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Das Doak

@dasdoak.bsky.social
1.2K followers 856 following 13K posts

Gentleman adventurer, mostly decent bastard, only slightly pessimistic optimist. I ride bikes, tinker, program, and read way too much. White, cis, straight, US male if you need the context. It's a fucked demographic; wasn't my choice to be born into it.

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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 4h
...but, given that almost every society in history has gone with "if you do this shit, we *will* kill you" I think there's a reasonably good chance it's structural.
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 4h
Now, it is possible that the current failures of society to remember that terrible people were terrible and keep them out of power permanently are due to some combination of circumstances in modern society that can be fixed, to allow for comparison and dignity, and I'd very much like to believe that
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 4h
The problem is that I no longer trust society to actually remember "oh, yeah, those assholes were THE WORST" when a minor inconvenience strikes, or even when they just get bored with competent leadership.
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 4h
My personal preference would be for every one of these horrible people to live long lives during which they get to see their entire political project get trampled into the dust of history. I want them to spend decades seeing that they were wrong and they fucking lost.
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 5h
It is a bad sign, but mostly because it means that the entirety of society no longer agrees that some crimes are inexcusable. You only get to avoid executing traitors and insurrectionist if you're certain that your society will never let them have power again.
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 11h
Either the AI is plagiarizing their work or suddenly they're drowning in a whole new pile of work that may or may not be correct, but they won't know until they go through it with a fine-toothed comb. All of it is a significant and unpleasant change to their professional careers.
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 11h
One thing about this that really stuck me is that the mathematicians who are getting burned the hardest are also ones who've been collaborating the most closely with the AI companies to help "develop" AI. It really sucks to be the human condom between AI and your field, doesn't it?
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 11h
Capital punishment really should be used *solely* for people who abuse public trust and the powers of their offices; those are the people who will actually be dissuaded by the threat of it, and they're also the ones who, by the nature of the crime, do have to at least slightly premeditated it.
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Kashana @kashana.blacksky.app · 19h
Excited to see that we’re replacing new housing with chatbots that tell you to kill yourself
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escapedexplorer.bsky.social @escapedexplorer.bsky.social · 14h
"What if we turned military training ships into a reenactment of transatlantic slave ships" said members of the Trump administration, presumably while furiously pleasuring themselves, jfc
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 14h
So, the South Pole is actually a bit of a funny one; by the 16th century essentially all the technology that Roald Amundsen used to get to the South Pole had been invented, it just wasn't concentrated in one single place, and no state had the logistical capacity to carry out such an expedition.
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 15h
It's really amazing how many people involved in developing AI are positively excited to show the world that they should never be put in positions of even moderate responsibility.
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GOLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 15h
i do not think this will happen and i do not think it will benefit this administration if it does
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 15h
Jesus fucking christ, this is basically attempted murder. I had a crash like this and I broke my collar bone and *I GOT LUCKY*
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 16h
Even the most generous states are nowhere close to offering that much.
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 16h
Raising kids is, essentially, a full-time job for the first year or two of a child's life. I don't think you're going to see meaningful changes in birth rates until countries start offering two years fully paid leave either at a person's normal salary or median wage, whichever is higher.
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The Crusader Project @crusaderproject.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Lads. Bad news.
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Shockingly fast, too!
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Very much a historian of surprised eels today, rather than a surprised historian of eels.
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I *do* live there, and I disagree with your assessment.
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I block them because I don't want them spreading their shit on my little corner of this website.
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Even then, "there should be a German state *exclusively* for the benefit of the Germans and no other ethnic group" is a belief held only by the most insane and reactionary right-wingers; the majority of Germans believe that anyone can become German, regardless of religion or ethnicity.
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Dumbstash @dnlmsstch.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
The capitalists were so afraid of the socialists they forgot the fudalists and mercantalists are also their enemies
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Jesus fucking Christ. You read the headline and it's obviously bad, but the details are *so much worse*
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
"sticken" was superceded by "ersticken" because the er- prefix implies something is being done to completion, and is commonly used with verbs where the action is going to kill someone. These days, "sticken" means "to embroider", though it derives from a slightly different etymological tree.
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
It's actually worse than I laid out here, because German did go down the same etymological path from proto-indo-germanic "*stikkōną" to arrive at the word "sticken", which is an obsolete verb that means "to suffocate." I have absolutely no idea how they made that particular leap.
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Any time I start to get frustrated with my ongoing attempts to *fully* master German, I remind myself that it could always be worse: m.youtube.com/watch?v=wjOf...
m.youtube.com
Life of Brian - Latin Lesson - Romans go home!
YouTube video by Private
