I don't see why they would use AI instead of picking an appropriate image or making something quick in Gimp or paint, it just makes me not want to be part of those communities.

I like thin crust, enough veggies to be almost classified as a salad, and damn near burnt to a crisp.

So there i was, hazy in between sleep and wakefulness trying to concentrate on a design problem (which i don't think the dream directly featured but was tangentially related) and whenever i tried to focus on thst problem, i noticed that i'd have to stop breathing to produce the next word in the sentence or weave each syllable into my breathing pattern. Even when i'm typing this out it happens. You guys do it too, right?

I keep hearing people say that the far-left is significantly less organised, more fragmented than the far-right. Why is that? (And to be clear: I’m asking about the far-left, not just the left in general (though they may be linked)

For those who don’t know about this 9/11 mystery, let me explain (or read about it here, or here in more detail):

This man is called Earnest Armstead.

Armstead worked as an EMS worker at ground zero during the September 11 attacks, triaging. In the decades since, Armstead has claimed to have come across a severely mangled woman. As he went to place the black tag (the deceased tag) on what he assumed was a corpse, he alleges that he was startled to find that she was alive and begged him not to put the black tag on her, despite the fact that he knew she was going to die shortly after anyway due to the condition of her body. He claims that when he found her, she was only a head and a torso (in some accounts, he also claims that she was just head, Shoulders and a bit of lung), and he theorised that she was in such a mangled state due to falling from such a tall height (which would make sense, if that amount of damage had been done to her body, as that’s what falling from such a height would (or could) do to a human body).

However, there’s just one issue: it’s not physically possible to survive that much bodily damage. Had she really only been a head and a torso, she would either have not survived the impact, or she would’ve bled out rapidly before the triage team could arrive. Investigators of the case therefore find his claim dubious, suggesting that he may have misremembered what he was seeing, though the account seems too graphic to have been something misremembered. Moreover, the woman in question has never been identified, and despite combing through footage of all different angles and shots of the area on that day, nobody has ever seen the woman, or even Armstead interacting with anyone even remotely like the suggestion.

One alternative theory that has been proposed is that this woman was not mangled, but actually had been hit by a falling mangled body (perhaps from the plane) which may explain why Armstead mistook her for such, presumably in a panicked state, though it wouldn’t explain the other dubious aspects of the claim, like the fact that that nobody else saw such a thing, etc.

As said, I’m learning traditional Chinese using Taiwan’s 華語八千詞 database. That’s the 8000 most common Mandarin Chinese characters according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Education (教育部)

The list I work with has the character's pīnyīn transliteration and meaning in English, but I'd prefer to use 注音符號 (ㄓㄨˋ ㄧㄣ ㄈㄨˊ ㄏㄠˋ).

this is a list with 8000 entries, I have copies in .ods, .odt and .pdf formats, if it helps.

Hopefully I’ve worded the question right.

I was once told (I could never verify if it was true) that a crocs company once almost went bankrupt after they made their crocs practically indestructible. Whilst the story was most likely bullshit, it makes me wonder: if a company can make a product that is practically indestructible, is it ethical for them not to make them indestructible, so people will buy more from them?

The way I look at it is, on one hand, I feel like they should make products to the highest quality if they can so that the consumer has to spend less money and that less is wasted, but at the same time if it leads to the company going bankrupt, what of the workers and their families? So I can’t decide, what do you think?

I believe it does. I wish we were back to an internet where none of that garbage existed. Because all that bringing voting systems and karma systems has done, is make people fret about what they say. Because it's hard to tell sometimes if they're saying it while focusing on the score they'll receive after saying it, than they're saying it and not do that.

And that even includes the ones who really have these systems go to their heads. Where, the higher karma count they've acquired, the more of a holier-than-thou attitude they possess.

The same can be said in reverse for Japanese people on how they see the Western world: Do they assume the USA is like Hollywood or the UK being like British Television? They perhaps assume that all Americans live in a large home with a white picket fence depicting a nuclear family as if its 1950.

All they talk about US is California or New York since most movies and TV shows use either as their main setting. Is the US in real life similar to Hollywood (everyone having a nice car, big home & white picket fence)? That's the kind of response from non-Japanese assuming Japan is like anime.

