Won’t someone please think of these super important churches and their totally-not-coincidentally wealthy pastors?
For the record, a remarkably small percentage of pastors are actually wealthy. Lots of churches have a pretty poor financial outlook these days, and many pastors struggle.
That’s not to say there aren’t rich assholes fleecing (pun intended) their flock, and obviously fuck televangelists, but it’s not the norm for a pastor to be wealthy.
Edit: (Not disagreeing with the stuff about modern Christianity failing utterly to understand itself though.)
A Boeing 747-400 with 468 people aboard was forced to make an emergency landing in Indonesia on Wednesday after one of its engines caught fire and began shooting out flames during takeoff....
Ok but how does this stuff keep happening to Boeing planes?
Shit happens to lots of planes. You just hear about the Boeing ones because reporting on them is in vogue.
I recently set up FlightRadar24 to alert me whenever a plane anywhere in the world starts squawking 7700, the emergency code. It’s REMARKABLE how often it happens. At least a few times per day, it seems like. There are well over 100,000 flights every day, and occasionally stuff goes wrong.
(And yet, whenever a fatal commercial air incident occurs it’s global news, because those are still exceptionally rare.)
What is going on at Boeing, seems to be way beyond acceptable!
This specific plane was built in 2001, and its engines were made by Pratt & Whitney. Boeing doesn’t build the engines, 747 engines came from Pratt & Whitney, GE, or Rolls Royce depending on the preference of the original buyer.
Air incidents happen all the time (though fatalities are rare). You hear about the Boeing ones because Boeing is in the news (for very good reason, with regard to the 737 MAX and to a lesser extent the 787). But Boeing wasn’t responsible for this incident.
If anything, Boeing’s design of the 747 proved itself yet again. That plane successfully climbed and maintained a holding pattern for 90 minutes after an engine failure during takeoff.
Don’t get me wrong, modern Boeing needs to be overhauled. But older Boeing planes are still remarkably safe. (As are the current ones, the 787 has never suffered a fatality or a hull loss. But they’re playing a dangerous game with safety at the expense of profit lately.)
Lincoln wanted to send the freed slaves back to Africa. He wasn’t as good of a guy as history class made him out to be.
You cannot simply apply modern ethics to the views and actions of people in the past like that. Nuance is required. Our thinking as a society changes over time, and our views as individuals are inherently constrained by what we experience and learn, and by the views of those around us.
For his time, Lincoln was progressive. He was an abolitionist who brought about the end of US chattel slavery.
John Brown was an extremist. This isn’t to demonize him, he was obviously in the right to fight against slavery, but unfortunately systemic progress happens within the system. Extremists can help create the environment for that systemic change to happen, but they can also stymie it depending on their methods and the prevailing ideas of the time. John Brown’s contribution was important, but he was never going to be a reasonable candidate for national office.
Calling Lincoln a centrist because there existed a more radical wing of his party is nonsensical. That’s like saying 1 is not a positive number because 2 is further from 0. Not a single southern state supported him, to the point that his election triggered a war over slavery. He was very firmly an abolitionist, which was certainly a more popular position than it had been previously in American politics, but was far from centrist.
I thought the Apple commercial was really clever. Squeezing all of the stuff into one device. I don’t really understand why people decided that it was about the death of creativity, there’s plenty of creative shit you can do on a tablet. And it’s not like the existence of the iPad precludes using instruments and paint.
Shit, 98% of what my wife does on her iPad is piano and vocal sheet music related.
Well you see, Kevin, your job is to keep at least one wheel inside the white lines. That’s the rules of the sport. Just like lots of sports where staying within the white lines is important!
If you don’t like it, no one is forcing you to stay in the sport. If it weren’t for you handing McLaren a win last race I’d be begging you to retire already.
I understand people who miss the banshee scream of the V10s/V12s, or the roar of the V8s, but I’m already annoyed that they’re dropping the MGU-H for 2026.
The current turbo-hybrid engines are INCREDIBLE from a thermal efficiency standpoint. It’s insane. That’s part of why they’re quiet. They’re exactly where F1 should be taking ICE technology. More power from less fuel. Less wasted energy.
But I suppose that F1 is going to lose technological relevance anyway as the world shifts away from ICEs, so we might as well make the spectacle more entertaining. No one cares how useful racehorses are, just whether they’re fast.
sob there are new terms that describe human beings because gender is not a binary, woe is me, I’m so upset… /s
‘Cisgender’ doesn’t even require there to not be a gender binary! These snowflakes are ridiculous. It’s not a slur, anymore than ‘heterosexual’ is a slur.
If one person pays all or a majority of the mortgage on a property, why do they then have to split that property 50% with somebody who contributed nothing?
