I'm not a political guy. Back on Reddit I only subscribed to casualuk because ukpol and unitedkingdom were way too negative for me.

The main things I like to talk about are nerdy stuff like programming, science etc. In terms of political subjects and things like that, the main thing I dislike is stuff that is superficial, inaccurate, lacks nuance or is deliberately intellectually disingenuous.

Basically, I am here to read high-quality, thoughtful, and ideally, respectful content. Regardless of its political leaning. If someone wants to write about the merits of anarchism or fascism or communism or anything, I'll give it a read, as long as it's respectful and put forward in good faith (i.e. because the person really believes what they are saying and not trying to manipulate people or twist facts to suit their political opinions).

Here's an example of the type of content I don't like: there was a post the other day about JK Rowling which I would usually have just skipped past because there are never going to be any meaningful comments in there, it's just going to be full of people either attacking her or attacking the people attacking her - which doesn't make for a very constructive, positive or pleasant place to spend your virtual downtime.

Nevertheless, I clicked into the comments and there was a comment in there basically talking about all the "problems" with the Harry Potter books. As with a lot of books, there were some cringy things that I was nodding along to, but the one that stood out for me was the unironic claim that JK Rowling supported slavery (and supported slaves working naked) because in the books that's what house elves have to do. And this comment had quite a lot of upvotes.

Up until that point in the comment, the rest of the points were reasonable enough, but this was just so stupid, like, it's so obvious an author can write about things without necessarily advocating them. And if you read the comment it's just so obvious that the person in question wanted as much fuel for the fire as possible so they just threw that in too. And suddenly, I'm not reading a comment with intellectual integrity anymore, I'm reading someone who is clearly trying to make a point, even at the expense of honest, reasonable debate.

The fact that it had so many upvotes instantly told me I was in an echo chamber. Someone should have jumped in and challenged that last point saying "That's not a great take" but I've been on sites like Reddit long enough to know that I would probably have been downvoted just for appearing to be a force that wasn't 100% aligned with the "correct" narrative (which is ridiculous as challenging a bad point does not equal supporting JK Rowling who I literally could not give two figs about).

So, winding back to the original question: My concern is that if we start introducing any "banned subjects" or opinions, we're focusing on the wrong thing, as even within ostensibly "acceptable" subjects, the environment can still feel a bit unwelcoming, hard to participate meaningfully in or 1-dimensional.

My suggestion would be to define quality comments/contributions as ones that:

• Focus on the subject, not the person
• Contribute to the discussion (which can include respectfully disagreeing or challenging the subject)
• Are respectful and polite; don't attack individuals or groups of people

Here's an example on one of the most divisive topics I can think of (eek - apologies if I get something wrong here, as I said I'm not a very politically aware person): discussion of trans stuff - what should be tolerated?

Well, applying the above, anything that attacked or insulted trans people directly would be objectionable content. However, let's say some big new law came out that was very pro-trans, or even better, because I'm much more familiar with this subject: let's take the gay marriage laws from back in the day. I don't think it's right to ban critical or skeptical discussions about these laws and their impacts as long as they don't start getting hateful and calling being gay or trans 'evil', saying trans people don't deserve rights.. shit like that.

I remember back in the day when we were trying to get the gay marriage stuff through, there was an incredible amount of skepticism and worry, even from my own parents and other people I respect. That has died down a lot more now, and one of the ways that happened was by sitting down and talking to these people, it was about having proper, nuanced discussions in good faith. Because that's the only way anybody grows and learns.

I remember what it was like to be in my 20s. I wanted everyone to agree with me too, I don't know why, but getting older seems to make you less fervent on that front, maybe because you become very comfortable with understanding your own opinions so you don't constantly need to reinforce them - or maybe, it's the opposite and you realise you're just as wrong about most things as everyone else. It's so funny because as I type this, I remember hearing older people in my own life saying similar things and being like "ugh, just have some strong opinions". Who knows.. maybe echo chambers/heavily "curated" environments are important for helping younger people consolidate their thoughts and feelings. This is just my 10 cents.

So that's my little essay. Let's be kind, but let's be resilient too, and not shy away from nuance or challenging opinions if possible

Quanta is just a word (related to quantity) as in: "smallest divisible quantity of"

So in the case of light we would be talking about photons, which are a quanta of light (e.g. discrete "packets" of light).

Light behaves as a wave, e.g. we can talk about the frequency of light. But it's also pretty different from macroscopic waves e.g. it's not accurate to think of them as what your see on a typical sinusoid graph, as at that level things don't really have a fixed shape or position, we're talking more about areas where they "probably" are (see: superposition, HUP etc)

It's useful to think of light in terms of discrete photons for a number of reasons, e.g. in pair production, 1 gamma photon would be sufficient to create 1 electron/positron pair.

Photons also exhibit other particle-like behaviour despite having no rest mass. But the idea of rest mass becomes less significant at that level anyway as the line between energy and mass (e=mc²) gets blurred. And any sufficiently high energy object will likely exhibit some massive properties (hence why we tend to use MeV - a measure of energy - instead of a measure of mass, even when performing calculations with massive particles such as electrons.

At about 1m40 it says "erratic policy is hampering Britain's already ailing manufacturing industries" which doesn't really seem to be backed up. Especially since the UK overtook France this week to become the 8th largest manufacturer in the world.

The economy is on its arse for sure but this piece seemed to want to tell a specific story regardless of the nuances/facts.

E: if you read through the comment section on YouTube there are loads of other issues/inaccuracies being called out

Sorry but this is such a bad take.

Linux is free to install, free to use and most importantly free to learn

What is the alternative? How many people who are now in great jobs would have been unable to teach themselves the skills they need if IIS or another proprietary technology had won the server market instead.

