uriel238

@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The internet kind of sucks right now⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Let them scrape. AI as it currently is, is still autocomplete with extra steps, and still prone to hallucination. As it is it will be usable to make cheap, passable content, but not hit those moments of inspiration of human art (yet – there are real AI groups looking to make AGI)

  It is a bubble which will pop and AI will be seen as a tool (a resource-costly tool) that requires its own set of experts independent from the experts that use ACAD or write editorial copy or do investigative work. Id est, it’s not the replacement of employees that boards of directors want it to be.

  And AGI is centuries from being efficient enough that you can make Rosie the Robot who cleans your house and makes a good upside-down pineapple cake.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Plenty of women – teenage parochial schoolgirls, specifically, get impregnated as virgins when the definition of virgin is not having coital sex or having an intact vaginal corona (hymen). When boys and girls who love each other very much make out and get overly involved, yet their pregnancy concerns (and guilt) keep them from engaging in actual coitus, even a small amount of jizz on her vulva might make their way through the vaginal canal and cause conception.

  Plenty of medical doctors have encountered unexpected pregnancy of women who’ve never had sex and who had intact vaginal coronas.

  However at the beginning of the common era, virgin was assumed of any unmarried woman unless known otherwise, and was a shift of property value of the woman to the father or husband. Mary who was unmarried, would be a virgin by default as a young woman. Though her pregnancy is evidence that she isn’t a virgin.

  Too be fair, in Hellenic culture Zeus raped me was a common excuse when a young woman fooled around without license, and ended up in a family way, and before the era of the Olympian, Poseidon was the one going around having his way with young women. In fact, the classical myths teem with children sired by gods. This isn’t new.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨*your order is delivered*⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  💯

  Full Goblin Mode.

  In my defense, either I dress, or I turn out all the lights at night so no-one has to see my undressed form, except as a shadow.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨hygiene⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  In the summer here (July and August during heatwaves) my office goes between 80°F - 90° so no, I don’t wear a thing, hence the towels.

  On my regular furniture, if I’m wandering around unclothed and need to sit down, I’ll drape something, often my briefs, before planting my butt.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨hygiene⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Personally I call shenanigans having executive and standard office chairs made of leather, pleather and nylon mesh.

  None of these are comfortable on the bare butt, and even will get sticky once you start sweating against them, so I’ve _always had to drape towels between me and the chair.

  Also do not get leather / pleather if you have cats.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨hygiene⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If you can’t afford one, or rent, or wander around, travel bidets are about $20-$30 and are a water bottle with a hook-shaped wand-spout and an air valve.

  My proctologist has a personal vendetta against wiping, and I messed up my piles from ages of wiping too hard. Bidet and dab to dry.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Great Advertise⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I had art I personally crafted accused of being slop (gen-AI free!). Dunno if it’s a compliment or a criticism.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"ok, imagine a gun."⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Shotgun is an America thing, coming from the stagecoach era. The shotgun in question has a shortened barrel for reduced storage footprint.

  The BMW R12 has a sidecar mounted with an MG 42 light machine gun. But no-one calls sidecar gunner

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Florida ounces⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You can’t convert them. Fluid ounces are volume. Regular ounces are weight (which isn’t quite the same as mass, though they’re used interchangeably on earth).

  1 fl oz = 1 oz when the substance is water (at slightly above freezing). Any other substance would involve a specific mass factor.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dirty slut for water⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I remember a point right after gay was a generic derisive (e.g. That’s so gay! = That sucks! ) for a short while I’m gay for meant I like this so much I’d be willing to do sexual favors to get it (e.g. I’m gay for mineral water right now )

  Similarly when we talk about architecture porn we mean stuff that would excite people really into architecture. In some places, we still see it. ( _Gun porn, food porn, grammar porn, etc.)

  It’d be awesome if we generalized sluttiness the same way.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This was actually posted by the Owasso Police Department⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Fine, adding a useful link to my comment above.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This was actually posted by the Owasso Police Department⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, but they are each multiple different things. It’s complicated.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"Pilot had to dive aggressively to avoid midair collision over Burbank airport."⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I was commenting on the vast difference in the statistical numbers. I have no doubt there are lots of steps that can be taken to decrease the risk of shortened lifespan.

