Destiny 2 as a F2P user has been surprisingly fun. Yeah, there are paywalls, but there's at-least 60-80 hours that you can play for free with how well the game is designed. Great group PvP and PvE challenges, public group PvE challenges, and over-all gorgeous modeling. Plus the combat mechanics aren't insanely hard to learn, but they can still provide a great challenge. I had my doubts because I've heard it was a microtransaction nightmare, but turns out it's not a pay-to-play scheme like Genshin. I might even buy the expansions and unlock the rest of the game.
On the other hand, I have heard people ask that question, answered yes, and then checked my receipt later to find out that I just handed $0.57 to round out the cashier's drawer.
There are many successful and beneficial implementations of socialist policies that do more good than harm, especially outside of the US. Most government institutions in the US and abroad are fundamentally socialist in nature--and some of them work very well (especially outside the US).
While there was once some truth to what you've said, I think you're gravely over-simplifying the nature of what gives humans meaning and purpose in life. For one, it's an extremely subjective topic, but for example, what gives me meaning has very little to do with the relationship between non-action and risk. Rather, things that have meaning for me are things I enjoy doing, and things I enjoy seeing. I don't enjoy the thought of going out to hunt for food with hand-tools at the risk of hunger or death, maybe some people do--and if that gives them meaning, that's fine, but that's not how we need to live our lives.
Yes this I agree with, limits are everything. Where limits are designed is important. What I am discussing is not a program that would guarantee that everyone is capable of going out and buying a yacht. I am discussing social safety-net programs that ensure equal access to comfortable housing, enough food, good medical care, and the means to comfortably pursue a job, education, or business endeavor--and in addition, take care of those who are unable to care for themselves. At this point in our technological and social development as a species, these should be considered basics that can be guaranteed to everyone. To do this would not strip away the meaning of life, rather it would enable people to feel meaning in life and the foundation to build up greater meaning for themselves.
Some of the greatest threats to human health and life come from needs-based anxiety, and with the declining population growth rate, high degree of depression, and high rate of suicide, it's imperative that we re-frame how we think about and treat each other.
That's an interesting piece of internet history! It is within the scope of my lifetime--but I somehow was uninitiated to the cult... XD
TL;DR: Yeah, I 100% agree, if everyone had a strong safety net, we'd be much better off.
When it works it works. I mean I have met several people who've expressed a lot of sincere dissatisfaction with the VA's medical services, including limited access to mental healthcare among other things. Particularly of concern is the high degree of veterans who end up on the street--many with severe mental health issues, with some even self-medicating and/or dealing with addictions.
Of course, I'm sure there are more factors that contribute to homeless veterans than limited accessibility to medical care, mental healthcare, and other social services provided by the VA--but it is important to consider.
..and of course, as you are aware, it's better to have those social systems in-place than nothing at all. Even when run to a degree of mediocrity, socialist programs can and do tend to benefit a population. While not everyone may like the Supplemental Security Income and FAFSA programs: without them, I wouldn't be able to attend a university as a future job-seeking student.
Specifically without SSI, many who are unable to pursue a degree would end up homeless and hungry, becoming a greater burden on society. In my opinion, it's unfortunate that you have to have a disability in order to qualify for this safety-net program; as I know several people who turned to less favorable means of providing for themselves, because they were rock-bottom and didn't qualify for any programs.
So, yeah, the VA program, and many other programs in the US are great examples of both some of the harms, but also the significant positive benefits that socialist policies can have for a population. Indeed, the greatest harms done by socialist programs in the US seem to be caused by their limitations and inability to properly serve enough people. Providing a everyone access to a solid safety net would do wonders for us as a society and for our economy.
Not entirely true, I sort of jest when I make hyperbolic statements about socialism being the anti-CEO. I personally believe in mixed economies that are well regulated. I know a lot of people dismiss the successes in Norway and neighboring countries on ideas of "cultural/racial homogeneity" among other things, but they do quite well with a mixed economies.
In mixed economies, you have both the right and incentive to start a small to medium sized business; and if you become too big and ubiquitous, the government can step-in to help govern your company.
It's not a perfect solution (I'm not sure if that exists), but I think it's one of the best models we have--and a lot of the governing principles are derived from socialist criticisms of unregulated capitalism. Especially in the US I think we'd benefit from this sort of economic structure; but in-order for that to happen in a meaningful and positive way for the public, we will need electoral reform.
