Still stuck in the inhumanity of job searching with autism and no drivers license, and if not for the solidarity of comrades on Hexbear these past few months I'd have been absolutely screwed. I'm looking for 30 to 40 dollars so I can run to the store and stock up for the week, but any amount would be extremely helpful and appreciated. My cashapp and venmo accounts are both under the handle cosecantphi EDIT: Goal reached! Thanks so much to our dedicated comrade bumpers and generous comrade donors here on c/mutual_aid. I eagerly await the day my situation is stabilized so I can pay it forward. 

chapotraphouse cosecantphi • 1mo ago • 100%

Code Geass would've been a certified anti-imperialist anime classic if only it weren't obnoxiously horny

The terrorists are entirely justified in their violent resistance against the obviously evil and genocidal Britannian empire, which is something of a stand in for both the British Empire and the US. The annoying liberal deuteragonist bumbles around for 2/3 of the show being a supersoldier for the Britannian Empire while constantly making these bizarre self righteous arguments that Lelouch's rebellion is just too darn mean and violent, we have to support the Britannian Empire's rule of law just a while longer guys! The longer this goes on, the more and more his world view crumbles around him as basically nothing goes to plan for this liberal who is just incapable of grappling with material reality. He ends up following his sense of liberal morality all the way to accidentally killing millions with a Britannian wunderwaffe nuke. This leads him on his jokerification arc wherein he realizes the error of his ways and actually supports Lelouch through the batshit last few episodes of this show. Anyway, I can't recommend this show to anyone in year of our lord 2024 because it's obnoxiously, embarrassingly horny in a very mid 2000s anime way, because that's exactly what it is. But I'm imagining what could have been.

chapotraphouse cosecantphi • 2mo ago • 100%

God, the reddit discourse on the new dragon show is horrendous

HBO tried to make the line go up by cutting two episodes off the second season in the midst of the writer's strike. Like no exaggeration, the season 2 finale ends in a way that makes it immediately obvious two more episodes were supposed to exist. They were simply truncated along with the all the payoff for many of this season's character arcs and plot lines. One of the writers even made a statement that an eight episode season wasn't their decision. Unfortunately the news of that must have hit them too late in production to fully accommodate that in the writing. Except on all the subreddits for this show, the prevailing opinion amongst dipshit redditors is that the writers are cutting book events to make time for LGBTQ asoiaf fanfiction. While that'd be based if true, it's not. Like wtf? Do these people live in a different universe? Are they watching a different dragon show? Redditors ain't alright, man. These people watch the enshittification of media in real time, and their lack of media literacy results in them going on queerphobic witch hunts and throwing wild assignment of blame at anything but HBO and capitalism.

The reason I ask is because I'm autistic, but I wasn't diagnosed until I was 18 so I never received any kind of assistance growing up. And every time I've used an NMDA antagonist drug, I've experienced amazing relief from all of my sensory issues. I've never tried Ketamine, but I have used DXM and Nitrous Oxide, both of which are also NMDA antagonists. It's like they partially sever the connection between the mind and the body. Nitrous Oxide isn't very useful for this because it only lasts a couple minutes before you need to redose, but even on lowish doses of DXM I feel totally unencumbered. My sensory issues tend to take up a lot of cognitive load when I'm out in public and interacting with strangers, resulting in social anxiety. My whole life I've been too focused on the feeling of wanting to crawl out of my own skin too much to put any effort into being social, making friends, or having fun. But on NMDA antagonists that all just goes away and I finally feel free and clear headed in a way I had never imagined possible. They literally just make me feel free to be me. Has anyone else here experienced something similar? Is there any existing research on this?

movies cosecantphi • 3mo ago • 97%

Thoughts on the new dragon show?

