Hillock

  • 0 Posts
  • 17 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 13th, 2023

  • Your assumption of what the graph displays is wrong. Yes, it lacks a lot of information and the post could have clarified more.

    But at the bottom of the graph you can see that the x-axis is years. Which is a strong indication that this graph displays the life expectancy of latin american countries. Whicha quick goolge seems to confirm. And it shows that El Salvador ranks poorly even amongst them. Since most migrants move to a country for a better life, the pool of countries that El Salvador can pull from is rather small.

    But that obviously misses the point that many people who would move to El Salvador on using this opportunity either move there to help improve the situation for the average person. Or at the very least would have enough money to afford a better lfiestyle and not be affected by the average life expectancy. Which obviously is going to be low for a country that suffers from poverty and gang violence as El Salvador does.

    So the “general” assumption of migrants moving to a “better” countries doesn’t quite apply here.



  • Biden is an average to above average president.

    It’s mostly republican lawmakers passing shitty laws in republican states that makes live for many American worse. DeSantis is the one fucking up Florida. Gregg Abott and Ted Cruz are fucking up Texas. Biden has very little influence on that.

    And Biden is fighting the terrible decisions from the previous Trump administration. Were many shitty things are only now starting to show their full efect. Like the increase in higher income tax for lower brackets. Or deregulating coal mining operations that were in place to protect rivers, or defunding the women’s health budget. Most of these things take time for the average person to feel the impact. And Biden is actively trying to reverse some of them. He recently signed a new bill that gurantees funding for women’s health research. Biden rejoined the Paris agreement (which Trump left), with the goal of reducing emissions and combating climate change. And a lot more. But just as with the negative efects taking time to be felt, so does reversing them.

    Biden for some reason just isn’t liked by many Americans. It has little to do with his policies or (in)actions as a president. People like to bring up the geonicde for why they don’t like him. But many of the same people have been critizing him before the situation in Israel even started.



  • You could start as a ranch hand, especially if you know how to ride. You can work on both a regular ranch or on a “resort ranch” that focuses on tourism. You just have to find a ranch that has around that 20ish employees.

    But then it would fit all of your points. You are spending your whole day with the same group of people.

    Drifting between groups will depend a bit on your exact duties but no matter what you are going to get to know everyone and work with others occasionally.

    New things are constantly coming up to do. Your duties also change with the season. And even if there is “nothing” to do you will still hang out with the other farm hands.

    You have that authority over you in form of the ranch manager/owner.

    Pay isn’t great but it might come with free lodging, then it isn’t that bad.



  • Scottish Highland clans would use something called the “Fiery Cross” or “Cross of Shame” as a symbol for a call to arms/war. Basically sending a person carrying the thing from village to village and every able-bodied man had to get ready for war or be shamed.

    But whether or not they actually used a burning cross is very disputed. The main source for this is the author Walter Scott. He wrote Rob Roy, The Lady of the Lake and other Scottish mythology/historical fiction. While he claimed to try to be as historical accurate as possible, there are a lot of made up facts in his books. So not really a good source and sometimes even the only source for Scottish mythology.

    The original KKK didn’t burn crosses. But in the early 1900s Thomas Dixon wrote a book series that romanticized the KKK. He was very inspired by Walter Scott and included the Fiery Cross in his novel. Saying the flames symbolizing purity, purifying the people of their sins, and the light it gave is a symbol for “The Holy Light”.

    His books were the source for the movie " The Birth of a Nation" and that movie included the burning cross scene. And KKK members thought it looked cool and started to use cross burnings using the made up justification of purity and holy light.


  • It should be common knowledge that you can’t just bring prescribed medication into a foreign country. There is even plenty of OTC medication you can’t bring into some countries.

    Heck, in many places you can’t even bring fruits, meat, or dairy. Not doing your due diligence before traveling is on the person traveling.

    I don’t think she deserves to be in prison for that and I would assume if relations with Russia at the time were better she would have just been denied entry/fined.

    But breaking the law is still entirely on her and returning such a high profile prisoner in exchange for her mistake stings.



  • Your calculations to get 100% are right but you are off for the 50% and. You are only considering one specific outcome. But it doesn’t matter if the first question is wrong or the second so the chance is 0.250.75+0.750.25 which is 37.5 or double your answer. We can double check it by looking at it from the other direction.

    The chance of failure is 0.75*0.75= 56.25%.

    So there is a 43.75% of passing the first go around. Split between a 6.25% to get 100 and 37.5% to get 50.

