Blackgate.com - the remnants of Black Gate magazine, which was published from 2000-2011 and then continued in digital form since. It focuses primarily on vintage literary fantasy, though occasionally the an article will be published in films or new fiction. Of particular note to nerds is the Cinema of Swords column by Lawrence Ellsworth, who fantasy fans may be familiar with as the Principal Narrative Designer for Baldur’s Gate 3. I’m not so immersed in the fantasy world that I understand most of what is discussed on the blog, but it is a nice taste of the old Internet, one which might resonate with other fediverse users.

I assumed something like shredded wheat.

Seconding the other poster. Excellent write up; you distilled every rebuttal point I would have made to OP perfectly.

“Billionaires have started ‘quiet killing’, here’s why Forbes says signing up as tribute is a GOOD THING.”

I’m circle jerking here, but Lemmy needs content so I’m gonna inflict it on y’all. It’s just nice to hear that the genesis of this project is a bunch of creative people experimenting and seeing what sticks rather than some suit writing “Live Service” on a white board and circling it a bunch. Maybe a dollar sign or two.

This is a factually accurate statement, but it reads like you’re encouraging someone to get into smoking cigarettes, which is (I thought) a myth invented by DARE types. Hey OP, speaking as someone with a 15 year off and on addiction to nicotine, steady on your course, bud.

I feel like this is the sort of thing that should make an appearance on LGReviews’ YouTube channel at some point, if it has not already.

I don’t understand diddly about the specifics of this article (I’m a member of the normie minority on this site who is neither working in IT, nor interested in the field), but I gotta say, I loved how it was structured and written. In a sea of AI generated crap, or simply parroting talking heads and calling it news, I found the way they laid out the article in two parts ("this is what happened, followed by “this is our subjective opinion on those events based on the wider context”) to be very refreshing.

I hope this does not drastically affect their operations negatively. I’ve been trained by everything else to assume that this will result in negative impact for customers, but, as someone who literally just upgraded their home theater setup, I’m going to be salty if they lose their focus on providing the definitive experience for home video releases. Obviously, Criterion isn’t the only game in town for that sort of thing, and you could argue they miss the mark with some of their releases, but any loss of a vendor for what is becoming something of a niche hobby is a kick in the rear.

You deserve the hose for this, because now I can’t stop thinking about it.

I’m no legal scholar, but my read on Thomas is that he is, at the end of the day, a constitutional originalist. He is also a scumbag, but the opinions of his that I’ve read tend towards similar things: i.e. what does the Constitution/Founding Fathers say about this issue? Of course, most of the time, that ends up generating some wacko opinions because he’s generally unwilling to deviate from at 1700s era mindset. In fact, he seems to immerse himself in that mindset in order to form his opinions.

For example, if you read the majority opinion he wrote, Thomas defines the case very narrowly on Constitutional grounds. Basically, the payday loans companies argue that the consumer protection agency is in violation of the Constitution because, unlike most other federal agencies, its director is imbued (by Congress, mind you) with the power to withdraw up to a stuatory cap of funds from the Federal Reserve every year “as [they] determine fit to meet the agencies operating expenses”. The loan companies say that this is in violation with the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution, which states, " no money shall be drawn from the Treasury except in consequence of Appropriations made by Law".

So, Thomas’s approach to this disagreement is to determine what an “Appropriation” is, as it might have been defined by the people who wrote the clause. To do so, he, I shit you not, consults a dictionary from the period, like the intro to a lazy term paper ("Merriam-Webster defines appropriation as…). He also gets into the historical case law of Britain, rather extensively, as he believes (probably accurately, frankly) that that’s the best way to understand what the authors of the constitutional had conceived as they wrote the document.

After all of this, he winds up with several examples of executive agencies which do/did not fund themselves via the standard appropriations bill process (Customs Offices and Post Offices being the primary examples used). So, he concludes that it’s clear that the Founding Fathers had a broader view of how to find the government than ONLY annual appropriations bills, even if the literal text seems to indicate otherwise.

