I am incapable of the kind of black and white thinking that would allow me to believe that literally ACAB, but an awful lot of them clearly are, and maybe even an overwhelming majority. And I appreciate finding and documenting as much evidence as we can find of that, so that we can have an honest and accurate accounting of how many cops are actually, indeed, “bad”.

It sounds like you’re talking about the experience that France has in designing and building them being a massive advantage, which I agree with, which is why they’re going to be an important part of the group. The hardest things to do are the things that are the most worth doing. Laziness and efficiency are the same thing, and our relentless pursuit of efficiency in every possible thing has made us unfathomably lazy. It’s time to invest in some thoughtful inefficiency. The fact that these things are difficult is how you learn important albeit maybe expensive lessons and become an expert and a leader. To paraphrase JFK, we have to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Only a fool would think learning is a waste of time.

Sounds like it’s time for France, Germany, Norway, South Korea, UK, Australia, Canada, and anyone else who wants in to join forces and build our own modern nuclear sub class. We are not helpless subsistence farmers, we are some of the largest economies in the world, I will not be gaslit into believing we are not capable of matching or exceeding, if not US technology itself, then at least the level of technology that the US would be willing to sell to us. Where there is a collective will, there is a way. We must put as much collective effort into this as we put into the industrial revolution itself, or WW2’s economic transformations. If we did it in a matter of years under fire from Germany’s bombs and guns and U-boats we can do it under fire from Trump’s tariffs. Let’s get to work.

Fascism has always been the great enemy. Not a leader, not a country, not a people, not a religion. Fascism is part of being human, approximately 30% of the population has been found in studies to have fascist tendencies. They are not the majority, but they are common, they are powerful, they are malicious, and they always will be. And right now, a lot of them are also very, very rich.

As long as fascism is part of being human, it will always be the responsibility of the other 70% to fight it. And it is a terrible responsibility, but it will never go away. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Only when we all get lazy and apathetic and divided and decadent and distracted can the fascist 30% actually take control. So that’s what they aim to make happen. Consider that only around 25% of the US population (not registered voters – the actual human beings who live in the country) actually voted for Trump. Voter apathy, disinformation, disillusionment, disenfranchisement, demographics, gerrymandering and more have been weaponized against the actual majority to turn 25% into a slim margin of absolute victory. Trump does not have majority support, and he never did, and he never will. Remember that.

We’ll have to call it the ROUS garden, especially if Muskrat keeps lurking around.

If the educational system is not working, if AI has destroyed our educational system, and I think it’s fair to say it has, if teachers feel there’s nothing they can do to fix it, then throw it away and don’t waste our tears on it. We must find other ways to educate. This is imperative, education is non-negotiable. I am not giving up in defeat, I am saying we must retreat from battles that are simply not viable anymore. Use them as a delaying action if you can, but if kids are learning from LLMs and Video games and Netflix and Youtube and Tiktok now, we need to find ways to get as much good educational content as we can onto those platforms. We need to find ways to manipulate their algorithms. We need alternative platforms that aren’t corporate-controlled cesspools, where we can make the rules. Governments and institutions will be too slow to react. The only advantage we have is that we can act and react fast, even faster than the corporate interests that are burning down the Internet of Alexandria and blowing up the world into the next dark age. We can, and should, and must organize an educational resistance.

Literally nobody wants their kids to grow up like this. Not even the billionaires exploiting and profiting from this garbage. We have the advantage that everybody in the world will soon understand the scale of this problem as they are confronted with it themselves. Will it be too late? Maybe, but we have to assume it will be better if we at least try. Even if we have to rescue people one mind at a time, every effort is worthwhile and every victory is worth celebrating.

I know we all really like “freeway speeds” just the way they are, but saying we need them is a bit of a stretch.

Newsom’s not even the Han Solo he’s trying to imply he is here, it’s obvious he’s Lando Calrissian. He’s not your friend, and he’s not going to help you. He’s going to help himself, and that might briefly help you, but don’t count on it. We’ve gotta be our own heroes in this story.

