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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • People are fed up with being broke and not able to afford the same things that they or their parents could afford even 20 years ago. Populists do not have to offer policies they can or event intend to implement so they can promise any old shit to the gullible who want change. Wrap that in a reassuring racist package: immigration is out of control, send back the small boats, etc. so that it doesn’t smell like communism (not that communism cant be racist) that people confuse even moderate socialist policies for due to decades of western propaganda.

    Couple this with the Overton window being moved ever towards the right due to left and center left parties being captured by neoliberals who seek funding and patronage from the Rich, plus decades of the press putting pressure on any left wing policies by enforcing a double standard of left wing policies required to fully document how they will work and be funded, while right wing fantasy policies are waved through without any scrutiny from the majority of press.

    Then the right deliberately break any essential service, under fund it and spend it elsewhere, making it time consuming and expensive to fix, leading them to point at their opponents being ineffective, and the press refuse to hold the right to account over this.

    This has reduced any coupling between those left of the far right and the general population in terms of policies meeting the requirement. You can start to see why they are gaining ground.


  • Its the running costs of these that are insane, and the CO2 that it produces.

    All will be rated by gallons per hour for the engines, the big boats can consume 500 gallons per hour. Now assume the owner wants to move the boat just 100 nm, or about 3 hours of travel at the most efficient speed (allowing for departure and arrival). Thats about 1500 gallons for one of the big boats. Assume £6 per gallon, thats £9k, to do 60 nm. Assuming an average of 40 mpg in a car, you could do 60000 miles for the same amount of fuel, or the same annual consumption as seven average UK drivers vs. 60 nm in a big boat. A 60 nm trip is something you do to get to a lunch stop before going on somewhere else for the evening. It can take multiple days of continuous travel to work across the Med, mean while the owner flies somewhere else while the boat is moved, then flies back.

    Then there is the electric production on these. Sure, solar has helped a ton, but a lot of the really big boats don’t have a ton of solar as it takes flat surface space that has other shit on it. So they use a generator, a big one. Whole boat will have aircon and copious amounts of inverters to give the guests mains electric, electric toys, tons of lighting, and navigation equipment. The fuel for this is on top of the fuel burned to move the boat.

    Then there is the staff on the boat, big boats can have a dozen or more staff on board, all of whom had to fly to get to the boat, and have their own food, washing, and daily energy needs.

    Its not uncommon for a rich owner to request the boat moved to a particular location, stocked up with food and booze that is flown in from multiple locations. Then the owner and their guests fly in, and sometimes not, so all that effort and energy is wasted.

    Final kicker is that really big boats have a second chase boat, full of even more staff and often similar size to the main boat in consumption. Bezos has two helicopter pads on his chase boat as he cannot have one on his main boat because he wanted sails on it, which don’t actually work properly, they have never used more than one at once.




  • Open source devices will become more mainstream as a push back by consumers against enshitifcation, privacy invasion, disposable products, ever rising subscription costs.

    Not just things like phones and laptops but things like mice, keyboards, headphones, even tvs and kitchen appliances. I know some of these are possible now, I use a ploppy trackball and qmk based keyboards but a wider spread of these across the home and more than just hobbyists like myself.

    Large chunks will be 3D printed, moving the large component parts of manufacting to the local area. Plus things will be endlessly fixable and upgradable.



  • None of which is tied to raising the retirement age for the younger groups, this does fuck all to fix the actual problem.

    None of which is tied to medical or elder care for the Danes, this is also mostly funded by taxation, again mostly paid by the young.

    The actual solution is to start means testing Ponzi scheme state pension funds with a tapered reduction based on private pension income. However that will never every happen to this particular group as they are the largest single group, and this will be a single issue voting matter for them as they are in the middle of retiring.

    Social care should be self funded by the government forcing sell off, of assets like the home, for those that can for this generation.



  • So this rise for Denmark does not kick in on people born before 1970, so it does not count for baby boomers or the oldest and usually wealthiest sub set of Gen X. Oh, also Danish politicians can still retire at 60 right?

    This is fairly typical with these age rises, applies to everybody BUT the largest group who have caused all the problem by being the largest group and who often haven’t paid their fair share in a lot of schemes as a lot of state pension schemes are a Ponzi scheme rather than an actual investment fund, including the Danes as its paid directly out of taxation.

    This means all the poor fucks who will now retire later will still be paying for that largest ever group to retire at an earlier age.

    What is particularly insidious with this type of change is that the private pension age has also been raised for people in the UK. This means even if you can afford to you cant take it as early as you once could. Absolutely done because they will be means testing the UK state pension at some point.


