merc

@merc@sh.itjust.works

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merc,

People who live in a community where you can store your airplane in a garage and then commute from your garage to the runway aren’t going to partially own a plane. What would be the point in having that kind of a property but not being able to use it because you only got to see your plane one week per month?

Not every private pilot has a $100k hobby, but anybody who buys a house with a taxiway going up to it almost certainly owns their own plane, and their hobby is not cheap.

merc,

It’s the “under proton” I don’t like. It means the performance is never going to be 100% of what you get if you run it natively. Maybe in 90% of games the performance is close enough that I’d never notice, but I play enough games that for now it makes sense to have a dedicated game OS, which is all Windows is these days to me.

merc,

Games is one of the blockers for me. I’m really hoping the Steam Deck changes things so that Windows is no longer needed at all.

Right now we’re just on stage 1, where almost everything that runs on the Steam Deck needs a compatibility layer. I’m hoping that the next step is developers building for Linux as well as Windows to run better on the Steam Deck, which would mean zero performance loss playing on a Linux desktop.

merc,

I just want to see how happy and relaxed Ensign Picard is. No critical decisions to make. Able to make friends among the crew without his rank getting in the way.

We get to see Captain Picard in Ensign Picard’s body, but we never get to see the slacker who has big dreams but doesn’t bother to push himself.

merc,

Leaving aside the quality of Rock Band vs. Fortnite, there are some other key differences:

  1. Playing with your friends in the same room. With Fortnite I think that’s possible on consoles, but it isn’t how people tend to play. If you’re not playing games with friends in the same room (at least sometimes) you’re missing out.
  2. A variety of games. Almost nobody exclusively played Guitar Hero, or Rock Band. They were just one of many games people played. For some reason, kids these days seem to be hyper-focused on one game. First it was Minecraft, next it was Fortnite. My nephew switched to League of Legends next, and again, it’s all he plays. I can understand getting hyper-focused an MMO, because they try to pile in all kinds of content: quests, raids, dungeons, professions, seasonal events, exploration, PvP, PvE, etc. But, Fortnite and LoL lack a lot of those features.
merc, (edited )

It’s inside a ventilation shaft in Cloud City. Maybe people have houses that look out into the ventilation shaft, because it’s at least better than no windows at all?

To me, it looks like panel lights on a computer / machine. But, why have those indicator lights in a ventilation shaft where you only rarely have people?

merc,

That’s by far the most disturbing thing about this post. The movie is 2.35:1. This looks even closer to square than 4:3. If you watched the movie with this framing you’d be missing more than half the movie.

merc,

Meanwhile virtually every possible (and infrequent) side-effect of the vaccine is also a possible (and frequent) side-effect of COVID.

Like, cardiac issues are possible, very rare side effects of the vaccine. Cardiac issues are common side effects of getting COVID. So, even if you’re really worried about one specific side-effect of the vaccine like pulmonary embolism – guess what, you’re much more likely to have one if you don’t get the vaccine because then you’re much more likely to get it as a COVID side-effect.

merc,

There’s a famous Churchill quote about democracy that is almost always misquoted:

‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’

To me, the key words that are often left out entirely are: that have been tried.

For the Aztecs in this picture, it may actually be true that their system was the best one they’d tried so far. Maybe ritual sacrifice of a tiny minority was a small price to pay compared to what they’d experienced until then. Representative democracy with voting rights for all citizens over the age of majority might be the best system we’ve tried so far. Kings willing to devolve some power to their barons in the Magna Carta was the best system for England so far.

We shouldn’t stop trying to make things better. Otherwise we’re like these Aztecs.

merc,

There’s no reason it shouldn’t work.

dy/dx is the same as (y1 - y2) / (x1 - x2) as the distance between the two points approaches zero. “dx” and “dy” aren’t very useful measurements on their own though.

merc,

I don’t want to chat with Chlorine Trifluoride, it’s nasty.

But yeah, there are some obscure situations where oxygen isn’t the oxidizing agent, but the name “oxidizer” gives a clue how rare that is. In most normal situations, oxygen is the oxidizer and the thing it reacts with is the fuel. Partially that’s due to Oxygen being a good electron acceptor, but mostly it’s because there’s a lot of oxygen in the planet, and anywhere you can have humans you pretty much need to have oxygen.

merc,

Oxygen isn’t flammable, Oxygen is what reacts with the things that are flammable.

merc,

North Korea’s GDP is on the order of 20 billion per year. Tiny for a country that size, but considering they don’t have to spend any of it on their population, that gives them a lot of bribe money.

merc,

I bet typing that makes you feel like your you’re own worse enemy.

merc,

*worse

merc,

Some iron ore, a ton of clay, and instructions on how to make a furnace.

merc,

But, good enough for just about anything most people need to do on a daily basis. For anything else there’s specialized tools.

merc,

And it’s popular, and it’s something non-Linux users might recognize.

merc,

A lot compared to other countries, but not so many that a tourist would have to worry about it, especially if they stick to touristey areas.

If someone decided to go into certain neighbourhoods in certain cities, especially while looking like a tourist, they could get in trouble. But, not visiting the US because you’re afraid of getting shot is like not being willing to swim anywhere in the Atlantic ocean because you’re afraid of being bitten by a shark. In both cases, the danger is minimal unless you ignore the warning signs.

merc,

What’s unsurprising is how strictly gun control is implemented on US military bases and navy ships.

If you live in barracks on-base and own a personal gun, if often has to be stored in the base’s firearm storage. The only people who can walk around armed are MPs or people on their way to/from authorized training. Even if you have a concealed carry permit for the state the base is in, you can’t conceal carry in the base. If you’re on your way to the base’s firing range and stop to get gas at the base’s gas station, you can’t leave your gun in your car while you go into the convenience store at the gas station unless your car is locked in your trunk. Often even a paintball gun has to be stored in the base armory.

Keep in mind these aren’t rules for random civilians. These are the rules for people who have already had to pass extensive firearms training courses.

It’s pretty insane that random untrained civilians have far fewer restrictions on guns than members of the military on a military base.

merc,

So, you know some people who were in a mass shooting, but they lived. If they know some people who died in a mass shooting that’s two degrees of separation between you and a mass shooting death.

As for the mass shootings this week, they include a convenience store robbery, something that seems to be a murder-suicide where someone killed their family, a shootout over a stolen car, shots at a house party. And, in only 2 of those cases (the 5 dead in a house, and the rampage in Maine) were more than 1 person killed. These all technically qualify as mass shootings, but the rampage in Maine is the only kind we really think of as being a typical mass shooting.

It’s far too many. There’s no question about that. It’s also absurd how much more frequent it is in the US compared to other places. On the other hand, the US has a population of 330 million people. So, while the odds of dying in a mass shooting are higher in the US than any other developed country in the world, it’s hardly a warzone. The vast majority of people in the US will not be in a mass shooting ever. Most people will never be shot in their lives. And tourists shouldn’t avoid the US out of a fear of being involved in a mass shooting. Yes, it’s much more likely in the US than in say Japan. But, the overall odds are low.

merc,

As disturbing as these mass shootings are, they’re still very rare. The vast majority of Americans will never be in a mass shooting, let alone tourists who only visit occasionally.

It’s telling that most American police officers go their entire career without shooting their guns except at the firing range.

But, it is a sign of US dysfunction that the problem is so obvious but there’s zero chance of the problem being solved any time soon.

merc,

Aside from all that, it’s just sane to lock down weapons.

The military knows how dangerous they are, so they don’t let people on military bases just wander around with them. They’re carefully controlled. It’s just insanity that outside the walls the rules are less strict.

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