@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

zakalwe

@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com

Culture Special Circumstances, detached.

pp desc for vision impaired: The N7 (Systems Alliance Special Forces) Seal from the Mass Effect games.

Neuro-spicy. Aspie pretending (sometimes badly) to be human (at least, it often feels that way) while fighting depression and chronic insomnia. Aspiring mostly-SF writer, burned-out IT geek, humanist who wants to see us make at least a token effort to stop enshittifying our entire planet. Is there really anything so incredibly, soul-threateningly terrible about the idea of giving a shit about other people?

Something I said pissed you off? It may be a misunderstanding, I'm far from immune to foot-in-mouth disease. Please check with me before you assume it was malicious. It most likely wasn't. If I don't think you're someone worth talking to, I just won't talk to you in the first place, period.

Follow-backs: If you have something to say, sure. No posts? Nothing to say? What would be the point? In the words of @PatternChaser, "I don't follow back, I follow interesting." I'm trying to keep the signal-to-noise ratio in my feed high. Still, if you follow me and I see it, I will do my best to at least find time to look. I can't guarantee I won't miss it, I'm not awake 24/7.
(And sorry, but don't expect me to follow you if you're posting the same dozen posts, day in, day out, day after day after week after month. In fact I'll most likely mute you.)

Came here to put words into my mouth so you could attack me over something I didn't say? (Yeah, sadly, it's happened.) Just don't. I WILL block your ass. Nobody has time for that shit.

Geek Stuff: I run Gentoo Linux, and I maintain a personal overlay with packages for dev-perl/Tk-MListbox, sys-apps/procmeter3, net-misc/icbm, media-sound/perljammer, app-crypt/sherpa, and app-editors/xnedit. Of those, net-misc/icbm and media-sound/perljammer are my own projects.

#nobot #writer #geek #linux #mysql #Gentoo #nosystemd #science

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DrALJONES, to random
@DrALJONES@mastodon.social avatar

Report

"US Reportedly Working to Stop ICC From Issuing Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu"

"Once again, Biden steps in to protect Netanyahu from the consequences of the war crimes he commits."

The Israeli government, in partnership with the U.S., is "making a concerted effort to head off" possible arrest warrants from the ICC.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/netanyahu-arrest-warrants?utm_source=Common+Dreams&utm_campaign=9d9f78fb84-Weekend+Edition%3A+Sun.+4%2F26%2F24+w%2F+fundraiser&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-b6968bca63-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

..

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@DrALJONES FFS, JOE

Step away from Netanyahu. Stop fucking DEFENDING him.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

Y'all, I also have a cousin like this named Robert! Do you think we could get Robert and Randy to fight each other?!

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@RickiTarr That kind of empty machismo just makes me laugh sadly.

RickiTarr, (edited ) to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

The Tale of Two Gynecologists

This is a bit long, and I've talked about this a lot lately, but it's something I'm thinking about a lot in the wake of so much hatred of female Healthcare. When my female troubles got bad enough that I finally talked to my doctor about it, he referred me to a gynecologist. I had already had several ultrasounds and an MRI at this point, and she had put me on some oral contraceptives for several months, (which made sick to my stomach no matter what I did) and had just done another ultrasound. She greeted me with "Well, you're really messed up inside, Honey.", which already had me pretty stressed out. Then told me I would probably need surgery to figure out exactly what was going on. She then asked me if I wanted children, and I said No. I had taken my husband with me to the appointment for moral support, and she glanced over at him, and then talked to me for 5 minutes about how many women my age could still have children, and I could definitely consider it, and that they would do everything they could to make sure I could stay viable. They could freeze my eggs if I had to do a hysterectomy, just on and on. She probably asked me directly 4-5 if I was sure I didn't want kids. Finally, I said, "Ma'am, my husband got a vasectomy over a decade ago, we are absolutely sure we don't want kids." After hubs had found me crying on the toliet, because my period was late again, he went to his doctor and said, "Hey doctor, I'm thinking about a vasectomy." The doctor gave him a pamphlet to read, and made him an appointment. The whole thing was done in a few weeks.

Anyhow, she finally referred me to a gynecological surgeon, and I was not looking forward to dealing with this again, and was just generally terrified of having surgery for the first time. I met with this woman and she was so efficient and practical. It is the longest doctor appointment I've ever had, since this surgery would be exploratory, she went over every possibility of what could happen when she was inside. She did a thorough exam, she went over all the scans that I had, and explained why she thought this needed done. Then she said she would like to put in a Mirena IUD during surgery. She said, "You're in pain half the month, and there's no reason for you to have a period if you don't want to have kids. You'll have some erratic bleeding for six months, but by a year most women have a very light or no period at all, there's no reason for you to needlessly suffer if you don't end up needing a hysterectomy."

