After a year of absence, I'll give this instance another shot, things have gone better than I expected.
How long does a vote need to stay up?
So the exploding heads vote is well past a day old now. The vote is almost unanimous to defederate. It's been obvious since a few hours after it went up what the community wants. It's now taken well past two weeks to defederate from an obvious alt right troll and bot platform. Twelve days of silence from admins, then a day long debate thread, then an interminable vote. I requested word on when the vote could be called closed, but my question was acknowledged and ignored.
For my own self, I have at this point no faith in the administration of this instance anymore to be able to handle this. It's very clear that wanting to not offend the alt-right is far, far more important than hearing the wishes of the users, and always has been. However, this is the agora, so I'm open to hear a counterpoint explaining why it's actually very reasonable to spend weeks upon weeks in endless circling debate over whether or not it's fine to joke about murdering marginalized people.
Edit: since my thread was locked and I can't reply to accusations, I only joined beehaw because of this, about two days ago. I'm not "a beehaw user", I've barely got my account there active. On this site I have a community and four hundred posts, but I'll be closing that now.
I opened this thread after seeking comment and being ignored for a week. You can see it in my post history if you like. That's enough of that for me.
Yeah I'm finding beehaw a great, very active community. They're doing something right.
Great work! It's not that it's not possible. It's just not common.
For most it's an appetite suppressant. Bear in mind, exercise is rarely a weight loss tool. It's very important but it's not really a way to lose weight
I'm glad people have correctly realized that the French should be associated with violent anti government riots and not surrendering. That was a meme that needed to die.
It's not much better in other places. Lots of us rely on being "better than the us" so as it slides, so do we, just a few meters behind.
Politicians need to actually feel concerned about how the people they are hurting will respond. Currently they know there will be nothing more than a few grouchy news articles and upset social media comments.
I'm really tired of prescribing ozempic. It's the only thing I have access to that works, but it's not the wonder drug people think it is. Pretty much every other day I have to give the same speech about informed choice around it and how it works. I look forward to a brave new era where there are half a dozen others on the market that I have to give a slightly different speech about.
Sorry for giving you the extra mod action here... You should probably add a mention of how long you will be keeping the vote open
We can't do anything to enforce moderation of content on another server. If they come here to do it we can boot em.
You already know but posting for those who might not yet, the reason defederation is framed as a "slippery slope" is because they know full well that there will be a clone of exploding heads rising soon enough and we're going to need to continue defederating alt-right bot farms in perpetuity to maintain a good instance. They want to keep having two week long debates about it in every. Single. Case. By framing it as a slippery slope, they're hoping to keep these incessant arguments going on, forever, or until anyone decent has given up and left.
I'm sorry, you're the only representative of the instance in here responding to stuff like this and as a result I feel like I'm coming down harder on you than you deserve...
But you already have this guy and me in the thread who have left because of the instance's inaction and through it, tacit support of e-h. We're two who bothered to watch the server to see if anything actually happened. By nature, most people who left will definitely not have done this. They're just gone, they're not popping into agora to see if you got your shit together. I only did because I have a community I was working on and don't really want to restart it.
Your "oh maybe, I kinda guess it's possible" attitude here is the problem. You are acting now, great, but this was an incredibly slow response, it doesn't matter if your vote is tomorrow. It's already incredibly, mind bogglingly slow, and you still decided to post a day long debate thread before the vote (it seems to show overwhelming support for defederation, which I consider totally unsurprising, and makes me wonder again what you've been waiting for).
I understand a little about why it was so glacial, but you continue to appear to not understand that this was actually a huge issue, that in that time you let the server bias towards the alt-right, showed a general support for alt right topics, and alienated an unknowable number of users in the process. Those are all the sort of users you probably wanted to keep, the ones who aren't just content to see things go badly and will take action when they see it rather than stare like a deer in headlights. If they're like me, they were probably posting and trying to find out the delay before leaving in disgust. They're folks that care about having an instance that reflects their values, and you've let them - us - down.
That can't be undone, but the way you keep shrugging it off as though you really don't see it does not inspire confidence. It tells me that you think it's not really a huge issue that you lost a bunch of users who aren't comfortable with hate media showing up in their feed, stored on the servers they're using, because you're more worried about alienating the people who are okay with it by acting too quickly.
I don't disagree with any of this in principle, but I don't think any of it applies here. Time, evidence, and even some sociology have shown us that all we gain from trying to mix alt right communities online with other ones is an increase in conflict, alienation of people disgusted by alt right, and strengthening of the alt right as a result. This isn't a place for conversation and conversion in those regards. Helping someone through ignorance and extremism requires an empathy and understanding that is almost impossible to achieve online, and certainly isn't suited to this kind of environment.
