I'm wondering if the concept of a Galactic Republic/Federation/Empire commonly depicted in Space Sci-fi even makes sense.

I've got no problem with them, but these are obviously kids who grew up in a different age than me, and it shows, I know what could seem a joke to me could come off different to them. Especially this being In the trades and the type of jokes we make here. I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable, we're all trying to just get through the day after all

Edit: I have learned, they used to be female, transitioned to male. (So trans-masc? I'm probably messing that up) Lesbian, and non-binary, thankfully they brought it up which was very helpful as I wasn't sure if it was appropriate to ask

I don't know if I'm a low key alcoholic or so cheap because in my past I was homeless and dependent on the charity of (sometimes) strangers and feel I only "deserve" alcohol when it's on sale.

I know binge drinking is stupid, I know if I drink more than a pint of beer without food my stomach feels bad and I feel dizzy, but each time I find beer on sale I buy at least a 6 pack (6 pints). I then promise myself to drink it within several days, not all within 3 days, but something snaps in me each time I open the fridge and see all that beer. I sometimes drink 2 pints a day till I have no more beer.

The only thing stopping me from buying beer every day is the price: if beer is not on sale, I don't buy it.

Beer is the only alcoholic drink I buy, I cannot tolerate anything else.

There are much healthier alternatives there, like tea, milk or juicy fruits, but my brain still associates beer with a good time, which is very ironic, because now, after drinking almost a pint, I have a headache. It doesn't even taste as good as I thought it would.

Another thing that stops me from drinking more is reading about other alcoholics, their regrets and health issues, but my brain still "wants" the beer.

To be even more ironic, I usually run 2 miles and do some stretching and yoga before going to work, but yesterday and today I was so tired I skipped this routine and started drinking.

Am I a high functioning alcoholic?

How do I stop being so fixated on alcohol on sale?

As a non-American, I'm very confused by this. If it's a town, it's not rural by definition. Because, you-know, it's urban.

Also, could we get a definition of town vs small town. Do you not have the concept of a village? (Village in the UK would be a settlement with a population of a couple of thousand, with usually a pub, local shop, maybe a post office and primary school if you're lucky).

Obviously, the interviewer is implying about loyalty to the state ("state" as in country, not a US State) or to an administration, and I know that they are implying that. But I am not loyal to an administration. But I know that's what they actually meant.

How would the polygraph interpret it if I say "Yes", because I'm answering based on my interpretation of loyalty to the constitution, but deep down, I full well know the implied question the interviewer is asking.

🤔

Like, do you need to wiggle it on each tooth like you would a regular toothbrush? Or do you just “drag” it along each tooth and let its own vibrations take care of the plaque?

I (32 F) like the look/vibe (love the flannel/plaid look especially). I also like how intimidating they can be. I'm not sure how I'd go about trying to find one, though.

The prequel to the 'A Quiet Place' saga got me thinking.

spoiler alert!

There is a scene in which many humans march towards a safety point. Each individual human would have been relatively quiet, but because there are a lot of them (potentially hundreds), they end up being, as a whole, loud enough to alert the monsters so they get all killed.

This would suggest that many sources of noise which are near to each other and generate more or less the same amount of noise end up adding up so that the end result in dB is more or less the sum of the individual dB levels.

But then again, it's fiction.

Back to reality, I work in a room full of different servers which have also very different levels of noise. I have noticed that from my standpoint, the noise of the quietest server seems to disappear whenever the loudest is running, so it kind of does blow my mind how our perception of noise works...

Like, seriously, I have had a few people talk about how my fiancé wasn’t conventionally attractive, but he’s attractive to me :)

Plus, he’s good to me, and I don’t date for looks. I’ve had conventionally attractive exes too who have been horrible people, so…

A nationwide firewall could always be bypassed (see: Russia, China, Iran), but what if they just went directly to the end user device and add a chip that constantly scans for anti-regime keywords? Especially when there is "AI" that could be embedded to just do basic OCR and close the browser when such "prohibited items" are detected.

Maybe for the aforementioned countries, its harder to create their own chips.

But I think an authoritarian USA definitely could.

Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Apple Silicon, are all in the US; Couldn't the US government just order those companies to add such "censorship chip" to devices sold in the US? Checks and balances seems to be not really a thing anymore...

This way, no amount of "VPN" is gonna work. The censorship chip is gonna block any negative mentions of trump. And with the US's cooperation, Russia, China, Iran could also acheive the same in their jurisdictions.

Am I just worrying to much.

Is a "censorship chip" even possible?

I see posts that say “rule” or “ultimate rule” a lot. What does this mean in Lemmy land?

I imagine nobody has this data, but presumably the correlation between birth control / women's empowerment and lower birth rates is because maybe most humans were conceived unintentionally? Like, what's the moral implications of most people being accidents, is that a massively taboo topic or is it just so uninteresting that nobody talks about it?

I'm looking into a few options right now. I was vaguely wondering could lemmy raffle it or do a competition for it or something?

I cut the inner part of my leg elbow while shaving and forgot the name

unrelated cat photo

also here's my cat being cute

idk just wanted to share her getting a suntan 🥰

I’m looking for a region that speaks both Portuguese and Spanish but also maybe another similar, less spoken Romance language.

It can have similar culture but also different, unique culture. Either has to be in Spain or Portugal or nearby them so I could just drive to either country.

What is the explanation for high technology in Star Wars?

What I mean is, what do people buy organs for? Transplants? Eating? Some other fucked up purpose I didn't think of?

From what I know, buying human organs is a tad bit too expensive and risky to do just for shits and giggles.

I mean, books deteriorate, a file can be copied and backed up. There's no doubt DRM-Free Ebooks are superior, right? Is there anything I'm missing?

I am noticing a rise in Holocaust denial with the rising anti-Zionism coming out of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Many of these YouTubers, tiktokers, and podcasters point to the writings of David Irving as proof. I know he is a holocaust denier and an idiot, but I would like to read it so I could point out the exact flaws in Irving’s “evidence” and stop getting the comment “You haven’t even read it!”. I also don’t want to send a penny to this author, but also don’t want to break the law in getting access to it.

How would you go about this situation?

Asking because I'm a disabled person with severe POTS and my heart has been recorded stopping after 35 minutes of being forced to stand up, so I absolutely couldn't do a more than 30 minute flight if this is going to be the case (I'd also imagine a woman's heart stopping shortly after takeoff and having to lie down in the aisle to stay conscious/recover would call for a return to the airport).

I've heard some airlines are considering standing only seats and will roll them out in 2028 because it allows passengers to be packed more tightly and it'll make more money. The articles don't seem to say which airlines are considering this though, so I'm wondering if it's going to be a thing.

I've heard multiple times that it's not okay to allow any food to go down the drain even with a garbage disposal, I guess because solids shouldn't go down the drain. But we put a shit ton of solids down the drain through the toilet and that seems to be fine. Does the toilet go to a different sewage pipe then the sink? Or does shit have different properties that make it dissolve better?