Happy_Shredder's recent activity
-
Comment on Can anyone help me remember a sci-fi short story about disintegrating weapons and nuclear winter? in ~books
-
Comment on Can anyone help me remember a sci-fi short story about disintegrating weapons and nuclear winter? in ~books
Happy_Shredder Link Sounds like "The Trigger" by Arthur C. Clarke. If not, it's a good book anyway, I'd recommend.disintegrate all weapons ...
Sounds like "The Trigger" by Arthur C. Clarke. If not, it's a good book anyway, I'd recommend.
5 votes -
6 votes
-
Comment on American asking - how does your country's healthcare system perform for you? in ~health
Happy_Shredder Link Much the same story here in Australia, as in EU & UK. If you're sick, you call up your GP for an appointment in the next few days. If it's an emergency, call the ambulance, and you'll be in the...Much the same story here in Australia, as in EU & UK. If you're sick, you call up your GP for an appointment in the next few days. If it's an emergency, call the ambulance, and you'll be in the hospital as fast as possible. In both cases treatment costs nothing, and pharmaceuticals are cheap and sometimes free. It's liberating.
There are private hospitals and GPs that may offer 'better' or more 'personal' services. Dental and optical typically aren't covered, which sucks. Private insurance exists, but it's a little hard to justify having it. It can cover dental and optical, and private health service providers. Actually, the public service, Medicare, is run technically as a health insurer. Service providers charge Medicare in much the same way as they do private insurers. However, the government mandates how much Medicare can be charged --- there's a big book of prices for every possible medical service.
I never worry about health. Of course I don't want to be sick or hurt, but if I am treatment is available and won't bankrupt me.
6 votes -
Comment on How do you guys deal with alcohol? in ~health
Happy_Shredder Link I like alcohol. I like the varieties, and their various tastes. It can cool you down or warm you up. A cold one's a great way to unwind after a hard week. Sometimes it's nice to go out with mates...I like alcohol. I like the varieties, and their various tastes. It can cool you down or warm you up. A cold one's a great way to unwind after a hard week. Sometimes it's nice to go out with mates and just forget about everything for a night. Sure there are health consequences, but there is a scale. Drinking large amounts every day or binging every week has serious consequences. I used to work with a bloke who drank himself to death in his mid 30s.
Drinking compulsively --- doing anything compulsively, potentially --- is dangerous, because you're not in control. If you're in this scenario, then maybe find some help. There's plenty of it.
-
Comment on What are some things other people dislike that you quite enjoy? in ~talk
Happy_Shredder Link Parent Yeah there's just so much energy in grind it can be exhausting. But that's what's so awesome: particularly the original punk-based stuff, so much concentrated fury.Yeah there's just so much energy in grind it can be exhausting. But that's what's so awesome: particularly the original punk-based stuff, so much concentrated fury.
-
4 votes
-
Comment on I'm downsizing my digital life. Do you listen to a lot of music? How do you archive it? in ~tech
Happy_Shredder Link I download flac when I can, mp3 otherwise, all onto a big hard drive. The only streaming I do is Bandcamp. I have a little Sandisk mp3 player (8gb internal+32gb sd card) afk. It does play flac,...I download flac when I can, mp3 otherwise, all onto a big hard drive. The only streaming I do is Bandcamp. I have a little Sandisk mp3 player (8gb internal+32gb sd card) afk. It does play flac, but I tend to just compress anyway to put more on it.
2 votes -
Comment on There’s a Vanishing Resource We’re Not Talking About - humans are losing our cultural diversity even faster than we’re destroying the planet. in ~humanities
Happy_Shredder Link Parent Yeah this is a perspective that bothers me too. I often see this implication that culture is some static feature of people (which is nonsense) and when this concept is coupled to ethnicity or...Yeah this is a perspective that bothers me too. I often see this implication that culture is some static feature of people (which is nonsense) and when this concept is coupled to ethnicity or nationality it tends towards racist dog-whistles. So there's two issues here: ill-defined, intellectually void ideas; and the real, practical consequences of racism.
I should note that I think that culture can be characterised more objectively. We could talk about how groups of people develop distinct language, fashion, art, philosophies, values, traditions, and so on. These arise due to inter-people interactions, and interactions between people and the environment and people and technology. As people are born and die, leave and join, as technologies evolve, and the environment changes, so will culture. It must be dynamic, and a cursory examination of history shows this.
