Some people have a bad reaction to shaving in general. If I recall correctly, black people have a stronger predisposition to having that issue, but I have no idea the mechanism behind it. I assume it's something with the hair being different since head hair is often texturally different from what white people have. I'm not familiar with it happening in other ethnic groups, but I don't know much about it, so it's possible.

Got my bachelor's and wanted to go to PhD, but realizing this has me strongly considering skipping it. I want to do the research, but holy shit, there's so much other bullshit, and it's so fucking competitive for funding. Since I'm considering an international move, I also have to consider how stable my position will be so I don't get deported. I want to push science forward, but I dunno if I can wade through all the bullshit to get my chance to...

Yeah, it's bullshit, but unfortunately, homes in an HOA are contractually obligated to obey the rules. In at least some cases, failure to comply results in fines that, if left unpaid, can result in the loss of the home as the HOA effectively gets to sell it to recoup what they're owed.

And cities are encouraging them all over the US, so it's getting increasingly difficult to find a newly built home that isn't in an HOA. Cities love them because they raise and spend their own funds to maintain things, which means the city doesn't have to spend tax money to do those things.

Classic Doom 1 and 2. There's gotta be over 100 levels if you count TNT and Plutonia, which I think were sold as Final Doom? Anyway, if you just get the base games for 1 and 2, there are thousands upon thousands of community made maps, including some total conversions, so you can play new Doom content until it physically pains you to continue.

Of course, I feel obligated to mention that even though it would be super easy to pirate the WAD files and play with a free modern source port like GZDoom, like absolutely trivial to find copies of DOOM.WAD and DOOM2.WAD floating around the net, probably showing up easily on Archive.org, but... Um... Where was I going with this? Oh, right, don't pirate. Cheap on GOG last I knew.

Riiiiight. You just completely coincidentally claim that instances of resistance to your aggression are bad. The only time you find resistance to you acceptable is when it’s impotent.

The topic at hand was Russia's invasion of Ukraine in the context of attempting to avoid war. I made no direct comments about other topics, nor did I intend to imply anything beyond that. To quote the comment that sparked all of this:

it’s pretty clear that Russia tried very hard to prevent the situation in Ukraine from devolving into a war.

Russia is responsible for their own actions. Regardless of the facts that form the basis for the decision, if their true goal is to avoid war in a region, the best solution is to not militarily invade that region. That's it. That's my full claim. You can try to argue about whether or not Russia was justified to invade, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Russia wanting to not fight in a region they attacked after making a deal to not invade that region.

Saying that an armed invasion is an act of war and that acts of war are generally not good ways to avoid war is not claiming that resistance to aggression is bad. It is literally pointing out an act of aggression. According to the Budapest Memorandum, the deal for Ukraine giving up nukes was that Russia agrees to respect their sovereignty. And then Russia invaded Ukraine to annex territory. Twice now. I don't believe you're so stupid you can't grasp that, I think you're just that disingenuous.

I am not advocating that resistance to aggression is bad, and I think you know that.

Look, I'm not sure who you're upset with, but it's not me. You're spending a lot of effort to assume what I do and don't believe and support, and you're frankly doing a piss poor job of it. No aspect of what you've said since you first engaged with me has constituted a good faith argument, and I'm done engaging with it. Even if your complaints about western countries are accurate, all I said to start this was that invading a country, an act of war, is not an example of trying to avoid war, and all the rest of your assumptions about me are equal parts incorrect and insulting.

Which suggests you’re not arguing in good faith and just wanted a smug put down

Oh? Were you arguing in good faith when you refused to elaborate on how you think Russia should have reacted to your aggression, then?

Given that it isn't the discussion I was initially involved in and attempted to stay out of it because I won't claim to have simplistic solutions to complex problems, yeah, I'd say I was. There's the right thing to do, and there's the thing you can actually convince all involved parties to do. Unfortunately, telling everyone to leave each other the fuck alone and play nicely won't do anything meaningful, and I don't pretend to be a foreign policy expert capable of discerning what all parties will begrudgingly agree to. I just was able to recognize an armed invasion as an act of war when the discussion was on whether or not Russia was trying to avoid war.

The rest of this is mostly just you attempting to shove words in my mouth. Nobody should be invading anyone. Nobody should be genociding anyone. Yes, I am capable of understanding when when western countries do fucked up things. Yes, I think they should knock it off. Yes, that applies to Russia, too.

I’m sorry, I thought you understood we were talking about Ukraine

We were, but you decided to talk about your embarrassment and atrocities in Afghanistan, for some reason.

Cute. Downright adorable. You knew full well what I was talking about, you just elected to change the subject. Which suggests you're not arguing in good faith and just wanted a smug put down.

I’ve heard claims that the 2014 was western-backed, though I’ve never seen anyone attempt to substantiate that claim

The Nuland-Pyatt correspondence where they discussed whom to put on the throne in Ukraine instead of the then-current leader were leaked in early February of 2014, before the coup. She also bragged about how much the US spent on influencing the Ukrainian government. And, of course, the leaders of the coup were politicians - it was not a grassroots movement.

I haven't heard of this before, so I'll check it out.

Go ahead and quote the part where I said anything about how they should or shouldn’t resist

You keep talking about how Russia is bad for resisting you, for example.

I can't believe your reading comprehension is genuinely that poor. You know what I actually meant, and this is just a poor attempt to change the subject to one you find more favorable.

I never did, nor was that the topic at hand

It’s literally the topic at hand. You started it by talking about how Russia shouldn’t have resisted your aggression the way Russia did.

