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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)AD
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700
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2 yr. ago

  • Ideally, as easy to interface with as possible for non-tech literate users. My mother-in-law once told my wife "I don't know why you would ever want to strengthen your mind." in response to confronting my wife on why she was reading a book outside as a child instead of playing physically. This is a mantra she has continued well into her 50's and is still going "strong". I need something she can access and download pictures from to print off and hang on her wall like she does from FB now. This is essentially the low bar. Everyone else should be more competent than that.

  • I will happily look at the alternatives. We avoid Apple like it carries the plague, mostly on my objections to their licensing policies alone. Also, I love that you linked to something about The Fappening, have a 💯 and my heartiest appreciation for you as a scholar and a gentleman.

  • This could be a good option. I will have to look into it. I know some of our family is not the most savvy (lucky to be able to use FB) so I may have to look into building a front end on top of it for them, but this is a solid start.

  • Yes, that is why the whole argument is a fallacy. I am all for eating the rich and taking down the corporations, but this one is off base. The "in the raw" generally means it is A. Made from sugarcane not sugar beats, and B. Unbleached.

  • Modern inflation is roughly a myth used in fear mongering propaganda and by apologists to excuse abusive behaviors. I'm not saying that there is no inflation, it exists and functions as an economic principal, but what is called inflation is decoupled entirely from the academic definition. Under academic inflation, a business who did not change prices should see a reduction in overall value, and price increases should even out to a neutral state where the value remains constant. If you ever hear "inflation" being used to excuse a price increase or a shrinkflation behavior and the company starts boasting about how much profit they are makeing or they start executing stock buybacks or give larger bonuses to executives, they are lying. Inflation had nothing to do with it. Also, if inflation is really the cause, when deflation occurs, prices should reduce to maintain the valuation, but again, it rarely if ever does.

  • Everything you said specifically excludes Valve and Steam from being a monopoly. The definition of monopoly includes the anticompetitive behaviors. They don't give a fuck about competition. They don't buy up everyone who could be a threat. They don't push for exclusivity contracts on big upcoming games. They exist and work to continue to do so. That is how business is supposed to be.

  • I'm to the point that certain industries should be prohibited from doing ANY 3rd party marketing. Finance and health at a bare minimum. I have financial information protection rights and medical information protection rights. Literally 0 information should be shared by my bank. Just as much should be shared by my insurer or medical providers. Just... No. Not my app usage habits, not my "anonomized" habit data, nothing.

  • Fun exercise... Look at the opening weekend box office numbers and figure out what 90% of it is. That is what the distributor made from the movie for THAT WEEKEND. They will continue to make 90% for at least a week. After that it will drop some. Eventually the theater will actually get the lion's share of the box office, something like 6-8 weeks after the movie comes out. Do your local theaters a favor, don't go see movies opening weekend, call the box office each week to find out what movies will be leaving that week and go see it then. Or, if you absolutely feel the need to go see it opening weekend, budget for the largest popcorn and drink you can afford. They are the highest profit margin items on the menu. The tickets may cost 30-45 bucks for a date night, but the theater only sees $3-$4.5 of that at the top end, even less for more anticipated movies. That is why concessions are so expensive, it is literally the only way they can stay afloat and Disney has even tried demanding 50% of opening weekend concessions for some movies.

    This is why so many cinemas are failing, both chains and locals. Spread the word, share this info, save our silver screens and send a message to the big media companies that they are being too greedy.

  • Honestly, I am always wondering why there is a negotiation at all. If Wal-Mart can get the away with telling the likes of Sony, Nestle, and Kraft how much THEY will be paying for the stock for their shelves, the fucking government can do it with abandon. Fuck these asshats. Like, who are they going to complain to besides their hand puppets in Congress and on the supreme court? The government should not be required to participate in the free market, especially if so many fuckwidgets want to tell them that they are not allowed to regulate it.

  • This is a good way of describing it for non-US or non-native speakers. The context is important. If you are speaking in an environment where linguistic sterility or pedantic exactitude are paramount, use female because that is the correct term. Things like studies; medical, statistical, anthropological, etc. If you are in a social situation, use a non-sterile term like woman for an adult, girl for a child, or some other non-pejorative colloquial term. If "chick" or "dame" or "babe" are acceptable to the girls/women of the social circle, go wild with them, if not, don't. This is viable advice for any pronoun or colloquial reference, no matter the gender/sex of the people around. Their emotions matter.

    Also, if you are speaking with physists about physics, object pronouns become appropriate because no matter how offended people get, they have a volume and warp spacetime, so therefore they ARE objects. 🙃

  • I love dreaming up patent law reforms. I think my favorite so far is related to the purchase of patents.

    When a corporation purchases a patent, they are put on a 5 year clock to bring a product to market which materially includes the content of the purchased patent. After 4 years they are able to appeal for an extension by showing demonstrable towards market, but only twice (so they have 15 years total). If they do not bring a product to market, or are not able to satisfy the extension criteria, the patent reverts to the original creator without refund.

    No... More... Burying... Innovation... That... Threatens... Your... Profits.

  • My opinion is to make the filibuster a "break in case of emergency" that has actual tangible consequences. Conceptually it becomes something that any senator is allowed to do, but anyone who participates is removed from office regardless of the result of the vote and are barred from holding any office. For me, they are taking extreme action based on some equally extreme personal moral objection. That is valid and should be allowed, but actions have consequences and the consequence of imposing your personal morals on the governance of the people is that you no longer get to participate in that governance. You have to feel so strongly in your convictions that you are willing to sacrifice your entire political career to take the action.

  • What you described is an "expert advisory" not a "lobby".

    Lobby (n): a group of people seeking to influence politicians or public officials on a particular issue.

    Expert (n): An expert is a person who is very skilled at doing something or who knows a lot about a particular subject.

    Advisor (n): An adviser is an expert whose job is to give advice to another person or to a group of people.

    A lobby has no prerequisite of knowing a damn thing about the topic they are trying to influence on, hence why we have lobbies related to women's health that think women can hold their period.

    Abolish lobbies and place stringent criteria on advisory groups requiring that they reasonably demonstrate competence in their advisory field, are only allowed to advise on specific narrow topics, have to be recertified every N years, all advisory actions on subjects not related to national security are public record to be made available and on an indexable public access database (including what the subject was, what the advice was given, who requested the advice, who gave it, and a list of all officials/staffers who received it), and are not allowed to engage in financial transactions with sitting or recently retired Congressional officials or staffers. In this case, I would say "recently" would be on the order of 10 years.

  • Honestly I included both because I wanted to include people who elect not to have children. Currently, the child credits are in place to strong arm people into having children, and there is no upper bound on the number of children it covers. This can really be a financial impediment for people who either have chosen not to have children or have not been able to. Conversely, families who elect to have an arbitrarily large number of children end up placing a disproportionately larger burden on social infrastructure. They elevate the load on schools more than other families, they consume more food than other families, etc. By tuning the how the parameter is calculated you can provide some refund for having no children, increase it to a point for small numbers, then level off or even reverse it as the number increases. Thus this provides some economic benefit for people making the very ecologically and financially rational decision not to have children, still helps ease the financial burden for people who have small numbers of children, and holds people who incur a higher social burden by their decision have many children. I am specifically leaving out numbers on these as the moral and ethical decisions of what constitutes 'few' and 'many' for this discussion are something that can and should be actively debated to determine the social validity. Also, it could be done in a way which would allow the tuning to be adjusted based on social needs for population growth.