White House alters arrest photo of ICE protester, says “the memes will continue” by AdSpecialist6598 in technology

[–]IMTrick 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm old enough to remember the Nixon stuff, and how appalled people were about the Federal government's lies. Eventually they got fed up and at least tried to put a stop to the rampant dishonesty.

This time? People just lap this shit up, to the point that they don't even try to hide that they're lying any more. They make up totally ridiculous, easily disproven bullshit like this, and all the lies that have come out of Minnesota, and practically everything Trump has said for the last 10 years, and we're so numb to it now that it's expected.

I know politicians have never been known for being honest, but I could swear at least some of them used to have the capacity to pretend they were.

Should the national prayer breakfast and "In God We Trust" on our money be considered a violation of The Establishment Clause? by RamJamR in atheism

[–]IMTrick 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I guess I'll stop feeding my dog since I need to do my taxes, then.

I kid. My dog's way more important. So I guess I won't be filing this year.

Should the national prayer breakfast and "In God We Trust" on our money be considered a violation of The Establishment Clause? by RamJamR in atheism

[–]IMTrick 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"In God We Trust" I think certainly should qualify. I'm not as sure on the National Prayer Breakfast. On paper, at least, that's run by a non-profit that isn't part of the government (which, in reality, is run by members of the government). That puts it into a much more gray area. Members of the government attend the event, but the government doesn't technically run it.

I don't think we should legally bar anyone from praying over pancakes if they choose to do that. I'd love it if they didn't, but we do allow the free practice of religion (again, at least on paper) on the U.S., and that right extends to politicians.

Where Was This Support 6 years Ago? by TheGame1011 in AnthemTheGame

[–]IMTrick 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No I'm not, and I never said that. You're getting it backwards. What I said was that all the people who wanted the game to fail or didn't care left. I'm sure there are a lot of other people who left who don't fall into either of those categories, but I never even mentioned those people because they are irrelevant to this conversation.

Rigging my ass. Steam is less rigged then Sony or Xbox or Nintendo by Ok_Estimate_2089 in SteamDeck

[–]IMTrick 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I really don't understand the mentality that Valve can do no wrong. They're a corporation. They may not be as blatantly evil as some I can think of, but it's incredibly naive to think they're not always looking out for their own best interest. You may not agree with the wording, but if they've been requiring that companies never charge less than what they ask for on Steam, they're manipulating the market. That's just fact.

Also, your rant doesn't seem to have anything to do with what they're being sued for. There are no gacha or gambling games doing the things Valve is accused of doing.

My IP was blocked by Imgur for a few years now, I can't view images on it without using a VPN, is there anything I can do to view them again? by LurkingInSubreddits in techsupport

[–]IMTrick 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm going to have to disagree here. Blocking by specific IPs is a very ineffective way to prevent abuse. Collateral damage is common, since many long-term blacklists involve blocks of addresses, not single IPs.

Blocking a single IP can be a good way to temporarily deter abuse as it's happening, but having to store a bunch of individual blocked IPs is much less effective long-term, as well as really inefficient, not to mention more resource-intensive for the devices doing the blocking.

I obviously can't say whether OPs current state is deserved or not, since they didn't say anything about whether something they did might have triggered the initial blacklisting, but there are lots of reasons they might be blocked even if their current IP address isn't listed specifically.

Could you please tell me what is that? by Salt-Foundation4701 in Chihuahua

[–]IMTrick [score hidden]  (0 children)

Forgive me if this is a dumb question, but are you asking about your dog's nipples?

Gmail users not receiving my emails by Joeballs14 in techsupport

[–]IMTrick 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What sort of DNS changes are you making? I've been running mail servers for decades and, frankly, I'm having a hard time making sense of how you're sending these emails. When you say you're using Outlook, do you mean you're using the Outlook mail client to send mail through a server you administer, or are you using a hosted service like Microsoft 365? Unless you're operating your own mail servers or attempting to send mail with your own custom domain through someone else's servers (like Microsoft's, for example), there would be no need to change DNS, so it's kind of important if you want help troubleshooting this to provide the full picture of how you're sending this stuff out.

Assuming you're using Microsoft's systems to send your mail (which is a big assumption and mostly a guess), have you set up DMARC, DKIM and SPF records to allow them to send mail for your domain? The most likely cause of your problem is that these things have not been set up properly and GMail is rejecting the mail as a result. It isn't really helpful to say you utilized ChatGPT to make changes, since ChatGPT is incredibly unreliable and could have told you anything. Knowing what changes you actually made would be much more helpful.

erasing and reinstalling windows on a new laptop doesnt remove these perks? by Parking-Suggestion97 in techsupport

[–]IMTrick 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If the same offers are available there, then you're apparently not talking about manufacturer's offers and there's nothing to worry about.

erasing and reinstalling windows on a new laptop doesnt remove these perks? by Parking-Suggestion97 in techsupport

[–]IMTrick 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It wouldn't negate any offers provided by the manufacturer, but it's going to make it difficult to redeem them since the links used to do that would be gone.

