lvxferre

@lvxferre@mander.xyz

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fafo⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  The species actually got eradicated from both Mexico and USA, using sterile males, and almost eradicated from the southern tip of North America aka Central America.

  So yes, it is possible. Regardless of presence or absence of cows. Because, like I already said and you repeated, they can infest any mammal.

  The reason they stopped at Panama is simply because it’s a chokepoint; in the short term it’s cheaper to keep releasing sterile males in the Darién gap than to push further. I’m criticising governments in the Americas (including but not exclusively USA) for not coördinating and pushing further, to get it extinct.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fafo⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  IMO controlling it “down to Panama” is part of what went wrong, I think. Pushing further into South America would’ve been costlier, but if people managed to get those flies completely extinct, the problem wouldn’t come back.

  But that requires multiple governments working together with a “helping them out means less problems for me in the future” mindset, and that simply doesn’t roll with USA; USA’s external policy was always “I’m shirring my panrs so othurrs smell ir” “I’m shitting my pants so others smell it”. And working together with a bunch of dictatorships can be a bit hard, specially when those dictatorships were supported by USA so they can’t trust the United-Statian government to die properly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fafo⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, I told you guys it’s NSFL.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fafo⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  In general humans are the least concern. We’re smart enough to know something is wrong with our bodies, and fix it before it gets worse; we wear clothes and bandage wounds so there’s less exposure of vulnerable areas; etc. It’s a bit more concerning because of children, since the flies can attack eyes and mouths, but as long as the parents actually do their job and take care of the kid, no issue. (Bug repellent, pay attention to small wounds, regular visits to the doc, this kind of stuff.)

  Dogs and cats are another can of worms (or maggots). Specially urban strays; if anyone here wants some nightmare fuel, websearch images for [NSFL] miíase cachorro or miasis perro [/NSFL], apparently the flies (it isn’t just C. hominivorax) responsible for this sort of infestation will lay multiple eggs in the same wound, if they can. Same deal with the fauna.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fafo⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  When you see an animal, there’s likely a bunch of the same species you didn’t see. Specially if it’s a small animal, with a fast lifecycle, and the animal burrows itself into something (like, dunno… the flesh of another animal?). And if the animal can live pretty much anywhere there’s another, warm-blooded, animal living. (Livestock? Wild fauna? Pets? Humans? Yes.)

  So a dozen cases isn’t just “a dozen cases”, there’s likely millions of those flies in USA already. I’m taking a wild guess here and say a billion dollars won’t even scratch the surface of the problem there.

  (Not that it changes things for me. Here in South America the fly in question goes from “present” to “present”. Just businesses as usual.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon's dad tries to bond⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I am not deciding shit for anyone. I’m concluding your kid is most likely MtF, based on the info you provided — “in my simple brain he has a dick he’s a boy” + usage of the word “trans”.

  And, even in the chance my conclusion is incorrect (the kid is actually genderfluid, or non-binary, et cetera), my point still stands, even if you pretend it doesn’t dammit. You highlighted you use “he/him” because the kid has a dick, regardless of the kid’s identity, that’s an arsehole move, doubly so coming from a parent. The right approach would be to use the ones the kid chose.

  You’re the one assuming shit here

  Not really.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon's dad tries to bond⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  She’s Ram’s palette swap from the Re:Zero fighting game. People bullshit she’s a maid in Roswaal’s mansion, but that is not true — there’s Ram and Frederica, no REM sleep or whatever.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon's dad tries to bond⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  …I’ll be honest.

  You’re saying you’ll defend whatever she decides to be, but I don’t think you accept it yourself; that’s why you’re still treating your daughter as if she was a boy. It’s perfectly possible this actually hurts her, but she doesn’t complain because it’s complicated to complain about things towards your parents, specially before adulthood.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Buzz off⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It would but since it’s a baby it’s like the marine equivalent of a baby jaguar or lion doing their best to look “I is fiewce! I bites!”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Buzz off⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  dolphin good, shark bad

  Be careful! Sharks bite! Here’s some wild footage of the apex predator biting someone. (Content warning: cuteness overload. Discretion is advised.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Working class neighborhoods are resisting data centers at 5 times the rate of wealthy ones⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Even in those neighbourhoods they’re still going to inflate water and electricity prices and consumption.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Working class neighborhoods are resisting data centers at 5 times the rate of wealthy ones⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Recently proposed data centers that faced pushback were canceled or suspended at more than five times the rate of data centers that didn’t (28.2% vs. 5.2%).

  i.e. the data already takes into account that those data centres are more likely to be built in poorer neighbourhoods.

  ---

  My hypotheses:

  1. The rich tolerate data centres more because they get more value out of them.
  2. “AGI soon!” misinformation hits both sides different ways: for one it means “we’re making you richer”, for another it’s “we’re making you obsolete filth”.