As I said, I deal with this stuff in real life all the time. I talk to these people often, and have I think even opened a few minds now and then. I don't even attempt it online. It's fruitless. That doesn't mean I think they're all lost causes individually, but it does mean I don't want their distasteful opinions stanking up my leisure time as well as my professional time.
I like the cut of your jib, fella.
Yeah and if you replace "opinions" with "babies" then "shut down" with "murder" then suddenly you're talking about murdering babies!! Oh man. This is a real slippery slope.
My friend, I'm worried I'm going to come across dickish here in my next paragraph, so let me say that you've proven intelligent and pleasant to talk to and I think well of you from our conversation here.
With that out of the way, I'm not sure how - as someone who seems legitimately pretty intelligent and reasonable, overall - you could hold an opinion like this in the year of our lord 2023. Have you not seen what's happened to public discourse over the last seven years? I think we're long, long past the point of wondering what the consequences of letting things that seem distasteful and unfunny in the particular vein of e-h go unchecked. It's an experiment that has been tested, tried, tested again, and tried again, and always to the same end. How many times do we need another /pol/ or r/t_d or r/conservative or r/asktrumpsupporters or on and on and on and on before people are allowed to point at something like this and say "yep it's this again" and be understood?
Have you watched the alt-right playbook? It's a wonderful summary of what people are concerned about.
You want me to explain myself, but don't want to read what I say. I don't quite know how you figure that will work, but I appreciate you being up front about it I suppose.
Lol I almost responded with, “I appreciate the options.”
I chuckled good at that. And I too enjoy conversations like this, no worries. This thread has mostly been nice, intelligent discussion and I've liked it.
(bit concerned as it seems the trolls are now coming in, but I won't doomsay yet)
- Not every dissenting opinion is an obvious apologist account. If it were, you wouldn't see me through this thread all over the place having what I consider productive discussion with other people who have differing opinions.
- Within the post you just quoted, I explained why I am unimpressed. In the replies, I explained it far more. I find it a little hard to believe you could read what I wrote even in that one post and come up with that reply in good faith, but if you'd like to hear what I mean in more detail, try reading the copious explanation I've added in this very thread over the last six hours.
Frankly, I think the evidence thus far suggests that users do side with me, so your hostility is both unwarranted and kind of nonsensical.
I gave you some extras above in case you ran out, no worries
Did we not vote to defederate exploding heads several days ago?
I was there, I saw the thread. @TheDude, did you? It was pretty strongly in favour. Do we really need to keep waiting around to see if an instance administrated by a guy who wants to declare "cis" a slur is going to turn out okay?
https://sh.itjust.works/post/216888 for context.
RPGs for battletech
cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/335733
> For a long time I've tried to get a good RPG setting going for BT. I know there's an already written RPG for the game but tbh I don't really like it. For a while, I thought about making a bare-bones RPG myself that used the same base mechanics scaled down, but I found it was just too crunchy and slow. Now, I'm thinking that since the game will get very crunchy and simulated once it steps into mech combat, it can probably be narrative and story-based for the out-of-mech sequences. Since my favourite RPG is hands-down Blades in the Dark, lately, I've been thinking of writing a Forged in the Dark system game for battletech. > > This is getting pretty niche so I'm not sure if I'll find enough people who play BT and know FitD well, but I'm curious if anyone in here knows of an existing FitD build, or other more narrative-focused RPG, that would be easier to adapt to BT.
RPGs for battletech
For a long time I've tried to get a good RPG setting going for BT. I know there's an already written RPG for the game but tbh I don't really like it. For a while, I thought about making a bare-bones RPG myself that used the same base mechanics scaled down, but I found it was just too crunchy and slow. Now, I'm thinking that since the game will get very crunchy and simulated once it steps into mech combat, it can probably be narrative and story-based for the out-of-mech sequences. Since my favourite RPG is hands-down Blades in the Dark, lately, I've been thinking of writing a Forged in the Dark system game for battletech.
This is getting pretty niche so I'm not sure if I'll find enough people who play BT and know FitD well, but I'm curious if anyone in here knows of an existing FitD build, or other more narrative-focused RPG, that would be easier to adapt to BT.
Writing very young audience books
My daughter has asked me to write a book targeting her age range, 7-10 years old. I've read a few chapter books with her and have an idea of the language level, but I'm finding it very challenging to keep an engaging story going with the constraints. Anyone know of any tips or guides out there worth looking at for helping set language goals in an early readers setting?
