AnarchistArtificer
@AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net
- Comment on GTA 6 dev Rockstar says recent firings were due to leaks of "confidential information" and were "in no way related to people's right to join a union" 3 days ago:
What does OC mean in this context?
- Comment on The wonder of the sea 1 week ago:
No, I get it. Humans are capable of such destruction on unimaginable scales, just by living our lives. Governments and corporations are such huge structures of diffuse accountability that often, we are unaware of the extent of the harms done by humanity. This video feels like an act of resistance to that. A whole team of divers take the time and resources (air) to help this little octopus that was a victim of human existence. It doesn’t erase the harm done by humans, and it would devalue the act if we pretended that it would be possible to balance the scales in this way.
It’s a powerful gesture precisely because it’s so insignificant. There are many humans who are also being harmed by the ruthless machinery of human society, and taking the time to be present and compassionate something that can be hard. Watching the video made me feel more human, because it highlights that I don’t think that humans are inherently the problem. Some humans are assholes, sure, but most of the problems are because we’ve made a lot of dispassionate systems that are far bigger than we are. I often think that it’d be easier to fight these things if we could make space for our humanity.
- Comment on What's your answer? And in the picture which news story is being reported? 1 week ago:
Margaret Thatcher getting rid of milk snacks in schools. I grew up in a mining town, so from a very young age, I was acutely aware of how much everyone hated Thatcher. However, I just thought that people really liked milk, and that’s why they hated “Margaret Thatcher the milk snatched”. I don’t like the taste of milk on its own, and I can remember being 3 or 4 years old and bemused by the intensity of feelings towards her — I guessed that people must really like milk
- Comment on Where is modern Punk? 1 week ago:
Friends tell me that seeing Kneecap live was incredible
- Comment on Where is modern Punk? 1 week ago:
Any recommendations for punk electronic music? I’ve been wanting to get into making electronic music because disability means that’s a more accessible genre for me than playing traditional instruments, but it’s daunting to get into a new genre
- Comment on Has anyone here ever doubted if your parents were your "real" parents? Is it normal to have these weird thoughts? 1 week ago:
I’m sorry that you find this relatable. Unfortunately, I do too. It seems pretty unlikely that your parents aren’t your real parents, but regardless, it’s valid and okay to wish that you had different parents.
I don’t necessarily wish that I had different parents, but more that I wish my parents were different people when they had me. That probably doesn’t make much sense, but what I mean is that I am estranged from my parents because it wasn’t possible to have an emotionally safe relationship with them. My mom in particular tried her best, but she was pretty messed up from abuse that she suffered as a child. I often wonder how things could’ve been different if she’d been able to get a bunch of therapy and find a supportive community before she had kids.
Like I say, it’s okay to feel wistful, just try not to ruminate too much. The key thing to remember is that you deserve good parents, and it’s reasonable to feel grief if that’s not something you have; I’ve found that trying to force myself to not feel hurt by the unfairness can just make the sadness more intrusive.
Having shitty parents is a pretty tough disadvantage, and certainly I often wonder how many of my mental health problems are attributable to my childhood. Your background doesn’t need to define you though. I know many people who, like me, became properly estranged from their parents, and felt liberated afterwards. It sucks that I had to go no contact with them, but after I had the freedom to build a life of my own, it was a healthy step. I also know many who were able to build a healthier relationship with their parents as adults — basically what I tried to do, but it worked out well for them.
The point that I’m trying to make is that you’re not defined by your parents. Not now and not ever. Just never forget that you deserve love, care and respect, especially from your family. I’ve found this is a key thing for avoiding the wistfulness spiral into a deeper depression. If your blood family isn’t able or willing to give you the support you need to thrive, then take it from me that family isn’t just something you have by blood, but it can be something you build, and that found family is valid.
- Comment on Patron-Supported Journalism Can’t Be the Future of News 1 week ago:
For a while, I was subscribed as a patron to Elisabeth Bik’s Patroeon. She’s a microbiologist turned “Science Integrity Specialist” which means she investigates and exposes scientific fraud. Despite doing work that’s essential to science, she has struggled to get funding because there’s a weird stigma around what she does; It’s not uncommon to hear scientists speak of people like her negatively, because they perceive anti-fraud work as being harmful to public trust in science (which is obviously absurd, because surely recognising that auditing the integrity of research is necessary for building and maintaining trust in science).