  But yes, we can safely engage in high-risk behavior (or in some instances like air racing pilots, come to terms that they will likely (and preferably) end their lives explosively and spectacularly). And then there’s how James Cameron does super-deep submersible exploration vs. Stockton Rush.

  My mother would not only climb up rock faces and summit mountains all over the Sierra Nevadas (and later in other parts of the world) but would lug twenty five pounds of old-school photography gear to show she did it and took pics of the astounding vistas. As a kid I went along with her sometimes, and encountered a few two many poison oak pushes, mosquito swarms, and stories about lost bits due to frostbite. I Belong To The City now (I belong to the night).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"Pilot had to dive aggressively to avoid midair collision over Burbank airport."⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  TBH I was in theater as a kid and TTRPGs as a teen and young adult, so it was super easy to get comfortable whatever pronouns suited my character. And yeah, embraced my enby status as I got past my forties.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"Pilot had to dive aggressively to avoid midair collision over Burbank airport."⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Check out John Oliver’s take on air traffic control on LWT

  I was a kid when Reagan fired all the striking air traffic controllers. It turns out it takes a long time to train them, so we haven’t recovered from that one incident. It also means all ATCs are overworked, still underpaid and using outdated hardware and methods.

  Air travel was screwed even before Trump defunded the FAA.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"Pilot had to dive aggressively to avoid midair collision over Burbank airport."⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Bus and Rail rules.

  Motorcycles are for the young who don’t want to get old.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Isn't there somebody you forgot to ask?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Firstly, I became sexually active in a sex-positive, kink-centric community, and so have been raised with the philosophy that so long as all participants are adults (and buts safety constraints on harm caused so no-one regularly has to go to the ER).

  But I am unusually tolerant of unusual kinks and have jealousy issues of inclusion, rather than limiting access. My psychologist a decade ago would attribute it to being neuralspicy. Also during the Iraq war and the CIA extrajudicial detention and torture program, I freaked out and started a (personal) dive into moral philosophy, which explores the intersectionality (or rather the separation) between what we _reason _out is moral or proper (e.g. equality, liberty) and what we feel is moral or proper (e.g. purity, obedience)

  One of the notable studies regards the story of Julie and Mark (in short, they’re blood siblings, go on a camping trip, have sex and decide it was a good experience but not worth repeating) and subjects told this story would go to great lengths to rationalize their disapproval of the siblings’ behavior in the story. This divergence between reasoned ethics and intuitive ethics runs thick through human culture, informing business practices like RTO mandates, bullshit jobs and crunching development teams (overworking them to meet deadlines, which kills their productivity to well below non-crunch levels)

  So yes. People freak out about age play and lolicon, about Rule 34 featuring the Simpsons kids, about fictional bestiality, …and about anthros with species-correct genitals, even if the characters are otherwise clearly consenting adults. Reasonably, these should all be protected by free speech, and efforts to limit speech always extend into non-sexual matters such as trans issues and queer culture, so that talking about UHaul Lesbians could soon become restricted or even criminal in the US.

  I think species-correct genitalia and lolicon material should be legal and accepted as unrestricted content, but I also understand as a species, we will have to further develop our society so that it is less reactive to moral panics (also to political power consolidation) before marginalized content can be freely distributed, or, for that matter, all pervs and queers can come fully out of the closet.

  And as a footnote, just as the autocratic purges come for the marginalized, the politically far-left and political enemies before cutting into larger demographics, autocratic censorship efforts come first for kink and queer content then general porn, then history and philosophy, and then language and grammar. Knitting Cult Lady, in her discussions of cult systems of control, discusses use of language to control the flock among her many topics.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨PSA on privuhcy⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m on mobile so I will have to drop a link later (if ever)

  but do a websearch for the utility link cleaner

  It’s awesome. Thank me later.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨mentoring⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve had way too few Garys in my life.

  My dad is a Bill O’Reilly / Donald Trump / William Shatner kinda guy. Now in his 80s he’s total MAGA.

  In my twenties, I noticed I really didn’t care about gender norms. Wasn’t into cars or guns or football (was way into tech but this was still in the DOS age so everyone else thought tech was weird).

