Fondots

@Fondots@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it ethical for a parent to distribute inheritance based on the child(ren)'s mental capacity (aka refusing to give an inheritance to child(ren) with reduced mental capacity)?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  This is true, and I did think about mentioning that but decided to keep it brief because once I start talking about trusts I’d find myself out of my depth pretty quickly and probably open up a rabbit hole of other financial strategies I’m not prepared or qualified to go down (and also to keep my comment at a more readable length)

  But since we opened that can of worms (and like I said, this is getting out of my depth, so there’s a very real possibility that some or all of what I have to say after this is wrong, so take it for what it’s worth)

  We also don’t know how much money we’re talking about here. The line between qualifying for benefits and not can be razor thin sometimes, and while we might assume that we’re talking about 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars or even more where a trust would absolutely make sense, we might actually only be talking about a couple thousand bucks, maybe not even enough to afford a couple months of rent depending on where you are, but potentially enough to fuck up someone’s benefits depending on where some government bean counters drew the line. It might be difficult or impossible to find a financial institution willing to act as a trustee for such a small amount, and there may not be any individual they trust to fill that role, and once the lawyers and such are paid there may not even be much left over.

  There’s also the possibility that the parents are counting on the sibling(s) to sort of act as trustees without putting it in writing. We don’t know what their relationships and personalities are like, or what conversations they’ve had with their parents that maybe OP isn’t privy to. There could be an understanding there that they’re getting everything so that they can continue to provide for their disabled sibling after the parents are gone, and OP hasn’t been made aware of that (some people are really uncomfortable talking about this kind of stuff and avoid it even though they really should) or misunderstood what the intention is. That of course depends on the siblings being trustworthy and generally having their shit together well enough, which isn’t a given of course and their situation could change drastically.

  There’s also the possibility that a trust is exactly what’s happening and OP either misunderstood it or just plain doesn’t like it. A lot of people out there are pretty clueless about financial matters. If the siblings were named as the trustee (it’s often not a good idea to have the trustee be a close relative, but that’s neither here nor there) I could see some people viewing the situation as “they left all the money to my siblings” because they’re not getting a big one time payout and the money has to go through their siblings in some fashion.

  Again, I’m talking all in hypotheticals, there are countless “ifs,” “ands” and “buts” here, we don’t know the specifics of OPs situation so we can only speculate.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why did people in the 90s/early 00s say that the internet "couldn't be taken down"?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t recall ever hearing that specifically

  Somewhat similar though, I remember being told that anything you put out on the internet is out there forever. Which may not technically be true, there’s a lot of lost pieces of internet history, but the core of that statement isn’t really to be taken literally, it’s more that once you put something online it’s out of your control what everyone else who might have access to it does with that data, you can’t really control what people download, screenshot, save, repost, or when it may resurface.

  But back to what you’re saying - even with China and Russia, and other attempts at censorship, the internet still carries on. You can take down, wall off, censor, etc parts of the internet for a lot of people, but taking the entire internet down would be a massive undertaking, probably more than what any country or even any realistically feasible alliance of countries could hope to achieve, as long as there are people with computers linked together somewhere, the internet endures in some fashion.

  There’s a lot of redundancy in the internet, there’s no one big box to blow up or one cable to cut that carries the entirety of the internet, it’s millions of devices all linked together in millions of different ways that make up the internet. You can take down parts of it, maybe even most of of it, but it would be nearly impossible to never every last thread of the internet without some truly apocalyptic event happening, even if all that’s left at the end of the day is two nerds on opposite sides of the planet with ham radios hooked up to laptops sending emails back and forth, or some friends sending memes back and forth on thumb drives via carrier pigeon, you could still say that the internet is alive, if not exactly thriving.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it ethical for a parent to distribute inheritance based on the child(ren)'s mental capacity (aka refusing to give an inheritance to child(ren) with reduced mental capacity)?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I think it’s also worth having frank discussions with your kids about their inheritance and encouraging them to work things out themselves ahead of time.

  My family has maybe a bit unusual but I think very healthy relationship with death. It comes for us all eventually, no sense dancing around it.

  There’s no complicated inheritance situations in my family, everything gets divided up evenly among them. If they don’t have kids it gets divided up evenly among their nieces/nephews.

  So for example my parents estate gets split between my sister and myself, my uncle who doesn’t have kids gets split between us and my cousin, my cousin gets his parents’ all to himself.

