Cycloneblaze's recent activity
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Comment on Pennies are being canceled and the US Mint won't make any more. What does that mean? in ~finance
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Comment on Denmark is facing one of the largest legal bills in English legal history, running into hundreds of millions of pounds, after the country lost a high-stakes tax fraud case in London in ~finance
Cycloneblaze LinkThe judgement can be found here.The judgement can be found here.
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Comment on Europeans recognize Zohran Mamdani’s supposedly radical policies as ‘normal’ in ~society
Cycloneblaze Link ParentYou're tarring with a pretty big brush here, would you care to give some examples of the policies that you specifically think we don't find normal?The reality in the post-communist Europe where I live is that the actually leftist democrats like AOC or Mamdani propose a strange mixture of policies, some of which just seem normal like the article claims, and others seem insane and/or remind us of dysfunctional soviet communism.
You're tarring with a pretty big brush here, would you care to give some examples of the policies that you specifically think we don't find normal?
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Comment on Europeans recognize Zohran Mamdani’s supposedly radical policies as ‘normal’ in ~society
Cycloneblaze Link ParentThe cure is worse than the disease... When I read people like you (by which I mean "ideologically right of centre") say things like this I really wonder if you actually find the disease to be so...The cure is worse than the disease... When I read people like you (by which I mean "ideologically right of centre") say things like this I really wonder if you actually find the disease to be so bad. You talk a lot about how hopeless you find communism in this comment, but most of Europe has been politically dominated by centre-right politics for the last few decades (something I know from living here) and I am not confident in how much will there is to actually help the poor, much less progress on that front. You are not going to convince me that my goals and principles are bad by likening them to communist failures.
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Comment on Python Foundation goes ride or DEI, rejects US government grant with strings attached in ~society
Cycloneblaze Link ParentAccording to the blog post from the PSF, this was a completely new grant for them; they didn't have this $1.5 million before. They're losing out on funds they wanted to use on some fairly...According to the blog post from the PSF, this was a completely new grant for them; they didn't have this $1.5 million before. They're losing out on funds they wanted to use on some fairly expensive projects, but they aren't losing any resources they already had.
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Comment on What is your 'Subway Take'? in ~talk
Cycloneblaze LinkBorders are fake and we should stop pretending that they're real. I mean this seriously, but in the intended spirit of the thread, feel free to take this argument to ridiculous conclusions :) A...Borders are fake and we should stop pretending that they're real.
I mean this seriously, but in the intended spirit of the thread, feel free to take this argument to ridiculous conclusions :)
A related take: if we're going to have political borders, we should be a lot better about making them follow geography - rivers, mountains, watersheds and so on. Straight line borders are ugly!
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Comment on What is your 'Subway Take'? in ~talk
Cycloneblaze Link ParentI think it's more that some of the people who previously would have made the counterargument have just left Tildes. I don't think that's a good thing on the whole...- Exemplary
I think it's more that some of the people who previously would have made the counterargument have just left Tildes. I don't think that's a good thing on the whole...
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Comment on What is your 'Subway Take'? in ~talk
Cycloneblaze Link ParentWhich country is this? Because I have also lived in Europe all my life and I have never seen thisWhich country is this? Because I have also lived in Europe all my life and I have never seen this
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Comment on What common misunderstanding do you want to clear up? in ~talk
Cycloneblaze Link ParentThey are closely related however - silicon is an element, of course, and silicone is a polymer made of silicon, with oxygen and varying other elements. There are several kinds of silicone...They are closely related however - silicon is an element, of course, and silicone is a polymer made of silicon, with oxygen and varying other elements. There are several kinds of silicone depending on the exact chemical composition, but it always includes silicon. So there are several "silicones" and several uses for them other than kitchenware - thermal paste and silicon grease for bike chains come to mind.
I knew silicon and silicone weren't the same, but always thought they must be related in some way since the names are so close, so if you were like me now you know too!
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Comment on Sweden's health minister has urged the EU to push ahead with social media restrictions for kids while insisting it be treated as a pressing matter in ~tech
Cycloneblaze LinkWorth pointing out (again, I hope) that there is no scientific evidence to support the conclusion that social media is unequivocally harmful to young people, or that it needs to be banned. An...Worth pointing out (again, I hope) that there is no scientific evidence to support the conclusion that social media is unequivocally harmful to young people, or that it needs to be banned. An intervention like straight-up banning social media is simple and it's clear but that doesn't mean it's right...
