DomeGuy
@DomeGuy@lemmy.world
- Comment on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Price Update - Xbox Wire 19 hours ago:
Unless the cost of buying an equivalent version of CoD is more than $82 you can just do that and still save money.
- Comment on How do I drink more water? 19 hours ago:
Echoing this:
Being dehydrated has real and generally unpleasant symptoms which drinking water alleviates. Dehyrdation is not just when your urine has a color.
If you have to go #1 on a regular basis, you’re probably not dehydrated.
- Comment on What happened to the Dem Party in America? It's kind of like once Kamala lost, which they deserved, and lost congress. They ran like a dog with its tail between its legs instead of fighting? 5 days ago:
My guess is that you really just aren’t paying attention. Possibly because right-wing oligarchs keep buying traditional news rooms and turning them into weak propaganda factories.
Without control of even a single chamber of Congress the
DemocratsAmerican Left has managed to:- Expand their state court lead in Wisconsin
- Stop a bevy of abuse and chicainery by going to court.
- Pickup control of Virginia, and get right to making that state better
- Dominate in special elections to such an extent that a “blue wave” seems entirely achievable
- Pick an actual Socialist for NYC mayor instead of a cop or sex pest, who is doing a great job by any metric
- In Congress shut down the entire government and get the most out of any such shutdown in our nation’s history
- Shutdown DHS to the point that the right caved to their demand to segregate ICE and non-ICE parts of the agency
Democrats and the rest of the left are fighting. But because the basic rules of American federalism and rule of law are still mostly being followed, that fighting is done by traditional peaceful channels rather than through violence.
- Submitted 1 week ago to [deleted] | 24 comments
- Comment on Talk like an 👽 1 week ago:
Space launches via catapult are entirely possible on earth. We don’t do it mostly because the engineering scale is dramatically larger, not because of how we math.
The laws of physics seem to be consistent throughout our universe, so any claim that an alien race could travel through space without math is what skeptics call “an extraordinary claim”.
I dont really see how a contrarian “what if they’re just too weird” stance is even helpful in a discussion about why math is the closest thing we have to a universal language. If an alien civilization is too weird to grok math, I dont see how we’d ever be able to communicate with them at all.
- Comment on Talk like an 👽 1 week ago:
If the aliens have godlike powers I think we can presume that they would either be smart enough to figure us out or else weird enough that talking to them isn’t worthwhile.
Literally every civilization we have ever encountered evidence of has math and language. If an alien has neither, and is not smart enough to figure us out, then they’re likely not the sort we could communicate with on even the scale of our communication with plants and insects.
- Comment on Talk like an 👽 1 week ago:
The sun is the big one. What we call “visible light” is just the band of the em spectrum right around Sol’s peak. A larger\hotter star would have that band shifted dramatically bluer, while a smaller/colder star would be redder.
- Comment on Talk like an 👽 1 week ago:
For instance, what if they don’t have the concept of symbolic representation of objects/concepts in visual/auditory ways?
Then how did they manage space travel?
Rocket science demands math. You can’t get to orbit if you can’t figure out both the rocket equation, orbital dynamics, and sufficient chemistry to power your launch engine. And you don’t even realize that orbit is a thing if you don’t have enough math to realize that the lights in the sky are things you might be able to stand on.
We have sapient non-human life right here on earth that doesn’t have the concept of writing. And since they don’t they didn’t build cities or civilization and we keep them in zoos and nature preserves.
- Comment on Talk like an 👽 1 week ago:
If a spacefaring race is so utterly alien they don’t even have a concept of counting how did they manage space travel?
And, like I said, math only works for the (presumably large) subset of aliens we could eventually talk to.
- Comment on Talk like an 👽 1 week ago:
Counting is kind of basic. From one-two-three you can get fairly quicky to yes-no, and then comparisons, and with yes/no/more/less/same you have enough to fuzzle out whatever squak gigors.
Aliens we could talk to at all wouldn’t be cthulu or q. They would live in the same basic reality we do, with entropy and gravity and the same elemetnts and stars. (They WOULD likely see different colors than we do, unless their sun was the same temperature as Sol and their planet the same size as earth)
- Comment on How would I even start an investigation into my states use of marijuana money? How to keep it covert with gathering alot of info? And find freinds in power to help me out. 1 week ago:
Money is fungible. $1 from pot tax, lottery tax, or DMV fee spends the same in the general ledger, and any pretense to the otherwise is just make believe.
(If your state implements a lottery “for education” and raises $10 million, the near immediate result is reducing general fund outlay to education by $10 million.)
- Comment on can i still consider myself to be a valid asexual? 2 weeks ago:
Sexualities are only useful as options on the dating app.
Whether you describe yourself as “asexual” or “demisexual” (or "straight’ or “gay”) only matters when you’re looking for a new partner and need to choose how much “what do you mean by that” you want to put up with.
- Comment on How come Dish Network or other satelite services. Do not allow you to create a playlist? Like if I record 5 different episodes of Sunday Morning why cant I just put it on play and it goes thru each? 2 weeks ago:
In FOSS you’re paying with your time and plausible feedback / contributions.
