ricecake
@ricecake@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on Anon discovers cigarettes 2 hours ago:
Chemically addictive drugs aren’t worth it. Ones that aren’t physically addictive can just be pleasant and then you don’t feel any particular compulsion to do them beyond the desire to do pleasant things.
Not saying to go out and do some drugs or anything, just sharing that plenty of people have done things like hallucinogens, found it to be a fun and worthwhile experience and then never felt the need to do it again.
- Comment on How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? 6 days ago:
exactly as many as the quantity of numbers you can count between 0 and 1
I specified countable to keep them in the same class of infinity. :) not about to make that mistake when bringing pedantry to a silly fight. .
Since it’s implied that they have names, I’m going to use that as my argument for there being a countably infinite number. If you want to argue that only certain special angels have names, like Michael or π, then I’d say they’re uncountable.
If you wanted to argue that omnipotence means a deity could defy logical restrictions and allow contradictory truths to coexist, then I’d say I’m far too sleepy for that discussion but I love where you’re heads at. :P - Comment on How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? 6 days ago:
Precisely as many angels as there are whole numbers, or exactly as many as the quantity of numbers you can count between 0 and 1 (0.5, 0.2341, etc).
The original context of the question was more about if angels and the afterlife were physically manifest or intangible, and early thinking about how infintesimals work.
- Comment on What's the worst spelling you've seen? 1 week ago:
That’s super frustrating. The hospital should have easily been able to get someone who had at least a basic grasp of a common language to help ensure they understood the forms and got them filled out correctly.
The fault is 100% with the hospital.
- Comment on If I cut up pictures to arrange things in a way that when traced over create something "new," is that a copyright violation? 2 weeks ago:
If just pasting it’s more arguable, but still likely permitted. If the copywriten characters are the central focus it’s more likely to be infringement.
Adding tracing makes it more transformative, and less dubious. Because of that and the “create a more homogenized image” part it’s closer to a new character inspired by the fusion of others. You’re not using anyone else’s assets, you’re transforming them via cutout, and transforming and adding your own creative work by blending them.
- Comment on Polar bears 2 weeks ago:
Angry humans can take several 9mm rounds to the abdomen and continue to advance.
Bullets also aren’t magical death pellets. A bear has about 20 inches of hair, skin, fat, and muscle to get through before organ damage, assuming you miss a bone.
A bear that hasn’t committed to an attack is entirely likely to decide “fight” isn’t worth it after the equivalent of getting stabbed in the shoulder by a screwdriver.
If it’s already decided that violence is the right way to handle the “you” threat it may continue to attack until it cannot. Then it becomes relevant that many guns don’t have the power to disable a beat before it gets to you and does serious damage. The bear dying in 30 seconds doesn’t help you if it’s last act is to break your arm, and put a two inch deep slash in the side of your neck. The goal isn’t to kill the bear, the goal is to keep it from attacking you. That requires a lot more gun, since the near can move and attack very fast.This is also deep in the realm of “what if”. Most bear encounters involving a firearm resolve successfully without even shooting the bear. They don’t like loud noises and will run from basically anything. The most encountered bears will usually run from shouting and waving your arms.
But if you’re looking to get a gun for bear defense, you need to consider that they’re extremely durable critters, and to cover what can happen probably requires more than most handguns can deliver.Avoidance is a better first defense, followed by pepper spray.
- Comment on Polar bears 2 weeks ago:
polarbearscanada.ca/…/hunting_polar_bear_in_the_w…
Surprisingly, yes. The Inuit have for generations.
I was honestly expecting the answer to be that they would kill them in self defense, or if the bear was threatening a more sane food source, and eating it was only rational.
- Comment on Polar bears 2 weeks ago:
It entirely depends on the bear species, but in general guns are a last resort defense against bears.
Primary defense is avoidance and making it so they can avoid you. A bear will eat you, but is unlikely to hunt you. For most bears we’re an unknown quantity so they’ll avoid us, since other food is reasonably available with less risk.
A bear has heavy fur, thick skin for storing winter fat deposits, and dense bones. While bullets will injure the bear and perhaps even kill it, it won’t be enough to save you.
Much like how hitting someone on the head with a glass bottle will hurt them, almost certainly injure them, and potentially kill them, the type of injury is likely to be a fractured skull or brain bleed. Extremely serious and deadly, but they have minutes of functionality and hours of bewildered stumbling before they black out.So it’ll likely die… Later. For now you have a scared, confused and pissed off bear.
