That's only true in an academic sense. When a layman uses the term "political", they refer to discussion pertaining to things like how a formal government is run, comparisons between types of governance, government policy, etc.
While deciding what cookie to eat or what color your cat's litterbox is might technically be political in an academic sense, you're just going to annoy people if you try to tell them that those are political decisions. I have found that trying to force academic definitions into common use is confusing at best, annoying on average, and infuriating at worst.
An example of where a word's academic definition has no place in common speech can be found in "information". The informal definition of "information" typically is seen as referring to knowledge and the transfer of said knowledge. This definition allows you to gain information from a lack of something.
However, it is my understanding that the scientific definition of "information" does not allow for the aforementioned action, as "information" refers to the properties of physical matter. The result is that you cannot gain "information" from a lack of something. You might be able to come to conclusions based on a lack of "information", but you cannot actually gain "information" from a lack of something because "information" is inherently linked to matter.
Now. All of that said, this meme is related to something said at an engineering school, so on the one hand, it isn't entirely out-of-place to expect the academic definition to be used because it is an academic setting. Yet, on the other hand, it is an engineering school, not a political science school. As such, while OP should be aware that the academic definition of "politics" may come into play, it's also reasonable to expect that their professors and peers would mainly be using the common definition of the term.
However again, in my experience, trying to force academic definitions into casual discussion is confusing at best, annoying on average, and infuriating at worst. Please stop trying to do it. Thanks.
(Also, imo, genocide is like Schrodinger's Cat; it is both political and not political at the same time. Personally, I think it mainly depends on the depth of the discussion; but its "political" nature varies from person-to-person. Imo, saying that genocide is happening shouldn't be considered "political", but talking about why it is occuring is political.)
Edit: whoops, somehow my comment doubled, within the comment. The fuck happened there?
Edit 2: I swear I need to find a new phone keyboard, and I need to read over my comments before submitting. I'm finding a lot of stupid auto-correct errors, and it seems like they're becoming more common.
Edit 3: the reason I got hung-up on it, and I should have mentioned this, is because I often see "everything is political" used to justify bringing heavier topics into places where it's inappropriate (like chatrooms where people are trying to just hang out and have light hearted discussions).
Felt like getting a snack, so I decided to try it with a bagel. Didn't really notice a huge difference in taste, however it was significantly easier to spread. Another benefit from mixing the two is that you can spread it on toast, a bagel, etc, even if you only have a single slice, without contaminating the peanut butter or jelly/jam/preserves jar. The downside is that you have additional dishes to wash (in particular, a bowl and two spoons, one for peanut butter, the other for jelly).
My conclusion is that it's technically superior (easier to spread, can be spread on a single slice of bread). Only downside is that additional cleanup is required. As such, not a great method if you're in a time crunch and don't have the time to mix the pb&j and wash additional dishes. However, if time isn't a problem and you want a snack, try mixing pb&j.
I wonder... does anyone know how many shares in a company you have to own before you can call-in during shareholder meetings to ask questions? I'm wondering if we could push back against this by """asking questions""" that make majority shareholders aware of the damage companies are doing to their own brands. I know modern capitalism is all about "money today, fuck tomorrow", but I wonder how many shareholders would be happy knowing that companies would probably make more money if they'd stop cannibalizing studios and franchises.
You know, play into their greed and make convincing arguments about how their decisions are ultimately robbing them of money.
At this point, making something that doesn't work using Wine or Proton is actually kind of an achievement, so congrats EA, you managed to fuck up both Origin and EA app. The actual game runs flawlessly, it's the launchers that are all kinds of broken.
A lot of these are funny, because (as a young millennial), they'd eliminate Biden from the picture and force the Dems to run a different candidate. This on the other hand:
Develop A Fursona
Now, I can't speak for the furry community as a whole, but most of the furries I talk to would probably be royally pissed and claim that he's just doing it for brownie points while also painting a massive political target on our backs. We've been able to mostly avoid getting dragged into the culture wars and mostly dodge legislation that'd kill the community, however, since it's technically a hobby there are no legal protections except the freedom of speech, unlike LGBT, POC and neurodivergent communities. Biden making a fursona would probably destroy the community because it'd put furries under the conservative spotlight and prompt them to make legislation targeted against the community.
Ironically, between Venus' earth-like gravity and high atmospheric density, it might actually be easier to build cloud colonies on Venus than ground colonies on Mars.
Yep, yet it's my understanding that it'd be easier to colonize Venus than Mars. Venus is closer, Venus' gravity is similar to Earth's, the air is extremely dense which means balloons would be very effective, iirc Venus has more opportunities for inter-planetary transit, high-altitude temperatures (where the balloons would float) are more similar to Earth's, etc.
