thirdwave

Github Mirror

Week 40

"@halcy@icosahedron.website

.. it's genuinely hilarious that literally all of the companies who claim to need all your data so they can hyperpersonalize ads for you that they say will then somehow work better than normal, don't-need-to-know-the-name-of-your-firstborn-child ads are, very obviously, utterly shit at actually personalizing anything based on data"

"@primonatura@mstdn.social

'Wasted food – if it were a country – would be the third largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization'"

CNN: "Biden cancels another $9 billion in student loan debt days after payments restart"

#Connover #Hustle

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Vertical Farm Daily: "Why the growth cycle of rice can be [cut] in half.. Can rice grow normally in a closed environment without sunlight and soil? The Institute of Urban Agriculture of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and a team led by Qian Qian, an academic from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and deputy director of the China National Rice Research Institute, found the answer.

After planting rice and growing it in a closed environment for 63 days, the rice produced full branches, which is more than half the time it takes to grow rice in an open-field environment. "This is a subversive breakthrough in the history of rice cultivation," Qian Qian said"

"@rrix@notes.whatthefuck.computer

My friends at Consumer Reports launched Permission Slip today for iOS and Android. You sign up, verify your identity, and they’ll submit data opt out and deletion orders to data brokers and consumer companies on your behalf"

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Informed Comment: "Israel’s Strategic Weaponization of Water Against Palestine is a War Crime.. The universal human right to water, ensuring “sufficient safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses” is a principle upheld by international conventions. However, in the Occupied West Bank, this right is systematically violated through Israel’s targeted assaults on civilian water infrastructure"

"5G: A symptom of the Growth Death Cult.. 5G [is] a solution that is looking for.. a problem. And the problem is not AR, VR. The problem is not downloading a Netflix video in 5 seconds or 50 seconds. Because we cannot watch [that].. 5G exceeds our biological capabilities to read, to watch, listen"

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Obviously TC did other roles too, it's not fair to pigeonhole him, and I do like the action BTW, the general storytelling.. I'm just saying.. there are some "messages", at least the stain of the spirit of the times. "One for them and one for me".. who is them and who is me..?

The Color of Money is about hustling, money, so kinda repulsive from get-go - we'll pass. Cocktail shows a Cruise telling off a teacher in academia that he "hides here 'cause he can't hack it in the real world", goes on to start his own bidness (do that viewers don't be little bureucrats), on the way he wonders about drink umbrellas, shoe laces, little wrappers "someone makes those, rips off 10 billion of them a year and he is a millionaire". He gets his own bar with twins on the way and he becomes happy with big H - he flashes the big 80s Cruise smile, as viewers we feel good too, inspired, we think if we can grind like that, aim for money, we too can be happy, just like the guy who does shoe laces, or a character who now owns a bar.

In Born on the Fourth of July he is a disabled veteran, this time directly, physically hurt by government. Government did that to him, they almost killed him, look at the man.. He cries all the time through a Cruise eager to show his acting ability, trying to dispel the notion that he is a dumb jock type who cannot act. Director is of course Oliver Stone, never one to shy away from spreading anti-government propaganda who can even "by mistake" manage to make Wall Street greed look cool. The movie works, critics love it, they shower it with praise and Academy Awards.

Mission Impossible series is mostly about bad bad governments, there are good parts, some good people in it, but mostly bad. Don't be that, be Maverick of the spy world. What is the latest one about? There is apparently an "AI".. ? I'm sure that too is related to a bad government action somehow. Be afraid of that and do entrepreneurish things, be an outside disruptor.

In Top Gun he plays military, institution under government, but notice the role he plays is Maverick, "a rebel", portrayed as an intrepid disruptor, hey the man is almost like a start-up owner, a non-government entity inside government! Isn't that great! He has enterpreneurial spirit, of course always "too constrained by bureucracy" who never seem to see the true value in him, but he achives things, he gets their approval sometimes. We should be glad such entreprenurial spirit exists, should aim to be like him.

