ToaKraka
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User ID: 108
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1d ago
It irks me a tiny little bit that literally everyone uses the hyphen-minus (-) rather than the actual hyphen (‐), which Unicode did expend the effort to disunify.
Because of its prevalence in legacy encodings, U+002D - HYPHEN-MINUS is the most common of the dash characters used to represent a hyphen. It has ambiguous semantic value and is rendered with an average width. U+2010 ‐ HYPHEN represents the hyphen as found in words such as “left-to-right”. It is rendered with a narrow width. When typesetting text, U+2010 HYPHEN is preferred over U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS.
The Arial font doesn't even have a hyphen character!
On the other hand, though, the two characters seem visually indistinguishable—far from the significant difference between hyphen-minus (-) and minus (−).
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
2d ago
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A particular business has been operating since year 1902, first as a fruit-and-dairy farm, later as only a dairy farm, and now as a timber farm. It consists of 1100 acres (1.7 mi2, 450 ha, 4.5 km2).
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In year 2018, the business pays 112 k$ for a used Mercedes-Benz G-Class SUV. It claims a sales-tax exemption since the vehicle will be used in farming. But in year 2020 the department of taxation disagrees and imposes a penalty. (1) The exemption requires that the business be engaged in farming. However, despite claiming to be a timber farm, this business has never actually sold any timber, and indeed has reported no sales, income, or labor expenses since year 2011. (2) The exemption requires that the vehicle be used directly in farming. However, this vehicle is used merely to transport people and equipment through the forest, not for a farming activity like plowing. (3) The exemption requires that the vehicle be used primarily in farming. However, the business failed to keep mileage logs as proof of how the vehicle was used, and even involved the vehicle in a minor crash outside a post office outside the forest. In year 2024, the board of tax appeals affirms.
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In year 2025, the state supreme court reverses. (1) The business has implemented a forest-management plan and has spent thousands of dollars on hiring contractors to remove invasive species that can damage the trees. Since trees take decades to mature into harvestable timber, this is enough to show that appellant is engaged in farming even in the absence of much activity at the moment. (2) "Property may qualify as being used in farming even though it is used to perform an intermediate step in the process of producing crops." "Just as a tractor provides the means for conveying a plow through a field where it can act upon the ground, the vehicle in this case provides the means for conveying chainsaws, marking tools, herbicides, and workers through [appellant's] forest." And the word "directly" is not in the statute. (Wikipedia describes the G-Class as a luxury vehicle, but the business in this case testified that it combined the off-road capability of a Jeep Wrangler with the cargo capacity of a Chevrolet Silverado, and both of those properties were needed in the forest.) (3) Mileage logs are not required by the statute. The business testified that farm-related use of the vehicle was around 95 percent, and that testimony was not rebutted by the department of taxation, so it stands.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
4d ago
Don't forget that Imgur has blocked the UKGBNI for legal reasons. You may want to start hosting images somewhere else—e. g., on your own personal website.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
7d ago
This scientific article on wolf species and subspecies spends several paragraphs discussing this issue. tl;dr: In modern taxonomy, ability to interbreed is only one of several factors that inform the definition of a species.
This is an eclectic approach that seeks to identify species as separate lineages supported by concordant data from various classes of genetic markers, morphometric analysis, behavior, and ecology.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
8d ago
We have licenses and background checks and rules about straw purchases because the idea is to control who has firearms. If someone buys a gun and then gives it to his cousin none of that makes sense.
Buying a gun for another person is illegal only if the other person (1) is ineligible to buy a gun on his own, (2) intends to use the gun in a felony, or (3) intends to give it to a third person who meets criterion 1 or 2. NB did nothing illegal here.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
8d ago
To clarify: Many US houses do not have basements, and instead use crawlspaces or slab-on-ground floors. But such houses still have their footings placed several feet underground, rather than using frost-protected shallow foundations in order to dig down only 12 or 16 inches (30 or 41 centimeters).
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
9d ago
we like strategy games
Among video games, Crusader Kings 2 and 3, Europa Universalis 5, and Victoria 3 can be played cooperatively.
Our number one game together is Gloomhaven
Among board games, Bios: Origins (play first as a subspecies of humanity, then as a language, then as a religion, and finally as an ideology, from 4 million BCE to the present) and High Frontier (play as a spacefaring country) can be played cooperatively.
Friday Fun Thread project: Assemble a few dozen photos of celebrities (or just stock-photo models) of various races, solicit ratings from users of various races, and determine correlation.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
9d ago
TIL: With International Residential Code § 403.3 or ASCE 32, it is possible to build a house on a "frost-protected shallow foundation" that is as shallow as 12 inches (30 centimeters)! This is accomplished by using rigid foam-board insulation, buried surrounding and/or underneath the foundation, to artificially raise the frost line from its normal depth (typically several feet). This works for a heated building in the entire contiguous US (plus Alaska as far north as Anchorage), and even for an unheated building (or a heated building with too much floor insulation to heat up the ground; only with ASCE 32, not with IRC § 403.3) in nearly the entire contiguous US (all but North Dakota, the northern half of Minnesota, the northeastern corner of Montana, and cold spots in Wyoming, Colorado, and New Hampshire). According to the commentary to ASCE 32, this has been standard practice in Scandinavia since the early 1970s, but wasn't added to the IRC's predecessor until year 1995.
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September 2021: Aldemar is hit by a truck, and accumulates significant medical bills with Medicare before dying.
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September 2022: Walter, the administrator of Aldemar's estate, sues the trucking company for wrongful death.
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December 2022: Medicare estimates that the medical bills will amount to 60 k$. This is not a final determination.
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May 2024: The lawsuit ends in a settlement. The company agrees to pay 500 k$ to Walter, and Walter agrees to pay the medical bills (whatever they turn out to be after negotiation with Medicare).
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June 2024: Medicare determines that the medical bills amount to 40 k$. This determination can be appealed.
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July 2024: The company pays 460 k$ to Walter and 40 k$ to Medicare. Walter objects: The settlement says that the company must pay 500 k$ to Walter and nothing to Medicare, so this 40-k$ payment to Medicare is completely gratuitous and outside of the agreement, and the company needs to pay another 40 k$ to Walter.
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August 2024: The trial judge agrees with Walter. "I didn't award them extra money. I gave them what they bargained for. Your client voluntarily paid something else."
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November 2024: The trucking company appeals.
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October 2025: The appeals panel affirms.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
9d ago
As a card-carrying nigger (of Caribbean descent), after perusing Google Images, I will rate both Harris and Jean-Pierre at 3 out of 5. Jean-Pierre may get an extra −0.5 for having a fat face, but it's a close call. She definitely gets an extra −0.5 when she uses a weird asymmetrical straightened hairstyle.
Culture-war-related court opinion:
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NB (♂) and LB (♀) are in the process of divorcing. LB obtains a restraining order against NB, claiming that NB (1) has been harassing LB both in person and via text, (2) owns a gun, and (3) "has made vague statements that LB believes are suicidal".
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In this state, a domestic-violence restraining order requires the officer to seize the defendant's (1) guns and (2) permit to buy guns. After being made aware of the restraining order's existence, NB goes to the police station, where an officer asks him about the gun. However, NB cannot remember where he left the gun! At first he says he left it at his cousin's house (intentionally, to prevent his anger issues from leading to violence during the divorce process). Then he says it's in a storage unit. And finally he remembers that, though he originally left it with his cousin, the cousin later gave it to NB's sister and informed NB of the further transfer. He retrieves the gun from his sister's house and gives it to the police.
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The trial judge credits NB's claim that this was just a failure of memory in a stressful situation, rather than an intentional series of lies. However, the trial judge also finds that "when possessing a firearm one must have it guarded, protected, and secured where you can control that possession, and clearly that wasn't the case for a period of time", so NB lacks the "essential character of temperament necessary to be entrusted with a firearm", "it is not in the interest of public health, safety, or welfare" for NB to possess guns, his gun is forfeited to the government, and his permit to purchase guns is permanently revoked. The appeals panel affirms.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
10d ago
I wonder whether jails in densely-populated places like Chicago (total inmates 5900, largest single facility designed to hold 1500) are worse than prisons in sparsely-populated places like Wyoming (total inmates 2500, largest single facility holding 700).
God, I hate I-frames. They're a stupid, "gamey" mechanic that should be replaced with actually reactive animations. If you dodge a hit, you dodge it by not letting it hit you.
Exanima implements this idea, but I've watched several hours of gameplay and it doesn't look very fun.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
11d ago
*insert leftist talking point here* because Jesus said to be compassionate in the Bible somewhere
No, I'm not a Christian, and I have nothing but contempt for your backward religious beliefs.
So, yeah, this argument wouldn't work on me, but maybe if I use it on you you'll do what I want.
Dark Souls 2 has a reputation for being very unfair because people try to play it with the camera lock on, a mechanic that restricts your movement when activated, and predictably get bodied by the mass of enemies that jump them. If you learn to play with the camera unlocked and dodge without rolling, it’s a whole different experience.
As a person with hundreds of hours in Dark Souls 2 who finished his latest playthrough literally yesterday, I am inclined to disagree with this assessment. I personally find that using the lockon even during multi-enemy "gank" combats is basically necessary, in order to avoid having to manually mess with the camera in the middle of combat.
With that said, there is one non-obvious trick that I have noticed: if you are dealing with two enemies that are close to each other, and you press the attack button and then switch your lockon from one enemy to the other while your character is winding up, you often can trick your character into attacking the space between the two enemies, thereby damaging (and hopefully staggering) both of them simultaneously. And of course running around the arena rather than rolling (and while being careful to avoid triggering the slow animation that happens when you try to turn 180 degrees while holding down the run button) definitely is an important tactic.
Notably, there are no I-frames at all in Silksong. (I believe the same was true in Hollow Knight, but it's been a while.)
Hollow Knight has a move that grants I-frames, the one where you dash forward.
I actually kind of resent the Dark Souls comparison. I've barely played a real Dark Souls game, but I actively disliked Elden Ring (despite its, too, having incredible aesthetics and ridiculously deep lore). So many of the bosses felt exactly the same—oh, here's a screen-filling attack, I've memorized how many frames it takes so I can dodge-roll at the right time. Oh, whoops, it was his fake-out attack instead, now I'm dead. (I guess I should have allocated my stats differently in their ridiculously-badly-explained leveling system so I could take two hits instead of one.) And I hate that other games considered soulslikes (Salt & Sanctuary, Nine Sols) have latched on to this style, too. You know, you can have a good, challenging game without making it ALL about I-frames!
The other thing that Hollow Knight and Silksong do better than almost any other game is rewarding exploration. In most games, finding a secret wall will give you a small optional upgrade, and you do it because you want the 100-% completion mark. In Silksong (even more than in Hollow Knight), finding a well-hidden secret wall might unlock a key quest item, or a hidden encounter, or even an entire new zone.
You may like Dark Souls 2 more than Elden Ring, as IMO it satisfies both the "less mindless mashing of the roll button" and "more rewarding exploration" criteria. (It's my understanding that Dark Souls 2 is a controversial member of the series. But I haven't played any other Soulslike games. Some 4chan users feel that Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring degenerated into mindless "rollslop" in comparison to Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Dark Souls 2.)
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
11d ago
As a way to test it, I wanted to check something that could be easily verifiable with primary sources, without needing actual Wikipedia or specialized knowledge
I'm no expert but my guess is that most of the articles are similarly schizo crap. And undoubtedly Elon fanboys are going to post screenshots of this shit all over the internet to the detriment of everyone with a brain.
On the other hand, the admin of the Kiwi Farms says: "This article on the Kiwi Farms is perhaps the best and most neutral article I've seen on the Kiwi Farms." So perhaps more effort was expended on controversial topics.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
12d ago
country (or collective of countries)
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
12d ago
Somebody recommended Proton and then deleted his comment, so I guess I'll replace him.
Note, however, that Proton does seem to have unnecessarily strict spam blacklists. For example, emails from Questionable Questing and Archive of Our Own never get to my inbox or even my spam folder on Proton, so I've been forced to keep using my old Gmail account for those websites.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
12d ago
Proton even has an LLM assistant, though it's based on open-source models and expensive to use with a pretty small token/week limit.
You forgot to mention that it's advertised as having privacy, unlike its competitors.
How is Lumo different from other AI assistants?
Lumo is built with privacy in mind. Unlike other AI assistants, it does not collect your data to train its models or keep any logs of your conversations. Your data is protected by Proton’s strong privacy principles.
How are my chats stored?
Your chats with Lumo are stored with zero-access encryption, so Proton can't see your chat history. Only you can securely access your conversations by logging in to your Proton Account.
You can just read the statements and speeches issued by the politicians themselves.
Democrats, 2025-10-01:
Democrats, 2025-11-05:
Republicans, 2025-09-30:
Republicans, 2025-11-04:
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