  After Trump I turned in my man card. Real men, society tells me, look like Trump, like Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro and Joe Rogan. There are some great guys like gary out there. But the thing that makes them great isn’t their masculine representation

  My hero as a young adult was the NORAD officer at the beginning of Wargames ( NORAD Officer played by John Spencer, seen here who wouldn’t proceed with a nuclear launch command and kill twenty million people. A friend of mine – and coven mate – talks about an uncle who was a total 60s hippy in the USAF assigned as an Air Force Missileer. He openly admitted to his superiors that he wasn’t going to turn that key for them no matter how dire the circumstances were. He just refused to launch a nuclear tipped ICBM at anyone. They kept him in the position anyway.

  This was my understanding of manhood in the 1980s. Restraint. The capacity to hold power without using it. Maybe Atticus Finch bears a rifle to put down a literal rabid dog, but never in circumstances any less dire, and the weapon is put away afterwards. Also taking care of business. To man up (related to pony up ) was to pay bills, to call the utility office to negotiate a late payment to align with a paycheck, to deal civilly with exes and rivals to make sure no one was without power or heat or food. – And then in the 1990s all that became adulting. The bearing of responsibilities had no gender; we were all expected to do it.

  Except then in the late aughts came the subprime mortgage crisis, and nearly a trillion dollars was spent defying capitalist theory (that failed companies are left to collapse and their investors suffer the consequences). We learned that if you’re big enough or powerful enough, you don’t have to be responsible. Instead the government will bail you out, even as minimum wage wasn’t keeping up with living expenses, homelessness was rising, and tax cuts to the wealthy were not recinded. It was the era of OWS, who were quietly swept away by law enforcement while the cameras were turned off. It was a sign of things to come.

  Now manhood is about raw power. Neitzsche was right: A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength—life itself is Will to Power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results thereof. Manhood in 2025 is the privilege to assert force upon others without concern or consequence, to stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and not lose any voters.

  The rabid dog is afflicted. It doesn’t have any choice. In 2025, manly men choose violence: They discharge their power to assert their power, showing the world how masculine they are.

  So I don’t want anything to do with it anymore.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Isn't there somebody you forgot to ask?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  According to Knitting Cult Lady, cults always demand purity from its disciples, including those forced in (e.g. people raised in cults as kids), and there’s an exception for the godhead-dude (who is often a lech).

  It’s not about children. It’s about forcing obedience and virtue signalling. It’s a nazi salute that shows to fellow party members you’re one of them.

  Real children’s issues are about pulling kids out of precarity: food, housing, contact with family, education, healthcare, quality of life. Anyone who is saying their cause is to protect children who hasn’t prioritized these specific things is engaging in a bad-faith argument.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Isn't there somebody you forgot to ask?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Society has never been able to keep NSFW content out of the hands of viewers / end users, and have tried multiple times. Singles (a The Sims -like with actual sex – if kinda clinical; it was a German game) was pressured off shelves in Target, Gamestop and Electronics Boutique. It came back with underwear stapled on, which was quickly hacked off.

  This is how we ended up with official / unofficial patches that re-unlock all the naked bits in games like Huniepop, which became the convention. (We’ve already had countless nude patches for non-romantic games).

  And of course they’re going too far, pressuring distribution services to cut LGBT+ content whether it’s porn or not. Before they were emboldened by Trump, there was already pressure to delist specific themes (an incomplete list: rape/NC; fictional child sex abuse/child experimentation; incest; and depending on the assessment, furry content within a certain threshold.¹ ). Anyhow we know the white Christian nationalist movement (from which the Heritage Society’s Project 2025 and the Seven Mountain Mandate come) is looking to criminalize porn and make it difficult to access.

  1: This is still weird to me, enough to geek out about it here. Furry hate gets strangely specific. It breaks down like this:

  • Those who disapprove of all furry content that is adult-themed (contrast the 1983 movie Rock and Rule vs. 1973 Disney’s Robin Hood ) this group probably only exists because there’s a significant fanbase for furry porn / erotica.
  • Of those that remain, those who disapprove of furry content featuring explicit sex (e.g. “Omaha” the Cat Dancer first published in 1976, by Reed Waller and Kate Worley.)
  • Of those that remain, those who disapprove of furry content that is exclusively erotic (I can’t find the specific ones I’ve read, which isn’t many.)
  • Of those that remain, those who disapprove of erotic furry content that features species-accurate genitals, which is the threshold VISA was in, and is too spicy for some lemmings.

