Wahots
@Wahots@pawb.social
- Comment on Is it better to leave a country, or stay behind to fight for it? And what about the ethics of fleeing instead of staying behind? 3 days ago:
Well said!
- Comment on Why do we even do mens vs womens sizes for clothes? 4 days ago:
Stuff like ski boots, too. Men and women apparently have muscle groups placed in slightly different areas, so the boots are sculpted differently to account for that.
- Comment on What Can We Do to Get Youth into Ham Radio? 5 days ago:
I love the idea of using it, but between getting married, looking for better jobs, and maintaining friendships, I haven’t found the time to study for the amateur radio exam, which appears to be considerable.
GMRS is $35 and a license so that I can use a radio with my family, husband, and licensed friends while skiing or mountain biking, making localized communication easy, while the cert process was mostly friction free (looking at you, ancient FCC website and the guides needed to figure out licensing- something less dedicated people forgo, hint hint). The friction for getting ham licensed makes it difficult for young people who don’t have much time for additional hobbies.
I do hope it’s around when I’m older and (hopefully) have more free time!
- Comment on The specter of a GTA 6 delay haunts the games industry: 'Some companies are going to tank' if they guess wrong, says analyst 5 days ago:
Judging by all the shark card crap they jammed into the last GTA, I fully expect them to shovel a bunch of crap in to make more money: $70 base games, deluxe editions, DLC, micro transactions, social club integration, required internet connections, all of it.
I miss the old GTAs before they got greedy.
- Comment on Porn on Spotify Is Infiltrating the Platform’s Top Podcast Charts 6 days ago:
Okay, glad I’m not the only one who noticed strange omegaverse podcasts on Spotify.
- Comment on ‘More Than a Hint’ That Dark Energy Isn’t What Astronomers Thought 1 week ago:
This was such a a good article :)
- Comment on Sir Gareth Southgate: Boys need role models, not gaming and porn 1 week ago:
I agree with him, but I think there are multiple different ways to approach this issue (in many western countries).
Part of this is starting boys one year later in school, because developmentally, boys hit puberty later than girls. Another part needs to be offline activities like camping, biking, and sailing that get boys outside and playing with each other in healthy environments. Scouting was a great example when I was a kid. It let kids blow off excess steam, while teaching them how to work together, how to safely help injured people, deal with emergencies, and experience the wonder of the outdoors. It also taught good skills like swimming, personal finance, and leadership.
I think back then, the Internet was a lot more rudimentary, and cellphones really could only be used for calling. Videogames were collaborative, in-person activities, and while it did peel people away, it wasn’t the isolated, single-player experience it is now. Kids and adults have to get away from that sometimes.
- Comment on Far-left French MEP demands return of the Statue of Liberty as the US no longer stands for its values 1 week ago:
I appreciate the thought, but there’s something else they could do that would be much easier than moving an entire statue across an ocean, and it would save the world a ton of trouble in the process.
- Comment on What is your bath mat situation? 1 week ago:
Thank you!
- Comment on Man Who Shot at Pipeline and Power Station Gets 25 Years in Prison 2 weeks ago:
25 years seems a bit harsh for ~500k in damages, imo.
- Comment on Climate Group Funded by Bill Gates Slashes Staff in Major Retreat 2 weeks ago:
He’s doing it because Republicans control all portions of government, and are basically illiterate when it comes to logical thinking, possibly even reading too. It’s in the first paragraph(s) of the article:
The change shows how Mr. Gates is retooling his empire for the Trump era. With Republicans controlling both houses of Congress and the White House, Mr. Gates calculated that the Breakthrough policy team in the United States was not likely to have a significant effect in Washington, said the people familiar with his thinking. The U.S. policy team was also one of the largest and most expensive parts of the organization.
“Bill Gates remains as committed as ever to advancing the clean energy innovations needed to address climate change,” a spokeswoman for Mr. Gates said in a statement when asked about the cuts. “His work in this area will continue and is focused on helping drive reliable affordable, clean energy solutions that will enable people everywhere to thrive.”
And further down…
Instead of trying to influence policy, Mr. Gates is now focused on building clean energy companies through the Breakthrough Energy Catalyst program, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and the Breakthrough Energy Fellows, the people familiar with the matter said. Those efforts, which fund start-up companies and entrepreneurs working on a range of renewable technologies, were not affected by the cuts.
You guys gotta read the article before jumping to conclusions. That’s what Rs do, not what we do.
- Comment on Measles in the U.S.: Latest Maps and Cases 2 weeks ago:
The old politicians, the old wars, and the old diseases have returned. The latter will take the former two, just like WW1 all over again. Interesting.
- Comment on Fire Damages 4 Tesla Cybertrucks in Seattle 2 weeks ago:
Honestly, the rainbow heat-treated look suits it. I’m souring on Tesla, but not EVs.
- Comment on Kennedy Links Measles Outbreak to Poor Diet and Health, Citing Fringe Theories 2 weeks ago:
Hey, don’t say that.
We can’t lose hope yet. He could still get lassa fever, or any of the other hemorrhagic fevers for which there is no vaccine yet. They are currently exploding because all resources that tamped them down got fired or cut by orange.
- Comment on What is your bath mat situation? 2 weeks ago:
A wooden one? Can you send a picture? That actually sounds kinda interesting.
- Comment on What is your bath mat situation? 2 weeks ago:
We have those bathmats that are just mats without a rubber backing. The rubber backed ones tend to get really ratty and messed up in a dryer.
The pure cloth ones tend to last longer, imo. And they don’t make your clothes smell like rubber. White ones work best, as they can be bleached as needed.
