agegamon

@agegamon@beehaw.org
0 Post – 106 Comments
Joined 1 years ago

What's really happening here is that advertisers can use the Reddit Ads Manager to create normal user posts and then pay to make them appear prominently on the site and in the app as promoted posts, aka adverts.

Look it's not exactly revolutionary or new, google search has been littered with promoted ad results for years. But I still hate it. Fuck off, reddit. No respect intended. Icky. So glad I stopped using it.

Personally I am increasingly uncomfortable feeling the "need" to apologize to regressive people about feeling hurt or insulted. They are entirely responsible for their actions.

They are also not sorry that they are pushing the majority of people (women, LGBTQ+, basically anything non-cis-white-men) into a second class or even subhuman status.

I realize that most people are only open to changing themselves when their feelings are not threatened and when they're feeling understood. But what we're talking about here, I don't know the right word, but "accidental" or "unintentional" are not part of it. If regressive leaders like trump or desantis or whoever get elected then we're talking about borderline genocide done on purpose. I don't see how we can come back to acknowledging the feelings of bigots at that point.

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Since someone already mentioned dashcams and cast iron, my vote is: a bidet toilet seat attachment.

Fancy ones can roll $200+ but a super simple one with just a cold water hookup and no electricity will knock you back $50-60. I bought one right as covid was beginning to hit the west coast, and instantly realized I could never - ever - go back.

Huge bonus of the toilet seat style bidets is that, since you aren't actually replacing the toilet, they take like 5 mins to install and can be done in a home, condo, apartment, wherever.

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Literally only the best strategies here! I mean lets recap:

  • Threaten to buy company then double down and agree in writing as a bullying tactic: check

  • Roll a nat 1 on your intimidation check: check

  • Be forced to follow through when called out on being mentally an 8 yo by the feds: check

  • Fire critical employees, like basically all of them: check

  • Yoink verification away from public news orgs: check

  • Let anyone pay to be "legit," even if they're parodying you: check

  • Rename twitter to the stupidest thing imagined since head-on (apply directly to the forehead): check

  • Gut content moderation policies but also stop enforcing regardless: check

  • Post own hate content and racism to the platform: check

  • "Accidentally" run ads next to hate content: check

  • Be told your sign sucks and to take it down by city: check (lol)

  • Become a living embodiment of "big yikes" energy while telling aforementioned advertisers to "go fuck yourselves" on live TV: check

  • Hallucinate about making x into a libertarian wechat alternative: check

  • Tank the value of the company while blaming literally anyone else for your failures: mission in progress, #1 priority

10/10 solid buy, gonna grab some long calls rn. The koch boys and rupert murderjock must be holding back a tsunami of jealousy by now 🤣

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Personally I can say the only reason I don't ride my e-bike more for daily use is due to the rampancy of bike theives and vandals. Shit is genuinely getting hard to deal with and I don't have time or money to put up with it.

If I could guarantee with just a high end u-lock or bike chain, something not too unreasonable, if that allowed me to park my bike at a busy grocery store and be able to ride home 15 minutes later, I'd use it that way. I genuinely love my e-bike and find it fun to ride, even with the annoyance of locks and security.

But after having wheel(s) stolen, a shifter broken, lines cut and even a lock fucked up, and after having transients and crackheads harass me for parking and locking up, I've just given up. Our police are still choosing not to do anything about this kind of crime, and I can't get insurance against theft like I can with my car.

Plus, my EV has security and cameras, and critically is big enough that even a jacked up thief can't walk off with it. Worst they can do is break windows or smash mirrors. I'll waste the extra time and energy driving to the store if it means I won't lose thousands of dollars to theft with absolutely zero chance of recompense.

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Putin might as well just say the quiet part out loud at this point. Classic sociopath dictator, gotta pretend blood isn't on his hands.

Rest in peace Navalny. You and your people deserve better than this.

I mean it's nuanced yeah?

Am I gonna talk to a journalist about a sensitive thing like DIY that could trigger brainwashed regressive people? Fuck no.

Am I gonna blast on all channels that we are in a climate crisis and inequality crisis and housing crisis and? Yes, yes I think I will.

And that's my decision for me. Some people are understandably never comfortable talking. Let alone to journalists lol!

Crushed recycled glass (aka cullet) actually decreases the amount of energy required to create new glass products, as well as demonstrably lowering their CO2 impact. While it's easy to assume that there's a lot of waste because there's a lot of heat involved, keep in mind that virgin material requires far more processing and even more heat and energy to result in a final product.

Unlike plastics, the problems with achieving a profitable (remember, capitalism) glass recycling stream are much more cultural and intrinsic to the subject nation. Here's some further info on why the US, where I live, is dragging so far behind in this area: https://cen.acs.org/materials/inorganic-chemistry/glass-recycling-US-broken/97/i6

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There are two groups of people who support capitalism as it exists today:

  1. The truly rich, the 1%, who exclusively got that way by exploiting the 99% as much as physically possible, and

  2. The portion of the 99% who've been brainwashed through various methods into thinking that they can become rich -or- that the rich will "watch out for them" or some equivalent fairytale

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100%. Honestly after growing up borderline right-wing, self-reflection was one of my main tools for personal and political deconstruction. That and good parents. Anyway, very little stood the test of "why am I doing this, and is it what I really want" when I stopped and looked more than 3 feet in front of my own dumb face. That and realizing I'm hopelessly queer lol.

Of course, self-reflection opens the door to a whole lot more than just politics. I get the sense that, if they started self-reflecting without guidance, the first thing they'd be scrambling for answers about would be why they believe in whatever random religion they were born into. There's a whole lot of fervent people that are one solid reflection away from crying over a toilet on a Monday at 3AM because they'd accidentally deconstructed their faith and can't ctrl-z the issue (not a joke, just an observation/personal experience).

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Holy shit, I didn't draw up the situation of travelling while married as a problem but you're absolutely right. It's already getting extremely tricky to figure out what places are OK or no-go for trans and NB people, this is just going to make things so much more fucking worse.

Atlanta for example is a massive air travel hub. What if Georgia doesn't uphold same-sex marriage? What about international travellers who are married abroad?

JFC. These idiots.

They want them because they're being lazy/cheap. No, seriously. They're called widowmaker cords for a reason, but inevitably some muppet with two plugs and some wire will come up with the brilliant idea that one of these will work for.

One really sneaky and dangerous place these get made are generator backfeed cheater cables for houses. You see them in RVs, Xmas lights etc too, but generator backfeeds are super dangerous because they're also juggling two potential power sources. A backfeed is where a house/building is disconnected from the grid just by flipping off the main panel breaker, then it's "backfed" by a generator going into another breaker in the panel. Usually, without any type of safety interlock to keep the mains voltage off when the generator is on, or vice versa.

Afaik, this is illegal per housing code almost everywhere that I've seen, but still every now and then some yahoo thinks "wait, if I make a two-ended cable and put a receptacle on the house, I can remove the generator easily without any of the expensive safety crap!" And then grabs a live male plug when they fuck up and didn't shut off the generator or mains voltage...

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Honestly I'm shocked at the number of people that stayed on twitter. Like... just why? It's zero effort to leave and minimal effort to find another platform.

I realize many people choose not to care who owns the companies that make their stuff. And to be fair, sometimes it's actually worse to throw away the product than keep using it despite the associated image. I still daily drive my Tesla model 3 that I bought in 2019. Throwing away a car creates a shitload of waste, versus just continuing to drive it. I'd never buy another tesla, which solves that issue.

But unlike throwing out a car or even throwing out something with actual value like youtube, ditching Twitter as far as I see has no downside.

Yes, exactly. The short term solution requires that people recognize the greater evil in the room and defend what little progress we've made. We can't let perfect be the enemy of good. Our first part the post voting system is horrible, but until we can build up enough progressive movement to update it to a better system, priority 1 is exactly what you said.

Choosing not to vote for Democrats because they're not perfect is choosing to step back and give republicans a free ticket to burn all of our progress to the ground. It's naïve to think otherwise.

And honestly, that naïveté is holding us back from actually addressing issues like us aid to israel. Enoguh splintering among progressives will by default give control back to republican leaders who would happily sit back and watch palestinians die while lying about it and blaming it on anything anyone else other than themselves.

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Honestly the range isn't even an issue. Yes they did something wrong, but IMO in terms of misleading customers it's not at the top of the list long list. They have all this horseshit about "full self driving" that they stick all over their website with pretty animations and graphics.