  We’ve already got things divvied up amongst ourselves pretty well. As long as my sister signs over her claim to our parent’s house, I’ll sign over my third of our uncle’s house to her, and she’s happy to buy our cousin out of his third or trade him for her current house (which would also have the benefit of getting all 3 of us in the same town, cousin has some disabilities and it would be nice to have us all nearby in case of emergencies, or the payout from my sister or money from sale of her house plus his own inheritance from his parents would set him up pretty well)

  We also occasionally call dibs on some other desirable belongings, like my uncles skillsaw

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it ethical for a parent to distribute inheritance based on the child(ren)'s mental capacity (aka refusing to give an inheritance to child(ren) with reduced mental capacity)?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s no one size fits all answer here, it’s going to depend on how much money, how severe the childs disabilities are and what their care needs are, and what other sort of inheritance might be on the table ( for example one child gets the money and another child gets the house)

  If the child is able to live on their own, then yeah, it’s a dick move and the parents are just playing favorites and being ableist.

  If they have significant care needs- nursing home, psychiatric treatment, home health aides, visiting nurses, etc. then there might be some logical arguments to be made. If they’re already qualifying for some sort of government assistance then a large windfall of cash could potentially disrupt those benefits since they now have too much money to qualify.

  That can be a real headache to navigate, they may need to arrange all new care for themselves, maybe switch doctors, find new housing, etc. which may be a lot for them to manage depending on the extent of their disabilities, and unless that inheritance is incredibly large it will probably run out at some point and leave them in a position where they need to navigate the system to get back on those government benefits, which is often no small feat.

  So there could potentially be situations where it’s better for them to not leave them money and cause significant disruptions to their care and living arrangements.

  This is all totally hypothetical without knowing the specifics of the situation. There’s a million different things to consider here and everyone’s situation is unique, and at best we’re getting one side of this story and don’t really know what the parents thoughts and reasoning are since we haven’t heard in directly from them (and it could very well be that their reason is just as shitty as it appears on the surface, I won’t discount that possibility)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When leftists say "landlord are parasites" or similar dislike of landlords, do they also mean the people that own like a couple of houses as an investment, or only the big landlords?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  People need a place to live, they don’t need stocks to live. By owning more properties than you need you are contributing to a scarcity and inflated pricing for a basic necessity.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you speak a second language better than your native language, would you describe your second language skill as "native" or "fluent"?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I feel like that leaves a little weird wiggle room though.

  Let’s say you’re born in a Spanish speaking country, maybe Mexico, for the first few years of life you grow up surrounded by Spanish speakers, your first words are in Spanish, you only know Spanish, everyone you know only speaks Spanish.

  Then when you’re about 3 years old, before you’re even forming really solid, permanent memories, you go to live in the US, you’re surrounded by English speakers, almost everyone around you stops speaking Spanish regularly and switches to English, your English vocabulary quickly catches up to or maybe even surpasses your Spanish ability. Your first real memories are of people speaking English, and you spend the rest of your life primarily speaking English. You still speak Spanish though, you keep up with your education in that language and can speak both fluently.

  I think there’s a valid argument that both could be considered your native language, even if Spanish was your first language, you’ve still grown up speaking both.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Will the price of Freeze Driers go down? (USA question)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It depends, some things, like freeze dried fruit may not necessarily need to be rehydrated.

  For things that need to be rehydrated, you may not need as much water to rehydrate it to be edible as would be in the regular ingredients. Hypothetically if you were to make soup from scratch, you’d lose some of the water to evaporation as you cook it. If you were to premake and dehydrate soup, it wouldn’t need to be cooked as long or to as high of a temperature - everything is already cooked you just need to rehydrate it and warm it up to your liking, no need to get it up to a boil and simmer it for however many minutes or hours so less is lost to evaporation.

  And depending on the area you’re backpacking in, you’re probably going to be refilling you water from streams and such several times along the way so you can plan around that. In the areas I normally backpack, you’re probably going to cross over or hike along a few different streams every day, running out of water isn’t a major concern.

  One time in particular comes to mind, where I did have to plan around having enough water to cook my meal. Normally we plan on our lunch being cold- jerky, trail mix, etc. and we do a freeze dried meal or something similar for dinner that requires water. Around lunch time we were by a stream, and looking at our map the area we were planning to camp for the night wouldn’t be near a water source (pretty much at the very top of a mountain) so we decided we’d have our hot meal for lunch so we could refill our water to make sure we’d have enough to last us until we were able to refill later the next day.

