ultranaut
@ultranaut@lemmy.world
- Comment on In the US, is this actually the moment past the point of no return? 1 month ago:
Maybe. US history is full of crazy fucked up shit that the nation has made its way through thus far. This kind of situation hasn’t really happened in the US before though, and historically these kinds of situations do not work out well. We are past the point of no return in that the status quo Washington Consensus or whatever you want to call the previous era is gone now, whatever is coming is something new and different and the US role and position in the world are never going back to what they were before. Really I would say this process started with Bush II but there is no reversing it now that Trump has won a convincing electoral victory. Whether we’re past the point of no return for the US constitutional order isn’t really clear yet but it’s not looking good.
- Comment on Study confirms Egyptians drank hallucinogenic cocktails in ancient rituals 2 months ago:
The harmala should be, its Syrian Rue, which contains an MAOI and has been used in recent decades for creating ahistorical version of Ayahuasca by combining it with either a DMT containing plant or synthetic/extracted DMT. I think access to the actual plants used traditionally for Ayahuasca is more common so probably Syrian Rue has likely become less used for that now.
- Comment on Who was our worst Prime Minister and why? Any notable state leaders we need to add? 2 months ago:
As an American who occasionally follows Aussie politics, it is impressive how many ridiculously terrible PMs you guys have elected. My vote goes to ScuMo.
- Comment on What is the argument for making poor/working class folks shoulder the burden of taxes? 2 months ago:
If you are talking about federal income taxes, they are actually progressive. The vast majority of the money collected comes from the top 50%, the 1% pays something like 25% of the total just by themselves. Its why Republicans and billionaires bitch about it so much and want to eliminate the federal income tax. In reality poor people are mostly impacted by sales taxes, and that’s because of the basic economics involved that make sales taxes inherently regressive.
- Comment on All these hurricanes might kick off a new modular house trend. 2 months ago:
If it keeps getting hotter and the storms keep getting worse, we will find out. At the very least, property prices anywhere still liveable will likely become even more unaffordable.
- Comment on All these hurricanes might kick off a new modular house trend. 2 months ago:
People have been trying to make modular housing work for awhile, with limited success. For various reasons, it’s a lot more challenging than it seems like it should be. One of the problems is that the US doesn’t really have a single national regulatory regime for building codes, they are mostly local and regional. You can’t really design a house that works everywhere so the economics are a lot different than selling something like a car or a washing machine.
- Comment on Growth of far-right ‘active clubs’ in UK prompts call to tackle misogyny 3 months ago:
Claremont Institute is likely part of it, or people and groups associated with Claremont.
- Comment on Nancy Pelosi's husband sold more than $500K in Visa stock ahead of DOJ action 3 months ago:
Also, if you were paying any attention to Visa as an investor it has been obvious for awhile now that the company is underperforming.
- Comment on Headlamp tech that doesn’t blind oncoming drivers—where is it? 3 months ago:
I think part of the problem, at least for me, is the horrible color temp most headlights use now. They are like 6500k hard white light instead of something less harsh like around 3500k that is much easier on the eyes. I think the only criteria they care about when selecting LEDs is maximum brightness so this is what we get.
- Comment on Lebanon’s health minister says 8 killed, 2,750 wounded by exploding pagers 3 months ago:
Almost certainly it was explosives. Mossad very likely designed a functioning pager that contains explosives but looks identical to the original pagers and this is effectively a supply chain attack.
- Comment on The air begins to leak out of the overinflated AI bubble 4 months ago:
The hype is still percolating, at least among the people I work with and at the companies of people I know. Microsoft pushing Copilot everywhere makes it inescapable to some extent in many environments, there’s people out there who have somehow only vaguely heard of ChatGPT and are now encountering LLMs for the first time at work and starting the hype cycle fresh.
- Comment on Palmer Luckey's FPGA Game Boy clone lands just in time for the holidays | TechSpot 6 months ago:
He also got caught secretly funding a racist trolling group to spread hate and harass people.
- Comment on is there a search engine for the fediverse? 8 months ago:
Kagi has a “Fediverse Forums” lens.
- Comment on It's important to get a good interest rate 8 months ago:
Maybe I misremember but I thought they went crazy during covid and got into the whole antimask nonsense and refusing to comply with health and safety rules.