They've come up with a way they could do it. I dunno why you're mad about that, I was just wanting to share an interesting tidbit I'd learned.
My understanding is that the reason why scientists like playing with the idea is that it's more feasible than it immediately seems, and it'd solve some of the issues that a Mars colony would have (increased solar radiation due to low atmospheric density and weak electromagnetic field as well at very low gravity).
Would it be expensive? Yeah. We're talking about colonizing another planet though. It already is going to cost hundreds of billions if not trillions to do.
Remember kid, at some point in the far future, every star will burn out. There will be no more light, no more warmth. The universe will become an infinite void, without life. That is our future, dear child. That is the reality of our existence. All life, all light, extinguished by time.
I want to see if I can get a spark of the "old internet" back by making a starting page for myself with all kinds of cool websites. But not sure where to start because Google obviously will not work for this....
I have no fucking clue what this site is. I feel like it's a catalog for some Eldritch business, and that I could order literally anything I wanted from it if I could just figure out how to use it.
I always feel conflicted when it comes to how AI is used.
On the one hand, I think there are ways AI can be used artistically, ethically and morally; and I'm glad it sounds like Paradox is being conscious about how they use it and are trying to make sure the voice actors get credited and compensated. That's great, right? That's how it should be used.
On the other hand, I'm concerned about the proliferation of AI. AI is cheaper than humans, even when humans are being compensated for their work. Sure, it means a human voice actor can make more money because they can effectively be in multiple places at the same time. However, it also means there's less demand for in-person voice acting, which basically sucks the fun out of voice acting. Same with art, writing or other forms or generative AI.
Furthermore, while generative AI is scarily competent, it's really not competent enough yet to truly replace humans. There are always subtle tells, whether it's fingers being slightly odd, uncanny speech or meandering text. Yet because it's cheaper, that means companies are incentivized to use it in place of real people. The result is that generative AI is poised to suck the enjoyment out of artistic fields while also lowering the already poor quality of commercial creative works. Turning creative fields into soul-sucking jobs and reducing the quality of high-budget creative works fucking sucks.
But then let's return to the upsides... Cheaper art means a lower barrier of entry for people wanting to make traditionally collaborative forms of art (like video games). It also means that control remains in the hands of the director and could result in artistic works that are more accurate to the creator's original artistic vision. It means Joe Rando doesn't need a hundred-million-dollar studio with thousands of developers to create his vision of "GTA but it's in space". Isn't that a good thing?
I just... Feel so conflicted. Generative AI can be used to significantly lower the barrier of entry for creative works that traditionally need a significant team and budget to create, which, imo, is a good thing. Yet, it also threatens to suck the life out of creative jobs, lower the overall quality of creative works that it's used in, and even replace those jobs entirely (even in studios that have the money for real artists). That is a bad thing.
I was like, "just grab it and toss it out, why is this news?"
Then I realized the article is about Australia, and said article confirms that it's highly venomous.
This is why it is that, even though Australia's climate would probably agree with me, their wildlife would not. I'd just be like, "well, it's not rattling (rattlesnake), isn't giving me a open-mouthed threat display or around water (cottonmouth) and doesn't have colored bands (potentially coral snake), I'll just grab it and toss it out." Same thing with spiders and insects.
Note: apparently the mnemonic device, "red on black, friendly jack, red on yellow, kill a fellow" isn't universal, even in areas where coral snakes live. That's why I specified banded instead of "red on yellow bands". At the same time though, you could probably put on some work gloves and be fine. Iirc they have small mouths, small fangs, and a weak bite strength so supposedly it's very hard to get envenomed by one, even with bare hands.
Same, kinda. I had literally decided by the advanced age of 5 that I would be a paleontologist. Then at some point I lost interest. I'm not sure if it was a lack of support or something else. Now I wish I was a paleontologist again. Instead I pretend to be a dinosaur on the internet.
Wow, it's like you think Sims are supposed to live long, happy lifespans. Considering the most popular Sims mods all have to do with murdering Sims, that suggests that most players already churn through Sims like popcorn.
Listen. If they used surplus blood to do this (blood that was expired) and then held a raffle at the end of each year where all blood donors were entered to win a knife or sword made from the expired human blood iron, I bet they'd see blood donations skyrocket.
Keep going, keep going. I wanna see how far you can go before people stop defending you. I wanna see how much you can get away with and where the line is. I wanna see how much bigotry society is willing to tolerate for the sake of Harry Potter. I want to watch you (metaphorically) hang yourself with your own rope. I want the chaos, I want the spectacle, and I want your followers to wake up and see you for who you really are, or else for you to drag them down with you.
Here's a question, would it be more secure to choose a rare pin number or a pin number that is extremely common (ignoring obviously bad ones like 1234, 4321, meme numbers, numbers with four repeating digits, etc)?
