yeah, I was lucky to have already taken Classical Mechanics prior to Quantum Mechanics (it wasn’t a prereq so most of my classmates jumped straight into QM), so the math was all perfectly sensible. but the second any prof started trying to use English to interpret the math, I started having these moments where I’d have to sit back and think about the words coming out of their mouths, and sitting with how it was all actually gibberish. Feynman’s “shut up and calculate” started to feel incredibly valid really fast, whereas prior to QM, I was under the impression that physics was natural philosophy. it’s not and QM was the breaking point, at least for me, personally.

they don’t actually spin but they’re little bar magnets as if they do. if you charge a sphere and spin it, you’ll generate exactly the same kind of bar magnet, but they don’t actually spin. and just like bar magnets, like repels like. but they’re neither bar magnets nor spinning. why don’t they spin? because they’re point masses, which don’t have any extent. but actually, you can’t really observe them as point masses because they’re waves.

^^ this was the exact point at which I said quantum mechanics wasn’t for me and I’m done with physics, after completing most of a degree. it sort of all makes sense but at the same time it completely doesn’t. it all makes sense as pure math but the second you try to make sense of the math, sense goes out the window.

yup, you got it. comms are communities, which is why it’s /c/comm_name on lemmy. an unfederated/local-only comm is only visible through the instance that hosts it. you can access it without logging in but only via the hosting instance.

e.g. people from other instances don’t need access to the instance feedback comm and shouldn’t be able to participate in internal discussions about instance policies.

local-only comms landed in Lemmy so our comms for marginalized folks don’t have to deal with the influx of people randomly driving by with soft bigotry. we also got controls for whether DMs are federated or not, which also helps.

under most cases, they only have this data via DNS. it’s encrypted once the actual https request is made - only the destination ip address is available at that point. so encrypting DNS and securing that is probably more important than the protection a VPN provides. if you use a VPN without some form of DNS encryption, you’re trading one ISP you don’t trust for a second you shouldn’t trust but inappropriately are. DNS anonymization is an extra step you can and should take to ensure you’re not trusting your DNS provider, either - it works by tunneling encrypted DNS requests through shared, public relays.

what you actually need a VPN for is to mask your ip address to the website you’re visiting and to mask the ip address you’re visiting from your ISP. these are important considerations but it’s useless if you don’t first protect DNS, ensure you can’t be tracked via cookies/be fingerprinted, and ensure you’re only connecting to websites over https.

VPNs are an important and useful tool but they’re not the first or best tool for digital hygiene. you have to tackle each layer, one at a time. start at the top and work down the hierarchy.

So, would official acts as president be legal by definition?

yes, and further that any exercise of constitutional authority is an official act.

Would there be such a thing as an official act as president that may otherwise be criminal?

in the prosecutable sense? no. the president is no longer bound by congressional authority.

And how does the ruling protect against treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors (specifically, the past part)?

courts won’t do shit about it, congress will have to (lmao)

How is this ruling not in direct contrast to the constitution?

the constitution is toilet paper and always has been. scotus just wiped some diarrhea with it.

wait, no, this is how everyone does math. right? …right?

I mean, if you’re going to pretend this is the first election of all time and the last election ever, sure. or you could take history into account and make a longer term plan so that you don’t have to keep making choices about who the “lesser evil” is. if you abdicate any possible collective power, the ratchet will keep turning the dial further and further towards fascism.

feelin mighty happy I voted for Gloria La Riva

uhh he rides trains sometimes? can we ban him from trains? I feel gross taking trains a genocidier rode.

I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anything as incorrect in electoral strategy as voting for “99% Hitler”. elections come every 4 years. a loss today need not remain a loss forever. make the dems come to you! force them to bargain with the left instead of the right!

it’s not a strategic vote! it’s an abdication of strategy that pretends only the current election matters! it assumes the present is eternal and that no electoral strategy could ever consider the future. an electoral strategy would admit the left has no real power absent a dedicated bloc and would work on creating one. to do so, you must be willing to sacrifice a few elections, because you must withhold votes and force the democrats to the bargaining table. otherwise you will forever be trapped in a cycle of voting for the “lesser” evil. FPTP does not preclude a long-term electoral strategy.

withhold your vote as a bloc with the rest of the left. force the dems to bargain with you if they ever want to hold office ever again.

until and unless we collectively withhold our votes and so express real and actual power, the left will always remain powerless. repudiate the democrats or be forever doomed to an endless cycle of voting for the “lesser” evil. (no moral calculus can ever frame a genocidier as the lesser evil - he’s so far beyond the moral event horizon that I no longer care to calculate)

false dichotomy

they’re lampooning liberals’ circular reasoning

when hasn’t the USG been supporting a genocide or three?

where’s that evergreen ratchet meme

there are exactly 4 division algebras (over the field of real numbers): the real numbers, the complex numbers, the quaternions, and the octonians. you can’t add any more complex parts because you lost associativity with the octonians. I’m not entirely sure how the first domino leads to the last, though.

putting “do not press” on a button has predictable consequences