Also, he points out that the whole thing kinda falls apart in the sense that the creation of this agency was an act of Congress, with stuatory funding regulations drawn up by Congress, which was then signed by Obama into law. So, Congress made a law that said this particular agency is allowed to bypass the appropriations clause in x y z ways. Thomas has a stack of historical records which show that this was something the founders not only were aware of, but actively sanctioned via how the Post Office and Customs offices were set up at their establishment. So, he has no choice but to conclude that this agency is in line with what Jefferson et al had in mind. Thus, tough shit payday loans, bribe a congressman to change the law because ain’t shit can be done from a judicial perspective. Which, I imagine is probably what Thomas told these companies’ bag men when they showed up to secure his opinion.

Thank you for your service

As a small, optimistic caveat to the above, Biden’s pardon does work for anyone who was charged in Washington DC since they don’t have a state body representing them. So, yes, typically anyone with a federal marijuana charge is also likely the subject of many more serious charges, there is a population of people that may have received immediate relief at the time, which is good.

Biden has done what he is able to do. He proclaimed presidential pardon for federal marijuana charges in late 2022. However, the executive branch has no authority to impact state level charges, which would likely be the vast majority of people affected by marijuana policing over time. In a world where government works as intended, state level organizations should take their cues from what the federal government is doing, but, as I understand it, they are not necessarily beholden to slavishly adopt the federal posture. Perhaps someone with a deeper understanding might illuminate us further.

Is this mean t as a replacement for, or in addition to the Adaptive Controller kits that were in the news a few years back? This seems like a logical end point for that program (i.e. I remember the adaptive controller looking relatively unpolished in comparison to this product). Another commenter pointed out that the actual cost of the adaptive controller is greater than the sticker price would indicate since you need to add peripherals to the base $99 controller to achieve functionality, but hopefully it’s still a feasible option for folks that maybe can’t quite swing a $300 purchase.

Man I hope the Red Letter Media boys put together a retrospective in his honor

Keep up the good work!

I overheard a conversation between two old guys at the Omaha VA discussing one of their relatives coming out as nonbinary. The sentiment was, in essence, “well, are they gay or what? Idk what these damn kids are doing anymore…” After some internal debate, I piped up and explained the sexuality and gender are two separate topics. To these guys’ credit, they seemed to take it in stride, if a little befuddled by it all. Considering the other options and prevailing opinions of many of the patients around here, I’ll take a couple of Vietnam vets’ bewildered acceptance of non-cisgendered people over ignorant hate seven days a week, and twice on Sunday.

You’re correct, HR is there to benefit the company. However, in this case, the goals align. OP wants to stop being sent objectionable material while at work. HR wants employees’ actions to not open the company up for litigation. Being able to prove that dickhead is engaging textbook harassment while on the clock should be an open and shut case.

All of this is to be taken with a heaping handful of salt, since regulations differ wildly by jurisdiction, but this seems pretty clear cut to me.

Adding on to this, TECHNICALLY speaking the freshest butter bar (lowest ranking commissioned) outranks the highest warrant. However, just as it would be foolish for a lieutenant to try and pull rank on their grizzled platoon sergeant, it would be foolish for an officer to dismiss the advice of a warrant for all of the reasons stated above.

Also, I find the biggest distinction between warrants and other officers is their attitude on command, which I think fits very well with discussing Ripley’s role on the ship. The warrants I have worked with typically have little to no interest in being in charge of other people, outside of a small team of folks dedicated to a common mission (e.g. a vehicle maintenance shop, supply warehouse crew, etc). If they wanted to be supervisors, they either would have remained NCOs or commissioned as lieutenants rather than warrants. So, Ripley being put in a position where she is responsible for others is probably both not in her wheelhouse, and actually antithetical to her desires. That’s always gone a long way for me as for as explaining her prickliness early on (especially relating to Yafet Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton’s blue collar “enlisted man” characters).

Yes, for tax purposes, which then implies such a metric can be used for income reporting, as is this case with this chart. After all, if you and a platonic roommate were sharing an apartment, you probably wouldn’t want to include their income on your filings to the IRS. For one, the illegality of falsely claiming a dependent, but also simply because the last thing you want the government thinking is that you made more money than you actually did.