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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 27th, 2023

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  • Yeah. I started working out pretty heavy way back to stop being underweight but I still go multiple times a week to upkeep. I hate it but it keeps me from this shit.

    Staying fit keeps most of your body working way better for longer. You can feel bodily discomfort in the gym on your terms, or at random on nature’s terms.


  • thrawn@lemmy.worldtomemes@lemmy.worldweird looking gear
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    5 months ago

    I’m not sure you read the comment fully, they suggested headphones, not speakers. Just a quiet room is enough for that. Speakers are more expensive because they have to move a lot of air in a room. I’m no expert, but I think it’s the mere physics of doing so accurately that keeps it above 200. A technology can be more or less solved without becoming sub 200.

    Anyway, what’s the price range you’re looking for? I’m sure someone can recommend headphones for any range if you’re interested in those.

    And that’s already a whole lot of money for next to no value for 99% of the people.

    I strongly believe those people should not be thinking about audiophile gear. Thankfully, audiophile companies don’t really advertise. The claims most of those companies make are targeted towards people who are into audio, and often feature lots of solid snake oil that 99% of people would not understand. Companies that do advertise heavily tend to emphasize vague things like “deep, rich bass to accurate mids and crisp, clean highs” instead.

    And I’m also very very certain that most of the higher end stuff (and I’m counting everything over 200€) is esoteric. You can’t hear a difference in quality. Maybe a difference, but not objectively better or worse.

    What makes you “very very certain”? There are some quantifiable quality differences, like accurate positioning of sounds or perceived distance from the listener. It may not be necessarily worth the price, but I’m not seeing how you’re “very very certain” everything above 200 is esoteric and that it’s impossible to discern quality.

    Problem is, where exactly is the line? It’s almost impossible to tell whether this one speaker is garbage with a markup or actually high quality.

    Audiophile communities never suggest blind buying because even a high quality product may not have the sound signature you like. It’s similar to how a Rolls Royce, a high quality vehicle, may be too slow and comfortable for someone who would prefer a cheaper Corvette. Those in cities likely have multiple dealers who would be happy to have you come in and sample the stuff, or Best Buy. Pick something you like, regardless of price tag or recommendation. Those not in cities can get on lists of free samples that are then sent to the next listener, or buy and return from stores. Headphones.com has a 365 day return policy intended for this, though there is a restocking fee. Amazon is an unethical company and you can return large dollar quantities without fees before being blacklisted.

    Speakers are harder to test if you do not have audio stores or Best Buy. I would still suggest listening when next in a city if possible. I can’t think of anything for those in areas without Best Buy and never enter one, but there might still be something.




  • thrawn@lemmy.worldtoMemes@lemmy.mlNo context
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    1 year ago

    I like the extremely narrow opinion held by whoever took the original screenshot, judging from their use of the agree/disagree buttons. They believe that some form of washing is necessary, but only the exact amount of a bidet— using soap is too much. A very specific middle ground.


  • Well, I did ignore him. I don’t keep up with conservative media and did not know who he was. I heard about this initially because I’m alum of a related university and didn’t know until your article who began the agenda against Dr. Gay. Problem is, when the broken clock is correct, it’s correct, and that led to normal people talking about it.

    That said, would you really ignore literally everything he or his ilk say even if it was true? I feel like all we’ve done is talk about this one guy that 99% of people probably don’t know, and not the merits of the actual events. I genuinely feel it is bad for one to ignore even truthful things just because it came from a piece of shit. That could easily be weaponized— he could champion a good cause just to throw it under the bus.



  • Serious, in the case of academic dishonesty, is narrower than the actual actions indicate. In that article, her advisor indicates that his book “encourages scholars that use the method to describe things in those ways”. He can say that, but by describing things in exactly those ways without quotes, it muddies the water on whose thoughts you’re reading (as it would if I hadn’t quoted the above, which would have read as my words). I recall an independent review indicating she improperly cited but it wasn’t misconduct— respectfully, students doing the same thing before this would probably not be allowed that much leeway. Imagine being back in school days, would you paste paragraphs worth of words without quotes and expect to survive a dishonesty board?

    Therein lies the issue: allowing that behavior is genuinely very serious, though it can look less so if you’re not literally thinking back to your own university experience. Moreover research isn’t done for the sake of writing stuff down for a grade, it’s done to progress society. Properly noting which thoughts are yours, and which are being quoted as supporting evidence or if your theories were built on others’, is important if merely for clarity’s sake. It could get worse than that though. Allowing this would allow researchers to ape words without sufficiently crediting them, and that could be taken to more sinister degrees.

    Dr. Gay is an excellent academic, this aside, and she understands the danger in allowing her own behavior to go unaddressed. She corrected several of her own works and will probably correct more of them as issues continue to be found.

    I kept this comment limited to analysis of the situation, but I’m gonna inject a little bit of personal opinion. I do genuinely think this sucks because, while I believe it was plagiarism, I hate when the conservatives win. But I also don’t see this as a real loss for Harvard or academia as a whole— Harvard will find another President and academic standards only improve. I also don’t want to make the conservative mistake of standing by someone whose conduct is detrimental to their own cause, simply because they are the enemy or target of a group I consider to be abhorrent.

