Death's recent activity
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Comment on Will American ideas tear France apart? Some of its leaders think so. in ~misc
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Comment on Will American ideas tear France apart? Some of its leaders think so. in ~misc
Death Link ParentBlack people were absolutely marginalized in France, perhaps moreso in it's colonies than in the mainland since that is where the bulk of slave labor was concentrated (as opposed to America, which...Black people were absolutely marginalized in France, perhaps moreso in it's colonies than in the mainland since that is where the bulk of slave labor was concentrated (as opposed to America, which effectively went from colony to "mainland"). However the French were absolutely no strangers, domestically, to Race theory and caste systems based on ones ancestry.
If you are interested you can look into the colonial regimes of Haiti/Saint Dominique and the slave revolts that resulted of it, or the question of race during the French revolution, the Revolutions podcast has a very succinct series on it.The bottom line is that the French and American contexts are very comparable, it is not at all problematic to view this history through a similar lens.
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Google apologises to Thierry Breton over plan to target EU commissioner
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Comment on What's something you don't understand the appeal of? in ~talk
Death Link ParentThat makes a lot of sense actually, thanks for the insight!That makes a lot of sense actually, thanks for the insight!
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Comment on What's something you don't understand the appeal of? in ~talk
Death LinkFalling asleep to YouTube playlists of video essays. I've seen people talk about this multiple times online, that they'll make a playlist of video essays or other long YouTube videos and have them...Falling asleep to YouTube playlists of video essays. I've seen people talk about this multiple times online, that they'll make a playlist of video essays or other long YouTube videos and have them play while they fall asleep. That just seems like it would make it harder to fall asleep to me, and you're not really getting anything out of the content at that point.
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Comment on What's something you don't understand the appeal of? in ~talk
Death Link ParentIt's not just that singing is inconvenient, it's that being a good singer in certain styles is incredibly hard. It's so dependent on your whole body that most people never really reach beyond a...My current best guesses are convenience, since some people are better at making lyrics than singing them, having that AI/software be famous like Hatsune Miku so people can look up to it or that convenience having a FOSS-like appeal of just downloading some software and making it sing whatever you please.
It's not just that singing is inconvenient, it's that being a good singer in certain styles is incredibly hard. It's so dependent on your whole body that most people never really reach beyond a passable level, and that's before you start going into more advanced vocal techniques. A skilled vocalist is actually really hard to come by.
Vocaloid opens up ways for people who would otherwise not be able to make the kind of music they want to make, with the trade off being the more robotic sound. In that way it's sort of like synthesized instruments vs the real deal.
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Comment on QAnon groups hit by Facebook crack down in ~tech
Death Link ParentAt this point I can't even really commend Facebook for this decision. They've let the genie out of the bottle and are now doing too little too late. My only hope is that, at some point, they will...At this point I can't even really commend Facebook for this decision. They've let the genie out of the bottle and are now doing too little too late. My only hope is that, at some point, they will be held accountable for what they've allowed to happen on their platform in pursuit of profit.
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Comment on I am a Mozilla employee, AMAA in ~tech
Death (edited )Link ParentI'll bite: How much impact do you think this will have on the Servo project? Does this mean Mozilla no longer considers projects like Servo viable? Does this have any implications for other,...I'll bite:
- How much impact do you think this will have on the Servo project?
- Does this mean Mozilla no longer considers projects like Servo viable? Does this have any implications for other, future Rust projects at Mozilla?
- What does this mean for the future of Rust and Mozilla? Are they going their separate ways?
And also finally:
Will you pour one out for the MDN people too? I feel like they're deserving of some attention too given how geniunely excellent the MDN has been for years.
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Comment on I am a Mozilla employee, AMAA in ~tech
Death LinkThis is a shot-in-the-dark question but I'll ask anyways: what is going on with Thunderbird? I don't mean that as in "did people working on TB get fired", but more generally: why is Thunderbird...This is a shot-in-the-dark question but I'll ask anyways: what is going on with Thunderbird?
I don't mean that as in "did people working on TB get fired", but more generally: why is Thunderbird such an afterthought for Mozilla, when it is probably one of the few viable alternatives for Outlook or native mail apps in terms of desktop mail applications.
Specifically what baffles me is things like TB needing a paid plugin to work with Exchange, when it seems to me like building that functionality in the core app, or even selling it as a "pro" version could be an extremely lucrative avenue for Mozilla.