Tom Cruise - was he involved in anti-goverment propaganda vis-a-vis corporate Holywood? Some of his movies are somewhat guilty in that regard.. Ok.. Imma hit TC now.

"@protonmail@mastodon.social

A new low, even for #Google. Giving Google permission to share information about you with third-party websites is being falsely advertised as an "ad privacy feature". This is privacy washing at its most extreme. But it gets even worse.

There is a dark pattern on the second screenshot. It isn't just informing you about the fake privacy features. Clicking on "Got it" actually turns on these features that allow Google to use your recent browsing history for ads on third-party websites:"

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Sounds Pop - Drugpop #music

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Haaretz: "'Pope Is Furious' Over anti-Christian Spitting Incidents, Catholic Church Representative Says.. Ahead of a Jerusalem parade on Wednesday in which a large evangelical delegation is slated to march, Christian figures have condemned incidents in which Jewish youths in Jerusalem spat at Christian pilgrims"

"@scottsantens@hachyderm.io

Preliminary results from the Denver Basic Income Project that's providing cash to hundreds of unhoused people for one year, using the first 6 months of data:

"[P]latinum’s not the only metal they can use for electrolysis, so.. [University of Texas] scientists have been looking for a cheaper alternative, like nickel. For nickel to work, however, it has to be transformed. That’s a difficult process. And the structure of the prickly pear cactus helped them figure it out. Whereas previous designs had used one kind of nickel, this one contains two kinds of nickel fused together in the shape of the cactus leaf and fruit. The leaf is made of nickel phosphide, and the fruit is made of nickel sulfide.

This design allowed for more surface area, which was a boon for the lab. “We could enhance electron mobility with that prickly pear cactus structure,” [researcher] explained. And it worked. More electron mobility meant more electrochemical reactions, which in turn created more hydrogen"

Microgrid Media: "Hydrogen bicycles are becoming a reality. These unique bikes feature a distinct “water bottle” on their frames, filled with liquid hydrogen that can be produced right at home. Several companies are at the forefront of developing small-scale home systems for hydrogen production and storage, making it accessible and safe for personal use. These systems are compact, not much larger than a standard trolley bag, and promise to revolutionize personal transportation.

One such innovator is China’s Youon, which offers a portable container weighing 18 kg, housing a 40-liter tank that uses electrolysis to produce liquid hydrogen. Powered by solar energy, this system can be seamlessly integrated with city bikes, making it a valuable addition to bike-sharing services in Southeast Asian metropolises. In just 10 seconds, the tank can be refilled, allowing the bike to reach speeds of up to 23 km/h and providing a range of 50-60 km. With competitive pricing and virtually no charging costs, these bikes are set to significantly impact the market.

Germany’s Linde, an industrial automation company, has developed a similar bicycle equipped with an electrolysis system. Instead of relying on solar power, this system can be found in public roadside towers and utilizes wind or biogas energy sources. Impressively, just 34 grams of hydrogen can power the bike for up to 100 km, offering a sustainable and efficient mode of transportation.

In France, Alpha Neo has recently entered production with its aesthetically pleasing and functional hydrogen-powered bike...

Toyota, known for its commitment to hydrogen technology, has partnered with Woven Planet Holdings to develop a portable hydrogen cartridge measuring just 40 cm x 18 cm. Weighing a mere 5 kg, this mini-bottle can be easily transported and used on scooters and other small electrical devices. It promises to extend hydrogen’s reach to remote and challenging locations, particularly during emergencies"

ABC News AU: "Authorities said almost 150 fires in [AU state] New South Wales had been started by lithium ion batteries so far this year"

The going seems slow

geo = [['Main'],['Andriivka','Klischchiivka'],['Bilohorivka','Verkhnokamianske'],
       ['Opytne'],['Bakhmut','Yahidne','Berkhivka'],['Novomykhailivka','Stepne','Marinka'],
       ['Synkivka','Kupiansk','Lyman Pershyi'],['Urozhaine','Staromaiorske'],['Robotyne','Novoprokpivka']]

u.sm_plot_ukr4('ukrdata/fl-1004.csv','ukrdata/fl-0916.csv',geo,3,3,zoom=0.03,fsize=(10,10),)