Logic suggests that picking a rare number is better than a common one, because common ones are the ones that people would try first when attempting a bruteforce attack. Yet at the same time, personally if I was trying to brute force a pin, I'd start with obvious choices like 1234, 4321, four repeating numbers and meme numbers, and then switch to alternating between common-rare-common-rare if I was trying to brute force a pin number (starting with the most common and most rare). That'd mean the pin numbers that are the most secure when it comes to brute force attacks would be somewhere in the middle.
Granted, 4-digit pin numbers aren't very secure considering there are a maximum of 10,000 combinations, and social engineering attacks like phishing mostly bypass the need to brute-force the combination entirely. As such, the effort would likely be inconsequential and pointless outside of not picking ridiculously bad pins like 1111, but I'm still curious.
Eurovision: we want to expand into North America and get US broadcasters in on the event so that we have a larger viewer base and make more money.
Also Eurovision: geoblocks Eurovision in the US so Americans can't watch, meaning Eurovision has a non-existent viewer base in the US and isn't financially viable for American broadcasters to invest in.
Seriously, my biggest complaint about Eurovision, besides all the bullshit that went on this year, is that they've made it nearly impossible for Americans to show interest in it; despite the fact they've expressed the interest in expanding into the US.
There are already active items that make you fully immune to damage (not just contact damage). That said, they are time limited as opposed to being functional as long as you stay in the room. However, my thought was that still being vulnerable to projectiles would help balance it, especially since it would also increase your size 3x, which makes it harder to dodge projectiles due to the increased hitbox size. Iirc size up at least used to increase hitbox size, though I think it was capped to stop you from being soft locked because you were too big to navigate the rooms.
“I’m sure that Gov. Noem doesn’t mind a focus on tensions with the Native Americans in South Dakota because if we’re not talking about that, we’re talking about her shooting the dog,” Jillson said.
Ha! Jokes on you, we can do both. Watch:
Kristi Noem was expecting for the tribes to learn how to behave from Republicans. Now she's mad because they're obviously untrainable and out of control and she can't legally put them down like she could with her dog.
I comment a lot on stories having to do with state governments and legislation or regions of the country. It got me wondering how many people I'm accidentally disparaging when I don't mean everyone in said state or region is terrible. So… Please be as specific or obtuse as your privacy filter requires. I'll start:...
A week of downtime and all the servers were recovered only because the customer had a proper disaster recovery protocol and held backups somewhere else, otherwise Google deleted the backups too...
They said the outage was caused by a misconfiguration that resulted in UniSuper’s cloud account being deleted, something that had never happened to Google Cloud before.
Bullshit. I've heard of people having their Google accounts randomly banned or even deleted before. Remember when the Terraria devs cancelled the Stadia port of Terraria because Google randomly banned their account and then took weeks to acknowledge it? The only reason why Google responded so quickly to this is because the super fund manages over $100b and could sue the absolute fuck out of Google.
I'm sad. People were saying you can see it in Texas (as far south as Houston!) if you have a phone with a really good night-mode camera, which I have. But it's too cloudy.
:c
Edit: this was a picture taken by someone in Houston:
I want to leave the US but I honestly don't know how. I have no idea if I have any skills that'd let me get hired by a non-us company, which is kinda what's necessary to immigrate to another country, right?
I hate that "Marxism-Leninism" refers to the brand of communism and socialism that Stalin practiced. It should be called "Stalinism". From the little I know about Marx and Lenin is that Marx had some good ideas and while Lenin had some bad policies, he also had a genuine interest in trying to do what was best for Russia. Meanwhile Stalin let millions starve.
Also Marxist-Leninism is doomed to fail imo. I believe that in order for socialism to truly succeed, you must ensure that the world's leading countries practice socialism; or at least ensure that your country is capable of fulfilling every step in the supply chain for any given good for now and the future, either by itself or via allies. Attempting to do it on your own like Marxist-Leninism suggests, is a road to failure because capitalism will attempt to starve you (and likely succeed at doing so).
Capitalism is inherently opposed to socialism because the true end game of capitalism is for an individual, or group of individuals, to own everything. However, they can't own everything if a country's culture is opposed to that form of selfishness. Additionally, the capitalist's peasants might get funny ideas if they see a country based on mutual goodwill succeeding. Stalin played right into the hands of capitalists. He deserves to have the inherently flawed and doomed-to-fail ideology named after him.
Fuck, I barely got any sleep last night and I can't tell if I'm being coherent or not. Additionally, now I have a conspiracy theory that this was all intentional. Tying a form of socialism that was oppressive and doomed to fail to Marx and Lenin was an intentional move by capitalists to conflate Stalin's garbage with a legitimate desire and attempt to create a better world. By doing so, you create the belief that even Lenin and Marx supported oppression and that oppression is therefore inherently a part of socialism and communism. As such, by calling themselves Marxist-Leninists, they are falling into a trap created by capitalists to defame such ideologies like communism and socialism.
