Month: December 2019

Flat Affect

Chill Uncategorized

A few days ago, even, I would’ve said that’s hyperbole. However, I’ve been in a few places in the past few weeks where I’ve seen many, many people who were so fat they literally had trouble walking. Like, severe mobility issues.

And they were young! No more than 30-35 or so. One woman I saw could barely shuffle she was so large, with severe Genu valgum, and incredibly supinated ankles. I felt really bad for her but also wondered just how there are so many people like that. It just shouldn’t be that way, no matter the etiologies.

Real Self-Defense

Chill Uncategorized

If you don’t want to carry mace or pepper spray and don’t feel comfortable in direct hand-to-hand fighting, an expandable baton like this is a good weapon that is legal most everywhere in the US and fairly easy to conceal.

Batons are extremely effective (there’s a good reason police use them) and often just the sight of it will dissuade attackers.* We got some training in similar batons to this in the army, but if you’re a civilian with no training I’d recommend kendo classes. The techniques learned there will apply to the use of the baton.

Like any weapon, though, you should never pull it out unless you intend to use it right then.

A weapon == huge escalation. That’s the most important lesson to learn about any weapon, really.

*Please see my caveat, though, about how a weapon in sight is an escalation and you shouldn’t pull it out unless you intend to use it. Ideally your attackers will then decamp. If not, it’s time to start thwacking.

Doomed To Repeat

Chill Regular-ass Post

Army Facebook post featuring Nazi war criminal sparks pushback.

This is something I’ve noticed recently — that any depiction of any negative part of the past, no matter its intent or relevance, sparks a backlash just for being mentioned at all. It’s wokesterism infecting everything, and it prevents any lessons of the past from being transmitted to the future. Too many people would just prefer that we forget it all, redact it, as if that will help anything at all.

It’s congruent with the belief that everything should be “cancelled” if it didn’t agree with the latest cultural and social justice fashions and obsessions of the last 15 minutes.

Copy Copy

Chill Regular-ass Post

Someone else figured out one of my tricks! Cool. It’s a really great one.

It’s caused more than one person to say to me, “We have SMB completely blocked, as well as all copy and paste functionality. So how did you move those files from that server to the other server?”

But I hope not too many people find out about it because I use it to do things people think I shouldn’t (but need for my job) all the time.

Pass Up

Chill Regular-ass Post

All that was always crap anyway, and when I pushed back against it during the past 10 years at places I’ve worked, have been told that I was wrong and doing anything that actually made sense would be insecure.

But I was right; just most people want to be told what to think by “experts,” even when the experts are really not.

I always said that users would just write their passwords down and put them under their keyboards or in their desk drawers, which is exactly what happens. Passwords are terrible, anyway, but all the alternatives are also pretty bad. We’ll be stuck with them for a while. However, combined with MFA they can be made pretty secure.

Fabricated

Chill Regular-ass Post

So many propaganda victims in the US. Here’s a former propaganda generator telling you why most of what most Americans believe about health care is in fact sponsored lies.

Square Wheel

Chill Regular-ass Post

Especially since nearly all of that tech is absolute garbage anyway. It’s reinventing the wheel, and doing so poorly. Why bother with most of it? It’ll be different in five years. Keep learning the fundamentals and don’t let your skills slip, but don’t jump into every new shiny.

Gene Pool High Dive

Chill Uncategorized

People deny all things genetic because of how often genetic ideas have been misused. Their position is understandable but does more harm than good. The truth matters, even if it’s dangerous.

For the same reason, many/most scientists will claim with a straight face that if distributions have overlap, then they are magically the same. Why believe something so bizarre? See above. Because of the misuse of genetics and race “science” and the pushback against that misappropriation of science, that justified rebellion infected the entire discourse and led to scientists declaring distributional overlap means that two populations etc. are really identical. It’s absolutely insane but you can see how it developed and persisted.

Nouscape

Chill Uncategorized

Great, short thread. She’s right and Ian Welsh is wrong about the “internet didn’t change anything” supposition. First, it’s too soon to completely know what the internet changed, though it’s obvious a great deal has been altered cognitively and socially. Second, how likely is that we accelerate communication and information availability by thousands of times and nothing changes? When has that never changed society? All the time is how often that has never happened.

It’s like saying that radio and television had no consequences, changed nothing. It’s just prima facie absurd.

This Guy

Chill Regular-ass Post

I like this guy. I also take this sort of thing as compliment.

Yep, there are no excuses now. Just because you don’t know how to find valid information is on you. Compared to the days I’d struggle to find what I needed or wanted to learn, right now is paradisiacal.

I mean this as insultingly and patronizingly as possible, but I am constantly surprised by how little people know. Like, it’s not hard! There’s a whole world of information out there. Get you some learning. Damn. The time for excuses and ignorance is over. If you’re a dumbass now, it’s all on you.

Fashion

Chill Regular-ass Post

I tried to make my fashion choices less boring and it’s nearly impssible for a man. Either the non-humdrum choices are absurdly expensive or are available in a really narrow range of sizes (and often both). Typically, though, there are just no choices at all.

Additionally, you are penalized in my field for dressing fashionably. This is true of both women and men.

If I were transformed into a woman tomorrow I’d go to the nearest shopping center and revel in the greater variety of choices I have. It’s literally the first thing I’d do. (Yes, I recognize there are disadvantages to women’s fashion, too. But it’s hard to deny the absolutely greater number of choices and styles and templates.)