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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/)NU
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Joined
2 yr. ago

  • Like others, the final thing that prompted me to leave the corporate r-word site was the decision to start charging for the api that forced most of the 3rd party apps out of operation.

    The inconsistent, impersonal, and at times improper censoring was already pushing me away before the api change, though. I don't mind safe spaces and civility being a precondition to participation, but if you're going to ban people for being uncivil or using a subset of derogatory terms, then be consistent about it.

    One of the many tiresome things that happened to me is that I got a warning about being banned site-wide for using one of the banned words in a completely innocuous and generally contextually acceptable way. My comment was something like "you can use baking soda to [redacted verb which in this context is commonly used to mean slow or delay] the growth of mold." in a post about that topic.

    The warning I received was basically, "you're on our list now, and further infractions will result in a site-wide ban" and of course my otherwise helpful and relevant comment was deleted. Also, there was no way to respond or ask for clarification that I could find, as this was an admin warning, not something from a moderator of a sub. Anyway, a warning like that was obviously obtuse and stupid, but whatever.

    What made it irksome is that after that incident, any time I noticed a post, title, or comment using that same word (or some variation of it like td, f*ck td, sh*t t**d, etc) in a derogatory manner, I would report it. And invariably, the comment would not get removed and I'd get the response back "we investigated but did not find it to be in violation of our policies."

    Granted, I also took issue with the fact that the banned terms list was woefully inadequate at addressing the dozens of disparaging terms that were frequently used to target the LGBT+ community and which for some reason where considered completely acceptable by the corporate r-word site.

    And no, I don't think Lemmy is any better on the consistency / censorship front, and in fact is inherently worse in some ways as a result of the general decentralized architecture.

  • That's awesome and very kind of you to offer. Not to be ungrateful, but I'm sure someone else would appreciate it far more than me. I don't have a Playstation anymore and I don't even have a CD/DVD drive on any device that would be able to run an emulator. Merry Christmas and thanks for being so thoughful!

  • On the Internet, everything is fundamentally both obscure yet ubiquitous, or so it seems. But in real life, there are at least 2 things that seem to be obscure to the point that people don't believe me when I mention it:

    1. A Super Nintendo game released in the US as Super Ninja Boy. It was a follow-up to (or maybe remake of) Little Ninja Brothers on the NES. I've even been told that I was confused and that I'm probably thinking of Legend of the Mystical Ninja.
    2. On the original Playstation, there used to be a series of demo discs that would have "hidden" features on them if you pressed the right button(s). One of those demo discs had the entire music video for Usher's song "Pony" and other than randos on the internet and my friends/family who saw it with me, I've never met anybody that remembers it. If anybody here does remember that demo disc, I think there was another hidden music video on there, I vaguely remember a band, with various shots of the drummer wearing black athletic-type shorts with a white band around the leg but beyond that I really do not recall.
  • Where I live in the USA, that's not a particularly unusual day time high for this time of year. I always like when it's not bitterly cold at Christmas and New Years, and some of my favorite childhood Christmases/holidays were spent in shorts and t-shirts. I don't think I've ever experienced snow on Christmas, perhaps a flurry at best around New Year's Eve is the most I can recall off the top of my head.

    Granted, I live some place where that's been the norm for the past such and such number of decades since the age of the brontosaurus which is what they were called back then.

  • Disclaimer: Let me be clear, I'm definitely NOT defending the color blind glasses, and especially not the ridiculously expensive and over-priced, scam brand(s). Also, not going to watch videos on YouTube so my comment doesn't take any context from those links. All that being said ...

    Sometimes people don't realize that color blindness is a spectrum and that there are different types. For example, a lot of people like me might more accurately be described as color vision deficient. To me, I can clearly and easily differentiate between red and green in most practical circumstances, particularly in close range. Things can get dicey from a distance, as well as with very subtle tints or with very dark colors.

