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SwingingTheLamp

@ SwingingTheLamp @midwest.social

Posts
2
Comments
311
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Deleted

    Do you still use Facebook?

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  • Similar to others, I got on Facebook when you had to have a .edu email address. I've been less than pleased with it in recent times, as my feed ignored activity by my friends and groups in favor of "suggested" content, and the Reels (which I tried in vain to disable) had degenerated into softcore porn, although/because I've never watched one.

    I haven't logged in since Zuckerberg came out as mask-off fascist. I've kept the account in case I want to contact anybody, or check Marketplace. But I've found that my brother was correct: Facebook is the junk food of social connection. It tastes good, but always leaves you hungry. Getting off of it was painful, but I feel better for having done it.

  • Angry, disappointed users react to Bluesky's upcoming blue check mark verification system

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  • Reminds me of a meeting my co-worker and I had with the IT staff of a company that is a customer using research instruments in our facility. The meeting was to ask us to enable data synchronization through SharePoint. (We're a Linux shop.) We asked what the issue was with getting their data files with SFTP. They said, "It's open source."

    Then, a few beats of silence as it sinks in for us that there is no next step in the chain of logic. That is the totality of their objection.

  • What is something you learned in your line of work that other people wouldn't know

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  • Lotta boring crap about PLUs, SKUs, UPCs, TPRs, and such. Stores have dedicated pricing staff for a reason. One trick that might be interesting, but not surprising, is the way stores hide price increases by putting a product "on sale" this week, so it's cheaper than last week, but raising the regular price, so it costs more when the sale price ends.

  • What is something you learned in your line of work that other people wouldn't know

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  • I got degrees from both a community college and a major research university. The two don't share instructors, but on average, the quality is much better at the community college.

    Community college instructors are there to teach. They go to continuing education classes to learn how to do it better. Some classes at a research university are taught by similar, dedicated instructors, but some are taught by the professor who drew the metaphorical short straw that semester, and who'd rather be focusing on her research. She will put in her best effort, don't get me wrong, but her first priority is research.

    That is to say, for anyone thinking about a degree, don't overlook the value of community college.

    (ETA: I work at a research university now; the research professors who also teach are some of my co-workers.)

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  • This.

    It's irrational to consider maximum monetary gain to be the only best outcome. Why? What's the goal? Money is only means to an end, not intrinsically worth anything.

    Put another way, if the Argentinians cherish good wine, how are they better off with slightly more money and mediocre wine? (I guess they could use the profits to buy good wine?)

  • A Loophole That Would Swallow the Constitution | If Donald Trump can disappear people to El Salvador without due process, he can do anything.

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  • The Bush administration abrogated due process, but we might have been able to move past it as a shameful anomaly in our history perpetrated by one out-of-control political faction. But then instead of prosecuting the offenders, or at least disavowing their actions, the Obama administration doubled down on it! It decided that American citizens could be killed on the basis of an accusation. It cemented the destruction of due process as a bipartisan principle of American government.

    The Turd Reich might be speed-running the course, but it's just using the tools that past administrations laid out for it.

  • SHOCK POLL: AOC a Close Second Place Behind Kamala Harris in 2028 Democratic Primary

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  • Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. There's no statistical difference in the chances of victory between men and women when running for political office. Lots of Republican politicians are women. I don't see it as a big deal.

    Also, lots of open racists voted for Obama. If you look at the polling and the interviews, it was much more about running conservative Democrats trying to get the votes of people who wanted to shake things up. That's what Obama promised, that's why Sanders would've won, by some measures, and it seems AOC is out there generating the same buzz.

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  • I think the implication is that you're going to die in El Salvador, so better to die at home and maybe take a few ICE thugs with you.

  • Are there any Lemmy/Mbin instances by women for women?

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  • The court thing is not universally true. I worked in a family law firm for several years, and the practice in the courts here is to start from a baseline of equal custody and placement, and I've heard the same about other states. The men who lost out were the ones who wouldn't fight, because they were convinced that the courts were biased. But hell, in one case, we got full custody and placement for a guy whose son wasn't even biologically his! (His wife cheated, and he didn't find out until well after they'd emotionally bonded.)

  • Oops

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  • fr

  • What were you surprised to learn wasn't actually normal?

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  • There's a whole range of procedures that fall under the umbrella term of circumcision, depending on how much they cut off. It goes from snipping off a little ring at the tip (the traditional bris), to outright removal of the entire mobile skin system. I figure I've lost at least 15 square inches (an index card size) of adult tissue.

  • What were you surprised to learn wasn't actually normal?

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  • Just that I read them so quickly, I'm ready for the show it movie to move on to the next scene, and have to wait for the dialog to catch up.

  • What were you surprised to learn wasn't actually normal?

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  • Grab the one of the middle knuckles of one of your fingers firmly with your other hand. Now slide the skin to your fingertip, then down to the base knuckle.

    What's that? You can't do that, because the skin is fixed in place? Well, imagine my surprise when I learned penises aren't supposed to be like that.

  • What were you surprised to learn wasn't actually normal?

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  • TIL that my nose is my dominant eye! (I think I'm not doing something correctly.)

  • What were you surprised to learn wasn't actually normal?

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  • In both cases, the words just... go straight from words to comprehension? It's kind of hard to answer that question, because introspection of the process isn't possible. I mean, I just look at words and know what they mean. From experience, I think I read about 3 times faster than most other people, what with not having to wait to hear them spoken by an internal voice. (Subtitles in the same language as the audio are maddening, because I can't not read them, and then have to wait so long for the speech to catch up.)

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  • What's your superpower?

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  • For what it's worth, about that age is when it started to go away for me.

  • What's your superpower?

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  • I don't actually know if this is unusual, but I can smell when people have a respiratory illness, like a cold. It smells vaguely like the rooting hormone that you can get from a garden center.

  • Microsoft fires employee protestor who called AI boss a ‘war profiteer’

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  • Willfully blind. Eastman Kodak invented the first digital camera in 1975, but decided to focus on their existing, profitable product lines. Clayton Christensen describes the process in The Innovator's Dilemma.