  It kind of sucked though, as we were getting closer to our campsite, the temperature started dropping, and a thick fog rolled in. By the time we made camp, we were all kind of cold, everything was damp, and we were generally pretty miserable, and we didn’t even have a hot meal to look forward to. So we pretty much just scarfed down whatever jerky or crackers or whatever we had and went right to bed. The next day though, everything had cleared up, and when we made our way to the summit to enjoy the view. We looked down into the valley below us and we saw a cloud, and we realized that the fog from the night before wasn’t just fog, it was a cloud passing over the mountain, and we hiked through it, so that was pretty cool.

  But the next time you go mattress shopping and the salesperson is telling you “it’s like sleeping on a cloud” run away, clouds suck and don’t make for good sleep.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Since the government can theoretically access the location of everyone's phone, wouldn't it be unsafe for an undocumented immigrant to have a phone?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I work in 911 dispatch

  The location we get from your phone isn’t exactly a magic “here’s exactly where this person is” button.

  For the most part, we rely on triangulation from the cell towers, which means the quality of that location is highly dependent on how many towers are around, how close you are to them, signal strength, the surrounding geography, whether you’re inside a building, in a basement, outside, etc. and the location isn’t constantly updating.

  I work in an area with pretty solid service, and at my cunter our policy is that if our ping is accurate to within about 300 meters we can use that if we can’t get any other location information from the caller, and most of the time we’re well within that, but not always. And a 300 meter radius is still a pretty big area, if that drops within a crowded downtown area, or if they’re in a high rise apartment or office building, that could be pretty much useless. And it takes us about 20 seconds to refresh the location and the new location may not be accurate when it does come in, so they’re in a moving vehicle they might well be a half mile away from where they were by the time the next ping comes in. And once you hang up we stop getting that location info and if we want to ping your phone again it’s a bit of a process that requires our officers or our dispatch supervisor calling the phone company, faxing or emailing them paperwork, etc. so not something we can just do totally on the fly, and for whatever reason the pings we get when we do that never seem to be very accurate, and it takes some time and we only get one ping at a time, and if we’re lucky we get one maybe every 10 minutes. We can also only request those pings when we have reason to believe that someone is in danger.

  I suspect that there’s a whole mess of local/state/federal laws and regulations, and department/agency/corporate policies that come into play with all of this with a million different exceptions, but overall that’s going to be broadly true in most places around the IS at least.

  We are starting to get more gps-based cellular location, this kind of depends on your phone’s capabilities and settings, what network you’re on, and your local 911 center’s capabilities. We’re generally a bit ahead of the curve on our technology and capabilities, so that’s not something everywhere can do yet. We’ve actually had it for a while but the implementation was pretty janky and not very useful, but we got some upgrades within the last year or so. It’s usually, but not always, more accurate than triangulation, the location updates faster, and we do continue to get location updates after you hang up but only for about a minute or so.

  Generally speaking, we also have no quick way of knowing who’s calling from a cell phone. Your name won’t usually come up on our caller ID, just your carrier. If you have your emergency info filled out on your smartphone and made it available we can access that, but frankly most people haven’t. If you’ve called before and given your name, we can search for prior calls (in our jurisdiction) from your phone number. Otherwise we can try our luck with some free phone number lookup websites, or try to get the subscriber information from your provider, and if you’re on some kind of a family plan that may mean we’d get maybe your parents information from the phone company not yours, and some prepaid plans don’t really seem to have much if any information on their subscribers on file so it ends up being a dead end.

  And that’s pretty much the extent of what we can do from 911. There may be other resources cops can use or other options for exceptional circumstances, but that’s outside the scope of 911 tracking your phone.

  Also if you call a non-emergency line, even if it’s one that redirects into a 911 center (we answer a lot of the departments when they’re out of the office, some of them just always come into us, and even if you reach someone at the station there’s a good chance they’ll transfer you to our central dispatch) we won’t get any location info and we need to go through the phone company to get a ping.

  And calls from TextNow numbers and other similar apps can be really hard to track down.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Would Kamala Harris have won the 2024 election if Latinos didn't shift hard to the right?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  A lot of Latinos are fairly conservative people, a lot of them are strongly Catholic with all of the baggage that comes with it, etc.

  Basically the only major policy reason they ever leaned towards the democrats is immigration, so with the Dems going further right on immigration it makes a lot of sense for some of them to be jumping ship

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are the inside parts of toilets universal?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Pretty much exactly what you probably think they are, I think they’re mostly a thing for people living off grid and maybe some RVs

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are the inside parts of toilets universal?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Sort of

  For most toilets there’s universal fittings that will work just fine, you may need to adjust them a little bit, but they’re made to be adjusted, and they’ll work just fine with most toilets.

