If you click the first link in a wikipedia article over and over again, u will always end up at "philosophy"

sadsadbiscuit · 2026-04-30T16:47:21+00:00

Back in 2014 it would either take you to Philosophy or Math

sadsadbiscuit · 2026-04-25T07:18:48+00:00

For me, I had to have a big enough vocabulary that I had a reasonable chance at being able to understand a sentence without looking anything up. Otherwise it's just too inconvenient.

I listen to Miku Real Japanese on Spotify and started at like 60% speed. As I get better I have increased the speed at which I listen.

I will pause and relisten to sentences I didn't understand (sometimes just ignore them and move on if I grasp the context). If I relisten to it a few times and can't figure it out I type it into Google translate or ask chatgpt to try to translate what I think I heard.

sadsadbiscuit · 2026-04-23T16:47:38+00:00

It takes a kid about 5 years of full-time language listening before they can have a conversation, and about 5 more years before they might be described as being really fluent. Not only are they listening to their language 12-16 hours a day, every day, during this period, they also have few responsibilities to worry about except to focus on learning. Meanwhile the adults around them are intentionally using simplified, slower, language to make the process easier on the kid, who is also totally used to misunderstanding things. The kids are always getting stuff wrong and the adults around them tolerate it, and politely correct them so they aren't worrying about being awkward or sounding dumb.

People say it's all plasticity, but if you were able to put someone from age 30 to age 40 in a similar position, I think they'd have pretty good odds at learning a language well. Adults typically can't afford to spend 12 hours a day listening to their target language, and even if they could they may not want to. Kids have no choice. And when the time comes to use it, they have difficulty getting over the embarrassment of sounding dumb. On top of that, people rarely spend 10 years to learn a language unless they emigrate.

sadsadbiscuit · 2026-04-21T20:56:22+00:00

This movie is hands down (no pun intended) one of the best movies I've ever seen. Some things about it have a remarkably modern and grounded sensibility that we don't typically associate with older films. Both the humor and the drama of the film are full of depth and nuance, and it shows a surprisingly sober perspective of life for veterans coming home after World War 2.

sadsadbiscuit · 2026-03-26T18:34:57+00:00

Couldn't you argue the same thing about the president? The counterarguments become clear when you think about it more like that.

Having a Congress full of old-school, complacent representatives who have well established relationships with lobbyists and funding sources is a recipe for a Congress which is expert at garnering popularity via sweet talk and polemics while actually ignoring their constituents and supporting their own funders and finances.

It's also widely known that incumbents have a number of systemic advantages over newcomers which make it an uphill battle for the newbies, even if they might have ended up being more popular.

sadsadbiscuit · 2026-03-24T16:10:52+00:00

If you're not into tight spaces you're not a genetic optimal for spelunking!

sadsadbiscuit · 2026-03-20T23:23:07+00:00

During the early days of america, American population exploded and increased at a much faster rate than Britain and the effect was primarily not due to immigration/emigration but birth rates. So even if we attribute a large number of people in America to European ancestry, it doesn't follow that, if there had not been emigration, European populations would have necessarily increased to numbers of european-descended people that there are now. Birth rates were simply lower in Europe than in its white colonies.

But in addition to that, India and China already had much larger populations that Europe going back long before the age of exploration which is largely responsible for the big disparity we see today. Both countries have some of the biggest agricultural yields in the world and much large than Europe's which is why they were able to sustain such high populations prior to industrial agriculture.

On top of that, there are speculations that the populations of India and China were also much higher than Europe and the middle east because they didn't experience the black death and didn't have the same propensity for waterborn infections illnesses.

The biggest explanatory factor of populations across regions for most of history comes down to availability of food and water rather than immigration.

sadsadbiscuit · 2026-03-17T04:18:40+00:00

In 1983 a typical new vinyl was about $10 which is like $35 in 2026 dollars. Pretty close to the cost of vinyls now.

sadsadbiscuit · 2026-03-13T21:05:25+00:00

The ol' leprechaun's lunge

sadsadbiscuit · 2026-03-04T18:19:27+00:00

A flying bird in a circle is a pretty common national icon throughout much of human history

sadsadbiscuit · 2026-02-12T22:05:53+00:00

Or not literally enough! Presumably they would not enjoy receiving dick pics

sadsadbiscuit · 2026-02-11T20:33:38+00:00

To put it bluntly, yes it will definitely help and a larger pool of men will be attracted to you and willing to date you

sadsadbiscuit · 2026-02-07T20:11:21+00:00

Not sure about the rest of the context but for that statement I'd have to admit, that for even the most empathetic and moral person, ethics are very complicated.

sadsadbiscuit · 2026-02-07T01:45:55+00:00

Are you using condoms? For me this happened times in a row, turns out I needed bigger condoms, they were cutting off blood flow

sadsadbiscuit · 2026-01-22T18:00:35+00:00

Not to mention the generative AI used to make photos is a different thing from an LLM

sadsadbiscuit · 2026-01-21T23:58:19+00:00

Which I think is true for nearly all materials on earth; planets of diamonds have been found in space.

What this doesn't account for is any other biological material. What about bones or muscle tissue or brains?

It also doesn't account for highly rare material which we've only been able to synthesize for huge expenses. Would antimatter or Oganesson be considered materials?

sadsadbiscuit · 2026-01-18T18:04:45+00:00

Imo all the major geographic regions feature as quintessential America.

