Ah, thankyou for bearing with me, I see what you mean.

I just assumed there must be a large military office nearby and they were targeting the procurement personnel who do the actual contract and tender work, plus maybe the manufacturer headquarters is nearby and this is part of one of the more revolting symptoms of a highly militarized capitalist culture. I didn’t get quite as far as drawing the connection to targeting politicians and staffers who likely can’t put a meeting with missile sales reps on their publicly documented calendars, but that makes a lot of sense.

Help me out, the coffee isn’t working today and I still don’t get it. How does bribery fit in?

And sadder still, no friend or family can feed and house me. Economic coercion is very effective.

Even worse, this is still better treatment than when I worked state sector.

Imagine if you had to abandon your social life some years ago for the job and the only people you talk to on a daily basis are your coworkers on Slack.

Thanks for the reminder that my life is garbage, I guess. Unless you count the pleasantries I exchange with the person who makes my coffee in the morning?

I’m not employed by automattic, but this thread still cut deep with similar work culture.

For anyone else also interested, I went and had a look at the links Dessalines kindly provided.

The source on the graphs says “Sources: Daniel Cox, Survey Center on American Life; Gallup Poll Social Series; FT analysis of General Social Surveys of Korea, Germany & US and the British Election Study. US data is respondent’s stated ideology. Other countries show support for liberal and conservative parties All figures are adjusted for time trend in the overall population.” Where FT is financial times.

It’s not clear how the words “liberal” and “conservative” were chosen, whether they’re intended to mean “socially progressive” and “socially traditional” or have other connotations bound with the political parties too, and whether the original data chose those descriptions or if they’re FT’s inference as being “close enough” for an American audience.

Unfortunately the FT data site is refusing to let me look at them without “legitimate interest” advertising cookies so I can’t tell you much more or if there’s any detail on methodology.

This list puts US at ~297m English speakers which is the largest group from one single country, that is true. But 297m / 1,537m = The US has 19.35% of English speakers globally.

You are likely also greatly underestimating current internet connectivity, older smartphones have changed things for poorer countries a lot over the past decade. For example, India has only 62.6% of people as internet users - but that’s still 880m people and probably most of their 125m English speakers. Nigeria has 63.8% internet users, but that’s 136m internet users. And they also have 125m English speakers, who again, are more likely to be the people who can afford an English education, and also a smartphone. And then there’s Pakistan with another 100m English speakers and 70.8% internet users, etc.

Just 3 countries, (2 of which were 1 country 80 years ago) and you’re close to that 300 million count already.

The list also gives US as 92.4% internet users, for what it’s worth. A little less than 97% and not even in the top 20 countries by percentage, which is surprising.

The internet is less American than ever. It’s just that most non-American people probably have non-English language spaces they can choose to gather in addition to the English-dominated spaces. Americans, on the other hand, are more likely to be monolingual English speakers and so they concentrate in the English-dominated spaces.

And non-Americans are all so used to people assuming American defaultism in English-dominated internet spaces because it was historically hugely expensive to get online and was overwhelmingly American English-speaking, that it’s not even worth correcting when it happens the millionth time.

I’ve also put non-metric and US currency conversions in posts online many times. Not because I’m American or use them in daily life. It was just less annoying to convert them when writing rather than hear the inevitable multiple complaints about not understanding things in meters and dessicated jokes like “that’s probably $2 in real money”.

You’re either overestimating the accuracy of your assumptions about your online interactions and/or seeing selection bias from your immersion in otherwise culturally isolated spaces.

That has also always been my gut feel about Carmack, but it still sucks to see the evidence. I wish that gut feeling would stop being so dammed accurate, but it gets a lot of practise.

Doom was definitely christofascist fantasy porn. At least Quake you were defending invasion from the most literal manifestation of eugenicist Space-Nazis possible. Yes I am choosing to disregard the inherent US military fetishism because I don’t want to ruin my formative media which I deep down always knew was problematic.

sigh

Can I at least keep the soundtracks as pleasant and untarnished memories?

Ugh. Thanks, yeah that’s good enough for me without even opening xcancel. My search for “Tim Sweeney conservative” only dredged up his land conservation purchases and the “stop being so divisive” / “no politics in art” dogwhistles which had previously made me suspicious, but I had mostly forgotten about. I quit Twitter many years ago so I missed that whole knobslobbering saga and didn’t think to include Musk after skimming today’s shitty Google “search” results.

Ah fuck, and Carmack too? Goddamn it. Twist the knife a little harder.