The Montreal Gazette: "The National Assembly unanimously adopted [a bill] on Tuesday aimed at protecting consumers against planned obsolescence. As soon as the legislation is signed into law, it will be prohibited in Quebec to sell goods whose normal operating life has been deliberately limited"

Renewables Now: "Everfuel, Hy24 close 1-GW Baltic green hydrogen JV deal"

A sparse row is just a dictionary. If you have value for column 30 and 40, you have {30: 0.1, 40: 0.2}, that's it.

Dot product is sum(row1[key]*row2.get(int(key), 0) for key in row1). Then divide by norms.

Row by row disk based cosine similarity calc is faster than similar scipy calc which excl works in memory. Minibatch processing rocks.

702: "It's been reported that e-waste in South Africa is increasing at a rapid pace, growing three times the rate of solid municipal waste. These include products that are 'white goods' such as refrigerators, washing machines, and microwaves and 'brown goods' such as televisions, radios, computers and cell phones."

More battery-electric problems.. the bus was BEV, after crash it caught fire, whoever remained alive (likely most) burned in the fire.. The people who could have been saved, died because of batteries. The firefighter says the state of the remains are "hard to describe", meaning they burned badly. We wrote about this issue here.

AP News: "Italy bus crash: 21 dead, including tourists, near Venice.. At least 21 people were killed and 18 injured in a.. bus crash"

News.com.au: "The Moment a Lithium Battery Explodes in a Sydney Hostel.. CCTV footage has captured the incredible moment a lithium-ion e-bike battery exploded, causing a fire to rip through a hostel in Sydney's Kings Cross district"

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#Sydney #Battery #Hazard

.. and the British corporate media destroyed him.

Corbyn: "[2019, O]ur tax plans will affect the richest 5% of our society. We will be chasing down tax evasion, tax avoidance and tax havens"

Mike Ness - Big Iron #music

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"@randfish@mastodon.social

Mastodon is literally the only social network that doesn't penalize links"

#Links #SocMed

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Please do it. DJT sitting behind Biden during the SOTU speech.. I'd pay to see that.

The Independent: "Kevin McCarthy has been ousted as House speaker. Could Trump replace him?.. The House of Representatives can elect anyone to be speaker, regardless if that person is a member of the chamber or not. While the Constitution doesn’t state that the speaker has to be a member of the House, a non-member has never been elected to the role"

Massive bills can be tough to handle for legislators, esp for ones who are left out of the horse trading. They get served the mega bill, that has something for everyone, usually can't say no due to party loyalty.

I don't support line item veto, but smaller bills can be better.

"The dissenting 8" has some good ideas on procedural stuff. Can they be implemented? What will the next SoH do?

Reagan used to complain about mega bills, and wanted to have a line-item veto. That would make Prez more part of the legislation IMO, with exec taking out parts of bills he doesn't like. Issues come together in bills as part of the horse trading - "give me this I'll give you that" which is partly why they get bigger and bigger.

If he did the shutdown he'd have survived; can't be "bi", all hugs and smiles with Dems while the big T is getting arrows from the judicial system.. That aspect surely played a part.

McCarthy out - dam.

"@esvrld@octodon.social

[D]eep theoretical issues aside, anything a large language model produces will be banal because it will approach the statistical mean of its corpus (large, also banal).. infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters won't produce shakespeare because you can have an infinite number of the same thing. and for similar reasons no matter how much boring information you feed boring-o-bot 3000 it will not create interesting information of it (again laying aside the fact that the models don't actually process information, only data)"

"@mos_8502@oldbytes.space

Modern design language in computer UI pisses me off.

We have super-high-resolution displays, and we're being stuck with fucking line art and flat colours. Everything is gravitating towards the same indecipherable mess, because at some point some anonymous art school dropout conned people into thinking that buttons shouldn't look like fucking buttons, and icons shouldn't look like what they represent.