- Comment on All Social Medias Track Urls 2 weeks ago:
Social media sites live as advertising vehicles. Being able to show numbers related to users showing links helps them sell advertisements.
It’s reportedly why Bluesky redirects links in the app to a referrer – so websites can see how much traffic they get from there and have a reason to post on the network.
Whether or not this is a good thing, and how much tracking is acceptable, is an entirely separate discussion. (Which should really include words like “I regularly donate to my Lemmy instance” or their equivalent…)
- Comment on Has society or scientists ever solved definitively the Chicken and the Egg theory? Or is it just like a whose on first thing? 2 weeks ago:
It’s not so much a philosophical challenge as a grammatical question.
Was the egg that the very first chicken hatched from a chicken egg, even though it was laid by a non-chicken?
If I waved a scientifically-advanced biotech wand and impregnated a chicken with a small dinosaur, would the resultant egg be a chicken egg even though a dinosaur came out?
- Comment on How did carrier pigeons know who to deliver letters to? 2 weeks ago:
I think you underestimate how long a telegram can be.
Not everyone who sent telegrams was as poor as Victor Hugo inquiring about the English sales of Les Miserables by sending a single '?"
- Comment on Why is us rail travel so expensive? 2 weeks ago:
This is really dependent on how many people are taking the same trip you are.
There’s a rail line that goes very regularly between my state capital and my state’s eponymous megacity. (And more along the entire corridor on south to the national capital). If it’s just one or two adults doing that trip it’s cheaper to ride the rail, since the two round-trip tickets cover gas, fuel, tolls, parking, and depreciation. Not so if it’s enough people to fill the car.
- Comment on Are there any open source word processors that have AI integration? 2 weeks ago:
I misremembered. The last one I looked into isnt FOSS, but is thick with AI.
- Comment on Are there any open source word processors that have AI integration? 2 weeks ago:
LibreOffice is sick with LLM plugins, and at least one FOSS word processor that I looked into as a word alternative advertised a thick AI integration.
- Comment on Is it "weird" for kids to co-sleep with parents through their teenage years? 4 weeks ago:
You literally said you have a mental health issue (seperation anxiety) and asked if an unusual household habit might be a contributing cause.
Going to a therapist is definitely worth considering.
- Comment on How do left-leaning—or not even left-leaning, but pro-choice, pro-life people who don’t care about fornication—who are also Catholics and Christians justify their religion? 4 weeks ago:
The bible doesn’t say being gay is a sin. At worst, there’s an old testament law against bisexuality (that may just be about not cheating on your wife with a man), and a new testament story about God making some homophobic Romans gay to punish them.
More importantly than the ambiguity of either the old testament laws or the post-gospel epistles however are the actual techings attributed to Jesus. Each of the four gospels tells the story slightly differently, but two stories are applicable here.
The first is the story of the Mary who was neither Jesus’s mother nor bestie, but just a random Jewish girl who was caught cheating with a married man and was about to be gang-murdered by an angry mob chucking stones at her until she died. Obvious sexual sin, and apparently the customary punishment. But God essentially says “I tell you what, SURE she’s a sinner, how about y’all get someone who isn’t to start this execution right.”
( Which, when coupled with a few later passages about leaving judgement for God, honestly let’s any Christian ignore anyone else’s sin entirely.)
The second story is a bit more on point, and is contained in all four gospels as essentially the thesis of the new religion. Jesus was asked what the most important part of the law was, and he essentially said “love” twice. To love God with all that you are, and love everyone else as you love yourself. And then went on to imply that one could derive all of celestial law from just those two. Which means any Christian can and should ignore any hateful old testament law if they honestly feel it is wrong.
(Which can sound like a cop out until you get back to the “we are all sinners” point. It doesn’t matter if homosexuality or premarital sex are sins, because being a hateful jerk or judgemental ass are also sins and the only way anyone gets to avoid hell is if God decides to not give us the horrible fate we deserve.)
The Christianity I practice is a religion based around the idea that God created everything, loves us all, and really just wants us to not be dicks to each other.
There isn’t enough room in a life concerned with the “new” commandment to love everyone as we love ourselves to be a dick about anyone else’s sex life. As long as you’re honest with your lovers and do your best to not spread STDs, whether or not your seventy-five member atheistic informal polycule is sinful or not is between you and God.
- Comment on How do left-leaning—or not even left-leaning, but pro-choice, pro-life people who don’t care about fornication—who are also Catholics and Christians justify their religion? 4 weeks ago:
Accusing a Christian of cherry picking their political positions from the bible is like accusing a cook of cherry picking the recipe from an online story about a great date and adopting a dog.
- Comment on [deleted] 4 weeks ago:
Not all EVs are drive-by-wire, and not all ICVs aren’t.
- Comment on How do Superheroes or villians get their suits on is there like a magical zipper or something? Or how do they do it? 4 weeks ago:
Comic book artists are not (all) fashion designers, so the artistic leeway that also lets them render imperfect images of humanoids in fight sequences also applies to the practicality of their costumes.
Presumably said costumes are donned piecemeal, similar to how the actual costumes of cosplayets and superhero actors are donned. Spiderman and deadpool look like they’re wearing full body sewn-on gimp suits, but are “really” just wearing some overlapping layers that the artist (usually) doesn’t depict.