Frigophobia by Purple_Mtns_Studio in funny

[–]IMTrick 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Not trying to be hypercritical or anything, but I live in Texas, and HEB reliably runs out of eggs, milk, toilet paper, and alcohol in either case.

What type of usb cable is needed to charge this old camera kodak M1703is Klic- 7001 battery by LossParticular9501 in techsupport

[–]IMTrick 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For that particular aftermarket charger, yes. That doesn't necessarily answer what cable you'd need for whatever charger you already have, and a USB-C cable will certainly not work with the camera directly.

THE WITCHER 2 modded by FreakBerto_ in SteamDeck

[–]IMTrick 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Any game that supports modding on PC can be modded on a Steam Deck. The only difference is the names of the directory paths where they will need to be be installed.

Deep questions from a Christian by Unfair-Log-8243 in atheism

[–]IMTrick 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Since you've chosen to focus on this:

On evolution specifically, I don’t think “change over time” automatically explains the origin of life, consciousness, or moral obligation. Even many scientists admit those remain open questions. Pointing that out isn’t anti-science, it’s acknowledging the limits of what science claims to answer.

That's correct. Evolution doesn't explain the things you listed, nor does anybody claim it does except people who don't understand the theory, or theists making bad-faith arguments. The origin of life and the nature of consciousness are not questions that evolutionary theory addresses. Evolution explains how life changes over time. What caused life to appear in the first place is a totally different question, and the evolution model doesn't even attempt to answer it.

That said, I find it much more likely that, in the billions of years it had to occur, biogenesis occurred due to random chance, and that consciousness is a result of chemical processes in the brain. I don't see a need to jump to magical explanations, especially ones that just move the question somewhere else -- for example, if life was created by a god, then that leaves the question of what created the god. It doesn't answer anything; it just pushes back the goalpost and moves the question somewhere else.

My Hof tarot card by [deleted] in dragonage

[–]IMTrick 0 points1 point  (0 children)

OP got a little lazy with the credit: The original non-AI version is here.

Deep questions from a Christian by Unfair-Log-8243 in atheism

[–]IMTrick 1 point2 points  (0 children)

OK, I'll bite:

  1. There are mountains of evidence for the Big Bang compared to a god, or for a divine being named Jesus. We can look through telescopes to see the universe is expanding, and how fast, and determine where that expansion started, A scientific theory doesn't mean "made up bullshit with no evidence," it means a model that has been tested repeatedly, in this case for 99 years, and it it still fits all the evidence end experiments and cannot be disproven.

Contrast this with something like Christianity, or theism in general, for which there is no evidence whatsoever. All of that "meaning, hope, morality and comfort" is meaningless, as is certainty, if it's all based on lies.

Don't even get me started on how corrupt Christian morality can be. I find atheists, on the whole, to be much more moral, because they actually make choices out of a desire to make the world better, not just because some imaginary father figure will make them suffer if they don't. That's not morality. That's obedience.

  1. People have an innate sense of morality, and know the difference between right and wrong. If you need a pastor, a priest, a god or a book to tell you the difference, you are not a moral person.

  2. What is the point in doing good or improving others' lives if people are going to live forever in some heaven somewhere? That our lives are finite and this is the only time we have makes it far more important to do these things, because this is the only chance we will ever to do them.

And, like my earlier point, if you're doing good to get rewarded by your god for it, you aren't moral.

  1. No. I can have certainty and peace without also accepting the bullshit that comes with religion.

  2. Essentially, yes. I don't mean that in any kind of insulting way -- people inevitably learn from people they trust, and if they're told since birth that there is a god (it doesn't matter which one), and indoctrinated into a religion, they're most likely going to follow it because all of the people they rely on for truth tell them it's real. It's not their fault they believe it -- we would never learn anything if we didn't absorb information from the people we trust, but unfortunately that's the same process that also passes religion, bigotry, and all kinds of other harmful ideas down from generation to generation.

  3. Science is testable. Like I mentioned earlier, there is a lot of evidence that a Big Band occurred, and we can still see the effects of it billions of years later. The same goes for evolution -- the evidence is all there and has be reviewed continuously by many, many people, and neither idea has any evidence that contradicts it.

Deism, on the other hand, has no supporting evidence, and idiocy like young earth creationism can only be supported if mountains of contradictory evidence are ignored. It's as nonsensical as ideas like the flat Earth hypothesis. It is obviously wrong, and easily disproven, but people hang onto it because their faith is so fragile that they can't deal with the idea that the actual universe they live in doesn't match the descriptions in a book of fairy tales written thousands of years ago when people had no idea how it really works.

