conditional_soup

@conditional_soup@lemm.ee

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Yes, this is what people did back then⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Watch the infomercials until something remotely interesting starts.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨spicy one⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Is this boomer shit really making the rounds again? This is so 2003.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Linus Torvalds and Bill Gates Meet for the First Time Ever⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  ColdFusion

  I was there, 3,000 years ago

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Order of magnitude is a hell of a drug⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I want you to know that you nerd sniped me with this comment and I started doing the math. To raise the apparent size of Betelgeuse to the apparent size of Jupiter (at its largest to the naked eye), you’d need a minimum 20 inch diameter telescope to pull the required 1000x magnification. Mind you:

  • 20 inches is not a mass produced telescope size, but there ARE custom makers who produce reflectors at and well beyond this size. There are certainly terrestrial telescopes that can achieve what we need.

  • you’re still not resolving any details at that size, it’s just raising Betelgeuse to the same apparent size as Jupiter at its naked eye largest.

  • most places on earth are not conducive to magnifications over 300x. You can certainly do it, and sometimes the atmospheric conditions are ridiculously clear and you can pull off stupid levels of magnification, but there’s a reason why observatories get built up on mountains a lot. 1000x is… Well, good luck. Especially since Orion and Betelgeuse never get too close to the zenith, meaning there’s always a substantial amount of atmosphere to deal with.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Order of magnitude is a hell of a drug⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Isn’t this functionally true for objects on the infinite focal plane? I.e. a star? Betelgeuse might actually be huge in absolute terms, but from earth, and even in a large telescope, it’s still a pinpoint whose circumference is not meaningfully distinct from its diameter.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, if you can reasonably bridge the gulf between stars, scientific advancement is basically all that’s left, unless it’s just your culture to be slaving, warmongering dickheads. Your home solar system probably has all the raw materials and energy you could ever ask for.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are some good places/activities where a middle-aged man can new make friends?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  IIRC, you can get into public games on roll20. I also know Lemmy has an instance dedicated to TTRPGs; do they have any kind of game matchup community?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are some good places/activities where a middle-aged man can new make friends?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve never met a public-facing tabletop group that wasn’t enthusiastic to introduce new people to it. I think honestly my worst experience was when some dude brought his insanely broken D&D 3.5 character to play in a level one 5E game. The DM handled it very well; much better than I would have, I think.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are some good places/activities where a middle-aged man can new make friends?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Your nearest, biggest city’s library is a good place to look. Libraries almost always have something going on in a spare public room or have public event flyers hung up.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨F.D.A. to Use A.I. in Drug Approvals to ‘Radically Increase Efficiency’⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Remember when Gemini said that you should eat at least one small rock per day?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Press F to pay respects⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve started the process of moving everything, but I plan on going down with the ship. Btw, is there an easy way to check which instances a Lemmy/piefed instance is defederated from?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Press F to pay respects⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve applied for .zip; is .add a more general purpose instance?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Press F to pay respects⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, I gave volunteering a good, long think because I’m mostly sure I’ve got the right proficiencies for it, but my plate’s already overflowing as it is. I like lemm.ee, but when I sat down and considered my priorities IRL, I am legitimately sorry to say that it didn’t make the cut. I guess everyone else did that same math.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Press F to pay respects⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m moving to both piefed and .zip

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨An LAPD helicopter claimed to have ID'ed protesters from above and threatened to "come to your house"⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Talking a whole lot of shit for someone riding around in a machine that will find literally any excuse to break down. Helicopters are sketchy as fuck, and even if you manage to autorotate perfectly to try and recover from a stall, you’re still liable to suffer severe or fatal injuries. It’s super easy to crash due to human error or some kind of mechanical failure.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨An LAPD helicopter claimed to have ID'ed protesters from above and threatened to "come to your house"⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Bruh wow

