• 4 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 4th, 2023

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  • I kindof hate the slogan “they go low, we go high” (from Hillary’s campaign.)

    But this is an example of the “good” side of that slogan. The political left(-of-what-passes-for-center-in-the-U.S.-now-a-days) isn’t given to publicly calling for assassinations of the opposition party. It’s not even given (and, yes, there are exceptions) to calling privately for assassinations of the opposition. And that’s a good thing.

    It means the left(-of-U.S.-center) hasn’t turned into the fascist-dictatorship-trying-to-happen that the right has. It’s not the left(-of-U.S.-center) calling for civil war and pandering to creeps who chant “blood and soil” while carrying tiki torches around the capital.

    The day left(-of-U.S.-center) news sources delight in assassinations even of opposition as dangerously unhinged and power hungry as Trump because that sentiment started with snide remarks like yours is the day we have to worry that maybe the Democrats are sliding into their own brand of fascism.

    Don’t get me wrong. I’m for radical support of LGBT rights, womens’ autonomy in matters of personal health, universal free healthcare, and most other “liberal” causes. (I also identify as well left and libertarian-ward of the Democratic party and would love to see “to each according to need” be our modus operandi. I’m also for direct action.) I don’t fault the Democrats for being “too radical” by a long shot. (More likely, the Democrats will continue to be far too willing to let the Republicans control the narrative and cheat their way to political power. And that’s the bad side of “they go low, we go high”) And I don’t believe it’s very likely that the Democrats will slide into widespread advocacy for political violence like the Republicans have much more so already.

    But taking delight in assassination attempts and wishing they’d been successful – even those directed at Cheeto-flavored Hitler himself – isn’t helpful.

    All that said, I get it. I’m pissed at the U.S.'s descent toward fascism, too. But wishing him assassinated isn’t going to change anything for the better.



  • So, I accept the premise that something that started as an abbreviation can take on a different meaning than just what it stands for.

    And I do feel it’s most reasonable to consider the term “incel” to include an attitude of entitlement to sex without consideration for the bodily autonomy of whoever they feel should be providing it.

    But I think that attitude is already baked into the un-abbreviated form. The term “involuntarily celibate” implies bigoted entitlement. It implies a worldview in which someone (typically women) owe the person who identifies as “involuntarily celibate” sex.

    If someone wants to murder people and nobody will let themselves be murdered to satisfy the wannabe murderer’s impulse, well, the wannabe murderer clearly has some issues to work through anyway, but calling themselves “involuntarily murderless” or whatever is highly fucked. The wannabe murderer has to already be thinking in terms of entitlement to kill people to adopt or identify with that term.

    If someone is “celibate” and would prefer to be in a relationship, don’t call them “incel” or “involuntarily celibate” unless they’re entitled bigoted assholes about it, in which case just call them “incels”.

    If they’re “celibate” and would prefer to be in a relationship but isn’t bigoted about it… probably prefer whatever term they would prefer you use, but maybe something like “single and looking” would be a reasonable term.

    If they’re “celibate” and don’t want to be in a relationship and are bigoted, “volcel” or “MGTOW” (with a derisive dip in tone) is probably a reasonably good term.

    If they’re “celibate” and don’t want to be in a relationship and aren’t bigoted, again, whatever they prefer, but “asexual” and/or “aromantic” might be reasonable.







  • No joke. I’m ashamed to say I have had to endure Weblogic in the past. God was that time a massive clusterfuck.

    The company I worked for decided to use two particular separate products (frameworks, specifically; ATG and Endeca, even more specifically) to use in tandem in a rewrite of the company’s main e-commerce application. Between when we signed on the dotted line and when we actually started implementing things, Oracle acquired the companies behind both products in question.

    The company should have cut their losses, run away screaming, and started evaluating other options. That’s not what happened. Instead, they doubed-down and also adopted several other Oracle products (Weblogic and Oracle Linux on (shudder) Exalogic servers) because that’s, of course, what Oracle recommended to use with the two products in question. The company also contracted with Oracle-licensed “service integration” companies that made everything somehow even worse.

    And the e-commerce site rewrite absolutely crashed and burned in the most gloriously painful way possible. They ended up throwing away tens of millions of dollars and multiple years on it.

    When the e-commerce site rewrite did happen, it was many years later and used basically only FOSS technologies. I guess at least they learned their lesson. Until the upper management turns over again.