gila
@gila@lemm.ee
- Comment on Disposable vapes to be banned in England and Wales from June 4 weeks ago:
To address youth vaping. The outcome of that has been that youth vaping is significantly higher than in other OECD member countries, and kids are now getting them from the ‘vape dealer’ whom may have other illicit drugs available. Cigarettes aren’t banned, only made unaffordable via progressive excise tax. That’s had its own unintended consequences of launching a new market for “chop chop” i.e. illegally grown unprocessed tobacco, as well as black market imports that sidestep the plain packaging laws, and tobacco gang wars in Sydney and Melbourne.
- Comment on Disposable vapes to be banned in England and Wales from June 4 weeks ago:
The disposable black market & associated disproportionate rise in youth vaping in Australia results from the illegality of all vapes, not just disposables. It’s hard to imagine it becoming a burgeoning black market predicated solely on that vapers find the highly available, better value, relatively environmentally friendly option untenable. Overall a sensible move I think coming from a pro-vape perspective
- Comment on Today you like it 4 weeks ago:
- Comment on unwatchable!! 2 months ago:
Yes, venom is poisonous. It is a subset of poisons that are injected via bites or stings.
- Comment on Albanese backs down on decision to exclude LGBTI question from next census 2 months ago:
I agree that census data on the subject will be used by reactionaries as a basis to react. Or more generally, to polarise in any direction. I don’t think that’s the intended function of a census though, and I think mitigating that unintended outcome isn’t best achieved by compromising the intended function. Function which I think is a net positive for society in an analytical sense.
e.g. in sports - if there was a legitimate cause for concern about a perceived unfair advantage to women that were assigned male at birth, wouldn’t it follow that we would see a statistical overrepresentation of trans women athletes relative to trans women in the general population, vs cis female athletes relative to cis females?
To my knowledge what’s been observed elsewhere is the opposite, supporting that there is no legitimate cause for concern. Not that there would be if trans female athletes were indeed overrepresented, but I think the reactionary argument falls apart for the majority where the data supports the opposing view.
It also occurs to me that limiting the data via either omission or underreporting could equally be used by those with malintent, e.g “why spend time worrying about the needs of 0.1% of the population?”
It’s not really for me to comment on whether it’s a net positive for trans people specifically, but in lieu of other info I’d defer to orgs like Equality Australia on that, who seem to think it’s warranted.
- Comment on Albanese backs down on decision to exclude LGBTI question from next census 2 months ago:
Why use generational change to substantiate Equality Australia’s point that data on the population’s gender diversity is also a relevant part of the intended function of a census? Because it’s likely the most significant factor, afaik (as a cishet). I’d assume older generations have additional barriers to overcome to be openly trans
- Comment on Walmart's use of digital price tags signal the future of retail shopping, but consumers are worried 2 months ago:
I’m really meaning the lack of option not to consume fast-moving consumer goods, rather than the option to pay a premium for them elsewhere. When their market position is similar to like an outlet for government rations except for private profit, their net is essentially what was skimmed off the top of free enterprise. 2.66% is just the current maximum amount that is justifiably worth without doing societal harm
- Comment on Walmart's use of digital price tags signal the future of retail shopping, but consumers are worried 2 months ago:
That’s an expected tradeoff of operating an essential service is the point. It’s not as though their margin is that slim by mistake, or out of goodwill, or bad business sense. It’s meant to lead to the situation where we shop at Walmart not by choice, but in lieu of other options.
- Comment on Mattel reportedly in talks with Illumination for an animated "Barbie" movie - Warner Bros. not involved, Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie are "not thrilled". 3 months ago:
There has been, Netflix have done a handful of different Barbie series with multiple seasons over the last decade. Doesn’t seem like the next one is substantially changing direction resultant from the film. Feels like the premise for this article was to just reaction-bait its stars.
