pseudolobster's recent activity

  1. Comment on Houthi rebels shoot down seven US military Reaper drones worth NZ$334m, in recent weeks in ~news

    pseudolobster
    Link Parent
    I miss the days when music wasn't politicized. Edit: It's meant to be satirical but I already feel bad about this comment. Please joke/noise/offtopic this thread.

    I miss the days when music wasn't politicized.

    Edit: It's meant to be satirical but I already feel bad about this comment. Please joke/noise/offtopic this thread.

    6 votes

  2. Comment on Houthi rebels shoot down seven US military Reaper drones worth NZ$334m, in recent weeks in ~news

    pseudolobster
    (edited )
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    These guys were way more chill before they broke up with the blowfish. Edit: Hey everyone, can you please label this thread as offtopic or joke. There's meaningful discussion to be had that's...

    These guys were way more chill before they broke up with the blowfish.

    Edit: Hey everyone, can you please label this thread as offtopic or joke. There's meaningful discussion to be had that's being buried under my joke. It's just common courtesy to give precedence to on-topic replies and I'm sorry to say my shitpost currently has more upvotes than valid topics do. Please use the label button in cases like this where someone is funny-but-not-conducive-to-discussion etc.

    Edit2: Thank you!

    12 votes

  3. Comment on Insane and crazy recipe substitutions? in ~food

    pseudolobster
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    Believe it or not ground flaxseed and water can act as a pretty good egg substitute in pancakes or muffins or whatnot. It's when people try to use it in omelettes or soufflé, or they try and use...

    Believe it or not ground flaxseed and water can act as a pretty good egg substitute in pancakes or muffins or whatnot. It's when people try to use it in omelettes or soufflé, or they try and use unground, unwetted flax that are the problem. Many such cases.

    Anyway, my favourite example of "I didn't have eggs" was this comment I made on /r/shittyfoodporn a year before /r/ididnthaveeggs existed: https://old.reddit.com/r/shittyfoodporn/comments/9f6r35/we_tried_making_a_cake_for_my_moms_birthday/e5ul9nl/?context=3

    8 votes

  5. Comment on Tildes Video Thread in ~misc

  6. Comment on United dropped coverage for my kids' pediatrician. What's the most efficient way I can make them, as a company, suffer for this decision? in ~health

    pseudolobster
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    Pay your premiums in pennies or $1 bills? I think there are some exceptions for coins but the bills literally say "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private" on them. So long as...

    Pay your premiums in pennies or $1 bills? I think there are some exceptions for coins but the bills literally say "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private" on them. So long as you're not being billed in advance your premiums are a debt. But then I guess they're just taken out of your paycheque to begin with. I dunno. Not American.

    As for diplomatic avenues, well, I'm sorry but you'll just need to call, be polite to the first couple agents, explain your situation, ask if you can escalate to a superior. Over and over, until you get someone sympathetic to your situation. I've gotta break it to you though that's not super likely to happen.

    Back in my day a strongly worded letter would get you far, but nowadays you need at least tens of thousands of followers to influence anything, and that doesn't really apply in industries where you're not usually the end-customer. It's typically employers who choose healthcare providers in the US.

    One thing I will say is if you are vindictive, petty, and have a lot of free time, I know any time a call centre answers their phone and stays on the line for more than ~30s or so (it varies) the company who's employing the call centre has to pay something like twenty bucks. If you can call and waste their time effectively enough without them blocking your number, you can cost them money that way. Unfortunately that's a drop in the bucket for them, and they'd rather just change their support to AI than pay more for call centres.

    3 votes

  7. Comment on US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said to have shared attack details in second Signal chat with his wife and brother (gifted link) in ~society

    pseudolobster
    Link Parent
    My coping mechanism is focusing on the first part. This is all very silly. I can't believe this is a functioning government, let alone the bastion of democracy for the world. It's actually really...

    This would be really fun if they weren't a danger to the entire world.

    My coping mechanism is focusing on the first part. This is all very silly. I can't believe this is a functioning government, let alone the bastion of democracy for the world. It's actually really hilarious to watch, despite the foreboding looming dread of annexation/invasion etc.

    6 votes

  8. Comment on Trying to fully ditch Windows for streaming. So close, but this audio issue is breaking me. in ~tech

    pseudolobster
    Link
    I've got nothing really, except the obvious: Have you tried turning down the gain? It's compressed, but not so much as I would think there's a problem, it's just that the dial goes to 11 and you...

