Furbag

@Furbag@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨TW: suicide⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  There was an occasional reddit repost that I remember seeing a few times about a guy who invented a “suicide helmet” specifically to avoid the prospect of botching his own planned attempt. It basically was a bunch of shotgun shells wired up to a detonator and fused into a hardhat. The level of planning and makeshift engineering that went into it was astounding, and the dude explained it all in his suicide note. It worked. On one hand I can see how someone who is determined to die but afraid of pain would want to make sure the process was instantaneous and extremely lethal, on the other hand, it’s fucked up to think about how much the guy must have dwelt on the idea of killing himself, knowing it wasn’t just a spur-of-the-moment opportunity where he shoved a gun in his mouth like most people would have done.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I will not disappoint my ancestors⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Fellas, is it gay to go to heaven? I mean, just look at it! You’re surrounded by dicks! It’s a total sausage-fest up there!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨oh man⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  First they tried “But he was rich!” And that didn’t stick, so now they’re going back to the old political divisiveness play book with “but he was a right-winger!”.

  Don’t fall for it. The powers that be desperately want public opinion to turn on this guy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I am a very liberal person and I have very liberal children, except for one. I'm pretty sure my Gen Z son has been taken in by fascist doctrine. What can I get him for Christmas?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Some kids adopt an edgy political identity as a form of protest or rebellion. I can see this being the case here, especially if your whole family is particularly left-leaning. Kid wants to feel like he has an autonomy over his own decision making and that he’s not just a carbon copy of you or his siblings, so he becomes as contrarian.

  As a teen I was also taken in by extremist political ideology on 4chan, but the thing that snapped me out of that is, surprisingly enough, my curriculum at school focusing heavily on critical thinking and problem solving as essential skills. That’s unfortunately not something that can easily be condensed down into a gift-sized package. I’m sure there are some books out there that can help, but I worry that it might be too on-the-nose or that he might just not like reading much to be interested in dry subject matter like philosophy or political science.

  I kind of agree with other posters here that taking a family trip somewhere, maybe not explicitly as a gift for him, but as an experience for all of your children, will expose him to stimuli that drastically differ from the way he currently sees the world, which is influenced by a nonstop stream of fearmongering propaganda and a lack of perspective of what a world outside the town or city he grew up in actually looks like.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Magic the Gathering is going to have more brand tie-ins⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Brian Tyler Cohen is awesome, lol. His show is probably the highest production value political commentary on youtube outside of the mainstream news.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What would be the top ten items in a MAGA starter pack?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  How come he didn’t fix any of these problem the first time around?

  Face it, you got tricked. Again.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨USA President term limits⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The Supreme Court can’t take back an amendment the way they can strike down laws (I.e. by ruling it unconstitutional for whatever reason), because it IS constitutional by definition.

  Yeah, but the problem is that the Supreme Court are also the arbiters of the interpretation of the document, and there’s nothing to suggest that they can’t simply come out and say “Oh, it means two consecutive terms”, which is exactly what Putin does in Russia with their term limits - some stooge takes over for a term and then Putin wins in yet another landslide.

  I mean, the 22nd Amendment is very clean, IMO. “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice” is pretty unambiguous, but I really can’t put anything past this corrupt administration. A coup is probably more likely, but if Trump can somehow get the law on his side he won’t need to, so I’m sure he would prefer that route.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I feel this way about cinnamon.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s funny, I love chili and I love mac and cheese, but I find ChiliMac to be somehow worse than the sum of it’s parts.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When was the last time a Republican Oresident left office with a good economy?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Inflation was on the rise before Trump left office. It continued under Biden for the first two years of his term, but he managed to get key legislation passed in that span of time that has measurably reduced inflation. It’s still not back down to what it was pre-pandemic, but we are leading almost every other western democracy in that metric. It really is incredible that people are giving Biden shit for the economy when he is actively fixing the problem, and it shows that the Democrats have a tremendous failure in their ability to do effective messaging.

