transcription read, “this is _____, overt racist pharmacy.”
I mean, I suppose if the pharmacy is racist, at least they’re overt about it so people can avoid the place.
- I have some lecture videos on YouTube, and in one course we used a text by Hibbeler.. A few times in the video I will say something like, “this is problem so an so from the Hibbeler text.” The captions have me referring to “the Hitler text.”
Apparently I was referencing Mein Kampf while teaching undergraduate mechanics, for some reason.
- Comment on Clean butt 6 days ago:
Why is my ass always itching?
Because you don’t wash it, you dumbass.
- Comment on [deleted] 6 days ago:
Oh, and for added physics fun, that extra 40 mph represents a 62% increase in vehicle kinetic energy and stopping distance.
- Comment on [deleted] 6 days ago:
That’s 186 mph. In the US, the highest posted speed limit anywhere is 85 mph, on some stretches of highway in remote rural Texas. So you’re looking at more than 2x the speed limit of the highest posted speed limit in the country. A lot of cars come preprogrammed with some speed governor in them. They usually top out at an already absurd speed of 125-155 mph.
So 300 km/hr is absolutely insane. That’s enough to get jail time in most states.
- Comment on 1 week ago:
Intellectual property is a lie. Pure propaganda. You can own physical things. You can’t own concepts.
Public domain is the default natural state of humanity. Copyrights, trademarks, and patents have only existed for a few centuries. For most of history, you could copy any song, work, or invention you wanted. Hell, for most of history, you claiming ownership of an idea would have been downright sacrilegious. God/The Gods/The Muses were the ones responsible for creative works; human creators were just the channelers of that divine will. In the Medieval era and earlier, artists didn’t even sign their works.
Again. This is the natural state of humanity. We naturally have the freedom to build and create whatever we want from whatever inspiration we want, including copying others. That is after all how humans learn anything. Everything you have ever done, every behavior more complex than simple biological functions is something you learned how to do. Someone figured out how to make even the most rudimentary objects in your life. No one patented the first bowl. Someone just figured it out and everyone copied from there. This is the natural state of human beings. Knowledge is meant to be shared.
At some point however we decided that in order to facilitate the arts, science, and invention, providing a limited time restriction on people’s rights was justified. We temporarily take away some of everyone’s freedom to creatively express themselves. In exchange, we encourage authors, inventors, songwriters, etc. to create high quality original works.
Over time, this purpose has been lost and the fundamental nature of the arrangement forgotten. Rights holders started spreading propaganda, using the term “intellectual property.” You are a victim of this propaganda. As if the ability to restrict the creativity of others is a natural right like the freedom of speech. Copyrights, trademarks, and patents are not rights. They are PRIVILEGES. They are a practical arrangement. To encourage you to create a thing, we restrict everyone else’s freedom to use that thing for some period of time. But it’s just a practical arrangement. It’s not something you’re entitled to as a creator by natural right.
Of course, the balance here has now all been thrown out of whack by corporations buying laws. Originally the term for copyright was just 7 years, renewable to 14. After that the temporary restriction on everyone’s freedom ended. That was still long enough for creatives to make a living off of their work. But now it’s been extended bit by bit, everyone’s freedom restricted more and more, longer and longer. Now copyrights take everyone’s rights away for generations.
There is a reason respect for copyrights is at an all time low.
- Comment on Child support 1 week ago:
A 7 month old did that? Bullshit.
- Comment on YSK that if you lose your Social Security Card (USA) more than 10 times, the Social Security Administration will have to, by law, refuse to issue anymore replacement cards, for the rest of your life. 2 weeks ago:
But they’re shit even for that. Part of tracking Social Security benefits is tracking taxes paid to Social Security. Unlike other forms of ID, like credit cards, SSNs have no check digits or other means of error prevention. Take a valid SSN. Change on of the digits. That new number is also a valid SSN. Any random 9-digit number can be a valid SSN.
What this means is that all it takes to screw up any form with an SSN on it is to have illegible handwriting on a single one of the digits. You make a single easy error on an employment form, and now your SS taxes are registered under the wrong number.
I’m also skeptical of the Social Security Bureau’s stance on insisting it wasn’t intended as a broad identifier. OF COURSE it was going to be used as an identifier! It’s the only single ID number that the federal government gives out to everyone. OF COURSE it’s going to be used for that. Such a number is of such obvious and great utility that of course it was going to be used for broader purposes. If you create something of such obvious utility, you have an obligation to make sure it’s made well.
It also really strains credulity when Social Security has an entire system dedicated to allowing third parties to verify SSNs. It’s literally called The Social Security Verification Service.