I've been catching up with season 2 and honestly it's not half bad. It has cut out the worst shitty (often gross and misogynistic in nature) excesses of the original show while still retaining most if not all of the great character writing and great dialogue that the first four seasons of GoT had. There's all this great early GoT style political intrigue retained to it as well. All of these lords and ladies and queens and kings are just terrible, awful people for most of the runtime while we've been getting increasing focus on how badly the very concept of monarchy forces the dirty laundry of one inbred family with pet nukes to take shape and brutalize not only the slowly starving smallfolk of King's Landing, but also the smallfolk throughout most of the surrounding empire. The Lords of the Seven Kingdoms all exist in this web of familial ties that ensures their ultimate class solidarity, eventually dragging most of the continent into dragon war the aftermath of which resembles that of atomic bombs. Now we find two desperate peasants given dragons because Queen in Exile Rhaenyra needs to find someone capable of vibing with Vermithor and Silverwing, the second and third largest war dragons in existence. She ends up burning to death dozens of claimed Targaryen bastards to do this by locking them all in the Dragonmont and letting the dragons sort the rest. She watches this happen with bored disinterest, in contrast to the horror on her face when her highborn Queensguard Steffon Darklyn dies in a previous attempt to claim the dragon Seasmoke. [Brief Spoilers for book events in this paragraph] ::: spoiler spoiler In the book, after Hugh Hammer and Ulf White risk their lives to be her attack dog dragon riders, they never receive the kind of social elevation you'd expect for the people with the largest dragons on the continent. Rhaenyra does not want to deal with the political fallout of there being legitimized Targaryen bastards with bigger dragons than those of her sons, whom are also legitimized Targaryen bastards. Thus Hugh and Ulf plausibly retain some amount of class solidarity to the average smallfolk's plight and betray Rhaenyra to declare themselves Kings. I'm hoping the show has them join some Riverlander anti-Targaryen guerilla movements once they see the kind of atrocities they are expected to commit. :::

askchapo cosecantphi • 3mo ago • 97%

Did anyone else find their Spanish classes in High School entirely useless?

I took three years of Spanish and got an A every semester. Even when it was still fresh in my mind, I was nowhere near able to hold even a very simple conversation. And now just a few years later it's all totally gone from my brain. My mother's native language is Spanish and she never taught me, which I resent her for. But I still find it incredible how shitty my public school education in Spanish was. We really should be teaching kids a second language from kindergarten up.

bloomer cosecantphi • 3mo ago • 100%

Lost 20 pounds over the course of the past two months. I knew I'd feel better after losing weight, but I didn't anticipate just how much better.

I swear to god, my mental health, self esteem, and confidence are flying to heights not seen since I graduated high school. That may be a low bar to clear, but I cleared it! I still want to lose another 30 pounds to reach my goal weight, but already I no longer feel ashamed when I look at myself naked in the mirror.

chapotraphouse cosecantphi • 3mo ago • 99%

My mom called the cops on me for using cannabis yesterday. We live in a legal state.

She regularly uses cannabis vape pods. I had no idea she would explode on me about this because I had already previously told her I was using cannabis, that I was paying for it, and that it greatly helped me with my social anxiety and depression. It also was greatly aiding me in my weight loss, and I'm currently the healthiest I've ever felt in my life. So yesterday I started making my edibles like it was no big deal because I thought the heart to heart I had with her about it patched things up. I legitimately thought she'd be happy for me. Well the moment she smelled it in the oven, she stormed into the kitchen, suddenly she threatened to kick me out, threatened to stop paying for all medical care I'm currently receiving, and when I didn't give in, she started begging my elderly father to intervene, nearly gave my dad a heart attack the way she reacted to me consuming this plant like it was bloody murder. I had been open about this with him for months and he doesn't have a problem with it. I was making edibles with preground weed because it's so much cheaper to buy, I picked up a couple eighths for $10. Apparently though my mom had never heard of the concept of baking weed in the oven to decarb it, and started screaming at me like I was insane. I'm thinking she thought that maybe smelling it might mean she's also smoking it, that's my speculation on why she reacted like this, anyway. I currently don't use any other drugs on a daily basis not prescribed to me by a doctor. Though seven years ago I had a problem with opiates that I've since solved with Buprenorphine maintenance, for context. Once I realized this might be about the smell I turned off the oven and put away the foil pouch of weed, but that wasn't enough. She gave my dad an ultimatum to kick me out or she'd be calling the cops. I refused to stop using weed, I told her I'll avoid using cannabis when she's home like I had been doing previously, but I would not be sacrificing my mental health at her arbitrary whim. My dad started having a panic attack, got in his car, and drove away. The cops arrived, explained this wasn't their responsibility, and they left. I am very glad my dogs and I are still alive. I have autism and thought this might be the end of me. My dad returned a few hours later. It is now the next day and no one has breathed a word of this since my little brother returned from work.

chapotraphouse cosecantphi • 3mo ago • 100%

Is it possible subjective experience is actually the default state of existence and not correlated to the body, mind, consciousness, or life at all?

