Gazook89's recent activity

  1. Comment on Jungle – Someday, Somewhere (2026) in ~music

    Gazook89
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    Added to be list of dancing videos to show my 5 year old. Thanks Also, are any major police departments still using Crown Vic’s?

    Added to be list of dancing videos to show my 5 year old. Thanks

    Also, are any major police departments still using Crown Vic’s?

  2. Comment on McDonalds and Star Trek's "Red Alert" sound in ~talk

    Gazook89
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    All McDonald’s kitchens sound like hospitals to me. Which is something like ironic. Generally the whole vibe inside a McDonald’s feels like waiting in a hospital hallway.

    All McDonald’s kitchens sound like hospitals to me. Which is something like ironic. Generally the whole vibe inside a McDonald’s feels like waiting in a hospital hallway.

    1 vote

  3. Comment on All eighty books banned in Minnesota last year came from one school in ~books

    Gazook89
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    Not just queer, trans. So yeah, I assume everyone did what they could to find some reason to run Krebsbach out of town. North Woods School is a couple miles outside of Cook, MN, which itself is...

    Not just queer, trans. So yeah, I assume everyone did what they could to find some reason to run Krebsbach out of town. North Woods School is a couple miles outside of Cook, MN, which itself is basically middle of nowhere Minnesota. Beautiful area though. If you ever go, check out the Tower-Soudan Underground Mine state park.

    7 votes

  4. Comment on Keeping up a blogging habit while being a dad in ~life.men

    Gazook89
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    I'm an at-home dad, and I have been blogging about playground design. Because that is what I've become an "expert" in through daily experience.

    I'm an at-home dad, and I have been blogging about playground design. Because that is what I've become an "expert" in through daily experience.

    4 votes

  5. Comment on Keeping up a blogging habit while being a dad in ~life.men

    Gazook89
    Link Parent
    With our first, she slept in her own room from day one, and always has. With our second (4 years younger), she slept in our small room, crib basically right up to the bed. This was because we...

    With our first, she slept in her own room from day one, and always has. With our second (4 years younger), she slept in our small room, crib basically right up to the bed. This was because we didn't want to burden the 4 year old with a baby in her room. But at about 13 months we put them in the same room (again, small) and suddenly everything got much better.

    There is a lot of nuance with these experiences, of course it depends on the baby, the house, the siblings, the pets, the air temperature, cultural expectations, etc. But keeping sleeping babies in another room is great. For us, with a 800 sq ft house, the two bedrooms sharing a wall, we could still hear basically every little noise, but it felt so good to be able to turn a light on or get into bed without worrying about the rustling of sheets waking the baby.

    2 votes

  6. Comment on Jungle - Where Are You Now? (2026) in ~music

    Gazook89
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    I don’t normally watch music videos and I’m not “with it” in terms of new music stuff, but I like Jungle (one of few live shows I’ve seen) so I clicked into this. Cool dancing, and it was just the...

    I don’t normally watch music videos and I’m not “with it” in terms of new music stuff, but I like Jungle (one of few live shows I’ve seen) so I clicked into this.

    Cool dancing, and it was just the thing for showing my 5 year old dancer. She loves this kind of dance.

  7. Comment on US Pentagon says the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed in ~society

    Gazook89
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    I'm not totally settled on firing squad being a bad thing. Generally, I'm against death penalties entirely, so I'll just say that up front (if i'm picking a religion, i identify as a pacifist...

    I'm not totally settled on firing squad being a bad thing. Generally, I'm against death penalties entirely, so I'll just say that up front (if i'm picking a religion, i identify as a pacifist Quaker and attend Meeting every week). But, a bullet to the head is probably the fastest death you can have, and I have to believe that the success rate is higher than whatever the hell they did in Tennessee this week. It seems like the lethal dose method has all sorts of problems. It seems to not have great efficacy. It's increasingly difficult to source. The medical establishment wants nothing to do with it, so people outside of that establishment run the process.

    And the other thing: if we are going to execute people, I can see the argument that it should be public. I don't want executions happening behind closed doors. I am not going to watch this, but possibly someone witnessing it will help them understand the gravity of state sanctioned executions. Would more graphic news coverage of war on the TV inflame war, or bring it to an end?

    Those things said, I'm 100% sure these are not the considerations this administration has made. And of course there are people that will wrench their own souls apart taking some sort of joy out of watching this. And of course, broadcasting the execution of someone who hopes to attain martyrdom probably is exactly what you don't want to do. So in this case I don't think a public execution is the right way to go, but I'm not sure I'm deaf to the concepts behind it. Again, I do not support the death penalty at all, but if it's going to happen maybe we should be witness to the horror of it.

    13 votes

  8. Comment on How to get better at academic writing quickly? in ~humanities

    Gazook89
    Link Parent
    I think LLMs are likely very capable of stepping outside a single template. They have been trained on more written language than any single could ever be (many times over). It has long been...

    I think LLMs are likely very capable of stepping outside a single template. They have been trained on more written language than any single could ever be (many times over). It has long been trivial to ask for a certain style of writing.

    But like updawg notes, I'm not really suggesting plastering over some armature of a template with your own writing. You can ask probing questions about language, writing, and logic.

    3 votes

  9. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    Gazook89
    Link Parent
    You should check out Anchor Positioning plus Popover APIs. All built into the browser these days

    You should check out Anchor Positioning plus Popover APIs. All built into the browser these days

    3 votes

  10. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    Gazook89
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    did you use a library for the onboarding layer and the positioning of those cards? I thought maybe you used Anchor Positioning, but dev tools doesn't show that, so curious if it's library or you...

    did you use a library for the onboarding layer and the positioning of those cards? I thought maybe you used Anchor Positioning, but dev tools doesn't show that, so curious if it's library or you made it work yourself.