  If you have the original factory parts in your toilet, they may not be adjustable, and if you tried to swap them into another toilet they may not fit/work in other brands/models, or they may kind of work, but maybe not quite right.

  There are a handful of brands that don’t tend to play well with the universal fit parts, I want to say Kohler is one, and if you go to a hardware store, most likely they’re going to stock the universal parts, then a couple of the most common oddball brands.

  There’s also of course some weird toilets that are just totally different- pressure assisted flush, composting or incinerator toilets, etc. that aren’t even working on the same principle as most toilets, but I think the odds are that if you have one of those, you know that already.

  Also I haven’t played with any toilets that were manufactured that way, but I did retrofit one of my toilets to be a dual-flush. Those kits seem pretty universal, but probably double-check before trying to put them in an oddball toilet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why don't we have cool vending machines in the US?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think you underestimate how many Americans just want a cup of Joe with cream and sugar. A whole lot of us are out there drinking gas station/convenience store coffee or brewing a cup or pot every day of store brand pre-ground.

  And the ongoing joke about people getting frustrated with just wanting a “large coffee” and being confused by starbucks calling it a “venti” and spouting off about how they don’t want any fru-fru mocha-chino late bullshit even though no one asked.

  I think the bigger issue is that of how Americans get around and how available real estate is.

  Japan has a lot more people who can/will walk, take the train, etc. that’s a lot more opportunities for them to walk by a vending machine.

  Americans tend to get around in our cars, so if you want to sell them a coffee, snacks, hot meal, etc. they need to be able to park somewhere.

  And vending machine food isn’t exactly a huge draw, people probably aren’t going to go to your parking lot with a row of vending machines just to grab something to eat, so you kind of need something else to draw them in, some bathrooms, gas pumps, or at least convenient parking to other stuff they need to get to, so you might as well stick a gas station there, and since you’re going to need a cashier you might as well move that vending inside and you can get more and more variety of merchandise on shelves that you can cram into some vending machines so it might as well just be a convenience store.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨why does every single flashlight have multiple settings that you have to scroll through?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Sounds like you’re describing a maglite

  Maglites are perfectly fine flashlights for most people, maybe a little heavy but sometimes that’s kind of the point (a lot of cops and security guards and such took to carrying them when their agencies started prohibiting nightsticks and batons, especially the bigger 4 or 6 cell models) for a long time they were basically the default flashlight, you had maglites, you had the big spotlight looking things that took a 6v battery, you had cheap plastic flashlights, and you had various small penlights and such (which were often mini maglites) and that was like 90% of what you’d ever encounter.

  There’s a good chance if you go rooting around in your dad or grandfather’s car trunk, garage, basement, workshop, toolbox, etc. you’ll find a maglite or 3 kicking around somewhere. I know I keep one in my car for emergencies and I’ll probably inherit a half dozen more from my parents someday.

  They still make them, pretty sure they switched over to LEDs (one of their selling points used to be they had a spare bulb stored in the tail cap) and I’m sure they’re still perfectly reliable and rugged, you can probably still find them at most of the places you’d think to go buy a flashlight, and a standard 2 D cell maglite still costs in the neighborhood of $20-$30.

  But there are a bunch of flashlight nerds out there these days, who want really specific form factors, battery types, features, led color temperatures, etc. and they’d probably pooh-pooh the humble maglite.

  I get it to an extent, I have flashlights I like better, but I’m not about to nerd out about them, and if you someone sent me out with instructions to buy them a flashlight with no other requirements listed, I’d probably buy a maglite and feel pretty confident that it’s going to be an acceptable flashlight.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How modern is it to have "sympathetic" portrayals of Hell?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Historically hell has often been depicted as a rather cold place, away from the warmth of god’s love or what have you.

  Anecdotally, 20 or so years ago, that’s what I remember being taught in CCD class when my parents were still making me go.

