So I've gotten really into this board game and after many plays with varying difficulty and number of people I'm settling on this as my circle of fifths for the game. Also I've decided people should make circles of fifths for things rather than tierlists.
Lmk if you agree.
One-page RPGs might be better for this than 5e or 5.24. There are literally thousands of them and most of them are free or really cheap.
I've had libs/chuds/suburbanites very confidently tell me that everyone who lives in cities would die in an apocalypse because the rural farms wouldn't, like, give them food, etc. Very obviously false if you've ever worked in rural health or rural anything honestly. If I get the chance again I'll ask why they think cities are where they are. I usually disengage or deflect right away though because it's basically a convo about zombie movies.
I swear I'm not saying this just to be mean, but the other problem is that lemmy.world is really boring. Like, actually go through the .world front page and imagine having to respond - even positively - to the majority of these posts.
That's fucked up and I'm sorry. Your thesis sounds much better than the same silly essay about Margaret Thatcher.
How would identifying with Palestinians make you less empathetic and rush to the defense of the US?
I can't tell if you're doing "both sides", "all lives matter", or "whataboutism". Other people care about things outside of meaningless platitudes.
I kinda agree
What aspects do you agree and disagree with? This doesn't tend to be a topic people are lukewarm about.
Sure, we're not really organized in that way though. I'm just here for fun.
I sorta think it's easier to reach people in person cause there's an existing relationship with some level of trust, but people can do both.
I often learn by teaching so I'll find other people who want to learn it and explain the things I'm learning to them. Or if it's something really boring I'll explain it to someone who's willing to listen to it. I'll also explain and narrate in my head imagining an old roommate or something. People I've given this strategy to IRL say they pretend they're streaming, but I don't do that because I don't really watch streamers very much. The trick to it is to relate it to things you know, but not turn it into explaining capitalism because the test probably doesn't have questions about labor valorization etc etc.
I think someone on hexbear at one point posted a 'focus hack' video that suggested putting on headphones with no music playing as though you've listened to music which ended, but you were focused so you didn't notice. I don't do this, but it makes sense to me. The video had a bunch of stuff like that, I think one was a plugin that removes recommendations from youtube so the website is just a search bar and it tricks people into realizing that they're watching for convenience rather than looking for stuff and information.
For, like, exam trick questions, they usually fall into two categories:
- Specific methodology trick: you basically cannot do these by hand in enough time if you don't know the trick.
Multiply 503 by 497.
Factor out a 3 and make it (500+3)*(500-3). Then it's (250,000 - 9). (Doing this longhand would take forever even if you could obviously do it.)
- Specific knowledge trick: you basically cannot do these efficiently without just knowing from some other source.
The cube root of 64 is 4, because 4x4x4 is 64. What is the cube root of 1,728?
1,728 is a cubic foot so the answer is 12. (You'd have to test factors or do cube root division which is hard and takes a long time.)
Either way, look at old exam questions and example questions and figure out what the these tricks are for the test you're taking.
Also, good luck. You probably know and remember much more than you think. 
Mr. President, sir, let me first say thank you for your commitment to the American people.... Your administration has not yet released a statement regarding the new Esperanza Spalding album, Milton + esperanza, should such a statement be expected in the coming weeks? Taxpayers were concerned to find tracks from the album absent from Former President Obama's 2024 summer playlist.
Their corrupt state handouts
Our public-private partnerships
basically the military took fewer pictures and worse pictures.
So, scientists have observed Earth’s nightlights for more than four decades, first with astronaut photography and military satellites. Since the 1960s, the U.S. Air Force has operated the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), a series of 18 polar-orbiting satellites that observe clouds and other weather variables in key wavelengths of infrared and visible light. Starting in 1972, the DMSP satellites included the Operational Linescan System (OLS), which gives weather forecasters some ability to see in the dark.