    1 vote

  11. Comment on How to get better at academic writing quickly? in ~humanities

    Gazook89
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    You can ask an LLM to help you, with the explicit goal of teaching you to write better. Language is something LLMs are actually very good at. You can ask general questions about writing, or give...

    You can ask an LLM to help you, with the explicit goal of teaching you to write better. Language is something LLMs are actually very good at. You can ask general questions about writing, or give it your writing and ask about critiques and suggestions with whatever level of specificity you want, like “is the structure and order okay” or “do I have enough examples” or “is this point sufficiently supporting my thesis”. Don’t have it write your sentences, but you can treat it like a student advisor or writing coach.

    Of course, it does tempt overuse particularly when you get tired, the deadline draws near, or your overall thesis starts to feel weak and you want to plug holes in a sinking ship.

    8 votes

  12. Comment on What is your dream game? in ~games

    Gazook89
    Link Parent
    This doesn’t answer your call, but the one that I’ve been watching for last month via dev vlogs. If you watch, the dev starts at very basic levels in videos but has actually already worked on the...

    This doesn’t answer your call, but the one that I’ve been watching for last month via dev vlogs. If you watch, the dev starts at very basic levels in videos but has actually already worked on the game for 3 years. Still very early but has some interesting concepts: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4heM4MqK82w

    4 votes

  13. Comment on AI abundance requires a four-hour workweek in ~tech

    Gazook89
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    The plus side for me at the time was 1.5x pay. But yeah, I quit when I had something more worthwhile to do after work hours.

    The plus side for me at the time was 1.5x pay. But yeah, I quit when I had something more worthwhile to do after work hours.

    2 votes

  14. Comment on AI abundance requires a four-hour workweek in ~tech

    Gazook89
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    I hear this, but it was never my experience. I guess I was maybe the sucker in the office. I easily worked 40 hours, and frequently 50+ hours. I worked in supply chain/logistics at a very large...

    I hear this, but it was never my experience. I guess I was maybe the sucker in the office. I easily worked 40 hours, and frequently 50+ hours. I worked in supply chain/logistics at a very large transportation brokerage. Freight never stops, and my customers included some very large multinational companies. If I went on vacation for a week I’d easily have a few thousand emails to wade through.

    That said, I no longer work there (or anywhere, as a stay at home dad), and things have changed a lot since in left just before Covid (dodged a bullet there). The company really went all in on AI stuff, having been investing heavily into machine learning before LLMs broke out. Now they’ve laid off about 30% of their total workforce. And I’m sure that my job would have been easier in terms of email management and normal scheduling stuff. Most of the job is exception management though.

    Anyway, I could drone on, but mostly I just wanted say that there are definitely people putting in full work weeks out there, and I honestly could never have got my work done inside of 40 hours.

    7 votes

  15. Comment on Online visual art communities without AI? in ~creative

    Gazook89
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    Information here may or may not be true; for reference only.

    2 votes

  16. Comment on The American religion of self-storage facilities in ~life

    Gazook89
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    My wife is far more frugal than I am, but I am far more indecisive than she is. I never shop online, because there is too much choice, and also I want to open the packaging on the way back from...

    My wife is far more frugal than I am, but I am far more indecisive than she is. I never shop online, because there is too much choice, and also I want to open the packaging on the way back from the store so I'm not going to sit around waiting for something to ship to me. All that results in "i never buy anything" unless it's just pastries while out and about.

    And early on with kids we signed up with the toy library in our city (and tool library, and book library, ....) and everything comes in through those organizations. And they accept donations, so that's where a lot of stuff goes, too.

    5 votes

  17. Comment on The American religion of self-storage facilities in ~life

    Gazook89
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    Curious as to what you folks keep in a storage unit, if anything. And how long it’s been there, and what conditions would have you take it out. I’m moving internationally in a couple months, for a...

    Curious as to what you folks keep in a storage unit, if anything. And how long it’s been there, and what conditions would have you take it out.

    I’m moving internationally in a couple months, for a few years, keeping my current house and renting it out. Pretty much a perfect reason to get a storage unit. But i know how much of a trap a unit is, and we’ve got rid of most of our stuff, though we fairly minimalist already.

    7 votes

  19. Comment on Canada's oil windfall may yet wipe out its losses from tariffs in ~finance

    Gazook89
    Link Parent
    Oh no, you mean he’d be breaking the law? Trump? He would do something unprecedented?

    Oh no, you mean he’d be breaking the law? Trump? He would do something unprecedented?

    15 votes

  20. Comment on Canada's oil windfall may yet wipe out its losses from tariffs in ~finance

    Gazook89
    Link Parent
    The republican party is wholly owned by trump at this point. He and his super PACs have enormous amounts of money to support or tear down other republicans. So every republican candidate is a...

    The republican party is wholly owned by trump at this point. He and his super PACs have enormous amounts of money to support or tear down other republicans. So every republican candidate is a surrogate for him, and if they get elected it means people still like trump and want to enable him as much as possible.

    If he doesn't maintain the house and senate (and it's very very close if you are just looking at the seats), then theoretically it becomes more difficult to do the bad stuff. Now, that's theoretical, because nothing about 'norms' seems to apply to him and maybe he'll just have enough democratic politicians arrested before they can take their seats.

    10 votes