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BertramDitore

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BertramDitore , (edited )
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This may be controversial, and may also be totally wrong (Iā€™m no display expert), but I have a 55ā€ Hisense U8K QLED and am still legitimately shocked at how black the blacks are. I canā€™t even tell if the screen is on or off if itā€™s just showing my black background. No light bleed or blooming, and inky rich blacks with incredibly smooth gradients. This screen convinced me that Iā€™ll never need to shell out for an OLED.

Edit: in case youā€™re curious, I use it as the third screen in my PC setup, running at 144hz. Itā€™s also my first experience with high refresh rates, and it has been a joy. Oh and the nits on this thing are something else. Ever been blinded by a sunrise in 4K HDR? Itā€™s awesome.

BertramDitore ,
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Woah Iā€™ve never heard of inverse tone mapping. I always assumed HDR metadata was burned into the file, didnā€™t realize it could be ā€œfaked.ā€ Fascinating. What settings do you use if you donā€™t mind me asking?

BertramDitore ,
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Yup yup. Darkreader has improved my entire internet experience, which is a huge accomplishment. Works flawlessly 99% of the time.

BertramDitore ,
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I see what you did there, Mr/Ms Maggoty Cum Fart.

(Looks delicious btw. I love fresh flatbread)

BertramDitore ,
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I encourage folks to search ā€œdel monte human rightsā€ and be prepared to get angry.

BertramDitore ,
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Right? Itā€™s shocking. I only learned about it recently when I started buying pineapples regularly and found out there are only a few companies in the world that produce them. And most if not all of them are incredibly shady and responsible for some truly terrible shit.

BertramDitore ,
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Yeah I canā€™t tell with them anymore either, so Iā€™ve stopped reading the nytimes entirely. Itā€™s a shame. There are still a few reporters I respect over there, but itā€™s not enough for me to keep wading through all the bullshit.

BertramDitore ,
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They really deserved this. That series was exceptional. Iā€™d call it the gold standard of investigative journalism.

BertramDitore ,
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I donā€™t know much about the case beyond some very lazy peripheral searching, but it strikes me that Protonā€™s compliance isnā€™t an issue, but the requests themselves are totally unjustifiable and based on malicious prosecutions to nab some separatists on ridiculous terrorism charges for their nonviolent action and protests.

This individual is suspected of being a member of the Mossos dā€™Esquadra (Cataloniaā€™s police force) and of using their internal knowledge to assist the Democratic Tsunami movement.

The requests were made under the guise of anti-terrorism laws, despite the primary activities of the Democratic Tsunami involving protests and roadblocks, which raises questions about the proportionality and justification of such measures.

BertramDitore ,
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That show was so ahead of its time! It had depth, complicated characters, and didnā€™t shy away from exploring situations with questionable morality. I didnā€™t know Frakes was involved!!

BertramDitore ,
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Holy shit! Youā€™ve blown my mind. Guess I watched Gargoyles before I knew much about Star Trek actors.

BertramDitore ,
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Fully agree. This edutainment disclaimer also applies when it comes to explanations of archaeological sites and the ā€œdaily lifeā€ of ancient populations. The stories the public hears are based on the best understanding of complex interpretations of ceramics, surface features, architecture, stratigraphy, etc. You could ask two equally talented archaeologists to interpret a site and get two equally convincing but completely different explanations. We just canā€™t know any of this for sure, itā€™s all filtered through the lens of the researcher, their methods, and their biases. And thatā€™s okay. The best we can do is apply the most relevant and current methodology to interpret the evidence, be transparent about potential shortcomings, and be willing to change our conclusions if better evidence arises.

Lots of people are uncomfortable with ā€œthatā€™s just our best possible guess at the moment,ā€ but thatā€™s how interpretive social sciences work. Until we invent a time machine, educated guesses based on all the available evidence are the best we can do.

BertramDitore ,
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Iā€™m continually disappointed that America doesnā€™t live up to what I learned about in civics class 30 years ago.

I have clear memories of sitting in class as a kid, asking the most basic questions about checks and balances, separation of powers, equality under the law etc. and being absolutely mesmerized by the topics. I remember thinking, ā€œwow, I live there? Iā€™m so lucky.ā€

When my teacher said ā€œnot even the president is above the lawā€ I remember some other kid really trying to grasp the idea that every single person is supposed to be treated equally by the justice system, regardless of their family, job, or religion. It wasnā€™t a concept that came naturally to everyone.

