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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 1st, 2023

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  • This is one thing I think about with AI and technological progress. Optimists say that technological advancement could free people up for more creative work, fund UBI, etc.

    I think that without a serious overhaul of the legal and societal frameworks of Western countries, jobs that only people can do well or are too costly to automate could become the only way to earn a living for most people.

    Like sex work, for instance. The poor underclass would expand, the wealth gap would widen and labor exploitation would become much worse. Voíla, suddenly children seeing prostitution as an aspirational career becomes more common because that may be an increasingly likely eventuality.



  • They aren’t saying anything, but here’s the context. The UK criminalized pro-Palestinian slogans in public a pro-Palestinian rights group called Palestinian Action. They use several slogans, most notably the “Support Palestine Action” slogan. They recently arrested a bunch of people for peacefully protesting with this group.

    This guy has a shirt that says “Support Plasticene Action” which, notably, does not reference Palestine at all though the words have an aesthetic similarity to the Palestine slogan. So the pigs are trying to see if they can arrest him for hate speech fucking terrorism (wow) or not.

    Edit: got some important facts wrong, so corrected



  • Breakfast: oatmeal

    Snacks: popcorn (air popped, buy kernels. Need I recommend an air popper, but they’re like 20 bucks. Then you can eat cheap popcorn forever). Bonus tip: if you can get your hands on a cheap electric coffee/spice grinder or want to grind seasonings by hand into an extremely fine powder, you can make popcorn salt that coats the popcorn really nicely. E.g. curry popcorn (salt + curry powder), lemon pepper, ranch (get ranch dressing powder)

    Lunch/Dinner:

    • Fried rice (egg, whatever meat/veg, I like doing soy sauce glazed canned sardines with it for a cheap meal)

    • Red beans and rice

    • Chicken & sausage gumbo over rice

    • Enchiladas, rice, beans

    • Rotisserie chicken tacos

    • Collard greens and cornbread, you can add bacon or other cheap cuts of pork to add protein.

    • Pasta bake (chicken, spinach, pesto, white sauce, little cheese, optionally dried tomatoes - dry them in your oven to save money or buy canned for a little more)

    • Korean rice bowls. Chicken, gochujang (like $5-8 but lasts a long time in the fridge), red pepper flakes, ginger, garlic, vinegar, sesame oil. Marinate overnight. Cook on stove or in oven. Serve on rice with side dishes: carrot and cucumber banchan - just get some matchstick carrots, combine with vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, chili flakes. Cucumbers: slice thin, salt, drain. Combine with sesame oil, soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, red pepper flakes. Assemble.

    • Filipino style Chicken Adobo (potatoes, carrots, chicken, onion, garlic, ginger cooked in a vinegar soy sauce based sauce)

    • Make like 200 pierogis for like 20 bucks (and several hours) and freeze them for later. Boil or pan fry and eat with a sausage and some saurkraut. For fillings, I like a little ground meat with onion and mushroom and saurkraut - 1 part meat, 1 part mushroom, 1 part onion. Even cheaper is potato and cheese - typically this means mashed potato mixed with sour cream and cheese.

    • Cabbage rolls. Head of cabbage, rice, ground pork, onion, garlic, a couple cans of tomato soup. Cook rice, mix with ground pork, diced onion, and garlic. Dunk cabbage head in boiling water for a minute or two, peel a leaf off, stuff with pork mixture and roll. Put all rolls in a baking pan on a layer of the tomato soup, top with tomato soup. Bake covered mins or until cooked (165f internal temperature)

    • West African Peanut Stew. Lots of recipes online. Contains a mix of peanuts, peanut butter, sweet potatoes, collard greens, chicken/veggie stock, and optionally chicken. Very filling, calorie dense, and cheap. I make like 2kg of soup for <$20.


    In general, if you want cheap food then look for cultures with rich food traditions born from poverty. Also look for more plant-based recipes or find ways to stretch your meat using fillers like cabbage and onion.

    Examples: Louisiana Cajun, American South, India (at least the more modest dishes without lots of meat and cream/butter), Eastern Europe, Central and South America, even provincial French food & British “food” (I jest, but bubble & squeak or bangers & mash have fed many a hungry family)

    Staple foods should include:

    • Staple Starches: potatoes (sweet potatoes and normal potatoes), rice, corn, beans, lentils

    • Chicken (whole raw or rotisserie) - benefit of a whole raw chicken is you can use the whole carcass to make stock and get enough meat for 2 people for a whole week. Rotisserie is the same deal, but precooked and not best suited for all applications.

    • Filler vegetables: basically all of your cruciferous vegetables, onions, root vegetables









  • People in the US often misunderstand what sorts of speech can be “free”. There’s plenty of restricted speech in the US - hate speech can intensify the sentencing on crimes, libel and slander are both punishable civilly, speech that directs or is likely to incite “imminent lawless action” (e.g. yelling fire in a crowded theater - that is actually the legal reason for why you can’t do that if there isn’t a fire).

    That doesn’t even begin to cover the sorts of speech that are heavily suppressed by the government and media but aren’t legally restricted - like how the media chooses not to cover large popular protests sometimes (famously, the antiwar protests around the invasion of Iraq/Afghanistan), or gives disproportional representation to counter protesters to give the illusion that both sides are equally popular, or how anti-capitalist stances are generally ignored or downplayed. Not illegal, but if you can’t really engage in those sorts of speech publicly, they may as well be.







  • Brazilian Jiu Jitsu has been very useful to me. My cardio has improved dramatically, I am much stronger than I used to be, and I’ve gotten a lot of enjoyment out of going from absolute trash to slightly less trash over 2 years.

    But I don’t expect it to really help me in a fight. If I did get into a fight, I certainly would do better than if I hadn’t trained; but one thing I’ve learned from fighting people for like 8hrs a week is that it is REALLY easy to fuck up and get hurt in ways you wouldn’t expect. The outcome of a fight is unpredictable - especially when the other person could have a weapon. The best martial art for self defense would be running.


  • Guitar: as a kid I just thought it’d be awesome to shred. Now I mostly play acoustic fingerstyle, but shred some. Interest has ebbed and flowed over the years, but been playing forever.

    Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: I wanted a challenge and to get good at something new. It’s hard, but I like it and just keep coming back. Been doing it for a couple years and am a blue belt.

    Hiking: did it as a kid, now I do it with my wife who pushes me to hike more than I would otherwise which is good

    Tech stuff: coding, piracy, stuff like that. Dad was in IT and taught me to look for solutions with tech. Never stopped. I’m not a fantastic coder, but use it for work and also to solve personal challenges, enter piracy.