Anyway, I mention this because it’s one of the most dystopian things I’ve directly experienced in recent years. A lot of scientists and other academics I know are struggling financially, even though they’re better funded than she is, so I can imagine that it’s even worse for her. How fucked up is it for scientific researchers to have to rely on patrons like me (especially when people like me are also struggling with rising living costs).
- Comment on Youtube can detect VPNs now... the fuck? 2 weeks ago:
Sometimes I do get YouTube telling me that I need to disable my adblocker to access a video, so they do try to block that stuff (though I suspect that the infrequency with which this happens combined with the fact that not everyone does experience it when some people do report this happening suggests that they’re just testing methods of detection and blocking)
Usually when it happens, I just go into my Ublock settings and update stuff. I can’t remember that ever not working. It feels like a low-key arms race, in a cold-war kind of way
- Comment on return 2 krebs 2 weeks ago:
It’s just covers different topics; it’s titled “Cell and molecular processes”. I don’t find it as fun as a topic, and it’s also far less comprehensive than the metabolic pathways one (possibly because cell biology is more complex and thus it’s much harder to capture all that we know at a given time)
- Comment on 2 weeks ago:
Gay humans exist today, they existed throughout history, and they will continue to exist for as long as humans do.
Do you consider Uhura being a bridge officer to be “pushing a narrative”? Because that was a political statement in much the same way that gay characters in Star Trek are (arguably more so).
It sucks to be a person whose very existence is political in this world that we live in now. Sci-Fi that includes those people is a way of saying "hey, wouldn’t it be nice if people could live their lives without their existence being the battleground for political ideology.
- Comment on return 2 krebs 2 weeks ago:
I fucking love the Krebs cycle. It’s so cool. Something I love is that on the big Roche Biochemical Pathways poster, if you zoom out, you can see the Kreb’s cycle in the centre. It’s so cool at how it is so central to cell metabolism. It’s obviously key in carbohydrate metabolism, but it also acts as the entry point for the metabolites formed from the breakdown of amino acids and fatty acids.
Here’s a zoomed out view (low res, you can’t zoom in):
The interactive website is down at the moment, but a high res image can be found here
- Comment on AWS outage reminds us why $2,449 Internet-dependent beds are a bad idea 2 weeks ago:
I was talking about this recently with someone (read: ranting as they nodded sympathetically) and I finished up by saying “what’s the point of ‘smart’ tech if the humans who use it are steadily disempowered and ultimately, made less smart?”
I’ve recently been dabbling in HomeAssistant and learning how to set things up properly feels like it’s been making me more smart.
- Comment on One more LLM 2 weeks ago:
I’ve heard a lot of people say that llm code can be a timesaver, but only if you’re already proficient enough with the programming language that you can see at a glance what the generated code does. Otherwise, the experience is much like your own.
- Comment on true love is rare 2 weeks ago:
I liked the 20-200 also.
- Comment on true love is rare 2 weeks ago:
I really enjoyed it. I haven’t used a pipette in a few years because most of my focus is more computery nowadays, but I really miss the zen of pipetting. My arms did ache after a long day in the lab, but I sort of liked that. I think it stems from a deeply silly part of me that enjoyed how sciencey I felt when using a pipette.
It helped that when I first started my undergrad studies, I seemed to be much better at it than many of my peers — a boon which was compounded by being good at being systematic in a manner that caused me to make fewer mistakes and thus finish labs sooner, despite taking longer to get started doing the actual wet lab work.
I especially liked the practicals where we used a spectrophotometer to measure the initial rate of an enzyme catalysed reaction. Pre cutting out squares of parafilm for mixing the cuvette, organising my workspace so everything was in arm’s reach and unlikely to be knocked over during the rush stage, the stressful tension of carefully adding reaction reagents (sans enzyme) to the cuvettes, ensuring I wouldn’t get them mixed up — it felt like gearing up for a difficult boss fight in a video game. All culminating in a frantic flurry to perform efficiently once I set the reaction going and had to start taking measurements. If a protocol required us to take another spectrophotometric measurement of each cuvette 2 minutes after the initial one, I could just do it one at a time, and twiddle my thumbs waiting. That would be far too simple however, and I relished the challenge of taking the initial readings of another few cuvettes in that time, until I would have liked 4 or 5 going at once. If I misjudged my abilities, I’d end up not taking the second reading of the first cuvette in time and I’d likely need to prepare a replacement sample for the one I’d botched up. It was the kind of low stakes, high intensity pressure that I live for.
