TIL Donald Trump, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, and Boy George were all born on 14 June.
tal @ tal @lemmy.today Posts 161Comments 6,689Joined 2 yr. ago
tal @ tal @lemmy.today
Posts
161
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6,689
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2 yr. ago
The review to determine whether the US should scrap the project is being led by Elbridge Colby, a top defence department official who previously expressed scepticism about Aukus, according to six people familiar with the matter.
Eh. Looking back, it sounds like his take is fairly nuanced. From what he's said in the past, it sounds like he's said that he doesn't think that entering the arrangement was actually worthwhile for the US, but that he's also hesitant to withdraw from an agreement once entered into.
It sounds like his argument is that the main risk of a military conflict with China over Taiwan, where these would play a role, is relatively near-term. Australia hasn't stated that it would defend Taiwan, and AUKUS won't result in an aggregate increase in submarines across the US and Australia for some time, which means that it would reduce the number of submarines available to fight China.
Assuming that all that is accurate, that seems to be a fair take to me. My guess is that what he's actually after, given his phrasing, is not trying to trying to end AUKUS, but to get Australia to also commit to defending Taiwan as a condition for it.
Speaking in London on Monday, Mr Colby said that US shipbuilding could not keep pace with the target of delivering Australia subs by 2032 and questioned why the US was giving away its most lethal assets to a country that was not even guaranteeing it would use them in the event of a conflict over Taiwan.
“If I were king for a day on the subject I would say ‘Look, you all know what my concerns are, let’s see if we can work through these together’.
I've no idea whether that's something that would be totally unacceptable to Australia or not.
At one point, the US did try to put together an analog to NATO in the Pacific, SEATO. It didn't really go anywhere. But conditions have also changed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Asia_Treaty_Organization
Australia was a member. Taiwan was not. But the US might be aiming to build a new Pacific alliance today.
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I think that that's pretty much a subjective question. I could tell you what I find tacky, but it won't be a universal. Some people will have different positions, and there isn't one "correct" view to have. It's like asking what the best flavor of ice cream is, or the best song.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Rose_Garden
I think that's gravel, looking closely at the image.
That being said, I don't know whether concrete walkways were much of a thing in 1908. Gravel might have been the closest common option to what we'd more-commonly use concrete for today.
Not as big a deal in DC's climate, but here in often-arid California, it's generally considered responsible to phase out water-hungry lawns in favor of landscaping that doesn't require as much water. Drought-tolerant plants, gravel, rock gardens, concrete, whatever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeriscaping
The lawn was an English custom, and trying to reproduce a little piece of wet England by pouring enough water on arid or semi-arid land day in and day out is kind of wasteful.
If you need the cushiony and rapidly-self-healing properties of lawn because people are running around on it, that's one thing, but people spend more time indoors than they did historically, and as just a thing to look at, it's not a great default. Plus, kind of high maintenance.
A factor for a number of Western states.
That being said, this wasn't the rationale, and frankly, it's probably basically irrelevant for somewhere like the White House relative to the functional impact.
A couple of my favorites from that thread:
@Usernameblankface@lemmy.world (also OP here, also the person who brought the idea up in another thread)
Link to the original version of this thread to which OP is referring, which was quite a hit some time back:
Up to par with your usual work, merde!
@mutilated_sphincter@lemmy.world:
Operating on the assumption that even merde may not want to touch this one, using realmixXL_v15:
Sure! I use ComfyUI locally. Replacing the underscore with a space under the assumption that this is the intended wording and using flux1-dev-fp8:
With stoiqNewrealityFLUXSD35_f1DAlphaTwo:
With realmixXL_v15:
Hah, that is a good anecdote. Thanks for sharing!
I'm curious whether your username is going to result in something akin to the Toynbee tiles.
Aw, I guess not. flux1-dev-fp8.
It was both evil and surprisingly cute.
EDIT: With flux1-dev-fp8:
That's actually a lot more pleasant than I'd have expected!
EDIT: For flux1-dev-fp8:
This sounds like a job for @merde@sh.itjust.works, our resident expert in that sort of thing.
Just "tal" was disappointing, something that looks kinda like a bowl of soup.
Taking OP's advice, and doing "an avatar for tal" on stoiqNewrealityFLUXSD35_f1DAlphaTwo yields:
That model's trained on people, though, so it's going to be biased towards people.
"tal" on flux1-dev-fp8:
considers
Fair enough; I can do one for you. I have a local ComfyUI setup, so prompt data won't go anywhere. Heck, even if I were generating it on a service, it'd be useless for letting said service gain information about you, as I don't know who or where you are.
