FriendOfDeSoto

joined 2 years ago
[–] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Are you getting inundated with JFK was anti Israel posits and hot takes? Because I sure aren't.

[–] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website -3 points 7 months ago

If illegal immigrants were possible to be identified easily by the IRS, ICE would have taken them over already.

The problem is two-fold. A lot of the immigrants who fall into this "illegal" category are not on the books, they get a brown envelope, and pay little to no taxes at all. And the more "sophisticated" ones look just like your average American. So if you taxed them more, you'd be affecting a lot of the "legal" population as well.

Also, the American economy is full of jobs that no "non-deportable" would like to do. Agricultural jobs come to mind. The current regime's idea of eradicating all illegal immigrants runs contrary to a lot of economic interests (and I read that they've done a lot less deporting on the farms recently. Curious ...) Even if you could just tax them more, you'd still mess with those interests as well.

And while I'm not a tax lawyer, I'm gonna go out in a limb here and say it's not going to be easy to make a tax law like that that isn't going to be heavily scrutinized in the courts because it is unabashedly discriminatory.

[–] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Gaslighting

I think the Sony hack is not a great example because there is a very good chance it was more politically motivated than financially. It's one of those cases where we might never know but there is a good chance it was orchestrated by North Korea in response to a Sony movie that made Kim III not look very divine. NK is most likely connected to other hacks as well that were really just a way to get hard currency/to evade sanctions.

Effort and reward are like supply and demand. If I want to steal your credit card number to go shopping, it might take me a long time to get to it. And then it turns out there is only $500 left on it. Too much effort for not enough reward. That's why phishing, Nigerian princes, texted IRS/DMV fines, missed FedEx deliveries, and all that jazz happens. Low effort to throw a net out and then catch the dumbest of the fish. If you are a person of interest to me though the math if different. Maybe I'm a stalker (look behind you, I'm there right now). Or maybe horny me is looking for your (perfectly legal) sexting thread. Or you're a pedo, a socialist, a cult leader, or all of the above. Private people get hacked. But it rarely makes a splash in the news like the Sony hack.

Also, hacker ≠ hacker. There are good guys who hack stuff to show what needs fixing or to hold people to account. There are bad guys who do it for money or because they like it. There are those with one foot on either side of that fence. Motivations differ wildly.

[–] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Do you let your network set the time or did you do it manually? Could be a hint that you're off by a minute or so (considering you've checked all the other reasonable things already).

Any other apps installed that may want to set alarms? Maybe a sideload? Calendar app you've tried and not uninstalled?

[–] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

If you want you get a good idea about the complexity, there is a sci-fi novel called "Three Body Problem" by Liu Cixin. It lays out a situation with 3 suns and it's very messy (not a spoiler).

The details are important. How big are the suns, how do they revolve around each other? I'm not going to pretend to be able to do the math if I had the details. But it throws into question if life on earth would have developed at all. And it it did it would be very different. Our planet has won the lottery. It got an atmosphere, is far enough from the sun but not too far away to benefit from its energy. A stable orbit gives us four seasons. A lot of life on this planet has developed around that and around one moon giving us predictable tides. All of that would be messed up, a livable earth would probably need to be further out from the bi-suns. The slow process of evolution likes relative stability. Two suns pulling on everything would provide the opposite. That's why I would lean towards no life actually. Greater mass at the center of the bisolar system would also raise the odds of getting hit by a rock. The moons might be slamming into each other and then the planet.

What I'm saying is it's not a good idea...

I see from my own behavior that more and more stuff is done on my cell phone and less stuff on a PC. I think eventually everything will be merged into a single device. But I wouldn't bet on the form factor yet. Whether it will be AR/VR headsets or a form of tablet or a tech yet to amaze us - IDK.

I don't think you did anything wrong. I hate people striking up a conversation like that as well.

You can train yourself not to panic, deep breaths, focusing on something in the middle distance, closing your eyes, counting to ten - whatever works for you. And then you can ride a situation like this out. Either by masking your discomfort or giving very curt replies. You can also just say "I'm very sorry, I'm not in the mood for a chat." But you mustn't worry that you made an extrovert sad. She'll get over it and maybe learn from this experience as well.

[–] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 14 points 7 months ago

I fear this has the potential of becoming the copied standard unfortunately. Fear of terrorism is like think of the children. All it will do is force people who need visas into having squeaky clean innocuous public profiles and operating anonymous accounts with actual opinions. Terrorists will do the same. So this privacy infringement will only catch really dumb people.

[–] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 25 points 7 months ago

No, it isn't. They may already like you but how will they know you care if you don't offer an array of easy to misunderstand signals?

[–] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 42 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You are judging work by somebody who doesn't feel compelled to follow guidelines made by other people with those very same guidelines. Those other people looked much more closely at flags for geographical entities, not movements, to come up with their guidelines. No one is required to follow them or retroactively abide by them. They are a great style guide but not the law.

Every flag serves a purpose. This flag's purpose is to show representation by color and design for everyone in the community. It's was the point to be busy.

Why don't they just stick with the rainbow flag? Because the idea of the rainbow encompassing everyone was made at a time when gay and lesbians came out with pride but many of the letters that abbreviate that community today were still marginalized more harshly, maybe even within homosexual circles. They weren't all suddenly anthropists and free from discriminatory points of view. Development of ideas and communities takes time. And that's why an artist took ideas from many different flags that were created over time and combined them into one. It is eye catchy and instantly recognizable, even at a medium distance still.

I don't find the result aesthetically pleasing either. But I recognize a) that wasn't the point of it and b) I'm not a member of the LGBTQ+ community. If from within that community a movement rises to change the flag into something else, by all means. Other than that my design opinions - and I suspect many other ones in this thread - are largely academic and frankly irrelevant.

Good flag bad flag is not the gospel. Take it as a starting point for new designs but don't scrutinize all existing flags by it.

[–] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website -1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Dehydration is but a secondary concern as you're being chased by a sabertooth tiger.

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