demonstrably rigged game fueled by ignorant rubes who all think that they’re the only person there who isn’t and where the only way to consistently win is to already be a winner
At it’s simplest card counting involves keeping track of how many hard 10s (10, k, q, j) there are in the shoe, assuming you know how many decks are in the shoe and that the discard isn’t reshuffled into the shoe too often. When you find yourself in a situation where there are a lot of tens still in the deck but a lot of the smaller value cards have been played, you bet heavily and stand on low values hoping that the dealer will tend to bust (in most casinos a dealer will hit on 15 or below and stand on 16 or above, more tens in the deck means it’s more likely that the dealer will bust, yielding a small statistical advantage to the player in a tens-heavy scenario)
I mean, gambling in a casino is always going to be a bad bet but is it a scam if the odds are public knowledge to all involved and participation is 100% voluntary? I know I’m getting into thorny territory calling something addictive “voluntary” but let’s kick that can down the road and assume that gambling is nothing more than taking a bad deal voluntarily. Is that a scam?
An internal investigation of the Transportation Security Administration revealed security failures at dozens of the nation’s busiest airports, where undercover investigators were able to smuggle mock explosives or banned weapons through checkpoints in 95 percent of trials, ABC News has learned.
In one test an undercover agent was stopped after setting off an alarm at a magnetometer, but TSA screeners failed to detect a fake explosive device that was taped to his back during a follow-on pat down.
What’s ironic here is that this isn’t a matter of incompetence, it’s a matter of efficiency. There isn’t much of a threat of hijacking airplanes, and there never has been. It’s just that after 9/11 the spectacle of that even has caused the average person to overestimate the threat of terrorism in airports by several orders of magnitude. Therefore, while we’re in no more danger than we were on 09/10/2001, people believe that there is a danger and if someone doesn’t perform security, they won’t fly. So, in order to appease these people who don’t actually understand the situation but have the power to affect it, we all have to go through a little dance that’s designed to look very much like security. Take your shoes off. Throw out your water bottle. Has anyone asked you to put anything in your bag for them? Put your shoes back on. Take your shoes back off. 95% of weapons in carry-on luggage make it through TSA screening and onto the plane. Put your shoes back on. Take your belt off.
Image transcription: a section of a Wikipedia article titled “Relationship with Reality”. It reads “From a scientific viewpoint, elves are not considered objectively real. [3] However,” End transcription.
Discworld’s elvesfair folk, however, do not work like this and remain wildly powerful even as human belief in them withers and dissipates. The belief in elves at the beginning of Lords and Ladies is much akin to the belief in Om at the beginning of Small Gods. From memory, “like worshipping the shell left behind by a crustacean that has long since died”. But for some reason elves maintain power in the human world whereas Om is reduced to hoping the melons in the church gardens aren’t too thick-skinned.
It doesn’t make you anonymous. Torrent protocol wasn’t designed with anonymity in mind and there are a million ways you’re going to leak your actual IP address....
It’s been too long since the aristocrats were reminded that they need us more than we need them and that they can’t hire enough of us to stop the rest of us once we take an idea to mind.
I think you’re thinking of patents rather than copyright. I was about to ask something snarky like “without the ability to patent their discoveries what would cause these drug companies to pay for r&d up front?” but honestly, this one was paid for by government grants anyway and that’s really where my problem comes in. We seem to have developed this amazing worst of both worlds where the public bears all the up front expense of r&d and then the government just gives away what we bought for ourselves so that they can raise the price to 100x what the medication actually costs.
Patents, trademarks and copyrights are three entirely different things. Patents cover products for sale, and give an inventor the exclusive right to manufacture an invention for a given time. Trademarks cover branding, and allow the person registering the trademark to prevent anyone else from using it or something a reasonable person could confuse with it indefinitely. Copyright is exclusively for intellectual property and allows the copyright holder to stop anyone from making copies of their work, derivatives of their work or work that is substantially similar to their work.
Given that the intent here is to make assisted suicide legal for people who by definition are not of sound mind what protections are in place for people who would qualify for assisted suicide by way of mental health issues but also might not be fully competent to make this decision themselves? Who can step in and say that the patient actually is competent, and by what standards is that judged? Who can step in and say a patient that wants assisted suicide is not competent, or has been manipulated? I’m not worried about people who are genuinely suffering, the fact is we’ve never been able to stop them from killing themselves and we never will be. I’m worried about someone putting poison in the ear of someone with a treatable disorder, convincing them to “do the right thing and not be a burden”.