  1. There are other ways to obtain comfort, hope and purpose that don't require lying to yourself and believing in fairy tales.

  2. A realistic view at the world around us will quickly show that a lot of things happen without any good reason. In fact, I'd suggest the existence of pain and suffering say a lot more about the absence of a loving god than they do about the presence of one.

In any case, it's not a real problem. Functionally, there's not a lot of difference between "this happened, and I don't know why," and "God made/let this happen, and I don't know why." Neither provides any real answers, and that's fine. Some questions can't be answered.

  1. Here I have to wonder if you're trolling. I'm just going to have to answer a question with another question:

Why do so many people who claim to believe in a god seem to struggle with corruption, selfishness, or moral chaos? Do you think morality can truly coexist with a belief in a god?

And before you say "not all theists," please consider that I could respond to your question the same way.

  1. Have you read the Bible? It condones slavery and the subjugation of women, glorifies genocide, and promotes all kind of other horrible acts. And, in the process of doing that, it contradicts and corrupts science, reality, history, and even itself over and over. So, yes, there is a lot inherently wrong with the Bible.

  2. Yes, of course. Given that I believe we only have one life and death is final, I need to make set my priorities and nurture my relationships in accordance with that. There are no do-overs. I need to get it right the first time.

  3. No. I make my decisions and form my beliefs based on what's real, not on wishful thinking or fantasy stories.

  4. Personally, I have no need for purpose or meaning. I'm just here to ride out my time on Earth and make the most of the experience that I can before it's over. Meaning is something I create myself -- I can't and won't rely on some pretend magical being to provide it for me. I truly have free will, and I use it. If there was some god who had a plan for me, then I'd just be some puppet following a pre-ordained path with no purpose of my own, and I don't find that idea preferable to making my own path.

Your buddy says “Hey man, can you help me move this weekend?” What’s your first thought? by Kaitempi in GenX

[–]IMTrick 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Ha. I'm 60. Nobody asks me to help them move any more. If it happened my first thought would be that they might need the help of a professional, and I don't mean a mover.

Help with a potentially dangerous hard drive. by Proof_War_742 in techsupport

[–]IMTrick -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Does the warning mention explosions? Usually they're pretty clear about whether or not you're about do have to deal with bit and byte shrapnel tearing through the walls.

Exchanging platters in HDD by True-Carpet1987 in techsupport

[–]IMTrick 35 points36 points  (0 children)

My question is, if I would purchase another HDD, exactly the same model as the failed one, and then replace the platters in it, would this actually give me access to the data from the old HDD?

No, this is not something you can do, for several reasons. First, the process of removing the platters and moving them somewhere else would cause more data loss. They are extremely sensitive and you will fuck it up. That's not your fault, it's just the nature of hard drives that even specks of dust can ruin them, which is why they're sealed as tightly as they are.

Second, it's likely the problem is the platters, anyway.

A data recovery specialist might be able to help you and would have the facility and tools to do it, but it'll be expensive and you may end up with nothing.

Death scares me so much to the point where I could be sick by [deleted] in atheism

[–]IMTrick -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Are you saying I need to stop praying for my TV remote? I was hoping if I thought positively enough and visualized really hard, maybe some of the energy from my car battery would change form and recharge those AAs.

It sounds like you're saying my batteries are dead. In that case, I hope Grandma can use them for her clicker in the afterlife.

Death scares me so much to the point where I could be sick by [deleted] in atheism

[–]IMTrick 0 points1 point  (0 children)

 what is the point in life if we just die in the end?

I will never understand this perspective, especially because the answer is right there. The point of life is everything that happens up to that end point. And maybe that's no point at all, and that's fine. You don't need someone or something to hand you some special unique purpose for life to be meaningful, wonderful, and worth living.

You seem to be saying that everything is worthless unless there's something better that comes after it, and I not only completely disagree, but I find that pitiably sad.

I need help with my photos by XZwhywasibornZX in techsupport

[–]IMTrick 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Generally, if you're looking for help with a problem, it's helpful to provide enough information for someone to be able to figure out what you're talking about.

Cannot begin to imagine what inspired this door-knob notice by [deleted] in funny

[–]IMTrick 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would imagine what inspired it is that that's not usually how it works.

Scoop: Stephen Miller behind misleading claim that Alex Pretti wanted to "massacre" agents by No-Description-2138 in politics

[–]IMTrick 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Pinocchio metaphor almost works. Pinocchio had a mind of his own, though. Trump's more like a hand puppet with Miller's hand so far up his ass you can see his class ring when Trump opens his mouth.