Also I wanted to make a comment about how capitalism is like economic heroin or something: extremely enticing and addictive; but I've got no clue where to put it.
A Belgian broadcaster interrupted its coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest semi-final on Thursday night to display a protest message condemning Israel's war on Gaza. In an act organised by a trade union, the screen briefly went black ahead of the semi-final coverage on VRT, Belgium's public-service broadcaster in Flemish....
We had an r/place at my engineering school ( jlai.lu )
Is this a crime? Thoughts? ( midwest.social )
Jokerule ( i.ibb.co )
Thwack ( mander.xyz )
Video Game Execs Are Ruining Video Games ( jacobin.com )
I managed to run The Sims 4 on Linux after over 6 hours
At this point, making something that doesn't work using Wine or Proton is actually kind of an achievement, so congrats EA, you managed to fuck up both Origin and EA app. The actual game runs flawlessly, it's the launchers that are all kinds of broken.
What Biden Can Do To Win Over Gen Z ( www.theonion.com )
Futures ( mander.xyz )
Hey kid ( mander.xyz )
What are your favourite lesser known websites?
I want to see if I can get a spark of the "old internet" back by making a starting page for myself with all kinds of cool websites. But not sure where to start because Google obviously will not work for this....
Stellaris gets a DLC about AI that features AI-created voices, director insists it's 'ethical' and 'we're pretty good at exploring dystopian sci-fi and don't want to end up there ourselves' ( www.pcgamer.com )
PPSSPP is approved for the App Store ( www.ppsspp.org )
Why won't 'Fluffy' the red-bellied black snake leave Lisa's car? ( www.abc.net.au )
Then and Now ( i.imgur.com )
XCOM developers start new studio to take on The Sims ( www.theverge.com )
Risking your life ( lemmy.world )
Iron ( mander.xyz )
i hate this meme ( lemmy.ml )
https://www.instagram.com/p/C6Rtugnvev5/
braver than any marine ( lemmy.blahaj.zone )
transcript:...
Extreme solar storms sweeping the Earth, shocking at the same time worrying ( www.infoterkiniviral.com )
Weather experts warn of potential disruptions to the electricity and communications networks as the sunlight continues in the coming days
JK Rowling slammed for asking if she can be Black if she likes “Motown & fancy myself in cornrows” ( www.lgbtqnation.com )
A cool guide to PIN code safety ( i.redd.it )
https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/1cr8bgo/a_cool_guide_to_pin_code_safety/...
Furious Brussels wants answers over ban on EU flags at Eurovision ( www.euronews.com )
The European Commission has expressed anger over a ban on EU flags at the Eurovision Song Contest and demands explanations....
Update: New solar flare, secondary peak today in this "Extreme" solar storm ( www.earth.com )
https://www.space.com/sun-fires-off-massive-x-class-solar-flares-may-11-2024...
dinorule ( lemmy.blahaj.zone )
Controversy follows Gov. Kristi Noem as she is banned by two more South Dakota tribes ( apnews.com )
USA Lemmies: Where do you live?
I comment a lot on stories having to do with state governments and legislation or regions of the country. It got me wondering how many people I'm accidentally disparaging when I don't mean everyone in said state or region is terrible. So… Please be as specific or obtuse as your privacy filter requires. I'll start:...
Do they still do this? ( sh.itjust.works )
Applying for jobs in L.A. ( lemmy.world )
Google Cloud accidentally deletes a financial institution account due to ‘unprecedented misconfiguration’ ( www.theguardian.com )
A week of downtime and all the servers were recovered only because the customer had a proper disaster recovery protocol and held backups somewhere else, otherwise Google deleted the backups too...
Aurora, Killbuck Ohio
https://Lemmy.world/pictrs/image/359c7a87-23a1-4fbc-b24a-7d38964a39da.jpeg
Donald Trump says he'll revoke Joe Biden's protections for trans people 'on day one' ( www.advocate.com )
If you're cold, they're cold. Let him in. ( lemmy.dbzer0.com )
T H E S O U R C E
Belgium broadcaster interrupts Eurovision semi final to condemn Israel's war on Gaza ( www.middleeasteye.net )
A Belgian broadcaster interrupted its coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest semi-final on Thursday night to display a protest message condemning Israel's war on Gaza. In an act organised by a trade union, the screen briefly went black ahead of the semi-final coverage on VRT, Belgium's public-service broadcaster in Flemish....
What happened with the sphinx though? ( aussie.zone )
Transcription:...