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kyrvin's comments
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kyrvin  ·  2355 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What are you scared of?

I'm right there with you. I went to a music festival a few weeks ago and never once felt uncomfortable. I was even able to talk/hang with people without any problem (probably because I knew I would never see them again). But then I go back to work and school I'm terrified of everyone around me. I think I'm more afraid of how others perceive me than of other people in general. Being around coworkers and classmates on a daily basis gives them ample time to develop an opinion of me, but being at a music festival for a few days doesn't really give anyone time to truly learn about the other person.

kyrvin  ·  2375 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Target raises minimum wage to $11 an hour in fight to retain and recruit staff

I don't care that much about pay differences on the team. It's only mildly annoying to me because a third of the team doesn't really do much. If seeing them get a pay bump means I get a pay bump as well (even if it's smaller) so be it. But yes, I'm happy to see all my coworkers getting a pay increase as well (I'm not that much of an asshole). Some of them have families they're supporting and quite a few (myself included) are college students who need all the money we can get.

As for how I value myself against my coworkers, I guess it comes down to how management treats me. I'm part-time, but I routinely get 35-40 hours per week. Only 2-3 others on flow get those kind of hours. When shit hits the fan, we're the people management asks to stay past our scheduled time and help (or come in on our days off). Management has a limited number of hours to give out each month, they give them to those of us who are reliable, hard workers.

As you say, it doesn't take long to learn the skills that flow requires, but the one thing no company can train you for is a work ethic. As I told my boss, I'm not there to have fun or enjoy myself, I'm there to earn a paycheck. I stay focused, keep the chit chat to a minimum, and work as fast as I can. It's not that a third of the team doesn't know the skills, it's that they get distracted, begin talking with one another, or smoke weed while on their break.

kyrvin  ·  2376 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Target raises minimum wage to $11 an hour in fight to retain and recruit staff

Target employee here. While I'm happy for the pay increase, I just hope this incentivizes management to fire bad employees. I'm on the flow team (truck unload followed by stocking), and a third of the team could be fired tomorrow and I wouldn't even notice.

The only shitty part about the pay increase is anyone making under $11.00/hour loses any yearly pay increases they have received in the past. So my coworkers who started last month will be making the same amount as I am even though I've been there over a year. I'm not too disgruntled about it, but I'm am mildly annoyed.

Also, fuck investors.

kyrvin  ·  2547 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Gorsuch Confirmed to Supreme Court

We're about to see a shit-ton of legislative filibusters. The Democrats will hold up every piece Trump's agenda. Democrats will claim they are resisting Trump, Republicans will claim Democrats are being obstructionists. Same old politics as usual.

The problem is that the Democrats don't have much to lose, they don't control either chamber and will most likely emerge from the 2018 midterm with enough seats to continue filibustering everything. The Republicans on the other hand got elected on certain promises (repeal Obamacare, tax reform, border wall, etc), and now all of them are effectively dead on arrival in the Senate. If Republicans can't give their base something to come out for in November 2018, they stand to lose a number of seats in the House. The Democrats need to gain 24 seats to win a majority. Its a long shot, but larger swings have happened before and if Trump remains this unpopular, such a swing becomes more likely.

This puts McConnell in a tight spot, there are a lot of programs which Democrats have been pushing for that a) Republicans strongly oppose and b) will be almost impossible to repeal once implemented. Think single-payer healthcare, amnesty, free college tuition, etc. McConnell's not an idiot, he knows that politics goes in cycles and that the Democrats will one day hold the majority. If the filibuster goes away, all of those programs will be implemented and his party will be powerless to stop them. One the other hand, if he keeps the filibuster around, literally nothing will be accomplished for the next few years.

kyrvin  ·  2548 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Learning to Love the Nuclear Option

The lack of a filibuster for legislation will require members of congress to put up or shut up, they won't be able to hide behind the obstruction of the minority party. I'm fairly certain it will be abolished before the midterms, the Democrats will most likely filibuster most (all?) of the Republican agenda to keep their base happy and punish McConnell. McConnell will respond with another nuke.

