CthuluVoIP @ CthuluVoIP @lemmy.world

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173

Joined

2 yr. ago

I interpreted her point about scholarly rigor to be referring to allegations of plagiarism. She’s vehemently denying those allegations, but she does address them. Otherwise, I agree that it’s likely other prejudices had a part to play in her dismissal.

Requisite, Billy Mitchell is a lying, manipulative, cheating, litigious fraud.

This article is basically summed up: “VPNs don’t completely eliminate your digital footprint, so don’t use them unless you need to accomplish these specific things.”

It seems pretty disingenuous to discourage people from taking steps to protect their privacy in this way. It may not be sponsored, but it’s still bullshit.

I’ll be sure not to concern myself with the rockets Hamas continues to fire at Israeli neighborhoods because those people shouldn’t be concerned given the power imbalance is so stark. I’m confident they’ll understand.

I don’t disagree with you that Israel has far more power and ability to influence things than anyone in Palestine does, but it’s disingenuous to portray Hamas as a harmless homeless person ranting about the government when they are often causing injury and sometimes death to people who certainly weren’t within earshot to hear the ranting in the first place.

I don’t have an answer for this situation, but Israel has an obligation to protect their citizens. That shouldn’t come at the expense of innocent Palestinian civilians, though. Everything about this conflict sucks, because there’s absolutely no good actors involved.

Likely the closest I could picture in a modern sense is Jacob Collier, who can indeed perform these types of musical feats. But the crux of the issue is that while Collier is much loved, he isn’t a dominant force of popular music like Mozart was.

Do you feel that "left" as you've defined it means democrat?

In principle? No. In practice? The US's elections are governed by first past the post voting. Until we reform how politicians are elected by enacting more sensible term limits, make lobbying illegal and remove other moneyed interests from public service, and institute ranked choice voting or something similar, the only responsible party to vote for winds up being the Democratic Party despite them not aligning with my preferences on either end of the spectrum.

Ultimately, I think I'm something like a Libertarian who supports taxes for the betterment of society. I think centralized government's responsibility is to provide services for the constituents they represent and to ensure that our laws are centered on maintaining as much individual liberty as possible.

That guy may not, but I do. So, yes to recognizing the validity of the 14th Amendment’s applicability to Trump thereby rendering him ineligible for office, and to all gun laws being an infringement. If you go left far enough, you get your guns back.

Fediverse: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no one has gone before.

Then he should pay 100% of his worth and live penniless as a pauper for the rest of his days. Any and all assets and earnings above minimum wage should be garnished for the rest of his life. Let him be an indentured servant.

He looked like Arab Steve Harvey.

I don’t disagree from a purely American standpoint, but I’d caution against calling a war where Ukrainians are being so heavily impacted daily and Ukrainian soldiers are fighting and dying “cheap”. It’s an inexpensive investment in the security of the region and the world on the US’s part, but no war is cheap.

At this point he is in too deep. His only hope is that by continuing to deny any wrongdoing and continued efforts to delay things will work long enough that Donny can reclaim the white house and pardon him. If he recants now, he’s assuredly going to prison. That said - I suspect if he flipped and offered to testify against Trump, ‘ol Rudy might be able to secure a sweetheart deal. He’s far and away the closest person other than Trump himself who could best detail the extent of their criminal activities.

Straightforward enough. Dots and tics in fives. And a weird croissant for some reason.

This is pretty much my criteria as well. It’s funny, because since vacation rentals became a mainstream thing, my hotel experience has gotten better. I remember a time where booking a Vrbo was a preference because the accommodations would be nicer / better maintained at the same or lower price than a hotel. But these days I haven’t found that to be the case, and as such rely on contextual requirements to determine the best path forward.

And guns.

“Awkward spinning selector wheel”

Say what you want, but the iPod click wheel was anything but awkward. It was the most approachable and efficient interface and hardware on the market by miles and miles. Navigating other similar devices without it is an awful experience of buttons and layered menus that feel clunky and slow.