    And I think that’s ultimately the thing here. We don’t want the conservatives to take this one, especially because they themselves would likely throw academic standards into the wind if it weren’t personally advantageous in this moment. But if we remove the view of “the enemy,” this is just a President resigning because her academic history is less than flawless, and a President should always have a record capable of withstanding even the sharpest scrutiny. Any less and they are actively at risk of eroding standards which exist for a reason.



  • thrawn@lemmy.worldtoMemes@lemmy.mlWhy? Are we not doing enough?
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    1 year ago

    This is my take on Lemmy as well. I was impacted by the removal of third party apps because I used Reddit as a mobile quick reader between activities where the bite-sized format of title -> elaboration -> brief discussion was great, but maybe a little too much. On Lemmy I don’t feel the need to keep reading. This also means I wasn’t invested enough in Reddit, so when they made clear their disdain for the users, I simply left. Nothing there is important enough to keep going.

    Lemmy is definitely lower quality though. All is primarily single topic outrage and there is a significant amount of extreme rhetoric that makes me feel like I’ll be put on a list for reading, which would have been removed on Reddit for lack of civility or worse. The niche things don’t exist and, even if I wasn’t a bite-sized mobile user and had the time or thoughts to form a community, these Reddit clones are always most active at political… discussion users can’t express elsewhere and that tends to kill the niche hobbyists who don’t want to look at or be surrounded by that type of passion. So it’s difficult to curate a personal feed of anything but that.

    Lemmy still works for my use case and it’s about the next best thing to Reddit. I do think the “circlejerk” feeling is contributing to the decline though, and wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up like Voat.


  • Seems more likely to be Apple getting ahead of incoming legislation than a small phone company’s announcement. Companies like Apple don’t make huge changes within a couple days of nearly unknown (to the general market) companies doing something that might slightly affect them.

    Regulations work, and in this case, it doesn’t look like competition played any role. Apple only makes changes like this when forced to by regulators or, in the case of privacy, when it’s marketable. Capitalistic self regulating is almost a myth with them— they wouldn’t even stop selling those butterfly keyboards until their self imposed refresh timeline allowed for it.





  • thrawn@lemmy.worldtoMemes@lemmy.ml*Permanently Deleted*
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    1 year ago

    Pretty weak reasoning. It just as often “or” like this/that. If not more— who’s actually looking at fractions that often? I’d argue the punctuation attached to that specific date format shouldn’t be the basis for the order itself, and dashes or periods are common too.

    The better reasoning is that the day is typically more relevant than the month. A downside though is that it’s bad for sorting: YYYY-MM-DD is the best way to automatically sort by date, and ease in digital sorting is arguably the most important factor in date formatting. It’s kind of a silly thing that people don’t care about outside of memes otherwise.


  • Alright I’m not certain there’s not a genetic variable here but I have not found it very hard to avoid. I wear a mask indoors and eat outdoors and don’t really do anything else.

    But like, I travel a lot not for business which I theorize is riskier than business travel. That’s a lot of airports, and even with an optimistic 70% lounge rate it’s probably not great for avoiding illness (plus I managed to get flu somehow). I do eat indoors for special places but I guess those typically have less than 20 seats so the risk is reduced. Still.

    My immediate family all got it and were extremely symptomatic so I doubt it’s genetic though. Plus I don’t think I’m related to my SO and by using an N95/KN (I prefer N for comfort on the ears) we’ve managed to avoid it despite frequent travel and separate social lives. I know masks are very uncommon now but honestly, didn’t really change my life that much. I’m pretty sure they work too, the second time I was in Tokyo this year masks were a minority thing and you couldn’t get onto a bus or train without people coughing. I resigned myself to Covid but somehow still didn’t get it.

    Anyway now that I’ve gone on this incoherent ramble I’m definitely gonna be sick next week. Probably deserved.


  • And it’s easy. Society spends so much time and effort making life easier via improvements like simple image uploading and sharing, so of course some piece of shit will use it for this. Just a few clicks and they’ve created headaches for thousands of people. It requires no ability so the barrier of entry is as low as being the kind of trash that likes that stuff.


  • thrawn@lemmy.worldtoMemes@lemmy.mlSaviours of humanity
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    1 year ago

    Gates has the money to do both, and more. It’s just sometimes better to let others do it instead— having your own space company means worrying about competition, contracts, and potential profitability. Meanwhile if he wanted, he could hitch a ride on any of their rockets with no effort.

    Musk and Bezos also have the money to do both, but they merely elect not to. Perhaps in the future they will, like Gates, begin funneling more of their effort and wealth into altruism to improve their reputations.


  • thrawn@lemmy.worldtoMemes@lemmy.mlLearn from your mistakes
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    1 year ago

    The person she told that to, Homer Hickam, had no say in the firing, expressed disappointment after, and helped her get another job after (though I do not recall if it was successful). In an era where companies are increasingly sensitive about what employees post online, she had it much much better than just about anyone else in the world fired for the same thing at least.

    And really… perhaps I’m old fashioned, but posting stuff like that in the same tweet as your NASA offer was pretty poorly thought out. NASA doesn’t feel like the type of organization that wants its employees associated with messaging like that.