crosswind

And it turns out you’re not Show more

I thought I was Show more

Biden, and the democratic party more broadly have two roles to play (outside of maintaining capitalism).

1. Oppose Trump and the republican party
2. Crush, discredit, or co-opt any other organizations that could threaten their monopoly on opposition to the republican party.

When it's time to fulfill role 1. the party always hedges, because they fear that taking any strong actions will alienate centrist voters, or more importantly donors. This means that on many issues, any progress made is not enough to undo the damage done under a republican government. On other issues the situation declines under either party. There are very few significant issues where the democrats are actually able to overcome the republicans long term.

All of this is very disappointing, but on its own it would still be preferable to republicans ruling completely unopposed.

The problem is when you factor in role 2. The republicans are not an unstoppable force of highly competent and well liked people. A party that was dedicated to taking serious actions to improve the lives of the average voter could easily beat the republicans electorally, if they wouldn't also have to take on the democratic party and all of their media influence. When the democrats pursue role 2. they have no reason to hold back. Their continued existence relies on giving it their full effort. They will try to prevent any organization from accumulating enough power to push them left, while actively pushing the republicans to the far right to strengthen their own position.

Having to choose between two terrible candidates isn't something that's happened on accident. It's the result of the ongoing actions of the democratic party.

At this point, with the ticking clocks of climate change and rising fascism, a democrat in the white house is not remotely adequate to make a difference. We're headed to multiple simultaneous catastrophes either way. The only thing voting for Biden accomplishes is supporting the party that brought us here in clinging to power until their last breath.

Right now there is no 'realistic' alternative outside of the two party electoral system. I don't know if there will be one in the future, but there's certainly no hope in helping to reinforce it.

My guess is if you can tell you're about to wake up, that means your imagination had a great idea for a premise, but didn't know how to write a satisfying ending for it, and you noticed things were starting to unravel. You could try, as soon as you wake up, start workshopping what a compelling conclusion to the dream could have been. With some practice, your dreams might start to incorporate those ideas. Or just enjoy the sex, and don't worry about your dreams needing to be complete works.

China has achieved remarkable progress in controlling nuclear fusion by fusioning their nuclears better than ever before!

Never!

The heat is all being dumped into the living space either way, so you aren't losing anything from the metal. It takes away from how much heat will be available in the earthen part after the stove is turned off, but it still warms the room. Plus I imagine it's nice to have some heat immediately instead of having to start the fire hours before you actually want it.

You could adjust the design if you wanted to change the ratio of fast heat and slow heat, but you would always need to have some part with a high thermal conductivity.

The goal is to have the fire drive a high airflow, both to give itself oxygen, and to pass the exhaust through a long path of heat absorbing dirt. The metal drum does this by passing the hot exhaust up through its center, then rapidly cooling it as it falls back down along the metal surface. The difference in density drives the airflow. The drum needs a high thermal conductivity to be able to maintain this temperature and density difference, and this is also the primary way the heat is transferred to the living area. The earthen part gathers up the remaining heat to increase efficiency and retain heat for when the stove is off, but most of the heating is done immediately through the metal.

That's optimistic. I think one of the more employable/profitable skills is going to be learning how ai works so you can get it to be full of shit in a way that's useful to your boss.

There was one where the rock even came with a note telling them to write something nice on the rock and give it to another nurse.

"I'm supposed to appreciate the nurses? Ugh, that sounds awful, just make the nurses appreciate each other"

Exploring and understanding yourself is an important part of transitioning. It's frustrating and can feel like nothing when you want to be making externally visible changes, but it is real progress, and it matters.

Good luck finding ways to make what changes you can. There's no schedule you have to keep except what you set for yourself.