  Dante’s Inferno (c. 1321) for example, depicts the 9th and deepest circle of hell as a large frozen lake. And many of the damned he encountered throughout the different circles are at least somewhat sympathetic, especially at the first level of where the inhabitants are by and large good people who just to not be Christians. (And to be clear, Dante often found himself at odds with the church, so his works don’t necessarily reflect official doctrine and were absolutely written to reflect his own agenda, that said a lot of our modern ideas about hell owe a lot to Dante’s depiction, and any actual mention of hell in the Bible is scarce to non-existent depending on how you interpret certain passages, so his version is just as valid as any other in my opinion)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come the US does not put a bounty on Putin like they did Bin Laden?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m obviously not planning a Pennsylvania secession movement anytime soon, but just in case it ever comes to that

  General policy, not necessarily Pennsylvania specific, in no specific order:

  Universal healthcare (including all vision, dental, psychiatric, addiction treatment, gender affirming care, etc.) constitutionally enshrined access to abortion and birth control, abolish the death penalty, legalize all drug use with pardons for all non violent drug offences, huge corporate, wealth and inheritance taxes and major tax cuts for anyone making under 100k/year per person, major investment in nuclear and renewable energy, bans on fracking, free college or technical education for all up to a bachelor’s degree or equivalent certifications, UBI, low-income housing, major police reform, a ban on homeschooling except when necessary due to medical issues and a ban on private and charter schools except for very specific magnet schools that cater to particular vocations and enormous amounts of oversight and regulations on those schools, absolute separation of church and state (Churches and religions get no more legal recognition or exemptions than any other private social club would be entitled to,) a plan to phase out all reliance on non-renewable energy, down-payment assistance for first time homebuyers, high speed Internet access as a human right, major public health spending (we will get hit with another pandemic eventually, and there’s a damn good chance it will be far worse than covid,) a ban on corporate ownership of housing, basically all government services and requirements will be free of charge, legal recognition of poly marriage, election reform with ranked-choice voting, and major gun reform (too much to go into detail here but mainstream republicans and democrats would both hate my gun plans)

  And probably a few dozen other major points, but thats what I could spout off from the top of my head

  Pennsylvania-specific (disclaimer, I’m based out of the Philly area, so my opinions are the strongest about this region, and I’d need to read up on most of the rest of the state):

  High speed rail connecting, at a minimum, Philly, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Scranton, state college, and Erie

  Commuter rail along the Schuylkill connecting philly and reading (side note/fun fact: the legal remnants of the old reading railroad company, yes the one from monopoly, that used to connect those two and other cities, is now a chain of movie theaters, with locations mostly in Australia, New Zealand, and California) probably as an extension of the Norristown high speed line which we’re also going to reroute to have a stop inside the King of Prussia Mall

  Really more rail in general, but that seems like a good starting place and we can continue building out a network from there.

  The sixers are staying put, if they want a new stadium they can put one in the existing sports complex. We’re also going to cover vine street and reconnect the two halves of Chinatown.

  This is very low priority, but I’d like to find a constructive use to refurbish the SS United States instead of turning it into an artificial reef.

  We’re doing away with the PLCB bullshit, you should be able to buy beer, wine, and liquor at any grocery store.

  We’re getting rid of any remaining blue laws- not being allowed to hunt on Sundays, dealerships not being able to sell cars, etc.

  An absolute ban on confederate imagery except for museums, historical reenactments, etc. I see more confederate flags being flown in parts of PA than I have in a lot of the actual south, what side of the mason-dixon line do these idiots think our state lies on? Especially in this hypothetical scenario since we’re not even going to be part of America after this is all over and I don’t want any of these shitheads getting the wrong idea that our movement is some sort of “the south shall rise again” thing.

  Really we’re just generally going to finally drag a lot of Pennsyltucky kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

  Major infrastructure spending. I’d say this should be a general not-pennsylvania-specific issue, but holy shit have you seen the state of some of our roads and bridges? You can usually tell by feel the exact moment you cross over the state border.

  We’re really going to lean into being “Penn’s Woods” and preserve our natural resources and wildlife. We have some amazing parks, forests, etc. here and I want to make sure it stays that way. You can barely drive 10 minutes through much of the state without crossing some small river or stream, and I want all of those waterways to be clean and teeming with life. I’ve never seen our state amphibian- the eastern hellbender, in person in the wild and I’d like to fix that.

  Some goofy, not totally serious proposals

  Mehmet Oz is not allowed to set foot on Pennsylvanian territory.

  Any building in Philly taller than City Hall must have a William Penn statue at the top. We finally managed to break the curse with the Comcast building and we’re really going to cover our bases.

  We may look into annexing the south jersey shore.