I hear all this uproar all the time about people who use cultural appropriation, yet sometimes I just don’t see what the problem is. I get that it has been done for malicious intent before and I’m not defending that or suggesting I agree with doing it for such purposes, but is, for example, a chef cooking a certain dish that originates from a land that is not his own, or other examples, really worth the same uproar?

I thought of this one as I was walking to the supermarket, and I think it works. Probably been watching too much Bennett Cerf lately, but he's becoming a great favorite of mine. Here goes:

A group of men inside a courtroom.
All happen to be... uh, rather well-endowed.
What would they be called?

I'm sure someone here can figure it out. If you do, please use spoiler tags in your comment?

And what are your favorites?
(either self-created or by others?)

EDIT: Couple downvotes in, and they seem to be negative. So... people on Lemmy hate riddles, I take it..?

I am starting my learning journey and I often feel overwhelmed by the amount of things to learn. What advice would you give to a complete beginner about choosing what to learn and staying consistent?

Discussing politics and other contentious sunjects online feels to me like it's counterproductive these days and even though I try not to get suckered in, I often can't help myself. Usually though I just end up feeling frustrated and sometimes angry at the other person either missing my points or refusing to accept them.

Thinking back to conversations I've had here and previously on Reddit, not only can I not remember an example of me "winning" the discussion and the other person changing their mind or conceding the point, I also cannot think of a time where my mind was changed either.

So have you ever begun a discussion online with someone with a different view point to yours and either you, or they, changed the others mind?

According to some sources, at least 1 in 8 of the world population is classified as ‘obese’. Since nobody in any government seems to have thought up a working solution, what do you believe can be done to solve the epidemic?

the alleged definition of obesity

I have a full time job but some coworkers suggested I could apply to a department with a manager who seems to be a complete sociopath and seems to always need personnel.

In said department, there was a nurse that worked part time to finance her bachelor to be a physician assistant with the promise to be hired afterwards. She was sometimes very talkative and a gossip but otherwise a good nurse. Barely a week before the contract was to be signed, after she got her degree, she was told they found a better candidate with more experience so they wouldn’t hire her.

Obviously, she used all her sick days and then quit. Why would anyone work for a manager like this?

Chilling and very sad that people are sometimes like this. She was used.

Would you work for a manager like this? Because some coworkers would like me to apply to work for this guy,because they're always shorthanded. I’m not asking because I need this job, but because it’s always good to know what other options you have before looking elsewhere.

Believe people when they show you who they are would apply here.

Thinking about Starcraft Dominion, it will likely be released on PS and Xbox too to get to the largest market. I'm wondering if Sony can/will force them to release on PS6 only and not the PS5? PS6 will probably be expensive (ramageddon) and not sell well, and Blizzard will simply want the largest audience. In the past you kinda needed one console generation or the other* but given the whole situation of both gaming and hardware costs, I see uhh console generations and game settings all blending together to put it that way. (*I'm aware many games released on two generations or downscaled for nintendo. It's often said but I think we're at a turning point of what we need. How big is the market for 4k? etc.)

With rising oil prices, if countries decided to curtail their consumption - akin to a directed economy - to reduce purchases to a minimum and even refusing to buy above a certain value, what could that cause?

The first reaction I'd expect would be production cuts to hold the prices but, technically, those are already happening. Demand is just not following.

Working healthcare, I tell all other healthcare / first responders "I hope you have a boring shift" (every once in a while a younger person objects, but they are almost immediately hushed / corrected by their senior coworker).

But it occurs to me that many office / sedentary workers might not find this to be a blessing. What would I say to a desk worker that might be equivalent?

It’s been reported that in the German elections, a far right party has made ‘significant gains’.

In the UK (at least before the scandals) Reform UK seems to have had a significant boost and has even surpassed the right-wing Conservative Party in some polls/predictions.

Even France, one or two years ago, was threatened with a far-right government due to the French far right party gaining a lot of support.

It feels like in the last few years, the far-right has exceeded itself and had a surge in popularity. Is this the case? And if so, wtf is fuelling it?

I know it doesn’t ‘cause’ it, per se, but it’s still a ‘factor’ (or can be, rather) yet it seems some disagree with that description.