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kersploosh

@kersploosh@sh.itjust.works

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kersploosh , (edited )
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In case anyone forgot, Rittenhouse went to a protest with a loaded rifle looking for a fight, shot two three people, walked away untouched, was acquitted, and got speaking gigs on conservative TV shows. You can do whatever you want as long as you're on the "right" side.

US Senate advances war powers resolution to stop Trump from taking further military action in Venezuela ( www.theguardian.com )

The US Senate on Thursday advanced a bipartisan war powers resolution to prevent Donald Trump from taking further military actions against Venezuela, after he ordered a weekend raid to capture that country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, without giving Congress advance notice....

kersploosh ,
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That resolution was kneecapped by the Authorization for Use of Military Force after 9/11. Multiple presidents have treated it as a blank check to execute military actions around the world without congressional approval. Just call the targets "terrorists" (or "narco terrorists" now) and do anything without repercussions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_of_2001

kersploosh ,
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It would be a (small) step in the right direction if it had any chance of becoming law. It's a non-starter in the House, and Trump certainly wouldn't sign it either.

kersploosh ,
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kersploosh ,
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kersploosh ,
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superbowl@lemmy.world icon Superbowl is indeed superb!

kersploosh ,
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"Can't we get Mongolian BBQ?"

"We have Mongolian BBQ at home."

kersploosh ,
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Slonkin fat doinks?

kersploosh ,
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Got a little rust on there. Should have gotten the Trucoat.

https://y.yarn.co/e31d88ee-5afa-4b5e-a426-6b3262b3ac56_text.gif

kersploosh , (edited )
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Even as a white guy with citizenship, coming back into the US was a pain in the ass 10 and 20 years ago. And my friends with student visas and green cards were occasionally hassled for no clear reasons. I can't imagine how stressful that experience would be now, especially for anyone without a US passport or who lands on the wrong end of the color card in that Peter Griffin meme.

kersploosh ,
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kersploosh ,
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So long, Denny's. Soon you will be gutted and sold for scrap, and your name will be added to the list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_equity_owned_companies_that_have_filed_for_bankruptcy

kersploosh ,
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This is how it starts. Denny's is slowly dying. Its revenue in 2025 is half what it was 20 years ago. Denny's is trying to stop the bleeding by scaling back, but it's too little too late. Private equity smells blood in the water. This will end just like Toys R Us, Sears, and so many others.

kersploosh ,
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I used to hate Illinois Nazis. I still do, but I used to, too.

kersploosh ,
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That's a rad-ish horse.

kersploosh ,
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kersploosh ,
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I have been enjoying sparkling water flavored with hops. It's distinctly different from non-alcoholic beer, and much better IMO.

Unsweetened iced tea and cold brew coffee are also standards in my kitchen during summer. My significant other likes kombucha enough to make it at home sometimes, but I never liked the stuff myself.

kersploosh ,
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Articles of Interest. It's nominally a fashion podcast, but they tie it into lots of other topics: history, culture, identity, religion...

Why do you need, want and/or have a gun/guns?

If you don't, no need to reply telling me you don't. I live in the woods with some critters. I live pretty far from neighbors/police so having a gun gives me peace of mind. I also hunt and consider myself a gun hobbiest. I enjoy shooting targets, cleaning/organizing, reloading and earning food with guns.

kersploosh ,
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clubs here are filled with MAGAs and plastered with Republican propaganda so I don't feel as welcome as I used to.

As a kid, my dad and I occasionally went to the local gun show just to look around at interesting stuff. The collectors selling antiques, fancy custom pieces, and guns with historical interest were always fun to chat with. But at some point it turned into crazy town. I don't go to those events anymore.

kersploosh ,
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IANAL, but my understanding is this is how laws are challenged in the US. A plaintiff cannot file suit against the legislature, or the government in general, to challenge a law. A plaintiff needs to sue an individual within the government who has enforced the law, and then demonstrate that the enforcement of said law has caused the plaintiff harm. In this case the law will be enforced by Newsome or someone within his administration like the Secretary of State.

