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kersploosh

@ kersploosh @sh.itjust.works

Posts
61
Comments
227
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Which state in the US is the worst to live in? Why?

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  • There is no universal, objective answer. It depends who you are, your financial situation, your political views, etc.

    That said, the states that suck the most for the most people are conservative places with lots of rural poverty. Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma, ...

  • Locked

    If Trump were to pass a EO lowering the Age of consent to 13. Would that finally be enough to break Maga

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  • It would be spun as a win for small government/libertarian ideals. Get government control out of private lives and all that jazz.

  • Bike lanes on Richmond-San Rafael Bridge are contributing to pollution, drivers say

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  • I'll bet the lane is there purely to satisfy some requirement for including non-car infrastructure, regardless of whether it makes sense in this particular location. It's the same way we get fun bike lanes like these:

  • NSFW Deleted

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  • Good point. I will add that to the long list of reforms we need in the US criminal system.

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  • Mandatory minimums are a problem. Judges lose discretion to tailor the punishment to the specifics of the case. Minimums may be pushed unreasonably high so politicians can claim to be "tough on crime." (This happened big time in the US, starting with the War on Drugs in the 1970s and continuing through the 1990s.) Both of those lead to more people in prison longer than they should be.

    Also, at least in the US, not all crimes carry mandatory minimum sentences. This gives prosecutors a new source of leverage:

    The use of mandatory minimums effectively vests prosecutors with powerful sentencing discretion. The prosecutor controls the decision to charge a person with a mandatory-eligible crime and, in some states, the decision to apply the mandatory minimum to an eligible charge. Rather than eliminate discretion in sentencing, mandatory minimums therefore moved this power from judges to prosecutors. The threat of mandatory minimums also encourages defendants to plead to a different crime to avoid a stiff, mandatory sentence.

    https://www.sentencingproject.org/fact-sheet/how-mandatory-minimums-perpetuate-mass-incarceration-and-what-to-do-about-it/

    Mandatory minimums can also lead to significant racial disparities. The linked article cites an example of very different minimum sentences for different drug offenses, leading to a sharp rise in incarceration rates for blacks but much less so for whites.

  • What is happening on Programming.dev instance?

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  • Whatever the issue was, it was short-lived. It's now back to normal and only a few minutes behind.

  • What is happening on Programming.dev instance?

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  • Do you mean in the very short term, or over the last few days or weeks?

    At the moment It looks like programming.dev is suddenly falling behind reddthat.com. It's currently ~40 minutes behind and getting worse. @snowe@programming.dev @Ategon@programming.dev, FYI.

    I'm not savvy enough to know what causes this, but it has happened before between instances. @MrKaplan@lemmy.world might have some insight.

  • Godspeed fellow lemm.ee users. Thank you mods for a great instance.

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  • Trump in wake of Iran attack: ‘Everyone, keep oil prices down’

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  • “To The Department of Energy: DRILL, BABY, DRILL!!! And I mean NOW!!!” he added on Truth Social.

    Fun fact #1: The department of energy does not control oil drilling. Sorry Donald, they can't unilaterally make it happen.

    Fun fact #2: Not all oil is equal. Refineries are designed to process certain grades of oil into specific products, and different parts of the world have different grades. Refineries also often blend oils from different parts of the world to get the characteristics they need for their process.

    Fun fact #3: Moving domestic petroleum products between the west coast and the rest of the US is an expensive pain in the ass. There is a distinct lack of pipelines, so you need to ship it through the Panama canal. But shipping is expensive thanks to the Jones Act. So California, Oregon, and Washington would get particularly screwed in a domestic-only oil market.

    "Drill, baby, drill!" has always been an immensely stupid rallying cry, even if you don't care about the environment.

  • Dinner time

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  • Also,

  • Am I the only one who thinks social media has destroyed the spirit of the internet?

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  • The internet has always been a collection of social media platforms: bulletin boards, Usenet, IRC, people hosting little personal sites and making contact with each other via email, etc. It got bad when big money arrived and brought in the general public. First is was platforms like AOL's chat rooms and forums, and later things like Facebook and Twitter. We are all living in eternal September now.

    Exhibit A: this t-shirt from 1994

  • What do you think are the worst carbon causing human activities? What do you think are the most beneficial activities to counter carbon output?

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  • Side note: If worrying about climate isn't enough, we can also worry about potential famine as we use up our fossil fuels.

    We are able to feed the world because of the Haber-Bosch process. This process uses fossil fuels, usually natural gas, to produce synthetic ammonia for fertilizer. That fertilizer makes modern high-yield farming possible. "Without the Haber-Bosch process we would only be able to produce around two-thirds the amount of food we do today."https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/features/cewctw-fritz-haber-and-carl-bosch-feed-the-world/

  • What do you think are the worst carbon causing human activities? What do you think are the most beneficial activities to counter carbon output?

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  • In the US it's roughly a tie between road transportation and energy generation (which lumps together both heat and electricity).

    (Source: University of Michigan https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/sustainability-indicators/carbon-footprint-factsheet)

    The global breakdown is similar: https://www.wri.org/insights/4-charts-explain-greenhouse-gas-emissions-countries-and-sectors

    The solutions? Build mass transit, live in temperate climates, buy less stuff, ...? Honestly, I don't think we're not going to fix the problem with simple, local improvements (though by all means do what you can). There are global demographic forces to contend with. A century ago there were 2 billion people on earth. Now there are >8 billion, and in my lifetime we will surpass 9 billion. Many of those people are climbing out of poverty, and they want cars and air conditioners and all the other energy-intensive things that rich countries have enjoyed for a century. IMO we're going to need massive technological changes (like powering much of the world with nuclear very soon) in concert with a major population reduction and/or major changes to how people expect to live.

  • Which Lemmy instances use Photon?

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  • what fediverse software is similar to lemmy?

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  • Removed

    When and why did the US switch to these voting machines that are the subject of ongoing lawsuits and reports of unlawful "updates"?

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  • Same here. Paper ballots that can be machine scanned and stored for manual audits seem like the best possible method.

  • What is the most poetic word in your language and why?

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  • Not my language, but I like the Dutch word "peperduur" for "very expensive." I like that the meaning has both historical and emotional aspects: pepper was once very expensive, and a high price can be considered spicy.

    In English, "crestfallen" is a good one. When I read it I immediately imagine someone hanging their head in dismay.

  • How will we deal with all the broken images?

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  • I assume it's an intentional trade-off by the devs to reduce the storage burden. If each instance is a complete mirror of all federated instances then hosting becomes that much more expensive.

  • An open (or federated) searchable catalog of hikes and hiking trails (alltrails alternative)?

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  • I have been looking for the same thing for years. I basically want the WTA Hike Finder but expanded worldwide, and with some map integration to show the routes visually instead of having to interpret the descriptions.