It's interesting to me still, that one doctor was so focused on what my body could do, and another so focused on how I felt. I came out of the first appointment feeling scared and confused, and the second feeling heard and cared for. Feeling valued as a person and not a baby maker made the surgery much easier to go through, and the Mirena has been great btw. Women don't have to needlessly suffer.

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@RickiTarr It's my understanding that (a) it is now established medical knowledge that we can suppress the menstrual cycle altogether if we choose to, and (b) that so far at least, it appears there are no adverse consequences to doing so. So I don't see any rational option why we don't make it a readily available option.

(Note that I do not consider "controlling women's bodies" to be a RATIONAL reason.)

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@thepoliticalcat @RickiTarr And then they tell us that this is good.

No. Your god is a god of hate, fear, pain, and misery.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

I'm going to start writing all my posts on old English, and daring people to correct my grammar and spelling.

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@RickiTarr Sorta related: Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song covered in Old Norse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia0vVQnNGcc

Adam_Cadmon1, to random
@Adam_Cadmon1@mastodon.online avatar

The planet will be better off without us.

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@Adam_Cadmon1 If we haven't already wrecked it for any kind of life by the time it kills us off...

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@Adam_Cadmon1 Unless we pass climate tipping points.

Skepticat, to random
@Skepticat@mstdn.social avatar

Here's your answer SCOTUS:
If a president breaks the law, then that person is subject to criminal violations.

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@Skepticat Shockingly, this isn't rocket science, and it doesn't need 30 years in law practice to figure it out.

GottaLaff, to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

MEANWHILE, at #SCOTUS, via Ryan Reilly:

Supreme Court Trump immunity arguments underway.

"There can be no presidency as we know it" without presidential immunity, Trump lawyer John Sauer argues. 🤦🏻‍♀️

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@GottaLaff

Kav seems set to say POTUS can't be prosecuted FOR ANY OFFICIAL act unless the crime says POTUS can be prosecuted.

What a ludicrous, farcical argument.

Can a SCOTUS Justice be found in contempt?

Adam_Cadmon1, to random
@Adam_Cadmon1@mastodon.online avatar

Always felt like forensic science was a little iffy...listening to Robert discuss some of the foundational cases that established its use in the American legal system disgusts me.

Bottomline, it's mostly subjective analysis. All of it. And the people who suffer are the people well off racists think should suffer.

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@Adam_Cadmon1 Yeah. Bite analysis is particularly bullshit. FBI bite analysis "experts" have been repeatedly found unable to distinguish human and animal bites, much less tie a bite mark to a specific human.

"Yeah, this bite mark was clearly left by teeth, and we can all see the suspect has teeth. Must have been him."

cstross, (edited ) to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Funny how the Americans denouncing Gaza Solidarity demonstrations at American universities are all cops and christo-fascist politicians, while the Jewish academics and students are fine with them …
https://mastodon.social/@DrALJONES/112331038212149373

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@acb @cstross Germany is in a bit of a weird headspace. Instead of learning "We should never again enact or support genocide against anyone", the lesson they have internalized is "We must never, ever, EVER criticize or fail to support Israel."

shoq, to random
@shoq@mastodon.social avatar

Ok nerds who understand Windows Partitions.

This is my laptop C: drive and its many partitions. It was created from an sysimage backup to a new replacement drive. I now want to dump the D: drive and recover its space on the C drive. Can this be done? If so, what is the precise sequence of delete, extend, etc.

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@shoq Egad, what a mess. Welcome to Windows...

The first thing there is, you have two "recovery" partitions. You PROBABLY only need one of them, but you can't be sure, because other things that aren't Windows recovery partitions can be marked as recovery partitions. Often what it really means is "Don't touch this". To be safe, leave them alone.

So what you'd do then, in order is (and if I were you I'd use a tool like Partition Magic to do it):

  1. Drop the D: partition
  2. Move the recovery partitions up to the end of the disk (try to keep them aligned on 1MB, or even 1GB, boundaries)
  3. Now you can grow the C: partition into the space where they used to be and the unallocated space in between.

Storage management is one of those things that Windows makes much more obfuscated than it really needs to be.

GottaLaff, to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Sigh. WaPo:

is hearing arguments on whether hospitals must provide emergency in states w bans.
At issue is a nearly 40-yr-old fed law that requires hospitals that receive fed funds to stabilize or transfer all emergency patients, regardless of their ability to pay. Biden admin invoked the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act to argue that the federal government has the power to penalize hospitals that fail to provide emergency abortions even in states with strict bans.

