[mrpinchy]

Disable AI In Firefox

Quick reference for how to turn off AI features in Firefox

Firefox updated recently, don't forget to open config and turn off the AI shit the update turned back on

[apricops]

that post about “you get bandits when you cut soldiers loose without pay” reminds me of the Thirty Years War, because one could say that beneath all the religious schisms and diplomatic jockeying, the heart of the thirty years war was “what happens when you have a state with just enough capacity to raise massive armies but without enough financial capacity to actually pay those armies” and the answer is that the line between professional armies and roving gangs of bandits disappears and every time you try to raise an army it just becomes another independently acting wildfire devouring the countryside. No matter how bad things get, every day I wake up and thank my lucky stars that I do not live in 17th century Europe. Or 17th century China. Or the 17th century Americas. Or basically anywhere in the 17th century.

[probabilitydirigible]

One of my favorite little anecdotes about ancient mercenaries is that it was tradition for most of history to give your mercenaries two wages- "Bread" and "Gravy." Both were set at a daily value, but where "Bread" was intended to cover regular maintenance and life stuff and therefore paid out frequently (Here's your week's meal and gear repair budget!) the "Gravy" wage was paid out exclusively at the end of the contract as one lump sum. So like, your gravy wage and bread wage might be one silver coin per day each, so you're getting a handful of coins every week to cover food, and then at the end of an 800 day campaign, you get a wheelbarrow with 800 coins.

Employers liked offering this structure because then they didn't have to like, try to guess how long the invasion of spain will take and then carry 800 coins per soldier around the battlefield where it could be captured. It also gives them the chance to budget around the assumption that they take an enemy city and *find* vast sums of treasure even if they don't have the full value at the beginning of the war.

The main flaw of this system is that it's very easy to end up in a scenario where if you have, say, 50,000 guys that have been fighting for 800 days, you now owe 40 million silver to your army, and if the budget has not worked out to a 40 million surplus, you literally can't afford to end the war, but you can probably afford to pay them for a couple more weeks. So then you have to start thinking creatively.

Anyway across all time and history a lot of generals were ultimately beaten to death by men chanting gravy.

[headspace-hotel]

had to read a sourcebook of primary sources about the thirty years war called "experiencing the thirty years war" like 5 years ago in one of my history courses and it still haunts me.

Either the introduction to that reading or another reading we had argued that the widespread devastation and collective trauma of the thirty years' war was analogous to one of the World Wars. In many parts of (what would later become) Germany 60 to 80 percent of the civilian population died. Wars, famines and plagues have a way of working in synergy.

[cugzarui]

warning: if you do not set aside a budget for your army your army will do it for you!

feels similar to if you dont schedule systems maintenance your system will schedule it for you

[stephanisoejono]

happy new year -------------_--------------------

[calamity-aims]

[beardedmrbean]

[precious-corpse]

if youve had enough bad experiences with medical professionals and have a troubled enough relationship with autonomy and intimacy even the blood pressure cuff can feel invasive

[hemipenal-system]

also yknow i do think that people would probably have more success dealing with transphobes if they just got obliquely blunt and unwoke about it

“look at her thats obviously a woman are you fucking stupid” works way better on the average transphobe and bystanders than “well shes transitioning so you should try not to be transphobic to her”

[hemipenal-system]

the average transphobe has kind of psyched themself into a paranoid reality that is mostly incomprehensible to the average person, and because of this the easiest way to socially defuse them is to make them look completely batshit insane. if you're surrounded by normal people, a well-placed "what the FUCK are you talking about?" mid-rant about chromosomes and hormones can shut them down infinitely better than trying to out-gender science them

[guiltfactory-moved]

everything is a reference when you're crazy

[valend]

Yahhh I have to build Rome. Yup it’s due tomorrow.. noo I haven’t started yet haha is that bad?

[bumblebeebats]

Found my 53yo very-much-not-online father in the kitchen today meticulously arranging cutlery on the countertop and i was like 'what are you doing' and he looked up at me with the world's most shit-eating grin and said "Your mother told me this is how you rick-roll the Youth" and i looked over and it was fucking. Loss.jpg.

[bumblebeebats]

i must stress that he's never seen the original comic. My mother simply showed him the shorthand symbol and he memorized it. As far as he is aware this is just a fucking hieroglyph that deals instant psychic damage to everyone under the age of 30

[bumblebeebats]

[galaxycepheus]

If your system doesn't account for the fact that Parents Are Going To Be Abusive/Neglectful/Insufficient then it objectively sucks I'm sorry I don't make the rules

[galaxycepheus]

Monitored bank accounts for those under 18. Requiring parental consent for medical procedures. Parental controls on personal devices. "We won't teach this at school because parents are supposed to address it at home." Anything that puts all of the child's power onto the parents' hand, anything that assumes parents are going to inherently do enough of a good job no one else needs to interfer, every single one of these IS going to be used by controlling, neglectful or unprepared parents and already are, and if the system did not account for that very real, tangible, dangerous tendency, then it's not worth fucking anything. You shouldn't make things "for the youth"/with children in mind if you are going to overlook this painfully common aspect of their lives u_u