I believe hollow points have less penetration power, so it might not even get through the hide. Other bullets will get through fine, but are unlikely to stop the bear dead.
- Comment on To whom it may concern 4 weeks ago:
“these days”? I take it you weren’t paying attention during the whole “explorative credit” thing? We had to make the consumer financial protection bureau to, amongst other things, make them be a little less shitty? The bureau they’ve been desperately trying to get dismantled because it moderately limits their profits?
Have they ever been better than “kinda bad” at best?
Anyway, I didn’t specifically decry credit issuers. I implied that spammers are shitty, which I stand by and is far from a new sentiment.
- Comment on What's the point in getting married? 4 weeks ago:
It’s a shorthand for all those other legal arrangements, in a pragmatic sense. You can build the same thing with documents that confer the different legal relationships, or you can use the pre-packaged bundle. A lot of the one-off arrangements require a lawyer and filling fees for each document, where the bundle can be done for a $25 or so fee, and a judge or the clerk who collected the fee, depending on your jurisdiction.
There are also social and relationship perks to a public declaration of commitment. It doesn’t change anything, but a public declaration can make things explicit on all accounts.
Rings are just a social shorthand to communicate that to others passivelyThey also don’t actually need to be expensive. They became expensive because people are usually willing to shell out a little more for a special occasion, and a lot of people wedged themselves in and argued that without them it wasn’t really special. If you can’t put a price on love, then how can $10k be too much?
If you’ve decided to make a public commitment, a little party to celebrate is legitimately fun. You just need to separate what you need for the party to be fun and feeling like the scale of the party is a testament to your love or sincerity.
When I got married the ceremony was five minutes and done by a friend of ours, we had our friends and the closer circle of relatives as guests and we didn’t need to save up for things because we only got what would make us happy for our party. Our rings were cheaper than most because we talked to a jewler and had them make something according to our designs, and neither of us like diamonds. (Mine is a metal reinforced piece of a beautiful rock we found while rock hunting at a favorite camping spot, and hers is her favorite color, laid out well to avoid snagging on clothing.)
- Comment on To whom it may concern 4 weeks ago:
But they also work for the bad company, so my sympathy is limited. Not super limited, else I wouldn’t point out that they’re inevitably hourly employees, and a long day cleaning glitter creates an annoying backlog that creates even more overtime.
Punishing the worker for working for spammers, but also putting money in their pocket at the cost of the people making choices.Biggest issue is the cost of glitter. Easier to get dirt or rocks.
- Comment on I get that america is failing if it's duty to suppress the rise of fascist but did the rest of the world just put all its eggs in the america basket? 5 weeks ago:
Ah, choosing to ignore the territorial annexation that took place during the war or annexations that failed? And China?
- Comment on I get that america is failing if it's duty to suppress the rise of fascist but did the rest of the world just put all its eggs in the america basket? 5 weeks ago:
To be fair on that one, Puerto Ricans seem torn on what they want.
en.wikipedia.org/…/Proposed_political_status_for_…
Up until Trump the US has been reasonable about independence questions since WW2, for the most part. (Highlighting that independence is different than being free from interfering)
- Comment on I get that america is failing if it's duty to suppress the rise of fascist but did the rest of the world just put all its eggs in the america basket? 5 weeks ago:
en.wikipedia.org/…/Territorial_changes_of_the_Peo…
en.wikipedia.org/…/Military_occupations_by_the_So…
en.wikipedia.org/…/United_States_territorial_acqu…
Notable examples would be places like “Tibet”, several Baltic states, and an attempt on Finland. Hell, Russia is currently trying to annex Ukraine.
- Comment on I get that america is failing if it's duty to suppress the rise of fascist but did the rest of the world just put all its eggs in the america basket? 5 weeks ago:
They specifically said 20th century, and were obviously referring to the post world war period.
After the wars, the US sought soft power, not territory.
Aligning with them was often a more safe move. - Comment on Anon diversifies fetishes 1 month ago:
I mean, who doesn’t like a nice cache?
- Comment on ain't your buddy, pal! 1 month ago:
Hypothesis: you can go to the Great lakes region and just make random noises and people will be like "hey, what’s up?”.
- Comment on Anon predicts the future of driving 1 month ago:
So buy a car without those things, or don’t use them. It’s not like you can’t drive my car without those things, and every one of them, barring the camera for obvious reasons, is controlled by a physical button. Better yet just don’t drive. If more people took public transportation we’d be better off.
