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Cake day: June 25th, 2023

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  • That’s an awful lot easier but likely less accurate and what happens whenever establishment Dems lose. “Hillary lost because of Bernie Bros” is the first and loudest instance that springs to mind. But even if that statement were true, In hindsight we know that she and her campaign sorta rigged the primary, which looked more obvious than they probably intended. That disenfranchised some voters and they didn’t vote.

    That’s not the voters fault, the candidate did something that made those voters not vote for them. Just like Kamala/the DNC did with running an ancient dude, not having a primary, running the ancient dudes VP, supporting the genocide of Palestinians, loving fracking, and onwards. I was really optimistic early on with her VP pick but that seemed to be the moderate leftmost edge of her campaign.

    I’m of the opinion that until the DNC stops appealing to disenfranchised Republicans this steady slide right will keep happening. Running as R-lite hasn’t really been paying off as well for them as it did in the 90s.


  • To be clear, the EU developing an operating system for EU use is not a dystopian vision without assuming many things about the theoretical future project. The petition is asking for this for transparency and independence from an actual dystopian vision coming to fruition in a ‘forced’ Windows standard. That doesn’t really lead me to imagine a dystopian nightmare where the EU forces everyone to install their distro (A potentially comical vision on its own).

    I rather like the idea that governments contribute to open source projects, sounds a lot better than the same contribution going to private institutions. The use of open source software may introduce some vulnerabilities, but those are replacing vulnerabilities that are already there. I would also imagine investment in some open source projects would encourage more development in adjacent areas, much like Valve, Proton, and gaming.

    I would be interested to hear what alternative you have to solving the problems that the project in this petition is attempting to solve. It’s easy to shoot down something for not being perfect but it’s pretty challenging to come up with a theoretical proposal that pleases all.


  • So much of our modern political system is poised around vibes, because that’s all the older voters (seem to) really care about. If I had a dollar for every time I heard some variation of having a beer with George W, I’d have more dollars than I do now.

    I think in contrast younger voters care about a vast array of issues very deeply, making engaging in politics a much more complex task that they probably don’t have time for. Given that so much of the coverage consists of no-meaning political lines with no coherent policy right now, engaging in traditional ways is pointless until they stop having vapid “debates” and “interviews” with no content, and start forcing real policy discussion.

    I think Bernie was popular with younger voters because he brought so few vibes and so much policy. I went to a Hillary rally and a Bernie rally during the primary in 2015 and the difference was night and day. Hillary talked about the positive feeling of continuing the Democratic legacy, while Bernie talked about sustainable agriculture and straw polled the attendees about wind power.

    To be clear I bet this held true 50 years ago when our old voters were young too, no hate on the olds here, priorities change, though I hope mine don’t. Also I wonder if this is all still true for the new young voters, most of my interactions are with millennials and gen z. My few interactions with the folks graduating now have been tainted by my old and out of touch self and by their (in my opinion) under-practiced interpersonal skills from covid years at home. Again, no hate intended.


  • I never played BioShock 2 or Infinite, but I watched full playthroughs of each, and I thought infinite was great! Different to be sure in most ways, but it was a neat expansion of the world and themes hinted at in the first two games.

    I seem to remember a lot of sideline criticism when it came out that boiled down to “NPC sidekick not love interest but hot so I don’t like game”. I thought, and think that is ridiculous, and fortunately I think that criticism has faded with time because Elizabeth is such a positive part of the game, from my view.

    I should play through the BioShock games…




  • I made the leap a few years ago now, and since getting a (slightly) newer AMD GPU I haven’t had a single problem that I didn’t create by messing around with things without knowing what I was doing. I use steam and the Glorious Egroll version of proton and every game I have wanted to play has worked, even ones that are brand new. No tinkering past the initial steam setup. I don’t really play competitive online games with anti cheat so you may encounter problems that I haven’t if you do.

    I use the advanced hardware support version of MX Linux, if that really matters. I had bad experiences with Ubuntu, but haven’t tried it with this machine so I don’t know if it was the OS or the hardware.

    I’d say give it another shot on its own drive when Microsoft frustrates you again, you can always swap windows back in if you don’t like it.


  • If I’m reading that right, that could also say that Instagram is suppressing anti-israel content? It’s just saying that in comparison to Instagram tiktok is showing more x, y, z. But Instagram is absolutely not a neutral point to measure from.

