serpentor · HackerTrans

vor 11 Jahrendiscuss

Because they are angry people.

Angry!

vor 11 Jahrendiscuss

  But the precise identity of these substances 
  is often unknown to researchers and printer 
  users because the printer manufacturers don’t 
  disclose this information.

That's not entirely honest. That statement conflates the idea that there is no information available to end users, detailing how 3D printing technology works, when the truth is that the information is out there, and most of the materials involved in consumer-grade plastic 3D printing kind of HAVE TO BE well-understood from a chemical perspective in order for the printers to be designed around them.

FormLabs does publish material safety data sheets:

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0183/2285/files/MSDS_v7.pdf

So does Stratsys:

http://m.stratasys.com/ig8del/lnk000/=usglobalimages.stratas...

The larger companies DEFINITELY force you into using THEIR proprietary plastics, when open-source printers permit the use of commodity ABS or PLA.

ABS - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylonitrile_butadiene_styren...

PLA - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polylactic_acid

But, realistically speaking, just based on the fact that it's possible to cobble together open-source 3D printers from commodity parts and commodity expendable plastic, should inform the reader that the materials used by 3D printers are not so mysterious. In most cases the materials are acrylic/styrene based polymers, and not so exotic that they haven't been used for decades. Whether they've EVER been safe is another question altogether.

The article neglects and glosses over these details.

serpentor

vor 11 Jahrendiscuss

So I guess the disk platters used a glass substrate, coated in a layer of magnetic medium?

serpentor

vor 11 Jahrendiscuss

But, of course, no one questions the possibility of, like, you know, not letting kids use cell phones in school. Or maybe not letting kids use any form of digital camera, at all, ever? Is that actually impossible? Or just unreasonable?

Or, like, what if the reality is that taking a picture of your own nude body is not actually a crime? What if images of human nudity simply weren't criminalized?

A bridge too far?

serpentor

vor 11 Jahrendiscuss

  2. Cooking is easy and enjoyable

Okay, but what about washing dishes, and waiting in line at the grocery store, and taking out the garbage, and cleaning the refrigerator, and wasting food when you accidentally burn dinner, and when the recipe is bad, and when you botch the ingredients. And so on, and so on, and so on.

serpentor

vor 11 Jahrendiscuss

...not to mention that in most cases, Johnny doesn't even really know what encryption is, let alone believe he's capable of it.

Try asking someone to encrypt something, anything before sending it. The looks you'll get range from sideways or merely confused to fearful and panicked, to are you fucking kidding me?

serpentor

vor 11 Jahrendiscuss

I dunno. Technicalities of vertical envelopment aside, once something is surrounded it's usually considered ceded to those who have it surrounded.

An inability to defend, contrasted with an unlikely target to be attacked, leaves you with ease of access as a defining quality of possession.

serpentor

vor 11 Jahrendiscuss

The common definition of a duel is: FIGHT TO THE DEATH. Typically with weapons, not limited to pistols, and pre-dating pistols, swords were used.

And the above cited law states that it's illegal to CHALLENGE someone to a duel OR ACCEPT SUCH CHALLENGES. Probably because it's interchangable with threatening to murder someone. Note that the provided law doesn't mention the actual fighting OF a duel.

serpentor

vor 11 Jahrendiscuss

Uh, sort of, yes.

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

http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showfl...

You'll probably want a degree of comraderie in a fight, otherwise you might be gambling with your larynx or maybe some other valuable vital organ.

serpentor

vor 11 Jahrendiscuss

The funny thing about depictions of ISIS' areas of operation and control on maps provided by, say... The New York Times, is that they're always shown as wispy red tendrils curling along main highways and around towns, and that level of spin is a bit silly.

The point being that there's some sort of psychological effort being made, to assert that while all the main roads are under control, and all the main roads certainly surround much larger areas, ISIS only controls the first 25 feet outside of the roadway, as if it's bound by some sort of municipal Iraqi or Syrian zoning ordinance.

serpentor

vor 11 Jahrendiscuss

Okay, so at 30 frames per second, 500 seconds of animation, so... less than 10 minutes?

serpentor

vor 11 Jahrendiscuss

I'm complaining about his beating around the bush, not a reading comprehension thing. I like to know where the author stands on the topic at the outset, otherwise the article feels dishonest.

