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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 23rd, 2023

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  • This is so pathetic and stupid.

    This isn’t aimed at Russia or China, whom the article calls out by name.
    This is a dick measuring contest with Iran and North Korea.

    I mean - he made the announcement in South Korea.

    Diplomatically, Trump (well, his administration) has stated to learn that befriending and allowing tinpot dictators to humiliate the U.S. is non-viable. So they’ve moved to cold-war era tactics of arms races and implied threats of nuclear holocaust.
    They, of course, are focusing on smaller nations that while powerful in their own right, aren’t actual threats to the U.S. global hegemony. Not that I support continued U.S. dominance on the world stage, but it’s a weird priority.
    Maybe by the end of the admin, they’ll be caught up to Clinton, who realized the best way to apply pressure was economically and via international partnerships — assuming the U.S. has an economy and international partnerships to leverage by then.


  • The social contract is that we do not tolerate intolerance. If someone is intolerant or they tolerate intolerance, they are violating the social contract.

    If she’s calling for tolerance of his views (she is), or is clear that she’s tolerant of his views (again, she is), then she’s breaking the social contract.

    As his wife, she would know his medical history, and would know if he underwent a personality shift. As a politician, she’s expected to represent all of her constituents and have sound judgement, especially in matters of conflicts of interest.
    There’s no more story to know or no mitigating factors. Throw the baby out with the bathwater on this one.




  • A few years ago I noticed an annoyance with a soundbar I had. After allowing it onto my WiFi network so we could stream music to it, it still broadcast the setup WiFi network.

    While dorking around one day, I ran a port scan on my network and the soundbar reported port 22 (ssh) was open. I was able to log in as root and no password.
    After a moment of “huh, that’s terrible security.” I connected to the (publicly open) setup network, ssh’d in, and copied the wpa_supplicant.conf file from the device to verify it had my WiFi info available to anyone with at least my mediocre skill level. I then factory reset the device, never to entrust it with any credentials again.





  • And it’s an act of constant, willful effort by yourself and your community.

    One neighbor is a rental, they are a large immigrant family and are barely getting along. Property owner lives out of country. Another neighbor thought it would be a fun idea to feed neighborhood stray cats. They wound up creating a very healthy breeding family of raccoons out the run-down garage of the rental. For years their offspring have wreaked havoc in our neighborhood. Every fall I’ve had to call a pest control company to trap the tiny raccoons that are small enough to climb downspouts (the big ones aren’t) and destroy the siding and soffits of my neighbors houses. The cat food guy moved away, I figured out how to occlude the raccoons from my downspouts with ample and unsightly flashing, and along with other neighbors, have built or repaired fencing in in our backyards (mostly because of pets and trespassing neighborhood kids, honestly).
    It seems like the raccoon misadventure has finally concluded. I’m now stuck with damaged soffits that squirrels have moved into (on account of a looming walnut tree that lives in a neighbors yard and is so large it overhangs my roof), and a repair estimate that was $5k a year ago, when I had the garage roof redone but wasn’t sure I’d gotten the raccoon problem licked, so I didn’t want to proceed with those repairs. Who knows what it’ll be now. … yay.





  • I have an FDM printer (Ender 3 clone) that is mostly 2020 aluminum extrusion as the frame. A few years ago I found some 2020 on sale and built a set of shelves for my wife’s plants out of it. (Now - I know. It’s not the most economical use of materials, but it was the middle of winter, and I didn’t want to go work in the garage. Plus the 2020 was on sale.) It’ll support a slew of plants over a 4-foot span (~1.2m) without any sagging or other concerns. It can be wobbly side to side, but that’s a matter of bracing and connectors.



  • His detractors don’t get it. The doctors just called him back for his second once a year exam to admire him. Trump is in unbelievably good health.


    It’s Trump’s business acumen showing again. He gets his yearly checkups each calendar and each fiscal year.


    Saying this is a check up is a cover story. The doctors obviously called him in to consult on a particularly tough case.


    Yes, these are jokes. I hope president pudding brain remains cognizant enough to see all he built crumble, see his reputation ruined, his criminal enterprise dismantled, see his children jailed, to realize that he’s going to die before his political and criminal enemies, and that it all unfolds exceedingly quickly. Not all hopes are rational or possible, but I’ll accept any part of the above.


  • That’s a medical complaint to your local licensing board.

    Yeah, so during my procedure, my doctor either didn’t numb me up enough or whatever, but I said “I felt that.” right at the start and he said “Do you mean you felt some pressure?” To which I responded: “uh… no. You just put a clamp on my left testicle.”
    At which point he said “Oh! Well, let’s get you numbed up a bit more then!” And they did.
    That didn’t really stop my body from going into full freakout mode. My BP went up, temperature spiked, and I laid there trying to meditate while the nurses dealt with the physical symptoms.

    It was so weird. I had a full physical reaction, but my emotional state was pretty solid, because I trusted their reaction and could tell they cared about my comfort.




  • In my community, street racing seems to be the entertainment du jour for people with nothing better to do. I live about a half mile (800m) from a major roadway, and very often am jarred by the noise of people racing full tilt. There are a few people who even have modified their cars to be louder, and you can distinctly pick out the sound of their cars.
    I’m a light sleeper, and these people will wake me up in the middle of the night with their ‘shotgun exhausts,’ racing down the street. They kill about 5 people a year. Earlier this year, a street race injured over a dozen people, and killed a kid.

    As a result, the city has re-timed the lights so that when traveling at normal speeds, traffic is stopped at every stoplight, which means that most drivers now just wontonly disregard speed limits to beat the light timing and not get trapped in a frustrating cycle where a 2-mile drive down the road takes upwards of 15 minutes instead of 5. This just causes the street racers to race later, when they can run the lights and wake everyone up. Plus the increase in speeding by normal drivers decreases safety on the road.

    Both the direct and network effects of their stupidity are pretty significant.
    So - yes. Street racers are bad people. They are callous, immature, and both actively and passively endanger other motorists. Also, I’m fucking tired, and my dogs are traumatized.