    For starters there’s different demographics on each one, but I’m sure you could adjust for that, maybe the study did. But I don’t think you can adjust for the impact the US government has on Meta. I don’t believe for an instant that some US agency isn’t manipulating algorithms or requiring certain tweaks to steer discourse just like they did with US news outlets.


  • I had a very similar experience but just kinda glumly stuck with the broken experience in that in between, and just played what I could get to work. But now with proton, specifically the ge version, there’s isn’t a game that I can’t play (that I have wanted to play). It’s pretty amazing how quickly the changes and improvements to gaming on Linux have come.

    I also have an AMD system now, which might be a big part of why it’s so painless now.


  • Second for guild wars 2, the world is huge when you first start playing, and though the initial levelling experience can feel like it takes a while, once you have hit the cap you can go pretty much anywhere. The story is pretty linear, though, so if you want a deep and complex story it might be better to look for a single player game.

    I’d also say the combat system in Guild wars is fantastic, it’s simple enough to pick up and not have to stress about playing the game, but if you want to engage and get better there is so much to learn about and improve.


  • It’s odd to me that the reasoning given here and in the article for this problem for the Democrats is that they aren’t acting Republican enough and they are too leftist. It is so clear that the Democrats have managed to do very few of the things they say, and what they do accomplish is either just what Republicans would do, or hamstrung by the Republicans and media blitzed. That’s why they lose ground. Becoming Republican will also lose them different ground. It doesn’t feel like the data should need an explanation in the first paragraph like that, it skews the interpretation of what is pitched as objective.

    I think all these economic and business interests are just desperate for the old Republican party back and are trying to sculpt the Democrats into it because they were close enough already. Probably successfully. It’s pretty bleak all around.

    Also I’m sorry I can’t leave it, but are you saying that the BLM “cohort” prefer trump in there? I’m not going to say that anyone is enthusiastic about Biden, but Trump encouraged beat downs across the country and threatened to march the military on these folks. (Would have done it too if it weren’t for the woke liberal adjenda of General Mark Milley).




  • Their coffee tastes the way it does because of how they roast it, it’s a purposeful style thing (that tastes terrible and is horribly overpriced imo).

    Their roasts are also darker than they say. Everything they have is dark roast, with their ‘blond’ coming in closer to a medium.

    People go nuts over the sugar, caffeine and perceived status, it has nothing to do with the taste of the coffee. As a fellow black coffee drinker, my recommendation is to avoid Starbucks unless you happen to be near a union store where the coffee is guaranteed to taste more like freedom, but still like ashes soaked in oil.

    In case you want more details: The way coffee roasting works is you move beans around in a real hot container, and you try to keep them to a specific point on a temperature graph at each moment as they roast. A different roaster would roast them a bit slower, but Starbucks just blasts those beans with everything they have, then they don’t stop until the beans are burnt. This gives them their “signature taste”. This is largely because of Howard Shultz, the guy who drove the company to be a cafe, and until recently the CEO. That’s his preferred coffee taste and that’s what he demands the company makes.





  • Among other things, I take issue with “men build social order, liberal democracy, nearly everything else…”. This is simply not true, social order has existed in many forms since people existed, liberal democracy has existed in many places run primarily by women or in mixed gender groups, and men do not exclusively build the world.

    Yes, men are experiencing a mental health crisis (at least in the US where I am most familiar), and it has been largely ignored by government but not because women are deemed more important, but because we do not support mental health of anyone. To say no one cares and no one is doing anything about it is like saying no one cares about the lives of our children because we haven’t solved school shootings yet. People know it’s a problem, people want it to change and to fix it, but our system of government is not reflective of the people’s opinions. (This is part of what makes up poorly conceived rhetoric about men ruining things, “if men created our liberal democracy and society as you say, surely it’s obvious it is not working out too well”).

    It’s normal to feel upset and defensive when you see a group you identify with suffering. It’s not okay to take those negative emotions and direct them towards other groups, be they gender, ethnic, social, or otherwise. Remember it’s in the best interests of those who oppress to keep the oppressed fighting amongst themselves.


  • Dicey dungeons is a blast! I have such a hard time with the engineer, I’m sure there’s a trick but haven’t quite sussed it out.

    I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 again after a long hiatus after my raid static disbanded. Only a little bit into the new expac but it’s been great! I think the new daily system has done a good job of getting me to come back with a clear list of things to do and compelling rewards.

    I’ve also been playing Peglin, trying to work through the cruciball. Really fun/frustrating/satisfying game.