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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 27th, 2023

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  • I try not to get vitriolic but I fucking hate the DNC. They slanted things towards Clinton in 2016 and we got Trump. They slanted things towards Biden in 2020 and we’re now in a truly unimaginable spot trying to just keep a vague democracy thing going. The country is in such bad straits— really, the world— all to screw over one guy just because he said socialism.

    Far right ideology is rising shockingly quickly since Trump brought it to the west. Perhaps I am naive, but I believe that Bernie’s policies would have calmed the brewing storm of far right fury. Politicians could scream all they want about it, but Medicare is so objectively better that I think enough lower class right-wingers would’ve loved it. Like the guys who got their loans forgiven and were like “oh shit an actual benefit, if it’s for me I guess it’s not so bad”


  • I’m not sure you read the comment fully, they suggested headphones, not speakers. Just a quiet room is enough for that. Speakers are more expensive because they have to move a lot of air in a room. I’m no expert, but I think it’s the mere physics of doing so accurately that keeps it above 200. A technology can be more or less solved without becoming sub 200.

    Anyway, what’s the price range you’re looking for? I’m sure someone can recommend headphones for any range if you’re interested in those.

    And that’s already a whole lot of money for next to no value for 99% of the people.

    I strongly believe those people should not be thinking about audiophile gear. Thankfully, audiophile companies don’t really advertise. The claims most of those companies make are targeted towards people who are into audio, and often feature lots of solid snake oil that 99% of people would not understand. Companies that do advertise heavily tend to emphasize vague things like “deep, rich bass to accurate mids and crisp, clean highs” instead.

    And I’m also very very certain that most of the higher end stuff (and I’m counting everything over 200€) is esoteric. You can’t hear a difference in quality. Maybe a difference, but not objectively better or worse.

    What makes you “very very certain”? There are some quantifiable quality differences, like accurate positioning of sounds or perceived distance from the listener. It may not be necessarily worth the price, but I’m not seeing how you’re “very very certain” everything above 200 is esoteric and that it’s impossible to discern quality.

    Problem is, where exactly is the line? It’s almost impossible to tell whether this one speaker is garbage with a markup or actually high quality.

    Audiophile communities never suggest blind buying because even a high quality product may not have the sound signature you like. It’s similar to how a Rolls Royce, a high quality vehicle, may be too slow and comfortable for someone who would prefer a cheaper Corvette. Those in cities likely have multiple dealers who would be happy to have you come in and sample the stuff, or Best Buy. Pick something you like, regardless of price tag or recommendation. Those not in cities can get on lists of free samples that are then sent to the next listener, or buy and return from stores. Headphones.com has a 365 day return policy intended for this, though there is a restocking fee. Amazon is an unethical company and you can return large dollar quantities without fees before being blacklisted.

    Speakers are harder to test if you do not have audio stores or Best Buy. I would still suggest listening when next in a city if possible. I can’t think of anything for those in areas without Best Buy and never enter one, but there might still be something.




  • Yeah same. I first remember hearing it when Apple was planning that amazingly invasive local scanning of user images. Now it seems to be everywhere.

    I’m not against it though. CP could’ve described multiple things and this one is a lot less mistakable when you know. CP wasn’t particularly intuitive either— no easier to decipher, merely that with years of use many people knew it— so it’s an upgrade overall I think.

    Another benefit is that it includes “abuse” in the name. That’s important and ensures the people who seek that stuff out won’t borrow the term like they did CP.





  • thrawn@lemmy.worldtoMemes@lemmy.mlNo context
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    8 months ago

    I like the extremely narrow opinion held by whoever took the original screenshot, judging from their use of the agree/disagree buttons. They believe that some form of washing is necessary, but only the exact amount of a bidet— using soap is too much. A very specific middle ground.


  • Well, I did ignore him. I don’t keep up with conservative media and did not know who he was. I heard about this initially because I’m alum of a related university and didn’t know until your article who began the agenda against Dr. Gay. Problem is, when the broken clock is correct, it’s correct, and that led to normal people talking about it.

    That said, would you really ignore literally everything he or his ilk say even if it was true? I feel like all we’ve done is talk about this one guy that 99% of people probably don’t know, and not the merits of the actual events. I genuinely feel it is bad for one to ignore even truthful things just because it came from a piece of shit. That could easily be weaponized— he could champion a good cause just to throw it under the bus.



  • Serious, in the case of academic dishonesty, is narrower than the actual actions indicate. In that article, her advisor indicates that his book “encourages scholars that use the method to describe things in those ways”. He can say that, but by describing things in exactly those ways without quotes, it muddies the water on whose thoughts you’re reading (as it would if I hadn’t quoted the above, which would have read as my words). I recall an independent review indicating she improperly cited but it wasn’t misconduct— respectfully, students doing the same thing before this would probably not be allowed that much leeway. Imagine being back in school days, would you paste paragraphs worth of words without quotes and expect to survive a dishonesty board?

    Therein lies the issue: allowing that behavior is genuinely very serious, though it can look less so if you’re not literally thinking back to your own university experience. Moreover research isn’t done for the sake of writing stuff down for a grade, it’s done to progress society. Properly noting which thoughts are yours, and which are being quoted as supporting evidence or if your theories were built on others’, is important if merely for clarity’s sake. It could get worse than that though. Allowing this would allow researchers to ape words without sufficiently crediting them, and that could be taken to more sinister degrees.