Because marriage is a partnership and generally the people who “contributed nothing” are the ones who gave up or significantly delayed or harmed their careers to take up the home front in the marriage.
I know a woman whose wealthy husband told her to sell her small business because she didn’t need to work. A few years later when he divorced her for a younger woman and the prenup says she gets very little, she’s out on her ass with years of no work experience and no more small business.
I’m not sure why you’re being downvoted. This isn’t true everywhere or for every home, but yeah, I pay less on my mortgage than some friends did for a two-bedroom apartment in more or less the same area.
Honestly race is a social construct formed initially out of ethnicity in a very similar way to gender being a social construct formed initially out of sex. I don’t think most people would be offended by someone whose cultural behavior matched that of a race not normally associated with their ethnicity, as long as it was genuine and not done simply to appropriate another culture.
Like, if a white kid is raised around a lot of Jamaican immigrants, falls in love with reggae, and becomes a Canadian reggae sensation, we aren’t gonna say that he’s black (because he isn’t), but we also aren’t gonna say that Snow is appropriating Jamaican culture.
I guess it could be an interesting question for a more open future society, whether “trans-racial” identity could eventually be something we could identify and accept.
But of course TERFy bitch J.K. Rowling isn’t asking this question in good faith, she’s trying to be edgy and punch down, like she’s constantly doing these days. So, no J.K. Rowling. Fuck off.
I’m not sure why you’re angry at me. I never accused anyone of cultural appropriation, merely described a situation where no rational person would. I also generally think the concept is overly policed on the internet and often bullshit. I have argued for years that culture is meant to be shared. I’m a singer, and I do not hesitate to sing songs from cultures outside my own, and indeed I try to find the right way to express that song as much like the other cultures would as I can.
Like everything else in life, though, this is not black and white. There is such a thing as cultural appropriation, and it is when cultures are belittled and not treated with respect. Participating in a culture is fine. Making your team mascot “Chief Wahoo” is not.
No, it’s not. There are such things as different races and ancestries.
I recommend you look into this more. Here is just one example from a quick Google search. What we mean when we talk about race is not nearly as black-and-white (pun intended) as we think, genetically speaking, and is largely something we decide as a society. Thus, a social construct. Like gender. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have meaning or value, just that it isn’t something unchanging. Like, for example, how Irish and Italians weren’t considered “White” and now are. Or how complicated things can get within some Hispanic communities with regard to skin color.
And yes, you calling jk Rowling a terf bitch shows that you’re not writing this is good faith, you’re just trying to be edgy and punch down.
I’m not sure it’s possible for me to punch down at a billionaire, least of all by calling out her blatant transphobia. I’m also not sure how taking swings at her means I’m not writing in good faith. I suspect you’re just upset and I’m not entirely sure why. Take a deep breath, my friend.
I get that. White people carry so much guilt that we sort of knee-jerk about racial stuff.
I remember in high school I was talking about one of my co-workers, whom I described as “Mexican.” I was told by some of my well-meaning but extremely white classmates, “Don’t call him that, that’s offensive. You should say Hispanic. You don’t know where he’s from.”
I said, “Yes I do. His name is Juan, he’s from Mexico, and he’s Mexican. I know that because I talk to him. He was a police officer there, and decided to get out when he was shot three times. He came to the US and he works in a kitchen here.”
There is an episode of 30 Rock where Tina Fey’s character asks Selma Hayek’s character (the character is Puerto Rican) what she should call her. She says, “A Puerto Rican.”
Tina Fey’s character says, “I know you can say that, but what do I say?”
I was thinking about how I missed having an indoor thermometer that measures humidity. It’s such a small specific thing, one I’d never think of getting unless pushed to it (which I was by one particularly dry winter). But I like having one now....
Extension cables: If you have a desktop or tv, you can just grab some USB, hdmi or audio extensions and swap things using that instead of leaning behind the device.
This is what my receiver is for, with regard to the TV. But yeah, even in that case I have a spare HDMI that hangs out near the front of the TV for laptops.
Kettles
Lots of Americans have ones that sit on the stove. I have one that plugs in.
Part of the issue is that most outlets in American houses only provide 120v power, only special outlets provide 240v. So even though an electric kettle will boil faster than one on the stove, it’s not significantly faster like it is in other places.
Nah, that obvious solution is equally corporate. I cannot tell you how often I’ve had to pull out this question in meetings with software management:
“It takes a combined orchestra and chorus of 120 people 70 minutes to play Beethoven’s 9th symphony. If we double the number of performers, how long will it take?”
And also could very well have survived the crash that killed him had he been wearing the Head and Neck Support (HANS) device that was available, but not mandatory, at the time. He called it “that damn noose” and claimed the tethers would more likely hang him than save him in the event of a crash. One of the greatest protective devices in motorsport since the helmet and the seatbelt and he eschewed it and suffered the consequences.