I see this discussion come up a lot and it always results in arguments that I think maybe come about as a result of a lack of agreed upon definitions for certain terms, so I'll start there. Here are some definitions that make sense to me surrounding the hard problem of consciousness, would love to hear if anyone else has had the same thoughts: ***Subjective experience:*** Essentially the range of qualia that I can say exists because I experience them. It's the information you receive from your senses that is not quantifiable. For example, a description of the color red, no matter how detailed and scientifically accurate, will ever allow a person who has never experienced sight to understand what the color red looks like. ***The mind and body:*** The physical apparatus through which animals like us interact with the world. From the body we receive the necessary sensory information and nourishment to exert our will on the world. With the mind we interpret all sensory information gathered from the world. Vast neural networks read, interpret, alter and conduct data received from the body's various sensory organs. Our brains begin this process with inherited patterns of basic cognition. Certain neural pathways calcify from repeated activity, forming memories: a catalogue of previous experiences we attribute importance to. Memories, guided by our upbringing, form a scaffold with which personality forms around, totally unique to the circumstances of any individual. But at no point in this fundamentally material process do we see the necessity for qualia, subjective experience. Theoretically, would a fully accurate computer simulated brain not also experience qualia if we know for a fact that we do? The ongoing process described above is how most people would describe consciousness. We find that messing with certain parts of the brain can interrupt consciousness, and therefore memory formation, but how can we be sure that some fundamental sensation never ends, totally divorced from the body and mind? People who get too drunk may not remember it later, but they were certainly conscious at the time. If there exists some feeling before conception and after death, no one can know because the dead can't speak and the living don't remember it.

technology cosecantphi • 4mo ago • 100%

Dead laptop HDDs make cute little hand mirrors once you take them apart

RIP to my old Minecraft world from 2019 on this 2.5 inch HDD I now use as a mirror for shaving

chapotraphouse cosecantphi • 4mo ago • 100%

[CW: Drug discussion] Will inability of the US federal government to enforce drug laws be one of the more immediate positive domestic impacts of slowly ongoing balkanization?

(Initially posted in c/drugs but thought it would get more engagement here) I was thinking about the way cannabis is increasingly legal in the US, and I'm starting to see it as a symptom of balkanization in this country that might start to become the model for the legalization of other drugs. To explain: In most places in the US it is either legal or de facto legal despite the fact that until this year it was federally considered a schedule I controlled substance alongside Heroin, LSD, and many other widely known recreational drugs. For decades the federal government considered cannabis to be wholly unsuitable for all medical use and too dangerous for scientists to even research. They dedicated vast resources into destroying cannabis farms and putting cannabis users, dealers, and growers into prison. It was in a legal category more severe than fentanyl and many of its analogues. Without even changing those laws, we got to a place where most states decided to just hand out licenses to businesses to grow and sell it, and allow anyone over the age of 21 to buy it. I think the research chemical scene has by now made it clear that recreational drugs are not a finite group. New drugs are invented all the time. In the same way, new plants containing psychoactive compounds are either discovered or popularized all the time. They do not necessarily start their lives in the public consciousness with stigma, and they can be just as benign or deadly, euphoric or dysphoric, sedating or stimulating, psychedelic or inebriating as any classic, widely known drug. The way the federal government categorized drugs and the way the DEA enforced drug law was never rational when you approach it from the goal of reducing the harm drugs cause socially. In actuality it was always about maintaining a legal and socially acceptable avenue for continuing this country's legacy of racism and slavery. What this means is that which new drugs are to be banned, which are to be ignored, and which are to be accepted is an entirely local matter determined by which marginalized communities can be connected to each drug for purpose of stigmatization. With increasing social disunity across the states, we might begin to see certain drugs became wide spread and tolerated in certain states but treated with extreme hostility elsewhere. A situation like this would paralyze the ability of the DEA to gain enough cooperation from local law enforcement to curtail production and distribution, leading to decrease in stigmatization and eventually the relaxation in attitudes even in places where the stigmatization began.

