PedanticPractitioner

i gave up and started using this as the dumping grounds for all the political shit i reflexivly feel the need to reblog. antifash, antiterf, anti ai. this gets depressing nut at least i can offload it here rather than storing it in my brain.

[captain-price-returns]

You’re years too late to be recognizing the threat of US government mass surveillance, bud.

[hotvampireadjacent]

[segamascott]

[cosmicretreat]

[strawberry-crocodile]

the thing about capitalism is that at a certain point a product reaches its maximum audience and cant really be improved (at least not while remaining profitable), but capitalism requires a product provide infinite growth, and at that point the only way to increase profits is to raise prices, cut corners, and in the case of services start adding advertisements. this is just how the system works.

[charyou-tree]

Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating the social or political environment without creating new wealth.[1] Rent-seeking activities have negative effects on the rest of society. They result in reduced economic efficiency through misallocation of resources, reduced wealth creation, lost government revenue, heightened income inequality,[2][3] risk of growing political bribery, and potential national decline.

The actual economic term for this parasitic behavior is "Rent Seeking", as in "charging you rent for things that didn't used to cost money just because we can."

[paintedpolarbear]

"The classic example of rent-seeking, according to Robert Shiller, is that of a property owner who installs a chain across a river that flows through their land and then hires a collector to charge passing boats a fee to lower the chain. There is nothing productive about the chain or the collector, nor do passing boats get anything in return. The owner has made no improvements to the river and is not adding value in any way, directly or indirectly, except for themselves. All they are doing is finding a way to obtain money from something that used to be free." obtain money links to the wikipedia article for Parasitism which might be the most brutal diss I've ever seen on wikipedia ever

[lucs-madness]

love the wording on this. even asexual……. “those horrible satanists arent having sex, which is what we wanted but they’re Doing It Wrong!”

like okay i thought christians were into celibacy why is it bad when we suddenly don’t want sex at all

[whereserpentswalk]

Christians want people to have monogamous heterosexual sex for the sake of reproduction.

[drafty-castle]

Christian’s also like celibacy when it causes discomfort, suffering. They want the absence of sex to be a struggle you overcome for spiritual reasons, not a neutral state of being. If you don’t want it to begin with, how are you supposed to give it up for lent? Hire are you supposed to lord your righteousness over the sinful masses?

[json-derulo]

having the Aviation Accident Investigations Autism™️ has actually done wonders for the way I process and respond to my own fuck-ups

[json-derulo]

And I don't just mean "oh, my little work mistake is actually nothing compared to a fiery crash that kills people," either. The reason commercial flight is so many orders of magnitude safer than any other form of transportation is because after every accident and incident, an independent regulatory body investigated it with the express goal of figuring out exactly what happened, why, and how to prevent the same thing from ever happening again—not to root out which person deserved the blame or the liability.

It's a simple, shockingly effective idea. It's also worlds away from how most people approach their own mistakes and the mistakes of others.

[json-derulo]

Because it’s never just one person’s fault. And even when it is, it still isn’t. 

The sharpest, best-trained pilots make worse decisions when they're tired or sick or stressed out, so there's two of them. The most dedicated and experienced air traffic controllers garble an instruction over the radio sometimes, so pilots are trained to always repeat clearances back to catch misunderstandings quickly. The best and brightest maintenance mechanic still overlooks a screw or misconnects a wire once or twice in her career, so aircraft systems are built with two or three or four layers of redundancy, and pilots are exhaustively trained to deal with failures safely. 

Everyone eventually has a bad day. Every component breaks down. Every computer gets a bad a Windows update and spirals into a reboot doom loop. If it’s possible for one person’s mistake to domino into a mushroom cloud of a fuckup, then that task is too critical to be one person's sole responsibility. The accident sequence starts with the design of the system—so how do you improve the system to keep it from happening again?

[json-derulo]

oh yeah. The “modern commercial aviation is the safest form of transport” thing only applies to planes, btw. A helicopter is a beautiful metal horse that wants to break its legs and die so so so badly

[klapollo]

Washington Post is paywalling the article but it looks like Taylor Farms — a consumer bagged salad brand that also supplies produce to grocers and fast food chains like Taco Bell, Walmart, McDonald's, Chipotle, Burger King, KFC, and Meijer —may be at least one of the sources of the current cyclosporiasis outbreak.

Taylor makes bagged greens, salad kits, chopped salads, the works. Keep avoiding supermarket greens, but keep an especially close eye out for this brand/supplier. The above list of grocers and fast food chains is NOT exhaustive, so please continue getting lettuce and other raw produce taken off your burgers, sandwiches, etc.