Even before I stopped doing wet labs, I never did as much fun pipetting as I did during undergrad labs (which makes sense, given that they’re drilling you with the skills), but I always look back fondly on those labs.
Except when I got one of the shit pipettes. They did the job, but they were not nice to use and it’d be enough to make me grumpy for the whole day.
- Comment on Fight me 2 weeks ago:
Our entire existence is a temporary rebellion against entropy. In light of that, hubris seems inevitable. I reckon a little bit of it is useful for us
- Comment on a sight to behold 2 weeks ago:
A friend once had to go to the hospital due to extreme and chronic constipation, and whilst her… evacuation was less… explosive than this, she describes the relief as being so great that for a few glorious moments, she forgot that she was in the ER with a tube up her ass (and that the tube was only necessary when multiple members of medical staff had failed to move things along manually).
- Comment on a sight to behold 2 weeks ago:
Nurses are such integral parts of a functioning healthcare system, and it annoys me how they are systematically devalued. If we could wave a magic wand and make every nurse into a doctor (with the magic including the extra money it would take to fund this), it would be a downgrade. We often talk about nurses as if they’re just doctors, but worse, when in fact the role that they fulfill is qualitatively different to doctors and requires a different, not lesser, skillset.
- Comment on 'This is definitely my last TwitchCon': High-profile streamer Emiru was assaulted at the event, even as streamers have been sounding the alarm about stalkers and harassment 2 weeks ago:
It’s a big part of why I love that scene of delightful weirdos. I actually was only at that nightclub because a friend was nervous about going alone, but I enjoyed the vibe so much that I went on my own a few times after that.
- Comment on 'This is definitely my last TwitchCon': High-profile streamer Emiru was assaulted at the event, even as streamers have been sounding the alarm about stalkers and harassment 2 weeks ago:
Gay bars can be super creepy. It’s worse for guys, but it’s also something I have experience with as a queer woman. Unwelcome groping from women happens less often for me at a gay club than by men at a straight club, but when it happens, it’s way more overt.
I wish there were more spaces for LGBTQ folk that weren’t centred around drinking. I’m fortunate enough to live in a city where there are at least some venues and events of that sort, but in some places I’ve lived, there wasn’t even a local gay bar.
- Comment on 'This is definitely my last TwitchCon': High-profile streamer Emiru was assaulted at the event, even as streamers have been sounding the alarm about stalkers and harassment 2 weeks ago:
Thanks for the additional context; I appreciate it. I was already feeling solidarity with Emiru, and I’m glad to learn more from her perspective
- Comment on 'This is definitely my last TwitchCon': High-profile streamer Emiru was assaulted at the event, even as streamers have been sounding the alarm about stalkers and harassment 2 weeks ago:
“To tell you honestly, I am a lot more hurt and upset by how Twitch handled it during and after the fact.”
Man, I hate how hard I relate to this. I’m so used to creepy guys that it often becomes part of the background noise of being in public. I remember the first time I went to a kink nightclub, I was startled by how infrequently I was randomly groped; being in such a consent aware space made me realise how many people in a regular nightclub will use the crowdedness as plausible deniability in trying to cop a feel. That stuff is honestly so prevalent that the individual instances hardly bother me anymore (though thinking about how often it happens and how powerless women are to stop it does get to me)
However, sometimes, something happens that goes beyond this, and makes me feel genuinely unsafe and violated. Often, it’s scary because it represents an escalation of harassment, such as a coworker who becomes increasingly invasive. There have been enough times where reporting harassment or an assault has gone ignored (or worse) that now when it happens, I feel desperately anxious in not knowing whether to report a thing.
Beyond the effect of the harassment on me, I feel that it’s my ethical duty to report things like this. It would obviously not be feasible to report everything that was sus, but some things cross the line and need to be reported. However, my greatest fear in reporting something is that it may reveal the organisation to be shitty. The betrayal hurts more than the harassment. Even if it’s a big company like Twitch, which you wouldn’t necessarily expect to be giving a fuck, there’s still the desperate hope that “the system” will respond to flagrant violations of codes of conduct (and also the law). It’s demoralising when those in power act like sexual harassment and sexual assault don’t have laws against them. This undermines the law, and makes it as though it isn’t even there.