If the Social Security Administration really didn’t want SSNs being used for purposes other than Social Security, then they could have easily prevented them for being used for such purposes. Think about how your SSN works with your bank. You apply for a bank account. They ask you your SSN. You tell them. But how do they know that this information is accurate? Your bank contacts Social Security! The bank has a form you sign that gives permission for them to as the Social Security Bureau to confirm your SSN. And the Social Security office happily obliges.
The Social Security Administration doesn’t just tolerate the use of SSNs for third party uses. It actively facilitates such third party uses of SSNs.
- Comment on Definitely didn't waste half an hour making this 2 weeks ago:
You missed an option.
- Comment on Need dad support, DIY advice or financial suggestions? 2 weeks ago:
How do I safely drill holes in 1/4" acrylic paneling without cracking it?
- Comment on Israel publicly announces genocidal intent 2 weeks ago:
I would love to meet the people that thought they could use even worse genocide to excuse their own genocide.
- Comment on Israel publicly announces genocidal intent 2 weeks ago:
This message is literally saying, “dismantle your military, and we will ethnically cleanse you.”
- Comment on Normal people probably don't consider themselves normal. 4 weeks ago:
It’s really a statistics joke. If you assume both observations are independent, then yes, the most average name might be “Mohammad Wong.” But if there are other confounding factors, such as the mapping of names to ethnic groups, then the whole thing falls apart. Obviously Mohammad Wong is not the most common name on the planet.
- Comment on Normal people probably don't consider themselves normal. 4 weeks ago:
The most common first name in the world is Mohammad. The most common surname name in the world is Wong.
Thus, logically, the most normal person on Earth must be named Mohammad Wong.
- Comment on Are Autocracies more powerful than Democracies? 4 weeks ago:
Definitely. Autocracies always end up being poorly run. Any system that concentrates all authority in a single ruler is going to have some pretty bad outcomes. Even if the dictator really was the smartest guy in the country, instead of merely the most ruthless, even geniuses make bad decisions from time to time. Autocrats quickly find themselves surrounded by yes men. This is how you end up with boneheaded ideas like Mao’s backyard steel production or Stalin embracing Lysenkoism.
- Comment on Having a baby? Use this one weird trick! 4 weeks ago:
Most European countries actually do in a limited fashion. Countries that have signed the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness grant automatic citizenship at birth to people that would otherwise be born stateless.
More countries should adopt birthright citizenship. It has a lot of utility to it. It prevents the formation of a multigenerational undocumented underclass and greatly assists in the assimilation of immigrants into the broader culture. It’s simply a fact of life that some immigrants will enter a country illegally. And while it is bad enough that they may live the rest of their lives in hiding, it’s even worse when people are born into that condition. You can end up with generation after generation, people with little to no ties to their “homeland,” living as a permanent underclass because they lack citizenship.
It’s also a protection against some forms of tyranny and oppression. A favorite tool of tyrants is to strip citizenship from their victims. They’ll sometimes go back generations and declare decades-old immigration cases as fraudulent or invalid. Look at the Rohingya genocide, where the Myanmar government declared an entire minority group to be illegal immigrants. Having a hard rule that says, “if you were born here, you have citizenship,” prevents these tactics from being used on anyone except actual immigrants. Tyrants can still target immigrants, but their children are protected.
- Comment on Having a baby? Use this one weird trick! 4 weeks ago:
They have deathright citizenship. You automatically become a citizen if you die in their territory.
- Comment on Having a baby? Use this one weird trick! 4 weeks ago:
That is technically true, while missing a key fact. Birthright citizenship is the norm for countries in the Western Hemisphere. The vast majority of countries in the Americas have birthright citizenship. The USA is not some rare outlier here.
- Comment on The Fediverse Isn’t the Future. It’s the Present We’ve Been Denied. 4 weeks ago:
Things need to be paid for, but why does that mechanism need to be baked into the platform?
Imagine I’m the best, most engaging poster and commenter on Lemmy. Everyone loves my posts and comments, shares them, quotes them, and responds to them endlessly. (Maybe in this scenario everyone has brain damage for some reason, and this allowed me to become the top Lemmy user.)
If I’m in that position, what’s stopping me from just putting a little blurb at the bottom of each comment saying, “this post is brought to you by Carls Jr.” or whoever wants to sponsor my comments. If people for some reason loved my posts and comments enough, I could find sponsors and just put those sponsorships right in whatever comment or post I make. Lemmy doesn’t need to be involved. They don’t need to go out of their way to recommend my posts either. If they’re good enough, then they can be spread naturally by people sharing and engaging with them.
It makes sense for platforms to provider revenue to creators, but only if the platform has substantial ad revenue. YouTube pays its creators, but it also brings in billions of ad revenue. I don’t think most Lemmy servers even have ads.
- Comment on We were once forced to watch predetermined junk on cable TV, now we get to choose which junk we want to watch on internet TV. 4 weeks ago:
Yeah, I’m guilty of the same.