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00902-2
the [...] repeated suggestion that digital technologies are rewiring our children’s brains and causing an epidemic of mental illness is not supported by science. Worse, the bold proposal that social media is to blame might distract us from effectively responding to the real causes of the current mental-health crisis in young people
The critics are relatively united that, rather than banning phones, scaffolded use that ensures teenagers learn to deal with phones and social media in a safe way - helped by the above regulation - is the sensible way forward.
“We should be teaching kids to live in a technological world,” argues Przybylski. “Are we going to let kids just cope with that on their own at 16?["]
“[communicating using] phones has been a way I have seen young people support each other through really difficult times and that would not have easily happened without that phone because of how far those young people were comfortable with face-to-face relationships during those periods,”
Which is not to say that more targeted regulations couldn't be helpful (and not just for young people). The Nature article again:
Second, that considerable reforms to these platforms are required, given how much time young people spend on them [...] including stricter content-moderation policies and requiring companies to take user age into account when designing platforms and algorithms. Other [reforms], such as age-based restrictions and bans on mobile devices, are unlikely to be effective in practice — or worse, could backfire given what we know about adolescent behaviour.
It doesn't serve young people to look at them and act drastically without thinking.
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Comment on Conservative activist Charlie Kirk shot and killed at Utah college event in ~society
Cycloneblaze Link ParentI want to be clear I'm not defending any murders here. That said: The point is that "speaking about politics" collapses what Charlie Kirk actually did, and what he said, so much as to make it...I want to be clear I'm not defending any murders here. That said:
Is speaking about politics that you disagree with really that much worse than being a criminal and a drug user that you can speak like this about one killing but not the other?
The point is that "speaking about politics" collapses what Charlie Kirk actually did, and what he said, so much as to make it impossible to talk about, so no wonder you're dealing with misunderstandings. The man called for the man who attacked Paul Pelosi with hammers to be bailed out of jail days after it happened. You really think Kirk's over decade long project normalising political violence on the right had nothing to do with someone being radicalised and then killing him? It's absolutely not the same as a person "putting themselves in risky situations", you're simply not talking about the same thing.
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Comment on Conservative activist Charlie Kirk shot and killed at Utah college event in ~society
Cycloneblaze Link ParentDo people who commit crimes or take drugs (black or otherwise) try to incite the people they interact with to reach for violence and murder their enemies? Idk, I think the causation - such as it...Do people who commit crimes or take drugs (black or otherwise) try to incite the people they interact with to reach for violence and murder their enemies? Idk, I think the causation - such as it is - in each case is wildly different and not comparable.
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Comment on Conservative activist Charlie Kirk shot and killed at Utah college event in ~society
Cycloneblaze Link ParentI'm gonna bet that explanation will be contradictory and unsatisfactory - he doesn't seem like the type with a clear, coherent agenda. And you don't need one of those to commit murder, you need to...I'm gonna bet that explanation will be contradictory and unsatisfactory - he doesn't seem like the type with a clear, coherent agenda. And you don't need one of those to commit murder, you need to be somehow sufficiently desensitised to kill.
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Comment on Conservative activist Charlie Kirk shot and killed at Utah college event in ~society
Cycloneblaze Link ParentI guess it's not that relevant to the guy engraving it on these bullets, but Bella Ciao has been a popular song in Europe for a long time, it's not that obscure.I guess it's not that relevant to the guy engraving it on these bullets, but Bella Ciao has been a popular song in Europe for a long time, it's not that obscure.
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~arts
Cycloneblaze Link ParentI agree! But isn't that the double standard? His art project is intolerable because of how it abuses animals, so why isn't meat production? Why isn't anybody stealing piglets from slaughterhouses...I think that the artist doesn’t get that you don’t need to violate animal rights to make a statement on them.
I agree! But isn't that the double standard? His art project is intolerable because of how it abuses animals, so why isn't meat production? Why isn't anybody stealing piglets from slaughterhouses or farms? We should not normalise art projects like this, I agree, but the abuse of animals in the process of farming meat is deeply normalised. Maybe it's whataboutism, but that makes the outcry about the art project ring a little bit hollow to me...
