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Cake day: July 14th, 2023

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  • The rules text says it creates an area of darkness, and with your interpretation, it doesn’t, which means your interpretation is wrong. Yes, the ability could be written more clearly, but the logic for a reasonable way for it to function follows pretty cleanly. Your interpretation is not RAW or RAI.

    There’s a reply on RPG StackExchange that covers a similar line of logic to what I wrote above.

    Remember that Fifth Edition D&D is intentionally not written with the same exacting precision as games like M:tG. The game doesn’t have an explicit definition of magical darkness, but it’s pretty clear that the intent is for magical to trump mundane (when it comes to sources of light and darkness). Even the Specific Beats General section says that most of the exceptions to general rules are due to magic.


  • White straight able bodied men age 25-64

    25-36 is still “young” by their definition.

    and a union doesn’t exist in their industry (as far as they know)

    It doesn’t matter what industry you’re working in if you’re interested in that industry having a union. Making unions more commonplace was part of the point. The second sentence in the Union Members and Families section reads “Democrats will make it easier for workers, public and private, to exercise their right to organize and join unions.”

    But sure, if you don’t believe unions have value, this wouldn’t include you.

    Fuck 'em lol. Wait are they religious, rural, a business owner, or a veteran? No? Ok yeah fuck 'em!

    You and I must have different definitions of “fuck ‘em,” because I clearly said:

    Economically, Democratic policies favor poor and middle class people, which statistically makes up the majority of all white men. And there aren’t any policies that oppress white people or men the way that Republican policies oppress women or reduce support for all of the groups that Democratic policies help support.

    So sure, if you’re a white man with wealth that puts you in the top 1%, the Republican’s economic policies will be better for you. For the other 99% of white men - no. And for the specific issues called out in the original post linked (on Reddit):

    1. Men account for 75% of suicides in the US
    2. 70% of opioid overdose deaths are men
    3. Men are 8 times more likely to be incarcerated than women
    4. Young men are struggling in schools and are increasingly the minority at universities, opting out of higher education
    • 1 is addressed under “Investing in Mental Health” in the Party Platform as well as indirectly by gun safety policies (since 50% of suicides are by gun, 60% of gun deaths are suicides, and 87% of gun suicides are committed by men)
    • 2 is explicitly addressed under “Faith Community (“respond to the opioid crisis”) and under “Beating the Opioid Epidemic” in the Party Platform.
    • 3 is addressed under “Criminal Justice” in the Party Platform
    • 4 is addressed in multiple ways, under “Good Jobs” (“you shouldn’t have to go to a four-year college to live a good, middle-class life.”) and under “Education” (investing in K-12 education, providing free, universal preschool, investing in other forms of secondary education - e.g., trade schools, community college, registered apprenticeships)

    Democrats need to work on their messaging, obviously (and the comments on the Reddit post touch on that), but the problem isn’t that their policies don’t help white men, because they obviously do.


    • Young white men are included under “Young People and Students.”
    • Old white men are included under “Seniors and Retirees.”
    • Many white men have disabilities and are covered under “Americans with Disabilities.”
    • Many white men are covered under “LGBTQ+” - trans men, gay and queer men. Heck, some even include allies under the umbrella.
    • Many white men who are neither young nor old (or members of their family) are members of unions, or would like to be, and thus covered under “Union Members and Families.”
    • Likewise, many white men are covered under:
      • Faith Community
      • Rural Americans
      • Small Business Community
      • Veterans and Military Families

    Economically, Democratic policies favor poor and middle class people, which statistically makes up the majority of all white men. And there aren’t any policies that oppress white people or men the way that Republican policies oppress women or reduce support for all of the groups that Democratic policies help support.

    In other words, unless you get off on the oppression of those groups, almost all white men are served by the Democratic party, even if they can’t find themselves on the list you shared.

    “Black Lives Matter” was a response to black men and women being murdered by police at higher rates, of the news stories of those deaths being under-reported by comparison, and of the victims being blamed more than people of other races, particularly white people.

    “All Lives Matter” as a response to “Black Lives Matter” missed the point. It’s “Black Lives Matter, too.” If all lives mattered, people wouldn’t have needed to protest the killings of black people in the first place.

    Imagine if you were at a restaurant and everyone around you got their order but you, so you said “Hey, I need my order.” If the server responded with “Yes, everyone needs their order” and walked off, that would be about the equivalent to saying “All Lives Matter.”

    So, is there a parallel between thinking that white men should be pandered to and saying “White Lives Matter?” Absolutely.



  • You can use yt-dlp to download Tiktok videos, and you can use it on both iOS (e.g., via aShell or Pythonista) and Android (e.g., via Termux).

    Once yt-dlp is installed, you can run this command in the terminal app. It’ll be downloaded into your current directory:

    yt-dlp https://www.tiktok.com/@r_o_b__b_a_r_b_e_r/video/7392630187063627040
    

    Just replace the URL with the one for your desired video. The video URL should like the one I have below, though you don’t need to remove the query parameters - if it doesn’t you may need to Share, Copy Link, and use the copied link instead of the URL bar. This is especially true if navigating among tabs on the web or something.

