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Cake day: June 23rd, 2023

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  • The Australian Bearypus, however, is a critical fail ecologically and economically.

    In nature, the 3 lb (1.5ish kg) critter has a snout with grinding plates, claw-less paws, a wide tail and is covered in a thick layer of white fur. Although capable of swimming, the fur traps too much air, so they float like balloons on the water. They require a very cool environment, and a steady supply of easily huntable and crushable prey. This makes them poorly suited for icy (prey availability), wet (floating), warm (fur) and temperate environments (coloration).

    Commercially - no one wants to ask the pet shop for a bearypus.



  • Monument@lemmy.sdf.orgtomemes@lemmy.worldBased muslim child
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    26 days ago

    I knew a guy who - about 20 years ago, slept with both women in a lesbian relationship. As in - they cheated on each other with him. And somehow they formed a workable triad out of that that was pretty darn stable for like 10 years. Until he got caught cheating on them (after months, apparently) with someone in their social group - a younger, monogamous, ‘party girl’-type woman.
    He didn’t want to break up with anyone, and all of them refused to ‘give up’ so now (10 years after cheating) he has two relationships - the triad, the “new” one, two houses, and now a kid with each woman.

    He looks and acts sort of like a grown up version of Max from A Goofy Movie (Goofy’s son), is still ‘fixing’ the muscle car he bought in his college years, and has a 99% complete collection of every edition of Playboy magazine.

    But to answer your question of what a guy with 3 (or more) wives should look like? Bill Paxton, circa 2011.







  • I guess I’m going to complain about work to strangers now.

    Yesterday a colleague in another area of the organization emailed me about something that is a matter of legal concern within our purview, but not directly within our scope that they had only accidentally learned about. Seeing the project, the names of the players, and knowing their dispositions and general quality of work, as well as the importance of what they were fucking with, I responded, looping in all the possible stakeholders, explaining the concern, and requesting input. The Director of the area that initiated the changes responded with a long email that basically said they weren’t going to consider any concerns other than their own - not even legal compliance that didn’t impact the nuts and bolts of the work they do - despite my offer to facilitate the compliance and policymaking that needs to happen.
    Privately, I messaged my boss, and the colleague who brought the issue to me - a manager - to say that I think the response was not considerate of the broader organizational needs and that we needed to probably intervene more directly, given the severity of the situation that’s brewing.
    My boss: Well, if they don’t want to do it that way, they don’t want to do it that way.

    Motherfucker. I am the responsible party. If their stupid fucking project gets us sued, this shit falls on my lap. I’m telling you, they can say what they want, but the buck stops with me.

    But no. Let’s just shrug and claim helplessness because it’s not in the vibe to tell someone they are stepping on my toes. Zero fucking responsibility. No wonder I’m constantly teetering on the brink of burnout.



  • I don’t disagree that there is a strategy of downplaying not just Biden’s, but every politician’s health conditions.

    I used to have this absolutely incredible writing professor, who, at 85, told us on the first day of class that he was dying, and had been for 4 years. He even had a blog about his reflections on mortality that he invited us to read. He had prostate cancer. I don’t remember the details, but they couldn’t operate to remove it or do chemo, but it was the kind that is hormone sensitive. They gave him a drug that destroyed his body’s ability to produce testosterone, so the cancer just stopped growing. He died at 90 - 9 years after his diagnosis. 10% extra life for him.

    No two people and prognosis’ are alike but the possibility exists they might be telling the truth about managing it.


  • I know of an organization attached to a prestigious university that solely exists because at the end of some billionaire’s life, he decided he wanted to chuck some cash into a foundation to try to burnish his image.

    But he was so morally corrupt that his version of helping others was to mandate that the foundation focus on “helping” people in developing countries find business opportunities.
    Read: they assess how people and environments can be exploited for capitalism while focusing on telling stories about how that exploitation improved the quality of life for people there.
    Most of the professors who work with the foundation are very wealthy from their non-academic pursuits.


  • Not only do I have an increased range of motion, but I (very recently learned) that an old injury is causing spinal stenosis – my spinal canal is narrowing due to bone overgrowth on my vertebrae. (Car accident. I was rear ended.)

    About 20 years ago a chiropractor popped my neck by twisting it, and it so freaked him out that he leapt back from the table and did the heebie jeebie dance.
    He told me to never let a chiropractor pop my neck by twisting it ever again.
    Reasonably certain I could kill myself showing off doing yoga, like in that Dead Like Me episode.



  • I mean, everyone is already fucked, and that’s what keeps everyone else in check.

    Russia has made great efforts to hack municipal systems all over the world, and may actually have some control over Microsoft systems, owing to that credential hack last year that Microsoft still hasn’t confirmed is contained. (Recent Russian hacking campaigns are using malicious signed MSI files, so my bet is no…)

    China has all that communication equipment everywhere, with rumors swirling that it’s intentionally compromised. There’s also Tuya, a massive IOT company that produces its own products and also white label products. And there’s all the EV power inverters that can be hacked and used as a botnet to destroy electrical grids. Not that they need to, because apparently they can shut down the U.S. power grid remotely. And who knows what they’ve managed to do with the U.S.’s backdoor access into telecom systems.

    The U.S. has its own devices, hacking, and infiltration efforts, although as a U.S. citizen, my awareness of them is decreased due to U.S. media.

    But my core point is that there’s basically a digital Cold War happening. And the U.S. is all but surrendering, making successful surveillance, hacking, and sabotage campaigns more likely.
    If a situation goes hot at the same time that large parts of U.S. see poisonings or health issues en masse due to tampering with water supply chemical or filtration systems or even the possible destruction of drinking water systems, the explosion of natural gas lines as C&C systems over pressurize domestic lines, followed by a prolonged grid-wide electrical outage, the U.S. will have basically no ability to do anything but focus on domestic issues.




  • I also see this as a move that increases U.S. isolationism. It will trigger reciprocal tariffs, and those will both bolster non-U.S. media production, but harm the U.S. film industry.

    One of the U.S.’s greatest exports is its culture. Perhaps not great in a moral or any other objective measure, but the media the U.S. creates is one of its greatest sources of influence (read: soft power) in the world.

    Isolating media and giving other nations room to grow is, well, fair play to them, but an unforced error. Another step in the direction of failed statehood.



  • Also, autoplaying videos that pop up in the lower corner of your screen. It has a clear, easy to click “X” button to close, but every 100 px you scroll triggers a re-check of the video window to ensure it’s still open and playing. If it’s been closed or stopped, the pop up window respawns and/or the video restarts.