  No idea if either/both/none is true.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Projected Truth⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s no reason gravity control requires a subjective truth.

  In this case, it does.

  Let me put it this way: is the statement “there’s a phenomenon called «gravity», experienced by all massive bodies, that accelerates them in relation to other massive bodies” epistemically true?

  If truth was subjective, the answer would be “true” or “false” depending on the subject. For those whom the answer is “false”, this means they would not experience the phenomenon, even in situations other subjects would; e.g. near Earth. That implies they’d have at least some control over experiencing gravity, because they could simply say “it’s now true for me” and fall, or “it’s now false for me” and stop falling.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Projected Truth⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Eh, probably the universe is a cold, dead clockwork of matter

  This, but unironically.

  Spoilers: we’re riding some weird rock in the middle of the empty space.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Projected Truth⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I doubt you’ve come across someone who claims that all truth is subjective all the time in all scenarios.

  I wish I could say I’ve never came across this sort of muppet. But… *sigh*

  The example you give isn’t an example of subjective truth, it’s an example of wilful/conscious control of reality, which isn’t the same thing.

  Wilful control of reality in this case requires truth to be subjective; and conversely, if truth is subjective you can control reality. You’re right they aren’t the same thing, but they’re clearly tied.

  Someone on earth vs someone on the ISS have different gravitational experiences for instance.

  The experience is different because the person in the ISS is simply not close enough to Earth to be subjected to Earth’s gravity, in any practical amount. But that doesn’t mean gravity stopped existing for them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Projected Truth⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  English is not a creole language.

  To keep it simple, a creole language originates from children learning a pidgin (a contact “language” with barely any grammar), and “gluing” the lexicon with features on the spot. To the point its grammar doesn’t resemble any of the parent languages over the course of, like, a single generation.

  In the meantime English is simply a West Germanic language that got a bunch of borrowings from Old Norse and then Norman+French. Those borrowings don’t change affiliation.

  Regarding the distinction between “libre” and “gratis”: it’s simply that “free” displaced “costless”. That sort of semantic shift happens, it’s most of the time internal (i.e. not caused by interference of other languages).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Projected Truth⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This, I think, is an argument that exists in your head only.

  This is blatantly false. The argument exists in the comment I wrote. If it existed only “inside my head”, you wouldn’t access it. Because nobody knows what’s “inside someone else’s head”, nor we (people in general) should lie = assume = bullshit otherwise.

  An excellent example of relativity [SIC - subjectivity], if I’m being honest.

  Also false. While I believe my argument is correct, there’s also the chance it’s incorrect. If it is correct, my belief is true. But if it is incorrect, it won’t magically become “true for ME! ME! ME!”; I’d be simply holding a false belief. But either way, that depends on the argument itself, not on the fact I’m the one voicing it or analysing it or whatever. The subject here (me) still doesn’t fucking matter. And that’s bloody common sense.

  I don’t understand why subjectivity makes people so uncomfortable. [implied* by context: “relativity makes lvxferre uncomfortable”.]

  Okay… first off, let me address the most pressing matter: in no moment you showed that this “truth is subjective” babble would be even remotely true.

  Secondly. You’re making a bloody mess of “relativity” and “subjectivity”, as if both were synonymous. Get shit right dammit — subjectivity is a specific type of relativity regarding the subject. Showing time is relative to speed does jack shit to prove things would be relative to the subject, i.e. “gravity is false for me lol I’m jumping from the building!”.

  Thirdly. Why are you bullshitting = assuming = lying about what I’m comfortable or not with? You have no way to know it, don’t lie you do. I’m not uncomfortable with subjectivity. I simply consider it such inane bullshit, that I’m outright mocking it. Just like I’d mock flat Earth, souls, zodiacal signs, aliens visiting Earth on weekends, et cetera.

  Finally, drop off the Reddit style sealion: “I dun unrrurstand” followed by bullshit? Seriously, keep this shit in Reddit.

  Like, people would fight each other over the objectively correct temperature for the AC of their building if you let them—I just, I don’t get it.

  Gotta love assumptions…

  Not wasting my time further with you.

  *see Gricean maxims, specially the one of relevance.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Projected Truth⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  [Warning: bar philosophy. Might include ramblings, booze, chain smoking, and fried snacks.]

  And yet, gravity is still there.

