dhork
@dhork@lemmy.world
- Comment on Why is U2 considered "grunge?" 11 hours ago:
The only thing U2 has in common with grunge is that both were popular in roughly the same time period (give or take 5 years or so).
- Comment on Odds of rolling a 7 with a weighted die 1 day ago:
If your goal is to roll a 7, then no, weighting one die doesn’t help, because it doesn’t matter which side comes up in the weighted die.
(Another way to look at it is that you can place 1 die on whatever side you like, then roll the 2nd die: you still have a 1/6 chance of rolling a combined 7).
However that is only the case for a 7, because you can roll a 7 with any combination of the first die. If your goal is to roll a 12, then weighting one die towards 6 will affect the odds, because you need a 6 on that first die to roll a 12; any other outcome makes it impossible.
- Comment on It used to be that when most countries were or in trouble or needed help they would go to the US for help. My question is who does the US go to for help if or when needed? 4 days ago:
I am one of those people who engaged in the sarcasm and mockery, particularly mocking American Exceptionalism. But you can argue that American position as an Indispensible Nation is (well, perhaps was) a real thing. But it’s important to acknowledge that status was not accorded to us because we’re special, but because we aligned our interests to many of the world’s democracies. They didn’t follow us because of any inherent birthright, they followed because we shared their values and interests.
John Kerry got skewered when he implies that American interests might be subject to a “global test”, but he was 100% correct. Other countries backed us because we backed then. If looking to America for leadership was no longer in their best interest, they will shop somewhere else for leadership.
And that’s what makes Trump so insidious. Generations of Americans (politicians, service people, etc.) put this country in a position of respect, and this guy is tossing it all out the window by being a pety asshole who doesn’t listen.
- Comment on It used to be that when most countries were or in trouble or needed help they would go to the US for help. My question is who does the US go to for help if or when needed? 4 days ago:
Haven’t you heard? America is Exeptional, we are the Indispensible Nation. We never need help, because we perfected Democracy. Anyone who says otherwise will be sent to CECOT…
- Comment on [deleted] 5 days ago:
There is a difference between customs and immigration. Customs cares about things (and import duties on those things), Immigration cares about people.
As a US citizen, you should be able to just enter as long as your paperwork is in order. (And if Immigration is interested in you beyond the formalities, it means you are probably on some sort of list, and good luck to you!)
Customs will care mainly that you are only bringing in personal goods, and not commercial goods you intend to sell. They will also care if you buy any goods abroad to take back, because you may owe import duties. So they will not care about your Fairphone unless you bought it while in your trip abroad). In normal times you will have an exemption that allows you to bring in some amount of goods duty-free the the world is all topsy turvy now so I would check what the duty-free allowance is before coming back.
They are used to people bringing in phones, laptops, camera equipment, and other personal effects. They won’t cate unless you have a lot of things, and they think you are not being truthful when you say none of it was purchased abroad.
- Comment on [deleted] 5 days ago:
Your dad is correct in that every driver gets into an accident at one point or another. You have your license, which means you passed the test. And while the test is the bare minimum, you did meet it.
Every driver starts out new, and has to learn a lot. It can take years before you are truly comfortable, and that’s OK.
My recommendation would be to not give up driving cold turkey, but only drive when you are comfortable. Find an errand you need to run once or twice a week and do that route consistently. (Or, if you are working, do your work commute by a consistent route every day). Learn that route, and where all the tricky things are. You may find that after a month or two, you build enough confidence on that one drive that you are not spooked by other drives.
- Comment on If no government shall bare arms against its own citizens. Then what is happening in LA? 1 week ago:
- Comment on I made a terminal-based hacker simulation game for CLI nerds. It's free. Feedback? 1 week ago:
- Comment on [deleted] 1 week ago:
A lot of good advice here! One thing I would add is that large international flights typically board early. So your long-haul flight to Seoul may board 45 minutes or more in advance. And since you are in Business Class, you will board earlier than most.
My advice would be that once you arrive in Munich, check your phone (or look at the departure acreens) to find out what gate your Seoul flight is leaving from, then go there right away. No rush, but don’t hit the gift shop just yet. Once you get there, the screens at the gate should tell you when the boarding time is (or you can ask the gate staff.). Once you confirm that, you can leave for the restroom or to grab a quick snack.
You shouldn’t have to worry about a full meal because they normally feed you well in business class. (Free booze, also, if that is your thing.)