I don’t particularly want to drive. When I do, I’d prefer to have climate control, not need to crank a window, and for the car to be able to tell me someone is going to clip me when I’m backing up. No matter how small the support bars are, the driver will never have as good a view as the radar sensor mounted on the side of the rear bumper.
Backup cams aren’t a solution to a design that limits visibility, they’re a solution to “most people won’t turn their heads when backing up”. People like their necks more than they like their neighbors kids.
It’s one thing to say that you want a no-frills car, and another entirely to say that car design peaked 30 years ago, and even further than that if you want a car that isn’t impacted by electronic component failure.
- Comment on Anon predicts the future of driving 1 month ago:
Not every car is a piece of shit. Mine has a touch screen for configuring parameters I honestly don’t think you need a dedicated button for, like “lane drift alert volume” and those can only be done when the car is parked.
Everything else either has a button as well even if they had to dig deep into the plausible locations to get there, like “press the button on the end of the turn signal to disable lane centering while adaptive cruise enabled”, or it only allows voice communication while in motion, like the typing based commands for navigation.I think the only time I’ve wanted to use a setting that didn’t have a button was when I was on a stretch of freeway in traffic where I didn’t feel keen on pulling over if I could avoid it, and I got gunk on one of the radar sensors. Since it couldn’t get a coherent reading it refused to turn on cruise control since it was set to adaptive. I had to drive without cruise control for a while until I pulled into a gas station and was able to clean the gunk. The setting to disable adaptive cruise control was touchscreen only, and locked out when the vehicle was moving.
- Comment on How exactly are people lighting Teslas on fire? 2 months ago:
It’s most likely gasoline. It’s very difficult to engineer upholstery and rubber to be resistant to prolonged exposure to an open gas fire. Usually the best you can do is get to a minimum safe time for certain temperatures.
The highest standards you’ll run into day to day are baby clothing, bedding, and residential wall insulation.
The reasons for those being specifically regulated should be relatively obvious, and are respectively heartbreaking, scary, and sensible.Cars tend to be going fast when they encounter issues, and there’s a lot less ability to make a lot of assurances. As a result, cars tend to be designed for controlled failure rather than resilience. This allows to car to fail around the passengers, hopefully resulting in the car, which is totaled anyway, absorbing the damage the passengers would have otherwise gotten.
We can make a car that can take a 45mph collision with an oak tree. We just don’t know upfront that that’s how it’s going to crash, and the squishy people inside can’t be made to tolerate a 45mph collision with the dashboard. So instead of making a perfect fuel tank, we just make sure that if it breaks it tries to rupture the fuel away from the passenger compartment. Instead of making the upholstery incapable of burning (which comes with downsides like “expensive”, “uncomfortable”, “ugly”, “smelly”, or “even more toxic than current flame retardants”) we make it able to resist burning for as long as it would take for the air inside the vehicle to become deadly hot. It doesn’t matter if the seat fabric is unscathed if the fire is hot enough to warp the metal.Beyond all that, Tesla’s are notoriously poorly engineered, and in that category the cyber truck is best in class. I do not know, but would not be surprised, if accelerant was simply able to seep into the more flammable parts of the car from the outside.
As for surveillance catching the people, covering your face, obscuring identifying marks, and simply being far away by the time anyone notices the fire is a good bet. The police might try a bit harder because it’s an expensive property crime, but it’s ultimately a property crime where no one is going to be building their career on it, so there won’t be real incentive to go above and beyond.
- Comment on Anon is waiting for Japan 2 months ago:
It’s also worth noting that, economically, it’s not surprising that the country with the most people would have the largest economy.
There’s nothing fundamentally different between the people of the US and China beyond the conditions they’re born in. Insofar as innovation is a product of economics, educational investment, opportunity for innovation and a random chance it happens, and economic strength is a product of innovation and raw work output, it follows that more people leads to more work output, and eventually to a larger, more innovative economy.
A disorganized China and some key innovation breakthroughs by the west last century gave a significant headstart, and some of Maos more unwise choices slowed their catch-up, but it’s not surprising that an organized country with five times the US population would surpass us in economics and innovation, to say nothing of being competitive.
- Comment on Anon is waiting for Japan 2 months ago:
Please let’s try to keep generative AI from claiming the entire word “AI”.
Current generative AI is good at and built for mimicking patterns with boundary conditions.
This means it does a decent job of imitating authoritative knowledge, but it’s just mimicking it.
