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brickfacedon The Brief Origins of May Day

Comparing the American Revolution to random anarchist terrorists throwing bombs into crowds is... certainly something.

brickfacedon The Brief Origins of May Day

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brickfacedon I wrote a book called "Crap Towns". It seemed funny at the time

Nothing about the towns with massive gang-rape grooming gangs. Well, we know why:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-46684638

Big if true. Meanwhile, most are pleased with the bans on men in women's sports and DoD doctors sterilizing children, among other executive actions.

brickfacedon Careless People

The 2024 general election.

brickfacedon Careless People

Complicity in what, exactly? Democracy? Personally I'm less concerned about Facebook staying neutral in 2016 and more concerned about their election sabotage in 2020:

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3616579-zuckerberg-tel...

Of course in the end things turned out for the best, but that's almost certainly not what Sheryl wanted, so I guess it's on theme for the book.

brickfacedon Visiting – Epic

It's not in the same league as LA, NY, or Chicago but definitely up there (albeit during shorter time windows) with Silicon Valley commuter traffic. Part of a common theme of living in Madison where you get downsides of city living- traffic, high taxes, high housing costs- without many upsides such as good public transport, a diversified job market, or a well-developed food scene.

brickfacedon Visiting Us

Glad your friends' experiences are exceptional. I know a woman working for Epic in the Madison area who miscarried due to work stress. Madison housing is also a lot less affordable these days, assuming you want to actually live in Madison and not a copy-paste Verona suburb w/ zero walkability:

https://captimes.com/news/madison-home-prices-increased-the-...

And living in Madison means commuting to Epic in Verona, which means contending with Beltline traffic just as bad as 280 during rush hour.

brickfacedon Visiting Us

I've been told by doctors and nurses that using Epic sucks, mainly because you're doing constant data entry while trying to listen to and care for patients, but that it's still far better than using any of Epic's competitors.

brickfacedon Visiting Us

Epic is known locally as an exploitative, abusive employer of software engineers. Work-life balance is poor, pay is mediocre for the industry, and skills with their in-house tools don't transfer outside Epic. They have an extensive non-compete clause with EXTREMELY aggressive enforcement:

https://isthmus.com/news/cover-story/opportunity-lost-epic-n...

They're also vehemently opposed to remote work, to the point that during COVID they tried to force employees back into the office in August, 2020 (!) in violation of a county public health order (!!!):

https://www.wpr.org/economy/workers-officials-urge-remote-wo...

Epic's Glassdoor reviews are terrible. Several personal friends each lasted less than a year at Epic out of college before finding new, better-paying employment elsewhere. Since Epic is privately owned and its founder and CEO has stated she'll never sell, its corporate culture will never change. It's better than no job at all but if you have other options, avoid.

brickfacedon The thing about Europe: it's the actual land of the free now

You're right, not nearly enough people are deported.

brickfacedon The thing about Europe: it's the actual land of the free now

Land of the free, where police raid your home at dawn over mean tweets:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/09/pimmelgate-g...

https://archive.ph/hETjp

Not a one-off, either:

https://nypost.com/2025/02/21/world-news/germans-cant-insult...

brickfacedon xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

>A story about the most destructive man in the history of high technology

This seems a bit, uh, hyperbolic

brickfacedon Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada

Makes sense if you're familiar with the professor in question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oomvEjJAI44

brickfacedon ‘Bloody Saturday’ at Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks

The simple answer is that one group's ideological allies grabbed control of the Empire and now they don't want to give it up.

brickfacedon ‘Bloody Saturday’ at Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks

Strikes me as odd how one flavor of commenters who've long called for the "end of the American Empire," reductions in our "overseas military imperialism," and closure of the VoA "propaganda outlet" now stand by the institutions of said Empire to the death.

brickfacedon US added to international watchlist for rapid decline in civic freedoms

Can describe in detail how you, a Pakistani, think America should relax its child pornography laws?

brickfacedon US added to international watchlist for rapid decline in civic freedoms

Don't worry, the professional civil rights NGO got it wrong too.

brickfacedon US added to international watchlist for rapid decline in civic freedoms

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brickfacedon US added to international watchlist for rapid decline in civic freedoms

What does the editorial decision of a newspaper's owner, which runs counter to the unconcealed biases of many who remain gainfully employed at the paper, have to do with legal freedoms of association and expression?

brickfacedon US added to international watchlist for rapid decline in civic freedoms

I'm familiar with their blasphemy laws for a start.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_in_Pakistan

brickfacedon Toward a Passwordless Future

Already using it for my password manager. Didn't know they'd added passkey support; thanks for the tip.

brickfacedon Toward a Passwordless Future

That and the hypothetical ability to use different private keys per device, which could be canceled in case of loss or theft, seems legitimately useful. Not interested unless and until there's a standalone, standardized, open-source, cold-backup'ed way to use passkeys though.

brickfacedon Toward a Passwordless Future

So it's effectively SSH keys, but for regular app/site logins with a nicer UI.

brickfacedon Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

I don't have a duty of care to every corrupt foreign country with complex, long-running border disputes and interests orthogonal to my own. Does that answer your pointed question?

brickfacedon Global sales of combustion engine cars have peaked

Seems unlikely that we'll ever totally move away from combustion engines, simply due to sunk costs plus the advantages of energy density and quick refilling. I expect we'll see net-zero carbon emission gasoline and other hydrocarbons sold at the pump within the next few decades, produced with either solar or nuclear energy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_proces...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8zOHZINyG8

Compressed natural gas (methane) is even easier to synthesize from the raw ingredients than gasoline or diesel fuels. It's used today in many city buses, fleet vehicles, and private cars in certain parts of the world:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction

Such fuels could become less attractive if we invent lighter, cheaper, and much faster-charging batteries than the current state of the art, but I'm not holding my breath.

brickfacedon Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

And I am being totally serious. Wish you didn't project inaccurate moral assumptions on this conversation.

brickfacedon Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

Geopolitics is about more than feelings wrapped around complex, poorly-understand conflicts halfway around the world.

brickfacedon Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

I watched the whole thing. I suppose you saw what you wanted to see.

brickfacedon Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

>Suppose we left Ukraine empty-handed. What do you think will happen next?

I don't really care.

>Would you regret it if Russia expanded its invasions further?

They're not invading NATO with refurbished T-62s. This is an insane boogeyman.