  If it doesn’t feel like inflation has been improved under Biden, that’s because the price you pay at the gas pump or the grocery store has more to do with what they chose to set their prices at than what the current rate of inflation is. The “vibe economy” is real, but they aren’t casting the blame for it at the right people. For once, government did it’s job. Who knows if the current trend will continue under Trump, but given that he set off the massive inflationary spending spree by injecting a ton of cash into a booming economy with stimulus checks, I imagine he’s not going to care much about the fundamentals of a healthy economy and will instead do whatever makes his donors happy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dear Americans, be prepare to get screwed!⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Good. I hope he does it. Don’t let any of his yes-men or cronies tell him what a horrible idea it is. Let the whole fucking country burn.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How is it that "protecting basic democracy and the rule of law, and not crowning a criminal dictator" wasn't even on the chart?!⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Immigration is such a horseshit issue. Why are people dumb enough to fall for this shit?

  Immigration will be “solved” come January, but not because Trump will actually do anything about it, but he’ll just say the problem is solved and then stop talking about it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do Americans win their country back?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Too late for that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Trump wins the election thru fraud how can the democrats refute it and prove they won? Or will it just be like another Jan 6 and four years of whining like Trump?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d like to believe that the only reason 2020 got so ratfucked in the first place was that Trump was intentionally not putting the screws on anybody to do their jobs.

  A second Jan 6th won’t happen, at least not this year. A MAGA mob will show up at the capitol and be met by a fully prepared and well armed national guard, because Biden is the commander in chief and he’s going to take threats like that seriously.

  If the house declines to elect a speaker, Biden could in theory put pressure on them to pick one. The constitutional crisis can swing both directions - yes the Republicans will likely try to avoid certification, but then Biden could threaten to not step down unless the certification happens, or hand over the reigns to VP Harris anyway by resigning. I don’t see it working in their favor to try something like not certifying or not electing a speaker, because they don’t have the luxury of Trump in the white house to look the other way at their bad behavior.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨have you ever been given a warning or suspension for using profane language at work?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  At my company, they used to be a lot more tolerant of it, but we had exactly one person complain about excessive use of coarse language and then HR cracked the whip. They still don’t really care that much about using swear words when just interacting in person with other people, as long as it’s not bothering anybody else, but they heavily police our work chat to make sure that all of our messages are above the board in terms of professional conduct. Which makes sense, I can’t really argue against the logic that the work chat should be a professional setting where you can communicate your thoughts and feelings without having to resort to using profanity. Sometimes people have to be reminded to not use profane language, but they never call anybody out specifically, they just send out “reminder” messages whenever they see it and usually the person who is responsible knows not to keep it up or else there will be a more direct reprimand.

  It would be hard for me to not sometimes utter “fuck” under my breath while I’m at work, but if my bosses were concerned about it, I would just start channeling that into more work-appropriate language.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What does this emoji mean? Is this a British thumbs up?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  This emoji has two meanings:

  1. the “original” meaning is based on the “shaka sign” from Hawai’ian culture. It’s often paired with the phrase “hang loose”, which generally just means to relax, have a good time, etc.

  2. When mobile telephones first started to become mainstream, they would often have an antenna that extended up and out of the phone chassis and a receiver that flipped down that you would speak directly into, so people picked up this gesture that mimicked the shape of a cell phone. Pressing it against your cheek with the pinky finger in front of your mouth and the thumb covering the opening of your ear would be accompanied by saying or mouthing “call me” was pretty universally understood and was one way to communicate the desire to speak on the phone from a distance where you could still visually see someone but shouting was ineffective or impractical.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trump cosplaying⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  If you get hot oil on your hand, glove or no, you’re gonna have a bad time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨So bad it was actually entertaining⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve noticed in most cases on Kitchen Nightmares that either the food is good but one or two problem employees bring the entire restaurant down, or the food sucks ass but the service staff are generally sympathetic and will not mince words about the bad quality. In almost every case, management is in denial despite asking for help.

