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GalacticaActual's comments
activity:
GalacticaActual  ·  4510 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Online harassment almost ruins women-only Reddit meetup
Frakkin' Reddit.

le sigh

GalacticaActual  ·  4510 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Kim Dotcom's Letter To Hollywood
I share that sentiment. Also, this.
GalacticaActual  ·  4510 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pretend (LIGHTS cover)
Your voice is delightful, and I especially like your Deathcab cover.

Keep on rockin'.

GalacticaActual  ·  4510 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Kim Dotcom's Letter To Hollywood
Market forces are powerful and should be respected. I am of the philosophy that if media conglomerates (or any company, for that matter) want to stifle innovation and legislate their way into control of the market in order to protect their aging business model, then they deserve to lose revenue and market share to competitors who better understand the needs of the consumer and how to best serve them. That is what a market economy is all about, after all.

Personally, if a media company doesn't have their act together and won't release media using modern streaming distribution technology (which is no longer new, mind you), it gets pirated. If they can't figure out how to serve it to me at a reasonable price in a highly-available format, I'm going to take it from them illegitimately. If it isn't on Netflix, I'm sure it's on ThePirateBay, and I have no problem going there to get it. End of story.

GalacticaActual  ·  4510 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Hubski (and a lot of the internet) is broken!
I probably know more about Paris Hilton's nether regions than I do web development. I was surprised I stumbled upon a proper diagnosis so quickly.
GalacticaActual  ·  4510 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Hubski (and a lot of the internet) is broken!
I think this is the problem. For confirmation, I looked at the source (pastebin) for this rendered page, and the first example shows them all on separate lines with no format tags separating them other than regular line breaks, and the second example is separated by <p>aragraph tags.
GalacticaActual  ·  4516 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Romney and Bain Capital: The Secrecy is Killing Him
I'll buy that for a dollar.

In a flourish of irony and Shyamalanian Twistery, I say we create a political party for people who hate political parties. What will we call it?

GalacticaActual  ·  4516 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Romney and Bain Capital: The Secrecy is Killing Him
You're right though, everyone seems to think they're the exception. I don't think anyone is truly independent in the sense that they don't share ideals with either party, and I would certainly agree with that.

I like to think of it this way: I'm not a Yankee fan or a Red Sox fan; I'm a baseball fan. I like to watch a good game, and I appreciate the game itself more than any individual team. Right now, baseball sucks and I don't like watching it. That's what being independent means to me.

GalacticaActual  ·  4516 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Once a Social Media Star, Digg Sells For 500,000
That's wonderful. William Waldegrave should take all the real credit for that. I took the picture he painted about the Higgs Field and just tried to work in what I thought I knew about the Boson itself.
GalacticaActual  ·  4516 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Romney and Bain Capital: The Secrecy is Killing Him
I claim to be independent, but what I really mean is that I don't like partisanship and how deeply a part of government it has become (or always has been). After, for example, watching congress put the Affordable Care Act up for vote over 33 times now, splitting the vote down party lines, wasting time and money for what amounts to a brute force denial of service attack, it has become apparent to me that that each party we have in our political system today exists solely to make sure the other party loses the next election. The only people who lose that game are the American people, and I'm tired of it.

If there's anything I want to be "independent" from, it's partisan tomfoolery. Unfortunately, I think this is more of a systemic problem, and has more to do with in-group mentality and human nature than the nuance of politics, as it were. If that's the case, then I'm completely screwed and I should give up on seeing things turn around.

To comment on the part where you probably don't believe me, if you were going to put a gun to my head and make me fill out a ballot sheet, I will vote for the secular/populist/socially liberal candidate every time, regardless of which party they came from. This time, it's the Democrats by a slim margin (I could argue that both candidates are merchant class sellouts, but I digress). So I suppose you could say I'm a de-facto Democrat, but I still identify as Independent, since I vote according to whichever candidate represents me better, and not according to party affiliation. When people say they're independent, I think that's what they mean.

GalacticaActual  ·  4516 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Once a Social Media Star, Digg Sells For 500,000
That's certainly what sets it apart. I feel differently about Reddit than I do Digg. While the content is beginning to tank, I still like the community overall. I've since relegated myself to smaller niche subreddits (and places like this) to get the type of higher level interaction that I want, which isn't something I could do on Digg, which is why we had to part ways.
GalacticaActual  ·  4516 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Once a Social Media Star, Digg Sells For 500,000
At one time, it did deserve to be one of the most popular sites on the internet. I was a Digg user from early on and jumped ship for Reddit in the summer of 2007 after it started to become more like Reddit is now, if you get my drift. I'm starting to see the same sort of content decay on Reddit that I saw on Digg back then.
GalacticaActual  ·  4517 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Once a Social Media Star, Digg Sells For 500,000
I'll always remember the good times.
GalacticaActual  ·  4517 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: E-books: America's ticket back to widespread smarts?
I want an e-reader for portability, but there is something satisfyingly substantial about holding dead trees in my hands. I do get myself into a bit of a bind that way.
GalacticaActual  ·  4518 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How important is anonymity on Hubski?
GalacticaActual  ·  4518 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How important is anonymity on Hubski?
Asking such a question is a good way to get you thrown out of an airlock.
GalacticaActual  ·  4523 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Still Confused About the Higgs Boson? Read This.
    Miller compared the Higgs field to a crowd of political party workers spread evenly through a room. An anonymous person could move through the crowd unhindered. However, then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher would attract a lot of attention: Party workers would clump around her, slowing her down, giving her metaphorical "mass."

Answer: "Thatcher, angered after being ousted by Chancellor John Major, roars through the crowd with fists flying and elbows swinging. A right hook connects with a party pundit next to her and dislodges an incisor. As it tumbles through the air toward the floor, a keen-eyed photographer snaps a photograph of the tooth before it disappears underfoot, never to be seen again."

Question: "What is a Higgs Boson?"

GalacticaActual  ·  4523 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A Conversation With My 12 Year Old Self
This is brilliant. That's all I can really say about it.
GalacticaActual  ·  4523 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Yesterday was my Hubski birthday.
I actually didn't even know this place existed until a few weeks ago. I'm glad you're here and I'm glad to be here.
GalacticaActual  ·  4523 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Your E-book is reading you.
That was one thing that impressed me about No Country For Old Men. I was strangely satisfied by the notion that Javier Bardem's character just... gets away.
GalacticaActual  ·  4524 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Man appears to take suicide pill after guilty verdict
Assuming he would have gone to a state prison for the entirety of the sentence, he saved Arizona taxpayers approximately $350,000.
GalacticaActual  ·  4524 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Five years after the iPhone, carriers are the biggest threat to innovation
Note to self: Deregulation is a free pass to screw over customers because, hey, free market, right?
GalacticaActual  ·  4524 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Phobos, courtesy of Mars Express
Zoom in on that crater on the right.

Enhance...

Enhance...

OH SHI-

GalacticaActual  ·  4524 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Your E-book is reading you.
    This algorithmic media creation leads us into a swamp of navel-gazing ignorance.

See also: Reality Television.

GalacticaActual  ·  4547 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Love the new UI but...
I noticed the borders around each post had disappeared and thought I had gone insane.