For example:

  I think there are a lot of people lying to 
  themselves and others about their own 
  ancestry.

Compared to:

  Isn't it interesting that so many people feel 
  compelled to form opinions about how we might 
  notice that there are statistical variances,
  when comparing observable heritage, as 
  compared to reported heritage? I wonder why 
  that would be? Some might say these are 
  alleged fabrications, but then again this 
  could all be very innocent.

serpentor

vor 11 Jahrendiscuss

Yikes! I thought NYC was bad.

...and yeah, I was thinking more in terms of national averages, not specific metropolitan areas.

serpentor

vor 11 Jahrendiscuss

God damn it. That guy needs to learn to spell out certain key points, when writing an article. Maybe he'll consider bouncing his material off an editor from time to time.

  I’ve long ceased questioning students about the specifics 
  of their claims. Their imagined genealogies may simply be 
  a product of family lore, or, as is occasionally the 
  case, a genuine connection to a Cherokee family and 
  community.

  ... help explain why the Cherokees occupy a prominent place 
  in our collective historical consciousness.

  ... why so many Americans hope to find a Cherokee in their family tree.

He doesn't come right out and say it, for whatever reason, but the thrust of the article is that such claims are dubious, tall tales.

He needs to add at least one sentence clarifying that he believes most, if not all such claims to be full of shit, and pants-on-head silly, or just plain college student shenanigans.

His article would further benefit from a line or three stating plainly that:

1. The Cherokee possess the most popular of all Native American tribal names. People who are lying tend to craft their lies around well-known popular things, especially when a well-known thing might be THE ONLY thing they can remember in a subject area.

2. The Cherokee nation possesses a sympathetic tale as part of the fabric of their historical background. This benefits liars, because it's more difficult to accuse lies upon a person courting sympathy. You better be sure of your accusation, or you'll seem to be a villain amongst the liar's audience.

3. The Cherokee actually DO have a REAL diaspora of actual credible descendents, larger in size than most other nations. This contributes to a knock-on effect that ties into reason number one, there are more actual Cherokees floating around, thus they are more well-known, and thus remain the go-to Indian name for people who might craft lies to embellish their heritage in casual conversation.

These are the main points I'm gathering from the author's article, although he kind of couches his words in oblique assumptions about the reader.

Maybe he's worried about catching heat over proposing these sorts of ideas.

serpentor

vor 11 Jahrendiscuss

$75,000 isn't market wages for a developer?

serpentor

vor 11 Jahrendiscuss

Another key point: My contrarian remarks aren't made in such ways that would result in getting flagged to death or hellbanned. My goal is discussion, not shock value or being incendiary for the sake of receiving negative attention. Some things need to be said, and I'll be happy to oblige if no one else will.

serpentor

vor 11 Jahrendiscuss

Fun fact: I find downvoting to be a completely worthless feature of this site for all of the reasons you've listed and more!

I find it useless to be in possession of the capacity to downvote, as well as the recipient of downvotes from others. This has provoked me to adopt enhanced counter strategies with the full awareness that my behavior is both unorthodox, and contrarian to the culture and preferred/espoused norms/mores of this site as a whole.

In particular, I've noticed that one contrarian comment, which directly contradicts a parent, and indeed violates the typical cultural views of the site as a whole, while remaining on-topic, maintaining valid points, and supporting evidence, receives way more attentive mileage, than any downvote. This is usually because those with vested interests in expressing a typical norm struggle deeply to contradict sound evidence and factual observations.

So, I've stopped maintaining normal accounts, stopped using accounts that have the ability to downvote, stopped downvoting, and instead downvote with words that actually explain my motivations for what would be a downvote, if I were the sort of person to actually resort to petty downvoting.

Instead of pining for the "privilege" of downvoting my peers, I simply unspool evermore single-use accounts and tell people exactly why I disagree with them, point-blank, and never look back, or care about the superficial shade of text coloring my comment, nor the meaningless negative number in a point system on an account that will never be used again.

Downvoters are really only silencing themselves, by refusing to go out on a limb and risk downvotes themselves, rather than express disagreement.

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