- Comment on How to get good at FPS with a controller, coming from a PC gamer? 4 months ago:
It can become surprisingly complicated with axial deadzone settings, but that’s not really important to understand. The simple concept is it’s the zone in which the stick is moved but no change in movement is registered in-game. The complication that is added is mostly related to more precise calculation of where that zone is
- Comment on Anyone know any good shooters for switch? 4 months ago:
Metroid Prime series are more “action games” than FPS’ per se, but they are must-plays if you haven’t, & might scratch that itch. There’s a switch remaster of the first game, none yet for Prime 2 or 3 but it’s likely they’ll come out leading up to the release of the recently-announced Prime 4
- Comment on How to get good at FPS with a controller, coming from a PC gamer? 4 months ago:
Moving a joystick is fundamentally different to moving a mouse. With a joystick there is a spring constantly acting to center it - no equivalent force when using a mouse. So you need to get a feel for estimating that force and accurately counteracting it in various gameplay scenarios. That’s a completely different “muscle” to have a memory of vs. using a mouse I think
Also, modern controller joysticks generally are not great. Most have medium to large deadzones in the center by default. I’d recommend reducing them for more responsiveness. It comes with the tradeoff of being more susceptible to stick drift. But that isn’t something you should be afraid of. It’s a physical impossibility for their design to not wear over time. I’d recommend recalibrating and adjusting settings regularly. At the end of the day, replacing joystick modules only requires screws (no soldering) so it’s cheap and relatively easy.
If you’re really serious you could get some hall effect joystick modules. That way you wouldn’t need to recalibrate often and could keep a consistently small deadzone setting without encountering drift. i.e. default settings from like dualshock 2, when stick drift was just as apparent but people hadn’t gone crazy over it yet.
Minecraft would be fine for learning fps movement in a relaxed setting.
- Comment on lemmy test how ur client handles long posts 4 months ago:
Summit fits image to screen horizontally, ideal layout for me
- Comment on [deleted] 4 months ago:
Have we as users already given up on self-curation via blocks and filters? It seems an essential consideration for the design of this platform.
The recent wave of posts add nothing new to the discussion that I can tell. Maybe we need a sidebar link to help remind people of the instance federation principles, and perhaps help guide them toward use of the features Lemmy provides?
I appreciate the agnosticism. Preserving federation should never be considered as indicative of any position held by the instance, it’s just what’s best for the network.
I don’t have much to add to the local community but have been really pleased that I’m able to interact with most other instances from this one and plan to donate when I can.
- Comment on Government waters down vaping ban to win support of Greens 4 months ago:
If tobacco is still legal to buy at every servo, supermarket and convenience store; and, if Nicorette & Nicabate are still legal to stock within reach of children at those locations; and, if every substance people enjoy legally isn’t similarly scrutinized over the generalisation that addiction to anything is itself a medical problem; no, it’s not reasonable balance.
- Comment on TIL we have a cricket team 5 months ago:
There has been a lot of investment into exhibition matches over the past few years, and into a Major League Cricket domestic competition which started in 2023.
There have been failed attempts at domestic leagues in the past, but MLC is a T20 competition. That’s a shorter and more accessible form of the game where a match generally takes around 3 hours to complete.
That could make a difference, because it’s a lot easier to keep kids interested for a few hours vs. the more traditional formats that could last anywhere between 8 hours, up to 5 days.
It’s only a 1-month season though, 25 matches over the course of July. I should hopefully make it to a few of them!
- Comment on For free for 11.99$ 5 months ago:
Thanks! Got the script from the TwitchAdSolutions GitHub and it seems to work well
- Comment on For free for 11.99$ 5 months ago:
Doesn’t work on Twitch for me (using Firefox). I’ve had some success using ‘Purple Adblock’, but it works by connecting to a public proxy in an ad-free country for the duration of the ad - so it has issues during peak and can get you stuck in a loop
- Comment on Don't you all get tired of the constant negativity? 5 months ago:
How do I defederate from posts complaining about lemmy.ml admins being tankies? Hasn’t the instance required manual signup approval for the whole last year? Complaints about it being a flagship instance and the resulting bad look for the platform are total non-sequitur. The problem is absolutely, totally, without caveat, solved by lemmy’s blocking functionality. If you don’t like that they created popular communities, tough titties. At the core of the issue is that these complaints are pushing a decentralized platform to conform to their worldview. That just isn’t how it works.