    Dr. Gay is an excellent academic, this aside, and she understands the danger in allowing her own behavior to go unaddressed. She corrected several of her own works and will probably correct more of them as issues continue to be found.

    I kept this comment limited to analysis of the situation, but I’m gonna inject a little bit of personal opinion. I do genuinely think this sucks because, while I believe it was plagiarism, I hate when the conservatives win. But I also don’t see this as a real loss for Harvard or academia as a whole— Harvard will find another President and academic standards only improve. I also don’t want to make the conservative mistake of standing by someone whose conduct is detrimental to their own cause, simply because they are the enemy or target of a group I consider to be abhorrent.

    And I think that’s ultimately the thing here. We don’t want the conservatives to take this one, especially because they themselves would likely throw academic standards into the wind if it weren’t personally advantageous in this moment. But if we remove the view of “the enemy,” this is just a President resigning because her academic history is less than flawless, and a President should always have a record capable of withstanding even the sharpest scrutiny. Any less and they are actively at risk of eroding standards which exist for a reason.



  • I don’t like your bots at all because I, like others, browse all. Lemmy is too small and inactive to stick to little groups. They also filled my feed with a disproportionate amount of stuff I don’t care about, like selfhosted.

    The idea is genuinely interesting and the execution, especially the bridge to claim ownership of the bot account, is legitimately really cool. But until it’s not spammy— which may be never at the rate Lemmy is expanding, or lack of expansion— it’s going to meet significant resistance.

    It’s weird because I really agree with you. Lowering the barrier to entry for leaving Reddit and porting over its discussions is great. People say they don’t want Reddit content, but honestly I doubt that. Hell, even having copies of the niche Reddit content would help fill out the fediverse’s lack of content. Sadly I don’t see this working at all without two way communication (which you would probably need proxies for). I’d be pretty surprised if you ever brought it back.

    I particularly agree on the moral front. I disagree with Reddit the company and don’t care for the state of the internet. But I can’t see a barrier of entry low enough for people to actually stand up for themselves, so while I respect the effort and willingness to do something about your values, my faith in the remaining Reddit users is low enough that I really can’t see a universe where this works.


  • thrawn@lemmy.worldtoMemes@lemmy.mlWhy? Are we not doing enough?
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    9 months ago

    This is my take on Lemmy as well. I was impacted by the removal of third party apps because I used Reddit as a mobile quick reader between activities where the bite-sized format of title -> elaboration -> brief discussion was great, but maybe a little too much. On Lemmy I don’t feel the need to keep reading. This also means I wasn’t invested enough in Reddit, so when they made clear their disdain for the users, I simply left. Nothing there is important enough to keep going.

    Lemmy is definitely lower quality though. All is primarily single topic outrage and there is a significant amount of extreme rhetoric that makes me feel like I’ll be put on a list for reading, which would have been removed on Reddit for lack of civility or worse. The niche things don’t exist and, even if I wasn’t a bite-sized mobile user and had the time or thoughts to form a community, these Reddit clones are always most active at political… discussion users can’t express elsewhere and that tends to kill the niche hobbyists who don’t want to look at or be surrounded by that type of passion. So it’s difficult to curate a personal feed of anything but that.

    Lemmy still works for my use case and it’s about the next best thing to Reddit. I do think the “circlejerk” feeling is contributing to the decline though, and wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up like Voat.



  • The comment I responded to was basically “what else could they have done?” To most people that’s condoning.

    And the logic of “they feel it’s justified” could be extended to Israel as well. It’s clear that a lot of people think that Hamas butchering civilians means Israel can too. Doesn’t make it right either.

    And well, why don’t you condemn just as strongly Hamas’s killings, or understand why Israel might feel they’re justified? That’s kind of what I mean— there’s these little slants, as if to say “at least they’re not the other side”.

    Call me sensitive or whatever but I don’t like the violent undertones I get here (not your comment, Lemmy in general). Repeating Hamas’s justifications for slaughter is no better than repeating Israel’s, and imo drags down the general quality of any discussion


  • Lemmy is the only place where I see people being like “butchering civilians is okay as long as it was done to further their goal”. It’s real weird to see that kind of rhetoric not only accepted but upvoted.

    I’m sure if I hung out on the extremist right sites, there would be that kind of stuff about Israel. That’s kind of the thing though, it’s really starting to feel like Lemmy is an extremist place and I could see it petering out because of that.

    I feel like part of a shrinking minority that’s not cool with mass killing civilians no matter what. I’m a strong supporter for an independent Palestine but I don’t see how killing civilians is leading to that. To me it seems like that only gave Israel the opportunity to unleash massive violence of their own, and they’re clearly far better at it.

    I know a lot of you don’t see violence or violent rhetoric as taboo, and I guess I’m not really trying to get you to stop saying it. It’s just kind of sad to see, and I do think it’ll turn Lemmy into one of those sites regular people avoid because it’s too extreme. I don’t even know why I typed this comment, perhaps I don’t like the way Lemmy is sliding and felt the need to comment on it while it’s still in that early stage Voat feel.