I can imagine it just staying "District of Columbia", or the state of Columbia.

I've been thinking a lot about prosthetics recently, because I have a character I'm tossing around in my brain who has a prosthetic arm, and I want it to be as usable as possible without it being "magic" or "future technology" (read: future magic). So, this article was very interesting to me, and was good info to think about.

I came across this guy a while back, who has been working on his own hand/finger prosthetic that is really interesting and practical. I don't know if you could expand it out to larger things like an entire half of an arm, or even a whole arm, but it's an interesting way of addressing his own particular problem.

these pictures are strangely baroque.

I'm watching some clips from his acceptance speech now. All I can think is "... did they just successfully pull the democrats even further to the right of where they already were?" This guy sounds like a vintage republican.

I knew the Democrats were settling when they chose him, but geez.

But the younger millenials and generation z seem to, on average, have much healthier and positive ideas about what is cool, including sincerity and caring about others. It is inspiring and gives me hope. Maybe I can even find some small ways to help out again.

It's very punk, and I love it. The kids are, as they say, "all right". I'm trying to do what I can to support them as they make the world a better place.

As I just said to someone else on twitter:

The idea that we can just let views like his be aired in public and rely on "the truth" to repel them would be comical if it wasn't so sad and fundamentally misinformed about how public discourse actually works.

He can say what he wants in the privacy of his own home, but he shouldn't be allowed a platform. That is, of course, the paradox of tolerance. I know I fall on one side of it and many people here fall on the other side, but leaning on the masses to believe "the truth" and not a lie that reinforces their pre-conceived beliefs and notions is how US politics got to where it is right now (Canada of course has its own issues, much of it influenced by your politics).

I can't find any recent maps (best I saw was 2014), But what I think is more pertinent is religiosity in the battleground states. If 90% of California isn't religious then it simultaneously skews that result, and doesn't matter for places like Ohio.

Don't mistake me, I'd love to be wrong but I'm not convinced that I am.

This is what happens when you debate with fascists, unfortunately, and is a perfect example of why the people who say that these politics can be beaten by being debated out in the open are wrong.

Fascists agree to rules then don't follow them. They speak over you. They do not attempt to "win", they attempt to please their base and make a lot of noise. They prevent you from getting your message out.

on all counts, Trump succeeded in those goals. Biden gained nothing from this debate. Indeed, he may have even lost voters to the "not voting" option. Trump lost very little, and those he did lose are likely not going to vote for his opponent, they're just not going to vote at all.

Hey, so I have a top tip to add in addition to what looks like a great recipe, here.

I don't work at a bakery anymore, but I did for two years (until recently). We did daily scones, and one thing we did was to make the dough, roll it flat, and fridge it (or, freeze it for longer storage). We'd then divide by weight and bake fresh every day.

Now, you might not have your oven on every day (at the bakery the oven was necessarily on anyways), but instead of having your less-good-than-the-day-of scones, you could maybe do it every second day with dough from your fridge or freezer (you'd have to take it out the night before from the freezer, I think).

I wonder what the passenger area would look like - as in, how are they spreading the weight out? Are they going to have two rows of passengers down each side? or just one? and if just one, will it be justified towards the outside of the V, or the inside?

No they didn't. They just didn't care, or in some cases were an active part of it. US Police having ties to the KKK and other white supremacist organizations is so supremely not news that it was noted as a growing problem in the Reconstruction.

You do something about it you become POOR.

Ah yes, that greatest of American Sins.

I'll be honest, the only argument I accept against assisted dying is if the patient can be shown to be incapable of making informed decisions themself (i.e. dementia, degradation of mental acuity, etc). I think we try and keep our loved ones living in poor health too long, because we don't want to let go.

I saw it happen with my grandma on my mom's side. She was in her late 70s, and had lung cancer. She was not going to recover, and she knew it, so she decided not to seek treatment. My mom flew out to be with the rest of her family as they convinced her to go on chemo and radiation therapy, and she did, because she loved her children. But by accepting that, they removed her agency in choosing her method and time of death, and instead she hung on for maybe eight more months, lying in her recliner because it was the only place she could be comfortable enough to sleep, and slowly waiting in pain for the end as her breaths got shallower.

I look at that situation and I see my mother as being selfish. So you weren't ready for your mom to die - No one ever is. It's not like she's some dog you can keep limping along because you're too attached to see that you're keeping them alive for you, and not for them. She deserved the right to die, then, even though Canada didn't have it at the time. She deserved to be able to avoid those months of pain and waiting for the reaper to show up like the ghost in It Follows.

10/10 decision.

This shit's fucked up, fam.