- Comment on Mom they're fighting again 2 weeks ago:
A paper I quite enjoy is “Queer Theory for Lichens” which argued that queer theory is genuinely a useful framework for studying lichens; Lichens resist categorisation in a manner that feels like they’re actively mocking our taxonomic efforts.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
“gimmick shoes you wouldn’t wear for more than an hour”
Can you elaborate on what you mean by this? Do you mean that the light up shoes look like they’d be uncomfortable, or are you getting at something different?
- Comment on One of those days 3 weeks ago:
It’s reasonable to assume that this assignment wasn’t specifically on fractions, based on the meme itself; the rage only makes sense in a world where they weren’t instructed to present their answers in a particular format.
Online assessments can be pretty jarring because for paper assessments marked by a teacher, you’re usually fine to present whatever format is most convenient. The exceptions include: if the question asked for you for a specific format; if you gave a rounded answer where it wasn’t appropriate (e.g. giving the answer “1.57 (3s.f.)” instead of “π/2”); or rounding an answer to the wrong level, or not being clear about what level of rounding you’ve done.
Whilst it is possible that the online assessment specified what format answers should be in, I’ve seen plenty of assessments where it doesn’t make that clear, and then is overly rigid in what it accepts. I’ve even seen assessments where I go “okay, I guess I shouldn’t give my answer as a decimal”, and then I give a fraction for the next answer, only to be told that the correct answer is what I said, but in decimal form. It would be logical that if in doubt, one should present answers in the same format as what the question itself uses, even if the question doesn’t specify you should use a particular format. Unfortunately, even this is not a safe strategy. I cannot emphasise enough how shitty the Pearson online assessments are, and I am baffled at how they are able to continue existing when they’re effectively scamming maths departments into paying for this trash.
- Comment on One of those days 3 weeks ago:
I love Khan academy so much. I don’t know how good it is nowadays, but it’s one of the things that shaped my perspective on the internet as I was growing up alongside the changing web; Yes, there is all sorts of awfulness online, and so many complex harms, but there are also so many awesome learning resources and enthusiastic people who want to share their knowledge. Khan academy did a lot for democratising knowledge, and is a concrete answer in the discussion of “what might ‘learning outside of the academy’ look like?”
The key difference between Pearson’s shitty maths thing and Khan academy’s equivalent is that Khan academy was started by a dude who was genuinely interested in bringing learning materials to people, and exploring online teaching as a new medium. Pearson is a soulless entity that exists to wring money out of everything it can.
- Comment on Nobody ever remembers Gen X 3 weeks ago:
I agree wholeheartedly
- Comment on Nobody ever remembers Gen X 3 weeks ago:
I feel like Boomers’ jokes about hating their spouse is thinly veiled suicidality jokes. Like, they’re giving big “I did everything I was meant to and I hate my life” energy
- Comment on Was the fall of Rome this stupid? 3 weeks ago:
Something that I find interesting with Rome is that arguably one of the ways it managed to keep going for so long is that it was continuing to push its borders outwards through conquest. Assimilating a land and its people into the Republic/Empire is one way of dealing with the problem of invading “barbarians” (even if that is just transmuting the problem such that your external threat is a new group of “barbarians”, and the old potential invaders potentially pose a threat from within).
Continuing to push outwards is a way to continue developing the military though, and to distract the military from the potential option of seizing power for themselves. There’s only so far you can push before the borders you need to secure are too large to do effectively, and the sheer area to be administrated is too large, even for Rome.
As you highlight, it’s a common misconception that people don’t realise that the Fall of Rome was far more protracted and complex of a process than a single event. I think that’s a shame, because I find it so much more interesting that historians can’t even agree on when the Fall of Rome even was.
- Comment on Was the fall of Rome this stupid? 3 weeks ago:
“Marked by opulence and a distracted upper class, depending on foreign born nationals and the impoverished to defend them from the mob.”
I’m not sure how linked to the Fall of Rome these things are when they existed throughout basically the entire history of the Roman Empire (and even the Republic before it). The “secession of the plebs” was effectively a general strike of the commoners that happened multiple times between the 5th venture BCE and the 3rd century BCE — many centuries before the Fall of Rome.