About a month ago I got ghosted by my first real job just a couple months in, and it happened at a real inconvenient stage in my life. I didn't qualify for unemployment, so I was just kinda fucked and had to deal with it entirely on my own. I did manage to save some money during those two months, but now I'm running out and finding another job has been more challenging than I thought it would be. My mother works at a grocery store, and she told me she'd talk to her manager about getting me hired there too. Couple dollars more than local min wage, night stocking shelves, which I actually enjoy doing so long as I'm not pushed into working at a ridiculous pace. So she set me up with an interview with her manager, and here's where I find out it's a temporary position opening up because her union is about to go on strike. The manager is telling me I might have to cross a picket line. My own mother set me up to scab at her workplace, and she didn't tell me. Needless to say, I felt betrayed. She also feels betrayed at me for not taking the job. Lots of feelings of betrayal going around. So I'm back at square one, running out of money. I need help paying for my Buprenorphine prescription this month and the next, and have no where to turn right now but Hexbear. It's 60 dollars with GoodRX, so I need to raise $120. I saw some other comrades in bad situations have actually been receiving judgement free aid here, and that's honestly fucking amazing. If any comrade in a better position can help, here's my cashapp details: (removed payment link as per new rules) EDIT: I now have a Venmo account set up. (removed payment link as per new rules) EDIT2: So far you've all raised $70! That's very helpful, I appreciate it so much. Just need another $50. EDIT3: Total donations at $90, only 30 more to go! EDIT4: Thanks to all of you I've now hit my goal of $120. It'll be so nice for my mental health to not have to worry about this stuff for a little while. I want you all to know I appreciate this so much, and I hope to pay it forward when my situation becomes stable. EDIT5: Removed payment links as per new rules.

askchapo cosecantphi • 5mo ago • 0%

How would human society actually react to the discovery of a very large incoming asteroid?

For purpose of discussion, assume that due to bad luck, this asteroid has evaded the detection of all amateur and professional astronomers until about six months from impact. The asteroid is too large to deflect with humanity's current spacefaring capabilities, and the general scientific consensus is that the impact will end all multicellular life on Earth. What do those six months look like?

the_dunk_tank cosecantphi • 7mo ago • 100%

Holy shit, lemmitor's annoying liberal self righteousness is off the charts

I step out of Hexbear and into another instance for once and immediately get this shit lmao I was letting off some steam about how sick and tired I am about working a shit job to make some asshole rich, and I made an off hand remark about how my employer probably belongs in a gulag. Further down the reply chain, this lemmitor asshole shows up to send me a whole tirade full of faux concern, breaking out the psychoanalysis to say I'm just an extremist full of unjustified hatred because I must be a bitter loser. Somehow they come up with this nuclear hot take comparing my anger at the capitalist class to a Christian fundamentalist hating gay people. But the fucking cherry on the top here is sending me this comment as their very first interaction with me and proceeding to instantly block me to deny me the chance to reply at all. I've seen others use the block feature as a means of getting the last word in, but never to get both the first and last word in at the same time. And in the end, this self-unaware lib ends up calling me the overly self righteous one. Perfect. Tbh, what gets me is that they were so fucking close to getting it. They almost came to an accurate understanding of the fact that my material conditions as a poor person getting fucked over day in and day out by my employer stealing my labor will heavily inform my politics. But of course they never quite reach that point, instead bizarrely veering off into psychologizing me, and acting like this is all just some sort of character flaw on my part. Rule one: https://hexbear.net/comment/4738025

science cosecantphi • 7mo ago • 100%

From four light years away in the night skies of the Alpha Centauri system, the Sun is clearly visible as part of Cassiopeia, easily outshining the rest of the constellation by a wide margin