- Comment on Should I just lie on job applications and say I have a college degree? 2 weeks ago:
Certs and experience are more important for sysadmin type jobs anyway. Besides, if the company values a degree more than your experience, would you really want to work there?
- Comment on Inconsistent distances on Google Maps 2 weeks ago:
Maybe I would take a closer look as to where, exactly, Google puts the pin when you tell it to go to a town. If I tell Google Maps I want to walk to the village I am currently living in, it puts the pin in a random spot sort of in the middle of the village. (It happens to be in a parking lot by a bakery, so now I am hungry).
So, you may be measuring it with regard to when you reach the town limits on that road, but Google may be putting the pin in some oddball place, off the road you are biking down.
- Comment on Inconsistent distances on Google Maps 2 weeks ago:
Your answer might be all those blue squiggly bits in the first picture on the left. That part of Scotland seems to have a lot of hills. I bet the 18.7 miles doesn’t take elevation into account at all, while the 21.1 miles does
- Comment on What are the ethics behind purchasing a book from an author you don't agree with? 3 weeks ago:
Furthermore, since it’s very likely that this author is not going to make really complex points, you could just go to the library, skim through it for an hour or two, and take notes on the two or three points worth quoting. (Or go all old-school and make photocopies of a few pages…)
- Comment on [deleted] 4 weeks ago:
It’s definitely something you can learn in just a few lessons, particularly if you are just driving around town here and there. There’s a rhythm and muscle memory to it, and once you get it, it becomes super easy.
I think I traded in my last stick-shift (a Jetta) 13+ years ago, and there are still times when I am driving and my left foot instinctively moves toward an invisible clutch…
- Comment on How Will We Know If The Trump Tariffs Were A Good Idea? 1 month ago:
- Comment on Why is the NFL draft day so "special"? 1 month ago:
Dude, you live in Green Bay. Shouldnt you have been fully indoctrinated in Packers Football by now? I thought they issued everyone a cheesehead hat at birth.
- Comment on Why hasn't congress passed a law saying that you can only deport people *back to their own country*? 1 month ago:
Well, justice is supposed to be blind, isn’t it? It’s supposed to deal with everything in a neutral manner. The Court is not supposed to pick sides, and they must operate within the system, because their legitimacy comes from it.
- Comment on Why hasn't congress passed a law saying that you can only deport people *back to their own country*? 1 month ago:
But that’s the Court’s job, to look at all the technicalities. The Administration sent him there erroneously, but since he is there now neither US courts nor the administration can compel his release. The Courts need to acknowledge that, while also acknowledging that the Administration likely did it this way on purpose, and the whole “administrative error” thing is a crock of shit. But they can’t come out and say that. And that gives Trump a wedge to split the whole thing apart.
Fascists are good at using the fact that their opponents need to uphold the law against them.
- Comment on Why hasn't congress passed a law saying that you can only deport people *back to their own country*? 1 month ago:
Right. That is why the Administration position on this has some merit which the courts need to defer to. As an El Salvadoran who is back in his home country, the US cannot compel his release. All the US can do is ask nicely.
But, they haven’t even done that. Which is why the courts are so pissed. They know all this, and they know that all the administration has to do is prove they asked, in good faith. They won’t even go that far. They did that performative thing where the El Salvadoran President said “We won’t send him back since he’s a criminal”, but the courts in the US don’t consider him a criminal.
There is no better definition of “contempt of court” then what the US is doing right now.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
Do you know if your dad has been snipped? If not, you had better move out if you are able to. Because otherwise you will end up being free child care in about a year …
- Comment on Do you hate French people too? If so, why? 1 month ago:
I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries!
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
In some places, there is still a social expectation that your mode of dress should be an indication of how seriously you take whatever is going on. People used to get dressed up in suits just to simply go outside. Nobody expects that anymore but some might still expect students to look somewhat put together in a college setting.
Now, I don’t think the professor should have mentioned anything (particularly about your hairy pits, lol). But, they may have been doing you a favor, because they expressed to you directly that they find it objectionable. While that shouldnt have an effect on your grade, professors are only human and this one signaled that he doesn’t think you take their class seriously based on your mode of dress. How many others do, and are just not telling you?