It wasnā€™t until high school and college that I finally understood that these were just ideals that we talk about but donā€™t fully actualize. America is not the unicorn we think it is, but weā€™re great at lying to ourselves from a very young age. Howard Zinn was a big part of my waking up to reality.

Thatā€™s not to say we donā€™t strive for improvement, but when one of the two political parties is hell-bent on dismantling the administrative state, taking away bodily autonomy for more than half the population, reverting our ā€˜cultureā€™ and laws to the 1800s, destroying our planet, discarding science, fetishizing killing-machines in daily life and warfare across the globe, and so much more regressive bullshit, weā€™re not really setting ourselves up to realize those ideals.

So yeah, America is a genuine country, but itā€™s not what it should be or what many people think it is.

BertramDitore ,
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I do the same thing, and always wonder that too. These companies have been caught lying consistently and repeatedly about what they collect and how, so even with all the right settings Iā€™m very skeptical that they actually respect my choices.

BertramDitore ,
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From the WKCR website:

Our website is experiencing intermittent outages due to an excess of connections (over 13k). The best way to listen to WKCR is by tuning in on FM radio at 89.9 if you're in the New York Metro area.

The second best way is to click this link: https://wkcr.streamguys1.com/live.m3u. This link will download a file that will enable you to listen to our live broadcast on your device's default media player (i.e. your computer's Music app).

BertramDitore ,
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Iā€™m not French, and my opinion is based on pretty much nothing but a smattering of headlines, but I really dislike Macron. He strikes me as an opportunistic little boy trying to make everyone happy while pissing off his parents (the French electorate) at nearly every turn. He tries to push his way into the global spotlight by meeting with Putin and Xi and thinks he looks like some neutral peacemaker, but we never really see any results other than a small boost to his profile.

Maybe Iā€™m totally wrong, like I said Iā€™m just a spectator. Maybe itā€™s just his face.

BertramDitore ,
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I definitely smell the McKinsey stench now that you mention it.

BertramDitore ,
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I appreciate the pushback, I really do want to get a more well-rounded sense of Macron and his popularity.

I donā€™t usually like LLM summaries as a general rule, but since my opinions were admittedly based on vibes and not much substance, this might be a good use for it.

BertramDitore ,
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Yeah Iā€™ve always been surprised that court fines arenā€™t on a sliding scale. Us normals shouldnā€™t be expected to have access to large amounts of money to pay fees or fines, but as the right consequence should have to pay enough to feel it without totally ruining our lives. The wealthy should have to pay enough relative to their net worth so they feel it at the same level.

$1000 a day is a massive life-ruining expense for most people, so for Trump it should be more like $100,000 or even $1 million a day if itā€™s actually supposed to disincentivize violating a court order.

But that sounds too fair for America, so I doubt weā€™ll ever see it.

BertramDitore ,
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All the double negatives make the headline a challenge to parse, but they are against the legislation because it would make it illegal for local authorities to implement basic safeguards for people who work outside. They want the safeguards.

The legislation, known asĀ House Bill 433, forbids local authorities from mandating that employers provide their employees with, for example, water breaks or advance notice of their work hours.

BertramDitore ,
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This is one of the more disturbing things Iā€™ve read in a while, and thereā€™s a genocide going on.

It strikes me that this guy and his followers simply never grew up, because they didnā€™t have to. Instead of being faced with everyday challenges like the rest of us, their money could insulate them from any degree of hardship or friction. When you live a life where literally everything can be solved with your money, and youā€™re pretty much guaranteed to never run out of it, thereā€™s no motivation for you to empathize with or even understand other peopleā€™s points of view, and thus this scary techno-authoritarianism is born.

These are the people who will prevent us from making any socioeconomic progress. They actually want us all to wear colored shirts and be discriminated against based on our color. Their dystopian vision is genuinely the stuff of my nightmares.

BertramDitore ,
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I used to hate them, so I understand where youā€™re coming from, but then I got a job at a company that uses Slack as its primary communications app, and memes and gifs became a genuinely joyful part of my day.

Some managers at my company communicate almost exclusively with gifs, which sometimes still annoys the hell out of me, but I have to keep reminding myself ā€œBertram, you have a good job, working with fun people who sometimes use too many gifs. It could be so so much worse.ā€ And then I go back to laughing at the most absurdly ridiculous reaction gif my manager just sent as a response to a critical project delivery.