What are electrolytes? Do you even know?

You absolutely can slap a Lambo body on anything (provided it fits) and there is a literal cottage industry that exists around doing so. It’s not popular because, let’s be honest, it’s pretty silly, and everyone involved acknowledges its pretty much just for fun and entertainment. The status symbol of “owning a Lamborghini” goes away forever the second you start the engine.

There is a lot of psychology that goes into designing the appearance of cars. Like, an extreme amount. Car companies spend millions designing and refining body shapes and styles, and building brand images, and pushing commercials that seed these ideas into your head about their brand looking a certain way and that look therefore implying quality, they’re connecting all those dots in your head, one marketing campaign at a time, and it works because we’re honestly pretty gullible creatures at least when somebody wants to spend millions upon millions of dollars researching exactly how they can weasel their way into your brain.

And this might surprise you, but the same “looks incredible but the worst piece of shit ever” can certainly apply to luxury vehicles. Aside from notorious reliability and repairability issues, Lamborghinis don’t usually win any races either. They won’t win a drag race, they won’t win an oval track race, they won’t win a rally race. They’re fast, certainly, but they’re not the fastest and for what you pay for a Lamborghini you could build a much, MUCH better purpose-built race car. You could probably build 10 purpose-built race cars. Hell, people build race cars out of junkyard parts that can beat Lamborghinis. They’re not the end-all-be-all of cars, nor are any of the other luxury brands. They have some nice features but they also have a lot of dumb features and yes, a lot of cut corners too. They’re designed to be desirable and profitable, not to be the best.

So to answer your question, it absolutely IS the case for cars, in fact it’s probably even moreso the case than it is with computer parts. Unless you really need to roar down the highway towing a 10,000 pound trailer at 80 mph and still get up to that speed in 5 seconds flat, you really only need like probably 30-50 horsepower max for most of the daily driving that people do, but people’s driving habits and attitudes would have to change and they would hate the feel of gradual acceleration, so they would simply never buy such a car. I think we really underestimate how incredible even the cheapest “crappiest” cars are. We’re talking about machines cheap enough for almost everybody in our society to own, that can drive at high speeds, in perfectly dry, climate-controlled comfort, carrying many passengers and cargo, in almost any weather short of a tornado or flood, with excellent reliability for hundreds of thousands of miles, that provide constant lighting and electricity and entertainment, all while maintaining a high degree of safety for the occupants.

If you’d rather putter around on a riding lawnmower with a Lamborghini body kit on it, you absolutely can do that, but you have to understand that once you start comparing the limited features and abilities it provides you will quickly find what you’ve constructed is the real “piece of shit” in comparison. Just don’t forget your slow-moving vehicle sign!

Maybe we could generate those with AI… oh wait, I think I see the problem…

Maybe having a competent government would help. Can we try that?

That’s awesome thanks! (Community discovery is still something I struggle with on Lemmy)

Reddit had a community “OutOfTheLoop” for these type of questions. It was very helpful for people like me who do our best to ignore these nonsense viral image macros that get blown out of proportion. The problem on Lemmy is, judging by the comments here, I think almost everyone here avoids those things like the plague, so there’s few if anyone “InTheLoop” around to explain for us.

This is a good attitude. The cynicism is well-earned, but ultimately self-defeating. Not all wealthy people are intentionally and actively hostile, and even if they are, sometimes it is effective to turn enemies into allies, maybe just temporary ones, or even just avoid fighting the least rewarding ones at all if it’s not going to cost you anything and lets you combine your forces to focus on the battles that really matter. This is class war, and war calls for strategy. Fight smart and spend our limited resources wisely. Trump and Muskrat are about a million times more direct of a threat to our survival than JB Pritzker or the Waltons. You don’t have to trust any of them, but it’s a strategic blunder to waste time and energy attacking the ones who aren’t attacking us. Don’t depend on them if you don’t have to, but let them try to help, if they can.

