swordgeek
@swordgeek@lemmy.ca
- Comment on Trump Administration Taps Climate Science Critic to Oversee Flagship Report 23 hours ago:
Conspiracy theorist.
- Comment on Has anyone ever actually had their vehicle tabs stolen? 1 week ago:
Apparently tabs are tags.
Alberta got rid of them eight years ago or so, but before that they were extremely one-use items. Super-fragile with an incredibly strong glue. You could NOT have remove them with a razor blade and the precision of a master jeweller.
Besides, annual registration is what - 80 bucks? Not worth it.
- Comment on Do you think that sitcoms on TV today are horribly unfunny? Compared to older ones? 2 weeks ago:
The presence of a laugh track is irrelevant. The necessity of one for people to find the show funny is a different matter.
- Comment on Do you think that sitcoms on TV today are horribly unfunny? Compared to older ones? 2 weeks ago:
This isn’t new.
I stopped watching TV in the mid-90s when Star Trek TNG turned out to be a disaster, and there was nothing else good on.
Most of the shows from that era (Seinfeld, Married with Children, Malcolm in the Middle), are about horrible people being horrible to each other - with a laugh track! - or about unrealistic people behaving in ridiculous ways (Friends, I’m looking at you!).
Sitcoms are rarely funny, but that’s a long-standing tradition. Shitty and/or cringe-inducing behaviour rule the time slots.
- Comment on Which browser do you recommend for a low-resource PC? 3 weeks ago:
Waterfox.
- Comment on I'm gonna ask the simplest complex question ever. What is happiness, to you? 3 weeks ago:
We moved a few weeks ago. Yesterday afternoon, my new neighbour who I had not yet met yelled over the fence at me. We met up out front, introduced ourselves, did the social thing, and then he said “hey, your new house has an air conditioner, and there’s a cover on it. You probably want to take that off.”
He was right. I did. Thanks new neighbour, for being…well, for being a neighbour.
- Comment on I'm gonna ask the simplest complex question ever. What is happiness, to you? 3 weeks ago:
Mostly, seeing my family succeed.
I’m not very happy very often, but I watched my son get award after award last week, and was happy. A year ago, my wife finished her Masters’ degree with a 4.0 GPA, and I was happy.
Personally, this morning I went for the first >100km motorcycle ride of the season. Once I was out of traffic and riding through some of the prettiest scenery on the planet, I was happy.
- Comment on How do I remove this printing that transferred from my dish washing gloves onto my cabinet door?? 4 weeks ago:
Try a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.
- Comment on Why do I think music sounds better on my old MP3 player? 5 weeks ago:
Many factors at work here.
First off, mp3 at 320 kbps (or 256 for that matter) encoded with modern algorithms will be nearly idrntical to the original source. I defy you to reliably tell it apart from a FLAC in an A/B test. Where it usually fails is in stereo imaging, not obvious distortion or frequency limitations.
Secondly, many people have mentioned normalization (actually compression) in streaming services. When applied after the mix, i.e. exactly what they do, it ruins music. If you can turn off every ‘feature’ in these services that modifies the sound, you’ll find improvements.
Thirdly, you’re not necessarily getting great sound from them anyway. Spotify defaults to 96kbps Vorbis which is comparable to 128kbps mp3. And if your network speeds are low or laggy, it may well drop the quality dynamically to keep playing without glitches.
Fourth, there’s the issue of mastering. You may have a differently-mastered release than what is on the streaming site. This can make a HUGE difference in some cases. If you can, try listening to Dark Side of the Moon releases from 2003 (Doug Sax) vs. the 2023 blu-ray.
And those are only the most likely candidates. There could well be other factors at play.
- Comment on If online services (such as Netflix) only ever raise their prices, does that mean they offer less and less value for money as time passes? 5 weeks ago:
yes.
Theory, economics, etc., all have something to say about it. But at the end of the day, Netflix (and the rest) want to deliver as little as possible for dollar of revenue.
- Comment on If your significant other cheated on you, would you confront or attack the person they cheated with? 5 weeks ago:
Nope.
The third party isnt the problem. It’s your SO that cheated, and who should suffer.
Pack up. Leave. Take what you can.
- Comment on So, has age verification really become the new normal? 1 month ago:
No no no fucking NO!
Do NOT accept this! Do NOT normalize this! DO NOT COMPLY!
Did you really need to see that youtube video? If it was that important, then find another way. Lie. Get a downloader. Get creative. Or walk away, since it was probably not that important
DON’T SELL YOUR IDENTITY FOR CONVENIENCE. DON’T WILLINGLY FEED THE SPIES MORE INFORMATION.
- Comment on So, has age verification really become the new normal? 1 month ago:
An epoch baby!