    I've got nothing really, except the obvious: Have you tried turning down the gain? It's compressed, but not so much as I would think there's a problem, it's just that the dial goes to 11 and you happen to have it set to 11.

    8 votes

  9. Comment on Are there any good online CS degrees? Is it advisable to enroll into an online CS degree? in ~comp

    pseudolobster
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    As others have stated, unless you're looking for a piece of paper saying you know programming, your best bet is free courses. I can recommend MIT's opencourseware or Khan academy

    As others have stated, unless you're looking for a piece of paper saying you know programming, your best bet is free courses. I can recommend MIT's opencourseware or Khan academy

    1 vote

  10. Comment on What did you do this week (and weekend)? in ~talk

    pseudolobster
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    I went to go see Adam Conover's standup comedy show in Vancouver the other day. I have nothing but good things to say about his show and visiting Vancouver in general, however I needed to leave...

    I went to go see Adam Conover's standup comedy show in Vancouver the other day. I have nothing but good things to say about his show and visiting Vancouver in general, however I needed to leave before 5am to get to downtown before 10:30 and that was a huge slog. I was suddenly reminded about my age and how I'm too damn old to wake up early, travel 5hrs and go to the venue after 4hrs sleep after 20 hours of being awake. By the time the show started at 7PM I was exhausted and nearly falling asleep. I actually felt really bad for yawning since it was an intimate venue and I was in the first couple rows, so he definitely saw me. Anyways, totally recommend Adam Ruins Everything's standup tour.

    1 vote

  11. Comment on How are you preparing for a fascist America? in ~society

    pseudolobster
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    Canadian here, I'm buying a gun. Never thought of buying one before except for target shooting, for which I can normally just go to a range, but now I feel like owning one is important for some...

    Canadian here,

    I'm buying a gun. Never thought of buying one before except for target shooting, for which I can normally just go to a range, but now I feel like owning one is important for some reason.

    Elbows up.

    6 votes

  12. Comment on Notorious image board 4chan hacked and internal data leaked in ~tech

    pseudolobster
    Link Parent
    Exactly. It's not often that journalists get what 4chan is about. Yes, it's toxic as all hell, and you probably shouldn't go there, and if you do, make extra sure you don't let the toxic part...

    Exactly. It's not often that journalists get what 4chan is about. Yes, it's toxic as all hell, and you probably shouldn't go there, and if you do, make extra sure you don't let the toxic part become a part of your identity, but it's just an anonymous imageboard.

    I'm not defending it since there's a lot of shitty people there, but it's refreshing to see someone reporting it like it is.

    Anyways, please flag my parent topic as offtopic since we're not talking about the hack anymore.

    13 votes

  13. Comment on Notorious image board 4chan hacked and internal data leaked in ~tech

    pseudolobster
    Link
    This is a really level-headed synopsis of the site, imho. It's a stupid meme site that happens to be flooded with porn and gore, but also happens to be big enough to be influential and therefore...

    4chan is an ostensibly anonymous internet forum that functions like the dark underbelly of the web. Most of the time, it’s an image board that seems to be populated by bored users who try to shock each other often by posting some of the most vile content imaginable. Other times, 4chan’s cultural exports seep into the real world as innocuous memes or as hateful rhetoric that inspires right-wing terrorism.

    This is a really level-headed synopsis of the site, imho. It's a stupid meme site that happens to be flooded with porn and gore, but also happens to be big enough to be influential and therefore has become the source of a lot of mainstream online hate movements and like, straight up terrorism.

    Weird to see online journalism giving such a concise read of a nuanced topic, insomuch as they could have just said "Known terrorist forum 4chan" instead.

    34 votes

  15. Comment on What have you been putting off/procrastinating about doing? in ~life

    pseudolobster
    Link Parent
    I'm going to reply under your post since I also have a semi-abandoned NAS project I've been meaning to get around to forever now. There are many reasons I've procrastinated on this, and like you...

    I'm going to reply under your post since I also have a semi-abandoned NAS project I've been meaning to get around to forever now.

    There are many reasons I've procrastinated on this, and like you it's come down to "Well, it's currently working" — However, it's running off individual 8tb drives with my collection spanning several such drives that are getting to be almost a decade old. I really need to replace this or I'm going to regret it.

