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Joined 7 months ago
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Cake day: November 22nd, 2023

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  • 10-hour shifts are very common in the US. Working 50 hours a week is fairly common, though sometimes people work four 10-hour days instead of the usual five 8-hour days that people know as a “9 to 5 job.”

    I was recently looking at a job listing where they were hiring for 2 shifts of the same role. The first was 50 hours a week working 10-hour days from 7am to 5pm, and the second shift worked 42 hour weeks with four 9-hour days where you worked from 3pm to midnight and then a shortened 6 hour day on Fridays. These kinds of schedules are the norm in manufacturing and logistics jobs, and in my experience, the higher your salary and the more senior your role, the fewer hours you’re expected to work. And you might even get benefits like vacation time and sick days/pay!


  • But the fear isn’t so rational. It’s like a fear that the cocktail in your example will replace the original vodka whether they want the cocktail or not, or that the vodka will be so diluted by seltzer that it will functionally cease to exist.

    It’s like a fear of gentrification of the country as a whole.

    It’s also important to remember that the US is a huge exception in this regard as well. Most other countries are like 90%+ native population, and immigrant populations tend to be sort of isolated from the wider national culture due to things like language barriers, and they often set up little “bastions” of their native culture locally wherever they live. We even see plenty of that in the US as well. While there are many distinctly US cultures across the country that are derived from a variety of backgrounds, there are tons of “enclaves” of European culture that make it blatantly clear where immigrants from certain countries settled. In Boston, the culture of Chinatown is distinctly unique and separate from the wider culture of the city, which largely has ties back to Ireland (and is very proud of it). And both of those are distinctly different from where the Italian immigrants settled, who effectively have their own districts of cultures descended from Italy regardless of where they immigrated to.



  • Coal is often radioactive when it comes out of the ground, and thanks to poor regulations, is often radioactive when it goes into the powerplant, leading to radioactive particles coming out of the smokestacks and landing anywhere downwind of the plants.

    More people have died from radiation poisoning from coal than from all of the nuclear accidents combined. But, as you said, 200 years vs. 70 years. But, also, nuclear is much more heavily regulated than coal in this regard due to the severity of those accidents. The risk of a dangerous nuclear power plant is nowhere near as large as commonly believed. It doesn’t take long to find longlasting environmental disasters due to fossil fuels, from oil spills to powerplant disasters. They’re used so heavily that it’s just so much more likely to occur and occur more often.

    All this to say that fossil fuels suck all around and we should be looking at all forms of replacement for them, nuclear being just one option we should be pursuing alongside all the others.


  • One thing to remember about the mining issue is that coal mining is just as bad, and coal is often radioactive as well. More people have died from radiation poisoning due to coal power/mining than have died from radiation poisoning due to nuclear power, even when you include disasters like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.

    Of course, we’ve also been mining and using coal a lot longer, but the radioactive coal dust and possibly radioactive particles in the smoke from coal plants is something that many people are unaware of.

    But, like you said, the big thing is to move away from fossil fuels entirely, and nuclear power has its own issues. It doesn’t so much matter what we go with so long as we do actually go with something, and renewables are getting better and better all the time.



  • From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the blessed Machine.

    Your kind cling to your flesh, as if it will not decay and fail you. One day, the crude biomass that you call a temple will wither, and you will beg my kind to save you.

    But I am already saved. For the Machine is immortal.







  • The one and only point that I disagree with you on is your take on mtx. They may not affect you, but everything about them is designed to be psychologically exploitative, and the wealthy whale is largely a myth. The vast majority of money from mtx is made from people with addiction issues and other mental health issues or atypical neurology, like people with depression or ADHD.

    Microsoft bought up all those studios and didn’t support them, but that’s business as usual for Microsoft, and the money that they’ll make from mtx like this will more than make up for it. I recently watched a former Blizzard dev who was talking about how a single $15 mount for WoW made more money than StarCraft 2 did.

    The big issue I see is that most people largely don’t know about anything beyond the big AAA releases, and as we’ve already established, that’s an exploitative wasteland nowadays. There’s plenty of demand for good games and there always will be, but while the indie scene is the best that’s it’s ever been, the majority of indie companies go under after their first game. It’s still hard out there for them, too. There’s just enough of them popping up and putting out truly great games that they can actually compete with the AAA space.






  • I agree, you shouldn’t expect people to understand every reference you make. My statement was more about how the quote in the pic and, to a much lesser extent, the comment above both seem to view being introduced to a new thing by someone you like as sort of a bad thing. The quote in the photo especially is a red flag of not caring about the things the people you care about are into.

    Obviously not everybody is going to be familiar with the same media as you. But if somebody gets upset with you because you quoted a joke from a source that they’re unfamiliar with, that’s on them, not you.


  • I mean, how is it any different than referencing movies, music, TV shows, stand-up comedy, or any other piece of pop culture?

    Would referencing a movie somebody hasn’t seen before make you terminally in-theater or something? Though, having said that, I am now going to take every opportunity I can to work the phrase “terminally in-theater” into my daily life anytime somebody mentions a Marvel movie or something.