patience_limited's recent activity
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Comment on Op-ed: The Persian Gulf oil crisis is a food crisis in ~food
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Op-ed: The Persian Gulf oil crisis is a food crisis
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Comment on A survey of 1,000 hiring managers found that 59% say they emphasize AI’s role in layoffs because it is viewed more favorably than saying layoffs or hiring freezes in ~tech
patience_limited (edited )LinkIf you trust HR-targeted news sources, it seems people are being laid off due to AI-based automation, but it's not going well. This farce just confirms my personal conviction that upper managers...If you trust HR-targeted news sources, it seems people are being laid off due to AI-based automation, but it's not going well.
This farce just confirms my personal conviction that upper managers have no idea what their subordinates actually do for the company, and think of us as replaceable cogs in the machine until things break when we're gone. Human "resources", my ass.
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Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of March 9 in ~society
patience_limited LinkIn today's "What radicalized me", this pack of "Third Way" assholes: https://prospect.org/2026/03/10/centrists-better-things-arent-possible-democrats-south-carolina-third-way/ We now know where...In today's "What radicalized me", this pack of "Third Way" assholes:
We now know where the "moderate" Republicans went.
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Comment on Yakult ladies are an icon in Japan in ~life.women
patience_limited Link ParentImagine that a serving of Yakult costs the equivalent of $3 USD. $2,700 sales in a month is 900+ bottles, which surely take some effort to sell. The article says nothing about how many miles the...Imagine that a serving of Yakult costs the equivalent of $3 USD. $2,700 sales in a month is 900+ bottles, which surely take some effort to sell. The article says nothing about how many miles the saleswomen traverse on scooters equipped with coolers heavy enough to chill each day's bottles. They're exposed to traffic dangers, weather, and the simple rigor of riding a relatively uncomfortable vehicle for much of the day, as well as stair climbing or walking to reach their door-to-door deliveries.
Before you argue that it's healthy physical and social activity, I'd have to ask if you've ever done similar delivery work or know anyone who has. Everyone I'm acquainted with who did was badly beaten up by the effort and desperate for something that paid better. You can't survive on that kind of money without other income, even dealing with polite customers is exhausting when you're dealing with that many transactions.
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Comment on Yakult ladies are an icon in Japan in ~life.women
patience_limited Link ParentIt's not quite like American multi-level marketing since the corporation deals directly with the "franchisees" and they're not pyramiding by recruiting and selling to each other. Yakult is also a...It's not quite like American multi-level marketing since the corporation deals directly with the "franchisees" and they're not pyramiding by recruiting and selling to each other. Yakult is also a well-known, internationally marketed product line that presumably has adequate quality control (unlike, say, Amway or LuLaRoe).
OTOH, just because it's not as exploitative as the U.S. model doesn't mean it's not exploitative. 22% for hard physical and emotional labor doesn't sound like a great trade-off for time flexibility.
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Comment on What's an obscure book/series that you've read that you would like to recommend? in ~books
patience_limited Link ParentIf you really want obscure Greg Bear and your tastes run to fantasy (mine generally don't), The Infinity Concerto and The Serpent Mage are both excellent.If you really want obscure Greg Bear and your tastes run to fantasy (mine generally don't), The Infinity Concerto and The Serpent Mage are both excellent.
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Comment on Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (March 2026) in ~health.mental
patience_limited (edited )Link ParentIf it's any reassurance, I did something like this - basically got fed up with an abusive employer and rebooted my life with a cross-country move and no immediate job prospects. It wasn't always...If it's any reassurance, I did something like this - basically got fed up with an abusive employer and rebooted my life with a cross-country move and no immediate job prospects.
It wasn't always easy - we only took about two months to plan, but didn't have to contend with emigration. The end result was that I strengthened my relationship with my spouse, cleaned up the physical and mental health damage from the toxic job, found a much more congenial environment, community, and lifestyle, and luckily was in a much safer place when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. I have absolutely zero regrets, and you have my best wishes that you and your family will benefit similarly from the journey.
