Spyke

Replies

Comment on

AOC has two words for Democrats who think defending trans rights is a losing issue

Reply in thread

This is exactly it. It’s what politics is supposed to be about. AOC gets it. For clear moral issues like this, you can’t back down.

It’s a big reason why Democrats are so weak. Most, especially those in leadership, have given up trying to persuade people by doing the right thing. We need to persuade especially on issues that are inspiring violence and hate on the other side. Taking the other side’s stance, particularly when it’s so clearly on the wrong side of morality/history/humanity, never made sense as a strategy to me. It’s disgusting.

Comment on

US judge dismisses sexual abuse lawsuit from Sam Altman’s sister

Sam Altman has never given the public any reason to believe a word he says. He’s a disingenuous liar, and is known for acting like whomever he’s currently talking to. He’s a sociopath. I have no trouble believing he was capable of these allegations.

I also don’t understand why a judge thinks a medical exam would find anything useful so many years after the alleged crimes. It makes no sense for that to be the reason this was dismissed unless the judge was just looking for an excuse. And whether or not his sister has issues doesn’t seem relevant either. If she was repeatedly assaulted by her brother, it’s not at all surprising that she would have lasting trauma.

I think this comes down to the fact that he is a well-known figure with an insane amount of money and influence. He is above the law, like everyone else in his class

Comment on

New Trekkie here! Which series are the best?

Reply in thread

I would recommend you make up your own mind about Discovery. It gets a lot of hate for being very different than other Star Trek, but if you take it on its own it can be enjoyable, and it’s visually gorgeous to watch. It also feeds into Academy, which has similar criticisms, but again you should watch them and see if you like them, don’t let strangers’ hate keep you from something you might end up loving. I’m a traditional Trekkie, but I find a lot to like in the new shows.

But otherwise, yeah, that order is good. Save Lower Decks for last to catch all the jokes and fan service.

coffee

Comment on

When you have several bags on the go at once, how do you decide what to brew?

Reply in thread

I more or less do the same, but I always keep a bag of good dark roast in my freezer whose main purpose is to finish off those last remaining lighter-roast beans that aren’t enough for a full brew. I’ve come up with some excellent ad hoc blends that way, while keeping the dark roast more or less constant so I know what to expect.

I’m a fan of mixing dark roast single origin with a light or medium roast single origin, I love the tangy depth it often brings out. I know not everyone likes mixing different roast levels, but I love it, though my main preference is a good medium roast single origin.

I’ve clearly thought about this too hard…

Comment on

Scientific Exposure

In grad school I remember being encouraged to submit a paper to a journal that would have charged me a few hundred dollars to put it in for peer review, and I told my advisor no, I needed to buy groceries, I would not throw my money away for an extra line on my CV. He got all flustered and it was a great example of why higher education is so fucked. My advisor, who ostensibly understood my background and means, could not understand how such a relatively small fee would be so prohibitive. He was incapable of understanding that I was essentially unemployed while enrolled as his grad student, and every dollar of funding went to bare essentials so I could continue breathing. He had access to discretionary funds for this exact kind of issue (I found out later), and didn’t think to offer.

Without independent wealth and deep personal connections it’s incredibly difficult to succeed in academia, regardless of the quality of your research.

news

Comment on

No one in the GOP Hitler chat was a "kid"

Just a reminder that JD has three kids (actual kids, not 35 year olds) with his wife, who is a woman of color. If he won’t defend them against blatant racism, do his supporters actually think he gives a fuck about them?

Also, a good parent would take the opportunity to teach their children why what they said is wrong, not just tell them how to avoid responsibility:

Vance said he would tell his three kids—“especially my boys”—“don’t put things on the internet. Be careful with what you post. If you put something in a group chat, assume that some scumbag is going to leak it in an effort to try to cause you harm or cause your family harm.”

Our Vice President is a huge piece of shit.

news

Comment on

Camp Mystic’s leader got a ‘life threatening’ flood alert. They evacuated an hour later.