For "over_clox", using stoiqNewrealityFLUXSD35_f1DAlphaTwo:
The State Department is preparing to order the departure of all nonessential personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad due to the potential for regional unrest, two U.S. officials said Wednesday.
The Baghdad embassy has already been on limited staffing, and the order will not affect a large number of personnel, but the department also is authorizing the departure of nonessential personnel and family members from Bahrain and Kuwait.
Note that we don't have diplomatic relations with Iran, so in the event of a military conflict with Iran, there wouldn't be anyone to evacuate there, just in nearby countries.
Smartphones are fragile without a case. They should have one, and maybe manufacturers should make that clearer, but a world where removable cases didn't exist would just mean that the case you get is the one that the manufacturer chooses for you and permanently attaches to the smartphone. Less options for you.
Just get a case.
I am also more than willing to carry a slightly thicker device if it means greater durability and easier repairability.
Me too. It's why I have a case.
And I am certain many others would gladly trade their bulky, overpriced cases and bumpers for a sturdier device that inherently provides the protection we now have to purchase separately.
If you want a built-in case, you can get them. There is a whole collection of "ruggedized" smartphones from various manufacturers in China that are large, usually have a hefty battery, and have shielding built into the device.
Look at Doogee for one such manufacturer.
Oukitel for another:
Ulefone for another:
Personally, I think that the built-in case isn't very interesting relative to a removable case, but the large battery might be, depending upon your needs.
EDIT: A number of manufacturers will even make official cases for their phones, if you can tolerate a removable case and just want something endorsed by the manufacturer.
Apple, for example:
https://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/accessories/cases-protection
Or Google:
https://store.google.com/product/pixel_8_phone_case?hl=en-US
It'd theoretically be possible to run a straight GNU/Linux tablet or laptop
"GNU/Linux" is the full way to say what sometimes gets shortened to "Linux" --- a family of operating systems based on the Linux kernel and a lot of software from the GNU project. This explicitly distinguishes it from Android, which also used the Linux kernel.
The former is not, in 2025, typically used to run smartphones. The latter is the most-common smartphone operating system in the world. If you buy a smartphone that isn't an Apple smartphone, it almost certainly runs Android.
with a 5G cell modem for data
5G is the current generation of cell phone radio protocols. Communicating directly via voice over this protocol is not something that I believe is available to GNU/Linux in 2025. However, it can send non-voice data.
, use SIP service
SIP is a protocol for running voice over a data connection to the Internet. If you have an Internet connection, you can use SIP. There are companies, SIP service providers, which will, for a fee, provide a phone number at which one may be called or call others from a computer that can make use of SIP.
and a GNU/Linux dialer,
A dialer is the piece of software that on a smartphone, a user would probably call something like "the phone app".
and then run Waydroid for any specific Android apps that one has to run.
Waydroid is a piece of software to run Android apps on a GNU/Linux system.
Idle power usage is gonna be a lot higher than on a phone, though.
Phone hardware and software has had a lot of work put into optimizing it for very low power usage. A larger device, like a laptop or tablet, will probably also have a larger battery, but it will consume more power as well.
And a lot of Android apps are made with a touch interface
Smartphones, due to physical space constraints in one's pocket, typically have an entire side be a touchscreen. They do not have a keyboard. In general, software optimized for this works somewhat differently from software optimized for use with a keyboard and mouse.
Most GNU/Linux software is written with the intent that it be used on a system that almost certainly has a mouse and keyboard available. Most Android software is written with the intent that it be used on a system with a touchscreen available.
This means that even if one can run GNU/Linux software on a phone, much of the (large) collection of GNU/Linux software available will not be designed with an interface ideal for use on a phone.
and small screen in mind and are aware of things in a cell environment, like "only update X when on WiFi". Not really common for GNU/Linux software to do that.
Smartphones have two widely-used mechanisms of accessing the Internet --- connecting to the often slower cell network, or to a much-shorter range, but faster, WiFi network. Many people connect their smartphone to a WiFi network at some times and a cell network at others. Because this is so common, a lot of Android software has behavior designed to support this and act more-appropriately, like having an option to only transfer lots of data when on a WiFi netwprk. This is not the case for most GNU/Linux software.
Huh.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindbender_%28Galaxyland%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_American_Triple_Loop
I feel like a secondhand German roller coaster that went from Germany to Malaysia to England to Mexico now running secondhand Canadian trains arguably isn't best named the "All American Triple Loop".