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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 3rd, 2023

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  • In think you hit the nail on the head for me with this one:

    I wouldn’t be a Kamala supporter, so it doesn’t benefit Trump

    I’m in the same boat. Many of Kamala’s policies aren’t things I want or agree with. Many of Trump’s policies aren’t things I want or agree with. I disagree with BOTH of the major candidates so much that it doesn’t make sense for me to vote for either of them.

    They aren’t losing my vote, their platforms are such that neither ever had my vote to begin with. It’s not like my vote would have been for Kamala, but since I have a small issue with one of her planks, then I’m throwing a fit and I’m going to vote 3rd party.

    Neither major candidate deserves my vote, In fact I think the difference between Kamala and Trump winning is relatively small for the US. Either of them winning will be a nightmare for the US. They’re both terrible people, they may lie about different things, and the media favors one or the other more for their own benefit. They’re both authoritarian warmongers, who say whatever it takes on the campaign trail to get elected, then stomp all over regular people when they get into power. The major parties are not the same, but they’re both fucked.

    I also happen to live in a state where one party will get double the other party’s votes, and it’s been that way for nearly my entire life. MY VOTE FOR PRESIDENT LITERALLY DOESN’T MATTER HERE, EVEN IF I LIKED ONE OF THE MAJOR CANDIDATES.

    If other people like Kamala more than Trump, enough to cast their vote for her, then I encourage them to do so. I understand in swing states where individual votes aren’t annihilated by a supermajority that people may have to be more strategic in their voting and take the bad with the good.

    But personally, I vote for a 3rd party candidate with no chance to win, whose platform I happen to agree with more than any other candidate, and I can live with myself and the eventual outcome.

    I definitely agree on getting out of first past the post though.


  • I’m a little skeptical about gas stoves causing or contributing to all these deaths, but I believe in science so if well written papers like the one OP linked are peer reviewed and published then I’m willing to accept their conclusions.

    That being said, I’m a very avid home cook (with years of experience in commercial kitchens) and I’ve made many good faith attempts to find a way to cook on the stove top that doesn’t use gas, and unfortunately none of them come even close to what I can do with gas.

    Regular electric elements are garbage, and it doesn’t matter what kind of cooking vessel you use, but I think almost everyone agrees here.

    Induction is very interesting, and can heat a ferrous vessel quicker than a normal stove burner (but not nearly as fast as my outdoor wok equipment can). Unfortunately it is pulsed heating, and uses a rather course gradient, so techniques which require very fine tuned and consistent heat aren’t easily replicated.

    I’ll admit that have a lot of money invested in non-ferrous cooking vessels (copper, not a copper plate in the bottom, legit 3mm thick copper walled pans) and they are incompatible with induction, so any switch to induction will require buying new cookware. I’m in a tiny niche, so I also admit my trouble with induction shouldn’t discourage others from switching.

    Gas is wonderful for getting precisely the results I need with sauces, when you turn it down it follows a smooth and predictable gradient, and works perfectly with high quality copper cookware which is superior to anything else on the market (unless of course you use induction, or care about price).

    Yes, I have some cast iron and carbon steel, which work with induction, but they don’t lose heat as fast as other materials, which is required for some techniques. They’re great for some things, but terrible at others, so they don’t solve my problem.

    I run a hefty hood that exhausts outside, and I don’t have kids in the house, so in the near term I’m not really worried about people in my home getting sick from whatever combusting natural gas throws off.

    But like the meat alternative (or lab grown meat) effort, I’m genuinely interested in an alternative to what I already use, but only if it performs at least as well as my current solution. And unfortunately nothing currently on the market comes even close.



  • This actually happens very frequently in the US. When hunters harvest a bird they report their kills in compliance with hunting regulations. If any of your birds have leg or neck bands you report that information as well. The bands have a tracking number on them, and scientists use them to monitor populations and migration patterns. It’s literally part of their plan.

    You get to keep the bands as well (I only have experience with banded geese and ducks). They’re a neat memento.



  • How do I plan for job instability? By interviewing at many places continuously. By keeping my job skills and interviewing skills sharp, while interviewing continuously. By keeping my eye on the market and my value, by interviewing continuously, and evaluating the incoming offers.

    It’s not easy, but it’s pretty straightforward. I picked a job sector with lots of opportunities and upward mobility, but also tons of instability. I picked a place to live which gives me physical proximity to those opportunities. I work smart and stay agile. All of that without a college degree.

    Stuff is expensive and we don’t always have everything we want, but we’re secure enough to have everything we need, with a healthy risk management plan.

    I do live in a major city in the US, so I have more local opportunities than someone in a small town. But I’d argue that my decision to live near where there are job opportunities was part of my planning process.


  • I mean, yeah, I plan for that. If you’re a wage earner like me, you should know you’re employed at the will of some company, and they don’t give a shit about you.

    I plan for this by interviewing for other jobs at least once a month. I turn down offers every few months. I keep my skills sharp and my eyes open, and change employment when it makes sense.

    The longest I’ve been at one company is 7 years, but it’s not unusual for me to change companies after 18-24 months.

    I don’t plan to get laid off, but it happens a lot in my industry, and I roll with it. It is planned out, risk management, or whatever you want to call it.




  • I have a few guitars, across the spectrum from early 50’s Gibson family heirlooms, beat up 80’s shedders, 90’s Guitar Center trash specials, all the way to a Fender masterbuilt reissue Tele.

    IMO you pay what it’s worth to you. If you like the way it sounds and you play it well, you’ll know what it’s worth.

    I’m not sure what some of my fancier guitars are worth, but I know the one that sounds the best and I love to play the most is the bottom dollar Epiphone I’ve had set up and replaced the electronics in. I’m probably up to $700 all in on that instrument over 30 years and it just sings for me.

    Spend what you want, if you love it then it’s worth every penny.



  • I see a lot of references to Ubuntu being filled with ads or scaring people into buying their services, but I’ve been daily driving it for over 15 years on personal desktops and servers and never noticed that. What have I missed?

    I never saw the Amazon ad stuff, I hear it was a referral link?

    Last I checked Ubuntu Pro is free for personal use on up to 5 machines.

    I use apt to manage all my packages and upgrades, including dist-upgrade, maybe that’s why I’ve never noticed snap? Why does snap suck?








  • You cannot introduce a human structure to manage water more efficiently than nature

    If you actually believe this then there’s nothing anyone can say to help you.

    If a naturally occuring spring runs directly into a wide flat area in the middle of the Mojave desert, then it doesn’t naturally reabsorb into the ground as the hard pack just makes it sit on the surface. Since the water is shallow and sitting on the surface, it evaporates instead of being used to water native plants or support native animals.

    The golf course in question is not a dam, it’s putting the already available water to use more efficiently. Growing non-native grass, but also native plant species, and providing native insects and animals a way to utilize that water before it would have otherwise evaporated.

    Dams destroy native ecosystems by flooding and displacing them, or removing available water downstream. The golf course in question does none of those things.

    “Nature is perfect and humans are capable of nothing but destroying it” is a great take BTW. You could have saved a few people some time by leading with that.


  • You must be trolling.

    Birds, insects, and reptiles are common even in the desert. A species can be native to an ecosystem or region, without naturally occuring in an small locality.

    If humans manage water more efficiently than nature would have in this locality, it stands to reason that the resulting local ecosystem would be able to attract and support more native wildlife.

    This is observable and provable for golf courses which manage their resources with a focus on limiting their natural resource use and increasing local biodiversity.

    You just hate golf courses, which is fine, but you sound pretty uninformed.