(Except of course for things like the venom symbiote, mystique’s shapechanging, or those weird pseudo-nudists like hulk, silver surfer, and thosd green lantern freaks…)
- Comment on Steam :: About the New York Attorney General lawsuit against Valve 5 weeks ago:
The NY AG doesn’t generally bring criminal suits. And “was a rapist in FL and a private island” may not be enough to give anyone standing to empanel a grand jury and indict.
If you live in NY and then take a vacation in Texas during which you open carry a AR15 and then “self defense” somebody at the Alamo who called you a Yankee, there wouldn’t be much NY could do if the local DA accepted your defense.
- Comment on Three questions about California AB1043 C. 675 1 month ago:
So, if I understand right, basically they assume its correct unless given significant evidence otherwise?
That’s how it reads to me this morning. Assuming by “given” you meant “they have at all”.
So like, if this flag is enabled and I visit a website and don’t directly provide personal information, then they have to assume I am a child under CCPA and thus can’t share my data. Right?
Based on the CA AG’s page at www.oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa , I don’t see how “the browser reports the user as a child” gives a substantial additional burden on website developers. Presumably, the most they’d have to do to comply is use the flag to change “do you agree for yourself” to “PARENT OR GUARDIAN: Do you agree for the user of this account…”
I’m missing the part where an adult setting their age category incorrectly for themselves would do more than get a stronger porn block and a bunch of “go get your parent” pop-ups instead of “click here if you’re over 18.”
Presumably, if Microsoft and Google and Apple don’t get the Digital Age Assurance Act blocked in court, we could see a broad adoption of it as a way to skip paying for third-party age validation for sites like Reddit, BlueSky, and Lemmy, and all of the porn sites on the internet would just ask for the flag in lieu of their current “do we have a cookie where this user clicked that they’re at least 18” code.
- Comment on Three questions about California AB1043 C. 675 1 month ago:
Not a lawyer, answers based on legiscan.com/CA/text/AB1043/2025
- Under section 1798.501. (b) 4A, wouldn’t this make collection of almost any system information illegal?
No. Because the terms are defined in 1798.500. They can ask your system directly whatever they want; they just can’t ask Microsofg, Apple, or Google for correlating specifics.
- Since 1798.501. (b) 2A seems to require that developers that receive this age flag treat assume it is true, this would at least apply to CCPA, and California Civil Code, right?
Yes, but only insomuch as laws that protect minors impose additional constraints on those who have “actual knowledge” that a user is actually a child.
It doesn’t mean they need to trust the OS flag if they have suoerior knowledge as to someone’s actual age. If I ask a child to contact Imgur to delete my account they’d block out my porn stash but otherwise treat the request as any other “delete an adult’s account” request.
- Would 1798.501. (b) 2A also apply to COPPA? I know this is state versus federal law, but…
Statr law can expand upon federal law but not contradict. And it smells like AB1043 is more “add a more explicit signal of user age” than anything affecting data retention relating to children.
What part do you think is contradictory?
- Comment on How to I prove to someone that the U.S. moon landing wasn't staged? 1 month ago:
a) Explain why the US hasn’t gone back in so long, and why with modern technology it seems so difficult?
Going to the moon is expensive and has essentially no direct revenue. There are no resources to be had on the moon that provide worthwhile efficiency over what we already have on earth, and most of the basic science was done by the Apollo missions.
How do you verify moon rocks without having actually been on the moon? How did scientists figure out what a moon rock looks like?
Getting moon rocks, which have a unique microscopic texture due to no water erosion, was one of those “basic science” bits I mentioned before. They don’t really prove the moon landing except that “they’re from the moon” is the simplest answer for why these rocks have that unique texture.
Why aren’t the old Apollo designs being reused for a moon landing? (by either the Americans or the Chinese)
Because thre 1960s were fifty years ago.
The industrial base to build an Apollo rocket isn’t there anymore than the industrial base to build a 1965 Buick skylark or an Atati 2600. You could throw money and rebuild all those factories, but it’d dramatically balloon the cost even before you start to recon with correcting the inevitable mismatch between the original spec and what your rebuilt factory can make.
(And even if we did just rebuild Apollo, we’d wind up with a rocket that didn’t have the advantage of 50 years of advancement.)
- Comment on What do you think of Paramount merging with Warner Bros. Discovery to create a new media company? 1 month ago:
This is a billionaire buying the good name of trusted companies so he can have a propaganda house that isn’t obviously such.
- Comment on Did I discover a fake conspiracy theory? 1 month ago:
Like the woman who sued macdonalds for getting third degree burns because their coffee was too hot.
Please never mention this story without pointing out at least one of the following;
- The coffee was hot enough to cause crippling burns to her genitals.
- McDonald’s intentionally had their coffee too hot to drink to keep customers from hanging out
- the woman only asked for medical expenses and did not sue until her complaint was ignored.
- the eye-popping headline number was calculated as something like one day of the company’s coffee profit.
There literally isn’t an instance of a US company being sued by a customer more deserving of empathy and horror.