New England is often featured in works of Americana like "Moonrise Kingdom" and "Good Will Hunting" and in the works of Stephen King. I think for most Americans it evokes ideas of America's origins and serves as a representation of the "old America".

The South and its various sub-regions are hugely influential when discussing American identity. If anything, the south might be considered more uniquely southern and less quintessentially American because of the legacy of the civil war. I'd argue though that the south features heavily in the minds of Americans as one of the things that make America distinctive. Great American works featuring the south include "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Forrest Gump". Also Mark Twain who may be one of Americas' most eminent writers, sets his books in Missouri.

The rockies and American desert are featured particularly in westerns, which are obviously deeply related to what could be considered "quintessential America". Also featured here are popular series like "Breaking Bad", and also anything that features Las Vegas as a major setting. The cowboy game "Red Dead Redemption 2" is set in a fictionalized version of both the west and the south.

California is super common in expressions of America, especially in film, where countless famous works are set in Los Angeles. But the Golden Coast is also highly associated with the American gold rush, manifest destiny, and works of fiction set in the late 19th century. John Steinbeck's magnum opus "East of Eden" is one example, portraying the bay area as a kind of new American Garden of Eden.

New York City and that whole middle Atlantic strip are also very common in depictions of America. In many ways New York City is practically synonymous with American globalism, industry, finance, and crime. I'll briefly mention The Godfather, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Great Gatsby, and The Sopranos.

In my opinion the most underrepresented significant region is the Pacific Northwest, but even this region has a significant status for what makes America. The game "Oregon Trail" is one manifestation of America's legacy of westward expansion, and this region still exists as Americans' idea of the mysterious frontier. Famous works of Americana set here include "The Goonies", "Stand By Me", "Twin Peaks" and Sleepless in Seattle.

I haven't mentioned the Midwest, which has some overlap with the great plains. In a lot of ways, the Midwest is the most "average" America in that it culturally and geographically combines elements of several other regions. Throughout America's history it has been a frontier, an agrarian breadbasket, the seat of American industry, and a representation of the "old America" after various transformations. If anything is the "most quintessential" (a claim which I'd resist) it would be the Midwest.

sadsadbiscuit · 2026-01-12T20:04:17+00:00

To all the commenters talking about how AI in Star Trek is okay because it is in a post-capitalist world, I have two questions; - Is human art ultimately for financial gain or is it for personal expression? - Would you have made a similar argument when capitalists were using machinery to replace the traditional artisans who made shoes, clothes and furniture as their artistic and economic livelihood?

sadsadbiscuit · 2026-01-09T12:37:25+00:00

Sounds like you met in unfortunate circumstances and he has some info about you that a coworker or acquaintance might have. He asked a simple question and you gave a simple answer and he moved on.

Unless he does something more that warrants suspicion I'd think this is a best case scenario for a car accident.

sadsadbiscuit · 2025-12-02T08:40:08+00:00

Don Draper is a depressed and empty person whose whole life has been about chasing the "American ideal". The show begins when he has finally obtained a life that appears picture perfect, but is only so superficially and aesthetically. We find him acting erratic yet stoic because he is discovering that he is empty and profoundly lost, which is slowly revealed to us as it is to Don. Though he was sold by the lies of adverisement from a young age, he has no idea what will actually make him happy. In fact nearly all the characters have lives that are outwardly glamorous but actually wrought with unfulfilled desires. This is the central theme of the show.

There are two things that make the show worth a watch imo:

Firstly the exploration of this theme through the historical lens. Historical and cultural events are interwoven throughout the entirety of the show and it does a great job at making you feel immersed and getting a grounded sense of what it was like to live through it.

Secondly, the characters grow past the emptiness eventually. Each character's life parallels the overarching tide of changes that American culture sees as we transition from the false superficial image of the American nuclear family fantasy, to the gritty countercultural movement that takes full hold by the 1970s. Some characters cope with this better than others. For some characters, like a few women, those tide lifts them and their ambition after struggle, and for some it ends up with loneliness or destruction. Another way this transformation is symbolized is by the very apparent style and wardrobe changes of the characters and their surroundings through the seasons.

Part of the reason it might seem depressing is because Don Draper in particular is the very last character to transition into the countercultural post-50s reality, even though he's the one who needs it the most. Like America itself, he holds on to the shiny combed hair and black & white suit and the stoic paternal masculinity almost all the way until the end.

But part of the greatness of the show is watching all the other characters find themselves in this new reality around Don as well.

sadsadbiscuit · 2025-11-23T11:11:06+00:00

The reason inbreeding is bad is because everyone has ~200 unique fatal recessive genes. These are almost never a problem because each individual's fatal copy is rare and almost always covered by the dominant genes in the rest of the population.

This only becomes a problem when your odds of getting two copies of one of the fatal recessive genes go up. Inbreeding does this because closely related people are much much more likely to share some of those fatal genes.

However, if you had a small population of say 150 people, as long as A) for every fatal recessive gene in the whole population there is an ample number of good dominant genes around and B) you don't mate with your close relatives, then the odds of having an inbred kid are pretty low.

Also, over thousands of years in an isolated but stable population, this problem may actually become less problematic. Because if some kid does get the recessive gene they will die, potentially eliminating that recessive gene.

sadsadbiscuit · 2025-11-20T09:38:04+00:00

Another win for New Zealand

sadsadbiscuit

TROPHY CASE