Look, there's the discussion you want to have, and there's the discussion the rest of us who are paying attention are trying to have. Try to stay on topic. No, I did not mention Afghanistan, even if the description is relevant to more than what we're talking about. No, it wasn't a genuine mistake to misinterpret it that way. Don't try to play smug and stupid at the same time.

The discussion at hand, since you seem to be struggling to grasp that, was whether or not Russia was trying to prevent war in Ukraine

War with NATO more generally.

And yeah, Russia did try to resolve it otherwise. Russia did not just do an overt full-scale invasion in 2014.

Full-scale? No. Invasion? Yes. Russia tried to deny troop presence, but I recall several instances of soldiers accidentally revealing their presence.

Notably, you are fine with voluntarily invading Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Vietnam, Korea, committing genocides, including the one in the occupied Palestine, known torture sites, coups, etc.

You know, I don't recall ever mentioning those things. Don't see them in this thread anywhere. Do you assume the worst of everyone who disagrees with you, or am I just special?

I’m sorry, I thought that you weren’t this delusional about Afghanistan somehow fitting the description I provided. No, kid, Afghanistan didn’t expand to any US border, and is not the word’s most prolific aggressor that killed millions of people during its second invasion of Iraq alone.

I'm sorry, I thought you understood we were talking about Ukraine, so I interpreted your comment through that lens. I've heard claims that the 2014 was western-backed, though I've never seen anyone attempt to substantiate that claim, so I assumed that was what you meant. You know, because it's relevant to the discussion at hand, unlike Afghanistan.

Well, we are still waiting for you to tell us what you would do. After all, you seem to think that you are qualified to tell the rest of the world how it should resist you and how it should react to your aggression.

Go ahead and quote the part where I said anything about how they should or shouldn't resist. I never did, nor was that the topic at hand. Attempting to force me to answer it is nothing but an attempt at grandstanding.

The discussion at hand, since you seem to be struggling to grasp that, was whether or not Russia was trying to prevent war in Ukraine. Ukraine being the country they invaded. Voluntarily. Arguably for imperialist reasons. Unless, of course, you think it's pure coincidence that Russia would stand to gain ports, natural gas (or is it oil? I think natural gas), and a ton of food production.

Apparently, you invade with ineptitude that would be hilarious if not for the bloodshed, embarrass yourself on the world stage, commit a whole bunch of war crimes, and drive several of your neighbors into the arms of this enemy. It's not what I'd do, but Putin seemed to think it was the move to make.

I mean... That's true in that Russia tried to win before Ukraine could mount a significant resistance. Attacking in the first place was pretty clearly an act of war, though, so it feels a bit disingenuous to claim Russia wanted to avoid a war when they... Started... A war...

All it really says is that Russia thought they were strong enough to steamroll Ukraine. Actually wanting to avoid a war would look a lot more like never attacking in the first place or retreating when faced with actual resistance.

If it'd been done for ideological reasons, I could respect it even if I didn't agree with it. Not sure if I would agree or not, depending on the reasons. But let's be real, Trump didn't do it for ideological or moral reasons. He sold out his country for personal profit, as he does in every other venture.

Tens of thousands of unnecessary covid deaths, massive tax cuts for the rich and tax hikes for the average person, packed the supreme court with activist judges gutting rights and regulations, gross mishandling of classified documents that totally coincidentally coincided with an alarming rate of intelligence assets getting killed, refused to allow the peaceful transition of power, etc., etc., etc., but sure, nothing at all happened under Trump, and Project 2025 definitely won't actually happen if he's reelected, right?

I could be mistaken, but I don't think that's unreasonably long for miners. Probably unfavorably long, but not prohibitively so. Plus, it means it's viable for hackers since it'll actually turn a non negligible profit. Hackers don't have to break even. They use your hardware and your electricity and take all the revenue while you take all the costs.

GPU mining has been unprofitable for years now. It was only kept afloat by Ethereum, but that went proof-of-stake. Its been unprofitable in Bitcoin for ages now, since like... Early to mid 2010s. Ever since the rise of ASICs, GPU mining has been a great way to light cash on fire. I don't think GPU mining will ever be substantially profitable again. If it ever does, I think an ASIC can be built for any algorithm if it's profitable enough to do so.

It seems counter intuitive, but I think mining is going to remain an important aspect of cryptocurrencies. It burns energy, but I think it will help keep the game theory appropriately balanced for all actors in system.

Probably mostly, yeah. There may be some relatively minor cost increases as providers test what they can get away with, but ultimately, to my understanding, the biggest expense of a mining op by far is the electricity, and that puts immense downward pressure on what providers can demand from miners. Miners love the idea of helping to stabilize the grid specifically because waste power would otherwise not be sold at all, which means they can get a discount on it. If providers try to screw with the prices too much, it can very quickly become more cost efficient to pack up and move out of the area entirely.

On the providers' end, it makes a degree of sense not to screw this up even if they could pressure them for more. Being able to guarantee a viable, permanent base load on your grid means you have some degree of stable, guaranteed income to finance operations. A single piece of high end mining hardware pulls over 3 kW of power all by itself, so they can add up quickly. A single large scale mining operation could easily end up in the 1-10 MW range, probably more than that if they really get serious. That isn't a ton of pull per mining op, but a quick estimate suggests a US city could cover about 1,500 people with 1 MW of power, but they won't spread that evenly over day and night, so let's say the spread's real bad, and they only cover about 500 people during peak hours. Still, in a particularly rural area, that may actually constitute a respectable base load, and it may make a big impact on the economics of expanding into that area.

Of course, companies get greedy, so it's very plausible that they shoot themselves in the foot by trying to raise prices and running off the miners. My guess is someone'll try to do it once, get absolutely rekt financially, and everyone will collectively look at that and decide the amount of money they're getting now isn't so bad.