Good ol BrandoSando has screwed the community again. First, he announces the secret project and promises us new stories. Then, he “boycotts” amazon with JUST THESE COMMUNITY FUNDED STORIES. Now, he’s making money on books we bought without letting us utilize the accessibility features we’ve come to expect from his other...
Further, Brandon actually folded his boycott without achieving any of his stated goals except to get audible at the table at all. That’s not a victory, that’s taking the first plea deal they put on the table. It’s pathetic and it shows the publisher that shit talks when money walks. A tiny improvement is insignificant in the face of true change. Brandon didn’t change anything. He just screwed everyone who backed him on the project.
Change is often incremental. Sanderson didn’t get everything he wanted, but he moved the needle. That’s meaningful. Allowing perfection to be the enemy of progress is an immature position, in my view.
As for not working with Kindle, using Send to Kindle with the Kindle EPUBs (specifically labeled as “EPUB for Kindle” and formatted to work properly on the Kindle) from the Secret Projects uploaded them just fine to my Kindle and the Kindle app. Progress, highlights, and notes sync just fine between devices. Fonts can be changed and resized. Justification options are all there.
Obviously we don’t get syncing between the ebook and the audiobook, but as far as I know that use of Whispersync is the only thing we miss out on without official Audible and Kindle purchased versions, but that’s a minor annoyance and not something worth being angry about if you ask me.
Maybe there are other accessibility features I don’t use that are missing, I don’t know.
Brandon pulled his “boycott” with ONLY these crowd funded titles.
Yes, because those are the titles over which he has control of publication.
When he writes a book for Tor, with a Tor editor and a Tor marketing department and Tor advances, Tor has publication rights and decides whether the audiobook is sold on Audible. Same with the other publishers he works with.
The secret projects were published by Dragonsteel, and then licensed out to other publishers for other printings. But that meant he got to control where it was sold, and by whom.
He doesn’t get to make that choice with the other books.
The catch is that everyone who already bought the books, the backers, now have to pay for the books again to have them with the rest of the collection on Amazon platforms.
The Kindle version from the Kickstarter works fine for me, I don’t really understand your complaint there. As for the Audible version, you got the audiobook in four formats from the Kickstarter. You got what you paid for. If you want it in the newly available Audible version, you can pay for the Audible version, but no one is forcing you to do so. You can just use Speechify Books or Spotify or anything that works with the M4B version to listen to those books.
Oh god, kill it! (lemmy.world)
Jesus is their savior, Trump is their candidate. Ex-president's backers say he shares faith, values (apnews.com)
Greg Abbott declares open season on protesters in Texas (www.motherjones.com)
Engine Bursts Into Flames on Boeing Plane With 468 Aboard (www.thedailybeast.com)
A Boeing 747-400 with 468 people aboard was forced to make an emergency landing in Indonesia on Wednesday after one of its engines caught fire and began shooting out flames during takeoff....
Texas governor pardons ex-Army sergeant convicted of killing Black Lives Matter protester (apnews.com)
Samsung mocks Apple’s crushing iPad Pro ad with its own ‘UnCrush’ pitch (www.theverge.com)
Direct link to video: video.twimg.com/…/wisC0cfRP427swkT.mp4?tag=12
Magnussen feels he's been penalised for driving "outside of some white lines" (www.motorsport.com)
[autosport.com] F1 ready to consider different engines from 2030 in push for more noise (www.autosport.com)
Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali has revealed that he is open to considering different engine rules from 2030 in a bid to deliver more noise to fans.
Saying 'completely turned my life around' is normal, but saying 'turned my life around 360°' (rather than 180) is stupid.
X now treats the term cisgender as a slur (www.engadget.com)
Ben Carson calls for making divorce harder (www.nbcnews.com)
Congrats to all 2024 college graduates! (kbin.run)
You are now entering your spicy years. 🌶️
JK Rowling slammed for asking if she can be Black if she likes “Motown & fancy myself in cornrows” (www.lgbtqnation.com)
Raw Milk Enthusiasts Demand Milk Infected With H5N1 (futurism.com)
Are there any household gadgets you found unexpectedly useful after you'd gotten them?
I was thinking about how I missed having an indoor thermometer that measures humidity. It’s such a small specific thing, one I’d never think of getting unless pushed to it (which I was by one particularly dry winter). But I like having one now....
Dystopia (lemmy.world)
Guardian Angel. (lemmy.ml)
Secret Project now availablr on Kindle and Audible
Good ol BrandoSando has screwed the community again. First, he announces the secret project and promises us new stories. Then, he “boycotts” amazon with JUST THESE COMMUNITY FUNDED STORIES. Now, he’s making money on books we bought without letting us utilize the accessibility features we’ve come to expect from his other...