    A number of years ago, I purchased a cheap (like less than $20USD) pair of fishing sunglasses (mirrored, polarized sunglasses that typically use bright red, orange, or green tinting of the lenses) right before taking a trip in the fall. When I put those sunglasses on, it was really surprising. All of a sudden I could differentiate between the trees that were dead or which had already dropped their leaves, versus those that were actually bright red. Normally, unless I'm looking at a specific tree from a close distance, the browns, reds, and grays all sort of look the same and blend in. From a distance, like from the top of a mountain looking down into a valley, the fall color change of the leaves is a bit underwhelming normally. With the glasses on, I could actually see individual trees or clusters of trees that were red.

    To be clear, the cheap sunglasses didn't restore my color vision. I assume it just shifts the spectrum a bit so that colors, which are normally very muted for me, actually stand out in the same way that bright yellows and blues do. And I know that the colors I'm seeing are tinted, so not 100% accurate to what a person with full color vision would see.

    And when I've tested the fishing glasses with Ishihara tests (numbers in the colored dots), they do not improve my ability to make those out. So, that's further evidence that they aren't actually restoring my color vision. Granted, the fishing sunglasses never marketed themselves that way, where as the expensive scam color vision correcting glasses heavy imply that they are miraculous even if they don't outright state that they restore color vision.

  • They're called lizards. Didn't you read my comment?

    But all kidding aside, yes, there are scorpions in Kentucky. They aren't large or aggressive and from what I was told their stings don't really hurt very much. Mostly I would see them hiding under rocks and in crevices during the day.

  • I don't know how common it is, but in some very rural parts of Kentucky and Tennessee in the USA, people frequently referred to scorpions as lizards. Also, regular lizards were called lizards. And newts were called lizards.

    It was very confusing to me when I was a young kid. Still is confusing to me if I'm being honest.

  • If any US-based folks know the secrets for finding a good medical provider that can be trusted, I'd be interested in hearing them.

    I moved to a new area quite some time ago, and to this day, most of the local / semi-local practices are not accepting new patients from the general public. I ended up finding a clinic that would accept me, though it's the type of place where nurses handle all the patient care instead of doctors. That's not necessarily wrong or bad, but my experience and opinion of it is mixed.

    That aside, I don't have a lot of trust in the primary care system for several reasons.

    Privacy is a big issue for me. I'm constantly running into issues like front desk staff asking me sensitive information while other patients are around, and I'm not really comfortable broadcasting things like what medications I'm taking, what the reason for my visit is, or what my sexual orientation is. Can't we discuss that some place other than in a waiting room full of other patients?

    The other trust issue I have is that far too many of my health complaints essentially get ignored. It seems like if an obvious cause doesn't show up in simple blood work, then things don't get taken seriously. It definitely erodes my trust. And, because I'm overweight (25 - 27 BMI, never more), very frequently health complaints get blamed on that.

    I've also had issues with providers not really properly explaining things to me or just assuming I should know things. For example, the necessity of fasting before some types of blood tests. I guess they just assume that everyone knows which tests require fasting and which don't? I learned I had to ask after an incident where ended up having to go to 3 different appointments because they didn't tell me I needed to fast initially, so they couldn't do the test on the first appointment. Second appointment, I fasted 24 hours ahead of time and when they found out they turned me away because that was too long of a fast (they never told me I should only fast overnight). The worst part was that I still had to pay the co-pay on those wasted visits.

    Well, my list could go on. I'm really only yelling at the clouds now anyway.

  • USPS (and Amazon) are also decently accurate with their estimated delivery window. If USPS says it'll be delivered between 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., I believe it.

    When UPS makes a similar claim, my reaction is "UPS has never delivered a package to my door before 4:00 p.m. the entire time I've lived here so who do they think they're fooling?"

  • The quality of the major shipping carriers, at least in a relative sense, seems to be highly regional. In some places, UPS seems to be best. In others FedEx, and for instance in my area, it's USPS (with caveats).