I use LibreOffice! Calc, Draw, and Writer are very user friendly once you get used to where the tools are. Impress is a pretty good replacement for Powerpoint: the stock graphics leave a lot to be desired--but that's a simple fix with a good stock image service. About the only thing LO doesn't do is notes, but I'd check out Xournal++ if you were looking for a way to replace OneNote. Plus, LibreOffice doesn't push OneDrive down your throat. It's been a win-win for me.
Another thing to consider if you really like typesetting is to learn LaTeX: it's a slightly steep learning curve(especially for advanced topics), but it'll do things that your typical WYSIWYG word-processing suite couldn't dream of doing. Plus there are a lot of templates available that you can adapt for your purposes.
One or two of the devs might have some strange opinions, but if one thing's for sure, they solved a bug report ticket I opened in just a single day--yeah turns out it was a simple fix, but that's a damn impressive turnaround. Just sayin'.
We do have a term for that, it's a little bit of a trigger-word for certain demographics, but the correct term is socialism.
To be fair, it sounds like poetry that an AI model would spit out after being trained on text scraped from the internet...
Thanks, that is fascinating, I'm definitely gonna check that out. No microscope yet, but it is on my list of things to obtain, although a proper HEPA filter and fan/motor will come first though, haha! Kind-of wondering if I should switch majors, but I'm already in my 400 series engineering classes--oof.
Day 4 of growing Pleurotus ostreatus cultures from spore. Only one plate got contaminated, but it was bad. There are two contaminant fungi going to battle, and around three possible bacterial colonies. I must have been losing it at the end, haha! Can't wait to see how they progress!
From the left to the right (in the attached photo): two jars of Pleurotus ostreatus spores (now mycelium) growing in grain, two jars of P. ostreatus liquid culture cloned from agar, and two jars of Pleurotus pulmonarius liquid culture cloned from agar.
I also have five agar plates I inoculated with a different collection of P. ostreatus spores, but there's no visible growth yet--so I'll leave those out.
The P. pulmonarius was cloned from a fruiting body growing on a commercial grower's spent block that was salvaged from their waste pile. It's actually a pretty happy, and fast-growing variety. It seems that it hasn't reached senescence yet.
The P. ostreatus LC was cloned from a several-generations old sample that was initially from a liquid culture bought through amazon. It hasn't performed super well--which is why I've taken it to spore in two different experiments. I may end up disposing of this LC, but I'll probably store it in the fridge while I work on isolating some new strains from the spore experiments. Hopefully I'll win the P. ostreatus lottery...
All of this is just done in a simple Still Air Box, it's just a hobby for now. Some day I want to assemble a proper lab with a FFU/LFH, but that day is not today!
Anyone else culturing anything fun?
I hope the 3D Printing community welcomes other CNC tools. This is a project I made on my custom-built laser table, utilizing "Living Hinges" aka "Torsion Lattice Hinges". They're a really neat mechanism that allows for a variety of different arrays or "lattices" of shapes that facilitate bending--and of-course these can also be created with an FDM printer as well!
This particular lattice is a simple design, cut into a 5mm plywood, and the divisions are all 2mm. Due to the length of the torsion pattern and the space between adjacent parts, the lattice featured in this box is actually quite flexible--it's capable of about 180 degrees rotation before risking damage, so for a beveled corner, it works quite well!
Another cool thing about these lattices is that they are essentially springs! My next project is going to implement a shorter lattice that instead of bending perpendicular to the lattice's plane, will act as a spring along the horizontal axis of the plane. The forces won't be torquing around the vertical columns of the lattice, but rather pressing those columns until the gaps close, so the torque will be along vectors perpendicular to the lattice plane near the thicker connecting regions.
Over all these are really useful designs, and due to the near infinite ways they can be designed, they can both deform in very unique ways, and also scatter light in very unique ways.
Hope this has inspired some of you to explore these really cool mechanisms in your own work; and if you have used these before, let me know in the comments!
Well, with Putin suddenly deciding to unveil his newest intercontinental dildos, I doubt even the orange rapey puffball could have stood against the urges of the military industrial complex. This is it folks, we're once again comparing explosive rage boners for sport, what fun!
Humans are interesting, a little disappointing, but interesting nonetheless...