@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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maddad, to random
@maddad@mastodon.world avatar

As the continue to broadcast their lies and disinformation, I realize that I am just as angry at our government now as I was in the late 60's, early 70's.
We went to protests with the energy of diesel locomotives to express our hatred for war and the corruption in politics.
I feel sad because we are still fighting that fight now 😢

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙤𝙣𝙡𝙮 𝙬𝙖𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝘼𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙖 𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙞𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙑𝙊𝙏𝙄𝙉𝙂!
Please vote at every level of government and destroy the at the polls.😡

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@maddad And then support ranked choice voting, any way you can, so that we can escape from voting the lesser evil. Because a vote for the lesser evil is still a vote for evil.

glennf, (edited ) to random
@glennf@twit.social avatar

Harvard's president will be ousted for all the below reasons:
• an organized right-wing bad-faith effort to find any thing that sticks
• mainstream media can't identify bad-faith
• she’s a Black woman in a key role and vulnerable because of pressure by wealthy white male alumni already angry about her reaching the highest position at Harvard
• a lack of citation rigor in a tiny percentage of her work that nevertheless violates policies, not having been found and corrected contemporaneously

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@glennf I thought the Guardian article I read this morning stated that the inadequate citation rigor was sufficiently minor that it did not actually violate policy.
Yeah, she's being forced out for being black, female, and insufficiently Islamophobic and insufficiently blindly pro-Netanyahu.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

What are your true opinions and thoughts on marriage?

Just for fun, this is a photo from my wedding day (ignore the reflection of my phone lol) I was all of 21.

zakalwe,
@zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

@RickiTarr I think I took levels in marrying the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Because I didn't understand how much I didn't understand.

rooster, to trans
@rooster@chaosfem.tw avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @rooster Glad to hear it's all working out well.

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

    I mean, with climate change we're going to NEED big-ass container ships that can go really fast, just to move food around between regions hit by drought/crop failure. And nuclear is obviously a smart bet (because it's carbon-neutral), and for a half-million-ton ship it's even reasonable. But why pick a fuel cycle that lends itself to weapons proliferation?

    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @cstross Really, are there any fuel cycles that CANNOT yield nuclear weapons material?

    We used to think you couldn't make bombs using a thorium-cycle reactor. Now we understand that it's just more difficult ... but the techniques have gotten better. The nuclear genie cannot be put back in the bottle any more than firearms or explosives can.

    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @cstross Aaaaah, now fusion is another story. But it's been 20 years away for the last 60 years, and all ht evidence points to that state continuing. Though I am keeping an eye on Lockheed Martin's compact neutral-beam technology, and Tri-Alpha's fusion cycle also seems promising. (I don't remember what they renamed to.) If I had to pick one fusion project to bet on, I'd probably go with Lockheed Martin.

    (And the guys trying to initiate fusion with giant hammers are completely mad. Magnificently, gloriously steampunk mad-science mad, but still completely mad.)

    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @cstross And it also has to be said that the more we learn about making fusion energy viable, the more likely we are to come up with pure-fusion warheads that don't need a fission booster stage.

    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @cstross Did you mean masses more than 5000 tons, or has more than 5kt yield? I mean, there's no argument that a 5,000 ton fusion warhead has no military application ... unless you can just sail it into someone's harbor.

    But one of my rules is never to underestimate what weapon systems governments will find justification for. If we develop a viable technology for pure-fusion warheads, they will be built, sooner or later. It's inevitable.

    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @cstross @michaelgemar I thought the whole point of the tri-alpha approach was that it didn't need 3He. It's a straightforward reaction of 3 common, regular helium nucleii to yield one carbon-12. The catch is it requires staggeringly high temperatures that I think they'll have immense differently achieving.