And perhaps that could lead into another perhaps unanswerable, but still interesting question: why isn't Mozilla looking at enterprise software, is it just not a sector it can reasonably expect to get a foot in the door?
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Comment on I am a Mozilla employee, AMAA in ~tech
Death LinkThank you for doing this AMA! I've always enjoyed your perspective on Mozilla-related threads. You've said before that developing a browser engine is hugely complex these days so I have two...Thank you for doing this AMA! I've always enjoyed your perspective on Mozilla-related threads.
You've said before that developing a browser engine is hugely complex these days so I have two questions (because I'm greedy)
- What has changed compared to before that has made browsers so much more complex?
- What, in your view, is taking up most of the Firefox team's time in development?
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Comment on Reddit CEO defends their intention to run Trump ads ahead of election, outlines their plans to move comments on ads into subreddits in ~tech
Death Link ParentI understand what you are saying but I'm confused about one thing: as far as I can tell Reddit and Twitter already attained their high valuations and are now scrambling as hard as they can to make...I understand what you are saying but I'm confused about one thing: as far as I can tell Reddit and Twitter already attained their high valuations and are now scrambling as hard as they can to make their advertisement-based operation financially solvent. So why do they keep digging in deeper on the proven, unsustainable model rather than taking even more moonshots to try and invent a new model or just cashing their chips and leaving?
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Comment on Reddit CEO defends their intention to run Trump ads ahead of election, outlines their plans to move comments on ads into subreddits in ~tech
Death Link ParentI remember years ago people were already talking about how advertising revenue was falling and internet real-estate was becoming increasingly less profitable, and yet somehow companies like Reddit...I remember years ago people were already talking about how advertising revenue was falling and internet real-estate was becoming increasingly less profitable, and yet somehow companies like Reddit and Twitter keep insisting it's the way forward somehow...
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Comment on What is something that you consider a "necessary evil"? in ~talk
Death Link ParentYou don't need to say anything per se, all I was trying to tell you is that if you want to approach it from the angle of reason you're never gonna get a satisfying answer.if your answer is "that's whole point, it was never about reason, because there is none, it's emotional", I don't know what to say either.
You don't need to say anything per se, all I was trying to tell you is that if you want to approach it from the angle of reason you're never gonna get a satisfying answer.
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Comment on What is something that you consider a "necessary evil"? in ~talk
Death Link ParentYou're putting a lot of mental effort into arguing against something I'm not saying and I'm not sure what you're getting out of it, but knock yourself out I guess. That man is a real person, a...You're putting a lot of mental effort into arguing against something I'm not saying and I'm not sure what you're getting out of it, but knock yourself out I guess.
because the character you built
That man is a real person, a friend of a friend of mine who I see regularly when we go out, that's how I am aware of the whole story unravelling.
I'm honestly a little offended about you suggesting this person just flat out doesn't exist. Where do you get off deciding whether other people's lived experiences are real or not? -
Comment on What is something that you consider a "necessary evil"? in ~talk
Death Link ParentThe point is the last phrase. If you approach this from an economic POV and leave out sentimentality/emotion you're sure to hit a brick wall. Men aren't "coerced" into liking their kids, I'm......The point is the last phrase. If you approach this from an economic POV and leave out sentimentality/emotion you're sure to hit a brick wall. Men aren't "coerced" into liking their kids, I'm... honestly kind of unsure how to respond to that, does your mind just immediately go there?
And I mean, at the end of the day, if "getting some kind of irrational emotional pleasure or feeling of attachment" isn't enough of a reason for you then I think you're edging very close to nihilism
I mean... why are alive? You are nothing but a collection of fleeting moments of irrational pleasures and pains that ultimately just fade into nothingness, what's the economic calculus that makes you go "oh yeah this is worth all the effort I'm putting into it"? As far as we know the ultimate payoff is death anyway.
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Comment on What is something that you consider a "necessary evil"? in ~talk
Death Link ParentI don't have a lot of sources to draw from but I'm fairly certain this is not correct. This might be more true for older institutionally upper-class families where mothers were expected to also...we literally made preschool and daycare so mothers could do something other than this
I don't have a lot of sources to draw from but I'm fairly certain this is not correct. This might be more true for older institutionally upper-class families where mothers were expected to also perform certain duties tied in with their social status, but even during the industrial revolution it would be quite some time before professional child-care became available to women as a whole, and even today women can find themselves stigmatized for not devoting enough time to their children (unlike men, who are generally more easily excused for this). I remember learning that in Japan, especially, it was seen as a huge societal taboo for mothers to be anything but completely devoted to raising their children.