I learned this when Texas passed their anti-abortion law in 2021 (S.B. 8). Rather than having government officials enforce that law, the state offloaded enforcement to private citizens by paying them cash rewards for successfully suing alleged abortion providers. Since state officials are not doing the enforcing they are not directly causing harm to any potential plaintiffs. There's nobody in the state government you can sue to initiate a challenge to the law.

kersploosh ,
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That's actually a big improvement. Still an ugly vehicle, but at least this version has better character.

kersploosh ,
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ಠ_ಠ

kersploosh ,
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I always assumed the translators were simply doing a heroic job. Getting puns and wordplay to work across languages is hard. I would not be surprised if some jokes had to be significantly changed for different languages or countries.

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/65e5bd87-e486-4d9b-bf5d-8283e6a25149.jpeg

kersploosh ,
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Oooo, that's a neat site!

kersploosh , (edited )
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Pile the snow into a big mound, pack it down, then hollow out the middle. Camping overnight is optional.

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/ef5ddcae-bad3-47d6-beae-ea1a31442859.jpeg

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/44c322cd-f8ed-4d73-993f-399faecaeac9.jpeg

kersploosh ,
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Thanks! This has become a January tradition with my kids. We are trying a different winter camp location in 2026, and I really hope there will be enough snow to do this again!

kersploosh , (edited )
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1: Skavau is right.

2, 7, 8: What's the goal here? Is Reddit the gold standard we're aiming for? I'm not convinced Lemmy needs millions of daily active users to keep a plethora of niche communities active, and to store a massive backlog for posterity. It's fine if Lemmy is smaller and narrower in scope.

3: Reddit has duplicate/overlapping communities, too. I'm not sure how to avoid this without either (a) top-down control of community creation by admins, or (b) constant pruning of communities by admins. Neither are desirable, IMO.

4, 5, somewhat 7: Adjust expectations to reality, and appreciate what we have. Lemmy isn't Reddit 2.0 and it never will be. There isn't big venture capital money sloshing around. But Lemmy has come along way without it. Hundreds of instances hum along reliably, day-in and day-out. There are surprisingly good browser UI's (look at Photon/Tesseract/Alexandrite) mobile apps. Not bad for an open-source project that runs on volunteer time and user donations!

6: The complaint about moderation tools is legit. I really want a better reports queue, among other things. But I don't have the time and energy to contribute code, so I wait patiently.

Should I go back to college/university?

I'm been thinking a lot about my future lately and I've come to the conclusion that I've had it with blue collar work. I want more out of life than living paycheck to paycheck. For sometime now, I've been hearing that college degrees are worthless nowadays so thought about getting Comptia certifications (A+ and then Sec+) and...

kersploosh ,
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Getting an engineering degree is generally a good thing. Demand and pay tend to be above average. A certificate can be helpful, but I have watched people hit a "paper ceiling" in their careers; people stuck with the title of "designer" doing an engineer's work without an engineering degree, and never getting an engineer's salary for it.

Whether a bachelor's degree is beneficial for you personally will depend on a lot of things, not all of which are within your control. 20 years ago a BS in computer science was a golden ticket. Now the industry has shifted and the job placement rates for new CS grads are awful. It's hard to predict the future.

I agree with the other commenter that going to university is good for the whole self. I was exposed to people, ideas, and experiences that I would never have encountered elsewhere. That alone made the effort worthwhile.

kersploosh ,
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Wrong community. You need to ask in !perchance@lemmy.world

kersploosh ,
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Why do we even have this lever truck?

kersploosh ,
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I still remember a Burger King with smoking and non-smoking seating areas. As if anything ever kept the smoke on the smoking side of the room.

kersploosh , (edited )
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They are all in medical or medical-adjacent careers: nursing, radiology, pharmaceutical R&D, medical device R&D, etc. These fields seem to attract empathetic people who want to do good.

kersploosh ,
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Maybe related to the Sunshine Act? The intent of the law is to prevent companies from bribing doctors to use their products or drugs. I have seen companies extend it to other employees to be extra cautious.

kersploosh ,
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kersploosh ,
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The top 10% of the population holds ~67% of the national wealth.