Here’s another where a woman with sensitivities to various chemical smells chose to die because she couldn’t find an apartment that was affordable and didn’t reek of noxious chemicals
The people who are worried about this aren’t worried about people who genuinely want to die committing suicide. It was always nearly impossible to stop them anyway, and there’s no way to change that. What we’re worried about is people being pushed toward MAID because they’ve been systemically denied things they need to live that are absolutely available. We’re worried about mentally ill people being told “do the right thing, don’t be a burden” when they want to live. We’re worried about suicide becoming the answer to problems that are caused by social and legislative conditions. We’re worried about becoming the kind of society where, rather than help one another, it’s expected that anyone who needs help just off themselves.
This is all coming from someone who tried twice and will be eternally grateful that I managed to fuck it up both times.
A former GOP donor, who once made headlines after calling former president Barack Obama the N-word, fatally shot himself after attempting to kill his wife, according to reports.
bad angle shot: weird that you would take a nap before your suicide attempt. Seems like the kind of moment you might actually want to be less-than-present for.
Disney is raking its customers over the coals with a 75% price hike for their annual subscription (originally $80.) People wonder why piracy is on the rise.Multiple commenters are saying I’m off base about the 75% price increase. My payment less than a year ago was $79.99. Here’s the proof.
Unsub’d. Fuck that noise, I really only use them for Simpsons reruns between movies I give a shit about. So now I’ll steal the Simpsons and the movies. They overplayed their hand here.
Discovered recently that Electric Wizard were kinda dicks back in the day. “At the time, we were pretty bad people. I got arrested for arson of a car, outside a police station. Tim [Bagshaw] went to nick a crucifix off a church roof so we could use it onstage…”...
Desperately trying to find that meme of Bernie Sanders where he says that he’ll make gay marriage mandatory if he becomes president. “And if you’re not gay, too bad. I’m your husband now and we’re in LLLLOOOOOVVVEEEEE”
If I had a nickel for every time one of my favorite noise artists was accused of sexual assault by another artist I follow, I’d have two nickels. Which isnt a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice (Michael Gira from Swans was accused by Larkin Grimm and Alexis Marshall from Daughters was accused by Kristin Hayter).
vegan food isn’t expensive. artificial meat replacements are expensive, because you’re paying someone to chemically torture plants until they vaguely remind you of animals. lentils, beans, and other awesome-tasting protein sources are dirt cheap. vegan-first dishes are great and really cheap.
It’s interesting that while you were making this up you couldn’t decide whether your kid was vegetarian or vegan. You’d think with cooking two separate meals every night you’d be familiar with the difference.
Horseshit. If your editor doesn’t catch the article that says “have the peasants considered suicide as a way out of debt bondage?” then you as a news outlet should absolutely have to live with what you published.
A programmer in northern China has been ordered to pay more than 1 million yuan to the authorities for using a virtual private network (VPN), in what is thought to be the most severe individual financial penalty ever issued for circumventing China’s “great firewall.” The programmer, surnamed Ma, was issued with a penalty...
there is great veg food all over the place, failure to find is a failure to look
you’re framing the choice as to whether to eat meat as some externally imposed thing when it’s simply not. Choosing from among your options doesn’t ‘threaten’ the options you didn’t choose
your tone is just generally gross and defensive
I’m an omnivore too, but your arguments sound less like you considered the possibilities, rationally thought your way through to the best option then selected it, and more like you picked something and then tried to rationalize your way backward through the arguments to the options.
Edit: oooooh nothing like asking for feedback and then getting pissy when you get it.
Dorothy Hoffner, a 104-year-old Chicago woman whose recent skydive could see her certified by Guinness World Records as the oldest person to ever jump from a plane, has died....
I, for one, would want to take a second look at a birth certificate from 1919. It might not be terribly meaningful in the grand scheme of things but Guinness takes their verification seriously and wants to be able to answer questions like “exactly how many days old was she when she jumped?” and “how did you prove that?”
This is a situation that transcends good guy/bad guy. On any side of the matter you can point to atrocities that the other side has committed, agreements and international laws that they’ve broken, things that could justify violence if you really want to justify violence.
Youtube let the other shoe drop in their end-stage enshittification this week. Last month, they required you to turn on Youtube History to view the feed of youtube videos recommendations. That seems reasonable, so I did it. But I delete my history every 1 week instead of every 3 months. So they don’t get much from my choices....