Chickpea flour as an egg substitute
Chickpea flour is the shit, if you weren't aware. I already posted about socca earlier and I'll post more before I'm done.
Even if you eat eggs, you should be aware that chickpea flour is a nonperishable, cheap, animal-free replacement for a huge number of egg uses. For one egg, just mix 3 tbsp chickpea flour and 3tbsp water with a fork and let it sit for a few minutes to rehydrate. Most recipes call for 20 minutes, I find it can be as little as 5 depending on what you're doing.
I use this stuff whenever I'm going to batter things for deep frying, and you can't tell the difference. Like, you really can't; a friend of mine sells deep fried treats over the summer and people actively disbelieve that they're vegan friendly. It's great! I haven't yet found any baking they don't suffice for. When I mix the wet ingredients for something like pancakes, I just add the chickpea flour straight into the liquid ingredients, along with a splash more milk/milk substitute, and let it sit a little extra time. I'm fairly sure they'd get tricky with some of the really technical fluffy egg-based cakes that are more or less just a confection of egg and sugar... but I haven't tested that, either.
Anyone got any other uses they put this stuff to?
local bookstore had some BT books for sale
I picked up both books of the Capellan Solution for my kid. Wondering if anyone has read these... They look like the usual "not groundbreaking literature but entertaining" kind of fare. Anything they should read before hand?
I'm also curious, I noticed there are a lot of books that sit in chronological order but don't seem to be part of series. I assume most of them can be read out of order? It's been a bit over twenty-five years since I read a BT book myself.
Socca - chickpea flour "pancakes"
Socca is a crispy chickpea pancake from Nice, France. Learn how to make it with this easy recipe, and enjoy it as an appetizer or flatbread! Gluten-free.
cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/124923
> This is one of my go-to quick lunch recipes. It takes chickpea flour, water, a bit of olive oil, and salt. You do need to prep it a bit in advance to give the chickpea flour time to soak up the water, and then for the pan to heat up, but the actual cook time is minimal. Done right - which is easy - it's got a crisp, flavourful outside and a soft, almost custardy inner layer. It goes great with zatar seasoning on it, or just coarse salt, and because chickpea flour is pretty high protein, it's surprisingly filling. > > It also makes a decent pizza crust substitute for gluten free folk! It's nothing like bread but it's super delicious with pizza-like toppings. > > A pan of socca and some fresh veggies or a greek salad is a really nice, filling dinner when you want to take it easy.
Crispy roasted beans are one of my favourite things
cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/105582
> Here's an ode to crispy oven roasted beans and chickpeas. If you take pretty much any cooked pulse, toss it in flavours, and bake it, you can make them into crunchy little flavour nuggets to sprinkle on salads, in wraps, eat straight up, put in idk your breakfast cereal or whatever. I'm not your dad, you can decide. It's a great trick and I don't hear enough about people doing it. Did you know it also works with quinoa, giving it a light crispiness almost like puffed rice? > > Sample recipe off the top of my head: > > - 1 cup cooked black beans > - ~1 tbsp olive oil > - 1 tsp salt > - 2 tsp garlic powder > - 1 tsp chilli powder > - 1 tsp smoked paprika > - 2 tsp granulated onion > > Toss together until well coated. > Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. > Spread beans out on parchment paper. > Bake for 45 minutes at 400f or until beans have split open like teeny baked potatoes. give em more time to make them crunchier. > > > Anyone else addicted to these? My wife thinks I'm going a bit overboard when I mix them into refries but yo dawg, we heard you like beans so...
Fermenting peppers
I'll eat hot peppers in any circumstances, but my favourite is to ferment them and pulverize them into sauce. Anyone else do the fermentation route? What are your favourite ingredients, peppers, etc?
I use a lot of different things but my recurrent non-pepper ingredient is leek. It ferments amazingly to create a sweet allium flavour that doesn't overpower the peppers themselves. I also like adding peach or apple for sweetness after the fermentation.
Hot dogs
I've tried this in every plant-based food community I've ever been part of, but I'll try here too.
In the years I've been plant-based, there remains one comfort food I have not yet ever found a satisfying substitute for. I can live without bacon, I can live without tuna, I can even live without chicken wings (though that one does still slip into my dreams sometimes), but I have not yet found anything that satisfies my desire for hot dogs.
There are hundreds of substitutes for them out there. I've tried all the big brands. The problem, in my opinion, is that meat-based hot dogs are essentially a perfect matrix of fat and salt. I don't think the meat flavour has much to do with it at all, which is a big part of why this whole thing drives me so crazy. Every plant-based hot dog I've ever had tastes like health food.