- Comment on It's important to get a good interest rate 8 months ago:
It used to be better, and the family that own the company are far right Christian extremists.
- Comment on Meta spent $4.3 billion on its VR division in three months, and made *checks figures* $440 million in return 8 months ago:
Take a look at Meta revenue numbers, they can afford billions in R&D investment just fine. I’m not sure what market share you’re talking about but there’s plenty of money for them to afford the VR research they do.
- Comment on Judge rules YouTube, Facebook and Reddit must face lawsuits claiming they helped radicalize a mass shooter | CNN Business 9 months ago:
Why do you believe “the process must start elsewhere”? I’ve literally had YouTube start feeding me this sort of content, which I have no interest in at all and actively try to avoid. It seems very obvious that YouTube is a major factor in inculcating these belief systems in people who would otherwise not be exposed to them without YouTube ensuring they reach an audience.
- Comment on Why is living with your parents considered a bad thing? 11 months ago:
My parents suck. If you have to put up with their shit you’re definitely a loser.
- Comment on Why does it seem that people dislike recordings of their voice more than photos of themselves? 11 months ago:
That is not correct. Headphones encompasses a variety of methods of putting speakers next to ears. Earphones are one of many types of headphone. Or actually more than one because colloquially some people refer to a few different form factors of headphones that way. IEMs for example are often also referred to as earphones. Language is sloppy like that.
- Comment on Why does it seem that people dislike recordings of their voice more than photos of themselves? 11 months ago:
This seems backwards. Most desktop speakers are shit. If you’re into headphones at all you hopefully will have some that sound better.
- Comment on Please tell me does this make any sense? i can not sleep, is capitalism inherently designed to be invasive? 11 months ago:
Sure, but there’s better examples that would be much more useful and relevant. You’re not going to learn much about modern capitalism trying to extrapolate from the limited knowledge available on how an ancient precapitalist economy functioned.
- Comment on Please tell me does this make any sense? i can not sleep, is capitalism inherently designed to be invasive? 11 months ago:
The Roman Empire predates capitalism so I wouldn’t read too much into how their economy operated.
- Comment on Own a Roku TV or streaming device? You're about to see a lot more ads on your home screen 11 months ago:
You don’t have to, nextdns on my router handles the Roku.
- Comment on Own a Roku TV or streaming device? You're about to see a lot more ads on your home screen 11 months ago:
I blocked it with nextdns, my Roku shows no ads at all. Instead there’s just a blank space where the ads would be, which is so much better and less obnoxious.
- Comment on MSI CLAW gaming handheld leaked, features Intel Core Ultra 7 155H with Arc graphics and 32GB memory 1 year ago:
I felt like mine gave me cancer when I first turned it on, it was the dankest robot fart I’ve ever smelled.
- Comment on Kagi Search releases first version of a Lemmy/Kbin search lens 1 year ago:
That’s how I justify it, if it saves me time at work then that’s worth money to me. $10 a month isn’t that much, and since I’ve been trying to reduce my reliance on Google it’s even easier to justify the cost. I’ve been a customer for a few months now and have been really happy with it so far, it’s a better experience than Google search.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 year ago:
Have your sleeping habits changed with the new job? If you’re not sleeping well regularly that could potentially be a cause.
- Comment on Tesla Cybertruck gets less than 80% of advertised range in YouTuber’s test 1 year ago:
I’ve found EPA MPG estimates to be fairly accurate. Unless I’m driving aggressively or there’s a lot of elevation change the highway average has been spot on the EPA number in every car I’ve driven enough to pay attention to the MPG.
- Comment on SR-72: US secret hypersonic jet to allegedly break sound barrier in 2025 | Believed to be a top-secret project of the US Air Force, the SR-72 is touted to reach over 4,000 mph (6,437 kph), making i... 1 year ago:
You can put it exactly where you want it, exactly when you want it there.
- Comment on Has google stopped working for finding anything? 1 year ago:
I do. I use search basically every day and when I’m working I don’t want to waste a bunch of time digging through bullshit if I can help it. Google sucks, $10 a month for a better experience that both saves me time and helps get Google more out of my life is worth it to me.