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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • This is a state crime, not federal, so he can’t pardon himself as president. I think he could if he was governor of New York, which seems like a long shot.

    And New York’s AG has seemed pretty keen on seizing his property if he wouldn’t pay before. Idk if they can do that for these types of fines but I’m sure they will if they can.



  • Disney opened an incredibly expensive Star Wars “hotel experience”, charging $5k plus for two nights. Jenny Nicholson visited (paying full price) and documented the experience, plus background on how and why the hotel was made, some research into what was going on behind-the-scenes, and the spectrum of fan reactions to the experience. The hotel closed down permanently while she was editing the video, and she also goes into why that happened and some larger trends at Disney surrounding the closure.



  • Jenny Nicholson is a really popular video essayist. She only releases like one of these essay videos a year because she spends so long working on them. (She’s got a patreon where she releases a smaller, lower effort video every month.)

    The big videos routinely pull in millions of views, so I’m not surprised the algorithm spams it in people’s feeds. She’s got a lot of followers that watch it right away because they’ve been waiting for a year to see it, so it shoots to the top of the recommendations for other people in that niche. Then there’s a snowball effect where YouTube starts recommending it, more people watch it, so it gets recommended more, etc. You see the same thing on Hbomberguy’s yearly video.

    As one of her subscribers, I can tell you that this video has been in the works for years, so we’ve been hearing about it for a long time and were hyped. I just finished it today - broke it up into three different viewings. She breaks all her essays down into chapters so it’s easy to watch just a portion of it at a time.


  • I mean… I care about pronouns, so do most of my trans friends, and I’d like to think we’re all “decent” trans folks. It sucks when someone misgenders you. I would also like the conservatives in my country to stop using trans rights as a wedge issue. I can care about both of these things at the same time.


  • Quoting from the red cross FAQ:

    The waiting period is required due to these drugs interfering with viral replication and thus possibly altering the detectability of diagnostic and screening tests for HIV, including extending the window period prior to detectable infection or a delay in producing antibodies.

    The Red Cross and the FDA support individuals making responsible choices for their health and the broader health of our communities. The Red Cross and FDA are involved in ongoing research, data collection and assessment related to transfusion safety, including the use of HIV preventative medications, and will continue to seek opportunities that could potentially help lead to additional changes. The Red Cross does not encourage individuals to stop taking these medications in order to donate blood.


  • Just discovered these rule changes based on your comment. Unfortunately my partner and I still can’t donate blood (they’re on PREP, and I was in a vaccine trial that disqualifies me), but it’s cool that they’ve finally eliminated the worst of the queerphobia in the US.

    I experienced the reverse of you - as soon as I transitioned I was disqualified as a trans man who has sex with men, even if the sex was identical pre- and post-transition. These were the previous “updated” rules that were supposed to be less queerphobic, but obviously weren’t hitting the mark.



  • Loved this list and just added those measuring spoons to my house’s wish list. To the home automation front, for Home Assistant users I really like IKEA’s line of zigbee controllers. With HA and a cheap dongle you can control any smart device with them, not just IKEA stuff.

    • I have one of their speaker controllers hooked up to my partner’s Google smart speakers, so I can turn down the volume and play/pause without shouting at the voice assistant.
    • We have a five-button light controller on each of our nightstands so we can control our lamps and overhead lights (on/off, brightness, color) without getting out of bed. Great when my partner leaves their lamp on - I don’t have to reach over them to turn it off. (Now if only I could turn off their TikTok stream when they fall asleep watching it…)
    • Their $10-$12 light switches to control the lamps and overhead lights in all of our rooms. Tap once to turn everything on or off, double tap to turn on just the lamps for some gentler lighting.

    And this isn’t IKEA, but I need a colder bedroom to fall asleep, and my partner wakes up pretty early and wants it to be warm. I have a space heater connected to a smart outlet and a Bluetooth thermometer. At 4am it will start heating the room until we reach a comfortable temperature, idle until the temp drops, and turn itself completely off after I’m out of bed at 9am. If you need to buy the space heater or equipment to set up Home Assistant, this definitely breaks the $50 budget, but if you’ve already got those the thermometer and 15A rated smart plug will be maybe $30 total (cheaper if you can wait for longer shipping).