- Comment on As a US citizen who was born in the UK, how risky is it to leave and reenter the US right now? 2 months ago:
You are now an American citizen, so you should have the rights the rest of us have. You should be fine. They haven’t gotten around to threatening to denaturalize people yet. When they do, they will concentrate first on people from countries they don’t like, that used old policies they have since rescinded. And they will have to use more due process than they are using on these non-citizens.
The one thing I would be cautious of, though, is the state of your cell phone. They are very thin-skinned when it comes to criticism lately, and may decide to look through your phone’s social media to decide if you are insufficiently loyal. They have broad powers to do that when you re-enter the country. As a US citizen they cannot deny you entry, but they can still make your life difficult on entry. And this group doesn’t exactly pay attention to laws, do they?
At minimum, you might want to shut down your cell phone before getting off the plane. Explain it by saying it is a long flight, and you wanted to save your battery for arrival. If they confiscate a phone and try to dump all its data, they are more limited if the phone has just rebooted. They would basically need the PIN to do anything. If you want to go further, you can also log out of all of your social media accounts and remove their apps before the flight, so they even if they force you to divulge the PIN they won’t find your social media history.
That may all be too paranoid, but we live in stupid times.
- Comment on Can I sue my apartment management company? 2 months ago:
Assuming you are in the US, you can sue over anything you want to. But there is a cost to that, and your management company may be banking on that cost being higher than your rent.
Also, if you have all the documents, you should be able to read those and learn what stipulations there are if the lease terminates and you are a month-to-month situation. It could be that you needed to give them more notice. They could have buried it in the fine print. It would suck to pay a lawyer money only to be told “yup, they can do it”, and now you are out more money.
- Comment on Why is there steam coming out of the streets in New York 2 months ago:
Ooh. I know this one. Parts of NYC still use a steam heating system that was first designed in the late 1800’s:
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
Since you are a professional who has happened to make it with some level of success, you know firsthand that there are a lot of excellent people who didn’t manage it for one reason or another. (And it’s not always because of lack of talent, they might have just gotten the wrong injury). How did they manage things when they finally came to terms with the fact they wouldn’t make a living doing that? What did they have to fall back on? Are they coaching? Teaching? Selling real estate or insurance?
There is nothing wrong with him chasing his dream, but make sure he has an alternative planned. Make him talk to some of those people, and find his own path. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
- Comment on How did Mahmoud Khalil managed to challenge his (pending) deportation at all, while others were deported without due process? What makes Mahmous Khalil's case different? 2 months ago:
If I had to guess, it’s probably because his family was able to lawyer up quickly (either because they could afford it, or knew someone who would work the case for free). Courts can’t act here unless someone files a case over it. There might be other people with valid legal cases to challenge their detention, but if they can’t get their hands on timely legal advice they’re just screwed.
- Comment on Why Do Sites Keep Shoving Features We Don’t Want Down Our Throats? 2 months ago:
They are trying to push engagement. But not just any engagement. You might think that they would prefer active engagement, when you search for a thing and watch the entire thing. But you are actually more likely to skip ads when you do that.
What they prefer is more passive engagement, when you just accept the best thing the algorithm pushes. Because then you are not only more likely to passively consume ads, but also be served content that they were paid to promote.
TikTok, Shorts, and all the things like that seem to be specifically engineered to exhaust your ability to request more things and let the algorithm take over what you watch next. That’s their endgame.
- Comment on What kind of CAPTCHA is this? 2 months ago:
Yeah, doesn’t mshta run JavaScript locally on Windows? This looks like a way to force you to run their script
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
That’s very generous of you, but I would advise against doing this secretly, for a few reasons.
First of all, the information needed to do this (like their loan account number) is considered personal financial information whose disclosure is protected. There is nothing preventing them from giving you the info willingly, but if you try and find it out without their knowledge you may be breaking the law.
Also, technically any gifts between people who aren’t directly related are treated as income by the US government, and there is technically tax owed on it. And yes, paying off a loan would still count as a gift. The threshold to trigger tax on a gift is high ($19k for 2025), but the tax is the liability of the giver, not the receiver. Depending on how big the gift is, you could be inadvertently opening yourself up for scrutiny by the US IRS. But if you are open about the gift and plan it with the recipient ahead of time, you can also do all the required tax planning to make sure you don’t run afoul of the IRS.
I don’t think I need to remind you that the legal climate regarding foreigners in the US on student visas is precarious right now. It would suck if your attempt at a secret gift ended up backfiring on your plans in the US.
