sxan

@sxan@midwest.social

       🅸 🅰🅼 🆃🅷🅴 🅻🅰🆆. 

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• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Prehistoric Crossroads⁩ ⁨⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  So, I came to ask whether that is really prehistory, given that we have cave paintings of wooly mammoths. So I looked it up, and prehistory is anything before the first known structured writing system, and cave art and bone carvings don’t count.

  So, TIL.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Stairwell To Happiness⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  So adorable! What a cute smile! I can imagine the cat-eye makeup, maybe a studded collar, some black lace… I’m going in…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Stairwell To Happiness⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, that very well could be a goth GF down there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Between Worlds⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Wow.

  One day, decades ago, my GF and I were driving through Germany from Munich to - Vienna, I think. Anyway, it was summer, and we had all the car windows down, and it was getting to be evening - just a the end of the golden hour, when things start to fade into darkness.

  As the road wound out between some hills, we suddenly came out into a view almost exactly like this: a lake, surrounded by wooded hills, with the shores lined by houses, all lit up. They were more cottage-y, and less dense than this, but this captures really well that feeling I had coming upon an almost fairyland scene.

  I don’t remember the name of the lake, or even where it was. For all I know, it was a glimpse into Faerie.

  Thanks for the post, though. I’ve never seen anything that quite captured that scene.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨lords of chaos⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I believe that chaos monkeys will go down in computing history as being one of the century’s greatest innovations in testing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tiny Face Vance⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That, too. It’s a face of many repulsive characteristics.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tiny Face Vance⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  What? That’s just a normal picture of Vance. Voted “Most Punchable” 2 years in a row!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon is deeply disturbed⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Thank you! No problem. I do that all the time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Just watched the movie Hacksaw Ridge. Got me thinking can people in the military turn down an order because they disagree with it on sensible grounds? Like Trump ordering them to invade CN?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You can refuse to disobey an illegal order. The military has a fairly clear list of what constitutes “illegal,” like executing unarmed non-combatants. The UCMJ makes allowances for this; it protects you from being court martialed for refusing to obey an order. However, the soldier doesn’t get to decide whether the order of illegal; it can’t just be something they disagree with, like invading Canada.

  I do believe that, if such circumstances came about, a soldier could probably get away with a fairly broad interpretation of “illegal orders.” However, this is mostly theoretical.

  First, if you thought peer pressure on high school was bad, it’s nothing compared to the Army.

  Second, it doesn’t stop there from being immediate consequences, some of which might very well result in you being dead, many of which would just make your life hell. There are an almost unlimited number of legal orders you could be given that would make your life hell.

  Third, it’s really predicated on the illegal order being given fairly low down the chain. If the commander of the US forces sends down orders to kill all the orphans in a town, the USMC isn’t going to help.

  Fourth, the person giving you the order could threaten to kill you, right there, unless you obey. Sure, they might get in trouble later, but that doesn’t really help you now, does it? And maybe they won’t get in trouble. Maybe they say they gave you some other legal order you disobeyed, and no-one is willing to gainsay them.

  But really, your question is whether there’s any protection if you disagree with an order, and the answer is “no.” There’s a narrow set of defined “illegal orders” which you can, theoretically, disobey.

  In peacetime, you can decide to become a conscientious objector, and look forward to spending some time in prison. Once you join, you have almost no option for rejecting a legal order, without facing some sort of punishment.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon is deeply disturbed⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I didn’t see anything where the customer was suggesting the server should bypass the rules. I was talking about the Anon responder who mocked the Anon customer for bitching about the policy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon is deeply disturbed⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m with the customer on this. The responder is singer sort of shill who probably is responsible for decisions at their company that nickle and dime customers with hidden fees.

  Fuck those deceitful bloodsuckers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Smile Phantom⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Someone needs a hug!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why's everyone freaking out about Firefox Terms of Service? Isn't it Open Source?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, I don’t use Wayland, and Qt and Chromium are going to completely new to my system, but maybe I’ll give it a shot.

  Cheers

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why's everyone freaking out about Firefox Terms of Service? Isn't it Open Source?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Luakit has a lot of problems. The biggest one right now is that it has some scrolling bug where it just… won’t. It’s extremely annoying, but it beats having to kill -9 Nyxt multiple times an hour because it hard-freezes.

  Why haven’t I tried Qute? Is it keyboard-control oriented?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dancing Lights⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They look like they’re on bicycles.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why's everyone freaking out about Firefox Terms of Service? Isn't it Open Source?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They’re all very niche. Keyboard driven. A fair number of issues; they’re all built on WebKit, with all of the compatability issues that comes with.

  I mean, it doesn’t hurt. But it’s like picking up vim: there’s a learning curve. They’re not for everyone, just fair warning.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What happened to cylindrical plugs?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve been half-assed monitor shopping, and the USB-C capable ones are still far more expensive; they exist, they’re just pricey. I’ll consider USB-C to have “won” when the price difference is negligible.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What happened to cylindrical plugs?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  BNC is better, but I’ve only encountered it, like, twice.

  Honestly, I’ve never been happier since USB-C took over. I compare today to the early 90s and having 8-12 different connectors - two of which looked identical but were incompatible - to hook up a single Sun workstation. I clearly remember dreaming of a day when there would be a single connector for everything, and we’re really close. Higher wattage demands and video connectors (HDMI, DP, DVI) are the only hold-outs - and I’m not sure why USB-C hasn’t conquered video yet, unless it’s a cost thing, because it’s certainly capable.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why's everyone freaking out about Firefox Terms of Service? Isn't it Open Source?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Maybe. Not everyone is just going to ignore this, though.