While DMSP has been a source of nighttime images for decades, until fairly recently the data were classified, which meant that only a few civilian scientists could conveniently gain access to study the data. The atmospheric science community was eager to have a more accessible night-vision tool to better understand weather and climate patterns and phenomena. Finally, in 2011, a new source of unclassified satellite images of Earth at night became available—one that improved upon the capabilities of OLS. The new low-light sensor was called the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), and was launched in October 2011 onboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite—a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Department of Defense
-- Earth at Night
Freedom is a Constant Struggle - Angela Davis
In Defense of Looting - Vicky Osterweil
World Systems Analysis: An Introduction - Immanuel Wallerstein
You can't literally see lights from space or whatever. If somewhere had less coverage on google maps you wouldn't think it's uninhabited, but for some reason, people irl seem to be constantly referring to this image as though it's a literal picture. Mostly for 'civilized' reasons, but also light pollution and just other stuff. Maybe this just made the rounds on reddit or something?
Maybe the play Hadestown? Prometheus stealing fire from the gods probably works. Most of Aesops fables are vaguely left-ish and can definitely be spun as so. The bible-related commie phrase is usually the pre-king-james lord's prayer: "Forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are indebted to us." There's a theory about the axial age being a response to coinage. I wouldn't say it's airtight, but it's a fun thing to believe lol. Honestly, I find myths more interesting without recontexualizing them because a lot of polytheistic stuff has regional and cultural aspects to it that doesn't really get translated to "god of fire, goddess of death, etc.
Rapper Lil Jon leads the Georgia delegation in the ceremonial roll call to nominate Vice President Kamala Harris as the official Democratic nominee. Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily d...
it makes sense that this exists, but damn
> As Steward Health Care struggled to provide services and pay vendors in many of its three dozen or so hospitals in Massachusetts and across the country, its executives spent millions on intelligence firms, according to corporate records, videos, and other files obtained by the global journalism outlet the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and shared with the Boston Globe Spotlight Team.
> In all, senior Steward executives authorized and spent over $7 million from 2018 to 2023 on firms that provide research, intelligence-gathering, and surveillance services, according to emails, encrypted messages, and financial records reviewed by the Spotlight Team.
> In the US, Steward is currently mired in bankruptcy, the fate of its network hazy, while its Massachusetts properties head for the auction block. In recent years, crippling staff shortages at Steward hospitals have put patients at risk, records show. Dozens of lawsuits from unpaid vendors — from elevator companies to orthopedic suppliers — have piled up in court.
> Records show that Steward executives prioritized intelligence-gathering over most everything else. Monthly bills ran as high as $440,000. They were to be paid on time and in full.
> While much of this investigative intelligence work was taking place across the globe, Steward’s hospitals in the United States were struggling under the weight of the coronavirus. From 2020 to 2021, Steward hired hundreds of temporary staff to meet the need. But by March 2021, Steward was disputing 3,400 invoices and withholding over $42 million from one staffing agency, who eventually pulled their staff from Steward hospitals, court documents show.
> On one night in fall 2021, there were 101 patients in the emergency department with only six nurses to care for them, creating a 14-hour wait for some patients in the waiting room, the memo noted. On another, seven full ambulances idled outside the hospital as 11 nurses juggled 71 patients in the emergency room.
> A day after Thanksgiving, 11 nurses were assigned to 95 patients and a patient with acute renal failure was left unattended.
> That patient was later found dead in the hallway.
Anatomy of an AI System - The Amazon Echo as an anatomical map of human labor, data and planetary resources. By Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler (2018)
While this kind of thing isn't quite 'theory', it definitely has some elements of theory within it, but it also uses very grandiose writing and mythological references. This one seems to be created as a museum exhibit with some connection to Mozilla.
Is there a name for this type of essay or a way I could find more like it? This sort of thing is very fun to read even if it's not serious theory. The subject matter is more or less unimportant to me.
If you need to explain, never ever shorted the phrase. Just keep saying "bourgeois nihilism".
> The bourgeois nihilism of today is distinct from the bourgeois nihilism of Nietzsche's era...
I know this post is like a decade late and very boring, but I gotta post it anyway
Basically, with employer-sponsored health insurance the employer pays half and the employee (you) pays half. The cost of your insurance goes way down if you have a high deductible, and a deductible is basically what you'd have to pay before the insurance actually pays anything. So 'high-deductible' means you have to pay a lot before insurance pays anything, and it's a lot cheaper to buy that insurance cause the insurers often just don't pay anything ever. If it's $5,000 before insurance pays a dime, often times you have to just pay as though you had no insurance. This is obviously bad, but it's also cheap so like maybe you just luck out an never get sick or injured, right...?