I'll be straight with you, all the people who I know who are boosting stories like this are intersectional feminists and queer voices. I also think it says something that her own fans called her out on her bullshit.You know who I don't see talking about this shit? average dudes.

also fun fact if you make soups - you can sub in parsnip for carrot in your mirepoix for creamy soups so that you don't have orange bits floating around.

Full disclosure: 18MW is chump change. That's two of these.

It helps that they're able to heat and get hot water for their homes from the hot springs there. Fun fact, in older houses the water has a mild sulfur smell because it comes from some of the more mild hot springs, but newer houses don't because they use fresh water that has been heated by even hotter springs.

I'm going to have to donate in the new year. I'm waiting for my student loans to come in so I can pay my bills.

I think tech culture is tone deaf to the point of criminality

KB, I'd say you don't know the half of it, but you consume enough media that I imagine you probably do. You'll have to forgive, this has been stewing for a couple of days and was exacerbated last night when my group of friends were harassed in a restaurant by a group of guys, two of whom were making MAGA hats. In Canada. Unironically (not that that is the sort of thing one should do ironically).

I will point out that anyone whom I have ever personally heard utter the phrases "open debate", or "marketplace of ideas" has consciously or subconsciously believed that they have nothing to lose in that situation. It makes for an easy position to hold, when you believe that the "none too dangerous" things you debate can't hurt you.

It's a lot harder of a sell when people are debating your existence, or debating whether you should be allowed to exist, or debating whether or not you're a person, or debating what bathroom you should be "allowed" to use.

Honestly, the LGBT community figured out that reasoned debate was going to get them exactly nowhere sometime around the beginning of the postwar period, at the very least by the time the Compton's Cafeteria Riots took place. Any time "reasoned debate" has gotten the community anywhere, it has been a public face that was veneered overtop of rioting, civil disobedience, or die-ins. I am not a person of colour, but I imagine black people who lived through the civil rights era would tell you much the same. Indeed, I have heard them say it, but it is not my story to tell.

This is not the first time that people more interested in debating ideas than bearing responsibility for their actions have tried to go up against bad people in "free and Honest" debate. Putting a mirror up between the "debate" around LGBT people in the Weimar Republic and the current political situation should give people reason to pause. These people that they want to debate? They're not interested in "free" or "honest". fuck, the vast majority of people in positions of power aren't really interested in "free" or "honest" if it means they lose out. At this point, I'm just trying to figure out if these people are actively malicious or passively malicious, or i guess if it really matters.

I have days like that too, but I think the backlash is growing in a lot of places. I mean, just seeing the counter-protests that occur in real life helps the online community.

I would assert that the problem in seeing it is that many of the people running sites like reddit, etc. either don't have a problem with the speech, actively benefit from that speech, or most commonly, have a problem with limiting speech even if it were to eventually result in the death of millions. They're hardline free speech to the detriment of all, basically.

The Weimar Republic thought they could beat shitty ideas in the court of public opinion, too. Then NSDAP showed up.

I'm sorry if I come off that way, but I don't look down on the people who live in dangerous areas. At the end of the day, it is your home, just like people who live in the shadows of volanoes. But it means you need to know the risks, you need to be prepared, and you need to be accepting of the fact that you may lose everything.

It's the people who don't know the risks, aren't prepared, and aren't accepting of the fact they may lose everything who are the problem. I fully believe in sending aid to people in disaster affected areas, but I also fully believe in helping yourself in the first place by being ready for natural disasters. Having a strategy, practicing it with your family. having a Bug-out bag.

It seems like a lot of people in Houston were not, and indeed, the City of Houston itself was not prepared. Again, how prepared one can be for a hurricane of that magnitude is up for debate, but Houston was warned that a storm like this was an eventuality, and that when it came it would be bad.

I can't place blame on the individual people, because I don't know how prepared each person was, what they knew about where their houses were built. But the City of Houston does hold some blame in ... If not exacerbating the situation, then not attempting to make it any better.

I mean, i don't call them villains, but all of the people who have been building in places with high likelihoods of wildfire are doing the exact same thing with a different element. Wildfires are a natural necessary part of forests, and we spend tons of money not only building in wildfire areas, but also preventing those fires from happening, which builds up all the dry dead shit in the forest, which makes situations for wildfire worse when one does finally happen.

Hurricanes are going to happen. Because of climate change and warming oceans, more extreme hurricanes are more likely to happen. Harvey was going to happen. I even read a reprinted article in the Toronto Star this morning of someone last year saying "Shit's gonna go down and Houston IS NOT PREPARED"

Of course, one can ask the question if anyone can truly be prepared for something the size of Harvey.