BertramDitore ,
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Iā€™m all for more trains in general, but $12 billion?? Fucking hell thatā€™s too much money. And Las Vegas??? A city that practically and logistically-speaking should not exist? Building a zero emissions train (theoretically awesome) that goes out into the middle of the desert to a city that is warming faster than anywhere else in America, one that will only need more access to our dwindling water supply in the future, makes zero sense to me.

Iā€™m sure people will hate me for saying this, but we should be phasing out unsustainable cities like Las Vegas, not giving them incentives to build up even more.

BertramDitore ,
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This is one of the most absurd examples Iā€™ve ever seen. This shit drives me crazy.

Alameda County prosecutors allegedly excluded Black people and Jews from death penalty juries ( oaklandside.org )

In an order issued today, U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria said that the hand-written notes of prosecutors from a 31-year-old murder case ā€œconstitute strong evidence that, in prior decades, prosecutors from the [Alameda County District Attorneyā€™s] office were engaged in a pattern of serious misconduct, automatically...

BertramDitore ,
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If you feel you have to exclude certain types of people because you think they might demonstrate too much empathy or compassion, then the system obviously needs more empathy and compassion.

BertramDitore ,
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Mmm I love bok choy. Hot and fast is my preferred method. Get a quick char going and youā€™re done.

BertramDitore ,
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The Israeli government consistently lies about these things, so the US position is facially absurd. The only reason youā€™d be against an investigation into an atrocity is if you didnā€™t want people to find out what actually happened.

BertramDitore ,
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Lots of good points have already been made in this thread, Iā€™ll just chime in to say Iā€™ve really enjoyed Discovery. It definitely has its problems, and Iā€™m kinda bipolar when it comes to Burnham, sometimes I love her, sometimes I canā€™t stand herā€¦she never really learns any lessons. But the show is gorgeous and tried to do something a little different. I respect that.

The action sequences and cinematography are better and more exciting than any other Trek I can think of. That sequence in S05E01 where Burnham is blown out into space, has a suit materialize on her, jetpacks towards Discovery and then transports through the viewscreen directly into her captainā€™s chair was BAD ASS.

I just wish the show was released in 4K HDR. Seems like a waste of beautiful visuals.

BertramDitore ,
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I started reading it, but the very first paragraph is already spilling over with bullshit. So Iā€™m done.

Israelā€™s unpreparedness on Oct. 7 shows that even powerful nations can be surprised in catastrophic ways.

First of all, of course powerful nations can be surprised, what a silly thing to say. But thatā€™s not what happened here. Israel should have been fully prepared, because Israel was warned about the exact thing that happened on Oct. 7th. Their intelligence was quite specific on what was about to happen, itā€™s just that they didnā€™t believe their own intelligence for what I would call ironically racist reasons. They didnā€™t believe that Hamas was organized enough to be capable of carrying out such an attack, but they were so obviously wrong.

So without finishing the article Iā€™m gonna guess these clowns are using an intelligence failure to justify more intelligence.

BertramDitore ,
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Two Thousand Billion is not a number Iā€™m capable of conceptualizing.

BertramDitore ,
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Yup, it is. I canā€™t really conceptualize a thousand billions or a trillion, though. These are not numbers that translate to reality in any practical way for me.

BertramDitore ,
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Now thatā€™s a price I can get behind. My 2019 Kia Soul cost $14,000, and I love that car. This might actually start making a difference in the market.

Emergency rooms refused to treat pregnant women, leaving one to miscarry in a lobby restroom ( apnews.com )

One woman miscarried in the restroom lobby of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to admit her. Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room...

BertramDitore ,
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Why the hell are security guards and front desk staff making medical decisions? Iā€™m sure their jobs arenā€™t easy, but this isnā€™t their job.

BertramDitore ,
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Yeah I spent probably 80% of my childhood out of the house around the neighborhood, at the park, playing with random kids who happened to be around, exploring, riding bikes, walking around town, finding cool new spots in the woods, finding old playing cards with pictures of risquƩ ladies stashed in a tree somewhere. No direct adult supervision.

The rule was to be back by dinner, or to call from a friendā€™s house with a good reason for being late.

I frankly think the world is a lot safer now than it was then, so itā€™s really sad that this isnā€™t as common in the US anymore.

BertramDitore ,
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Leaving aside the overall quality of the show, you canā€™t just recast the beloved main character and expect people to still be excited about it. Especially when the original actor is also a gamer who raved about how much he loved the source material, left the show for the right reasons, and connected with the fans so well.

Theyā€™ve mishandled this property spectacularly.