  • Germany was miles off, they lost the war before the first bomb was dropped, 7th May vs. 6th August. Its impossible for them to be both behind the Allied effort to make a nuclear bomb (so would have not been read to drop one until after 6th August) and still make one after they surrendered.

    The Allies very much lied to the scientists about how far along the Germans were to guilt them into making one against objections raised at the time.

    Now if those defecting Nazis who joined NASA and the like post war would have instead been used to replace objecting Allied scientists in the nuclear program, thats a real possibility.



  • What subjects are you comparing it to? At its fundamental level math is a building block same way your native language is a building block to learn other subjects such as history or biology or cooking. I am splitting out language from literature the same way I would split Maths from engineering or physics, theory vs. application.

    I can only speak for English as that’s the only language I have ever really studied but for the average student whose native language is English you simply do not need to study English language to the same level as somebody looking to apply Maths to Biology or Physics to a advanced high school level. You simply do not need to do this to the same level, high school English language simply isn’t as deep a subject. High school literature is potentially, but again, that’s application not theory.

    On top of this, you use English far more often than Maths both in school and out of school. Average kid isnt going to use much Maths day to day other than wondering about basic fractions for sharing a pizza/cake, or simple addition/subtraction for pocket money type stuff. Sure, there will always be exceptions but I am talking about the majority.



  • Aesthetically appealing tools are important to me, I like tools that are good to look at and work with and I will pay more for the privilege.

    When I have a set of tools I prefer that they are coloured differently as it helps identify different sizes without having to read labels once you worked with them for a bit. I am particularly partial to Swiss Tools rainbow sets for this reason.

    Obviously if you are only using the tool once in a blue moon then you really do not need to spend big money on it, but if you are spending more can get you a significantly better tool, so it might as well look cool in the process.

    Even things like screwdrivers a better quality one like Vessels Megadora range cam out a lot less than the cheapest supermarket screwdrivers so you have less frustration with stripping screw heads. Plus they are A LOT more comfy to use all day.

    Power tools I am on the DeWalt batteries, so cordless I stick with DeWalt. Anything corded or hand powered I buy whatever is best bang for my buck, but if its reasonably close I will stick with DeWalt where I can.

    All my storage boxes are either Stanley or DeWalt as its the same system and same colours. I like my storage to match as much as possible as I have a lot of it and it looks better matching. Even the foam in my storage is black and yellow, lol.



  • I have 2x32"@4k side by side at 100% scaling. No way I would switch to a single ultrawide as I would be losing screen size, so I would have to adjust the ratio to make it the same size and thus lose screen real estate.

    I also prefer two monitors as I have different workspaces for each so I can switch just half the “screen” between different groups of apps. It would also be harder for my tiling WM, sway, to tile the large number of apps currently split over two workspaces without a lot more faffing.

    Oh and switching apps to full screen would be less useful, I use that a lot as it’s just two keys to flip it back and forth. I can keep reference on the other screen and the other app full screen.


  • If I am relying on it, I buy from brands I trust. No brand is going to be perfect but some are clearly going to be lower risk than randoms from aliexpress. Its as much to do with reliability, achievable duty cycle (rather than promises of duty cycle), support (especially how easy it is to get a replacement under warranty), how long they will push firmware updates for, than just security trustworthiness.

    Pretty much any device is going to have a vulnerability or potential for a back door at some point but the company being transparent about the issue and fixing it promptly is worth a lot. Its the same reason I would have a Google or (premium) Samsung phone, I trust that they will support the phone for the time period they say they will, something I would not do with say Oneplus based on my past experience of them.

    I buy electronics from aliexpress all the time, but nothing I rely on day to day like a router, simply because I am shit out of luck getting it replaced quickly if it goes wrong, even if I want to get a replacement. I have a cheap mikrotik hex I keep as a backup of a backup (my APs are my primary backup for my router), and this is fine for a week or so but I would not want to be out a month or more with it.

    I guess you could plan in proper redundancy as I have, or may be you can afford a an outage, so may be you don’t need that. If I cannot work, I cannot earn, so I have backup internet, routers, wifi etc. planned into my install.

    I think what someone else wrote about defense is depth is the real key here. I have my network divided into separate VLANs that are firewalled off from each other, so one for IoT, one for cameras, one for my TVs and other screens, one for my devices. This means if something is compromised they still have to get across the network and it simplifies my firewall rules as I am applying them to subnets rather than individual devices in a self maintained group. It makes it easier to say block external DNS queries and redirect to my pihole for my IoT and TVs but not my personal devices as I would have a good reason to go external.

    May be you do not have a lot of devices, I realize I am nearer the upper end of a home network with over 50 active devices and it will be over kill if you only have a laptop and a phone on your network.