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Comment on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei killed in Israeli and American joint strikes in ~society
patience_limited Link ParentThe timing seems to be based on an attack of opportunity for a decapitation strike, using CIA and Israeli intelligence. Leaving aside that this war violates the U.S. Constitution and numerous...The timing seems to be based on an attack of opportunity for a decapitation strike, using CIA and Israeli intelligence. Leaving aside that this war violates the U.S. Constitution and numerous international laws and treaties. It opens the door for further treatment of the U.S. as a rogue state, more civil and sectarian wars in the Gulf with massive civilian deaths, is incredibly destabilizing internationally... what could possibly go wrong?
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Comment on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei killed in Israeli and American joint strikes in ~society
patience_limited LinkI do not endorse this war under any circumstances, but the precipitating strategic reason may be outlined in the article below. Beijing’s Red Line: Can China Defend Iran Without Going to War With...I do not endorse this war under any circumstances, but the precipitating strategic reason may be outlined in the article below.
Beijing’s Red Line: Can China Defend Iran Without Going to War With America?
Tl;dr
China has been quietly helping Iran replenish the armaments used or destroyed by Israel's attacks. Iran and China nearly had an agreement for delivery of advanced Chinese anti-ship missiles and drones in the immediate future, as well as Chinese support in developing missile capabilities. Iran receives aid in infrastructure development as part of China's Belt-and-Road program. Iran is a major consumer of Chinese goods and supplier of oil to China in violation of sanctions.
In a way, this is a generous assessment that assumes the Trump administration had conventional strategic reasons for attacking Iran, to eliminate a nuclear threat to the region and contain China's influence there. It could also be explained by extraordinary corruption.
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Comment on A nationwide LGBTQ+ book ban bill for public schools has been introduced in the US House of Representatives in ~books
patience_limited Link ParentAnyone who travels through U.S. federally regulated airports is incorporated in facial recognition databases. Anyone who traverses toll gates or passes a Flock camera is part of a vehicle license...Anyone who travels through U.S. federally regulated airports is incorporated in facial recognition databases. Anyone who traverses toll gates or passes a Flock camera is part of a vehicle license plate tracking database. ISPs are only too eager to assist with cellphone tracking, assuming authorities are too lazy to engage their own cell site simulator.
Private entities have vast databases tracking every advertising beacon and compiling interest profiles that include political affiliation, sexual orientation, credit card purchases, and so on.
And Palantir is there to pull everything together for searching. We're building a surveillance state to rival China's.
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Comment on A nationwide LGBTQ+ book ban bill for public schools has been introduced in the US House of Representatives in ~books
patience_limited LinkLest anyone conclude that the private market will route around censorship, I've been saving a couple of doozys: Leaked Documents Show Meta Cracking Down on Access to Abortion Information How IHS...Lest anyone conclude that the private market will route around censorship, I've been saving a couple of doozys:
Leaked Documents Show Meta Cracking Down on Access to Abortion Information
How IHS is Responding to Terrifying Changes at Amazon
I hate everything about this timeline.
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Comment on Who’s liable when your AI agent burns down production? How Amazon’s Kiro took down AWS for thirteen hours and why the ‘human error’ label tells you everything wrong about the agentic AI era. in ~tech
patience_limited Link ParentUnderstandable in the context of potentially revealing a connection to someone who could lose their job, be prosecuted, and/or sued into penury by a giga-corporation for violating an NDA?Understandable in the context of potentially revealing a connection to someone who could lose their job, be prosecuted, and/or sued into penury by a giga-corporation for violating an NDA?
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Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of February 23 in ~society
patience_limited LinkThere's a good read here on how right-wing narratives get promoted into mainstream news, featuring some very basic open source journalism. Spin Class Case Study: I Caught POLITICO and the New York...There's a good read here on how right-wing narratives get promoted into mainstream news, featuring some very basic open source journalism.
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Comment on The hunt for dark breakfast in ~food
patience_limited Link ParentI'll defer to Daniel Gritzer on this one: all-buckwheat crepes are notoriously hard to handle.I'll defer to Daniel Gritzer on this one: all-buckwheat crepes are notoriously hard to handle.
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Comment on The hunt for dark breakfast in ~food
patience_limited Link ParentI don't think the "Dark Breakfast" recipe's proportions include enough flour to provide a crepe's structural integrity, which depends on gluten. You could concevably get it to set like a custard...I don't think the "Dark Breakfast" recipe's proportions include enough flour to provide a crepe's structural integrity, which depends on gluten.