Then you actually read into it and the fine text says "oh by the way, it's technically just a slightly suicidal/homicidal level 2 ADAS that nobody has signed off on, and that Tesla can yank it out from under you at any time, and thst WILL be conveniently forgotten about and valued at $0 if you decide to trade in your car with tesla, but it's cool brosky just do it for the likes"

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Oh sure, he's an absolutist: Free speech for him and people he likes? Absolutely. Free speech for people he doesn't like? Absolutely not.

Just a sidenote, I absolutely love the website's warning for adding this to your cart.

*Note: By adding this product to your cart you confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, information and belief this material will not make it's way into the hands of Anish Kapoor.

Hell yeah lol

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I have to play devil's advocate here. Are you really fine with the current level of ads? Fine with some past/historical level less than now? What level is ok exactly?

To me the current level of youtube ads is unhinged. Even minus the privacy issues it's not usable. And it got that way (to me, at least) as soon as skip wait timers (remember when that was all we had to deal with?) became a thing.

Now? With unskippable ads, huge wait timers, and ads injected into the middle of 8-minute videos? Nope nope nooope. Not a chance in hell would I watch unblocked or non-premium youtube.

I just feel like musk wants a western version of wechat for a hybrid user base of hardcore republicans and hardcore libertarians. That seems like such a fundamental oxymoron... but here we are.

And in fact, I hate to say it, but given how good those groups of people are at bending reality and making themselves conform to a warped capitalist standard, it might just work out for a while. But more than likely it'll probably also go the way of "trump bucks" or whatever those psycho-loyalist cryptocoins were called. Basically it'll end up a big old miserable fraud.

The again if it's Elon's coin on the table I'm not so sure I care. He's just ruining spacex, tesla, et. al. Let him bleed money.

What's genuinely sad is that the people who can't bail from twitter quickly will be spitroasted by musk in the process.

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Unlike sane people, regressive leaders do not need or care about reality in order to get people removed from the ballot. It absolutely does not matter that progressives have not invited insurrections. They'll be removed anyway if that precedent is set simply because they are an alternative option, and the voting population is sufficiently decieved or deluded to support it.

Yeah, exactly. In terms of online followers it's just not that big a change. Even in this article they say she has just over 100 mil followers right now.

I'm sure that a few bots and angry basement goblins unfollowed her, but it's much more likely a little whoopdedoo in the datastream.

Fun trivia in case you didn't know: that's a domino's advertisement printed on their pizza box in which the box claims to "dream of being another box." It's actually horrible for the recycling stream. Essentially every legitimate recycler explicitly states that grease- and cheese-contaminated cardboard is not allowed to be recycled because it degrades the quality of the recycled product and causes messes at recycling facilities.

So basically, this dream is a manufactured corporate lie and belongs exactly where we see it.

(Well alright fine, if you need good news, the good news is that in some areas while they still don't belong in recycling bins, pizza boxes can go in your green bin compost. Although this is heavily dependent on where you live and what type of compost stream is used there. Don't assume it's ok to recycle or compost without checking, and never trust the packaging labels!)

Spot on. Just like a lot of other things (taxes being the notable one that I can remember) an unreasonable amount of US people hate it when government does anything useful with their tax money.

Want an ID? Fucking do it yourself, but oh btwz here's this shitty paper that you can never share or lose or you're fucked.

Want to know how much tax you should pay taxes? Figure it the fuck out yourself (but then we'll still do it for you and ruin you if you fuck up)

Want to avoid going to jail? Be fucking telepathic and know how to do it yourself.

It's a pretty insane thing to tolerate and yet here we are.

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Oh no. Anyway...

Seriously though, if it doesn't come out on PC it probably means I won't be missing anything for the first couple years it exists. I can't recall an exclusive that I felt I needed right away.

Especially the old-school ones. Halo is just so much better on PC, especially now that I can torture my friends with brutal legendary difficulty mods for halo 3... Good times.

The US Navy hates this one simple trick!

Free Geek here in Portland OR used to do this. Might still be doing it too, but I haven't been back there since 2018 so I'm not 100% sure.

But yeah, the last I was there, you could walk in and just buy a refurbished laptop or desktop with Linux on it. They would even give guidance on what people needed if they weren't tech-savvy.

I'm sorry, I hate Elon and Tesla (and with good reason) but saying that an EV is rolling e-waste is going too far.

My model 3 has been bulletproof for the last five years. It's a 2017 model, one of the earliest, so take that for what you will. The earliest models like mine were apparently some of the better ones until 2021+ model years. I wouldn't consider buying one now due to Elon's tomfuckery and the unresolved racism issues within Tesla, but to claim that they're rolling trash isnt correct.