  I wonder if they stage it that way on purpose, because I can’t imagine getting lucky enough to have Gordon fucking Ramsay come to save my failing restaurant and having my ego stand in the way at the moment of truth.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nobel Prize 2024⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Generative AI is really causing a negative association with AI in general to the point where a proper rebranding is probably in order.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do you even post that much⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I feel like I’m good friends with The Picard Maneuver, Flying Squid, and Kolanaki, just because they’re in all the same threads I am.

  I don’t even consciously interact with specific people on Lemmy, but sometimes I just happen to be paying attention to the usernames and I do the Leo pointing meme like “Hey, I recognize that guy!”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are people impressed with SpaceX?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Unfortunately, a lot of smart people are under his spell too. I had to listen to the CEO of a medium sized company wax poetic about how he’s a super genius and the greatest boon to human ingenuity in a century, desperately trying to hold my tongue as I rolled my eyes into the back of my skull.

  I think he’s an okay businessman. That’s about as much praise as I’m willing to afford him. He’s definitely charismatic enough to convince a room full of investors that the ideas he’s pitching are worthwhile. Part of that is that his passion for these projects are genuine, and when you put somebody in a room with a passionate guy, the enthusiasm tents to rub off on them just a little.

  Most of his investments that garnered him his wealth are just him being at the right place at the right time. Getting in on PayPal when Ecommerce was in it’s infancy and partnering with Ebay to take advantage of shopaholics who just couldn’t help themselves. Buying his way into Tesla right when EVs were primed to take off and pushing hard for an economy class variant that could be mass produced rapidly (in an already-made factory that Toyota closed down, no less!). Founding SpaceX and pouring a shit ton of his own money into rocket and aeronautics R&D right around the time the U.S. Government was looking for cheap contractors to take over the space program. I think the only projects he miscalculated on were buying Twitter for way too much money when social media was really starting to stagnate.

  His politics are fucking weird, though. I find him to be personally pretty repugnant. I already didn’t like him because back in the early days of Tesla he pushed all the management to essentially become slavedrivers for the line workers. I live in California near the plant and I had friends who worked there in production that got nearly worked to death, extreme overtime and weekend shifts, few breaks, the only saving grace was the above average pay that kind of kept them trapped in that hell of a job for way too long. Then the whole Thai soccer team incident happened and I was so over him. Haven’t heard anything about him since that has made me feel like he deserves to be the richest cunt in the fucking universe.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Vintage⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  T H U N D E R    C R O S S    S P L I T    A T T A C K ! ! !

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ok boomer⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Which is bizarre, because shrinkage due to theft at all major retail chains is at historic lows, but they keep complaining that they can’t make any money due to rampant shoplifting. Then you look at their profits for each fiscal year and wonder what their deal is if losses due to shoplifting have never been lower and profits have never been higher?

  It’s an easy scapegoat to justify closing low performing stores. It essentially shifts the blame onto the community, rather than the greedy suits.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon recommends a cast iron pan⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I bought like a $30 one at the grocery store a few years ago and it’s still going strong. If I forget to use it for a long time it’ll get a patina of rust, but it scrapes right off. I only seasoned it once when I got it with beef tallow.

  Honestly if I threw it away today and bought a new one it still would have been cheaper than buying a Teflon pan for like triple the price and having it only last maybe a year before it gets completely ruined, and you get those forever chemicals in your body as an added bonus.

  It’s not like it’s some huge investment, just give it a try and see if it works for you. Buy a cheap one at a big box store, season it with oil or fat, and don’t put it in the dishwasher just hand rinse it with lye-free dish soap and a soft sponge. Maybe that’s too much work for you and you prefer your nonstick or stainless, that’s fine too, good quality stainless can last a lifetime if treated properly and ceramic nonstick pans are getting better and cheaper all the time and pretty much outcompeting PFA-based products because people are becoming more aware of how shitty they actually are.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Trump loses the election and flees to another country to avoid his sentencing in his (multiple) lawsuits, does the Secret Service have to go with him?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I suppose he could dismiss them, but considering he just had two recent attempts on his life, that would probably be unwise to say the least.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Trump loses the election and flees to another country to avoid his sentencing in his (multiple) lawsuits, does the Secret Service have to go with him?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The minimum sentence is a hefty fine, but the judge in that very trial already determined that fines do not discourage Trump’s behavior, given the contempt punishment that he ignored, so I don’t think it’s going to be a slap on the wrist for him unless the judge truly is a hypocrite or a coward.