    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @michaelgemar @cstross Sort of. '3-stage' warheads use a fission initiator to induce a fusion reaction, then capture the neutron flux from the fusion to induce fission in a jacket of material that normally won't sustain fission on its own. That's how they get to the multi-hundred-megaton warheads which really nobody bothers building any more because they realized they're not actually that useful except for bragging rights as to who has the biggest warhead. Most recent research has been to make smaller warheads that can be used more precisely against hardened targets.

    mekkaokereke, to random
    @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io avatar

    🤔 Hey, if it works to blame Taylor Swift for Kansas City losing football games, then I don't see why I can't apply this tactic to my life too? Lemme try it:

    I spilled the milk pouring my kids' cereal this morning, and I just want to say that this is 100% my wife's fault. No, she wasn't in the kitchen or anywhere near where the incident happened, but it's clear that my head wasn't in the game. This has to be because I'm enjoying my relationship too much.

    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @mekkaokereke

    it's clear that my head wasn't in the game. This has to be because I'm enjoying my relationship too much.

    That sounds like a win to me 😄

    RickiTarr, to random
    @RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

    It's that time of year again! I know this can be a time of year where we have a lot of complicated feelings, so let's have a little Mastodon Holiday Party, but you can talk, vent, cry, laugh, or really anything you want. So, I'm asking, How are you doing today, for real?

    And just for fun:

    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @RickiTarr Short answer? Tired. I've been on vacation for a week, you'd think I'd be recovering/rebounding a bit...

    flexghost, to random
    @flexghost@mastodon.social avatar

    The defamation lawsuit against Kari Lake can now move forward

    A Maricopa County Superior Court Judge said it is clear that false claims made by Lake against a county recorder were not “mere rhetorical hyperbole’’

    Rudy Giuliani got his ass cheeks clapped with a similar defamation case when after he ruined the lives of two election workers

    And now Lake is about to get to the find out stage

    … Merry Christmas, every-one!

    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @flexghost She needs a new hat. One with FAFO on it. It's kind of like JAFO. Only more amusing to watch.

    DrALJONES, to Israel
    @DrALJONES@mastodon.social avatar

    deleted_by_author

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    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @DrALJONES Show me ONE SINGLE PATCH OF LAND on the map of the Earth upon which only one people have ever lived.

    There might be one out in the Australian bush somewhere. Maybe. But probably nowhere else.

    "Our ancestors lived here once, so you cannot live here now" is a worthless argument. Instead try: "Our ancestors lived here once. May we live here with you in peace?"

    georgetakei, to random

    If impregnating men were held legally responsible for unwanted pregnancies and criminally charged if they were terminated, none of these abortion ban laws would ever have been passed.

    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @georgetakei I've heard it said before, "If men got pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament."

    RickiTarr, to random
    @RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

    It's very important for everyone to remember that this was an actual commercial:

    https://youtu.be/Ih7lI2IhJao?si=juD_l1cV4gMM2Pel

    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @RickiTarr Not familiar with this particular ad ... but there are an incredible amount of almost unbelievably stupid/cringey ads out there that force me to ask, "How on earth did you ever think that releasing this was a good idea?"

    I recall once reading an expose from inside Hollywood that claimed Hollywood studio executives think they are creative geniuses because they're on coke all the time. I suspect this goes for the advertising industry as well except that they can't afford as much coke. I can think of no other explanation for some of the ads I see.

    GottaLaff, to random
    @GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

    ChristoFascist Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and daughter were profiled attending 'purity ball' in 2015 German TV news segment

    "In one brief interview clip, Johnson's wife Kelly Johnson, a Christian counselor, told the German news outlet, "We don't talk to her about contraception. Sex before marriage is simply out of the question."

    https://abcnews.go.com/US/speaker-mike-johnson-daughter-profiled-attending-purity-ball/story?id=105785626

    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @GottaLaff And this is why red states have, what, twice the teen pregnancy rate? "If we don't talk about sex in front of our children, they'll never discover it." Yeah, right.

    zakalwe, to random
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    The food container industry:

    "Why make five sizes, when we could make thirty, none of which are interchangeable or stack with each other?"

    The clothing industry:

    "Why make thirty sizes, when we could make five, none of which actually fits anyone?"