The only concern I have left is the effect the lack of a filibuster (both legislative and non-legislative) will have on the Supreme Court. The size of the Court is defined by statute, not constitutional law. It seems to me that one wrong ruling will lead to another court packing scheme (let's call this the Tsar Bomba option) and without a filibuster, the majority party will have no problems getting it passed. Given the stakes, I find it hard to believe that either party's base would be opposed if their guys were in power.

On the other hand, there are supreme courts in the world larger than ours. The Supreme Court of Sweden has 16 members, Israel has 15, and Norway has a staggering 20. A larger court would probably lead to less dramatic confirmation hearings since the impact that any one justice has would be lessened. Not to mention that there would be a more regular supply of dying/retiring justices in need of replacing.

Republicans have won their last two presidencies because of the Electoral College. I highly doubt the Republican Party establishment will want to abolish it. Our best bet to abolish the Electoral College is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, and that's a long shot in and of itself.

kyrvin  ·  2740 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 194th Weekly "Share Some Music You've Been Into Lately" Thread

Bisweed - Steampunk Vol 1 and Vol 2

kyrvin  ·  2856 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Dagger in Tutankhamun's tomb was made with iron from a meteorite
kyrvin  ·  2861 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Post an awesome music video thread.

More of a short film than a music video. The song is Rival Dealer by Burial.

kyrvin  ·  2872 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Stung By 83 Different Insects, Biologist Rates His Pain On A Scale Of 1 To — OW!

The venom hurts, but isn't lethal. The Sateré-Mawé tribe in Brazil actually use bullet ants as a rite of passage. The bullet ant is number 1 on Schmidt's scale and some say it actually feels like being shot (hence the name).

kyrvin  ·  2872 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Google plans to start blocking Flash in Chrome this year

I've been Flash free for about a year, I've hardly noticed any change in my browsing experience. Websites which are hold outs most likely haven't had an incentive to rewrite their sites to HTML5. Why do the work when most users have Flash installed? Hopefully this change to Chrome's policy will provide the incentive.

If someone irritates me in real life, am I expected to invite that person along every time I go out with my friends? The answer is no, I don't, and depending on why I exclude that person affects others' perception of me.

If I exclude that person because of their political beliefs, then most others will perceive me negatively and exclude me from their social gatherings. I would become socially isolated. If I exclude that person because they're rude to everyone, then others won't care that I exclude that person from my social circle because they're excluding that person as well. This is basic human interaction.

Mute is no different. Someone has decided that they don't like you and don't want you participating in their social gatherings. It's no different than not being invited to a party. Kleinbl00 is in no way excluding you from participating on Hubski, nor is he preventing you from expressing your political/religious/social beliefs. But he has decided that you aren't invited to his discussions.

Mute isn't evil, it just makes Hubski similar to real life.

kyrvin  ·  2873 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 'Entry Level'

Whoa... only $9.50 an hour? Are you sure this is real?

kyrvin  ·  2902 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Drone hits British Airways plane approaching Heathrow Airport

How effective would it be to strap a jammer onto the front of the planes and just turn it on during landings and takeoffs? Basically create an anti-drone force field around the planes.

kyrvin  ·  2909 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What does your desktop look like, Hubski?

Gnome 3.20 on Arch Linux with Arc Theme and Numix Icons.

Wallpaper

kyrvin  ·  2922 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Georgia Gov. Says He Will Veto Controversial 'Religious Liberty' Bill

To be fair, the Republicans do have a 2/3 super majority in the chamber. Enough of them broke ranks that an override is practically impossible.

kyrvin  ·  2922 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Georgia Gov. Says He Will Veto Controversial 'Religious Liberty' Bill

The Georgia House of Representatives has 180 members total, of which only 104 voted in favor of the bill, falling 16 votes short of the 120 needed for an override.

kyrvin  ·  2963 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Red vs. Blue

I'm either overthinking this or we're missing some vital piece of information.