I've found a good substitute while camping... plant-based burgers cooked over a fire in a special cage holder are delicious. However, they're not hot dogs and I want hot dogs dangit, it should be possible.
So, in the hopes that I'll finally find the answer, has anyone found some new entry or some secret contender that drips unhealthy plant-based grease into the fire, that contains enough salt to make me a little bit scared?
Anyone else get their start with mechwarrior 2?
I showed my kid this ancient video when they got into battle tech. It might look and sound like crap now, but I was so vindicated when they made me play it three more times.
"Ammunition level... Critical"
Aah. This was the point where I realized the joy of stompy metal feet.
YSK about socca
Socca is a crispy chickpea pancake from Nice, France. Learn how to make it with this easy recipe, and enjoy it as an appetizer or flatbread! Gluten-free.
This is one of my go-to quick lunch recipes. It takes chickpea flour, water, a bit of olive oil, and salt. You do need to prep it a bit in advance to give the chickpea flour time to soak up the water, and then for the pan to heat up, but the actual cook time is minimal. Done right - which is easy - it's got a crisp, flavourful outside and a soft, almost custardy inner layer. It goes great with zatar seasoning on it, or just coarse salt, and because chickpea flour is pretty high protein, it's surprisingly filling.
It also makes a decent pizza crust substitute for gluten free folk! It's nothing like bread but it's super delicious with pizza-like toppings.
A pan of socca and some fresh veggies or a greek salad is a really nice, filling dinner when you want to take it easy.
2p kitchen table formats?
I'm still somewhat new to MtG, and have mainly played commander, along with a bit of modern which was a little too intense for me. What are some good formats to look into for kitchen table, 2 player mtg with my wife? Commander is great but tends to want a 4 player format.
Bear in mind we'd rather not buy new cards, but used cards and proxies are fine, got no major price constraints since I'm happy to print up a card if it's going to be too hard to find.
Just a thug
I'm actually just doing this to learn how to post photos, the image itself is kinda garbage without my light box, but here you go: one of my glass-green and purple mercenaries!
I find all these metal plates and hard surfaces a lot tougher than organics.
What things have you still not seen from that other content aggregator site?
I've had great recommendations on my niche hobbies and a few funny chains of pun posting, so we're almost fully operational now.
Crispy roasted beans are one of my favourite things
Here's an ode to crispy oven roasted beans and chickpeas. If you take pretty much any cooked pulse, toss it in flavours, and bake it, you can make them into crunchy little flavour nuggets to sprinkle on salads, in wraps, eat straight up, put in idk your breakfast cereal or whatever. I'm not your dad, you can decide. It's a great trick and I don't hear enough about people doing it. Did you know it also works with quinoa, giving it a light crispiness almost like puffed rice?
Sample recipe off the top of my head:
- 1 cup cooked black beans
- ~1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp chilli powder
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 2 tsp granulated onion
Toss together until well coated. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Spread beans out on parchment paper. Bake for 45 minutes at 400f or until beans have split open like teeny baked potatoes. give em more time to make them crunchier.
Anyone else addicted to these? My wife thinks I'm going a bit overboard when I mix them into refries but yo dawg, we heard you like beans so...
Espresso maker recommendations?
I'm looking for a single head mid-range espresso maker for my workplace (Canada); two of our three people are real coffee fans (one used to own a cafe) and so I need something pretty special. Figured it's a good topic to, uh, try to get things brewing a bit here in the new community. Anyone got a specific recommendation?
Closed out my kickstarter order for mercenaries...
... now I just have to wait a friggin year or whatever for my quad mechs (and I guess some other stuff).
Whoever says millenials don't understand delayed gratification anymore does not know about being a miniature gamer in the kickstarter age.
Looking for vehicles? Reaper CAV is not terrible.
My kid, who is a terrible degenerate clanner, runs hell's horses as their main. Thus, they have a neverending thirst for things with treads and wheels instead of good solid stompy legs like Kerensky intended. Ironwind metals are a little fragile for an eleven year old (paint chipping etc) so I've been looking for stands in for a while.
As long as you're willing to either proxy the hell out of things or make your own stats, reaper CAV vehicles are a good option. The system is 10mm scale, and the mechs themselves mostly (though not universally) look a bit huge, but the vehicles are generally pretty okay looking next to catalyst mechs. The heavy vehicles are a bit huge, but work well for the assault-size vehicles that we get in BT.
Thought I'd toss this out for folks, and as soon as I learn how, I'll send pictures.