Daily discussion thread: 🍃 Wednesday, April 24, 2024
@quicken @tardigrada Really great point.
If Albo really wanted to send a message to Musk, here's how he could do it:
- Ask all federal Labor MPs to stop posting on X, and start posting on Mastodon.
- Order all federal government departments and agencies to stop posting on X, and start posting on Mastodon.
- Bribe the states to do the same.
"Hi Queensland, guess what? We just found a billion dollars under the couch for a shiny new Olympic stadium. Hi Tasmania, likewise for your new AFL stadium. And look Victoria, here's a few billion for the airport rail link — we'll cover the cost difference to put the airport station underground.
"But only if you direct all your MPs, departments, and agencies to switch to Mastodon."
@Seagoon @CEOofmyhouse56 And more often than not, the answer is lame.
"You'll never believe what this '90s heartthrob looks like now!"
It looks like him, but 30 years older.
And I would believe it, because he was famous 30 years ago.
"You'll never believe what the kids of this celebrity are doing now!"
Going to uni.
Because they're in their early 20s.
I mean, Windows is just such a weird proprietary distro.
It doesn't use the latest Linux kernel, or even a mainstream POSIX-compliant alternative like BSD. Instead, you have a strange CP/M-like monolithic kernel — I think they used to call it DOS — that's been extended to behave more like VAX and MP/M.
It also doesn't use either X11 or Wayland as a display manager. Instead, you have an incredibly unintuitive overblown WINE-like subsystem handling the display.
Because it doesn't use Linux, Wayland, or X11, you are limited in the desktop environment that you can use. There's really limited support for KDE, despite the best efforts of volunteers.
Instead, there's a buggy and error-prone proprietary window manager that ships with it by default. A bit like how Canonical tried to ship Unity as it's default desktop environment with Ubuntu.
And confusingly, they've named that window manager Windows as well!
That window manager lacks many of the features an everyday Gnome or KDE user would expect out of the box.
It also doesn't ship with a standard package manager, and most of the packages ship as x86 binaries, so installing software works differently to how an everyday Linux user would expect.
There's also only one company maintaining all of these projects. It insists on closed source, and it has a long history of abandoning its projects.
And sure, if you're a nerd who's into alternative operating systems, toying with Windows can be fun.
But if your grandpa is used to Linux, frankly he'll be utterly bamboozled by the Windows experience.
I'm sorry to be glib, because Windows does have some nice ideas.
But.
Windows on the desktop just isn't ready for your average, everyday Linux user.
@str82L Here you go: https://archive.is/TajE6
"On Thursday night, Nine News reported the whole event was cancelled due to slow ticket sales. The news report included footage of festival organisers hanging up on a journalist when asked if the event was going ahead.
"On Friday morning, Pandemonium insisted the festival would still go ahead in a post on Instagram and Facebook.
"Two headliners, Deep Purple and Wolfmother, have removed Australian tour dates from their websites. All other headliners have Pandemonium’s dates still listed. The mixed messaging and lack of clarity from organisers have left many ticket-holders confused."
So bands are pulling out, there's media reports the whole thing might be canned.
Tickets cost $260, so it's not cheap by any stretch. Premium tickets are over $500.
Not surprisingly, some people are asking for refunds, and are having a difficult time getting them.
They're not even getting accurate information about which bands are still playing.
And now when people are raising the issues on social media, the promoter Andrew McManus is in some cases personally responding with threats.
@melbourne Here's some more background on what's been happening with the festival, via Joel King.
@zerakith To be clear here, I am talking primarily here about corporate or organisational level here.
By net versus gross, I mean the difference between continuing to pollute, but "offsetting" that pollution, versus getting their gross pollution as close to zero as possible.
There's many orgs and businesses out there claiming to have a plan to reach, or have reached, net zero (or net negative).
And in many cases, what they're talking about is basically their direct emissions (scope one) and offsite energy (scope two). Not their supply chain (scope three).
And what they really mean is that they'll continue to pollute, and just buy the cheapest carbon offsets available. In many cases, those cheapest available offsets are of dubious value.
That all sounds great in a press release.
But what's a lot better is to continually measure and reduce gross emissions across scope one, two, and three, getting them as low as possible.
At a global system-wide level, I would argue we would be in a far better position if we had more businesses, organisations, and governments looking to achieve gross zero than net zero.
@ramble81 @BrikoX In Australia, if you work full time, your employer is required to deposit 11% of your income into a retirement savings account, known as a superannuation (or "super") account.
Most people use a member-owned industry super fund, but you can also opt for a super account from a for-profit private financial institution (but the fees can tend to be higher).
In most cases, you can access the money in your super account once you turn 65 (but there are some conditions where you can get early access).
The Australian government also offers a (government provided) aged pension, but it's quite low.