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Comment on Nvidia, AMD agree to pay US government 15% of AI chip sales to China in ~tech
Cycloneblaze Link ParentIt seems to me another example of how Trump views the US government - in ways the entire state, not just the presidency - as an extension of his enterprise; as personally his. If he felt some...It seems to me another example of how Trump views the US government - in ways the entire state, not just the presidency - as an extension of his enterprise; as personally his. If he felt some barrier to the spoils of deals like this accumulating to him rather than the state, he probably wouldn't arrange it this way, he'd try to get paid in crypto or something.
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Comment on Debate has erupted in Denmark over the fate of a mermaid statue that is to be removed from public view after being decried as “ugly and pornographic” in ~arts
Cycloneblaze Link ParentI fully agree that one can - should be able to, really - make art of female bodies with big breasts or other characteristics socially coded as sexual without them being treated as sexual, never...the mermaid is sitting on a rock in a way that her boobs are slightly more prominent and oh no, they aren't small handfuls, ergo it must be MALE FANTASY and no woman has breasts like this.
I fully agree that one can - should be able to, really - make art of female bodies with big breasts or other characteristics socially coded as sexual without them being treated as sexual, never mind obscene. And I don't think there's some objective way in which this statue crosses over into being "pornographic"; it'll probably be installed in some other location and that's fine. As you said there exist real women with bodies like this statue and to state the obvious, they should be able to go without being sexualised!
On the other hand I don't think the tits are incidental here, I think they're the point. I think the object was to make a sexualised statue. I don't think that's being imposed from outside, I think it's - to some degree - what the artist wanted.
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Comment on Tomorrowland EDM festival main stage destroyed by fire day before opening, but festival will go on in ~music
Cycloneblaze Link ParentTomorrowland is a famous music festival where lots of very well-known artists perform, whereas I have no idea what link this is supposed to have to Disney... was it a movie? But my point is I...Tomorrowland is a famous music festival where lots of very well-known artists perform, whereas I have no idea what link this is supposed to have to Disney... was it a movie?
But my point is I think they are at least equally in need of clarification, if the Disney thing isn't more obscure.
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Comment on Canadians are leading in LGBTQ2 support amid global declines in ~lgbt
Cycloneblaze Link ParentI assume it's two-spirit; somewhat more relevant in the Canadian context, but not exclusively.I assume it's two-spirit; somewhat more relevant in the Canadian context, but not exclusively.
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Comment on US bombers strike nuclear sites in Iran in ~society
Cycloneblaze LinkYou don't want Iran to acquire nuclear weapons: sure, valid. There was a diplomatic, non-military strategy for that, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. By all accounts it was working. In that...You don't want Iran to acquire nuclear weapons: sure, valid. There was a diplomatic, non-military strategy for that, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. By all accounts it was working. In that light a war with Iran is and has since then been unjustified and unjustifiable, but this same US President walked away from that agreement in 2018, entirely to make the justification for this (currently illegal might I add!) war in 2025. It's just evil.
You had a diplomatic solution, there was no need to resort to the hell that is war, but these warmongers in the US government apparently just had gone too long without having a bombing campaign to watch and now we're probably all going to get to watch you throw thousands of soldiers into the meat grinder to make Iranian lives hell for a few years. Evil and heartbreaking.
I agree with you on the legality, I'm a little surprised no-one else mentioned it. I think it's a failure of Congress more than anything else.
On the impact of rounding, I had the naive assumption that if transaction totals (not individual item prices) are uniformly distributed, then digits which round down appear as often as digits that round up, resulting in no net impact on you. So I looked for some statistics. I found This recent report from a Federal Reserve Bank and this analysis by a Canadian economics student back in 2013; both suggest that there will actually be a negative impact on consumers based on transaction totals, especially for small numbers of items (which makes sense because if you buy one or two items priced x.99, your total is x.99 or x.98). However they both also suggest that the vast majority of payments already end in 5 or 0, so aren't rounded. I guess you know how common this is for you with the things you buy.
Worth noting that it will be gradual; pennies are still legal tender and they'll only disappear gradually, so businesses will also only introduce price rounding gradually. In Ireland where I experienced it, it was a little more coordinated (the Central Bank basically conducted an information campaign to get retailers and customers aware of rounding all at once, but it was never mandatory) but I expect it'll be a lot more haphazard there. Also since rounding will not be a legal mandate in the US either (as far as I can see), you could always just ask to pay with exact change when it will make a difference to you.