    RickiTarr, to random
    @RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

    HAPPY ART SHOW SUNDAY:
    POETRY EDITION

    I feel like doing something a little different today, so drop a piece of poetry you wrote! It can be old, new, or written on the spot. It can be funny, sad, dramatic, or challenging, whatever you feel like!

    Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

    -Plato

    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @RickiTarr An oldie for now:

    There once was a young man from Lyme,
    Who married three wives at one time.
    When asked why the third,
    He replied, "One's absurd,
    "And bigamy, sir, is a crime."

    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @RickiTarr and now that I have a little more time to pick one out, that's not too long, here's an original, Visions Golden:

    Visions shining golden bright,
    Visions dark and gray
    Tempt me through the endless night
    And haunt me through the day
    Butterfly dreams flutter past
    The sleeper's drifting mind
    But when the morning's die is cast
    Dreams vanish far behind
    For those who live with open eyes
    Must live with seeing truth,
    And the weight of that knowledge
    Can crush the dreams of youth
    This world is a disheartening place
    For one who truly sees
    For nightmares lurk at every turn
    Sowing seeds of unease
    Visions, shining golden bright
    Seem dim and far away
    When we, to glimpse them, first must fight
    Through visions dark and gray.

    flexghost, to random
    @flexghost@mastodon.social avatar

    If only there were some formally set series of “laws” or rules, if you will, that applies to Trump the same way they would apply to your me

    That would surely stop his rhetoric from instigating violence against court officials

    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @flexghost I find it difficult to comprehend why Trump is not being held incommunicado in jail.

    flexghost, to random
    @flexghost@mastodon.social avatar

    “The evidence of Trump’s impeachable offenses was overwhelming and Trump was impeached…

    “And in 2023, Donald Trump is once again seeking illicit help in his campaign, this time by badgering Republicans to impeach Joe Biden

    “Even with no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden, Republicans are all too willing to do it.”

    Adam Schiff isn’t wrong

    So why won’t the media say exactly this?

    video/mp4

    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @flexghost Because half of them are complicit and the rest are cowards. They know Biden won't do anything to them no matter what they say, but they're afraid of what they know Trump will do to them if they call him out and then he wins.

    RickiTarr, to random
    @RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

    Up at 7am, to take my husband to Urgent Care, to convince him he's not dying, and just has a mild cold.

    Spoiler Alert: He's not dying, and he has a mild cold.

    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @RickiTarr Well I'm glad that he's not dying and just has a mild cold. 😇 But as we continue to learn about Covid and the long-term damage it does, ... well, honestly, it's hard to be too careful.

    zakalwe, to random
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    There is something really quite simple that a lot of people seem to be (possibly deliberately) failing to understand.

    You can support the people of Israel AND the people in Gaza.

    You can want peace and safety for Israelis AND Palestinians.

    You can be appalled and horrified both at the October 7 Hamas attack and mass slaughter of Israeli civilians, AND at the Israeli government's response of bombing Gaza indiscriminately into rubble.

    You can simultaneously OPPOSE both Hamas, and Bibi Netanyahu and his Likud party.

    NONE OF THESE THINGS MAKES YOU ANTISEMITIC.

    They just mean you're a decent human being.

    Adam_Cadmon1, to random
    @Adam_Cadmon1@mastodon.online avatar

    Hmm, why do you think Finland would be so keen to just give homeless people houses when a far richer nation, like say, the US, isn't as willing to do that?
    What could possibly be causing the hesitance on the part of the American government?

    zakalwe,
    @zakalwe@plasmatrap.com avatar

    @sidereal @Adam_Cadmon1 :

    The Finns literally just applied our research when we were unwilling to.

    Same as industrial quality control. When the US helped rebuild Japan after WW2 we sent production experts over to teach them about quality control and production values and the like.

    The difference is Japan LISTENED, and started eating our lunch in manufacturing, because all the US did was talk about it without actually putting any of it into practice.

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