  Even if simultaneity is relative, the phenomenon is still there, you know? You can claim something fell before or after another event, but you can’t really claim it didn’t fall. And you can’t claim two simultaneous events stopped being simultaneous if they’re stationary for you, so it’s less of a “truth is relative to ME! ME! ME!” and more of a “truth is relative to that speed”. It’s still an objective matter, not a subjective one.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Projected Truth⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s rather curious how those people who claim truth is subjective never do it for gravity, jumping off a high building. Because guess what, odds are they know it’s bullshit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Evolution Factsberg⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It is not a “sister” group because some crustaceans are more related to insects than to other crustaceans; check the family trees here. The accurate way to say this is that Hexapoda is clade within Pancrustacea, and that “crustaceans” is a paraphyletic group composed of all Pancrustacea minus the ones belonging to Hexapoda.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Evolution Factsberg⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes but not that closely. The Artiodactyla (order) tree goes like this:

  Image

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Evolution Factsberg⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Pretty much. It helps if you think the word “dinosaur” has two partially overlapping meanings:

  1. Cladistic: every single descendant of the last common ancestor between the triceratops and a duck, including both. Plus pretty much any bird.
  2. Popular: a bunch of extinct animals like the T-Rex, velociraptor, triceratops, etc. Plus animals visually resembling them, regardless of cladistic classification. Notably, it does not includes Aves aka modern birds.

  So for example. Turkeys would fit #1 but not #2. Depending on the person, dimetrodons and pterosaurs would fit #2, but not #1 [see note]. A T-rex would fit both.

  NOTE: pterosaurs aren’t from the clade Dinosauria, but from a distantly related clade called Pterosauria. Dimetrodons are synapsids so they’re closer to us mammals than to Dinosauria.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Evolution Factsberg⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a dinosaur.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Masturbation among birds is ‘natural’ and should not be punished, say experts⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve seen a cockatoo once who would go crazy for one of his owner’s old slippers, courting and then fucking it. The most the owner did was to buy herself a new pair of slippers, and leave the old one so the bird could have his fun.

  I guess the idea of punishing him never went through her mind. Or mine, really; c’mon, birds don’t understand decorum, and the whole thing was hilarious and obviously harmless to the bird.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Kiss your homies.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh well, life is suffering. But at least the suffering is bearable if it includes cats 😺

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Kiss your homies.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Sometimes I feel like Kika (my cat) might be doing this when I’m sleeping, because of all CLASH KLANK MMMRRRROOOOWN MRRRROOOOWN KPFAF! It’s usually because she rummaged my paper bin for new toys.

  Sadly no amount of forehead kisses will prevent it. The most it’ll do is to make her look at disgust, as if saying “EEEEEWWW HUMANS HAVE COOTIES”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Searching for 'Disregard' Breaks Google AI overviews; Similar command phrases, including "ignore," "quit," "skip," and "stop,"; "look" and "forget" are also prompting chatbot-like responses.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You can also change it in the settings. Look for “search assist”; values are “never”, “on demand”, “sometimes”, and “often”.

  But yeah, to be frank I use mostly DDG nowadays, I focused on Google due to the OP.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Arxiv bans slop⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  with a weird, corner-case scenario

  But what if the interests in conflict do not come from the person themself, but someone else forcing the person to take a side they wouldn’t otherwise? Such as mind-controlling aliens? (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

  Serious now. I noticed this from a forum I moderated ~10y ago. The admin always asked us mods and veteran users for feedback, before changing rules; but even for rules we were unanimously in favour of, there was always a bunch of users complaining. The contrast was so obvious it made me check the users’ profiles for context. It was always like this: the user claimed to be “deeply concerned” with the impact of the rule, brought up a thousand corner cases, and then as you checked their profile they were doing exactly what the rule was made against.

  For example: the admin implemented a rule that NSFW content needs to discussed in threads tagged “(NSFW)” in the title. One of the users started complaining about the ideal way to format it, and if it actually counts as a NSFW thread if someone used square brackets instead of parentheses. That same user was temp-banned once for spamming multiple threads asking “tell me how to say ‘piss in my mouth’ in [insert language the thread was about]”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Searching for 'Disregard' Breaks Google AI overviews; Similar command phrases, including "ignore," "quit," "skip," and "stop,"; "look" and "forget" are also prompting chatbot-like responses.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s an extension called Disable AI that gets rid of those intrusive Google Search AI “replies”. I strongly recommend people to use it, because… seriously, they are convincing but misleading trash.

  The two phonemic transcriptions of “disregard” in the first picture are a prime example of that. I could go on a full rant about it, but to keep it short: compare them with the ones provided by Wiktionary, and play “spot the differences”. (Bonus points if you also play “spot the undeclared assumptions”.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Arxiv bans slop⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Usually I’d also feel bad dunking on a random. However, when that random does a disservice to the scientific community, I think it becomes fair game.

  Specially in the light of the ongoing replication crisis. There are multiple reasons scientists are having a hard time reproducing published results, but a lot of them boils down to “someone skipped proper procedures” (like he encourages people to). Peer review is supposed to catch this, but when a person who can enforce those proper procedures says “we’ll enforce them”, suddenly the same random makes up reasons against the policy.