SwingingTheLamp 1d ago • 37%
Holy shit, 2,912,790 people voted for Dubya in Florida?! How come nobody noticed this before? I feel like that might have affected the outcome of the election.
SwingingTheLamp 2d ago • 50%
Kinda tongue-in-cheek questions, but: Honey isn't an animal body part, it isn't produced by animal bodies, so if it is an animal product because bees process it, is wheat flour (for example) an animal product because humans process it? How about hand-kneaded bread? Does that make fruit an animal product because the bees pollinated the flowers while collecting the nectar?
SwingingTheLamp 2d ago • 100%
Think you're really righteous?!
SwingingTheLamp 3d ago • 100%
I've put some effort into improving my visualization since learning about aphantasia. Upon reading the prompt, I was able to imagine a colorless ball, but with shading to indicate a 3D shape, like a preview render in a CAD program. That's progress! It didn't have a size inherently. For the table, I could picture a white, rectangular plane hovering in a black void. If it was a normal dinner table size, then the ball was something like a softball or basketball.
And that's it. That exhausted my ability to visualize. No person, no push, no motion. Best I can do is to see the white rectangle after the ball has rolled off of the edge.
SwingingTheLamp 3d ago • 100%
Hmm, methinks that Anon (and all of us straight men) might do better by treating women as people. If we feel it's so important to have a cute girlfriend, then should we not respect that a woman might want a cute boyfriend? If we think women should keep an open mind about us, maybe set an example, and keep an open mind about non-physical traits that make a woman cute?
Yeah, it's always down to luck—that's just life—but being a good dude is putting your thumb on the scale in your own favor.
SwingingTheLamp 3d ago • 100%
Did anyone tell you that his daughter had recurrent health issues, and had two forms of pneumonia at the time of her death, either one of which could have caused the symptoms that the hospital thought could have indicated "shaken baby syndrome"?
No? Actually, nobody told the jury at his trial, as well. This case was a mockery of justice from the start.
SwingingTheLamp 3d ago • 80%
In a nutshell, the Democrats can't convince people to vote against the dangerous candidate because right-wing populism inoculates people against facts and logic by making those things out-group markers, per se. Identity is powerful, and the human brain treats threats to identity in exactly the same way as physical threats.
And, on the other side, Democrats can't recognize this and respond appropriately, because they've made not-recognizing-it a marker of in-group identity, and they are thereby unable to decode what would make an attractive policy plan.
SwingingTheLamp 3d ago • 100%
Uh, yeah, about that. Republicans need to stop thinking so much about children, mmkay?
SwingingTheLamp 3d ago • 100%
Curiously, it worked too well. China is now desperately offering incentives to get people to have more children.
(Okay, I'm just being glib. It's not clear whether it was the one-child policy that was responsible for the birth-rate crash.)
SwingingTheLamp 4d ago • 100%
The evidence doesn't support that claim. Libertarian candidates for President get more votes than leftist candidates, by far. Compare the leftish Democrats coalescing around Biden in 2020, and Harris this year, to the Republican politicians who get "primaried," and the prevalence of RINO vs. DINO accusations. Look at the votes in the House to select Jeffries vs. Johnson.
SwingingTheLamp 4d ago • 100%
The assessed value of a property is only indirectly related to the property tax that the owner pays. Municipalities multiply the assessed value of a property by the mill rate to calculate the taxes. They set the mill rate essentially by dividing their budgetary revenue needs by the total assessed value of all properties in the municipality. If my assessment goes way up (say, I put an addition on my house), then my taxes go up. But if everybody's assessment goes up proportionally, then my taxes don't change, because the mill rate will drop.
The latter is the situation in those ski-resort towns. It means that property owners suddenly have a much-higher net worth, but doesn't necessarily mean they're paying more in taxes. It only means that if the rich people moving in demand more and better municipal services, and raise spending.
On the other hand, look at the perverse incentive built into the current system: Landlords can reduce their taxes by letting their properties decay (lowering their assessed value); or at least, the system disincentivizes improvements which raise the assessed value. In a popular ski-resort town, or college town like mine, we get slumlords, because the vacancy rate is so low that they know that they can get tenants even in run-down units.