I don't know. Were these people made aware that they were on a flood plain when they were building or buying? If not, then that's a problem. If they were, then I don't really know what to say. It's like living next to the Ottawa river and being shocked when a 1% flood (which they call a 100 year flood, which is dumb and misleading) shows up on that 1%. . Like, you were warned this might happen if you lived here and you decided it was an acceptable risk.

So I don't know where i sit on this. I think if people were given the information and took the risk anyway, then they hold at least some culpability, but I also think that now's not exactly the time to go around saying that.

Walden. I don't think I'm going to make it to the end, Thoreau's so holier than thou sometimes.

VC is Venture Capitalism in this case.

thanks for the article.

In this case, if you're a white person, silence IS tantamount to tacit approval.

I'm sorry, and folks can be upset with me all they want, but if you look at the events that happened this weekend and can't even make it to your facebook to post a "Wow, that's fucked up" status, then you've got to question yourself. I'm not saying you need to suddenly become political, but as white people we've got to denounce these people.

What happens any time there's a Muslim terror incident? We look at our local mosques and expect them to come out in opposition. And they do, partially out of self-preservation and partly because they too are disgusted by the actions of a minority. Well, it's our turn to do the same, to the same kinds of people. These people do not represent us, and we need to make it crystal clear, because we expect the same out of everyone else any other time.

I'd recommend looking at my reply to WanderingEng for an answer on Cowboys, and you can expand that to civil was garb as well. I would say that someone from the North wearing a Southern Confederacy uniform would definitely get some flack at a party unless you were in a reenactment group or some such, and for similar reasons to these other costumes- It's not generally coming from a place of celebration, it's coming from a place of ... well, mockery feels like a strong word but it's in the right direction.

For the Mongolian Sushi example, I think I made it pretty clear the person wasn't asking if they knew how to make sushi because they know the Mongolian person is a good cook. they're doing it because of the colour of their skin. If I wasn't clear then, I'm certainly doing my best to be so now.

If gender can be fluid why can't race or culture?

If you take on a race, are you willing to take on the baggage of that race, too? If you decide to be black, are you going to advocate for all of the issues that face black people and people of darker skin where you live? Are you willing to be seen as lesser and effeminate because you're an asian man? (again, see my comment to wanderingEng for a source on this stereotype)

The difference here is that you're like a race "drag" character. Like a drag queen, who puts on their femininity for one night, or for a performance, but can scrub it all away and still be treated as a man, you would be washing off your black-ness, or your asian-ness to be treated as a white person again. Regular asian people or black people can't scrub off their skin colour and be treated with more respect, as you would be doing.

Well, first nations people have varying opinions about frybread, actually. It's a Colonized product, meaning it didn't exist until colonizing Europeans showed up and flour was being used in trade. First nations people throughout north america generally used corn, or other flours to make other flatbreads (such as tortillas), however, so there's varying views, as I said. Some first nations people decide to own it as a product, and some see it as an example of colonization and the broader problem of low food choice on reservations.

If you're interested in more info about the First nations food situation, this is a decent vid:

As for the Kimonos, I think it's easiest to think about it in levels.

Wearing a heavily japanses influenced dress? 100% a-ok.

Wearing a Kimono made for you by a Japanese maker that you paid a fair wage for? Go for it, though you might ask yourself why you want a kimono specifically so bad and why another dress would not do.

Wearing an antique kimono with someone's history all over it (symbols, colours, etc)? pretty sketch, especially because you're wearing a delicate antique.

Wearing a costume kimono? No Bueno. someone else's historical daily culture, and to an extent their current culture isn't a costume.

Wearing a costume kimono and full "geisha" makeup? #realbad

Being a eurpoean person playing the role of an asian person in a movie? Full retard.

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As much as I got a bit cheeky near the end, does that make sense? Like, having respect for a culture, and loving the designs of a culture, and being influenced by them are all great. Fetishizing a culture, or using that cultures symbols as a costume are not okay.

Are there people who go overboard with this? Sure, but there are also people who ask Mongolian people if they know how to make sushi because they "all look the same". The attitudes are equally bad, but at least the first one usually comes from being sick and tired of dealing with idiots, and not from being an idiot themselves.

well, considering your misrepresentation of the issue in question, I figured you might not have been. Excuse my error.

My brother has a few friends who are or were spec ops. Wild dudes.

Fun fact: Canadian Forces train at a civilian shooting range, instead of having their own. Just one of my country's many "we have no money so we need to be smart" solutions, Like the Diefenbunker or the fact that our DND building is literally across the street from a mall in the middle of downtown. Hide in plain sight, I guess?