[triplehamburgerjack]

Their other brand is EARTHBOUND ORGANICS!!!

[sioltach]

heirloom farmer Bettinakbh in Denmark

[corvidcall]

to anyone in the areas impacted by the wildfire smoke, my #1 biggest piece of advice as someone whos been dealing with wildfire smoke in the NW united states for years, is build yourself a Corsi-Rosenthal Cube

they perform as well as expensive HEPA air cleaners, and are comparatively VERY inexpensive. all you need is a box fan, 4 air filters, a piece of cardboard, and some duct tape!!!!

i think it took us maybe a half hour to put ours together, if that, and we replace the filters every 3 months. it's really made a HUGE difference, both when the air quality is bad, but also with our allergies

[o0fyuu0o]

Saw these easy to read instructions on Twitter. Stay safe 💚

[sun-cheyne]

Also just a handy, DIY air filter in general, if a bit bulky. For a less bulky and cheaper (but also less effective) solution, you can simply tape one filter to the fan, cut a shroud if you'd like.

[snowriddenwolf]

just FYI, this is quite literally what the climate scientists at my work who specialized in wildfire smoke impacts recommend. it works great, it's cheap to make, and it will make a noticeable impact on your air quality.

[mechanicalriddle]

i have asthma & keep one of these running in my room perpetually. after I set it up the difference in my sleep quality was pretty much night and day. Dont waste your time on proprietary air filters; SIMPLY bust out the duct tape

[babyanimalgifs]

Young bull elephant politely stepping over a walkway at a nature preserve 

(Source)

[petermorwood]

I get a feeling that he must have stepped squarely on the last one and gone through it.

[lemonsharks]

This is definitely the big steppy of someone who has broken the thing before

[drafty-castle]

This is fucking dope. Hope he patients his blood, though.

[megapope-deactivated20220531]

what the fuuuuuck

[rs-jm]

this is a short horror story

[iwishicouldtellmystudents]

Please make sure to reblog this with the explanation you guys:

The toddler doesn’t know Alexa is a name; as far as they’re concerned it’s a word that makes things happen. If the kid was saying “please play baby shark” it would mean literally the same thing to them because they don’t really understand language yet.

The toddler is mimicking adult behavior because they have seen adults say things that start with “Alexa” and have learned that starting a request with “Alexa” makes it more likely to be fulfilled. This kid has learned something about how their world works purely through observation! This isn’t a bad thing! It’s just been misapplied and it’s up to the parents to correct their speech as they grow enough to understand the difference.

[drafty-castle]

This is a job interview

[cryptotheism]

Top three most fraudulent occultists? At least one of them is L. Ron Hubbard, though I'm not sure if he takes the top spot

WRONG

it's The Country Olaf of Occultism; fucking William Walker Atkinson, aka Theron Q. Dumont, aka Yogi Ramacharaka, aka Swami Bhakta Vishita, aka Swami Panchadasi, aka Theodore Sheldon, aka Magus Incognito, aka Frederick Vollrath, aka O. Hashnu Hara, aka A. Gould, aka Dr. Franklin L. Dubois.

[cryptotheism]

This isn't a complete list. Every few years occultists will discover five or six new names that were probably just W.W. Atkinson under a pseudonym.

A few years ago, people figured out that he was probably one of the Three Initiates who wrote the Kybalion.

Recently, people have been starting to theorize that it's possible the other two initiates didn't even exist, and that he's actually all three initiates.

[cryptotheism]

Originally people thought he was just some B-list Blavatsky student, but it's increasingly likely that he's actually one of the most prolific occultists in history.

[drafty-castle]

Three occultists in a trench coat ass behavior

[victusinveritas]

[libraford]

I am kinda asking myself what would it take for me to believe that Mitch McConnell is alive and thats a hard question to answer because like...

...photos have always been easy to fake, and they're easier to fake now. And people have spoken on his behalf, but they're people who have vested interest in lying and not actual press outlets. Voice is easy to fake now, too. So is video.

And theres probably a larger conversation about the erosion of credibility, AI, conspiracy theory, and why a cover up like this is believable.

I dunno. Maybe like a public appearance where the general press is allowed?

[beezelbubbles]

I was thinking about this the other day, too, because yeah. Conservatives have pushed AI so hard and using it to do exactly shit that would make it possible to Weekend at Bernie's a senator. And they haven't exactly proven themselves trustworthy. I would need to see him at a public town hall with members of the press, including press that has been historically critical of him. Who has most vocally called him a useless son of a bitch? Who absolutely loathes him? I need that person to verify it. And I'd still be skeptical, honestly.

[birdandmoon]

Heat waves.