BertramDitore ,
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Oh damn, I didnā€™t realize that. Such a bad call.

BertramDitore ,
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Wait, what the fuck? This is inexcusable. This means even if you werenā€™t born in CA, parts of your genome will still be in their database if youā€™re related to anyone who was, and those parts are often enough to identify you. This isnā€™t just about personal privacy, itā€™s about our collective ability to retain ownership and control over the most fundamental parts of ourselves and our families. And this data will obviously be abused by law enforcement, if it hasnā€™t already, because thatā€™s what they do.

Babies deserve even more privacy protections than adults, since they canā€™t consent to anything.

If you're selected for jury duty (US), should you give up your anonymous social media accounts?

I have old Facebook and Twitter accounts, maybe some others. Iā€™m old so thereā€™s a MySpace account out there. But Iā€™ve mostly been using reddit the last decade or so, and have migrated to Lemmy. Now, Lemmy is the only social media i use. Recent news got me thinking about this question.

BertramDitore ,
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I was just about to ask this same question in a different thread. Iā€™m in a similar situation, in that Lemmy is the only social media I use (Reddit before the API crap), but Iā€™ve never used my real name. Iā€™d happily own all my comments, but the point of an anonymous account is that I donā€™t have to. I guess when youā€™re under oath it doesnā€™t matter, you have to truthfully answer the question thatā€™s asked.

BertramDitore ,
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Because itā€™s in everyoneā€™s best interest that people with overt bias are dismissed. In high profile cases itā€™s standard practice for both sides to do pretty intensive research on individual prospective jurors (they get a list), and that often includes scouring the web for their social media accounts. If they find something you posted, and you didnā€™t disclose your account when asked, you could be in trouble.

I donā€™t think itā€™s usually standard to ask specifically about social media accounts, at least in normal mundane cases, but in a crazy case like this, it can say a lot about a personā€™s ability to be impartial.

BertramDitore ,
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This is really helpful, thanks.

can you help me formulate an answer to a colleague who is not my boss but feels entitled to tell me how I have to work?

the colleague in question feels that only her way of doing things is the right one and expects me to adapt to her way of thinking and her logic. This is tiring and burdensome because I have to force me to stop doing things automatically and efficiently, but think how she wants it done and do it her way. I work worse when this...

BertramDitore ,
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Yeah this is how Iā€™d handle it, simple and to the point. As a bonus I might add ā€œIā€™ll let you know if I need a handā€ which takes the impetus away from her so she knows her ideas are unwanted, but stays professional and polite.

BertramDitore ,
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I think the whole neighborhood just heard me sigh.

No one can argue that Israel doesnā€™t have the right to legitimately defend itself, itā€™s just that no one could reasonably look at what Israel is doing right now and say their actions are defensive, proportionate, or at all justified.

Itā€™s so patently obvious that the onslaught of indiscriminate violence and the direct targeting of aid convoys and civilians, is an offensive war against a population of human beings who are incapable of defending themselves in any meaningful way. This is an absurdly lopsided assault on an entire population of innocent people who just want a country of their own so they can finally have a fair shot at life.

Sorry, but bombing Iran is not defensive (Israel been doing targeted strikes against Iran and Syria for years). Bombing a hospital is not defensive. Guiding your precision missiles so they perfectly strike the WCK logo on the roofs of their vehicles is not defensive. How can killing a child, let alone tens of thousands of children, ever be defensive? It canā€™t.

BertramDitore ,
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Wow, that explanation actually clicks for me in a totally fucked up way. In the past when Israel has used disproportionate violence against Palestinians, theyā€™ve used rhetoric like ā€œmowing the lawnā€ (look it up, youā€™ll be disgusted) to try to rationalize this kind of preemptive defense.

BertramDitore ,
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The billā€™s passage comes after the stateā€™s most populous county, Miami-Dade, considered local heat protection rules that would have been among the most stringent in the country. That proposal would have required employers to provide shade, water and 10-minute breaks to workers every two hours on days over a certain heat threshold.

The fact that that would have been among the most stringent protections in the country is incredibly sad. Those protections should be in place nationwide by default at a minimum. Nobody benefits from overheated workers, who are human beings by the way. I feel like itā€™s so much easier to just be decent and take care of peoplesā€™ basic needs.

Youā€™re a monster if you donā€™t think your workers deserve to have a few minutes in the shade whenever the fuck they want. People will work harder if they feel like theyā€™re safe and respected. Everybody wins.

BertramDitore ,
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I love this.

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