Anyway, HSAs. Yeah, it's called "Health Savings Account". It's marketed as a tax-advantaged, investor-y, bougie-"we're comfortable" lifestyle way to really feel like a keen insider. Picture this: what if health insurance was individualized in the same way 401k and retirement stuff was, and you could "call your broker" at your "health savings account" to tell them to invest your tax-free "medical dollars" in the latest gizmo or whatever. Just deeply bad for solidarity and also very weird. And this is how basically everyone thinks about HSAs. A "tax-loophole" for the rich that I can also use because "I'm actually very financially savvy, just like the rich, who got where they are because of a weird hyper-individualized investment thing rather than any underlying systemic basis of societal organization".
And you're probably thinking: "But I already hate the suburban petite-bourgeois and their annoying mannerisms for reasons that are way less boring and meaningless." Well you're right, but also: high deductible plans are a requirement of HSAs so the employer's half decreases significantly. Your employer doesn't contribute to the HSA (they technically could, but if you're reading this post they don't [incredibly silly losing battle available there for libs]), so hopefully you do at least up to your deductible, but it's pretty likely that's not possible even if you had the money (no one does) because you literally aren't allowed to due to contribution limits. (if people did have the money it would probably be better to get different / better / additional health insurance anyway.) But importantly and I guess obviously: nobody contributes to their HSA. It's basically the chance for each person to individually manage an insurance fund for only themselves, which is almost exactly the same as paying out of pocket, the main difference being the additional bank account and a make-work program for MBAs. I've talked to almost a dozen office workers about this and they mostly have no idea what I am saying at all or say "yeah, I added money in onboarding, but I canceled it once I realized it came out of my pay."
There's no non-scam option btw if that wasn't clear. And, yeah, obviously all health insurance is a scam, but this is a different scam run by a slightly different set of people (there's def overlap though don't get me wrong). The office job benefits world is basically a choice between varying levels of high-deductible plans + HSA (ie. $1.5k, $3k, $5k...) with maybe one ridiculously expensive low-deductible plan.
Anyway, thoughts? I needed to get this rant out, I guess. Maybe I just missed the discourse on this because I was a child at the time lol.
Gotta be one of the most cynical and villainous recent euphemisms. At least top 5. I haven't seen it recently though which is good.
As of March 2018 Patrick Radden Keefe, a journalist who typically covers El Chapo and ISIS, can add to his list of accolades a nomination for a James Beard award, given for excellence in culinary writing. What’s a writer who used to work for the Department of Defense doing…
Never meet your heroes that you learned about from a couple of quotes online and never think about until you're watching the Vietnam-Obama episode with your family and getting increasingly skeptical and nervous.
> The family is one of the largest land-owning families in the state of Oklahoma and the United States. In 2017, the family owned 433,000 acres according to The Land Report magazine. In 2022, the family was the largest land-owning family in Osage County, owning about 9% of the county.
> Drummond became known for her blog, The Pioneer Woman, which documented her life in rural Oklahoma.
Yes, I know I'm a million years late to learning about this. I don't watch TV.
For the record I don't think this would matter or anything, but it would be fun to pretend to be a single issue voter about this.
I promise this is not trying to have a hot-take or anything. I don't understand what I'm supposed to be getting out of the book. I've read like 3/4ths of it now and it seems like mostly normal pretty standard speeches and government stuff.
Some parts gave me a pang of sadness realizing this is what a competent government would look like, especially in the beginning sections where it's like "we should eliminate poverty starting with rural extreme poverty" because I know that they succeeded. It's kinda a reminder that these are problems that could be solved and it's not utopian to believe things could be better.
But most of the book seems to be "we should ensure peaceful, cooperative, and friendly relationships with other countries and expand existing trade relationships....". + Belt and Road stuff.
I understand that this is a collection of speeches rather than a book about ideology or a textbook, but is there something I'm supposed to be getting out of this that I'm not? Sorry that this question is really open ended.