  An official Pennsylvanian English dictionary covering the Philly, Pittsburgh, NEPA, and other dialects, covering definitions, spelling, and pronunciations of such words and phrases as : Yinz, youse/youse guys, jawn, Schuylkill, Bala Cynwyd, Conshohocken, heyna, jeet, water (“wooder,”) creek (“crick”) and many others.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come the US does not put a bounty on Putin like they did Bin Laden?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Do they control a territory? Do they claim to be the official government of that territory? Can they back up and defend those claims? Do the civilians living in that territory overall recognize their authority as the government of that territory? Do other nations recognize them as the government of that territory?

  It’s not a totally black and white issue

  If I hypothetically rallied up a group of supporters who share my views and ideals and start carrying out terrorist attacks to force the government to address the issues I’m championing, I don’t think many would consider me to be a government. I’m still acknowledging the authority and legitimacy of the government, and am just acting in opposition to it.

  If my goal is to seize control of a territory, let’s say Pennsylvania, I’m starting to look a bit like a country. But unless I have the support of enough Pennsylvanians, and have the resources and manpower to back up my claim, and can get other nations to recognize it, it’s a pretty empty claim.

  If I manage to win over the popular support of the citizenry, they may start to regard me as the legitimate ruler of Pennsylvania, however just because they’re willing to follow me, doesn’t mean that anyone outside of the state is recognizing my claim. Other countries aren’t going to engage in diplomacy with me the same way they would with other nations, they’re going to continue regarding Pennsylvania as part of the US until I manage to actually have control over the territory. That means in some way removing the existing government from power, and more importantly defending my claim from the US government, who isn’t going to just roll over and accept my claim.

  So let’s say we manage to take control over Pennsylvania, the citizens support me, we’ve ousted the previous government, and are generally filling all the roles you would expect a government to handle, and at least for now we’re somehow managing to hold off the US government and defending our claim to Pennsylvania.

  At this point, we’re the defacto government of Pennsylvania. However we still lack recognition. The US government is still trying to retake control and has not recognized our independence, nor has any other country, we’re seen as rebels, warlords, etc. by the rest of the world. We’re essentially on our own, unable to trade with other countries.

  From here let’s imagine a couple different scenarios

  1. Some countries start to recognize my legitimacy. They offer to support my regime and to open up trade. Popular support from my citizens remains high, and we’re managing to hold off the US government. At this point we’re in a situation not unlike Taiwan or Palestine. Whether we’re a legitimate government is going to depend on who you ask around the world, with answers ranging from that we’re a group of rebels trying to secede from the US to having their full support and recognition as the legitimate government of an independent nation.

  2. Our rebellion is a resounding success. The US backs off, recognizes our independence, other countries also recognize our independence, maybe we even join NAFTA. It would be hard to argue that we’re not a legitimate government at that point.

  3. I start to lose the support of Pennsylvanians, and they stop recognizing my authority, even though I still manage to maintain control over my territory by force. Some countries, especially those that are not friendly to the US, may still recognize my claim, although in the eyes of most of the world, I’m probably just a terrorist or warlord.

  4. The US government is successful in ousting me, I manage to flee to a country that recognizes me as the legitimate ruler of Pennsylvania or at least is willing to tolerate my presence, and I set up a government-in-exile. I continue to conduct myself as though I am the ruler of Pennsylvania, maybe some Pennsylvanians and other people and countries throughout the world continue to recognize me as such, but without the ability to actually exercise that authority over my territory, it’s a pretty empty claim.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Phonebooks⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Same goes for a lot of generic-sounding “A” business names- Acme, Apex, Ajax, A+, American-whatever, etc.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do I know if a medical issue should be addressed by a Clinic Visit, Urgent Care, or the Emergency Room?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I work in 911 dispatch, it drives me nuts how many people lose consciousness for various reasons, and then when they come to they say they’re fine and don’t need to be checked out.

  There’s maybe some very narrow exceptions for people with known conditions that they’re already managing with the help of a doctor and they know exactly what’s causing it.

  But in general, if you’re losing consciousness that’s a bad sign and you need to see a doctor about that ASAP

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a wig that doesn't heat your head?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m also bald, but even before I started shaving my head and had long hair I wore a lot of hats. Still helped keep the sun off me and I tend to run kind of hot so it helped keep sweaty hair out of my face.

  I have a couple hats similar to those kicking around, they mostly get used when I’m camping, hiking, etc.

  My main every day summer hats are a panama straw fedora, a linen flat cap, and very occasionally a trucker cap that I mostly use as my fishing hat.