    I bought the thing, realized I have nothing that takes a VGA input, found a monitor I could borrow, tried to set it up, realized although the SFP+-to-copper adapters were recognized they could never get a DHCP address, gave up on the whole thing. I bought new SFP-RJ45 adapters for 1gbit but I'm back to not having any VGA devices, fueling the procrastination.

    I once had lofty goals of installing proxmox with a bunch of cool VMs doing *arr things, a PFSense or OPNSense VM as a router, maybe a little webserver as a treat.

    7 votes

  16. Comment on Kindle modding wiki in ~books

    pseudolobster
    (edited )
    Link
    In a reply to another comment I mentioned the mobileread forums, which are an incredible resource for kindle modding and jailbreaking. That sent me down a nostalgia rabbit hole. In addition to...

    In a reply to another comment I mentioned the mobileread forums, which are an incredible resource for kindle modding and jailbreaking. That sent me down a nostalgia rabbit hole. In addition to using my kindle as a VNC client to connect to an android VM, turning the thing into a cursed android tablet, I remembered I actually wrote a frontend for the VNC client that prompted you for a username and password.

    With such limited options that were available I drew a text UI using some sort of ncurses plugin for ZSH, which ended up implementing touch support, full cursor support, etc. I'm kinda proud how it works despite how incredibly janky it is. Also I named all my variables "poop" because I'm an adult and that's my choice.

    https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3241063

    2 votes

  17. Comment on Kindle modding wiki in ~books

    pseudolobster
    Link Parent
    I've never owned a kobo but I've heard the same thing from other people. Apparently it's much more open and easy to modify whereas the kindle is always phoning home to mama Bezos. That said I'm...

    I've never owned a kobo but I've heard the same thing from other people. Apparently it's much more open and easy to modify whereas the kindle is always phoning home to mama Bezos.

    That said I'm still rocking a first-gen paperwhite I jailbroke over 12 years ago. It's been on airplane mode almost its entire life except a few occasions I've needed to use its terrible web browser in an emergency. In that time I've used it as a ssh client, a vnc client (connected to a VM running android so the thing acted like a cursed android tablet), I've played sudoku, chess, etc on it, installed custom fonts and other ebook reader software on it, etc.

    It's never updated or bricked itself in all that time. Shout out to mobileread forums where I got all the info to mod it.

    2 votes

  18. Comment on Looking for games you can play on a laptop with a trackpad in ~games

    pseudolobster
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    Could you give a list of what genres you're interested in? There's a lot out there. Plus do you have a gaming console and can you connect your gamepad to the laptop? Because that opens up a whole...

    Could you give a list of what genres you're interested in? There's a lot out there. Plus do you have a gaming console and can you connect your gamepad to the laptop? Because that opens up a whole ton of genres. Likewise, if you can use a wireless mouse on your thigh, that also opens up some genres versus a trackpad.

    Off the top of my head, looking at my steam library, in no particular order, FTL: Faster than light, Civilization, Balatro, Slay the Spire, Factorio (on peaceful), are all top tier games that are either turn based or reaction times aren't an issue.

    Dwarf Fortress is an amazing game, but it's a commitment. I haven't played much of the steam release, but the original had literally no mouse support out of the box. Everything was done using a cryptic set of keys that changed on every single menu. Yes, if you're a masochist, you enjoy really, really, really deep roguelikes with advanced physics simulations and emerging gameplay, you should definitely try it, but be aware it's a slog at first to get familiarized and get any enjoyment out of it whatsoever, let alone the stories that people tell. By the time you can truly enjoy Dwarf Fortress, there's probably a support group out there for you.

    10 votes

  19. Comment on Daychilde's walking thread in ~life

  20. Comment on The Tiny Soapbox: a platform for small, low-stakes rants in ~talk

    pseudolobster
    Link Parent
    That's their business model. Consumer-grade inkjet printers have usually been subsidized by ink sales; for decades now. They've always been a loss leader, and people have come to expect to buy...

    That's their business model. Consumer-grade inkjet printers have usually been subsidized by ink sales; for decades now. They've always been a loss leader, and people have come to expect to buy something for fifty bucks from Staples.

    Buy a monochrome laser printer instead. Brother still makes some good models. Otherwise buying anything used is probably still fine as long as you can still find toner and roller replacement kits.

    Usually a $20 small-office-home-office business grade laser printer from craigslist / marketplace / etc will last you five to ten more years for a $40 investment.

    So long as you don't need colour you can often get tens of thousands of pages from a single $20 toner cartridge, which doesn't go bad or dry up like inkjet cartridges do.

    6 votes