  The thing is most porn games and most LGBT+ centric games are labors of love, first, and a revenue source second. They will get made and get out, more so, when entire demographics and communities are stripped of a voice or of acknowledgement. It also puts less spicy porn in the same category as unethically spicy porn (e.g. CSAM). If the public has to use the same methods as terrorists and child predators to get their fix, it makes those groups less illegitimate. In for a lamb, in for a sheep.

  Anyhow useful websites are here: youtu.be/IlEHovdeKZw yellat.money docs.google.com/document/d/…/edit?usp=sharing

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Would you rather unionize or buy some videogames?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Wait, I remember this in Henry V, France sends Henry V of England tennis balls You don’t want to take back continental English soil. You want to play sports at home!

  The gift was not well received.

  I remember this bit when Putin gave Trump a football, a gesture that Trump did not fully understand.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨bad board games⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This is the my problem with Marvel Snap, which has a (simplified) betting system like poker (a player can retreat — fold — at any time.)

  So when my opponent is doing their thing and I realize I’m going to sweep the board, I feel sympathetic and dont snap (raise)… even if they snap, in which case I know they’re happier losing four cubes than eight.

  Gloves go off when they use Goblins, Ice Man or Scorpion, which attack my turf directly, and I get pissy when they Juggernaut or Leader at the wrong time, and a long long master of MtG (sober, now) my synergy combos are atypical and catch rivals often by surprise.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨North Korea and South Korea isn't working. Let's try West Korea and East Korea instead.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  China has as great a chance (and as little chance) as anyone else. Kingmakers and would be emperors have to make some serious decisions as their nation grows and develops: Do they go the autocratic dictator route and withhold civil liberties, or do they extend civil liberties outward, so that satellite colonies and conquered territories are more tolerant of imperial rule? History teems with examples of both, often from the same empire in different eras.

  It’s not new, from the tolerance of other religions and customs by Xerxes I to the republic of SPQR. Heck, even France tried constitutional monarchy with the Bourbon restoration, so long as the Napoleonic code (defining civil rights and the rule of law) was preserved. Charlie X decided to stop that civil liberties nonsense and the people of France rolled out the guillotines once again.

  This is something I bring up as a difference between the Islamic State as a hypothetical to which Islamists aspire to, and the Islamic State as it is practiced in the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant; the latter clings harshly to Shariah law. Contrast the Iran during the Pahlavi era (the result of famine and revolution forming a new imperial republic) which established a code of civil rights (only US oil interests had to meddle)

  China is about to have an opportunity to become the world superpower, or an eastern adversary to Post-NATO Europe, and right now, democracy in the EU and UK are weakened by the same long-term reign of corporatist neoliberal parties (King Log) that are opposed by far-right nationalist movements which are gaining traction… or were until Trump reminded everyone of what fascist autocracy looks like.

  If China decides not to develop its humanity and civil liberties game, then those neoliberal parties will last a while longer while drifting to the right, until the nationalist take hold and they have a Big Fat War (not to be confused with WWIII or Nuclear War). But by then, the climate crisis will be extreme enough to make the future too chaotic to predict. This is why China is leading the sustainable energy race (and because Trump kisses the feet of Koch and big oil, the US is reversing course).

  This is all backed by the ethics theory of the social contract: So long as the public is comfortable they’ll adhere to the laws of the land and play by the king’s rules. Suffering breeds discontent and organized resistance.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨North Korea and South Korea isn't working. Let's try West Korea and East Korea instead.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  A united Korea may be one of the positive side effects of America pooping its pants and during into a has-been world power. China will have to become World Police, unless it autocrats its way into wasteland as well, but if China can set an example and take a few steps elevating liberty, it could then unseat the Kim family, and allow Korea to just be a nice high-tech industrialized nation littered with chibi animal avatars.

  Because DPRK is just a mess. There’s also the possibility that China facilitates an invasion of South Korea by North Korea, but Kim Il Sung’s grandchildren are unlikely to be as pro-Chinese culture as he was, and zombie rulers can only have so much influence.

  Or China can just annex the whole thing, which would be a dick move and expensive and result IRA like troubles (e.g. a decades long sabotage and terror campaign from an internal pro-Korea resistance.) The Daughters of Queen Min, if I were writing the story.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Horny🧠⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Viagra and Cialis worked when I was younger and probably would work still. But they’re not covered by Medicare-D and are very expensive to purchase.