- Comment on dear republicans, what's the point of alienating every single ally of the US? 3 weeks ago:
It’s like that scene in the Incredibles where Mr. Incredible gets inside the robot, and has it tear itself to pieces. Except an entire country. And ~88,000,000 people voted against self-destruction and are being dragged off a cliff.
- Comment on Pokémon games have become consistently ugly, and it's alright to wish they weren't 3 weeks ago:
Oooh, that does look pretty!
- Comment on Antenna Recommendations 3 weeks ago:
We certainly are entertaining the possibility of getting one. That said, I think getting better antennas will probably do what we’ll need a repeater itself…even though it is tempting…
(My current walkie talkie can already hit one of our local repeaters 24 mi away just by getting a better antenna, so I will probably upgrade my loaner radios as needed!)
- Comment on Eerily realistic AI voice demo sparks amazement and discomfort online 3 weeks ago:
For reference, this is what Maya reminds me of, Merle Dandridge, VA for Half Life 2’s Alyx Vance.
I’ve skipped to some slower commentary, just so that you can kinda see what a human and AI can sound like with similar pacing while reflecting on a question:
- Comment on Eerily realistic AI voice demo sparks amazement and discomfort online 3 weeks ago:
Wow, Jesus. Maya has the same conversational style that Merle Dandridge has in the Half Life 2 commentary tracks (in commentary mode).
That is, even for AI, eerily good. Honestly, I’m not sure if I could always tell them apart if I was fed a bunch of voice clips blind, and asked which ones were human, and which were AI.
- Comment on What ever happened to QAnon? 3 weeks ago:
It looks unrelated at first glance, but this basically sums up 2010-2023 in a nutshell for the crazies.
- Comment on Pokémon games have become consistently ugly, and it's alright to wish they weren't 3 weeks ago:
I agree, the last genuinely pretty game was Emerald, imo. Diamond and beyond is where 3D assets started weakening the art direction, imo. Either keep the beautiful pixel art, or do proper cel shaded graphics, like windwaker. Personally, I’d stick with pixel art for the strongest possible art direction.
- Comment on Antenna Recommendations 3 weeks ago:
Thank you! I think that makes sense. :)
And for my husband and I, not really. We have 5w handhelds with 5- 15 inch whips. But some friends are on .5w to 2w radios, which definitely aren’t as powerful.
I don’t know if there’s a point at which longer antennas have diminishing returns on UHF (GMRS), But it seems like directionality isn’t too much of a concern, even if people are behind a ridgeline or two.
- Comment on Antenna Recommendations 3 weeks ago:
This might be kinda a stupid question, but does the direction of the antenna affect the output of the wave? (Eg, if the antenna is tilted 45 degrees from vertical, is the radio wave it transmits also 45 degrees from anyone else’s vertical antenna?) Or does the wave stay the same (parallel to the earth, but most of the power is just dumped in an unhelpful direction, so it doesn’t transmit nearly as far?)
I know this is silly, but I don’t actually know the answer, and it makes me curious, since I tend to ski with radios, transmitting while skiing down steep slopes while people are above or below me by hundreds/thousands of feet.
- Comment on Hundreds of your Warner Bros DVDs probably don't work anymore 3 weeks ago:
Etched glass storage can survive for insane periods of time, but is probably extremely expensive to write to. It might be better for things like offworld backups of human knowledge, almost like seed vaults.
- Comment on Do You Need a Measles Booster? With outbreaks spreading in the Southwest, it’s a good time to check your vaccination status. 3 weeks ago:
It’s a good time to get ALL your vaccines. Try to get the mpox vaccine, even if you aren’t queer.
It protects you against smallpox too, as it’s the modern smallpox vaccine. We have smallpox samples and Musk is at the helm, need I say more.
Call the pharmacy ahead of time. They will need to order it. It’s a two shot series and will give you great protection against smallpox.
- Comment on HELP! How do I help educate my son about his body when I know nothing about boys?? 4 weeks ago:
Visit your local library for resources on sexual health and wellness! It’s good for you to know too. Everyone should know about the reproductive system, anatomy, STDs, how to prevent them, and what vaccines and medicines can treat or prevent STDs (For example, PrEP pills can make you nearly immune to HIV).
Fwiw, it is probably good to explain sexuality too. Or at least have books with solid sections that explain it. I always crushed on and dated girls, but then started getting nervous when I started finding boys cute too. It added a great deal of stress to my daily life. My parents thought I was straight, then kinda mangled it when I came out the first time.
There’s no instruction manual for raising kids, but like…you can definitely have the knowledge ready so that you aren’t caught off guard :)
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 5 weeks ago:
No, I don’t think so. Large portions of government like the CDC, USAID, FEMA and the IRS will take 20 years to rebuild, but the dialed in states like the West Coast will probably be largely fine. It’s just such an unnecessary waste of time, resources, and human lives.
Apparently some of us don’t remember our values unless they get their mouth curbstomped every 70 years and remember some serious pain and suffering. Then the majority of people start voting for people that weren’t dropped as babies and we will go back to a democracy again. Fuckin idiots.
In the meantime, enjoy the unencumbered spread of diseases like measles and HIV, preventable economic meltdowns from disassembling shit like the Fed, SEC and IRS and infrastructure stagnation due to gutting tax infrastructure and the firing of educated and experienced public workers that keep out road, bridges and internet working to say nothing of shit like sewers, water, power, rail, aviation, etc.
And just think, all of this rebuilding could have been prevented with one single vote for a normal candidate. We could have had 20 years of relative progress under our belt instead. 😊
- Comment on What do you think of anarchism? 1 month ago:
It seems foolish and young to me. Same as libertarian rules or rule by religious doctrine. None of that shit works. Just shiny little playthings to keep people distracted from real and genuine problems that cause an existential threat to all species living on earth.