Much of the camp was built in a high risk flood zone, a zone where building is strictly illegal in many states with responsible safety measures. Since Texas doesn’t give a shit about human life, they not only allow building in dangerous flood zones, but they clearly don’t have the infrastructure to make it even remotely safe.

The camp never should have been built there. This tragedy is exactly why planning for future risk when building something (especially something for kids, but that’s pretty much irrelevant) is not optional.

news

Comment on

ICE held 5-year-old autistic girl in Massachusetts to pressure father to surrender, family says

That’s straight up child exploitation, by the government. Blackmailing a parent with the safety of their child is one of the most villainously evil tropes around. This shit happens in movies all the time, and it’s almost always used as a big flashing “this person is bad and evil, and the villain of the movie” trope.

There has been some incredibly fucked up and immoral treatment of human beings in this country, but this is next level evil.

Problem is, it’s so evil that the brainwashed 40% of the population won’t believe it, so they’ll just go on about their business.

news

Comment on

'The Establishment Is Spooked': Poll Shows Platner With Big Lead Over Mills in Maine Democratic Primary

The democratic establishment has labeled him a communist one day, a Nazi the next day and an antifascist another day. You can’t be an antifascist and a Nazi at the same time.

I listened to the entire Pod Save interview with him, and I’m convinced he’s a solid dude who made some bad decisions when he was younger. He owns up to absolutely everything, and says he has learned from it. He sounded completely genuine to me.

His background is really important and honestly explains all of this controversy away. He was in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan for multiple tours, and he talks an about how much that fucked him up. He struggled for a long time and shitposting was one of his outlets. Who among us hasn’t regretted something we’ve posted? Owning up to and learning from it is the key.

If we want to stop electing vanilla spineless establishment candidates, the alternative is electing normal people who haven’t spent their lives hiding themselves from public view to maintain a “clean” persona. Nobody is perfect, everybody has made mistakes, and to me the strength of a candidate comes through most clearly when they take responsibility and demonstrate how their current self has evolved from their younger selves.

He seems like an awesome candidate to me.

Comment on

Your friends are still acting like everything is normal in America. What do you do? All Americans live in a “dual state.” Here’s what that means — and how to help others see it.

Reply in thread

Everything? Really? That’s bold. I’ve been around for a while, and I personally can’t remember a time when 3000 armed, masked, untrained and unaccountable thugs were let loose by the federal government on individual cities to openly terrorize, incite, and murder the general population.

fuck_ai

Comment on

AI "actress" Tilly Norwood suffered an embarrassing glitch during interview when she inexplicably started speaking Cantonese.

Reply in thread

Totally agree, but they actually did a pretty solid job of making that distinction in the article. They put “actress” and “she” in quotes to begin with, and then switched to referring to the thing as “it.” They even put the word “film” in quotes, since it’s clearly not a film. I was surprised that the tone of this article was so critical, it’s heartening.

Comment on

What exactly are composers doing when they wave around that tiny stick

Composers write the music, musicians play the music, and conductors wave around a stick to keep the musicians playing the composition at the right volume and tempo, and to make sure the different sections of the orchestra (the different groups of instruments) come in and out at the right times.

Try coordinating all that without a conductor and it’d be a crazy cacophonous mess…

Fun fact, if you’ve ever watched a string quartet performance, the first violinist basically conducts the other three with their body and bow while playing. Most people have some natural tempo, but keeping multiple people on track usually requires visual queues and well-timed breathing.

Comment on

Google confirms more ads on your paid YouTube Premium Lite soon

Or, and hear me out: just install a browser plugin and forget ads exist.

I hesitate to name extensions names, but I’ve literally never seen an ad on YouTube.

These companies don’t respect us, so I don’t feel the need to respect them by allowing them to force their meaningless bullshit down my throat.

I don’t use it that much, but you better believe if I go to YouTube to watch a video, that video is the only thing I’m watching.