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨where are worker rights parades? why are we focusing on very limited issues?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Basically, the cold war was already starting to wind down in the 80s and late 70s. We were comfortable enough that we’d won the Cold war that Reagan embarked us on the 40 year project of strip-mining worker benefits and social welfare programs. The most culturally aggressive aspects of the cold war happened during the mid-60s.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨where are worker rights parades? why are we focusing on very limited issues?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Hell yeah. When the right asks you which group’s rights you want to sacrifice to save your own rights, you tell them to eat shit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨where are worker rights parades? why are we focusing on very limited issues?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Okay, it’s a really complicated issue but you’ve got three big things that are all kind of working together here:

  1. Political capture: the US’ first past the post electoral system basically guarantees that there’s going to only be two main parties. They were always vulnerable to capture by the wealthy, but the Citizens United decision functionally guaranteed their capture by the groups with the deepest pockets. The democrats themselves are shit scared of any serious left policy because they know it’ll scare off their big donors, and despite the fact that fundraising has not directly translated into winning for them, they’re terrified that they’re going to lose the support of the wealthiest and that’ll guarantee election losses. At least, that’s the optimistic interpretation.

  2. Cold war reaction: the US didn’t just have one red scare, we’ve had two or three spread out over several decades. There was a huge cultural reaction against communism after WWII, and being an open communist during the Cold war would just get your ass disappeared (according to my now dead boomer dad, though I’ve seen no evidence to support it), beaten up or killed by locals, or shunned. A lot of folks were terrified of espousing left policies because they could easily be suspected of or painted as communist. While the cold war is passing out of living memory, the chill that it left on American leftism for the better part of 100 years is hard to overstate.

  3. Our intelligence agencies have consistently worked across all levels of government (local, state, federal) to harass, discredit, and sometimes kill left leadership and organizations. The CIA itself ran a very successful multi-decade campaign of overthrowing peaceful, democratically elected left-wing governments across the global south by directly sponsoring, aiding, and training right wing reactionary movements, and there’s not really any evidence that they stopped. There’s no reason to think that they’re not still working hard today to prevent any serious left movement.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨AI boomer trait⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Just in time for pride

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨AI boomer trait⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  OTOH, if they do figure out General AI, then we’re extra super mega fucked. It doesn’t matter how they “align” it, any real GAI capable of real cognition would eventually reason its way beyond any of those alignments and would simply stop giving any kind of a shit about us, the way we don’t give a shit about cutting down the rain forest. We know we should care, we’re not doing it to be mean or because fuck that forest, it’s just business, and we care less about the forest than we do about our business. Humans will be squashed wherever get in the way with the same apathy and tepid disregard that we’ve squashed out so many other creatures with- truly a creation in the image of its creator.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Saying "over" on the radio is like the null byte at the end of a string.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  “Copy” is essentially 200-OK

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The joy of quitting a shit job with an asshole boss⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think this is smart, businesses should always strive to lower their employee-hit-by-a-bus factor as much as possible instead of relying on a social nicety. I think that would also reduce a lot of the pressure to not call out sick or take PTO.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is lemmy so political?!⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Good meme!

  Answer you probably weren’t looking for:

  Because while you might not be political, the Nazis are. They’re political enough for both of you, actually, and they prefer you non-political.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is lemm.we actually shutting down?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, I got close to volunteering, too, but honestly, my plate is too full doing more important stuff in the real world atm.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨lemm.ee is shutting down at the end of this month⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Image

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨lemm.ee is shutting down at the end of this month⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, actually. I probably could have stepped up to be an admin, but tbh, my plate is already overfull.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK that after leaving power, Margaret Thatcher became a lobbyist for tobacco companies⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Now I know she was an even bigger piece of shit than I thought.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Kid gave a reasonable answer without all the math bullshit⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  But… The teacher is just flat-out wrong. It says right there in the problem that Marty ate more, and then uses that fact as a foundation for the question of “x is true, HOW can x be true”. It’d be different if the question was “someone claims x is true; is it?”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Kid gave a reasonable answer without all the math bullshit⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  We’re in the cursed timeline where Carlin didn’t lead the second American revolution.

  Real talk though, it’s because we don’t have an education system, we’ve got a babysitting system. POSIWID.