People are hyped for it because it looks knowledgeable, it’s relatively simple to make, and a lot of what we do is text based so it’s easy to apply.There are a lot of other types of AI, the majority even, that work significantly better, take a small fraction of the computing power and provide helpful and meaningful results. They just don’t look like anything other than complex math, which is all any of them are in the end.
- Comment on Cathy, do the math. 2 months ago:
How is it even legal to have explicitly preferential pay for people not in a union? Is there a limit to that, or can companies just say, “Anyone who joins a union will be paid minimum wage.”
What I’m saying is that if they can set “$0.50 above union rates” as the company policy for everyone, they can also set “$5 above union rates” as the company policy for everyone and then cut union rates by $5.
That’s you. That’s what we’re talking about: why they can’t “set “$5 above union rates” as the company policy for everyone and then cut union rates by $5”.
You were told it’s because of the unions contract that they can’t cut union rates, and paying people not to join is a violation of labor law.
You then replied about how that wouldn’t work because everyone left the union so they don’t have bargaining power.
And yeah, if the union has no power they probably don’t have a good contract, but that’s aside from the point of “a unions contract prevents their pay from being cut on a whim”.I’m treating it like a weird add-on to the discussion because it is. They can’t cut pay because of their contract, unless their contract doesn’t stop that, in which case they can.
- Comment on Cathy, do the math. 2 months ago:
There’s a limit to how much they can pay the ununionized workers before it becomes clear they’re trying to interfere with the workers rights to free organization. In the image, it’s quite likely that the extra 50¢ is union dues, or could be explained as related to costs.
Literally the first reply I sent you.
If you don’t know the basics of labor law and how companies are ostensibly prohibited from preventing organization, you really don’t have a lot of room to get upset when people think you don’t know stuff.
That… is literally the thing being discussed here.
No, it’s a nonsequitur you brought up out of nowhere. You asked why the company doesn’t just pay the union less, and when people told you replied assuming that everyone knew that all the workers left the union.
- Comment on Cathy, do the math. 2 months ago:
And you won’t, or can’t, respond to my point. It doesn’t matter that it’s a nonsequitur, you’re still obligated to respond to it premptively, you fool.
Yes, if everyone leaves the union it doesn’t have power. Fucking duh. It doesn’t work that way because it’s illegal to pay people to not be in the union, since it infringes on people’s rights to collective bargaining. Which I politely said in my first reply to you when I just thought you were ignorant, rather than obstinate and rude as well.
You just started randomly attacking me for no reason
Crystal more. You’re the one who kicked off being angry when you found out I thought you were just genuinely ignorant, as opposed to properly stupid.
- Comment on Cathy, do the math. 2 months ago:
You also didn’t take into account every person in the state being in the Union, and the company only employing union workers, and the one non-union person, the CEO, was so afraid of loosing business at his company that only makes pro-union T-shirts that he wept openly at the thought of not capitulating to the unions every demand.
Clearly a bird has eaten most of your frontal cortex and you’ve confused the concept of negotiations with women’s freestyle swimming.
- Comment on Cathy, do the math. 2 months ago:
At this point I’m fairly certain you’re just trolling, since you asked a dumb question, responded to answers with nonsense scenarios and indignation, and then responded to clarification as though your scenario were a given.
- Comment on Cathy, do the math. 2 months ago:
Because referring to changing pay rates for union workers as a policy change pretty heavily implies it’s not a negotiation, and “why wouldn’t the company just get the union to agree to a significant pay cut” is an even more asinine point. They obviously would have if the could have. The assumption that you didn’t know unions negotiated contracts seemed more charitable than thinking you didn’t know how bargaining worked.
Most of the downvotes I got (so far) came before I added that part.
Okay.
- Comment on Cathy, do the math. 2 months ago:
The workplace is deducting the union dues from union workers checks automatically.
Unions loosing membership causing them to be weaker in negotiations is entirely irrelevant to why companies don’t just lower union pay outside of negotiations.
There’s no faster way to get downvoted than to complain about being downvoted, particularly if you’re weirdly smug about it.
- Comment on Cathy, do the math. 2 months ago:
They can’t cut union rates since they have a contract. So they can, within reason, pay non union workers more but not lower the pay of union workers. One of the benefits of being in the union is that they can’t just lower your wages and they may have issues firing you for bad reasons.
There’s a limit to how much they can pay the ununionized workers before it becomes clear they’re trying to interfere with the workers rights to free organization. In the image, it’s quite likely that the extra 50¢ is union dues, or could be explained as related to costs.