9 votes -
Comment on What are your views on the use of profanity on Tildes? in ~tildes
Happy_Shredder Link Yeah nah cunt, swear words give language bloody colour- Exemplary
Yeah nah cunt, swear words give language bloody colour
24 votes -
Comment on Is there a book that you'd like to see made into a movie or series? in ~books
Happy_Shredder Link I'd love to see a series of short films based on the Poetic/Prose. A lot of the material can be difficult to read, but I feel that many of the stories are still relevant and compelling. Hence it...I'd love to see a series of short films based on the Poetic/Prose. A lot of the material can be difficult to read, but I feel that many of the stories are still relevant and compelling. Hence it is well placed for an adaptation, especially considering the success and production quality of GoT and Vikings.
On the mythological side, there tales of the world's creation, battles with giants, contests of wit, and the ever present thread of Loki shitstirring, culminating with Hermod's ride to Hel and Ragnarok.
On the heroic side, the Volsungasaga and Niflung poems have been treated before --- famously by Wagner, and Tolkien drew much influence from here too --- and it's such a rip-roaring collection of battles and betrayals I think it would fit very well on screen as a short series.
2 votes -
Comment on Privacy and Politics in ~talk
Happy_Shredder Link One of the characteristics of US politics I find quite sad is the off-the-shelf, binary way it is presented. You're liberal or conservative. Democrat or Republican. And whichever you are means you...One of the characteristics of US politics I find quite sad is the off-the-shelf, binary way it is presented. You're liberal or conservative. Democrat or Republican. And whichever you are means you believe this and that and the other thing. There's a whole world of politics beyond these options: what do you want from an economy? what is the nature of the state? how should a society interact?
I'm an anarchist. I want to live in a stateless, classless society. This is essentially because equality is the basis of freedom and I want to be free --- I want everyone to be free --- free, in a particular well defined way.
Privacy use deep importance to me because it's related to power. When states take our privacy away of we give it to corporations we lose power and they gain it. They gain the power to manipulate elections, to control policy debate, to hide policy. To control what we see, and believe, and know. This hints to why whistleblowers are so vital: they take power from the elite and give it back to us.
A brief comment on Islam. One characteristic of a free society is the free exchange of ideas. People may be equal (more explicitly, have equal rights, respect, and opportunities) but ideas aren't. Some ideas are well formed, reasonably argued and supported by evidence. Some ideas are based on faith and feelings, hope and guesswork. Some ideas lead to a free and fair and wonderful society, while others lead to genocide and slavery. Criticising Islam (or any religion, politics, and so on) is fine, as far as I'm concerned. All ideas are up for debate. What's not fine is declaring all Muslims to be criminals, or rapists, or dole bludgers, or terrorists --- this betrays the idea that all Muslims are subhuman degenerates, which is closely linked both to hierarchical, non-free ideas about society, and real, unjustified violence and abuse against Muslims.
1 vote -
Comment on Is Sunscreen the New Margarine? in ~health
Happy_Shredder Link Parent Well, summers are longer and hotter now than 20 years ago. Heatwaves are harder too. Living in a concrete jungle doesn't help much either, and neither does getting older :)Well, summers are longer and hotter now than 20 years ago. Heatwaves are harder too. Living in a concrete jungle doesn't help much either, and neither does getting older :)
2 votes -
Comment on Is Sunscreen the New Margarine? in ~health
Happy_Shredder Link As a bit of a different perspective, the sun in Australia is objectively dangerous. Heatwaves kill more people than any other natural hazard, and skin cancer is a leading cause of death (ranked...As a bit of a different perspective, the sun in Australia is objectively dangerous. Heatwaves kill more people than any other natural hazard, and skin cancer is a leading cause of death (ranked 19, below heart disease and other cancers. Skin cancer kills 8 in 100,000 people and there are 3000 diagnoses per 100,000 people. Wikipedia has a page for the topic, if you want a little more info. The medical community's advice to both avoid the sun and use sunscreen seems quite reasonable here.
7 votes -
Comment on Need help with Switching to linux in ~comp
Happy_Shredder Link Parent Yup. Debian stable should be the go-to distro. Rock solid, decent documentation, and no surprises. One only needs non-free firmware for wifi and nvidia. And just be sure to tick the desktop option...Yup. Debian stable should be the go-to distro. Rock solid, decent documentation, and no surprises. One only needs non-free firmware for wifi and nvidia. And just be sure to tick the desktop option in install (which shouldn't take more than 20 min or so). Pick a desktop environment --- KDE is great --- and you're good to go.