  I waffle between Firefox and other browsers, depending on how tolerant I’m feeling. Not using Firefox is more work. Sometimes I’ll spend a week or two with Firefox up, but normally, I’m in Luakit.But when I hit that web site that just doesn’t work with WebKit, I hop over to FF for it. Now, with this, I’ll probably start jumping to Nyxt which - while also WebKit - seems for some reason to work with more sites. Nyxt is faster, too; luakit is really slow and has a persistent scrolling bug that drives me nuts. But Nyxt hard-hangs multiple times during each hour of its, requiring a kill -9 and restart, so … Luakit.

  Like I said. It’s harder to not use Firefox. But this change in policy is enough to make me change my habits and use something else when I have issues with Luakit. Or surf. Or vimb. Or whatever I’m fancying this month. Problem is, they’re mostly WebKit, and while in grateful for it, it struggles with many web sites - and especially the JS heavy ones.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What happened to cylindrical plugs?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  In not the person you replied to, and I can’t speak about the engineering merits; but as a user I hate F-type connectors. They’re bad enough when you have to only install them once in the lifetime of the connected device - it’s the threaded screw that’s the worst, I think, for which no non-technical user owns a tool beyond their fingers, from which the bevel invariably strips the flesh; although I’ve also bent enough of those pins trying to get something connected in an awkward place, or because I was tired, or being sloppy. It’s not a connector that’s convenient for amateurs, and most of its users were and are amateurs.

  As a connector for multiple, frequent dis- and re-connection, it’s an utter disaster. Sure, that’s not what it’s designed for. It was designed to be a semi-permanent extension of permanent wiring, and I’m sure it’s great at that.

  The context of the whole thread, though, was end-user, repeated, frequent connections for people who have to be reminded by a manual that the thing needs to be plugged in. Coax is horrible for that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨People complain that it's poor design that humans eat and breath through the same pipe(throat). Are there any animals which don't though?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve saved this under “Why our ‘intelligent’ designer was an incompetent amateur.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨People complain that it's poor design that humans eat and breath through the same pipe(throat). Are there any animals which don't though?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I have never meet your cousin, and yet I envy him.

  If we ever do get practical body modification, the second thing I’m doing is getting sealable nostrils and ears, so can swim in comfort at any reasonable depth.

  The first thing, of course, is getting everything that’s just fucking broken in my body fixed. The knee I fucked up doing moguls, and is getting more gimpy the older I get; the elbow I messed up trying to parkour down some stairs; my chronically fucked up back, thanks Army!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨People complain that it's poor design that humans eat and breath through the same pipe(throat). Are there any animals which don't though?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Like, airtight seal? For swimming?

  Weird.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Endless Digital Cosmos⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This is more reminiscent of TRON than any of the sequels, or series. Love it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨People complain that it's poor design that humans eat and breath through the same pipe(throat). Are there any animals which don't though?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d have put the vocal chords in the nasal passage, allowing humans to still talk while eliminating the choking problem.

  The laryngeal nerve is a much more stupid design, simply because there’s no practical reason for it to be the way it is.

  Also: if we didn’t have the ability to breath through our mouths, swimming as a sport would be harder, since we don’t have the ability to close our nose-holes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You'll need a RTX 2060 Super at minimum for Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  2 opponents have acquisition, one looks like they’re firing, there’s a third ready for a snap shot, and they all have AKs.

  Player is… reloading a handgun.

  I know it’s a video game, but my suspension of disbelief has limits. This isn’t sci-fi; there are no magic shields or SuperArmor; so player only survives if

  • the opponents have Storm Trooper levels of aim capability
  • Player is wearing level… hell, I don’t even know what body armor is effective against 7.62x39 at - what - no more than 7 meters here. And it’s going to hurt like hell in any case
  • the opponents are all out of ammo

  I mean, utter, blinding incompetence aside, player 1 is dead. Even with a massive plot shield, it would be hard to swallow.

  Maybe they stole some armor cloth from the John Wick universe; that stuff is sci-fi level good.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No time to spare, got to be efficient!

  Those tend to be infrequent travelers, though, or young 'uns hitchhiking or railing through Europe. I’ve yet to meet an experienced traveler who hasn’t learned that changing hotels is the worst part of any vacation.

  My wife and I have a two-hotel limit. If we’re go to southern France, we might stay a week in Provence, and then change to Saint-Tropez for a few days. Oh, I guess there’s always an extra hotel before departure: we always spend the last night near the airport, but that hardly counts since you don’t unpack. But we look at vacations now from the perspective of “base of operations”.

  One of these days we might try a river cruise, although I have this premonition it’s going to be a terrible experience. And we once considered a bicycling vacation run by a company that would move your luggage from hotel to hotel, and you spent the day biking between them. That might be worth all of the hotel changes, but as we get older it gets harder to pack lightly enough to make changing hotels easy.

  The “whirlwind tour” is, simply, the most awful concept in the entire history of vacation travel. Oh, and cruise ships. Cruise ships might be worse. I’m glad Venice banned them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Also they seldom get to practice their English.

  Even with all of the tourism? From the US and UK? I know French is a common second language in the UK, but surely Paris gets its fair share of pensioners speaking only English.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Not my experience.

  There’s a definite Parisian superiority attitude I find extremely annoying, but by and large the issue I found isn’t that they don’t speak English, but that they refuse to speak French.

  It may be that my French is so bad that it’s painful, but I’d try. And usually I’d get a pause, a look, and then they’d switch to English.

  The countryside is different. English isn’t as common as it is in Germany. But, if you speak passable German, they’ll at least speak German with you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨TFW you think you got away with it for 137 years but then the cops come knockin⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Get. Out. Really? So, if you shoplift a greeting card when you’re in your teens, you have to keep looking over your shoulder and expect a knock on your door even when you’re 80?