The bottom 50% of the population holds ~3%.

It makes sense that the people with money will be the ones spending money.

kersploosh ,
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Good on Arizona. Now we only need Vanderbilt and UT Austin to speak up.
Vanderbilt has been wishy-washy about their position.
Texas, of course, expressed almost immediate interest in signing up. Bastards.

As an aside, does anyone know why the administration chose these 9 particular colleges to begin with? I don't see an obvious theme here. They easily could have chosen schools in more conservative areas, or schools which receive more federal research money.

Brown University
Dartmouth College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of Arizona
University of Pennsylvania
University of Southern California
University of Texas at Austin
University of Virginia
Vanderbilt University

kersploosh ,
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AFAIK, UT Austin has not officially accepted, but I read that they expressed early interest. I do not know the specifics though. Maybe they will be swayed by the other schools' actions. I'm sure a targeted demonstration would be a good idea.

kersploosh ,
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kersploosh ,
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A picture of the flag, from Politico:

spoiler

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/66385ffe-4f8c-4e6d-9a3f-dd91c9b6483c.webp

It wasn't exactly hidden.

kersploosh , (edited )
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Sure, there is room for reasonable doubt. It may have been a staffer who put it up, or even a visitor to the office who pinned it up as a grim prank or to frame the congressman. But this guy's party is currently championing mass arrest, imprisonment, and deportation of thousands of people with no due process, so my willingness to give him any benefit of the doubt is long gone.

Seeking a Comprehensive List of ActivityPub Platforms Sorted by Total Monthly Active Users

I'm looking for an up-to-date, comprehensive list of all ActivityPub federated platforms, sorted by the total number of monthly active users across all instances. Similar to Fediverse Observer’s list but for platforms instead of instances using the platform. Does anyone know of one?

kersploosh ,
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https://fedidb.com/software

"By platform" is a fuzzy request given the interoperable nature of the fediverse. This list is broken up by software, so Lemmy/PieFed/mbin are listed separately even though their users share and interact as if they were all on one platform.

kersploosh , (edited )
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Remember when Ronald Reagan said this in 1981?

government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

American conservatives grabbed onto that line and have held it as gospel ever since. Kneecapping the government has been a major goal of theirs for over four decades now. You will sometimes hear people talk about "bleeding the beast": taking all the government benefits they can get their hands on and then dodging taxes, with the assumption they are helping to slowly kill the system. Unfortunately, there is no plan (AFAIK) for what they want the world to look like after the collapse.

Have you ever traveled outside of America? (Not to Canada or Mexico)

If you don't know less than 50% of Americans have a passport. The ones who don't, I really see the limitation in their thinking. They never saw that most of the world is in fact freer than them, has a better system in place for their people, and doesn't have some of the major problems that America has. I'm currently in a country...

kersploosh ,
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I have many times, and I agree that travel is a good thing. But don't be so quick to scoff at Americans who don't travel overseas. Traveling is expensive. The flight alone from my house to Frankfurt or Tokyo (for example) is at least $1,500 per person, and a day of travel each way. That's out of reach for a lot of people. Hell, it's out of reach for me now that I have a family to bring with me. The most basic, banal holiday overseas would easily exceed $10,000. Nevermind the luxury of being able to spend enough time there to understand local takes on geopolitics.

kersploosh ,
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Wouldn't it be ironic if MTG took speaker job.

Don't give them any ideas!

kersploosh ,
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The top three priorities of a true libertarian are I, Me, Mine.

All of the self-styled "libertarians" I know are simply looking for an excuse to not pay taxes.