ALostInquirer @ ALostInquirer @lemm.ee

I like to ask a variety of questions, sometimes silly, serious, and/or stra

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2 yr. ago

I had to stop handling my phone this way 'cause it felt like that may have been happening, but not quickly enough to mitigate the general discomfort.

That's right on the edge of larger to me looking at the dimensions. It's not super comfortable but not as bad as the Max might be imo. I can say that without having one as I currently have a phone around the same dimensions and it's workable but I'd honestly like it somewhat smaller (both in length/width).

Tbh I feel like the iPod Touch (6th/7th gen I think) is right around the sweet spot in terms of dimensions for me personally, albeit I suspect those probably suck for folks with larger hands.

What is this, competitive smart phone use?

No, but the options are defeatist because they reflect my feelings related to the broad design trends of phones being bigger, and my preference for handling a phone one-handed. For me personally, it's caving in (and frankly just clumsy feeling) to have to use both hands to handle phones (in portrait orientation) that are in a weird size range that's almost too big but not so much so that they're no longer portable.

Also in my opinion while it's absolutely not a personal failure to use an accessory to help handle larger phones, it simply is a design failure. It's like having to put a label on a door to tell people how to open it, that's courtesy of a design failure that made opening the door ambiguous.

Anyway, 6.5" is a large phone to me, so that being a "standard" is why the phrasing is so defeatist. You're stuck in an awkward compromise if you want a device capable and comfortable: get some less powerful but smaller option (e.g. Jelly), or something that even on the smaller end is still relatively large (e.g. Zenfone 8/9).

Social issues are important, but I’m sick of the media and politicians ignoring fiscal/tax policy. Biden throws out a soundbite about taxing the rich and being pro labor every once and a while, but makes zero action that way.

Fwiw that's why I included the parts regarding policies addressing various costs (housing/rent, education, healthcare).

Ideally taxing the rich would lead to actions addressing those, but if we're realistic, the odds are just as likely for those tax revenues to go to subsidizing some other businesses, and the military, with a depressingly low amount allocated towards public domestic concerns like helping provide shelter, education, and healthcare. At least, the odds are likely they'll go that way if not coupled with policies of using the tax revenues towards domestic efforts.

The Democrats need to get people excited for their policies somehow.

Wouldn't a good way to do that be to have compelling policies? Off the top of my head I'd think putting abortion protections/rights into explicit law would be a start. Frankly anything that is currently only legal on the basis of supreme court decisions also seems ripe for putting into legislative policy pushes to make into explicit legal protections, rather than relying on some decision that may be overturned by an arguably compromised court.

In that vein, expanding protections to the LGBT+ community would be another good piece to their policies. Also, on a larger note, more explicit and enthusiastic support of active unionization efforts that have been happening across different business sectors.

However, even beyond these, some that would apply more broadly might be policies to address housing and rent costs, as these affect basically everyone and anyone. Policies seeking to address housing/rent, education, and healthcare costs would altogether, I think, speak to a wider swath of the public than strictly focusing on the aforementioned concerns, but would also include them, e.g. combating redlining, undermining of public education, denial of medical services to pregnant women & trans people, etc.

I'll admit, maybe they have been pushing for some different parts of these (I'm aware of the Biden administration sort of trying to address college debt and getting screwed by the courts), but by and large I don't think I've seen a clear set of policies by the Democratic party of the United States to be excited for. Far more of it has appeared rather watered down and more along the lines of, "Well, we're not the Republicans at least!" instead of enthusiastically standing for something more constructive.

I'm confused, doesn't what you're saying apply just as much, if not more, to Democrats that some of the progressives reluctantly do end up supporting and voting for despite knowing from their explicit policies and if a career politician, voting record, that they'll barely represent them? What do those longstanding Democrats expect when they continue to betray, or clumsily compromise away, those positions or policies that more progressive demographics voted them in to office hoping they might defend, or at a minimum compromise on in a way that is in fact progressive and beneficial to folks?

On that last point, you may argue they do that, but I'd argue that those cases are rare, and instead they more often compromise in such a way as to either hand more over to their opposition, or make moves that are more of a temporary provision that may be cast aside with the next majority and/or administration.

Bookwalker is a wicked literal translation, but the perhaps more correct form also sounds pretty interesting, so thanks!

I see a book about a kangaroo, I feel obligated to like, thanks!

Ah, I think I'd heard of (and may have one of the works of) the first author you mention, and the second sounds kinda familiar. Last few I don't think I knew of, so appreciate the range of suggestions!

Thanks for the suggestions! I don't know Czech, but these give me some good goals to aim for should I try to learn it!

The best thing to do is build the communities here that you are interested in. Do what you can to make them lively and active.

The question as ever remains, though, how does one go about this without coming across poorly? That's always the tricky part of trying to form new groups and communities, because it's not quite marketing but it's in a similar vein to get things going, and it more often than not reads as at best mildly uninteresting or at worst offputting and annoying.

I didn't know what to expect from this going in & checked it out on my phone, and it's honestly a lot of fun and surprisingly performant even on mobile! Except the gallery for some reason, but that may be related to the lighting used or just my phone being older (or both), lol

Regardless, it reminds me of what I'd kinda wished future websites might be like in terms of little impractical 3D spaces that are just fun to poke around.

I’m missing some hardware so its just guts-out until I find that ziplock bag full of screws (i remember seeing it a couple years ago).

Skimming this I read you as saying the whole machine was in a bag and now I'm like, "Yeah, what if one built a PC in bag-like shape?"

because the system is designed to check against this!

Is it? Or is it only sustained by, let's call it, a minimal voter turnout? That is, the system works as expected by those in play so long as voter turnout remains within historical trends which appear to sit under half of all eligible voters during non-presidential election years.

If, however, people were moved to vote more between presidential elections, might that system not potentially begin to falter? Maybe it's naive, but if one really believes they've rigged the system in their favor, don't you think part of that rigging is built around downplaying the votes outside of those for president?

At best I've only cleaned them (fruit & veggies) off then refrigerated them (either open air or sometimes in bags), which probably explains a lot. I'd heard/read of freezing before but somehow missed the blanching part of the advice.

Huh, so if something seemed a little under-ripe, you might be able to use bananas to help ripen them up? If so, that could be a useful trick!

Do you run it as a mostly isolated/self-contained instance, i.e. not federated/connected to others? I've read here & there that for some it seems to bog down as they try to operate it as a federated instance.

The limitations are severe however and I would never suggest to anyone to use IRC as a text chat server.

I'm a little confused, if all you wanted from it was text chat, isn't that pretty much exactly what it is as a result of its limitations? Regardless, for the majority of folks I think you're probably right that it may not be advisable given its limits.

Thanks!

I've kinda tried D&D in the past and it's not really to my tastes tbh. I'd be down for other tabletop games, but I need to look around some more to find groups playing what I might like.