I won’t deny that the Arcos and other jukeboxes were incredible devices, but they lacked accessibility and mass appeal. Their size and expense kept most people from even considering getting one. They were absolutely an enthusiast’s device and nothing more.

The iPod ushered in the boom of portable media players and paved the road for Apple’s performance in the mobile phone space by establishing them as purveyors of a superior form factor and experience when it came to those devices. Apple owes its continued success in its personal computer and tablet product lines to the iPod’s design and their decision to focus on creating a cohesive ecosystem across their products based on those design principles.

Axis? Really? That’s the word? 🤦🏻‍♂️

I think the point most non-youth are making is that when the choice is between being kicked in a sensitive nether region and literal fascism, the only answer is to request a second kick. I would love for the democrats to be more progressive, but there are bigger worries and frankly, whomever the Dems put forward MUST win the presidency. Your feelings literally do not matter.

I mean…. Really? Toyota kind of kicked off the whole EV shebang by introducing the first commercially successful hybrid in the Prius. And they’ve been innovating in the space ever since. Don’t mistake this for me believing they have a solid state battery right around the corner. But Japanese auto companies aren’t known for being on the forefront. They’re known for doing what everyone else does with better reliability and lower costs.

The US doesn’t have a problem with fully automatic or select fire weapons. They exist, sure. But given they’ve been banned since 1986 and are prohibitively expensive to own, requiring multiple tax stamps and hoops to jump through, they are almost assuredly not used in violent crime. Or for anything other than hobbyist activities.

What seems to garner the most attention here are semi-automatic rifles with removable magazines. There is almost nothing mechanical differentiating an AR-15 or similar rifle from a common hunting or farming rifle like the Ruger American Rifle. They’re often mislabeled an “assault weapon”, a term without a concrete definition, or worse an “assault rifle” which does have a concrete definition that aligns to the very guns you call out as not having practical use. Namely, to qualify as an assault rifle, it must be capable of select fire or fully automatic fire.

Ironically, most acts of violence committed using a firearm are done with pistols, which outside of demonstrably ineffective magazine limitations have gone widely untouched by proposed or enacted gun control efforts. Which is especially ironic considering that the NFA was enacted in 1934 primarily focused on handguns - this is why the US has restrictions on ownership of short barreled rifles and shotguns, because the impetus was to focus on weapons which could be easily concealed. By the time the law was passed, however, pistols had been exempted, but the weird language around SBRs and SBSs was left intact.

Broadly, though, gun control in the US has been primarily motivated by class and racial division. Most of the FUD you hear about guns is directly the result of Reagan’s gun control policies as Governor of California in response to not wanting the Black Panthers to have legal access to firearms - which they were using to protect their neighborhoods from violent crime that police wouldn’t respond to. Criminalizing certain weapons gave police the ability to profile and discriminate against minorities under the guise of public safety, and we’ve been treading that water ever since.

The solution to America’s perceived gun problem is universal basic income and universal healthcare. Ending the war on drugs would help too. Without the stress of being impoverished and without having to worry about being able to afford medical care, people tend not to commit crimes. Most gun violence in the US is gang related, and US policies today systemically and disproportionately see the incarceration of people of color for violent and non-violent crime alike. Our penal system is geared for punishment, not rehabilitation, so a person who is now a felon is left with very few options to make an honest living. People turn to gangs to make money, because without income you cannot live in this country.

Eliminate the poverty, decouple healthcare from employers, and stop criminalizing drugs - subsequently arresting and incarcerating so many people for non-violent offenses - and you dramatically reduce the likelihood of a person being left in desperation with few options outside of a life of crime. In turn, gang violence and gun crime overall will plummet.

We’re just too busy picking a team and rooting for the other team’s destruction to actually attack the root of the problem, because doing that might make people realize that it’s all been set up like this to keep us from looking at the class division more closely.