Very clever... (lemmy.ml)
I’m trying out Obsidian for taking notes, and this made me laugh.
Consumer Reports finds more lead and cadmium in chocolate, urges change at Hershey (www.reuters.com)
Sure it is (lemmy.world)
Anon does mental math (sh.itjust.works)
Texas Republicans Ban Women From Using Highways for Abortion Appointments (www.newsweek.com)
Lubbock County, Texas, joins a group of other rural Texas counties that have voted to ban women from using their roads to seek abortions....
Washington state Sen. Jeff Wilson arrested at Hong Kong airport over gun in bag (www.nbcnews.com)
A Washington state senator was arrested at the airport in Hong Kong and charged with possession of an unregistered firearm, his office said....
Rulationship with Reality (pawb.social)
Image transcription: a section of a Wikipedia article titled “Relationship with Reality”. It reads “From a scientific viewpoint, elves are not considered objectively real. [3] However,” End transcription.
PSA: Don't torrent over TOR (tor.stackexchange.com)
It doesn’t make you anonymous. Torrent protocol wasn’t designed with anonymity in mind and there are a million ways you’re going to leak your actual IP address....
YouTubes Antiblick is illegal in the EU (eupolicy.social)
Cross post from lemmy.world/post/7027225
Pfizer says it will price Covid treatment Paxlovid at nearly $1,400 for a five-day course, which researchers estimate only costs Pfizer $13 to produce. That's a 10,000%+ markup. Shameful. (mastodon.world)
Canada Will Legalize Medically Assisted Dying For People Addicted to Drugs (www.vice.com)
People get out of poverty faster with a guaranteed livable income says Ontario senator (www.aptnnews.ca)
Major Republican Donor Who Called Barack Obama the N-Word Dies After Attempting to Kill His Wife In Murder-Suicide Gone Awry (atlantablackstar.com)
A former GOP donor, who once made headlines after calling former president Barack Obama the N-word, fatally shot himself after attempting to kill his wife, according to reports.
Anon was saved by the Krusty Krab (sh.itjust.works)
18+ Rayman Rule (i.imgur.com)
Disney is gouging customers with a near doubling of subscription costs. (sh.itjust.works)
Disney is raking its customers over the coals with a 75% price hike for their annual subscription (originally $80.) People wonder why piracy is on the rise.Multiple commenters are saying I’m off base about the 75% price increase. My payment less than a year ago was $79.99. Here’s the proof.
What shitty things have your favourite bands/artists done?
Discovered recently that Electric Wizard were kinda dicks back in the day. “At the time, we were pretty bad people. I got arrested for arson of a car, outside a police station. Tim [Bagshaw] went to nick a crucifix off a church roof so we could use it onstage…”...
Vegan food: The west vs India (lemmy.ml)
The New York Times tried to block the Internet Archive: another reason to value the latter (walledculture.org)
Chinese programmer ordered to pay 1m yuan for using virtual private network (www.theguardian.com)
A programmer in northern China has been ordered to pay more than 1 million yuan to the authorities for using a virtual private network (VPN), in what is thought to be the most severe individual financial penalty ever issued for circumventing China’s “great firewall.” The programmer, surnamed Ma, was issued with a penalty...
What popular quote are you tired of hearing?
Bonus points if it’s usually misused/misunderstood by the people who say it
Five years later, researchers say the impacts of legalizing cannabis in Canada have been mixed (www.ctvnews.ca)
Since Canada's legalization of cannabis five years ago, researchers say the policy has had mixed results in terms of public health and justice reform.
Study suggest men refuse to ditch meat because it threatens their masculinity (vegconomist.com)
104-year-old Chicago woman dies days after making a skydive that could put her in the record books (apnews.com)
Dorothy Hoffner, a 104-year-old Chicago woman whose recent skydive could see her certified by Guinness World Records as the oldest person to ever jump from a plane, has died....
What is the Israel thing going on?
seems like the ‘safe’ public opinion is ‘we stand behind israel’ and the left opinion is palestinian support...
Goodbye Youtube and thanks for all the fish (infosec.pub)
Youtube let the other shoe drop in their end-stage enshittification this week. Last month, they required you to turn on Youtube History to view the feed of youtube videos recommendations. That seems reasonable, so I did it. But I delete my history every 1 week instead of every 3 months. So they don’t get much from my choices....