Makeitstop

u/Makeitstop@lemmy.world
8 posts · 1.3k comments

Recent posts

Recent comments

Best guess, sunset is being defined as a specific time. Sunset isn't necessarily the point at which all sunlight is gone, and even then, the time the sun goes down varies depending on where you are within a given time zone. If they just used an arbitrary time or an almanac listing for twilight for each day, they could easily end up including slivers of daylight in their post sunset data.

Which is really pointless since this is just the same old "BuT sOlAr DoEsN't WoRk At NiGhT" argument that idiots have been making for decades. But I suppose you gotta at least pretend to use real world data to make it look sciencey.

I used longitudinal distance because I wasn't 100% certain if the measurement for Chile is measuring a line between its two furthest points or just the distance between it's northernmost and southernmost latitudes. If it's the latter then it's a fair comparison, and if it's the former then Chile gets an unfair advantage but it doesn't change the result.

Modlog cites Rule 5, which is still in place.

Rule 5: Be excellent to each other. Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, ableist, will be removed.

Which is a bit of a stretch since I haven't posted anything. Apparently a downvote is all it takes.

In dissent, conservative Justice Samuel Alito said he would have found that no warrant is required, calling the ruling an “irresponsible escapade” that the court should never have agreed to hear.

He accused the majority of “striking a pose as a great champion of privacy in the digital age.”

And he says that like it's a bad thing. What an asshole.

Not really a surprise, but worth pointing out anyway.

on True · c/funny · 0 pts · 73d

And I had said nothing about voting at all, let alone suggesting that people should vote and do nothing else. Maybe I confused you for the straw man because you were still covered in the stuff from fighting a straw man of your own.

on True · c/funny · -4 pts · 73d

It's just too bad that people are only capable of one form of political engagement at a time. There's no way that someone could try to organize in their community and fill out a ballot a few times a year.

And really, why would you? Things will be exactly the same no matter who is in power as long as they aren't 100% aligned with your views.

Nah, best to mock anyone who chooses coalition building over ideological purity and stick to the plan of having a tiny fraction of the population lead a revolution... eventually.

on True · c/funny · 0 pts · 73d

Engaging in politics? Pointless.

Obviously the solution is to constantly talk about the necessity of violent action while never actually committing any acts of violence.

As I understand it, one of the other advantages of the bolt is that it's fairly easy to disconnect. There's a dedicated fuse you can pull which will disable the telemetry as well as the microphone and a lot of the related infotainment system functions like gps. Or for those who want more of those functions, you can open the panel behind the screen, unplug the antenna, and replace it with with a terminator so that it thinks it's intact but has no signal.

Of course, it will still try to send data home through your phone if you let it. Apparently it can do that through android auto and carplay if they are connected via bluetooth but not over USB.

Scorpius from Farscape is a fantastic villain. He was meant to be a one off villain of the week for a clip show. By the time the episode was finished it was a two parter that had only a few seconds of clips, and instead set up the plot elements that would drive the rest of the series, with Scorpius at the heart of it all.

He's one of the rare genius villains that's actually written well enough to seem smart. He's ruthless but not unreasonable. He's horrific, but also charming. He's a bottomless pit of hatred and vengeance, and yet he is cold and calculating, perpetually in control. I've heard him described as mirror universe spock turned up to 11 and I kind of agree.

Plus, we also get Harvey.

See also: David Xanatos. Imagine if Bruce Wayne put all that effort and planning into villainy, mad science and sorcery, theoretically for money but really just for the fun of it. Now give him an Iron Man suit and the voice of Jonathan Frakes. He's an evil genius that's so good at what he does that his name is literally synonymous with plans can only end in a win.

on Joke (2026-05-07) · c/smbc · 7 pts · 88d

Killing someone to reduce loss of life when you have no better options is good.

The key element being the lack of alternatives. Batman is capable of apprehending the Joker. At the beginning of the comic he has better options than letting him fall to his death. Once the Joker goes for his gun the scenario changes and lethal force is reasonably justified. But that's also when Batman stops acting like Batman and does nothing to stop the Joker in order to make the joke work.

The moral argument here assumes that if the Joker is alive he will inevitably kill again. That only works if you assume that he can't be stopped by anything short of death. But the Joker is only human and can be arrested and locked up.

We know he'll kill again because we know he's a fictional character that will be back in future stories. But without that meta knowledge he's no different than any other serial killer. We do actually arrest those guys and keep them locked up.

Strip away the assumptions that come with the comic book / cartoon / movie characters and play this scenario out with a cop or EMT or firefighter refusing to help save the life of a convicted murderer who is not an active threat. Does it still sound morally justified?

on Joke (2026-05-07) · c/smbc · 15 pts · 88d

Ah, the old "Batman should play judge, jury and executioner" argument. Which is bullshit for so many reasons:

  • First and foremost, it's usually based on the idea that Joker will always escape. That's only true in the sense that the writers will keep bringing him back, which isn't really fair to include in the in-universe ethical questions. And even then, it just means that killing the Joker won't stop him either.
  • Batman but he kills people already exists, he's called The Punisher, and his war on crime hasn't been any more successful than Batman's.
  • Why is it only Batman who gets to play god? Would you be OK with a cop killing a suspect like that while they're sitting in a jail cell? How about an angry mob? Who decides when a suspect deserves to be murdered? What's the burden of proof?
  • Batman has larger goals than just stopping individual criminals. He is trying to fight corruption and fix a broken system. This means working with others like commissioner Gordon who also want to fix Gotham. He can't do that if he is killing people left and right.
  • On the flip side, if Batman gets a reputation for murdering criminals, that will almost certainly make the criminals more dangerous because it puts them in a situation where they have nothing to lose.
  • This comic in particular is pretending that there's no difference between using force to stop an imminent threat and killing someone who is already helpless. The second the Joker makes himself a threat again, force becomes an option again.