More to the point: most of what I've found about early concepts of more general, socialized childcare focuses less on the parents and more on the children themselves and concerns with giving them "proper" education (often including some kind of moralising dimension as well). It's probably no accident that some of the earlier institutions are either religious in nature of affiliated with local religious groups. The modern evolution of this is that daycares are generally far more important as a place where children develop social skills, learn how to "behave" as individuals in a collective and are intellectually stimulated to promote their cognitive development (I hate to admit that I can't find my sources back on this but I've seen it said often enough that access to high-quality daycare/preschools for children from well-off families seems to correlate heavily with an ability to perform better academically and socially later in life.)
Daycares also tend to be expensive as all hell when they're not part of any kind of socialized service. In most developed countries if you just want to be rid of your child for a while you're usually better off either paying a baby-sitter or just dumping them on a family member or friend. I actually remember that being quite common with lower-income families who couldn't afford daycare: they'd either organise to take care of each other's kids in solidarity or leave them with grandparents as much as possible.
Also, it needs to be said: it's not actually very hard to integrate a child into daily life other than working at a job where you're expected to be 100% available and productive all the time. It's fairly healthy for children to see what daily life is like and it's not all that hard to learn them very basic chores, most of the time they appreciate the stimulation. From what I've seen, anecdotally, with family and friends the harder part is usually just getting used to children's biological rhythms until they start aligning with those of their parents (which means things like night-time waking or mid-day naps).
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Comment on What is something that you consider a "necessary evil"? in ~talk
Death Link ParentParents' feelings about their children are often anything but rational, once you've seen young men lose their life savings in court just because they don't want to give up on a child they were...Parents' feelings about their children are often anything but rational, once you've seen young men lose their life savings in court just because they don't want to give up on a child they were tricked into having with a manipulative ex you realise this isn't something you can grok with cold hard logic and economics.
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Comment on What is something that you consider a "necessary evil"? in ~talk
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Comment on Have you ever been 'ahead of the curve' when it comes to realizing/predicting something? in ~talk
Death Link ParentThose are still some impressively cogent theories for a student though, especially since it seems to only barely be penetrating into the larger discourse now after years of watching the fallout.Those are still some impressively cogent theories for a student though, especially since it seems to only barely be penetrating into the larger discourse now after years of watching the fallout.
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Comment on European Union no closer to agreeing COVID economic recovery plan in ~finance
Death LinkI've been nervously watching this from the sidelines, simply agreeing to provide financial aid to the hardest hit countries would be political suicide for any Dutch politician at this point, but...Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte led the thrifty camp of northern, wealthy states including Denmark, Austria, Finland and Sweden, facing off against Germany, France, the ailing southerners Italy and Spain, as well as Poland and eastern peers.
“If they want loans and even grants then I think it’s only logical that I can explain to people in the Netherlands...that in return those reforms have taken place,” Rutte said, in estimating chances for a deal at a modest fifty-fifty.
I've been nervously watching this from the sidelines, simply agreeing to provide financial aid to the hardest hit countries would be political suicide for any Dutch politician at this point, but I'm deeply worried this is creating more internal mistrust and damaging European relations.
Orban - who stands accused by critics of tightening the noose around media, academics and NGOs - threatened to veto the entire plan over a new mechanism envisaged to freeze out countries undercutting democratic standards.
This will probably destroy any chances of the EU actually forcing member-states to follow it's human rights obligations, leaving the door open for the Polish persecution of LGBT+ people to continue after the last election. I hate playing the cynic but we might be in for a rough times.
Quite Germane considering how much American conservatives like to hand-wring about French intellectuals and movements such as Postmodernism, thought not always by mentioning the French in that conversation.
Also disappointing that president Macron would try and surf this wave of nationalistic conservative fervor, especially given how eager he had been years before to encourage American intellectuals to come over to France, but I suppose he will look to make allies wherever he can these days.
Ironically this seems to echo the same sentiments Far-Right commentators in the US have been repeating for years but I guess that will simply be swept under the rug in favor of maintaining the idea of America as some kind of hotbed of Progressiveness-gone-too-far.