You could concevably get it to set like a custard if you cooked it in a water bath. There are French toast and bread pudding custard recipes that don't include any flour at all, so the bread has to do the heavy lifting of giving the dish its form.
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Comment on Tildes Book Club - February 2026 - The Truth by Terry Pratchett in ~books
patience_limited (edited )Link ParentNeverwhere is a charming fantasy novel and worth a read if you can get past the Neil Gaiman "ick" factor. He and Pratchett were good enough friends to have collaborated on Good Omens (both an...- Exemplary
Neverwhere is a charming fantasy novel and worth a read if you can get past the Neil Gaiman "ick" factor. He and Pratchett were good enough friends to have collaborated on Good Omens (both an excellent read and an entertaining BBC/Amazon series), so I think the satire of Gaiman's characters was both intentional and welcomed.
Pulp Fiction was an important cinematic artifact when it was released in 1994, but I don't know if I can recommend it to you. It's grotesquely violent and dwells in episodic, lurid, cartoonishly evil criminal plots derived from 1970's exploitation films and the eponymous pulp crime fiction novels. However, Travolta, Jackson, Keitel, and Thurman give terrific performances, and the film captures the tone of its material perfectly. The Travolta/Jackson scenes have so much of the buddy-movie-but-evil vibe that Pratchett highlights with the complementary pair of Pin and Tulip.
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Comment on The hunt for dark breakfast in ~food
patience_limited LinkThe "Dark Breakfast" proportions are fairly close to some of the custard batters used in making French Toast.The "Dark Breakfast" proportions are fairly close to some of the custard batters used in making French Toast.
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Comment on Tildes Book Club - February 2026 - The Truth by Terry Pratchett in ~books
patience_limited Link ParentThere's a venerable tradition of evil duos in British literature going all the way back to Lord and Lady MacBeth, but I think Pin and Tulip are a direct call-out to Neil Gaiman's Croup and...There's a venerable tradition of evil duos in British literature going all the way back to Lord and Lady MacBeth, but I think Pin and Tulip are a direct call-out to Neil Gaiman's Croup and Vandemar ("The Old Firm") in Neverwhere.
There's also a parody of the "Le Big Mac" dialogue between the mob hitmen Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction:
“Do you know what they called a sausage-in-a-bun in Quirm?” said Mr. Pin, as the two walked away.
“No?” said Mr. Tulip.
“They call it le sausage-in-le-bun.”
“What, in a —ing foreign language? You’re —ing kidding!”
“I’m not a —ing kidder, Mr. Tulip.”
“I mean, they ought to call it a…a…sausage dans lar derriere,” said Mr. Tulip.
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Comment on Fix your hearts or die: The path to liberation for lonely men is feminism in ~life
patience_limited Link ParentFull disclosure: I ultimately chose not to post this essay myself because I expected it to be contentious, and wasn't prepared to engage with that conversation at length and in detail. I'm not a...Full disclosure: I ultimately chose not to post this essay myself because I expected it to be contentious, and wasn't prepared to engage with that conversation at length and in detail. I'm not a scholar or practitioner in any of the relevant disciplines, though I have been an observer, participant in, and sometimes, a victim of the phenomena described.
My first impression was that the essay posed its arguments in exactly the way you critiqued. My feelings about A. R. Moxon's writing are mixed in general - there are often well-explained big picture callouts, but insufficient exploration of implications and background, as well as a perpetuation of "us vs. them" rhetoric chosen (consciously or unconsciously) as engagement bait. This particular piece was clearly a reaction to a couple of sexist examples, and as you pointed out, engaged in some oppositional sexism of its own. I have a lot of thoughts about unnegotiated calls for any group as a whole to carry blame and responsibility, and not enough time or motivation to distill them coherently.
***I'm torn on whether this belongs in ~food or ~enviro, and will leave others to judge. I lean towards ~enviro because the editorial's analysis ultimately focuses on eliminating the fossil fuel dependencies of fertilizer production, agriculture, and food processing/transportation rather than food abundance, but it's got "food" in the title.
From the article: