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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

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  • This is exactly how I used to see things when I grew up in a conservative echo chamber.

    And now that I recognize a person’s right to choose and tend to think capital punishment should probably* not be legal, I’ll add that it’s not that my underlying beliefs changed, just how I now understand things. Some people do deserve capital punishment. And innocent people should be protected. But personhood doesn’t start at conception, a person conceiving has a right to decide what happens to their body, and the state can never be trusted to administer capital punishment.

    *I say “probably” because I also think it might be necessary to allow it in extreme cases. My reasoning is that if people don’t believe the justice system will adequately punish, they have incentive and no ultimate detergent for taking justice into their own hands.








  • Cleveland clinic says says about coffee’s laxative effect:

    Researchers found that 29% of coffee drinkers report a desire to poop after drinking coffee. The feeling can come pretty quickly, too. (In as little as four minutes!)

    And about lactose intolerance (same article):

    An estimated 65% of people have some difficulty digesting lactose, which can lead to restroom runs. Lactose intolerance can cause diarrhea and other gastrointestinal (GI) issues within 30 minutes of consumption.




  • For me, it’s helpful to remember what the underlying reality is.

    Skewed for population and colored on a red-blue scale to reflect vote mix.

    When those votes are counted, the resulting electoral votes align to those votes, which results in maps like what you showed. When strategists tune their messages to target demographics they can divide (e.g., rural vs. urban), they’re playing a game of inches and shades on this map of purple goo, and that’s still the reality behind the ultimate electoral vote, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

    Keep voting, everyone!

    edits: So much autocorrect.



  • “Incomplete paper and online applications will not be accepted,” Evans said in the statement. (Parker’s [demonstration] cancellation request would have lacked a driver’s license number.) The Secretary of State’s Office did not respond to individual questions about what testing the portal underwent before launch, the system’s security procedures, what happened to Parker’s cancellation request…

    Yeah, that tells us we just don’t know if this was a problem after all. Evans’s statement basically claims it wasn’t a vulnerability. If that’s correct, then the worst thing might be if someone’s browser tripped on the validation JS and allowed them down a blind alley execution path. If the claim is correct and if the page’s JS never shits the bed, then in that case the only negative outcome would be someone dicking with the in-browser source could lead themselves down the blind alley, in which case who cares. The only terrible outcome seems like it would be if the claim is incorrect–i.e. if an incomplete application submission would be processed, thus allowing exploit.

    Short of an internal audit, there’s no smoking gun here.


  • I haven’t given up on being a stick in the mud keeping Austin a little different from other parts of Texas. The loudest idiots in this state rebuke Austin as something un-Texan, but I’m not going anywhere and am continuing to live and vote the way I do. I know it’s a little easier for me to say this, not having to worry about kids, so I don’t expect others to make the same choice, even if they feel the same way.