Plus, the fact is that virtually all cars (ICE models as well!) are rolling out of factories with dozens of integrated computers and touchscreens. It's very hard here in the US to get something cheap that doesn't have any electronics - basically imposible. And, if you do the compromise on cheaper and fewer electronics, the reality is that the poor grade of those cheap electronics will actually lead to a shorter lifespan and more overall repairs.

I'm not suggesting for that reason to go buy an EV - certainly not a new Tesla. A used one might be fine. But more broadly, electronics in cars (not just EVs) are really a huge problem. Unless they're designed with repairability and durability in mind, all new cars have this issue, and you can't single out Tesla for this.

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This is so insanely corrupt. Really, Louisiana should be penalized by the feds for even allowing a sham court like this to exist, let alone go as far off the rails as fenton has. And the mayor - and anyone associated with them - really ought to be behind bars serving mandatory minimums.

I agree that pi-hole is an option here, but yeah, the reality is that most daily users don't even know what it is. At least, not yet.

Adblock Plus and it's betters became ubiquitous in large part because they were so incredibly easy to install. As easy as gramma accidentally installing yet another yahoo toolbar on accident. Like, too easy.

Pi-Hole isn't hard to install, and there are some fantastic guides to help users get it running with essentially zero prior knowledge. But in my opinion, I think until it gets closer to "push-button" easiness, pi-hole and systems like it will really be limited to the <5% of users motivated enough to go through the steps, who aren't mortified of logging into their router's admin page. I want us to get there faster, and we're a hell of a lot closer than 10 or even 5 years ago. But we're not quite there yet.

Edit-typo

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It's unbelievably disappointing to see such an efficient and potentially clean source of transit absolutely ruined. Ruthless capitalism for the win - but only if you're warren buffet or a dead guy named vanderbilt.

Oh also, let me drop this here: last week tonight on presicion scheduled railroading https://youtu.be/AJ2keSJzYyY?si=gJXfGCO5ubAFjgny

Very similar theme to the above article, also I forgot how absolutely fucked original Thomas the tank engine could be lol

Costco in my area (Portland) occasionally has these, and I always grab 3-4 bags when they're available. They're as near as makes no difference to a "real" chicken nugget to me, and that's saying a-fucking-lot from a meat lover! These get 10/10 for me, onward goes vegan supersession!

I appreciate 90% of your comment. *I thought it was a wall of text at first but a fantastic example of science being misapplied, and I appreciate it. Thank you for following through.

Part of what science purists need to understand is that current science can be - and sometimes is - completely incorrect.

I will also point out, however, that one anecdote does not discredit my original argument. Yes perception is important but the human condition is inherently flawed. Your perception is not perfect, no matter if it ultimately is "right" or "wrong." We must be critical and question results. I am glad in this case that losing weight is possible without a calorie deficit (and in fact am doing it myself through the same method you mentioned!). But that doesn't mean our perception is somehow better than the scientific method. It means - as you rightly pointed out - that science was not being practiced by those doctors, et al, who said it was "impossible."

You misunderstood my point about perception and the feather/bowling ball, though I see what you mean and am not upset about that. Yes, basically all people will tell you that the feather falls slower. However, does that mean that gravity affects the feather less? If a person didn't already have modern science/knowledge to tell them how gravity and air resistance, fluid mechanics, yadda yadda work, a person might come to the wrong conclusion - as many did before - which is that gravity affects heavy things more. It's completely nonsense, as you and I know. But we know that because of that objective, thoroughly reviewed science.

The jibe about science as my "god" is personally insulting but understandable for you to make, especially since I have zero patience with trolls and will immediately discredit and block them. I will not argue with you if you want to discredit me in a similar way, I simply want people to not be idiots and want them to use science rather than regurgitating the same horseshit that they "feel" is right.

Republicans say the repeal will lead to Michigan becoming less attractive to businesses and will lead to forced union membership. House Republican leader Matt Hall said in statement following Whitmer’s signing that “businesses will find more competitive states for their manufacturing plants and research and development facilities.”

Translation: Regressives want businesses to be able to abuse employees, and they're afraid that not being able to abuse employees quite as easily will put up some reasonable guardrails on maximizing profits.

The title is pure clickbait lol. It's like "who could these mysterious people be???" meanwhile hey it's just some good old regular folks.

