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Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

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  • The difference is that Uber’s model of using an app to show you the route, give driver feedback, be able to report problems and monitor and track the driver, etc. is actually a huge improvement to both rider safety and experience compared to calling a cab company and then waiting who knows how long for someone to show up and hopefully bring you where you want to go.

    Not saying that their model of gig workers, or dodging up front training is good, but they legitimately offered up a fundamentally better taxi experience than anything that came before, which I think encouraged regulators to really drag their feet on looking into them.


  • “This isn’t a meeting about the budget per se”

    “This isn’t exactly a meeting about the budget”

    If you finish those sentences, it becomes clear why per se is used:

    “This isn’t a meeting about the budget per se, it’s a meeting about how much of the budget is spent on bits of string”

    “This isn’t exactly a meeting about the budget, it’s a meeting about how much of the budget is spent on bits of string”

    In this situation, using per se provides a more natural sentence flow because it links the first part of the sentence with the second. It’s also shorter and fewer syllables.

    “Steve’s quite erudite.”

    “Steve’s quite intellectual.”

    I think intellectual might be a closer synonym, but intellectual often has more know-it-all connotations than erudite which seems to often refer to a more pure and cerebral quality.

    “Tom and Jerry is a fun cartoon because of the juxtaposition of the relationship between cat and mouse.”

    “Tom and Jerry is a fun cartoon because of the side by side oppositeness of the relationship between cat and mouse that is displayed

    For those to say precisely the same thing it would have to be more like the above which doesn’t really roll off the tongue.

    “I don’t understand, can you elucidate that?”

    “I don’t understand, can you explain?”

    Elucidate just means to make something clear in general, explaining something usually inherently implies a linguistic, verbal, explanation, unless otherwise stated.

    Honestly, these all seem like very reasonable words to me for the most part. I can understand not using them in some contexts, but for the most part, words exist for a reason, to describe something slightly differently, and it takes forever to talk and communicate if we only limit ourselves to the most basic unnuanced terms.


  • When people use industry specific jargon and acronyms with someone not in their industry.

    It is a very simple rule of writing and communication. You never just use an acronym out of nowhere, you write it out in full the first time and explain the acronym, and then after that you can use it.

    Artificial diamonds can be made with a High Temperature, High Pressure (HTHP) process, or a …

    Doctors, military folk, lawyers, and technical people of all variety are often awful at just throwing out an acronym or technical term that you literally have no way of knowing.

    Usually though, I don’t think it’s a conscious effort to sound smart. Sometimes, it’s just people who are used to talking only with their coworkers / inner circle and just aren’t thinking about the fact that you don’t have the same context, sometimes it’s people who are feeling nervous / insecure and are subconsciously using fancy terms to sound like they fit in, and sometimes it’s people using specific terminology to hide the fact that they don’t actually understand the concepts well enough to break them down further.




  • masterspace@lemmy.catoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlIs federation that good?
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    2 months ago

    Were those on Lemmy.ca, or Hexbear? If Hexbear users want to call out Canada for being a right-wing country on Hexbear, many of whom are Canadian themselves, why does that mean it would spread to Lemmy.ca?

    It’s literally the stated reason they defederated. If you disagree it’s up to you prove otherwise.

    Communists have and continue to do so, Capitalists continue to produce a system that ruthlessly exploits workers for Capitalist riches.

    Name the country. Vietnam known for its working conditions and lack of exploitation? How are those Chinese Uighurs doing?


  • masterspace@lemmy.catoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlIs federation that good?
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    2 months ago

    That doesn’t bear out when compared to Hexbear’s thread, which was more level headed on average. The issue is in political disagreement, which Hexbear was willing to open, while Lemmy.ca was not.

    You seem insistent on it being politically motivated, yet that thread had far more vitrial that would have required mod cleanup than a typical lemmy.ca thread.

    Just go through and count the usage of kkkanadians.

    I restate, again, Capitalists making use of FOSS tools does not mean it is Capitalist, or compatible ideologically. Capitalists will use what’s available, users will use what works and aligns ideologically.

    Then FOSS isn’t inherently ideologically anything.

    Capitalism does not function even in theory for Material Goods. If it functions in theory but not in practice then the theory is wrong. That’s why Communists put a large emphasis on actually touching grass and developing theory through practice.

    Lol neither system has ever produced a practical , implemented system that is good for the average worker.


  • masterspace@lemmy.catoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlIs federation that good?
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    2 months ago

    So you say, yet you’re admitting that the most fringe of Hexbear is the issue in your opinion, not the entire instance, so then why defederate? Why not federate and block bad-faith users? Because Lemmy.ca itself is anticommunist and anti-anarchist, as I said.

    The argument being that Hexbear has a larger than average number of shit posters, meaning that the benefit gained from seeing their communities is not offset by the increased cost to all the lemmy.ca moderators who have to clean up after those users.

    The fact that Capitalism exists and makes use of readily available tools does not mean actively choosing to support and develop FOSS

    But they do. Most successful FOSS projects are actively supported by capitalist companies, from Linux, to git, to web standards, etc.