3 votes -
Comment on Reddit has fully removed a post (including comments) from /r/WatchPeopleDie, apparently at the request of Norwegian and Danish law enforcement in ~talk
Happy_Shredder Link Not sure if anyone else will find this useful, but I think some context is helpful. See, for example:...Not sure if anyone else will find this useful, but I think some context is helpful. See, for example: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/12/morocco-links-suspect-tourists-killing-armed-group-181220053010712.html, and: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-morocco-crime-arrests/morocco-arrests-three-more-suspects-in-killing-of-scandinavian-women-idUSKCN1OJ0Y3?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
7 votes -
Comment on What if we eliminated "ownership" of link topics? in ~tildes.official
Happy_Shredder Link I think there is value in both submitters and mods editing posts e.g. fixing typos/poor titles, or replacing poor/malicious secondary sources. But we do need to be careful of issues with...I think there is value in both submitters and mods editing posts e.g. fixing typos/poor titles, or replacing poor/malicious secondary sources. But we do need to be careful of issues with propaganda and spam, as others have pointed out.
Maybe we could simply replace "submitted by" with "contributors". In the log, record the original submission and all edits. And on the post have "happy_shredder *, foo, bar, baz" (say, use an asterisk to indicate the first contributor, and list the others chronologically). This could also be handy for merging reposts.
4 votes -
Comment on Do you use an alternative browser? Which one? Why? in ~tech
Happy_Shredder Link I use Qutebrowser cos it has a vim philosophy as a fundamental design choice, not stuck on top of another browser. It's very nice to use because of this. It also has a really clean ui and is...I use Qutebrowser cos it has a vim philosophy as a fundamental design choice, not stuck on top of another browser. It's very nice to use because of this. It also has a really clean ui and is nicely configurable.
Unfortunately it's written in python and so is slow.13 votes -
Comment on Scientists at the University of Oxford unifying dark matter and dark energy into a single phenomenon: a fluid which possesses 'negative mass." in ~science
Happy_Shredder Link Parent It's an interesting toy model. Certainly gives an elegant unification of dark matter and energy, while explaining some phenomena. It's quite a readable paper, and I like the interpretation of...It's an interesting toy model. Certainly gives an elegant unification of dark matter and energy, while explaining some phenomena. It's quite a readable paper, and I like the interpretation of rotation curves and cosmological structure. The interpretation of CMB is a bit thin to my first reading; I may have to sit with and think about it for a while.
I think the big takeaways are that negative mass is weird (and has never been observed) but is ok. But matter creation is a big step. Very hard to justify. The model could be a useful reinterpretation and pedagogical tool.
Oh, and the maths looks good, but I havent checked the code.
(I'm in condensed matter atm but have studied cosmo&GR)
5 votes -
Comment on Tildes, what are your thoughts on the "Earth Strike" movement that's currently being organized? in ~enviro
Happy_Shredder Link I can't imagine it'll be especially effective. But I don't think it's healthy to blindly criticise the idea either. You have to remember that the capitalist elite, the ruling classes, associate a...I can't imagine it'll be especially effective. But I don't think it's healthy to blindly criticise the idea either.
You have to remember that the capitalist elite, the ruling classes, associate a persons value with how much money they make --- you may have seen sentiments such as "he has to be good, he's rich" or "she's contributed so much to society, you can tell because of her wealth". The poor, students, workers, environmentalists, socialists...these people will be ignored by the elite because they fail the wealth test. Hence any protest by these people is generally ineffective because the elite do not think we're worth listening to. I think for many of the elite it's not so much that they think we're subhuman --- rather they just don't think of us at all. And protests by "the rabble" are background noise. The louder we shout the less they here.
It's even more sobering to consider the entrenched self-serving corruption, the desire to be king for a day, the complete disregard for truth amd facts and principles, within the elite. When an environmentalist tries to communicate the issue of climate change, they won't listen because all they see is a political opponent playing a political game. The elite are happy to make up any nonsense for political or monetary gain and so assume their political oppenents will to. In combination with the propaganda from Exxon et al you end up with an elite who refuse to even consider the planet is changing against us and most life.
I don't really see any way forward. Locally we can male a difference, but that is not enough. Violent resistence tends towards self destruction, and I don't know if we have the time to migrate to a post-capitalist classless economy.
2 votes
Nah, I reckon that must be from something else. I can't think of what, though