I had a Switch for a few years before the Steamdeck came out. If all the games you want to play are available to play on Steamdeck, stick with Steamdeck. It’s more powerful, has way more games, you probably already have plenty of games to play on it, the games are way cheaper, and the degree which you can modify the software and hardware is pretty unique for a “console.”

The Switch has an edge in form factor and is more convenient for me to use. Although Switch emulation on the Steamdeck is pretty decent, I still prefer the original hardware to play Animal Crossing or Zelda.

Not that special, unfortunately.

I love the honesty of actual science.

The most recurring theme is that I took Melatonin before bed and I can’t remember them. I just wake up drenched in sweat with my heart racing, so I assume what I woke up from was a nightmare. Have never had a nightmare otherwise.

And shockingly, no central command compound just beneath it. Another “mistake” by the idf resulting in the deaths of men, women, and children.

Cool, I only ever watched Ghost in the Shell but have recently seen some of the creator’s other work which was also great. Appleseed is next on my list.

I thought it was moral dissonance. I’m at least glad that in youger generations mass murder is coming to be seen more universally as evil even when committed against groups who are not white. I’m sorry about whatever happened to you to make you this way.

From your initial comment it seems like the main misunderstanding is that nation states unilaterally declared by European powers in Africa and Western Asia from the nineteenth century until around the middle of the 20th century have been utterly disastrous to those places rather than being the only source of order in those places. Although these nation states are seen as legitimate by the powers which established them, in the opinion of many of the victims of these European powers whose population is much larger and much more relevant since they are physically present for the consequences of this establishment, tend not to consider them as legitimate and more of an encroachment. Colonization is not a neutral or natural process but an act of aggression by parties with superior military might on parties vulnerable to that might. If your view is that might makes right, then the issue here isn’t in historical misunderstanding but more of a moral dissonance. If that isn’t your view I’d be willing to entertain a more detailed conversation.

The sleep thing highlights how little we know about the brain. We have no treatment whatsoever which can safely induce sleep. This cliché advice, which is meant exclusively for acute insomnia of those who typically don’t experience it, is the cutting edge of sleep medicine. Humanity and the most advanced scientific research currently available is totally ignorant of everything not covered by these tips.

When I finally accepted that I have absolutely no control whatsoever of my sleep latency and there is currently nothing in all of medicine that can be done about it, my nights became a lot less stressful and a lot more enjoyable.

Veritasium endorsed a known racketeer and as a consequence some portion of their audience is now going to be defrauded in an economy where there’s not a lot of room for that especially among those in need of therapy. Watching Veritasium videos causes the channel to have greater exposure, increasing the risk to the general population if engaged with by anyone. Therefore, engaging with this channel in any way is harmful to others.

There are probably more obstacles to my daydream than I’m aware of. That being said there is nothing static about science. Comparing what we’re doing now to what we were doing a century ago, two centuries ago, and three centuries ago we might as well be comparing completely separate enterprises based on almost completely different fundamentals. Academia has never been as organized and wide-reaching as it is today so it may seem like a monolith, but it’s a new monolith which I’m not sure will remain exactly as it is for long (relatively). I think there’s some room for experimentation.

Fortunately I don’t need to have all the answers in my imaginary journal. I imagine it more as a cooperative enterprise among scientists who have become disenchanted with established academic paradigms and are looking to do the research and experimentation in that zone which is of interest to scientists themselves but not necessarily supported by the need to publish in the areas most emphasized by the academic establishment. This is not anything against what exists and what is being produced which I personally consider to be important, only to provide additional avenues to serve science in ways it’s not currently being served.

You’re right that credentials in this model are fuzzy. At least at the beginning it would be composed exclusively of scientists already working in their field who would want something like this. It could be possible that these scientists answering only to their immediate guerilla journal peers may see fit to support the research of an individual with no doctorate but who has demonstrated their self-education has made them capable of designing an experiment which can be quantified, criticized, and re-produced. Whether this standard would be agreed upon by the greater community would certainly be controversial with plenty of politics involved, but that reality it outside of the scope of my daydream.

As for the sustainability, it’s as in question as any open source project. It lives and dies based on peoples’ desire to do it only because they want to do it and others want to support them doing it. This couldn’t be a career alternative to academia because making it into a business or non-profit would defeat the purpose as it would attain the same vulnerabilities to a much more severe degree than the much larger and stable existing model.

Not necessarily. Just because my theoretical journal wouldn’t be subject to the existing academic establishment it does not mean it would accept everything. This journal would be more rigorous because it would be composed exclusively by fidelity to the scientific process. I am not anti-academia, only acknowledging that the existing structures are so large and composed of so many egos that there is necessarily over-focus on some areas and under-focus on other areas as a consequence of the structure. My pretend journal wouldn’t be for everyone rejected from those institutions for explicit reasons of incompetence, it would be for those scientists who want to pool resources to do work that would not be easy to support on the current academic model.

I often fantasize about guerilla science done by serious people outside of official channels. While there are plenty of crackpots who desire this for political reasons, I would really like to see an open-source “journal” by and for those scientists who are in it purely for science and have become disenchanted with the current model which is compromised in some ways that prevents progress on certain concepts.

This is interesting to think about because I might be one of the last generations of people who existed physically with one another more often than we would text or message one another. Since my old man hat is on, back in my day if you let one fly like this there were immediate social consequences. Everyone would go silent and look at you in disapproval and the person who was really invested in expunging the word would, at that moment, explain why saying that word was unacceptable. The person who said it of course wouldn’t have a change of heart, but they would learn that if they wanted to participate socially they would have to watch their language.

Now that it costs $100 to leave the house and most socialization takes place behind in a non-rich communication medium there isn’t really a consequence like there used to be. In most online “communities” no one is actually in community with one another and have no reason to be pro-social other than wanting to be pro-social. Trolling has always been a problem, but now that more of the population in general is communicating primarily on the channels where trolling is happening, trolling is now a political and social problem.

This better not be what it looks like.

On top of a depressed economy from endless war and poor management of state funds, the details of the lives of nobles started to get published for just anyone to read which was unprecedented. Although no single thing can be attributed to causing the revolution, I think that just learning about how the nobility lived really put a difficult situation over the top for them.

Your comment made me re-think this a bit, because I happen to know that the origin of “dad-bod” wasn’t patronizing but a word used by some straight women who find this body type attractive in men. I wonder if “short king” may have initially been used by people who were attracted to the attribute in men and wanted a nice sounding way to describe it. I’m totally with you when these phrases are used like you described, but I wonder how many people using these terms are genuinely attracted to the attributes they’re pointing out.

Companies actually factor in the fines for breaking the law in their accounting. Ford calculated that it would be more profitable to release a vehicle which was known to be deadly since being found guilty for negligence (if it got that far) the fine the corporation would have to pay would be covered by the profit from selling the dangerous vehicles.

The soldiers are killing them in either case. Basically I’m being asked to choose whether they kill one or all of them, and they’ll make me shoot someone if I choose to spare most of them. Considering the situation, I’m not sure these soldiers won’t just kill me with everyone else anyway since I’m a witness after yhey’ve had their fun.