    You may need to wrap the url in double quotes. IME it varies by device.

    On iOS there are Shortcuts that integrate with yt-dlp, and on Android you can do the same with Tasker and the Tasker - Termux plugin. Make sure to install the F-Droid versions.

    You can also save many Tiktok videos through the app’s Share dialog, though creators can disallow that content wide.



  • If you have normal darkness everywhere, there isn’t a reason to use it, but you don’t always have darkness everywhere. In fact, you generally don’t.

    Not all monsters with darkvision have access to light sources. Even if they do, they may need an action to use it or may be out of range. A torch or the light cantrip only has a 40’ range. If you collaborate on positioning with the caster, you can basically set yourself up to have advantage every turn thanks to the darkness, since as a ranged attacker you don’t have to stay within 40’ of your enemies.

    Also, Gloom Stalkers can’t see through Darkness like Warlocks can, so this effect is useful to them in a way that the Darkness spell isn’t.

    That all said, Tricksy wouldn’t do anything if it didn’t block nonmagical illumination, so it’s reasonable to run it as though it does. Sure, it still wouldn’t block even a cantrip, but it would block torches, lanterns, the sun, etc…

    And running it as though it doesn’t block nonmagical darkness results in nonsensical behavior. You’re in a torchlit chamber and use the ability - now there’s a cube of darkness, blocking the light of all four nonmagical torches. If you move one of those torches away and back, why would it suddenly pierce the magical darkness? If it wouldn’t, why would a new nonmagical light source?


  • Thanks for clarifying! I’ve heard nothing but praise for Kagi from its users so that’s what I was assuming, but Searxng has also been great so I wouldn’t have been too surprised if you’d compared them and found its results to be on par or better.

    By the way, if you’re self hosting Searxng, you can use add your own index. Searxng supports YaCy, which is an actively developed, open source search index and crawler that can be operated standalone or as part of a decentralized (P2P) network. Here are the Searxng docs for that engine. I can’t speak to its quality as I still haven’t set it up, though.




  • I gather you’re from the US.

    Yes, but also the prison abolition movement is US specific. I’m not affiliated with it, to be clear - not that I oppose it or anything, but I certainly don’t speak for any of its activists.

    If we “only” reduce the prison population to 5% or 1% of its current count in the process

    Then why call it abolish prisons?

    Have you ever heard the quote “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars?” “Abolition” is a goal, an ideal - and even if it isn’t accomplished fully, working toward that end goal and considering everything necessary to get there along the way is the point.

    Along those lines, I posit that if 90% of prisons are torn down or repurposed and the remaining 10% are drastically changed - holding fewer prisoners; not being privately owned and operated; focusing on rehabilitation, like learning new job skills, when possible, and otherwise simply being more humane, then the prison abolition movement would have succeeded.

    But if you disagree with the name, what would you call it? “Prison Reform” is already taken and means something drastically different.

    And to be clear, for some the goal is to eliminate prisons entirely. The movement isn’t monolithic. Abolishing the “prison institution” as it exists today is a pretty common goal, though, and using “prison” to mean “the prison institution” is a pretty common literary technique called “Synecdoche,” which you likely use every day.

    I see now that you’re trying trying to trigger an additional emotional response. Working on association, rather than logic.

    It’s a logical association, though. If the name evokes feelings of slavery, that’s a good thing, as the situation is similar enough to slavery to warrant that.

    Slavery in the US is still legal (so long as the person is in prison). Black Americans are 5 times as likely to be in prison as white Americans. A black man born in 2001 has a 20% chance of being in prison at some point in his life.

    The systemic oppression of black Americans is obviously because of racism, and the parallels between slavery and the prison institution aren’t accidental. For example, here’s a quote from Slavery and the U.S. Prison System:

    Gary Webb’s famous investigation revealed that the CIA was operating a gun-running and drug-smuggling operation that brought guns to the Nicaraguan contras that the U.S. was using to destabilize the popular government in that country, while bringing cocaine into the U.S. and funneling it to street-level dealers with access to black inner-city neighborhoods.  The history of black street gangs is part of the afterlife of COINTELPRO, the FBI’s counter-intelligence program that actively sabotaged black social movement throughout the long civil rights era.  Bobby Lavender, one of the founders of the Bloods in Los Angeles, explained that the COINTELPRO assassinations of black leaders, and the terrorizing of rank-and-file civil rights activists, left an organizational vacuum in many communities that youth like him filled with their “own brand of leadership.”  COINTELPRO established a pattern of law enforcement interference and sabotage of black self-determination, including gang truces, from the 1970s through to the present.

    Such manipulation, especially, is something I would not want to be a part of. It’s vile.

    Personally, I think the systemic sabotage of black people’s livelihood, communities, and families is vile, but you’re welcome to your opinion.


  • The name is important because of the parallels between slavery and modern day prisons.