[imjunebitch]

yk guys I think a lot of ppl when arguing against the death penalty go for a like "people don't deserve death, etc" view and I get why ppl argue for that I rly do! but it doesn't matter. I don't trust the government to do it, I don't trust them to decide who should die, I don't trust them to determine who is mentally competent, I don't trust them to not be bigoted and discriminatory in their practices, I don't trust them to have the right people, I don't trust them to execute it in a humanitarian way. and I've had discussions with ppl who otherwise have similar viewpoints to me in many ways but can think of people they think deserve to die, and I think if abolishing the death penalty is like, a super important cause to u the same way it is to me, the argument u use shouldn't be "well these people deserve to live" (although in some cases I think yeah the death penalty is done to people who totally don't "deserve it") because that's so subjective, it should be "do you trust the government to do it?" like, do you trust the people who cant even fill potholes on your road to determine who should and should not live

[loversbrotherskillers]

one day you will be disabled. you are building the world that disabled you will one day live in. do with that what you will

[loversbrotherskillers]

and it's not a 'maybe' btw. the only alternative to not being disabled is dying young & even then theres no guarantee you won't. but if you live long enough to get old you will also become disabled.

[loversbrotherskillers]

[xenobotanist]

Highlights of the America 250 event (shitshow) in Washington, DC for July 4th:

- Due to storms, they had to evacuate the National Mall grounds. But the MAGA crowd didn't want to leave. They just stood around chanting "USA! USA!" They were convinced liberals were messing with the weather. Reportedly, one of the security guards got so fed up that he threw a chair at them.

- Fox News didn't have anything to share while they were waiting for Trump's delayed speech, so they just showed a feed of him staring at the TV. And he was watching Fox News.

- A bunch of the crowd that was evacuated wasn't even let back in, and they were raging about it on social media. Some of them waited 10 to 12 hours in record-setting heat (102°F) and never got to see anything. All special passes were canceled. So much for money privilege.

- Because the program was running so far behind, several performers were cancelled.

- Trump's speech began at 11:15 p.m., after a sizeable amount of his followers had abandoned the event. It was unremarkable in just like all of his other ones- a bunch of "America is the greatest nation," blaming Democrats for everything bad, and general gibberish.

- The fireworks didn't begin until almost midnight, so they ended on July 5th.

- They wanted to have more fireworks than ever before, but they set off so many that the sky was covered in light, and it just looked like everything was on fire. The finale was not visible due to the smoke.

- Trump appeared to fall asleep during the show.

- The immense amount of pyrotechnics fucked up the air in DC

[xenobotanist]

Found something new 😆

[redstonedust]

some people like to get mad at disability benefits because they think its unfair people who dont work get a payout from the government while they have to work 50 hours at the human suffering factory every week. but if you tell them "yeah that sucks i think you should also get a universal allowance and not have to work 50 hours at the human suffering factory every week" thats apparently the wrong answer.

[madmonksandmaenads]

I wish I could make white people(and not just white Americans) understand how diverse the pre-columbian Americas were. The history, religion, culture, politics was at least as complex as Europe's. There was the full gamut of religions, from monotheists to animists to ancestral religions. There were city building empires, village farmers, nomadic traders, and so many other ways to live. This is all just based on what we know, the fragments left behind and the stories of survivors of an apocalyptic plague. All this before the most extended campaign of genocide in history was waged in an attempt to wipe out those survivors.

Over 500 years spent trying to cut down a whole trunk of human culture.

Do you understand how much poorer our whole species is because of it? Can you imagine where art, religion, and science would be if we still had these vast bodies of knowledge? The stain of the colonial project will never be fully washed clean. We owe more than just the land to those we stole from. We owe them a whole future, a future that could have been brighter for all of us. If only greed and fear weren't allowed to rule this land.

[mulletbutch]

I think this picture of my gf helping fix my car should be in the MoMa

[adamsmasher]

[animentality]

[cutekittenlady]

This is yet another thing I thought Pratchett had made up but turned out to be totally real.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Unrelated but any time someone mentions clown makeup I'm reminded of how highly successful stage magician Penn Jillette almost flunked out of clown college and had to take remedial clown makeup classes.

[cuprohastes]

My father was a magician and a clown. When he died, we cleared out his old clotehs and there was his clown suit.

"Oh I'll take this down to the charity shop" said my mother, missing hte part where no sane person is going to wear a clown suit.

"Nah" said I, "Have them dress him in it when they cremate him."

There was a pause and my throw-away joke started to slowly solidify into 'Yeah let's do that'.

A discussion was had with the mortician who had a bit of a worry that the costume would involve giant clown shoes which would prevent the coffin closing.

Luckily it wasn't that sort of outfit.

I told this to my dear friend who immediately envisaged someone trying to close a coffin onto a dead clown, only to have the big red nose go *Sad honk* every time there was an attempt to close the lid.

The awful hilarity rendered her incapable of standing.

[whumpster-fire]

The poor mortician can't figure out why it still won't close, and has to remove 5 dead clowns from the coffin before it finally shuts.

[recordspinner]

I’m convinced trickster deities and creatures exist, and that this is their typical profession.

[villainessbian]

why would a trickster deity become a mortician

[resetium]

Clown.

[villainessbian]

Never call me that again or I'll squirt you with my flower and honk my nose and I'll blow the house down