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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 22nd, 2023

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  • You know that thing you do, where you write some code and then realize you need a main function to execute it? And then you write your main function, but it’s not really your main function, it’s a bunch of half commented test code to make sure that the important code works?

    Do that in a unit test, and when you’re done testing that particular piece, add some assertions and move on to the next piece of functionality. Boom, test driven development.




  • We have reached the limits of what I know on the subject. So, no idea. If forced to make an uneducated guess, I’d say it was probably some combination of environmental factors, a preexisting culture that fit particularly well with horses, and natural variation in adoption of new tech among different groups of people.













  • There is zero reason for the wizarding world to have social classes. Allow me to explain.

    Although food can’t be created with magic, any graduate of Hogwarts can cast the Herbivicus Charm (I think it’s called) or the Greenhouse Charm to grow plants in moments. There’s also a spell that produces fresh, clean water. They have spells that make the insides of things larger than the outside. Spells that clean dishes. Spells that levitate objects and automatically perform rote tasks.

    Every wizard or witch is maybe a month or two of moderate work (at the absolute outside) away from having a private pocket kingdom with crops, furniture, fireplace, teleport pad, beds, clothing, swimming pool, pets, cattle, enchanted kitchen, self cleaning floors, and fucking golf course if they want it.

    If they can’t create, craft, grow, or summon something, they can buy it with money taken from an entire world of gullible muggles. Sure, dollars and yen are worthless in Diagon Alley, but you can still buy food and an enormous range of physical comforts with it. And if you absolutely have to spend money in a magical store- muggles still have gold. Even at the extortionate exchange rates that I assume the goblins would charge, the process of turning essentially free cash (in exchange for magic tricks or conjured trinkets) into gold and then into goblin coin is basically nothing but profit. A lot of it.

    Which brings me back to social stratification. Why are the Malfoys considered a powerful family? Why do people differ to government functionaries and Dumbledore? Why do witches and wizards run businesses or work at all? Social hierarchy is a result of power imbalances, and other than direct, physical force, there are no power imbalances in the wizarding world. They can take your job, but who cares? You don’t actually need one. They can take your home, but who cares? You can make another in a few weeks (and this time the hot tub will go on the balcony instead of in the backyard).

    A wizard does not need anything from society or from other wizards.



  • “The left just looove to call people racists and Nazis, and he gave them exactly what they were asking for and now they’re losing their minds. He’s the world’s biggest troll! I think it was hilarious, honestly - sure, he probably shouldn’t have done it, yeah, it wasn’t pc, but you call people Nazis long enough, what do you expect. Everyones a Nazi, everyone’s racist, meanwhile you’ve got liberals voting for people who sleep their way into positions of power and politicians who want to bus in votes from Mexico. It’s all bullshit smoke and mirrors. Politicians are all dirty. I like Trump because he doesn’t care what the mainstream thinks- he’ll burn it all down if he needs to to drain the swamp, and he’s doing it while thumbing his nose at the political establishment with statements like this.”