/rant
- Comment on Anon helps with his gf's vaping addiction 5 months ago:
Yeah upon rereading the story there’s no shot, tampering with 50+ bottles of eliquid without breaking the break-off band or messing up the plug. Anon is basically a fly by night compounder
But yeah, 35/50mg are the default strengths for majority USA salt nic eliquids off the shelf, the standard set by Juul upon first entering the market (though arbitrarily Juul measures by weight rather than by volume, so their pods are actually 59mg/mL)
- Comment on Anon helps with his gf's vaping addiction 5 months ago:
It’s possible, but frequency is determined by more factors than simply relief from nicotine withdrawal. It’s also possible that reducing concentration very slightly doesn’t change the overall equation enough to actually drive behavioral change. But I’d agree that outcomes are better secured with conscious intent. I think quitting successfully and meaningfully means learning resilience against compulsion to engage in behaviors driven by chemical reactions in the brain, which this approach doesn’t do at all.
- Comment on Anon helps with his gf's vaping addiction 5 months ago:
Just as a thought experiment, what you’d really wanna do is change the salt nic formulation, i.e. the acidic compound which is added to freebase nicotine to convert it to a salt. This directly shapes the pharmacokinetics of the resulting nicotinic effect from vaping it, which is what leads to the common knowledge that salt nic hits harder, but doesn’t last as long as freebase. That isn’t universally true at all, but is a result of the salt formulations that are popular in the market.
I worked with a scientist that once formulated a 20mg/mL solution for me that had similar throat hit to the 40mg/mL products I was using & had a very steep onset curve, and I found it to still be very satisfying even immediately after swapping. It wasn’t a successful product though because for the consumer, 20mg = 20mg & 40mg = 40mg
Guess my point is that the novel ways of using tech to improve weaning off nicotine using vaping do legitimately exist, but they don’t have a place in a free market so we won’t have it while regulators stay luddites on the issue
- Comment on Anon helps with his gf's vaping addiction 5 months ago:
If they were vaping a whole 30ml bottle @ 50mg/mL per week, yeah probably. That’s a pretty extreme dependency. I don’t know anyone ingesting that much nic, after 7 years in vape industry / over a decade vaping myself. I’m not in the US though, Juul kinda fucked things up over there
- Comment on The way my daughter's middle school health class classifies drugs is insane. 6 months ago:
Smokin’ on the finest dope, ay-ay-ay-ah
- Comment on the struggle 6 months ago:
Might be worth waiting for a couple decades without a major replication crisis in your field of study before holding academic rigor over the heads of others but go off king
- Comment on Steam will stop issuing refunds if you play two hours of a game before launch day 6 months ago:
I completely disagree. A dev conceding to release in early access = a dev committing to later release a finished product which the early accessor will also receive a license to play. Without the latter part, early access becomes a moot system in principle, just a pathway provided by platforms to monetise unfinished games, which may never be finished.
And the value proposition for that finished product shouldn’t be affected at all by its pre-launch state. Early access isn’t for the benefit of consumers. That many games remain in “early access” for an extended period of time (such that sufficient gameplay value can be extracted prior to the end of early access) isn’t really anything to do with the concept of early access itself.
- Comment on Reefer Madness 7 months ago:
Hey no problem. Thinking more about it, I suppose in like a palliative care context, anything goes really. At least in recreational states, a graded supply of things like pre-rolled doobies would be there for compounders to access.
- Comment on Reefer Madness 7 months ago:
Sorry, I only meant to talk about smoking as a delivery method for various substances. Of any popularly smoked substance tobacco is by far the worst.
- Comment on Reefer Madness 7 months ago:
Canna industry vet here. Usually weed is not prescribed for smoking. Where it is, that’s unhealthy to the point that it casts doubt on the validity of the treatment plan. However this was not the case 20 years ago, as even during that short time knowledge about the urgency of smoking-related health outcomes has propagated much more widely. At that time it was judged by many doctors that on balance the smoking delivery method was agreeable in lieu of a better option - but now we have mulyiole. Thus, smoking as a prescribed delivery method would cast significant doubt over the validity of any treatment plan designed today. Most people just smoke what they’re given of their own accord.
- Comment on Reefer Madness 7 months ago:
If your doctor prescribes you something for smoking, get a new doctor. That said, crack is the worst for your teeth due to clenching, and tobacco is the worst for pretty much everything else imaginable. Smoking generally is the unhealthiest habit people have, but it’s specifically due to inhaling the free radicals produced by combustion, not “a foreign substance” (we are all continuously breathing foreign substances). If you were just able to take out the combustion part somehow, you could- ah shit they’re already marketing it to kids