In all seriousness I am glad more people are doing their best to be reasonable and put science first. It's heartwarming to see.

If it a) successfully fools people into thinking their products are good, b) further fools them into thinking they're worth the batshit insane pricetag, and c) isn't illegal enough to be unprofitable, then they'll keep doing it.

So yeah, I'd wager they keep the blue/green boxes. Bet they'll also change non-rcs+non-imessage to another color to further divide things up as well.

My acquaintances (or friends)...

At some point you'll need to ditch those "friends." Real friends do not behave like that. Real friends will genuinely listen to you. That is part of the definition of being a true friend, not my expressed opinion.

Not sure where you're currently living as you didn't say, but where I am (US) the conservative chunk of the nation is generally hostile toward any type of minority and will happily spread lies about them. Some "progressives" will as well, honestly some are progressive in name only and are just as bad. As an LGBTQ person I've had to cut people out of my life because they chose that cult of intolerance over being able to be a fucking human and listen to people's problems.

Difference is I have the luxury of being able to hide that status at work by not being visibly out. I know things would be much harder if I wasn't able to mask my status. So, I know it doesn't fix anything, but I'm really sorry that people treat you that way.

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"Too broke to play PC" is a vanishing argument IMO. People have been saying that forever, to be fair, but given how bad Xbox and Playstation have gotten I don't anyone who's actually into gaming purchasing a new one today. Maybe used, that might make sense if it was really cheap.

A budget gaming PC can check out at slightly over 600 now. PcPartPicker has two recommended builds priced right at 600, though honestly there might be even cheaper ways to arrive at that level of perfromance. Compared to 300-400 for the less garbage Xbox, and there's not much argument to lock someone into the xbox's ecosystem vs something you can upgrade for much less.

Now I think it's a different matter if it's a hand-me-down or given for free. There's no reason not to do that.

I gave my last console away and got a friend of mine into gaming, then helped them build a decent PC when they actually wanted something new.

It's desperately needed, and in some senses it doesn't go far enough.

Regressives held our state government hostage via superminority rule and actively forced us to compromise on their inhuman policies to make any progress for three straight years. Without this, only a rewrite to our state constitution's quorum rule would prevent eternal hell regressives holding our state hostage via minority rule.

Now, we can at least revoke these turds after they fuck us over. But in the grand scheme of things, I worry that what this law doesn't do is prevent this new cycle from repeating. It doesn't take many of them ruling over a few tiny, horribly misinformed districts to screw us all over. In other words, it only takes a tiny number of regressive candidates each year to accomplish that goal.

At the risk of being condescending... don't worry too much about it for now. I assume the reason you can't switch is because your parents or someone else is paying for it and won't allow your input. If that's the case, when you get to the point of being able to pay for it yourself, you get to choose exactly what you want.

Becoming self-sufficient is pretty wild, come to think of it. Also mildly traumatizing and occasionally terrifying, but mostly great. Need a new phone? You get whatever you want, if you can. Same with housing, transit, etc. If shit wasn't so unbelievably expensive it'd be even better...

Yeah, implementing policies like this has to be done really damn carefully to prevent unintended consequences from dragging the whole thing down. It's also not a push-button solution to a problem; it requires persistent, long-term commitment and gradually change to get right. Tricky, especially when, at least here in the US, regressive politicians regularly get elected and scuttle policies that would eventually work if left alone.

Anyway, yeah, just focusing on a land-value tax alone won't solve the problem of equitable housing. It'll have to be worked in carefully with safeguards to prevent the 1% from abusing it, that prevent public green spaces from disappearing into the concrete jungle, that ensures we have space to build and improve public transit, infrastructure , etc.

For example, single family home zoning on large (7000+ sq ft) lots isn't appropriate major cities. It's reasonable to expect people to compromise away from that type of housing into smaller lots and mixed-use zoning, so that SFH's can exist in small spaces but be surrounded by businesses and apartments. But, if a small single family home or an apartment wants to work in a small garden or share a public garden, I think those types of things should be protected and, at least if they're public access, exempted from land use tax to a certain point.

We of course have to be careful not to allow loopholes that enable people to exploit that and keep inappropriate amounts of land to themselves without paying dearly for it. But we also need provisions for that kind of land use to exist without it being so expensive that only the wealthy have it, or that horrific things like HOAs are the only ones able to afford them.

It's a mess. I'm glad though that they're trying it out. Just putting the idea off because it's hard will keep things worse forever.