  I also have a straw cowboy hat that I only bust out occasionally, when I’m both feeling a little silly and I’m gonna be out in direct sun for a long time, like out in the middle of my lake on my kayak. It looks a little goofy, I’m certainly no cowboy, but it’s practically like walking around with a shade umbrella on my head.

  I tend to run pretty hot and sweaty, so when the sun isn’t a concern, I often wear a bandana to keep sweat out of my face.

  My wife has a very big, floppy hat she wears at the beach sometimes, looks like straw but is actually some sort of recycled plastic.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a wig that doesn't heat your head?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  My mom would not be able to wear a hat during the summer obviously heat would stay in and she would get too hot.

  I think you’re starting from a faulty assumption here.

  In general, it’s often wise to wear a hat in the summer and can help you feel cooler providing a little bit of portable shade, and helps keep the sun out of your eyes and off your face/neck/ears/shoulders.

  It’s just about finding the right hat, something lightweight, breathable, and preferably lighter in color (to reflect the sun’s rays instead of absorbing them) and maybe with a wider brim.

  Straw hats are a fairly traditional option, something like a panama hat (actually made from palms, also made in Ecuador and not panama BTW) is a classic option, but this is 2024 so there’s lots of moisture wicking synthetic material options out there as well. For other natural materials, linen is also a good choice, certain types and weaves of cotton can be pretty light and breathable, and honestly even some lighter weight wool hats aren’t too bad.

  Take a look at people who work or spend a lot of time outdoors in warmer climates, you’ll see a lot of people wearing hats or cultures where people traditionally wore a lot of hats even if they’ve fallen out of style. Baseball caps, visors, cowboy hats, fedoras, pith helmets, beater hats, various types of headscarves, big floppy sun hats, bucket hats, asian conical hats, sombreros, etc.

  I wear hats pretty much year-round. The hats I like in the summer are different from my winter hats, but it’s pretty rare that I go out without some kind of hat, and when I forget to grab one on my way out the door, I feel less comfortable for it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come drug dealers seem to have a messed up house or at least a messed up car with a bunch of trash in it?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The house behind my parents has had a string of terrible tenants. Loud assholes, people who let their dogs run loose, people with unruly kids, etc.

  Otherwise a pretty decent neighborhood.

  There was a younger dude living there for a while, kept kind of weird hours, but my parents never thought much of that, figured he was going to school, working night shift somewhere, etc. Mostly kept to himself, never bothered my parents in any way, always dressed professionally, etc.

  He was probably the best neighbor my parents ever had in that house.

  Then one day cops raided the place, turns out he’d been dealing a lot of drugs out of there and had a punch bowl full of cocaine sitting out on the kitchen counter.

  Some of the other neighbors apparently had noticed some pretty sketchy characters coming and going from the house, they must have entered from the front door though, because my parents never really noticed anyone.

  My parents would still take the drug dealer over pretty much anyone else that’s lived there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do you ask for a haircut?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Shave it all off

  I’m bald

  I do go to get my beard trimmed occasionally though, I just describe what I’m looking for- I like the length, just kind of square it up a bit and make it look neat, and fade in my sideburns.

  It helps that I do a decent enough job of keeping it trimmed on my own, I just go in a handful of times a year before weddings and other fancy events when I need to look particularly nice

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Has there been a depiction of fast food on a space station?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  In Outer Worlds there’s a couple establishments aboard the groundbreaker that could potentially count as fast food by some definition.

  The stand on the citadel in mass effect is maybe fast food-ish

  I vaguely remember seeing some stands in the background of Babylon 5 that could potentially have been something like fast food, but I never got into Babylon 5 too much so I can’t say much about that, I just have some vague memories of some parts I’ve seen that looked like fast food wouldn’t be out of place.

  Pretty much any time there’s a big space station with a city-like interior I assume there’s probably something like fast food somewhere on board, maybe even visible in the background somewhere, though I can’t really think of any particular examples or any time it was specifically highlighted

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Necromancy suddenly became possible, can the undead be called as a witness during court proceedings?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Going sci-fi, but I think I remember there being a thing in the altered carbon books that kind of relates to this.

  In that series most people have a device implanted that can store their consciousness, it can be backed up, etc. if you die your consciousness can be uploaded to a new body, maybe a clone of your own, maybe another spare body no one was using. They get around long space flights by just sending the stored consciousness into a new body at the destination, prisoners can be uploaded to storage and their bodies used elsewhere, etc. and the only way to reliably kill someone is to destroy that device, and if they’re rich enough they may have a remote backup so even that isn’t a guarantee.

