HelixDab2

joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

IIRC, Yang ended up being pretty far right as far as Democratic candidates went; not who I would want in a cabinet-level position.

Beyond that, he really doesn't have direct political experience, and being in a cabinet does require pretty solid abilities at managing politics. Or, it does if you want to be effective. The gov't isn't a business, and it shouldn't be run the same way a for-profit business is run. To that end, I don't think that politics and public service is really Yang's wheelhouse. If he wants to cut his teeth on state politics, and then move up to the national level, he's welcome to prove me wrong. (Not that he gives a shit about my opinion. But I think he'll have a hard time getting elected without getting lower-stakes experience first.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

I think that there are probably a lot of small companies that run in a more collaborative way. I also think that the probability of labor abuses increases along with the size of a company; once the owner/president doesn't personally know everyone that works there, the odds of shitty things goes up sharply. Not that small companies don't also have shitty owners, but it's usually hard to be an asshole directly to someone's face, unless you're a raging narcissist or sociopath.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Honestly? No idea. Didn't watch the debate, because the kind of thing that would make me vote for Trump isn't going to come out in a debate. Would it surprise me, given that Trump is so eager to slob the knob of any authoritarian, like Orban, Putin, or Erdoğan? Not even slightly. Stein at least--and this shows just how goddamn low this bar is--doesn't praise authoritarian leaders.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 weeks ago

Got one >25 years ago. I had complications because I was dumb enough to help a friend change a tire less than 30 minutes after it was done, but the complications were just mildly inconvenient rather than painful.

I did it for multiple reasons; my ex-wife was on medication for a seizure disorder that would cause serious birth defects if she got pregnant, so pregnancy was completely off the table. By that point I'd also realized that I would not be a good parent. (I was diagnosed as being autistic about a decade ago; that's probably why I'm usually in my own world, which isn't a great trait in a parent.) I think that, with insurance, it cost about $100 at the time, which was expensive, but not outrageously so.

I have zero regrets, and I have zero children.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 3 weeks ago

Oh.

Not Advanced Encryption Standard. Right.

No, I don't support EAS in that context, because none of the states that they're citing are anything other than deeply, profoundly authoritarian.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Most people can see color well enough, the difficult part is understanding how to translate that to a flat, uniform surface that doesn’t emit light.

Most people think they see color, light, and shadow well enough. But they don't. They know what color a thing should be, or what they perceive the color to be, and so they can't see the way that the color really is. I think that part of the genius of a painter like Lucien Freud was that he was showing you the colors are they really are (...kinda of...), rather than the way people think they are. Highlights on a face aren't just going to be lighter; they're going to have different hues, depending on your light source. Flattening colors out to black and white seems easier, until you realize that you can have two wildly different colors that have almost identical values, and so you have to introduce some unnatural contrast in order to make a distinction between objects. Hell, B&W in general requires increasing contrast and fucking around with your virtual white and black points, or else your drawing looks flat and lifeless.

Photography--particularly film photography, where you don't have software interpreting the image--can be a useful tool in seeing this. Without any filters, you can examine detail areas of an image and see how reflected light, and how shadows, are changing the hue of what you're seeing. Your brain automatically makes adjustments, unless you're really looking. And training yourself to really see what's actually there, versus what you expect, is a very challenging process.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago

...Without realizing that the only things that are going to fill that power vacuum are worse.

Are there better countries than the US? Damn skippy there are. Do any of them have enough power to do anything if the US implodes? Absolutely not.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

It's not that doctors are stupid. Quite the opposite; I strongly suspect that, by any seemingly-objective measure of intelligence, doctors are going to average significantly higher than the general population. (...And veterinary doctors even more so.) Having cognitive biases, believing in conspiracies, etc., isn't a symptom of stupidity; it's a side effect of being human and having emotions. You'll find that very highly intelligent people end up being more effective at rationalizing dumbass, batshit crazy beliefs; the number of engineers, computer scientists, attorneys, etc. that are, for instance, Mormon is astounding.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

...And yet, if the company treats employees in a way that employees feel is fair and reasonable, then employees are extremely unlikely to choose to unionize.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Futurism was a fascinating movement; many of the ideas of the Manifesto of Futurism by Marinetti have ended up being absorbed by culture. The change of popular music--particularly synthpop, industrial, and techno--really capture ideas of futurism, regarding changing aesthetic tastes away from the classic.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

Instant sugar-free chocolate pudding made with Greek yogurt instead of milk, added de-fatted peanut powder and chocolate whey protein (unflavored would work better, TBH), and with peanuts, raw rolled oats, and sliced bananas.

It's a great meal when you're done at the gym and utterly exhausted by the prospect of making real food. It's high protein, no added sugars, and high in fiber. If you squint, it's almost healthy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

I really liked it too, and was deeply disappointed that it was cancelled prematurely.

TBH, it seems like Netflix cancels everything that I really end up enjoying, and dragging out shows that should have been a limited series (e.g., Stranger Things).

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