Something had to fill the space, would you rather it was a technology that created barriers for people with the fewest advantages in life?

(Also as others have said, a lot of OSS development is funded by companies. Linux in particular being a great example)

I got the same thing

Proprietary drivers/firmware. Basically makes it impossible/very hard to develop custom ROMs/operating systems (the lack of openness makes it super hard to extend/modify/verify the software running on these chips).

This is still my favourite vim-related meme. So fucking funny

The USA had a chance to start again and get so many things right. So why are they so backwards with some things?

We've had legally-protected paid leave in the UK for almost a century now. Granted, we were the first in the world, but most of Europe and many other countries now have similar protections. Many of which are more generous than the UK's.

That's not to mention the myriad of other laws and protections covering unfair dismissal (the "at will" system is fucking dystopian, sorry), a years paid maternity leave, statutory sick pay, mandatory employer pension contributions, working time regulations and mandatory redundancy pay. All of which have no federally-enforced equivalent.

I'm honestly a bit shocked that only 66% support PTO. Surely it's a no-brainer?

Is it a size thing? Is the idea of looking out for each other just untenable in such a large, diverse place?

I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a place where 34% of people have such an individualistic "I've got mine" mentality, that they don't even support mechanisms that virtually every other developed country collectively agrees is the fucking minimum needed in order to live reasonable existence.

Permanently Deleted

There are definitely countries (like France and Germany) that do reparation better (blame the museum act). but it's not like we have never returned anything ever 😂

Wasn't this just a giant advert for chupa chups or something?

I regularly say how nice France would be if it wasn't full of French people 😂

I can't believe this is 16 years old you've completey ruined my evening

I just love everything about this whole thing.

I love the game itself, what an incredible feat.

I love how almost naively passionate and nerdy the folks at Larian are.

I love how aside from a few AAA game developers trying to tell everyone that this masterpiece shouldn't set the new standard for RPGs (LOL) Everyone else just seems so happy these maniacs have actually pulled it off.

I love the freedom this game offers. So many permutations, over 170 hrs of cinematics, most of which the average player will never see. All so that the world can feel almost as limitless as the tabletop D&D. There were no shortcuts to this goal. I'm sure the tech is great, but fundamentally, this wasn't about clever technology, which can only do so much. It was about the herculean effort of 400+ people making content for over 6 years in some of the most indulgent over-engineering I've ever seen in a AAA title.

They could have rolled out the EA Act I a few years ago and it still would have been better than most RPGs out there. Instead, we get an Act I with 33% more content and 2 entirely new acts.

Got two kids under 4 and a demanding job so no idea when I'll get to play even. But I'm just so happy something like this has happened in this shitty, cynical industry.

I mean I don't watch "normal" TV either but I can see the potential appeal.

Most TV is just trash and a waste of time anyway so for some I guess the feeling of connection is more important than the particular content.

Take Saturday night telly for example. There's a really long street near me full of kinda posh-looking terrace houses and the living rooms are really easy to see into, especially at dusk before the curtains get closed.

Sometimes I walk down the road on a Saturday night and you see such a diverse range of people from families to young couples to old people sat with a blanket on their own all watching the same program which there's something quite nice about I think. Likewise with things like Strictly, Bake-off etc people seem to enjoy watching the episodes at the same time so they can discuss with their friends/on social media.

I don't watch sports either but I'm in a WhatsApp group with some friends and every now and again a message will just randomly appear saying something like "shit effort" and I know there must be a football game on. It's kinda nice that they can just assume the others are watching.

Basically I think when you're watching for entertainment, being able to curate your experience more is really great, but there's a social dimension to scheduled telly that I think some might still appreciate.

Catppuccin theme if anyone is interested:

{
"monet_override_light_secondary_text_color" : "#6COF85",
"monet_override_light_primary_text_color" : "#4C4F69", 
"monet_override_light_link_color" : "#1E66F5",
"monet_boost_light_color" : true, 
"monet_override_dark_secondary_text_color" : "#A6ADC8",
"monet_override_dark_primary_text_color" : "#CDD6F4",
"monet_override_dark_link_color" : "#89B4FA",
"monet_boost_dark_color": true, 
"monet_color_intensity": 1,
"monet_manual_theme_color" : "#1E1E2E",
"monet_system": false
}

Account just over 10 years, lurker for even longer. Don't really use it anymore except when following links etc

I'm about half way through The Fall of Hyperion. It's great

Oh hi, I don't know any other people like me IRL and never thought to seek out an online community till I joined Lemmy.

Gets significantly less shit (or at least less messy) as you get older doesn't it? 🙂

Everything has a model. Ours just have a significantly higher degree of complexity due to the higher dimensionality of our neural "networks" and our gestalt learning.

We also don't seem to benefit from neurological canalisation as much as neuro typical people do so we start waaaaay behind everyone else.

But over time, maybe late 20s was when it finally felt like I was catching up/caught up in a lot social/interpersonal things. So what you're saying really resonates.

Hell of a journey huh

I had to stop playing it because of the faux "British" accent. It goes right through me. Feels like such a stupid thing to be put off by but it's just so jarringly unnatural, it's horribly off-putting.

The way he says "mate".. omg

I remember looking up who did the voice for Zagreus or whatever his name is, and the dude is clearly one of the big dicks at Supergiant. Think he played some major part in the sound design for Bastion or something. Can't remember.

Anyway, I get the feeling he is senior enough when it comes to sound stuff that he was basically able to decide he would be the voice of the MC and then proceeded to go full Dick Van Dyke without people feeling able to criticize it.

Don't know if it's because I'm from the UK that I find it so uncanny and awful, or if it's just me in particular but it's probably the most random thing that's ever completely ruined a (otherwise great) game for me