If Red is compelled to play under penalty of death, then Red doesn't care what move he makes as he gets no points either way. From Blue's perspective, Red then has a 50/50 chance between moves 1 and 2. As such, Blue has to choose between a 50/50 shot at 3 points or 6 points, or a 50/50 shot at 5 points or 4 points. This is a question of how risk averse Blue is, since he averages 4.5 points either way.

If Blue has to pay Red to play, and assuming Red can refuse to play (thus denying Blue any points), then Red would demand 2 points to play at the minimum, as that's the only way Blue is guaranteed to win any points (move 1, 1 becomes 0 for Blue if Red demands 3 points). However, even if Red demands 3 points, It still comes down to how risk averse Blue is, does Blue choose move 2, winning either 5 points or 4 points and paying 3 points to Red, making his outcome either 2 points or 1 point, or does Blue choose move 1 and risk getting 0 points for the chance winning 3 points.

This seems to be a question of how risk averse Blue is since Red's payoff isn't determined by which move he/she makes.

kyrvin  ·  2973 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Fine Bros Still Own Trademark On "Teens React", "Kids React" And "Elders React" - Monopoly Alert!  ·  

They don't own a theme or video format, they own a trademark, which falls under an entirely different set of rules from copyrights and patents. Any videos being taken down on YouTube because the Fine Bros filed a copyright claim is entirely the fault of YouTube for having a shit copyright system. If those videos had been published on any other website, the chances of them having been brought down is slim. Furthermore, any copyright claim against other reaction based videos in a court of law would have ended poorly for the Fine Bros.

A trademark is an identifier. For example, Coca Cola and Pepsi both make a drink called cola. But Coca Cola can't use any of the names, logos, slogans, etc that Pepsi uses as part of its business nor can Pepsi use Coca Cola's names, logos, slogans, etc. If companies were allowed to use each others identifiers, then consumers would quickly become confused as to which company they were buying from.

Likewise, if you created a show on YouTube, for monetary purposes, which depicted children reacting to various cultural memes and entitled the show "Kids React", then the Fine Bros would ABSOLUTELY have the right to order you to change the name of the show. If, however, you entitled the show "Children Respond", and used none of the logos, slogans, artwork, etc that the Fine Bros use in "Kids React", then the Fine Bros wouldn't be able to do shit to stop you (legally, as stated earlier, YouTube's copyright system is shit).

Furthermore, trademark law is not explicitly in the US Constitution. In 1879, the Supreme Court ruled in the Trade Mark Cases that the Copyright Clause in no way gives Congress the power to regulate trademarks, instead, Congress enforces trademarks via the Commerce Clause which means the First Amendment applies in full. On top of that, there are provisions in US law allowing for fair use of trademarks. Because trademarks are more limited than copyrights, the standards for fair use much lower. The use of someone else's trademark to accurately describe your product or to refer to a product/service which is trademarked are both considered fair use.

In summary, while we can all agree that the Fine Bros were behaving in an absurd way, YouTube's copyright system is the real villain here as it is easily used by some content producers to shut down competition. Chances are good that none of the Fine Bros copyright claims would have held up in court. Furthermore, the fact that the Fine Bros own a trademark on the names of their shows is no more evil than Canonical Ltd owning a trademark on the African word "ubuntu" (Registration number is 4578010) or Microsoft having a trademark on the word "windows" (Registration number is 4407849).

If you're still concerned about possible First Amendment issues, I recommend you read Rogers v. Grimaldi. You only have to read the background and section I under discussion. TL;DR The court did an amazing job balancing the First Amendment and the Lanham Act (trademark law).

kyrvin  ·  3069 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 147th Weekly "Share Some Music You've Been Into Lately" Thread

Introduction by Solar Fields, from the Mirror's Edge soundtrack.

kyrvin  ·  3072 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: XKCD: Git

Reminds me of xkcd 1168: tar

It amazes me that I've been using Arch Linux for almost 2 years now and I still have to look up which tar command extracts AUR packages (it's "tar xvzf" by the way, I had to look it up, but I'm pretty sure I'll remember it this time).

kyrvin  ·  3109 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: GNOME 3.18 Released

Looks like they have corporate sponsorship

I'm actually surprised to see Google, IBM and Intel on that list.