  So murder victims are routinely uploaded into new bodies to testify at their own murder trials.

  Catholics oppose this though, they believe that your soul is separate from your consciousness and can’t be stored in that device, backed up, etc. and so to respect their religious rights they can’t be popped into a new body to testify.

  I imagine that necromancy would have the same and probably stronger opposition from a lot of religious people and we’d run into the same kind of legal issues.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do radio stations all seem to go on commercial at the same time?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, listening is totally allowed, just don’t transmit without a license. Depending on the radio there’s often a way to lock out the PTT button so you don’t accidentally key up.

  Programming the radio can sometimes be a bit of a pain in the ass, CHIRP is a free program that’s often recommended for baofengs, you’ll also need to figure out what repeaters are in your area so you know what frequencies to listen to

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do radio stations all seem to go on commercial at the same time?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Laws and regulations will vary a bit depending on what country you live in, but assuming you’re in the US the process is pretty simple but involves some studying

  Pass the test, buy a radio, start talking.

  There’s 3 classes of license- technician, general, and extra that give you permission to use different bands and modes, extra of course gives you the most options, technician the fewest. If you pass your technician exam you can usually go ahead and take your general exam right then and there, and if you pass that you can go ahead and get extra all in the same sitting.

  Finding somewhere to take the test is the tricky part, but if you look up amateur radio clubs in your area they probably have it published somewhere and I think the ARRL website has a list of places/clubs that do it and when. I think some of them have started offering an online test since covid but I don’t really know how that works.

  There’s a license/test fee, don’t remember what that is off the top of my head, I want to say around $40 but don’t quote me.

  As far as studying, there’s a lot of resources out there, apps, reference books, the FCC publishes the question pool they use for the test, etc.

  As far as radios, you can get a baofeng handheld for like $20 on Amazon, a lot of hams give them shit but they probably also have one or two kicking around because they’re so cheap. They don’t have a lot of bells and whistles but they’re probably the cheapest way to just start talking to other hams.

  Radios get expensive quick, that’s one of the reasons I haven’t gotten too into it, I have better things to drop hundreds or thousands of dollars on, but you can find some good deals on used equipment, ebay, flea markets, etc.

  Start with a baofeng, talk to other hams, maybe go to club meetings or events, figure out what else you want to do and go from there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do radio stations all seem to go on commercial at the same time?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t know the specifics of commercial broadcast radio, but I know with ham radio hams are required to identify every 10 minutes while they’re transmitting including automated repeaters that will usually do it in Morse code

  If you listen to some ham radio communications (sometimes it’s interesting, but usually it’s just old guys talking about antennas) every 10 minutes the repeater will beep out a bunch of Morse code and everyone rattles off their call signs

  For commercial radio I think it’s every hour so at least that often they’ll have to cut to “you’re listening to WXYZ 99.9 FM blah blah blah” which also provides a good segue to a commercial break.

  I’m sure most of them probably just schedule that at the top of the hour to make it easy for themselves

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Should we consider Jesus a zombie?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Holy Grail feels more apt, vessel filled with his semi-literal blood sound phylactery-ish to me

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is investing in real estate immoral if you use it to buy your first home?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  And how crushing would it be if you have no food, no money, no job, and not even a safe place that you’re just allowed to exist for want of $200?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is investing in real estate immoral if you use it to buy your first home?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m also a former renter, current homeowner, and you certainly get more freedom as a homeowner than you normally would as a renter (although you do sometimes hit the jackpot with a landlord who will let you do anything you want to your rental.)

  The second half of your comment though, is putting words in my mouth that I didn’t say. I agree with building codes, safety regulations, permits, etc. I certainly don’t trust the morons living next door to me to not blow their house up and mine along with it because they tried to service their own gas line, and I’m willing to give up that bit of freedom for myself because the benefits outweigh the inconvenience.

  I am, however, not a fan of property taxes, because I’d like to know that if I someday end up disabled, lose my job, and broke, I’d like to know I’d at least be able tocount on having a roof over my head even if I can’t afford to keep the heat and lights on, it would keep me out of the elements and provide some physical security. I like everything those property taxes pay for, but I want it to come out of income taxes.

  There’s also of course the issue of things like eminent domain and civil asset forfeiture. If the government can just take your home away from you, how real is your ownership of it? Just like how a landlord can decide to evict you or sell the property at any time, sure there’s a process they need to go through, but the government has hoops to jump through when they do it as well.