skulblaka

joined 10 months ago
[–] skulblaka@startrek.website 2 points 5 months ago

And if this attitude spreads, which arguably it should, the service will simply be shut down. Unfortunately I think this may end up being a great loss for humanity as a whole if that happens. Elsewhere in this thread I compared it to the Library of Alexandria for its sheer content of 20-odd years worth of nearly all of humanity's culture, news, and technical information.

I don't know what to do with this. The dragon must be slain but the hoard must be preserved, and I'm not sure how we accomplish that. The contents of YouTube should be backed up and made available to a public data store outside of Google's grasp, ideally as a public utility probably maintained by tax money, and youtube can remain as a front-end to that service. But actually getting that done in the modern day seems..... we'll say, slim. For one thing the total youtube data package is about a fucktillion gigabytes and the only people able to host it are the ones who already have it. For another, Google will argue in court that videos uploaded to their service are their property, and they'll win that argument.

So we can start again anew, but we must mourn what we lose, because it may be significant. Like it or not, YouTube is a significant percentage of the recorded data output of the human race. Just pray, once we kill the beast, that you never have to replace any parts on a car model year 2004-2018 - because you won't find good repair manuals anywhere and all the good tutorials are buried in the belly of YouTube.

[–] skulblaka@startrek.website 8 points 5 months ago

Unfortunately it is such a repository of information that it's nearly unavoidable anymore. It's a reference tool. Need to fix your car? YouTube knows how. Need to write a piece of code with a tool you're unfamiliar with? A random Indian man has posted a YouTube video explaining how. Need to find a hidden item in a video game? YouTube. There are many and varied reasons I'd pull up a YouTube video outside of the intended purpose of "watching YouTube" for entertainment. Many of these things can, technically, be conveyed through different media but often poorly and with a much lower rate of understanding. The sheer volume of knowledge and culture lost if Google ever takes down YouTube's servers will be akin to the burning of the Library of Alexandria and that is not a joke. I don't want to "watch YouTube" anymore for the most part but it is inescapable to me for several purposes as a reference material.

[–] skulblaka@startrek.website 22 points 5 months ago (3 children)

We're about to have a great big shattering of the internet and I'm all for it. Collating the pieces will be a pain in the ass for a couple years but some handful of nerds out there blessed by the spirit of Ritchie will create a tool for it, and what's left of our world will be a better place for it.

[–] skulblaka@startrek.website 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Every person I know who has flown in the last six months has inquired about the manufacturer of their plane before boarding

[–] skulblaka@startrek.website 5 points 5 months ago

It might matter a little more in a 30v1 against angry New York commuters.

[–] skulblaka@startrek.website 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Considering the relative size of a pokeball and a Wailord, a Wailord is a bomb. Just take your pokeball inside any building you don't want to exist anymore, and release the Wailord.

[–] skulblaka@startrek.website 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Still technically puntable but you're going to have a hell of a sore ankle afterward.

Pidgeotto is 3 feet tall and 66 pounds, it could steal your kids if it wanted to.

[–] skulblaka@startrek.website 9 points 5 months ago (2 children)

For the last 50 years or so

Multiply that by 3 and you're nearly correct. The first "quantitative prediction of global warming due to a hypothetical doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide" was published in 1896 by Svante Arrhenius, building on research from John Tyndall as far back as 1859. Source: Wikipedia, but with appropriate citations to the works in question.

[–] skulblaka@startrek.website 6 points 5 months ago

My mother used to be like this with steak. She would ask for it well done, and after the waiter wrote that down, she'd follow up with a comparison to a hockey puck. Like really just fuck this thing up sideways, it should be charcoal. The looks we got from most waiters were hilarious.

Meanwhile my dad would order the rarest steak it was legal to sell him. "Just walk it past the grill on the way out here, I want it still trying to graze on my salad".

To their credit most places got it close enough that we could eat without complaint.

[–] skulblaka@startrek.website 10 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Signal also does jack all unless both parties are using Signal. In this case, might be fine. Need to talk to anyone else in your life? It's back to iMessage.

I love Signal and will probably never get rid of it but the use case for it has shrunk tremendously since they removed the ability to message non-signal users.

[–] skulblaka@startrek.website 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yes it does, when the war you're opposing is one intended to bring consequences to a dictator. Unopposed dictators continue to dictate and empower other dictators. You don't stop a bully by turning the other cheek. That just gets you punched in both sides of the face. You stop a bully by bringing them consequences to their actions. When there are no consequences, the actions continue.

If you'd like to read more about this, please check into the entirety of human history.

[–] skulblaka@startrek.website 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Brought to us by the same people that claimed Russia was fighting with WWII shovels, end of war is near, sanctions will kill the Russian economy, etc.

Hence why they're now pressing students and immigrants into emergency armed service. Because they're getting their asses beat. This all checks out. A stable country with a well functioning modern military doesn't extend a 3 day operation into 3 years, lose half a million troops, and then press-gang their students into the draft. These are signs of failure.

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