@mcSlibinas @etbe Worth noting that in the six months after Apple releases the thinnest, best iPhone ever each year, it would receive several million two-year-old iPhones as trade-ins.
So you could theoretically reflash several million units of nearly identical hardware with embedded Linux (or QNX), remove the batteries (and screens?).
You would then have several million near-identical motherboards ready for second life embedded in appliances or sensors.
@mcSlibinas @etbe Really good point.
The development time and cost is an overhead. That's divided between the number of units you produce.
If the programming costs are $100k and you produce one unit, then that unit costs $100k.
But if you flash the same software on to 1 million units, then it's just 10 cents per unit.
Worth remembering that millions of people junking their two-year-old iPhones and Samsung Galaxies at roughly the same time.
I think the broader underlying issue is that our economy is optimised for labour productivity, rather than making the most out of finite environmental resources.
It really should be the other way around.
@ordellrb @eugenia The other place the motherboards of old phones could be repurposed is in embedded processors.
Most home appliances feature embedded processors and motherboards these days. Many commercial and industrial buildings and structures feature a range of embedded sensors.
In many cases, a repurposed three-year-old or even six-year-old iPhone or Samsung Galaxy motherboard is overkill in terms of being capable for these kinds of applications.
Especially if they're reflashed with an embedded device-focussed operating system, such as QNX.
Instead of making new motherboards for embedded devices, why not repurpose old consumer tech instead?
@Hello1000 @ylai Yeah, the Dutch have solved this one already. It's called a bakfiets: https://youtu.be/rQhzEnWCgHA?si=jc9mn4E0SYhG78q
As for cycling in the snow, here's @notjustbikes on why the Finns can happily cycle in the snow but Canadians can't: https://youtu.be/Uhx-26GfCBU?si=9OWyiLYq3kgEsfAU
@politics There's more...
"Rebekah Mercer, the 47-year-old daughter of major Republican donor Robert Mercer, is a founding investor of Parler. She increasingly pulls the strings at the company, according to people familiar with the company who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private business matters. She holds the majority stake in Parler and controlled two of three board seats as of early February — a board to which she recently appointed allies."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/02/24/parler-relaunch-rebekah-mercer/
"Prominent conservative venture capitalists including Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance are investing in free speech-oriented video streaming site Rumble Video, the company said Wednesday.
"The deal, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, marks PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel’s first investment in a social media company since he bought a large stake of Facebook as an early investor in 2004. It also means that Thiel is supporting a competitor to Facebook while he sits on Facebook’s board.
"That represents a major boost for Rumble, which aims to challenge the dominance of platforms that conservatives claim unfairly restrict free speech, including YouTube and Facebook.
"Rumble’s users include popular right-wing internet personalities like Donald Trump Jr., former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, commentator Dan Bongino and writer Dinesh D’Souza."
https://nypost.com/2021/05/19/facebook-director-peter-thiel-invests-in-conservative-rival-rumble/
"Last year, Rumble received a major investment from a venture capital firm co-founded by J.D. Vance, the Republican Senate candidate in Ohio. The firm, Narya Capital, got a seat on Rumble’s board, and its more than seven million shares place it among the company’s top 10 shareholders, according to securities filings. Mr. Vance also took a personal Rumble stake worth between $100,000 and $250,000, his financial disclosures show.
"Narya is backed by the prime patron of Mr. Vance’s Senate campaign, the billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel. And it was Mr. Thiel who played a leading role in Narya’s Rumble investment last year, becoming what the platform’s chief executive described as its first outside investor.
"The investment fits into an enduring narrative of Mr. Thiel, who has expressed skepticism of democracy and advocated keeping the airwaves open for hard-right voices since his student days at Stanford."
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/us/politics/jd-vance-peter-thiel-rumble.html
"Peter Thiel didn't just wake up one day with a net worth of roughly $4.9 billion.
"His claims to fame largely start as the don of the PayPal Mafia — a nickname embraced by PayPal's slate of co-founders, which also included Elon Musk. Though the digital banking service raised just $3 million in venture capital on its launch in 1999, PayPal was ultimately sold in 2002 for $1.5 billion. Thiel's 3.5% stake brought him an estimated $55 million which he used to start his empire.
"Then there was the $500,000 "angel investment" he gave Mark Zuckerberg in 2005. That 10.2% stake in Facebook turned into more than $1 billion in 2012."
@awelder @jedsetter @nictea @philip @fuckcars You often hear from Melburnians that it's the world's most livable city, and how the CBD is laid out nicely in the Hoddle Grid is laid out compared to inner-city.
And how Melbourne's inner-suburban tram network means it has much better public transport than Sydney.
And it's true. Colonial Melbourne, funded by its gold rush, did a much better job at planning than early Sydney.
