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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 9th, 2023

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  • There’s plenty of examples of software doing this right and displaying each language in the selector in that language, it’s hard to say why they’ve localised it here. Most likely they just didn’t consider how the user interacts with that element and localised it the same way they translate everything else, but that could be down to anyone from the developer habitually running everything through localisation to company policy where they couldn’t get an exception for that element.

    You’d have to ask support for whatever software you’re using for more detail, chances are you won’t get anything useful back but if you’re lucky they might fix it.


  • Exploiting the difference in value of a commodity between communities is a valid way to make a living, traders have existed for a very long time, though if there’s little effort required the values will quickly align with each other. Turning it into an infinite money glitch by having a mint convert your raw material into coins is nonsense.

    That’s all still assuming the coins are made of pure gold/silver for some reason. And assuming the mint is willing to just make money for you in spite what I’ve already said.

    Edit: And that’s all if you ignore the fact alchemy, conjuration, and transfiguration exist in that universe so the entire thing is moot anyway. The angle they should have taken is that physical currency makes no sense in a world where you can just summon more, but I suppose that’s harder to turn into “I’m so much smarter than the entire world”.


  • If the coins are 100% gold or copper then you’re in one of two scenarios: the value of the coin is the scrap metal value, in which case swapping between gold and copper makes little difference; or, the mint buys your scrap gold and converts it in-house, pocketing the difference. A mint has no reason to convert your gold to significantly higher value coins for you, that only loses them their economic and political power in the form of currency control.

    The only way it would work is if you specifically build a world where everyone else is incredibly stupid just to make yourself seem smart.


  • People are always praising that fanfic for some reason so I tried reading it a while back. If it’s the one I’m thinking of then hard disagree, the protagonist is a self-insert Mary Sue clearly written by a kid who thinks they’re the smartest person alive. One part that still sticks in my mind years later is their fundamental misunderstanding of how fiat currency works, it was some ridiculous get-rich-quick scheme like melting down wizard currency into pure gold to sell to non-wizard community then using that money to buy silver which they’d trade up to magic society gold coins. It was some years ago so I may be misremembering the details, but there should be a ton of issues that immediately jump out to you there.

    I trudged through and got as far as the first meeting with Malfoy where the author realized they were being too friendly with each other, but since Malfoy is supposed to be a bad guy they decided he should randomly blurt out something about how he wants to rape some girl.

    Maybe it’s just because I don’t have the context of other bad fanfics, but that’s a solid 0/10 from me.




  • Aphantasia is a spectrum, but even when you can visualise a full realistic scene it should be easy for most people to tell the difference between that and seeing something physically. When you can’t tell the difference that’s a hallucination.

    It’s only total aphantasia if you can’t visualise an image in your mind at all. I believe then you’d get more a concept of an apple than an image or other depiction of an apple but that’s only my understanding from hearing other people talking about it.




  • The important factor isn’t whether someone can be addicted (otherwise you’re banning nearly everything), it’s the harm that addiction causes. As a general rule of thumb physical dependencies like alcohol are more harmful than habitual addictions, but that obviously isn’t the whole story.

    Caffeine addiction is the same category as alcohol and tobacco but causes so little harm that I don’t think anyone is seriously opposed it. On the other end of that scale is something like meth or other hard drugs, generally understood as destructive and has few serious supporters encouraging use. Breaking these addictions is almost always hard and physically taxing, in some cases can even be lethal.

    Marijuana addiction is in the same category as most things that make you feel good or form habits so it’s harder to nail down a proper scale, but the lower end is probably something like video games; a debilitating addiction is possible but uncommon and most people would oppose a blanket ban on the basis of “can be addictive”. Gambling is on the other end can definitely ruin lives. I’d say that’s a little worse than coffee. Breaking these addictions is more like breaking a bad habit, it can feel hard for the addict but generally isn’t going to kill them.



  • I have never heard anyone claim returning something is “extreme” before. It’s so mild it should be one of the first options you consider, especially when you ordered online and didn’t get the chance to see the item before purchase. You shouldn’t get saddled with shit just because there’s some “feature” you hate which you weren’t aware of when you bought it. For that reason where I am you’d have a legal right to return almost any order within 14 days of receipt no questions asked, or longer if there’s a defect.




  • It’s alternative medicine (ie not medicine) and pseudoscience (ie not science). Chiropractic injury rate may seem lower in some cases for two reasons: significantly more people without injuries visit chiropractors and some forms of real medicine do carry real risks, eg real surgery carries obvious risks.

    Your primary argument for chiropractors is that some real therapists use some of the same techniques, so why not go for real medicine instead?


  • Uploading your consciousness to a machine wouldn’t really extend your lifespan. Think of it like moving a file from one device to another; the file isn’t actually moved, you just get a copy on the second device. You and your digital clone will also begin to diverge immediately as the lived experience of being a new digital entity would be different from continuing life as a meat person.

    The closest you can get is to Ship of Theseus it; get a machine implant which gradually takes over brain functions as cells die or parts of the brain fail. Single stream of consciousness in a single body, now fully digitised. Incidentally this is also closer to biological processes to replace cells, though the brain cells renew much less frequently then other cell types. I think some areas don’t naturally get replaced over a lifetime too but I’m not certain on that, either way you’d want to go faster than natural cell replacement.

    Alternatively you could make the transfer process dissolve your meat brain. Personally I’d say you are dead and your clone lives on but its the same argument as Star Trek style transporters; the clone still feels like it’s you so if they got to where you want to go does it really matter?