SwingingTheLamp 4d ago • 85%
So they wouldn't be able to afford their taxes with a LVT, but they can't afford their taxes under the current property tax regime (in which land value is also a factor). I don't see how this is an argument against LVT.
But, zooming out, is it beneficial to society to have empty-nesters, and elderly single people, living in 3- or 4-bedroom houses when there's a critical housing shortage for young families? Is it even good for them to live in a big house, when a nearby, smaller dwelling that's cheaper, and easier to clean and keep up? The problem in the United States is that those smaller dwelling units don't exist at all in most neighborhoods, and about the only option is to move to an "independent living" facility on the edge of town, away from family an neighbors, for $3,000 a month.
It could be a win-win: Elderly owners of high-value land could realize the cash value that's currently locked up in their houses, while the city could benefit by intensified development of that same land, increasing nearby land values even more. We need to change the zoning code to allow building that missing-middle housing in the same neighborhoods, but if we did that, a land-value tax would help incentivize its construction.
SwingingTheLamp 4d ago • 100%
Hey, hey, we're working on getting rid of the people. Just give environmental destruction a chance to do its thing.
SwingingTheLamp 4d ago • 100%
Yeah, I think, uhh, that something is very wrong with our whole country is actually the whole point of the meme?
SwingingTheLamp 4d ago • 80%
Meh, I've snuffed a burning match in gasoline before. (I was actually trying to light it.) It's the vapor that's explosive, so as long as those cans are sealed, there's basically no danger. (Aside from, y'know, lung cancer.)
SwingingTheLamp 4d ago • 50%
The hitch is that other people do what's right according to their own moral reckoning, whether you understand it or not.
SwingingTheLamp 4d ago • 40%
The connection that I have in mind is, "doing what's moral, even if it might harm yourself."
SwingingTheLamp 5d ago • 58%
No, I doubt that they're stupid. They don't think that they other guy will be better. However, I also doubt that Sophie Scholl thought that her death alone would stop the Holocaust. Sometimes there's a moral line that you just can't cross.
SwingingTheLamp 6d ago • 62%
Terrible, terrible advice. That leaves a full car-length of empty pavement with the driver sight-lines of modern SUV and crossover designs. Pickup trucks are worse; I've seen pickup truck drivers stop a full 30 feet back. It wastes huge amounts of space on the street, and causes traffic congestion. On the other side of the coin, van and bus drivers can still get right up on your ass when following this advice.
CNN and ProPublica found that Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz is the owner of an active account on the website HotOrNotDish.net, where he posts under the anonymous username DarthTater, according to an investigative analysis of comments on the forum. The user DarthTater has for more than a decade offered compliments (sometimes accompanied by a flame emoji) under every single photo uploaded to the site for hot dish appreciators. The account also mentioned the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in one post, in which it wished other HotOrNotDish.net users a “happy MLK weekend!” and hoped they would get to “spend it with family, eating hot dish.” Walz appears to have been active under the same username for years on a variety of HotOrNotDish.net’s subforums for other hot dish-related issues, including once posting 24 times in a thread dedicated to the question of “Is hot dish casserole?” DarthTater ultimately concluded, “Sorry, friends. I’ve got to hit the hay. A lot of good points. Food for thought (almost as delicious as hot dish).” Posts going back years include statements such as “That hot dish looks delicious” and “My only note? Try it with Schell’s beer. But what you have going looks good too!” and “Hope you’re enjoying that delicious dish with your beautiful family! Cherish your family! I know I cherish mine!” DarthTater also expressed some viewpoints that matched with Walz’s public persona. In one instance, the user wrote, “National Coming Out Day is around the corner and I need to be on my A-game with snacks (I’m a GSA club sponsor). Any suggestions, hot dish friends?” adding, “Goes without saying, but, just in case, I disapprove of slavery.” DarthTater was also the name Walz appears to have used on Quora, where that user often posted detailed replies to queries about the best snow tires to purchase. Walz admitted that the account might be his, adding that he hoped he had not said anything that would offend anyone. “Those hot dishes all looked delicious,” he noted. “I wouldn’t want anyone to think that their hot dish didn’t pass muster.” Another HotOrNotDish.net user, MarkRobinsonIsMyLegalNameAndThisIsMyRealEmailPleaseAskMeAboutNazismIAmForIt, complained about DarthTater’s posts being dragged into the news. “Why is it fair to bring in the things that people post anonymously on forums in their spare time?” the mystery poster asked. “Especially if, frankly, they’re not all that surprising.” (On the record, the legally named Mark Robinson denied engaging in any such behavior.) MarkRobinsonIsMyLegalName was a less active HotOrNotDish.net poster, having left only one comment, “some folks need killing,” under a picture of a hot dish that had used cream of mushroom soup as its base.