    At minimum, the movement is about completely rethinking our approach to dealing with crime. If we “only” reduce the prison population to 5% or 1% of its current count in the process, we won’t have abolished all prisons, but we will have succeeded in abolishing many parts of the current criminal justice system.


    1. I was showing that my understanding of the word “asset” was based in fact. The 4th definition wasn’t relevant to that.
    2. I literally talked about the 4th definition in the next paragraph.

    If anyone’s operating in bad faith, it’s you. Are you drunk? You’re being an intentionally obtuse pedant and a liar (by your own definition). Try replying once you’ve sobered up, clown. Once you reread and realize how much of a dick you were, I’m sure you’ll apologize - unless I’m right about you being too much of a coward to admit when you’re wrong about something.



  • Before I reply to your comment, I’d like to share this link. It didn’t change any of my existing understanding because Linus’s comment already made it clear that this was out of their hands, but maybe it’ll help clarify something for you.

    I realize now that this comment on that post was made before this one (“What’s free about delisting maintainers based on their country of residence?”) by the same person. It’s disingenuous for someone to act like this is about “country of residence” when they already engaged with a post clarifying that it’s because of sanctions against specific companies.

    that you unironically think asset means property

    I unironically think that because it does mean that:

    1. assets plural

    a. the property of a deceased person subject by law to the payment of his or her debts and legacies

    b. the entire property of a person, association, corporation, or estate applicable or subject to the payment of debts

    1. ADVANTAGERESOURCE

    a. an item of value owned

    b. assets plural the items on a balance sheet showing the book value of property owned

    When I do a search for “state asset,” the results I get are all related to property, resources, etc., things that belong to and can be exploited by the state - for example https://www.epa.gov/dwcapacity/state-asset-management-initiatives-documents

    Searching for “asset” specifically I see a tertiary definition reading “A spy working in his or her own country and controlled by the enemy” as well as the wikipedia definition, but that still means “spy,” not “paid lobbyist.”

    just that incredibly obtuse

    I’d apologize for not being well versed enough in counter-intelligence lingo to properly interpret the comment, but even with a proper interpretation, the comment I replied to was still incoherent, so I’m not really sure what you expect here.

    It feels weird to say that it was incredibly obtuse of me to not spend more time trying to figure out what someone meant when they were, as far as I can tell just mad that Linus and other Linux maintainers didn’t ignore what their attorneys advised, regardless of what impact that might have had on them personally, and spouting a bunch of nonsense as a result.

    Maybe I’m wrong, though. If so, would you care to explain how this was a violation of the GPL and/or how all of the 4 freedoms I listed were violated?



  • Are you thinking of something like Stack Overflow’s reputation system? See https://stackoverflow.com/help/whats-reputation for a basic overview. See https://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges for some examples of privileges unlocked by hitting a particular reputation level.

    That system is better optimized for reputation than the threaded discussions that we participate in here, but it has its own problems. However, we could at minimum learn from the things that it does right:

    • You need site (or community) staff, who are not constrained by reputation limits, to police the system
    • Upvoting is disabled until you have at least a little reputation
    • Downvoting is disabled until you have a decent amount of reputation and costs you reputation
    • Upvotes grant more reputation than downvotes take away
    • Voting fraud is a bannable offense and there are methods in place to detect it
    • The system is designed to discourage reuse of content
    • Not all activities can be upvoted or downvoted. For example, commenting on SO requires a minimum amount of reputation, but unless they’re reported as spam, offensive, fraudulent, etc. (which also requires a minimum reputation), they don’t impact your reputation, even if upvoted.

    If you wanted to have upvoted and downvoted discourse, you could also allow people to comment on a given piece of discourse without their comment itself being part of the discourse. For example, someone might just want to say “I’m lost, can someone explain this to me?” “Nice hat,” “Where did you get that?” or something entirely off topic that they thought about in response to a topic.

    You could also limit the total amount of reputation a person can bestow upon another person, and maybe increase that limit as their reputation increases. Alternatively or additionally, you could enable high rep users to grant more reputation with their upvotes (either every time or occasionally) or to transfer a portion of their rep to a user who made a comment they really liked. It makes sense that Joe Schmo endorsing me doesn’t mean much, but King Joe’s endorsement is a much bigger deal.

    Reputation also makes sense to be topic specific. I could be an expert on software development but be completely misinformed about hedgehogs, but think that I’m an expert. If I have a high reputation from software development discussions, it would be misleading when I start telling someone about hedgehogs diets.

    Yet another thing to consider, especially if you’re federating, is server-specific reputations with overlapping topics. Assuming you allow users to say “Don’t show this / any of my content to <other server> at all,” (e.g., if you know something is against the rules over there or is likely to be downvoted, but in your community it’s generally upvoted) there isn’t much reason to not allow a discussion to appear in two or more servers. Then users could accrue reputation on that topic from users of both servers. The staff, and later, high reputation users of one server could handle moderation of topics differently than the moderators of another, by design. This could solve disagreements about moderation style, voting etiquette, etc., by giving users alternatives to choose from.