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rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
it is genuinely shocking what people will say in israel's defense
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
static.klipy.com
Seinfeld: George's 'Gotcha' Wink
ALT: Seinfeld: George's 'Gotcha' Wink
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
But here, again, the Germans decided to go their own path: The German word for sticker is "Aufkleber", a compound word whose components roughly translate to "that which glues on." *sigh*
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Funnily enough, the English term for "Sticker" follows a similar etymological tree as the French term "étiquette" (both derive from terms meaning "to stick, pierce, sting or be sharp), but it derives from Germanic terms, rather than French ones.
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Because the Germans got both the derived term for behavior - also spelled Etikette - but they *also* got the French term which *literally* means "a small card" which generated the metaphorical term for "rules of good behavior" when Louis XIV's court used small cards to remind courtiers of rules.
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
This is clearly the German spelling of the French étiquette, so it seems that we can pretty safely assume that this is a loan word. "System of rules composing good behavior and/or manners"? Well, yes, it *can* mean that, but also means "small stickers" or "labels".
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
As "objekt" shows though, the Germans are not opposed to loan words if they're useful! The problem - for an English speaker - is that their application of loan words tends to be rather at odds with English application of the same loan words. As is the case with "etikett"
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
You can still use "Gegenständlich" or "objektiv" as an adjective in much the same way that you can use "objective" as an adjective, but only "Objektiv" is a noun form which matches the English noun "objective.")
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
(There are differences in meaning; Gegenstand can also mean a topic, i.e. "the topic of our discussion today..." "der Gegenstand unserer heutigen Diskussion)" which is distinct from the English use of "Object" as "Goal" because that's more a contraction of "objective" as a noun.
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
You see, some Germans came across the Latin "obiectum" ("That which is cast against" metaphorically) and, rather than doing what the English did and loanwording that sucker, instead they went ahead and calqued it. ...but they did *ALSO* loanword "object" as "Objekt" too, just to keep things fun.
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
A very frustrating one there is "Gegenstand" which is a composite of "gegen" meaning "against" and "Stand" which is a petty complete cognate with the English "stand" So... against+stand - opposition? Lol, no, it means "object", not as in "I object!" but rather "that object over there..."
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Anyways, this one is fairly straightforward, unlike the *many* German words where someone came across a Latin term and thought "aww yeah, this is the absolute tits; I'm gonna calque this shit!"
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
"Das ist ein reizendes Kleid" -> "That's a reizend dress" - are you trying to tell me that dress looks nice, or that it's made of hazardous materials that will *immediately* give you a rash? Cultural context suggests the former, but the latter is also *STILL* a technically correct interpretation!
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Well, yes, but the nature of the reaction is both *quite* specific AND COMPLETELY CONTRADICTORY: You see, "reizend" means "lovely, charming, delightful, cute" AND "irritating" - as in an irritating chemical ("reizende Chemikalie") would be a type of "reizende Stoffe" or "Irritating Substances."
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
That's fine, and even translates pretty well into English. Now, looking at "reizend" again - given that this participle is commonly used as an adjective, should we assume that it means "Having properties which elicit a reaction", right?
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Ok, so if we're trying to look at this from an English lens, the broadest and most basic explanation of "reizen" would probably be "to elicit a reaction", while also being *somewhat* ambiguous about whether the reaction is positive or negative but, generally, trending negative.
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Reizend is the present participle of the verb reizen, which means "To irritate, excite, tease, tantalize, or provoke" (for people who hate grammar terminology as much as I do, the participle is the form of a verb that can be used as a noun or an adjective)
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
German is a *very* frustrating language in terms of its vocabulary because, for a lot of the more technical terminology, you can SEE the logic that they were using, follow it the entire path that it goes along, and still wind up at a "WHAT?!?!?" result. For example, consider "reizend":
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I am, once again, tapping the "red-brown alliances always just end up brown" sign.
The "don't make me tap the sign meme" where the sign says red-brown alliances always just end up brown
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GOLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 07/10/2026
average bluesky politics-knower: horseshoe theory isn’t really a thing german political parties: we would like to announce the horseshoe initiative
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
The conversation that inspired this was about this apartment building, the fact that, if you want 350sqft studio apartments that cost about $900 a month, you'd need to build a shit load of things like it, and the further fact that that'd be unacceptable to most liberal Americans.
A late-cold-war apartment building in Frankfurt-Nied.
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Das Doak @dasdoak.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
A friend and I were complaining about liberal NIMBYS, so I spent five minutes throwing a thing together in MS Paint to get a laugh. This is almost certainly derivative of sometime else's work, so use it as you like:
A parody of the "in this house we believe" signs that says

In this house we believe
Black lives matter
Love is love
Science is real
That apartment is ugly
It'll ruin the neighborhood
And lower my property value
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Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I'm just gonna bookmark this for future reference when Dem pundits complain about how the party has trouble communicating its message to voters. The reason you keep running into trouble with your branding isn't campus radicals. The reason is that your opponents purchased all the media outlets.
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