I saw Madison in this article immediately. I hear a lot of local residents try to deny the fact that we have an acute housing shortage, opposing new construction projects on the grounds that they require tearing down ~~dilapidated dumps~~"affordable housing," which displaces lower-income residents, as if building new market-rate apartments *causes* wealthier people to move here. Here's the reality: >**Alex Horowitz:** We're short on all homes. Full stop. There just aren't enough of them. And that means that existing homes are getting bid up because we see high income households competing with low income households for the same residences since just not enough are getting built. We're a growing city with a healthy economy. People keep moving here, and as they do, housing is like a game of musical chairs, except seats go to those with more money. The Common Council and mayor are trying to do something about it. >**Horowitz:** So restrictive zoning is the primary culprit. It's made it hard to build homes in the areas where there are jobs. And so that has created an immense housing shortage. And each home is getting bid up, whether it's a rental or whether it's a home to buy. Restrictive zoning. It makes building new housing illegal in most of the city. The West Area Plan is an incremental step forward on this issue, but of course, change is scary enough to turn people into bullies, literally shouting abuse at city staffers in public meetings. Let's hope that they're tough enough, and wise enough, to keep pushing it forward, because: >**Horowitz:** [...] And we certainly see some local elected officials and some residents concerned about changes in their community, even though the evidence suggests that allowing more homes is mostly beneficial by improving affordability and reducing homelessness.
>**Kelly:** Is there a downside? I'm thinking of people trying to find a parking place, for starters. >**Horowitz:** So we see that in places that have actually eliminated parking minimums, that we see fewer people driving at all and having cars and we see vehicle miles traveled decrease because people can get around via other mechanisms. Well, now, would you look at that?! If we change the incentives, if we stop incentivizing driving by law, people change their behavior. In this case, they can save a ton of money by not needing a car.
A crane lifts pads for the hands-free mooring system at the Welland Canal locks into place. Credit: Michel Gosselin. Video and more photos [here](https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid028dq4Xo466khEePgNsELNLzCZMcsVcc8TYmBf7KJSmtyJ6563L5NeF4LEqnwgAE91l&id=1419282569).
Yeah, basically that. I'm back at work in Windows land on a Monday morning, and pondering what sadist at Microsoft included these features. It's not hyperbole to say that the startup repair, and the troubleshooters in settings, have never fixed an issue I've encountered with Windows. Not even once. Is this typical? ETA: I've learned from reading the responses that the Windows troubleshooters primarily look for missing or broken drivers, and sometimes fix things just by restarting a service, so they're useful if you have troublesome hardware.
In the past several days, I've noticed that comments that I make on this instance to cross-instance communities started to take up to several hours to propagate to the community's home instance, and now do not seem to propagate at all. I've noticed the issue on lemmy.world, lemmynsfw.com, and lemmy.ml. Several comments I made today in a programming.dev community went through more or less instantly, though. Has anyone else noticed this?
Last week on the UW-Madison campus.
It's just a photo from a budget phone, but I figured I'd share this Sunday afternoon scene from the middle of Madison.
www.channel3000.com
They say that if you want to get away with murder, use a car as the weapon. By the way, Wisconsin has no jaywalking law, so they're letting a killer off the hook for, like, reasons?
www.vox.com
"There’s probably nothing that we do that causes more suffering to wild animals than driving."
www.facebook.com
Lost cause or not, this is still typical of the traffic infrastructure we're building. Notice, this is a designated "bicycle boulevard."
You paying attention, Josh Kaul? Let's go, already.
With the possibility of aurora borealis again later this week, this seems like a good time to share a link to the DPAS. *If* there's a big coronal mass ejection (CME) event, they'll know about it. They have a filtered telescope for observation of sunspots. If there's no CME, it's still worth checking out their open house nights at the observatory in Sturgeon Bay.