    Same mistake for the second calculations. 44.22% is the chance to get 50%


  • Kids being able to openly participate on porn sites would be a feast for pedophiles and groomers. We already have enough trouble with that on social media and dating sites/apps. And while in an ideal situation there just wouldn’t be bad people, sometimes we need to protect people from themselves because of others.

    So while I am open for a discussion about lowering the age requirement, I still firmly believe a minimum age is required. But whether that’s 14, 16, or 18 I don’t know.


  • I am in favor of stricter age verification for certain content. Not only for porn but also dating apps, social media, online shops, etc. But the current methods of age verification are a privacy nightmare and go well beyond what is reasonable. Especially since companies can’t be trusted to not do bad stuff with that information.

    What is necessary is a double anonymity age verification service. Ideally run by a company that by law is required to be very transparent. That way we don’t have to provide personal information to companies that have no actual need for it but can still reduce the amount of minors getting into places they shouldn’t be.

    Yes, it won’t be perfect, yes there will always be bad actors, but it will still do more good than harm.

    I personally am open for a discussion about reducing the minimum age to view porn. I don’t have strong feelings either way.


  • The best advice here is to just not buy new. You can get a refurbished laptop from trusted sellers that will definitely exceed the requirements for under $200. If you are willing to spend up to $300 then there is literally no concerns.

    For example here is a DELL Latitude 7490 Laptop Intel Core i5 8th Gen 8250U (1.60GHz) 16GB Memory 256 GB SSD Intel UHD Graphics 620 14.0" Windows 10 Pro for $192 on Newegg.

    https://www.newegg.com/dell-latitude-7490-work-business/p/N82E16834833592?item=N82E16834833592

    If you don’t like Newegg there are tons of other stores that offer refurbished laptops. I assume you are in the USA and stores you can consider are Target, Walmart, Best buy.

    There is very little risk with refurbished laptops. They are usually tested before being shipped out and if you buy from a legit company they usually offer some kind of store warranty. Walmart for example offers a 90 day return policy for any reason.

    It’s hard to make suggestions on which laptop to get since availability plays a bigger role here. So just look around at your desired budget and pick what you think your kid needs.

    If you think your kid won’t accept a laptop that has a scratch, simply look for “As New”. Then there usually aren’t any visible damages. But if you are fine with some cosmetic damage you can get real bargains.



  • I am going to assume you have a cellar spider. Removing part of the web isn’t going to directly harm them. They don’t recycle their web so you aren’t even removing nutrients from them.

    The only way it’s going to affect them is by reducing their chances of catching prey. Cellar spiders don’t have a sticky web and rather rely on prey brushing up against their web, then rushing there and killing it with a bite. So you are reducing the area they are covering.

    They also usually just gradually increase the size of their web. So it’s unlikely it will try to rebuild everything you removed at once. Meaning it’s not going to waste too much energy.


  • I don’t think it matters nearly as much as the article makes it sound. Especially since multiclassing is super viable in 5E and BG3 removed all kinds of requirements for multiclassing and even allows you to respec. Meaning even multiclass combos that struggle if played out at level 1 can just be recreated later. And that means you can recreate the toolkit of a Bard fairly easily and focus more on the aspect you actually enjoy.

    I think any class with ritual casting is going to feel very rewarding in your first playthrough, assuming you don’t forget to utilize it. So you have Bard, Cleric, Druid, and Wizard, and Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight. But even any class with just cantrips are already going to give you a lot you might not be used to from other RPGs.

    The only class I wouldn’t recommend for the first playthrough might be Paladin. The oath just limits your choices in certain situations. And while you could break your oath and become an “Oathbreaker”, I personally don’t feel this is the best for the first time playing. I think being able to explore all options available without having to consider your oaths makes for a better first-time-playing experience. But Paladin is on the list for my second round.

    Edit: I forgot that BG3 made changes to Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight, they can both also ritual cast. In general, there are a lot of changes made that make the game way more open and allows you things to make it fun.


  • As a man I never considered pants to be uncomfortable. They are the perfect mix of range of motion, hiding the private parts. and support. Dresses, skirts, and robes seem like a nightmare to wear. You either restrict your range of motion or have to constantly worry about showing your underwear. And I would wear boxer briefs underneath by choice anyhow, so I still end up wearing pants.

    I think the bigger issue is that most of us men are too lazy to look for different kinds of pants and end up wearing the same stuff year-round. Which can indeed become uncomfortable due to changes in temperature. But that issue wouldn’t be fixed by having access to dresses or robes. As again, some would either be too cold or too hot.