Four light years may seem like an unfathomably long distance, but in comparison to the size of our galaxy, it's practically right next door. In fact, it's close enough that the Alpha Centauri system has nearly the same constellations as we do, just subtly warped due to the relatively small parallax factor. The only caveat is that they're missing the brightest star in Centaurus, having traded it for an additional bright star in Cassiopeia on the opposite side of the sky. The Sun's stellar magnitude is 0.5 from that distance, that's about as bright as Betelgeuse in Orion. I don't think we'll ever be so lucky that our closest star system just happens to contain a planet with alien life on it. That said, it's so surreal to think about even just the possibility of a life harboring planet orbiting Proxima Centauri. I'm imagining those creatures looking at the Sun in their night sky and wondering themselves about the existence of neighboring aliens. (To clarify, Alpha Centauri is actually a triple star system close enough together to look like a single star to the naked eye. Alpha Centauri A and B are both sun-like stars with a roughly similar mass and brightness. Proxima Centauri is the nearest of the three, and it's a red dwarf with confirmed planets.)

technology cosecantphi • 8mo ago • 100%

Are graphics cards going to keep getting bigger forever?

Damn, the things used to be these thin little, well, cards. Nowadays they are reaching the size of entire consoles and can more accurately be called graphics bricks. Is the tech so stagnant that they won't be getting smaller again in the future? The high end ones are so huge, power hungry, and fucking expensive that I'm starting to think they might as well just come with an integrated CPU and system RAM (in addition to the VRAM) on the same board. What is the general industry expectation of what GPUs are going to be like in the mid term future, maybe 20 to 30 years from now? I expect if AI continues to grow in scope and ubiquity, then a previously unprecedented amount of effort and funding is going to be thrown at R&D for these PC components that were once primarily relegated to being toys for gamers.

askchapo cosecantphi • 8mo ago • 100%

Say I want to make an alright pizza dough but I'm incapable of planning meals more than two hours ahead of time. What can I put in the dough to cheat a more complex flavor with a very fast rise?

I want to have a pizza by 1:30 in the morning Moscow time

chapotraphouse cosecantphi • 9mo ago • 100%

Putting quotes around every single word in a google search so that google doesn't randomly ignore most of them

This is getting ridiculous. Also anyone else notice that google now censors most search results about drugs? They give you their fucking suicide hotline as the top result if you mention anything harder than weed. After that, it's all DEA and DOJ webpages, literal DARE shit, actual rehab advertisements, and massively SEO'd rehab related grifts. Good luck getting any Bluelight or Erowid pages to come up without actively searching for them nowadays.

movies cosecantphi • 9mo ago • 100%

Anyone else been enjoying Hazbin Hotel?

I was lucky enough to have somehow avoided watching the pilot episode on Youtube until like a month ago, so I got to basically skip the four years of anticipation most fans went through leading up to the production of a full season. But now it's airing, and I'm curious if anyone else here has been watching as well. Just got through watching the latest two episodes, and I've really been enjoying Hazbin Hotel overall. The songs have all been bangers so far, and the characters are interesting and developed with care. The writers have managed to do some great exploration of the main premise concerning the afterlives of sinners in hell without falling into the traps of making a show that is either excessively upsetting and grimdark nor excessively offensive and raunchy. My only real problem with these new episodes is the same problem most other people seem to have online regarding the pacing. I think it's clear Hazbin Hotel's short episode runtimes and season lengths are probably too claustrophobic for the kind of story the writers are trying to tell. There's a bit of an ensemble cast thing going on, and there are a ton of less important recurring side characters. Seasons comprised of just eight episodes that are each only 24 minutes long will inevitably mean the main hotel crew will receive heavy prioritization over other characters. And despite that, the short seasons still mean even the main character arcs need to happen on shorter timelines, introducing a real risk they'll feel unearned. So the pacing can feel far too quick at times. I think they should have at minimum stuck with the 30 minute runtime the pilot had. Plus had they done that, it would have opened up the possibility of songs longer than three or so minutes. But overall I think it looks like the show is doing very well, at least according to Amazon's stats (I pirated it lol), so it's my hope that longer seasons and longer episodes are on the table for season two now that it's clear the show won't flop.