    Capitalism is an awful choice of resource distribution in general, not just information.

    It is fundamentally ill suited to information in a way that it is not with material goods though. With material goods, it can function in theory, though always tends towards corruption and fucking the poor and working class in practice. With information, it is simply a cruel system design from a theoretical basis that imposes scarcity where there is no need for it.



  • masterspace@lemmy.catoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlIs federation that good?
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    2 months ago

    Hexbear wasn’t defederated from for its too comments. It was defederated from for its bottom ones, in which people repeatedly call people Nazis and the KKK.

    I restate, Lemmy is built on Communist principles. FOSS is anticapitalist in nature, hardcore libertarians prefer Reddit. Anarchists are also Leftists.

    Given that the largest and most successful open source projects are all openly supported by capitalist companies, that is evidently not true. There is nothing inherently anti-capitalist about FOSS. Capitalism is a poor choice of resource distribution system for information because unlike material things, information can be copied and replicated freely, so there is no need for scarcity. FOSS exposes that,l flaw with capitalism but it is no inherently communist.


  • masterspace@lemmy.catoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlIs federation that good?
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    2 months ago

    I read their comment too, no need to worry. Anticommunist instances like Lemmy.world and, relevantly Lemmy.ca, still can’t get rid of Communists even by defederating from Communist instances.

    Assuming that whole instances are anti-anything is a great way to judge a whole swath of people quickly and look childish, it’s less useful to do anything else.

    My point is more that Lemmy itself is structured along Communist principles, while Reddit remains the right-wing Lemmy. Choosing Lemmy over Reddit is ideological in nature, which means there is going to be a steady influx of Communists and other Leftists, less so Liberals.

    No, Lemmy is just decentralized in nature, while that’s attractive to fringe left groups like hardcore communists, it’s also attractive to anarchists and fringe right groups like hardcore libertarians.




  • Because of the differences in how incandescent bulbs work vs LED and Florescent, and thus how their dimmers have to work.

    Incandescent: you just heat up a bit of metal until it’s glowing hot. Literally the same effect as leaving something metal in a campfire or furnace until it glows, just super hot so super bright and white.

    Florescent: have a tube of gas, and then put a super high frequency voltage across it (thousands of Hz), and enough energy will be imparted to the gas molecules that they will emit photons.

    LEDs: apply a constant DC current to a bit of a custom grown semi conductor, and that will give the semi conductor atoms enough energy that they will release photons.

    The main thing about those, is that for Florescent and LEDs, they require very specific types of power.

    • Florescent bulbs require a very high frequency voltage, this is what the electronics in the bottom of a CFL do, convert the 60Hz of AC power from your house into super high frequency voltage.

    • LEDs on the other hand, can’t use AC, and need constant current applied, not constant voltage, so all the electronics in the bottom of those bulbs work on converting your house’s 60Hz AC power into like ~24V of DC power.

    • Incandescents on the other hand, do not care what type of power you put into them since any type of power can make them hot as long as you put enough in. You can feed them high or low frequency AC, you can feed them DC, you can feed them constant current, or constant voltage, they do not care, as long as you put electrical power into them.

    Now it comes to dimmers. If you want to reduce the brightness of an incandescent bulb, you just need to reduce the power going to it, which in a constant voltage AC system like a house, means reducing the voltage.

    The first dimmers did this by putting a variable resistor in series with the bulb. When it’s resistance is zero the bulb is at full brightness, when it’s the same as the bulb it’s at half, and when it’s resistance is way higher than the bulb’s then the bulb is super dim.

    This is good because it’s super cheap and easy and you can precisely lower the voltage while maintaining the exact same waveform, but the problem with this is that you’re feeding the same amount of power to the circuit no matter what, the resistor is just burning up the excess and turning it into heat.

    So then we landed on how we built the vast majority of classical dimmers you see today: switched dimmers. Since incandescents are just hot metal, and there’s a lag between when you heat metal and when it cools, you don’t actually need to give it a clean wave form. Modern dimmers just switch on and off really fast to reduce the average amount of power going to the bulb. At 50% brightness, the dimmer might be switching on for 20ms then off for 20ms then on for 20ms then off for 20ms.

    It’s a great simple solution for incandescents, but when you try and feed the precise electronics of an LED or Florescent, that messy, choppy signal, they can’t handle it and often just see it as the power coming on and off or it messes with their internal circuitry.


  • masterspace@lemmy.catoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlCan I refuse MS Authenticator?
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    6 months ago

    Or is this a battle I can pick to shield my self from ms

    Read the post before coming to the comments to reply.

    OP is asking on here about whether or not to pick this battle and fight his company over it. Yes, you are probably technically correct that a company can’t force you to install an authenticator app on your phone. However, that is a battle that you will have to fight with them that will accomplish essentially nothing if you win.

    In Canada right now there is a major auto manufacturer that is being sued by the union over this very issue. It is a years long legal case that had to be escalated through the union, it’s lawyers ,and now arbitration. Does that not sound like a battle to you?