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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • make something noteworthy and newsworthy though being shocking

    If you need to make something shocking then you’re just advertising / pandering to a base. News may or may not be noteworthy/newsworthy; whether it is groundbreaking or simply pedestrian is clear in the reading. And just because something is pedestrian doesn’t mean it’s not interesting. Needing things to be shocking in news is like asking for every item of food to be intensely sweet, or salty, or sour. It dulls the sense to meaningful news which isn’t sensationalist and ultimately makes us less aware and inquisitive.


  • Is terror defined by the application or by the reaction? They could be called Terrorists, Militants, Freedom Fighters, Patriots, Defenders, Liberators, or a host of other things. I think one of the things that makes a news source reliable is - as written here - a telling of the facts. That lack of passion is a feature rather than a bug. It lets us hear the propagandists - all propagandists - for who they are by the inciteful rhetoric they use. A teller’s level of vitriol is generally inversely proportional to how much you can trust their account of what is happening.



  • I mean, we sort of set up this fuck-fest despite Britain telling us it was a bad idea. But we were the Victors of the World™ so clearly we knew what we were doing (clears throat). Kind of like our useless embargo of Cuba, we made a decision and we’re sticking with it, no matter how stupid or counterproductive it is, and there’s a very vocal portion of the electorate which supports the move (mostly out of spite, which makes them that much more intractable).

    Is the current war terrible? Sure. Nobody should be killing civilians or taking the hostage. Is the plight of the Palestinians real? Yeah, it is. Israel has been an absolute menace, because they can.


  • What is the magical method we are pimping this week and what is the fatal flaw which will be revealed that makes it entirely impractical for commercial or industrial scale uses? I ask because we seem to (re-)invent various version of the solar still (oh, look - that’s what they’re doing!) every year or two and it’s revolutionary every time because the energy is free and all that’s required is a way to scale it up, prevent the scaled up version from destroying the local ecosystem through hypersalination around the plant when operated at the level needed for efficient collection and distribution to a sizable population, and figure out how to move the billions of tons of water required in a typical year for a medium sized city/population center from the desalination location to a distribution system.

    Also, sorry for being shitty. I’m in an especially intolerant mood today.




  • And the penalty is what - a letter in your personal file? A fine (and to be paid by whom, if paid at all)? A physical removal from the space (and, again, by whom)? DJT and the modern GOP have shown that laws written concerning the presidency, congress, and the supreme court have no teeth whatsoever. Even congressional subpoenas and perjury no longer have any meaning as long as you’re willing to ignore or flaunt them.

    I actually agree with the desire for at least a minimum of decorum in the chambers, but the whole process is stupid to the extreme.


  • SMS and (at least for craigslist) voice 2FA doesn’t work with VoIP (Google Voice numbers, including numbers ported from mobile operators). IRS 2FA via SMS definitely doesn’t work, nor does Dunkin Donuts (which invalidates use of their entire app on all mobile platforms). Some services offer voice 2FA which will go through, and some offer email, but many don’t. Of course the vast majority of 2FA over SMS work with the major VoIP providers, but if you hit one where it doesn’t…there’s either no way around it or you have to wait for a snailmail 2FA token (IRS).


  • I currently have (almost) only VoIP numbers. My cell phone technically has a carrier number, but only my immediate family and two friends (8 people in total) actually have that number for my contact, and I keep it that way for safety/security purposes. As a result, I already can’t do things like try ChatGPT, use the some vendor apps, or get quasi-2 factor codes from several businesses - including the IRS. Their systems simply can’t interact across a VoIP gateway. There really should be a certificate authority for these things, but the POTS system is just so fucking old.





  • Storage and transport of H2 is a big deal because of the unique properties (very low transition temp/very high pressure for liquid). That generally means for a non-pressurized, non-cryogenic storage it has to be combined into another molecule and then catalyzed back out, real time, for use. And, of course, the ignition ratio range (4%-75% in air) means that it’s very easy to accidentally ignite a H2 leak; substantially easier than most other fuels, though this is mitigated by it’s density and ability to disperse in an unenclosed area.

    Production is theoretically energy efficient as you can create it with hydrolysis, but the cheapest way of producing it, by far, is cracking of methane, which requires a high temperature process to create. It may not produce a high volume of CO2, but it perpetuates the cycle of exploration and extraction of gaseous hydrocarbons and the related environmental dangers and downsides.