Pronouns: They/Them

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 7th, 2023

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  • I get where you are coming from, but this event is pretty much entirely the fault of Crowdstrike and the countless organizations that trusted them. It’s definitely a show of how massive outages are more likely when things are overly centralized and proprietary, and managed by big, shitty, profit driven organizations. Since crowdstrike operates in kernel space, it doesn’t matter which operating system it’s on, it can break it if it does something stupid. In fact they managed to break some redhat machines not too long ago, and some Debian machines not long before that. It’s just the impact wasn’t as far reaching as this recent utter fuckup, just because fewer critical machines were affected, so we didn’t hear about those smaller fuckups in the news.


  • I was gonna answer that most animals don’t live as long and reproduce faster than humans (so populations survive despite increased cancer risk), but when I looked into it I found a deep rabbit hole. In the case of wolves, I’m sure plenty died early on, because the populations present appear to have some genetic immune adaptations that protect them from cancer. I know other species (like frogs) have dark skin because the melenin increased the survival rate of the darker frogs at the time of the accident. So that is to say probably a lot of wildlife died, and that natural selection lead to some critters that are pretty resistant to radiation.


  • Interesting! Most I know were either born in the US or have been in the US since they were kids, primarily communicate in english, and discovered their transness while here. You might be right with the cultural/language translation being a factor. But I’ve also seen “Transexual”, “Transgénero”, “mujer/hombre trans” used by Spanish speakers which tracks not that far from common English usage. I wonder if there’s a different distinction being made or if it’s intertwined with the particular individuals’ conservative ideology in some way.


  • It’s interesting to me that your experience is so vastly different from mine given we live in the same area (SF bay area). Most trans people I know, including myself, fall on the far left, and at significantly higher rates than the cis people I know (Queer or not). I’ve also never heard the term “t-female-presenting” before, it is completely foreign to me. I mostly hear and use “trans women” or “transfeminine”.

    I wonder if there’s another demographic factor, or you are in a unique community of trans people. The people in my circle are generally 20-35, nonreligious, working class, often living paycheck to paycheck, and are actively and primarily in community with other trans people, as a support structure. How would you describe your circle?


  • Risks of medical intervention always should be weighed against risks of nonintervention. If there is a significant probability a child is trans, delaying puberty may be the least intrusive option. There is a chance of negative effects, like with all medical interventions, but if they are most likely trans forcing them to undergo puberty is much more likely to have long term negative effects (including suicidality). Why is this specific medical decision equivalent to kids having sex? Do you view other procedures, like deciding to have braces, the same way? What about much riskier treatments with a muddled short/long term prognosis, like some heart surgeries?










  • I use Chatgpt 3.5 both personally and at work for tip of the tongue questions, especially when I can’t think of a word. Sometimes as a starting point when I have trouble finding the answer to a question in Google. It can sometimes find an old movie that I vaguely remember based on my very poor descriptions too.

    For example: “what is the word for a sample of a species which is used to define the species” - tip of the tongue, holotype. “What is the block size for LTO-9 tape” - wasn’t getting a clear answer from forums and IBM documentation is kind of behind a wall, needed Chatgpt to realize there was no single block size for tape.

    It’s excellent for difficult to search things that can be quickly verified once you have an answer (important step, as it will give you garbage rather than say it doesn’t know something).



  • Do you know how much work it is to live unhoused? How uncomfortable and dehumanizing? If you are completely without shelter, how it is after it rains, or the air is choked with smoke during fire season?

    It seems like you have just one explanation for everything here. When there’s a problem, it’s because of some moral failing that has to be punished. The publication you reference is telling.

    Your attitude toward both Roma and unhoused is an outside look in, entirely through the lens of criminality. There is no understanding there. You are missing the big picture, the why behind all of the things people do.

    If you really want to scam people, you start an LLC and live comfortably off of other people’s work, like, you know, rich people do.


  • You are completely divorced from the reality on the ground.

    A good chunk of the unhoused (at least where I live, US CA) have jobs, it’s just not enough for rent or they can’t find a place because of poor credit, which means the places available are even more expensive. Rent has increased faster than median income, and way faster than low income.

    Most unhoused are there temporarily. Anything nice they have may be from before they got into their present situation. And what are they supposed to do? Pawn off their cell phone for pennies on the dollar?

    The explosion in number of unhoused people is not just a bunch of people happening to have some sort of moral failure all at once. The simpler explanation is that our economy and society is failing. And what do we expect to see as resources are hoarded by the powerful at exponentially increasing rates? Where do those resources come from?

    Also self report on your attitude toward Roma people.



  • The system rewards ownership, and owners sometimes are forced to distribute some value back to the creators of value to get that reward. Sometimes owners are forced to or benefit from sharing some ownership (like in the case of IP on YouTube).

    It’s not unique to software, though the potential to infinitely copy software makes the relationship starker. For example owning a parcel of land is similar to owning a peice of IP, in that the creation/purchase potentially happens once, and rent can be extracted over time from everyone who utilizes it. The number of renters you can fit on a peice of software is theoretically infinite, but in practice limited by the number of potential customers, the availability of their attention, and your distribution Infrastructure, while the number of renters you can fit on a parcel of land is limited by its size and the structures on it.

    Note that most owners did not personally create and do not personally develop what they own. Most software is not owned by programmers (who often make good money, but nowhere near the rent that is extracted from that software), and most homes are not owned by builders (who sometimes can’t afford the homes they build). It’s ownership which is primarily rewarded, and which spawns most further ownership.