125F is the maximum recommended storage temperature. Like the people who overfill their tanks, it will probably be okay for a bit above that, but you run the risk of rupturing the safety valve. Not sure how hot your garage typically gets, but it’s probably not an ideal storage place. FWIW propane’s maximum recommended storage temperature is only 120F, so if CO2’s not safe in your garage neither is propane. Some ventilation would probably help keep temperatures down. Keep in mind this is actual physical tank temperature we’re talking about. Direct sunlight matters – humidex and “feels like” temperatures don’t.

Yes, they’re all pretty much the same except for threaded vs quick connect. Some people prefer the ones with steel braided hoses for safety. The main “danger” of overfilling is that once the ice melts to liquid and boils to gas the pressure will go to the moon and burst the safety valve (permanently), becoming a broken tank with a small leak that vents gas quicker than the liquid can boil. Large amounts of rapidly venting CO2 create thick fog rolling along the ground (as seen in many halloween displays for example) so the leak would be obvious and is not dangerous as long as you don’t lay down and stick your face in it and try to breathe for awhile. If you don’t notice it you may be surprised to find your tank is empty when you go to use it, and any attempts to refill it will immediately start leaking. Anyway, it’s an expensive mistake so you probably won’t make it more than once. Technically the burst disc can be replaced, but that’s beyond the scope of this discussion.

It’s easy to avoid as long as you understand that filling can only be done reliably by weight, not by time, feel, eyeball or pressure or anything else. Whether you’re using dry ice or liquid from another tank, the weight of the tank is all that matters. An empty tank is a particular weight which can be measured as it will have to be completely empty before you attempt refilling it anyway. A full tank is a higher weight. The weight you should not exceed should be printed on all tanks but for Sodastream-size tanks can hold exactly 410g above empty weight. Less is fine. More is risky (some people do exceed it regularly though, but that’s on them and their wallet) Pressure is mostly meaningless for a liquified gas like CO2, the liquid phase maintains constant pressure as dictated by temperature and physics.

Liquified gases don’t really “explode” like pressurized gases, they either vent, or leak. This can be noisy and visually dramatic but is not a safety concern. Even a catastrophic failure will remain mostly liquid for a long time and is just a spill of increasingly cold liquid that is creating fog (more and more slowly as it uses up all the available heat by becoming cold). The gas doesn’t appear instantly, the liquid has to boil to make more gas, and that takes a lot of time and heat it has to absorb first before it can do that. The biggest risk is frostbite, not explosion. The liquid CO2 gets very cold when boiling freely, because of all the surrounding heat it’s absorbing to try to turn into gas. It is not a fast process. This is also how dry ice works, and why it stays ice for so long, and why we can use it to make things very cold for a very long time. FWIW propane is also a liquified gas, and behaves mostly the same way, except that it is flammable, which can make it explosive under certain conditions. Some people are bothered having a propane tank next to their house, but most people aren’t. CO2 isn’t flammable or explosive, it’s safe enough to have in your kitchen in my opinion. In a pinch it can double as a fire extinguisher. :P

Their goal was to get attention, to force the media and public to start talking about it, to force western governments to pretend to care about it, ratchet up the international pressure by another notch. They have done everything they need to be successful at that. Now that they’ve been seized, it’s our jobs to do what we can to make the rest of that happen.

Drinkmate is honestly a similar-but-better design, speaking as someone who moderated Reddit’s sodastream community for years. And I think most users of that subreddit would agree with me. Sodastream just has better marketing and all the market share so it has become the “Kleenex” of the category as the first one anyone thinks of and often the only one they even can name.

Assuming North America, you can get standard Sodastream->CGA320 “direct connect” adapters that let you hook the machine to a standard CO2 tank of any size (it won’t fit inside the machine but I don’t consider that a functional requirement). Similar adapters are made for other regions I just don’t know their specific sizes and terminologies.