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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 22nd, 2023

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  • Not one of those gun people, but I still support the 2nd ammendment to some extent (down to ban AR-15s and other “scary-looking” guns simply because they are often used by mall-ninja types who do mass shootings). But I think most responsible gun owners are refusing to give fascists a reason/excuse to accelerate or escalate things (for the record, none of MAGA qualify as “responsible gun owners”). I know things are terrifyingly bad right now, but guns/violence are only going to make the current situation worse faster - at least for now. We do seem to be charging full-speed into a situation where they’ll be helpful and useful, which is terrifying. But with as much as it might feel like an “easy fix” to nip things in the bud now, it’s more likely to give fascism even more power and fuel for their propaganda.



  • Wild that there’s an AI-generated summary of the article before the article, on a story about the problems with AI. Also, is it that hard to ask your writers to write a summary of their own articles? Hasn’t writing tweets (or similar microblog posts) already allowed most writers to develop the skill of writing a concise, simplified version of a story? Why are we entrusting this to AI when a human will be able to more accurately summarize their own article, and include appropriate nuance.

    Apologies for the mini crash-out that isn’t really related to the real story here. Thank you OP for sharing, and kudos to the MP for taking a stand.






  • Not saying it isn’t a bad thing, but as Hank Green pointed out recently, remember that the “weight of a credit card” is at the high end of that estimate (the 5 grams) unless you are chewing on plastic pencaps or have unusually high exposure, you probably aren’t getting that much per week. The range is really broad.

    Now if we say more than one credit card a year? That uses the low end of the range, is still troubling, and isn’t spreading misinformation that everyone is consuming a credit card worth of plastic every week.

    Not being critical of you at all, I’ve quoted that myself in the past, but just wanted to spread the awareness about this stat that I had overlooked before too. And again, I’m not saying that much microplastic exposure is less bad health-wise, just that the “credit card a week” might be a bit sensationalized.



  • Unfortunately, most bioplastics are more like 300 years, which yes, is significantly better than 300 thousand years, and with industrial compost heaters you can push those 300 years down. But I’ve also had to come to terms that my failed 3D prints will likely outlive me (although I do collect the waste to hopefully recycle someday). I don’t print that much compared to most in the hobby, but it is something I consider before I print things.

    That said, I’m not going to let perfect be the enemy of good, and the biodegradability of bioplastics is still exponentially better than petroleum plastic.







  • You would think, I have a similar intramedullary rod in my leg, and my screws also stick out. Since the screws are there to hold the rod down the inside of the bone in place, they care more about that stability than the screws being a bit long.

    I’ve been told that now that I’m healed, if the hardware is giving me problems, I can have them go in and remove it. Unfortunately, being in the US, that would probably be another 15-20 grand to have done (basically as much as I paid to have it put in when my leg was broken). So at least for now, even though I do have some hardware-related pain, it’s not bad enough for me to justify the cost.