Levi Breederland, now with AI @levisan@qoto.org

Analogue DRM and other fun stuff https://buttondown.com/levisan/archive/4-8352/

I recently learned that, apparently, honey and pearls are not vegan because they take something from animals without due consent. It seems that being able to give consent in a way people can understand is not required for something to have to give consent.

So is horseback riding vegan?

@progo Well that was what I was leaning towards, so now I can blame you if I do it and someone complains

The greatest thing about learning music theory is learning how every single thing has a name for it

@progo I agree, I think that's the best way to do things.

It does bring up another question which I have never considered before… if you are quoting another document, do you change the spelling to match the version you're using?

If people are allowed to use Christmas songs in their TikTok videos in November, I'm well within my rights to have one stuck in my head and hum it while puttering around.

Should post-secondary teachers (a) specify which localisation of spelling rules (colour vs color, for example) they expect things to be written in and/or (b) deduct marks for incorrect localisation?

If you’re setting up “Christmas” decorations now, they’d better actually be dark-season-brightening decorations and you’re keeping them up through February

Is there any work of fiction that addresses the fact that a time machine, unless also a teleportation device to compensate for the movement of the earth/whatever between origin and destination times, would cause people to time-travel into outer space 99% of the time?

@sabbatical I guess I should clarify first that by "favourite" I really mean it's my favourite structure/format, even if the actual result isn't perfect. I wouldn't mind if things were organised a bit differently (too easy to get to theocracy, for example) but I really like the "flowchart" kind of feel.

While I like that it says they try to make it easy to look up terms used, I wish the questions were more explanatory.

Like the "private property" one should really explain what they mean since it's so pivotal in what you can end up being labelled as. After all, you can say that workers should own the means of production but private property ownership should not be a thing and depending how you interpret "private property" that wouldn't make sense at all. And I'm not sure if that's the best opening question.

Since it's on Github… I'm tempted to make my own version.

This might be my favourite "label my politics" thing I've seen yet.
https://ideosorter.github.io/

New project: categorise my friends based on their political opinions using this.

I don't like the two-letter month-name abbreeve of MA. (Yes this is real; I've seen it on milk jugs.) Sure, you could figure out if it's May or March with the context, but the context isn't always there. Why not use MR and MY?

@freemo approved.

If my doctor were to ever recommend Viagra, I think I'd instinctively look for the "mark as spam" button

@vic @louis Ah, pardon my non-specific-ness. The mandatory insurance required here when your down payment is less than 20% is insurance on the mortgage itself. Basically the bank says you're a high-risk borrower and wants to have an extra safety net specifically on the money you're borrowing.

No matter the down payment, though, the bank will require homeowner insurance on the house to protect the collateral on the loan.

@louis Here in Canada, if your down payment is below 20%, you *must* get insurance on it as well. So if you have 19%, saving that little bit more is very much worth it.

EIther way, the general advice here is if plan to stay somewhere for at least five years, you'll be better off buying something you can qualify for a mortgage on than renting

It's kind of wild that "attribution" just means you say where you got a thing and doesn't include informing the creator or showing how what you're saying is true

I need to migrate my Unabomber quote bot from @kaczynskiquotes@botsin.space to a different fediverse instance… any suggestions of one that won't dislike having the writings of a convict being tooted on a regular basis?

All we had back then was good arguments and maybe, if you're lucky, an encyclopaedia in the house.

Now you can make a shoddy argument and back it up with a link for proof and win.