    Around here, UPS is the worst of them and whenever I see something is being delivered via UPS, I try to prepare myself for disappointment. They deliver around here late at night instead of during the day like all the others (literally). They lose packages more than all the others and they outright lie about delivery status, marking things as "delivered at front door" when they obviously didn't. Plus, if something's going to arrive in mangled condition, it's most often because it was delivered UPS -- definitely have more issues with that than all the other carriers combined.

    Some of it I can overlook, but persistent issues with lying about delivery status (and then delivering things days later) is inexcusable for me.

    Granted, the others are far from perfect, but man, UPS is in a different league of suck around here. Nice to hear they've got their shit together in some parts of the world, though.

  • Snark mode activated: After reading through the "Threads Federation" comments, and seeing what opinions/comments are currently most popular, I'm going to go with YES.

    But jokes aside, my actual personal opinion is no.

  • There's a theory that certain emails scams are so obvious and easy to spot because that acts as a self-selection mechanism. A person who sees the obvious scam and immediately recognizes it as such was probably never going to fall for it. The ones that respond in spite of all the signs tend to be easier or more lucrative targets.

    I could see forcing people to download an app just to see the content as operating on a similar (but not 100% analogous) principle. The type of person who willingly installs the app to see the content (without knowing if it was worthwhile/relevant beforehand) may be exactly the type of person that they prefer to join their site. Perhaps they are easier targets for marketing, less likely to understand /complain about the ramifications of changes to the site that are user adverse, care less about privacy, etc and that makes them more lucrative?

  • an Achilles heel is the fact that AI can’t come up with enough believable unique names for all the posts you want your AI bots to make

    That seems counterintuitive to me in the context of modern AI approaches. I'm wondering if you could elaborate on that a bit more.

  • Are you asking about a specific episode or community of toxic behavior that originated there but has found its way here? If so, then my answer is no. Granted, I haven't visited that other site in such a long time, I likely wouldn't know if some specific instance of toxicity here was actually related to something over there. Also, I mostly avoid the communities here that are named similarly to subs over there which always seemed to be a magnet for drama or poor behavior. Mostly.

    But if you're asking in a more general sense, then my answer is yes(-ish). I have experienced and seen a fair bit of toxic behavior and numerous toxic users here. In many cases, the behavior and mannerisms mimic the toxicity I was used to seeing on the other site. So, I presume it's something that originated there and then subsequently migrated here, but I obviously couldn't say with complete certainty and absolute proof.

    Granted, that's not unexpected, and as other folks have already commented, toxic people and toxic behavior are pretty pervasive and ubiquitous on social media sites.

  • Would people still pirate, as they just bearly reached what piracy offers, or would ppl just be happy that they can pay and then actually watch shows?

    It's not an either or thing. No matter what, some people will pirate. No matter what, some people will choose to pay. Those aren't even mutually exclusive, some people will pirate and pay.

  • Quite often.

    I start organizing my thoughts by writing them down. Then I'll realize it's going to be impossible for me to succinctly yet accurately convey my point.

    If what I've written is too long or too convoluted, I don't bother posting it, as the intended audience is usually the least likely to actually read it. If what I've written has too many caveats or too many points of contention, I don't bother posting it because I generally don't have much interest in connecting with pedants or those being intentionally obtuse/ignorant/etc.

    Honestly, my experience has been that this place is mostly just a slightly different iteration of the same shit as the alternative it is modeled after when it comes to discourse. And I have minimal interest engaging in much of that. So, definitely more likely to lurk and/or to bail on a response than to actually post here.

  • There are lots of species of plants that don't directly rely on photosynthesis. Many are essentially sub-terrestrial parasites, getting their "food" from fungi and sometimes even other plants. It's seemingly more common in orchids, in part because the family generally already has a strong reliance on fungi as part of their general reproductive strategy.

  • Congratulations Aunt Trudy! Today is the 60th anniversary of your 10th birthday and we got you this amazing balloon display.

    Is it possible that the 60 balloons are celebrating a 60th wedding anniversary? The ring between the 6 and the 0 make me wonder. Not that a 70th birthday isn't a big deal, but I think a 60th wedding anniversary is an even more impressive achievement than not dying for the past 70+ years.