• 0 Posts
  • 20 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: July 6th, 2023

help-circle
  • There’s more lead allowed in a liter of drinking water in the US than a serving of any of the chocolates being reported, as far as I can find. (15 micrograms per liter.) Provided nobody’s eating a few dozen bars of chocolate in a single sitting I can’t imagine accumulating enough to cause acute harm from the chocolate alone. Chasing down Hershey, Nestle et al to hold them accountable is great, but in terms of toxic metals we’d have more success and greater impact lighting up the news about water supplies.

    Just mildly frustrated that I continue to see talk about chocolate while drinking water is a necessity and consumed in greater amounts daily but rarely gets reported outside of extreme cases like Flint.










  • Usually the issue would be that these places cost large sums up front to acquire, and there is inherent risk in lending money or selling something for payment over time.

    The most equitable solution under those circumstances IMO would be a pay-towards-ownership rental model with an agreed stewardship rate for routine maintenance and if they terminate lease early, the accrued funds towards the ownership are disbursed. This allows the “renter” (future owner) the ability to eventually accrue the value of the home without risk of loss of investment, while also allowing the “owner” (steward) to ensure that maintenance can be performed. Would have to work out how to pay for incidental maintenance like a failed water heater or storm damage, but splitting cost across owned percentage may be fair, or based on fault, etc.

    It’s a lot of hassle for something that we should instead fix at the systemic level, but so long as we’re looking at the current system then this ought to do well by both parties and would be accessible for those fortunate/lucky enough to be pulling significant salaries to help those less fortunate.

    Cooperatives are also a good option long-term but I’m thinking in terms of folks that are living hand-to-mouth being able to earn towards a permanent home right away rather than a group of people with enough surplus money to pool for shared home(s). A well-established coop would be a better support network and may be able to grow faster (help more folks) than the alternatives.





  • I’m less concerned with who people learn facts from than with the veracity and balance thereof. If it’s not for you, that’s fine, but there are plenty of people with limited interest in politics that would be willing to listen to a topic that their favorite comedian discusses and reconsider their views on that basis. Gatekeeping politics is how morons keep the greater populace ignorant and disengaged.


  • During meetings, I find it easier to follow the discussion if I’m making notes on post-its or a notepad rather than digitally.

    For longform notes, research etc I prefer to use a wiki program like Obsidian and a mindmap or diagramming tool. I will rarely sketch ideas on paper but being able to rearrange the shapes on digital canvas makes it great for whiteboarding as a software engineer.



  • Disagree with this take in general (growth is worthwhile if only to shift communications platforms in general to open and federated protocols) but I don’t think Lemmy is quite where we need it to be in order to sustain a migration. Finding a good instance is still tough, the idea of federation isn’t easy to grasp for a new user yet, and the UX is still hammering out bugs. (Big thanks to all the devs that already work on Lemmy and all those that shifted over with the Reddit exodus for driving it to new heights so rapidly.)

    An ideal migration from my perspective would have them find instances that cater to their interests and views and would allow easy defederation if undesired. Also, more control for the end user in what communities they see on their feeds when going through discovery (new/hot/etc feeds).

    With better user controls for self moderation and better distribution of users across multiple instances I think we can have our cake and eat it too: growth towards a free world of communications without bogging us down by dealing with the folks/attitudes we find repugnant.


  • In the front, yes - but knowing how much your rear might be sticking out is another story. That’s tough to judge with rear-view and side-view mirrors only.

    Maybe it’s different elsewhere but at least in the Midwest US we have a range of different length parking spots, from very short to long, so it’s habit to pull as far forward as possible to ensure you aren’t sticking out into the aisle.

    The courteous folks hop back in and reposition if they’re parked funky, but those types can be far and between.


  • I’d speculate some combination of control over employees (poor management practices, etc) and making use of owned land/offices that are difficult to sell otherwise. Not much else makes sense to me, especially for tech companies where nearly the entire job exists in virtual space of some kind - no wrenches to turn.

    Edit: Someone else suggested a way to “lay off” folks by having them voluntarily leave the job to avoid the return to office. That also sounds pretty plausible to me with the extent to which companies are starting to squeeze with what feels like an incoming recession period.