Fucking tech bros, always ruining tech.

owned by a right-wing asshole

Wait, what? Can I get some info or even just the right search terms to force Google to give me useful info? I know he’s done the eye-roll-worthy “no politics in my artform” bullshit but if there’s more I’ve missed, I’m keen to know.

List of sources quoted in this list of "push back:

• A group called “Republicans against Trump” which seems to just be this twitter account with a buymeacoffee link which posted “Republicans could choose this man to represent them, instead they preferred a corrupt racist buffoon with no morals. The party deserves a humiliating defeat in 2020.” In May 2020, making me suspect they’re not actually Republican or possibly a group at all.
• “A Republican accountability group called American Bridge 21st Century” which is described on Wikipedia as “a liberal American Super PAC that supports Democratic candidates and opposes Republican candidates.”.
• The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations
• A “popular liberal commentator”
• A Democratic Representative
• The White House political director

So if you were hoping for actual consequences from his base or even just someone new and noteworthy criticizing him, this is not the article for you. I’m glad the Trade Unions are going to spread the word though, that will be a good thing.

Guy

Not cool, please don’t.

you stated that we don’t need to have ventilators in closed rooms

When you’re alone, in your own apartment, with a closed door, yeah. That’s why lockdowns were effective at preventing transmission. I also said ventilation was necessary when in rooms with other people, especially when you can’t distance.

I have better things to do than listen to you pretend that you didn’t say something that’s factually incorrect.

I corrected myself to be more specific when I realised I hadn’t been clear enough, and I backed up the specifics with science. I’m sorry that you feel that isn’t sufficient. Feel free to do the things, I’m out.

I’m upset that you’re ignoring the science, even the science you provided. The comments are whatever, which is why I suggested reconsidering the definitions of the terms for future actions instead of reinstating the comments.

Water droplets, or, if you prefer, respiratory droplets, or even aerosols, is how COVID travels through the air and settles on objects. That’s what the link you gave me explicitly says, and it is what I said. It does not waft around without that medium, to suggest it does is factually incorrect and not backed by any science.

From the link you gave me, emphasis mine:

First, larger respiratory droplets that rapidly settle onto surfaces, typically within 1–2 meters of the source, are amenable to hand hygiene, social distancing, and face masks. Second, albeit with more limited direct evidence, is aerosolization and spread of smaller respiratory droplets, or droplet nuclei, primarily <0.5 micrometers in final size, capable of staying suspended in air for hours and requiring filtering or ventilation for interdiction (2–4).

This is the same thing as what I said. Complete with caveat that you need to mask, wash your hands and not touch stuff. I get being cautious but… you’ve removed a comment which said the same thing as your correction, including choice of word.

Annex C: Respiratory droplets from Atkinson J, Chartier Y, Pessoa-Silva CL, et al., editors. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2009.

Additionally, the definition of an aerosol is a suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in air or another gas.

I’m fine with leaving the comments gone, but in the interests of good intentions and being mostly right, I think it’s worth reconsidering the aerosol/droplet reasoning for future mod actions.

Removed by mod

Still debated, probably not a significant vector, but definitely possible: Lin, N., Zhang, B., Shi, R. et al. Decay pattern of SARS-CoV-2 RNA surface contamination in real residences. Sci Rep 14, 6190 (2024).

Key quote from conclusion:

The environmental contamination of object surfaces by SARS-CoV-2 RNA in residences of COVID-19 patients is low, but cross-contamination caused by water taps and washing basins may have hidden transmission risks. Generally, fomite transmission played a limited role in COVID-19 spread. Even the residence was contaminated by SARS-CoV-2, it was reduced by 90% three days after the patient left.

Edited to add: I mention it mostly because where I live is a high-traffic part of the building with people constantly using the elevators and opening doors. That’s why I’m still careful about it. If I lived in a lower density place I probably wouldn’t go as hard on the “no touchy” thing.

Removed by mod

Removed by mod

Yeah, that works for me. I’ll check out some more of them. Thanks!

Borked link. Possibly unthrottled invidious version

I prefer less pop and bop in my industrial, but I am glad to see anybody else still enjoying this with the word industrial in it.

I don’t toil in the mines of the big FAANG, but this tracks with what I’ve been seeing in my mine. I also predict it will end with lay-offs and companies collapsing.

Zitron thinks a lot about the biggest companies and how it will ultimately hurt them, which is reasonable. But, I think it ironically downplays the scale of the bubble, and in turn, the impacts of it bursting.

The expeditions into OpenAI’s financials have been very educational. If I were an investigative reporter, my next move would be to look at the networks created by venture capitalists and what is happening inside the companies who share the same patrons as Open AI. I don’t say that as someone who interacts with finances, just as someone who carefully watches organizational politics.