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Is it generally safe to walk through a field of cows?
  • Small horses, like small dogs, are herd animals, are utterly convinced they are ten times their actual size, and will show this off at any opportunity.

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    To the recruiters/HR, what are the criteria that are verified during background checks of employees? Do verifying agencies review social media accounts that applicants have on Reddit/Saidit/Lemmy etc?
  • In some circumstances, I have heard of employers asking prospective employees to expose their social media accounts during the hiring process.

    In most cases, this seems to be just a formality check of "Is this person exposing their previous company's info / making threatening statements / generally being an asshole of some kind?" or, in one case, to determine if someone was an anti-vax/anti-science type before they started a medical position.

    This wasn't done by an "agency", though, and they really didn't look that deeply. In some cases it seems to come with a wink-wink, nudge-nudge "So these are tooootally all your accounts, riiiight?"

  • If you don't work IT, retail, or food service what do you do for work?
  • Not that guy, but also a (not-software) engineer. Coding is really great for a few things:

    • Software stuff is in really vogue right now. Like there's demand for all engineering disciplines in my area, but software guys are the hot position, with pay to match.
    • Even if you're not software, knowing a little is helpful for other stuff - e.g., whipping up some quick and dirty test interfaces, or interacting with older systems with non
    • It also really, really helps for little things at home.

    Unfortunately I cannot actually write code to save my life, but it'd be real useful if I could!

  • #DnD DMs of the #Fediverse: Have you ever made a PC race illegal?
  • I am tinkering with something similar right now, with the elf-equivalents being virtually illegal outside the borders of their own empire.

    So, here's what I would suggest you consider:

    • First, discuss it with your players and make sure you're not going to piss any of them off by doing this. If any of them were planning on playing said race, make sure they're okay with the impact on their play style.

    • Consider the storytelling conflicts you want to explore with this. What encounters do you want to put your players through, and why? What themes are you looking to explore?

    • Consider the larger impact on other parts of your world. Try to make this more than a point that exists in isolation and a vacuum.

  • Series: Conservatives of Lemmy: What do you think has gone awry in modern society and how might it be constructively addressed?
  • It's a fair point. I don't know if I could say I put all the blame on bad parenting, but I do think absence of parents (or, maybe, absence of parental attention) is definitely a thing that stunts kids emotionally for a number of reasons (including overexposure to social media).

    I think the incentive to be a better parent is already there for most people; humans are pretty well hardwired to want to look after our offspring. But it's being drowned out by multiple other incentives to spend time elsewhere, or risk falling into trouble - financial, social, whatever. It's going to take more than an hour off from work a day to ease the incredible anxiety we're filled with to focus on working more/harder.

    Unfortunately, I don't think I have all the answers either, but I think it's going to take a multi-pronged approach.

  • Series: Conservatives of Lemmy: What do you think has gone awry in modern society and how might it be constructively addressed?
  • It's hella weird around here, because I consider myself moderate-to-reasonably-left wing, but by Lemmy standards I'm probably waaaaaay conservative. Like some of the stuff I see celebrated around here definitely makes my eyebrows shoot up.

    And like, I'd actually enjoy having this discussion as well in that frame, but I don't think I can honestly answer as a "conservative".

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    What's something that you wish Lemmy had more of?
  • A little more appreciation for nuance, empathy, and chill when it comes to "hot" topics would be appreciated.

    Like just about every day I check Lemmy, and I find some really awful, yet highly-voted take (usually on politics, sometimes on tech or something) that sends my eyes rolling so hard I could probably hook them up to a generator and get carbon-free power.

    I can deal with downtimes, community drama, and needing to grow conversations. But the hostility I see almost daily turns visiting Lemmy into a stressful, not welcoming experience.

  • What's a candy that's practically crack for you?
  • Candy Corn. Some people insist they taste like wax, and I'm like, "What?!" I will chew those things all day long.

  • Who Are Todays Heroes?
  • This. "Overstressed" doesn't begin to cover it. It's an unimaginably stressful job even when things are going right.

  • The day we brought Sencha home from the adoption center in 2019
  • Sencha is an absolute beast! A gorgeous one, though.

  • When it comes to US politics, why do the majority of people like to stay in their echo chambers? (serious)
  • That's a fair point too; if you go in anticipating a conversational slap, you're in a defensive posture from the start.

