ArbitraryValue

joined 2 years ago

Kill them with kindness.

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 8 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (3 children)

Plenty of people want to inflict pain or see pain inflicted, as long as it's on the appropriate victims, and these people aren't all on the right. It's a common human trait.

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 40 points 7 hours ago (4 children)

The Hobbit trilogy. It's hard to understand how Peter Jackson could mess up movie after movie after movie like that.

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 3 points 12 hours ago

The tiefling children could have increased their survival chances by not all being obnoxious little shits.

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 22 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

In my admittedly limited experience, women willing to kiss a guy are still often going to be reluctant to do something that they think might hurt that guy, even if the guy insists otherwise.

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 7 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

But if there are no bisexuals, there are no unicorns...

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 3 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

the official app doesn’t have a way to save images from comments anymore

Now even the web interface doesn't make it straightforward to save images. "Open image in new tab" and "Save image as" don't work.

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 1 points 14 hours ago

I liked the low taxes/few government services way of doing things in New Hampshire, as well as the emphasis that voters and politicians placed on the importance of being left alone. Taxes are way higher in California, and while I get that keeping big cities running is expensive, does it have to be that expensive? I suspect that it doesn't, especially since even with all that tax money the Bay Area (the part of California that I'm familiar with) is not very pleasant compared to some big cities in other states, including states with lower taxes. It's true that the Bay Area, rather than those other cities, is the biggest tech hub in the country, but I suspect that that's the case despite of rather than because of the taxes and what they do and don't pay for.

(I'm not 100% confident in my claims about the Bay Area. I've spent a lot of time there but I haven't ever lived there full-time.)

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I assumed that the VC is talking about small startups, the sort that have a dozen employees and just one project.

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 1 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

I do generally lean towards lowercase-L libertarianism (I don't support the Libertarian party) but running a huge deficit isn't libertarian. Taxes shouldn't be lower than spending in the long term.

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 2 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (2 children)

Huh, the state of South Carolina as a whole has about the same murder rate as the city of Oakland, CA. I wasn't expecting it to be that high.

Anyway, while this is a sick burn, I think that one could argue that the very real advantages that California has are not caused by the way that it's governed and in fact I have heard California residents claim that those advantages exist despite the way that California is governed, but I don't know how representative those California residents are. I can see how a person could reasonably prefer not to have her state governed the way that California is without being ignorant, but that sort of discussion won't be happening on Twitter.

(I personally love the way that New Hampshire is governed, and that's a state very unlike California. I hope to live there again someday, but I acknowledge that it's not for everyone.)

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 44 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Temporarily having the body of a woman would let me learn the answers to some interesting prurient questions, but if I had my choice of temporary body then I would definitely pick to be a bird and experience what flying feels like.

(I don't identify as much with my body as some other people apparently do. It's the only flesh I have ever been incarnated in so it has a lot of sentimental value but it fundamentally isn't me. It's a thing that I have.)

 

The fascinating thing here is that the government's lawyer, the one supposed to argue against this guy's return, appears to have sided against the government.

"Give us 24 hours to get him back, Reuveni said. "That was my recommendation to my client but that hasn't happened"

 

When I was a teenager, I thought people in their 20's were the most attractive. Now that I'm about 40, I still think people in their 20's are the most attractive. It's hard for me to believe that I might ever be attracted to someone past retirement age, even when I'm past retirement age myself, unless the person is like one of those celebrities who look way younger than they are.

This isn't something I can comfortably ask most older people I know, but there's one man who admits that he isn't and one woman who is. Which is more normal?

 

"Deleted" sounds so casual too, like God did it as part of some routine cleanup.

 

I live a bachelor lifestyle, so I have no food in here. Just alcohol. I hope the mouse figures that out and goes away. I should get some traps in case it doesn't. I hate killing animals but there's no practical alternative.

 
 

I was supposed to move my car last night but I forgot. The ticket is for $65 but I found a dollar on the ground near my car so I'm actually only out $64.

I set an alarm in my calendar so I won't forget next time.

 

It'll cost $9 each time. They're raising money for the mass transit system by charging specifically those people who don't use the mass transit system and that feels really unfair to me.

 

Archive link.

As recently as February, Mr. Walz said on a podcast that he had been in Hong Kong, then a British colony, “on June 4 when Tiananmen happened,” and decided to cross into mainland China to take up his teaching duties even though many people were urging him not to.

But it was not true. Mr. Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, indeed taught at a high school in China as part of a program sending American teachers abroad, but he did not actually travel to the country until August 1989.

Why bother making something like this up?

 

Pretty much every major shopping website has terrible search functionality.

I usually want something very specific, for example 60w dimmable e12 frosted warm led bulb. I have not found a single shopping website that won't show me results without many of these terms in the description. I don't want to see listings that say 40w and don't say 60w anywhere, and it isn't hard to filter them out!

Are these shopping websites bad on purpose? What's in it for them?

 

Before covid, I would be sick with a cold or flu for a total of about two weeks every year. That means I spent 4% of my time sick; one out of every 25 days. Since covid appeared, I've been wearing an N95 in crowded indoor areas whenever I reasonably can. (Obviously I can't if I'm eating something.) My main goal initially was to protect my elderly relatives, but during the last four years I have not gotten sick even once, except from my elderly relatives who didn't wear masks, got sick, and then infected me when I was caring for them.

Why isn't everyone wearing N95s? Sure, it's uncomfortable, but being sick is much more uncomfortable. And then there's the fact that wearing an N95 protects other people and not just the wearer...

 
 

There appears to be no straightforward way to permanently stop Windows 11 Home from rebooting on its own after installing updates. I looked for workarounds but so far I have only found a script that has to run on a schedule to block the reboot by changing "working hours". (Link.)

Is that really the best that is possible?

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