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@GottaLaff @SherBeareth They're not really pro-life; they're just pro-birth. At any cost, including the mother's life.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

Have you ever met someone who lies all the time, but doesn't seem to realize they are lying?

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@RickiTarr Let's say ... that I know a number of people who have very strange ideas about what is true, and at least one other who is very big on rationalizing things into terms under which she is right.

StillIRise1963, to random
@StillIRise1963@mastodon.world avatar

So, who said what to that slick looking nazi Speaker to change his mind about aid to Ukraine. He went to Mar a Lago the night before.🤔

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@StillIRise1963 @Snowshadow yeah, it's amazing how often these fucks change their mind on an issue when they suddenly realize that it personally affects THEM.

fraying, (edited ) to random
@fraying@xoxo.zone avatar

3,878. They’ve sold 3,878 of them. That’s it. I’ve run newspapers with larger circulations.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/04/tesla-recalls-all-3878-cybertrucks-over-faulty-accelerator-pedal-cover/

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@fraying Well, they've DELIVERED 3,878. Who knows how many more Elon has taken people's non-refundable deposits for ... or how many of those will ever be delivered.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

Truly and honestly, I have a great time here, because you all make it great. You boost, you reply, you encourage, and inspire! It is crazy to me that I get to talk to people from all over the world every day. I get to be friends with people I'll probably never actually get to physically meet. I was born into a pre-internet world, and this still feels a little like a miracle to me.

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@RickiTarr @Uair It is pretty much a blast from the past. I knew a few people with five-digit IDs. But I don't think any of the people I hung out around at the time actually used it much.

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@Thebratdragon @Uair @RickiTarr I have LOTS of IRC (and ICB) friends. I talk every day with people on both services that I've been hanging out with for thirty years now. Many, I've met face-to-face at least once as well, but by no means all.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

Why is it that the people who brag about being "self-made" aren't?

If you turned out successful odds are you had help, a lot of it, and a good amount of luck on top of that. Imagine being so self absorbed that you don't give credit where credit is due.

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@RickiTarr Sociopathic behavior.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

If you're interested in understanding what's wrong with corporations right now, what's driving our global capitalist omnishambles? This is an amazingly insightful (if long, and entertainment-industry focussed) deep dive into the madness of modern management theories:

https://docseuss.medium.com/the-biggest-threat-facing-your-team-whether-youre-a-game-developer-or-a-tech-founder-or-a-ceo-is-8cd1ad359508

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@cstross This reiterates, with much more detail, things I've been saying for years: That Ivy League business schools and their MBA programs are directly and actively harmful both to business and, in fact, to the entire world. They do not teach how to manage, they teach how to mismanage, because they are based upon theories of "success" that are utterly and completely divorced from the realities of what actually makes a business successful — producing something that people want, well, at a price that people can afford to pay for it. (And then there's the banking and investment sector, which becomes ever more single-mindedly focused year after year upon hoovering wealth out of the economy.)

Another part of the problem is that I don't think the world's "business leadership visionaries" actually understand that no matter how good their products, they aren't going to be able to sell them if nobody but themselves has any money to buy them with.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

What embarrasses you the most?

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@RickiTarr To quote Information Society:

🎼 I am absolutely right, I am absolutely certain
I am absolutely right, I am absolutely certain
I am absolutely right, I am absolutely certain
Of all the mistakes I've made... 🎵

msquebanh, to random
@msquebanh@mastodon.sdf.org avatar

I am rescheduling my afternoon taxes appointment.

Not feeling good. Not feeling like I'll be able to keep my shit together, if I have to deal with any random public today. I'm having one of those super difficult, overly emotional days. When I feel that I could either start crying or start screaming, at the slightest provocation.

I avoid all public encounters when feeling like this. I don't want to misdirect sadness/anger/frustration. I listen to my internal orange flags & heed them. Self-care.

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@Snowshadow @msquebanh Actually this is something that I discuss a bit in my novel Fireborn. My protagonist finds himself in the position of trying to explain sexual harassment in a culture that doesn't even have a word for it, because such behavior is considered so completely unacceptable that they never needed to coin an everyday term specifically to describe it. The Saamen language also doesn't have words for the concept of slavery, because they just don't enslave people, period.

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@msquebanh @Snowshadow If you reward the bullies and ignore the victims, you are complicit in the bullying.

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@Snowshadow @msquebanh You know what? So do I. I wrote that book at least partly as therapy.

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@msquebanh @Snowshadow To be honest, it sounds like something that would make me anxious. I find drawing well difficult enough when I can see what I'm doing.

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