- Comment on Would it be possible to model 9/11 using hot dogs for the planes? 1 month ago:
I feel like this belongs in shittyasklemmy.
- Comment on If you could make a magic wish so that your crush liked you, would you do it? 1 month ago:
No, because I’m not 12 years old.
- Comment on How do you pronounce 'Niche'? 1 month ago:
neesh for all purposes.
I’ve never heard anyone talk about a “nitch.” Maybe an US dialect?
- Comment on Why is society at large okay with euthanasia for pets but not for humans? 2 months ago:
Canada has Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID). People can - with medical approval and assistance - choose to go out on their own terms.
- Comment on What would the next pres of USA have to do to gain back trust for America? Hold a televised event saying the last person was just a fuck up? 2 months ago:
Do you mean within the US or trust internationally?
The rest of the world has begrudgingly let the US dominate world commerce, culture, and morality. Now they’re realizing how much of their own identity they’ve given away, and are struggling to recover from it. Critically, even if the US ever gets their shit together again, nobody else wants to go back to the same relationship they had. We’ve been forced out of an abusive relationship, and now we’re free.
- Comment on When did Saturday Night Live get so cringe? 2 months ago:
Always has been.
SNL appeals to a certain demographic. As the cast and style chang, you age out. The result is that you look at ‘your’ cast as awesome, and everything after as cringe. Then, after two generations of TV, you find that it’s funny again. Maybe not as good as it once was, but pretty decent.
People 7-10 years younger are going to experience EXACTLY the same thing - shifted by 7-10 years.
And the exact same thing will happen with music.
- Comment on How come they don't put out episodes of like Invincible, Simpsons, or whatever doing a side by side of the actor speaking into the microphone while watching what happens the cartoon? 2 months ago:
Generally, because that’s not how cartoons are vouced.
However, table reads at comic conventions are a popular thing.
- Comment on What was the first thing or video or music or whatever that was so called "pirated" from the internet? How did it happen and was the end user happy? 2 months ago:
In the early '80s, BBSes were a source of piracy. Also, local user groups would share ir rent tapes of software ‘only to be used that month,’ with a wink and a nod.
In the mid-'80s, I was downloading…images from FTP sites around the world, and also assembling multi-part uuencoded files from Usenet.
This was all before the web, and It wasn’t new then.
- Comment on Why are Clark and Lois such terrible people and parents in Superman & Lois? 2 months ago:
Quit making new accounts. I’m tired of blocking you over and over.
You are actively making the fediverse worse.
- Comment on How do you feel about a 25 year old dating a 46 year old? 3 months ago:
It’s weird, but not NEARLY as weird as your obsession with age-gap relationships.
How many accounts are you going to get banned on this question?
- Comment on How do trains save fuel when they literally park on the tracks and block multiple intersections, with over a hundred vehicles steady burning gas all around waiting for the train to fucking move? 3 months ago:
You’re clearly looking for validation, not explanation. Off you go.
- Comment on Is it wrong of me not giving a shit when cops get killed? They signed up for the job know what it entails. Same with Firepeople. I feel bad 4 families but no one gives a shit about Nurses or DRs? 3 months ago:
Yeah, it is.
All people face risk in one way or another. Some willingly take on risk to help others or for some different reasons.
First off, being a cop isn’y nearly as high risk as (say) logging. Do you shrug and say “oh well, they knew what they were getting into” when a logger dies? Or a nurse?
Some will point out that ACAB, but even if that’s true, being a bastard isn’t a comprehensive deacription of a person. Humans, even shitty and broken ones, are complex creatures.
Personally, the only people whose deaths I don’t mourn (or at least have empathy for) are those rare monsters who are so sadistic and evil that they barely qualify as human.
Empathy for others, without conditions, is one of our most defining and best traits as humans. It’s worth cultivating.
- Comment on Is 71° F (21° C) the ideal weather to wear shorts? 3 months ago:
Shorts are tge default at around 18C, and absolutely necessary at 25C+.
- Comment on Why do we eat dessert? 3 months ago:
If you come in asking a question and then tell everyone who disagrees with your expected answer that they’re wrong, you’re acting in bad faith.
- Comment on 18-26 year olds, How do you plan to dodge the draft? 3 months ago:
- Comment on 18-26 year olds, How do you plan to dodge the draft? 3 months ago:
Man, you’re WAY more charitable than I!
In 2016, I offered formal asylum to a few dangerously leftist US friends of mine.
This time 'round (2024) I publicly revoked it. I’m done with the country as a whole. They need to stay there and figure their shit out.
- Comment on 18-26 year olds, How do you plan to dodge the draft? 3 months ago:
You might want to specify a country here.
We know where you are, but you’re not the centre of the universe.