But after the World Wars, it's a very different story.
Sydney is at least constrained by Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park to the north, the Royal National Park to the south, and the Blue Mountains to the west.
That means the only places for new sprawl are either northwest past Rouse Hill, or southwest around Campbelltown and Camden.
As a result, there's a lot more pressure from developers to densify.
Meanwhile, Melbourne just has the Dandenong Ranges to the east and Port Phillip Bay to the south.
As a result, even right now, you have new housing estates past Pakenham, Melton, Wyndham Vale, and Craigieburn.
As for sprawling Australian capitals, I think Perth has definitely been punching above its weight since the 2000s mining boom.
There's now continuous McMansions sprawl right down the Coast from north of Joondalup to south of Mandurah.
And there's new subdivisions that are closer to Bunbury than they are to the Perth or Fremantle CBDs.
@nictea @philip @fuckcars Even the 903 SmartBus only runs a 15 minute timetable during the day, which is less than the minimum 10-minute service busses should be running.
And other services in the area, like the 737 (Croydon to Boronia to Knox to Glen Waverley to Monash Uni) is a 40-minute-plus frequency during most of the day.
And people wonder why more residents in the outer suburbs use public transport...
@nictea @philip @fuckcars Pretty much the whole City of Knox (a large chunk of outer-eastern Melbourne) is 1970s and 1980s car-centric suburbia at its worst.
The only rail in the whole area is basically Bayswater and Boronia stations on the Belgrave line. And trains only run every 30 minutes, aside from the morning and evening peak.
Other than that, you have the SmartBus from Ringwood to Frankston, the Rowville SmartBus, and a bunch of infrequent suburban busses.
And the stroads! There's literally a stroad called High Street Road (which is quite possibly the stroadiest name ever invented).
And all of them — Boronia Rd, Stud Rd, Wellington Rd, Burwood Hwy, Wellington Rd, Dorset Rd — are a nightmare during peak hour.
There's whole housing estates with detached residential homes where the only practical way to get anything is to drive.
If anyone says Melbourne does planning well, take them out to Knox (you'll need to drive) and they'll come away with a different opinion.
Knox #Melbourne #Urbanism #UrbanPlanning #Bayswater #Boronia #Planning
@philip @fuckcars And a little post-script: It's now 2024, Waverley Park is now long gone, and the long-promised Rowville railway still hasn't been built.
Here's some background info on it from Melbourne's Public Transport Users Association ( @ptua and @danielbowen ).
@fosstulate @zerogravitas "The ABC has analysed the figures to reveal when and where you’re most likely to be searched, who is most likely to be targeted and how proactive policing pushed search levels to unprecedented heights.
"What we found is that search patterns vary significantly by location. Lower socioeconomic, migrant and Indigenous areas are often searched at higher rates, despite searches being no more likely to find anything.
...
"Police conducted 9 searches per 100 indigenous people in NSW in 2022-23, compared to 2 searches per 100 people in the general population.
...
"The state’s specialist Proactive Crime Teams are part of the broader push towards proactive policing.
"They conduct more than half of searches in some police commands, including Liverpool (59 per cent), the Inner West (54 per cent) and Campbelltown (53 per cent).
...
"Statewide, in 2022-23, First Nations people made up just under 18 per cent of all person searches, according to figures from the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.
"Among proactive crime times, that figure surges to 40 per cent, according to an ABC analysis of NSW Police data.
"Only 3.5 per cent of the state’s population is indigenous.
"Among proactive crime teams, the share of searches of Indigenous people leaps to more than 80 per cent in some regional areas, including the police divisions of Central North (94 per cent), Oxley (85 per cent), Orana Mid-Western (86 per cent) and New England (83 per cent), all in the state’s west.
"Within Greater Sydney, Indigenous people made up more than half of proactive crime team searches in the police commands of Mt Druitt (61 per cent), Nepean (53 per cent) and Campbelltown (51 per cent)."
@thegiddystitcher @helenslunch I think hashtag feeds being overrun with vertical videos is an excellent point. (One I hope @dansup considers!)
But beyond that, I think vertical videos through Loops on the Fedi are likely to be far less obtrusive than they have been on other platforms.
What's so annoying about them on Instagram and YouTube is that the algorithm automatically drops vertical videos into my feed.
And there's lots of them in my feed, often on topics I'm not interested in.
They're not there because I'm interested, but because they serve the commercial interests of the social media app's owners.
Hashtags aside, on the Fedi, they'll only appear in your feed if you follow a Loops account you're interested in, or someone you follow finds one interesting enough to share.
And if people on your Mastodon server all find them really annoying, there's always the option to just block the Loops servers and be done with it.
@melbaboutown @Seagoon How often do you trim her nails?
A good scratching pad can help too.