  Not wholly off the table, though, if we get lucky and find a source.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Horny🧠⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  So about two years ago, my libido switched to working not at all. Its previous stage was working-half-assed for most of my adult life. Psych-meds were (and probably still are) a factor.

  I kinda hoped it’s going to be wheeee! I’m ace! GARLIC BREAD!

  Alas, no.

  But I now have two noteworthy phenomena:

  The first is I’ll look at something erotic. Usually porn. There’s lots of porn available, and my brain goes this is important. It means something to me and tries to decipher it like a 70s era acid rock album cover or a Salvador Dali painting. It’s not titillating… not quite. It’s like someone gave me a post-hypnotic suggestion years ago and I accidentally came across the triggering image, but that subconscious code is faint and sepia now and gives me strange impulses.

  The other phenomenon is when my brain goes HORNY and I’ll look at porn and it skips right over it. HORNY! It’s like the zombies deciding Homer Simpson doesn’t have enough brains to be interesting, there’s no sexy in these curves. Nor these. Nor these. Everything is all wrong! This is super frustrating, and sometimes I’m compelled to keep looking for the stimulus that has the right pins in the right order to turn the lock.

  I understand Leon now, Nothing is worse than having an itch you can never scratch!

  Sadly this was a factor in my separation with my wife. We still see each other once a week for dinner. It’s a zesty blend of complicated and tragic, the kind that happens while society collapses Titanic sinks.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Personal Responsibility⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Parents’ Divorce betrays the irony, (Though speaking of my parents divorce, my presence and neurodivergence certainly figured into the escalating contention between them. That’s a different – probably TMI – story.)

  I’ve grown up with sincere propaganda with similar sentiments, and it appeared to get worse at least through the aughts. I think millennials saw them as ironic. Zoomers appear to find them as laughably absurd as the you’re neighbor may be a terrorist propaganda. My Alpha grandson is taking it seriously at 11. Alphas are figuring out early that it’s all a myth to cover up they have nothing to hope for ( at least until revolution goes hot).

  In fact, I’d say the serious versions all the signs that we are, in fact, in a YAF dystopian coming of age model, where the society is trying to mold us into replaceable, expendable laborers and soldiers to be expended on billionaire vanity projects (which often appear as nationalist military action or corporate commerce). Your story as a kid is to find a way to escape the paradigm, either to join the Rebel Alliance, or become pirates and hackers…

  …oh wait, unless you get abducted by ICE / Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS and stuffed into a concentration camp to be disposed of later. Then you’re just fucked.

  If you don’t escape the paradigm as a kid, then welcome to the resistance. You’re one of the isolated rebels like Winston Smith in his corner out of sight of the telescreens, keeping his journal. Also like me. Still working on that. Not sure if I’m going to go Weiße Rose or La Résistance

  You may be held responsible for all these things, even if you’re often not to blame for them or had a way to actionably evade their harmful consequences. Seventy-seven million Americans voted for a regime that is going to have a far greater impact on our lives than many of the typical personal life choices we make. There Are No Rules Any More. Mired in the Rot in Denmark, to thine own self be true.

  In this fucking world, I do not begrudge anyone their tequila, or cigarettes, or their crack pipe, or their poor diet, or their ten terrabytes of pornography…or their arm full of scars.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Someone MUST be hiring for this position⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  You know, make it and I’d join it. Lets see if I can find my last (based on current events) writing prompt:

  The Disciples of Eris, a super-powered anti-villain team that specifically targets ostentatious billionaire (or VIP) events like weddings and birthdays, first to arrange for scandalous exposure and then to wreck the eve. A signature golden apple is typically discovered post-hoc by the cleanup crew.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Someone MUST be hiring for this position⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  At start, she’s the roommate that is the stable income for the household (different characters who have their protagonist moments), and is the one they can depend on to make sure rent is paid, and there’s bad pseudo-Chinese food to eat.

  Then she does get her promotion, and gets in way over her head, having to compromise her values to stay employed, and eventually to live.

  This is a very similar story path of Sam Lowry in Brazil (1985), though he leaves his perfect job it to chase after his (literal) dream girl.