    This reinforces my feeling that setting out to specifically create that no-slapping environment from the start is critical, but it also adds in another twist and problem: There's increasing evidence that political "language" between various groups is diverging. In other words, ~20 years ago people used the same words to mean the same things, even when they disagreed. Now people on different sides of an issue use identical words to mean totally different things - including some that can be perceived as a verbal slap.

  • When it comes to US politics, why do the majority of people like to stay in their echo chambers? (serious)
  • Going to build on this to highlight something:

    • Given the hyper-stigmatized, hyper-partisan approach to... well, a lot of things these days, not just US politics, engaging with those you politically disagree with is likely to not just produce calm disagreements but sharp, even vicious statements that your entire worldview/lifestyle/culture/ethnicity/whatever is literally the stuff of pure evil, and you are an absolutely terrible person for adhering to it. No nuance, no consideration, no empathy.

    • On a different tack, consider that strong rejection/disagreement is shown to activate the same centers in your brain which are associated with sharp physical pain. To your brain, being slapped in the face conversationally and slapped in the face physically produce extremely similar results.

    With these two points in mind, consider: Why would people choose to expose themselves to environments which promote something their brain interprets as actual, physical harm?

    Unfortunately, the current palette of social media options don't really offer spaces for nuanced, thoughtful discussion which doesn't begin with people screaming their hostility to what they disagree with. It's a big of a chicken-and-egg question whether that's a cause or an effect, but the net result is creation of an environment which our pain-avoiding brains guide our choices away from people we disagree with.

  • Wizards Of The Coast President Cynthia Williams Steps Down
  • Welp. Since Hasbro overall seems intent on running its properties into the ground, I have little doubt the next one will continue the cycle of enshittification. I'd love to be wrong, but I doubt it.

  • What would inorganic species call themselves?
  • Yeah, I'm going to be in agreement with your friend.

    It's also worth noting that even within "inorganic" species, there might be stark differences in their internal composition (and thus view of themselves). Are these an animate silicon crystal, or a "robot person"? The former might think of themselves as "the solid", in contrast to liquid-containing non-silicon life.

    They might also (in either case) use a name which reflects their local name for whatever the dominant element or feature is their makeup, similar to how we refer to Earthly life as "cellular" life because it's made of cells. That said, "Mechanoids" as a foreign nickname or slur might be a fun thing.

  • Who would win: Borg Cube or Death Star?
  • Whoever said this doesn't know either setting very well. Borg become resistant, not immune to weapons they encounter. Starships were still perfectly capable of damaging Borg ships with the same weapons years later.

    The problem is that the two settings operate on entirely different scales. Individual Turbolaser bolts are something like thousands of 24th century Photon Torpedoes? Even if we assume the Cube can resist 90% of the energy from each bolt, it's still having a very bad day.

  • When did breasts become a thing that needed to be concealed in public and why?
  • "Blame England" is basically the "Blame Canada!" of history discussions.

  • I am obsessed with catching her yawns, they split her whole head in half lol
  • Yawns are when your perfectly little cuddly ball of soft opens its mouth and reveals a dozen chisels of death.

    (And then goes right back to being cute.)

  • What is the strangest tech related bug you can't resolve?
  • No Wifi, as it simply doesn't have a wifi adaptor.

    Ethernet is a possibility. I tested it right now and removing the Ethernet cable doesn't cause a wake-up, but I suppose it's possible that slight interference if the cable were just slightly moved might cause it to register traffic plus a continued connection, enough to cause a wakeup. I'll try tinkering with that, thanks!

  • What is the strangest tech related bug you can't resolve?
  • My computer turns itself on when I walk through a certain spot nearby it.

    "Ah, you must have your mouse or some other peripheral set to activate it and the vibrations from walking-" Nope, I know how to disable wakeup from peripherals. "Well, then the vibrations from walking must be disturbing a loose component inside-" Nope, problem existed through a near-complete teardown and OS reinstall. Also, putting the PC on vibration isolating foam did not help.

    At this point, I'm down to two conclusions:

    • The wire for the wall outlet runs under the floor, and vibrations are causing adequate power fluctuations to wake the machine up. Not sure how to test for this, though it does concern me about the state of the wiring.
    • The PC is haunted.
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