  That being said, even if he gets prison for each of his felony counts, he can serve them all concurrently, a maximum of 3 years per count. So he could theoretically be out of prison right before the next election cycle with a year left to campaign for 2028, that is assuming he truly is sentenced immediately after the election in November and it’s not just pushed back indefinitely due to recount horseshit or Trump crazies doing another insurrection.

  But there are other trials that are far more likely to result in additional prison time, the most important two being the classified documents case and the Jan 6th case. I have faith that the justice system will eventually follow through with punishing Trump, but the system is set up to slow-walk the rich and powerful to accountability.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Trump loses the election and flees to another country to avoid his sentencing in his (multiple) lawsuits, does the Secret Service have to go with him?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  USSS won’t just let him get on a plane and fly off to Russia. His security is their top priority, so allowing him to secrete himself somewhere without first verifying his itinerary and securing both the mode of transportation and the destination, would be unthinkable. That means they are reporting all of his movements to local law enforcement. Can’t exactly flee the country in secret when every cop in the state will know his exact position and have eyes on him at all times. If the courts think he is a flight risk, someone involved in the process will know what he’s trying to do and prevent him from going anywhere where it will be hard to get him back again.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"The father of PlayStation" says everyone at Sony thought the PS1 would fail when it was first pitched⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Hard to blame them for thinking that at the time. CD-based consoles had a very rough start in that era, but the PS1 was probably the first actual hardware success that used the CD exclusively as it’s medium. Nintendo had pushed cartridges to their absolute limit with the technology they had, so it was only a matter of time before someone ended up succeeding where others failed.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Empires fall⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  There was always a certain ambiance in Circuit City that I found to be appealing. At least on my local one before it closed down. It was like the lights were dimmed way down, but it was still bright enough to see. I guess you would call that “cool temperature” lighting, which is definitely not fashionable anymore. Everything nowadays seems to follow Apple’s store design which is this sterile eggshell white, bathed in neutral or warm temperature lighting. I find it kind of boring, but I understand why they do it that way.

  Plus, I loved how instantly recognizable their old stores were. The big red block turned at an angle for an entrance was brilliant imo. They used it a lot in their television commercials and made it look like a plug end or a battery coming down from the sky.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Seriously, what the f*** is keeping Donald Trump in this presidential race?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The culture war has been going on for a lot longer than a decade, it’s just only in the last decade or so that it’s been amped up to 11 in terms of how aggressive it’s being fought. Conservatives are almost always on the losing side of social issues that require a culture shift. Women’s suffrage, civil rights, seatbelt laws, anti-smoking laws, gay rights… the list goes on, and the fight is never quite done for some, but they always lose in the end.

  The very fact that conservatives are very pro for things like coal mining that liberals are trying to legislate away create strong reasons for some people to hold their noses and vote Republican regardless of how noxious the candidate is. When their livelihoods are literally at stake and the liberal response is “Well you should have gone to college to learn a new skill or trade” it makes sense that they are corralled right into the arms of conservatives. Economic drivers are the most powerful force behind the conservative movement right now, not culture bullshit that deep down they don’t really care about. It doesn’t help that very few people understand the relationship between “the economy” as outlined by experts and “the economy” as experienced when paying for groceries or filling up their car at the pump. It doesn’t matter that conservatives almost never deliver on their promises to fix the economy and often end up sending the nation into a recession, if bad decisions on a national scale lead to temporary relief on a local scale for some, that’s what they will remember when voting next time.

  Liberals need to be doing more to bring disenfranchised voters into the fold. Educating them without being condescending or dismissive would be an excellent start. Turning down the temperature in politics is not possible without also lowering the stakes, backing off of hardline positions in the short term might be the most effective way of undermining support for terrible conservative candidates.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Checkmate⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  smdh Chess hasn’t had a balance patch in like 200 years.

  nerf knights plz chess.com