Call me an old-fashioned, stick-in-the-mud, retrograde curmudgeon, but I maintain that Leopard was the peak of Mac OS X's usability.

The old vs. new Instagram app icons are a perfect example of this. On the left, it clearly has something to do with cameras. The right just looks like a line drawing of a prolapsed anus"

Jon Oliver: “And while I’m happy that they eventually got a fair deal and immensely proud of what our union accomplished, I’m also furious that it took the studios 148 days to achieve a deal that they could have offered on day fucking one.”

"@WWBugs@mstdn.social

Estimated timeline for saltwater intrusion into the New Orleans metro area" via Axios

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Perfect time to crack the whip on these microblogging platforms and force them to implement Mastodon's ActivityPub protocol so they dont become seperate islands (imagine Yahoo Mail only being able to email Yahoo Mail). Free market on its own will find the dumbest solution and stick to it.

Will Threads and Twitter become the Google Plus of the new era?

People offering Bluesky invites which get snapped up some even sell them on e-Bay and find buyers.. Is there a buzz around BS now?

Tuber always asks how I think about his videos - how considerate of him

The Markup: "Predictive Policing Software Terrible At Predicting Crimes.. A software company sold a New Jersey police department an algorithm that was right less than 1% of the time"

"@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io

The level of enshittification of the Internet from LLMs is truly spectacular.

Search for anything (in my case my ice maker doesn’t produce ice correctly) is now an exercise in futility.

Wonder if we can ever dig ourselves out of this level of shit.

Thanks, tech bros. Really super awesome stuff"

"@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social

Here’s what a firm does when it collects revenue: it invests that revenue in capturing more revenue.

Sometimes this might mean 'more production,' by which most people mean 'NEW production,' and that’s what orthodox economics imagines capitalists do. We have all this stuff today, you see, because people have endless hedonic wants, so we constantly invest our surplus into creating the tools to make ever more stuff.

But capitalists only sometimes invest in new production — [they usually..]

Etc. Note that none of these expand production or create new production. All of these are either about reducing their competitors’ income and hopefully consolidating control over their capital instead"

Kennard: "In 2000 the water system.. of the third largest city in Bolivia was privatized, handed over to the American corporation Bechtel who jacked up prices massively made it impossible for most people to afford water, they even made collecting rain water illegal [which caused huge protests]"

Silent Coup #Hedges #Kennard

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"[2016] Coca-Cola was accused of hiring hitmen from a prominent [Columbian] paramilitary group between 1990 and 2002 to kill at least 10 trade union leaders"

Some areas in Paki southeast does look bad for 7m rise, but Pakis have a big land, people can move around?

Bangladesh on the other hand...

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Racer: "Why Extreme E plans to swap its E for an H.. Extreme E is still a fresh addition to the world of motorsport, but with its stock still on the rise, it’s about to press the reset button.

Last month Extreme E announced that it had signed a non-binding [MoU] with the FIA to develop the first hydrogen-powered motorsport series, under which it could become an official FIA world championship by 2026"

"@Hypx@mastodon.social

Santa Cruz METRO approves historic purchase of hydrogen fueled buses"

H2 Central: "Air Liquide and Trillium to Collaborate on Development of Heavy-duty Hydrogen Fueling Market in The United States"

"@helpmeskeletor@mastodon.social

‘Henry Ford invented the 40 hour work week’ is a very strange way to say ‘Henry Ford claimed credit for changes he was forced to adopt after a hard fought campaign by the union members he despised'"

"LadyDragonfly@universeodon.com

People with beards are just people without beards, but with beards"

#Nikola

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"Wuzzy@cyberplace.social

#Google is trying again to convince you, YES YOU, to contribute for free to Google Maps. Please don't. It is 100% #proprietary, Google has full control over the data you added and people can only access Google Maps over proprietary channels where Google dictates the rules. This gives them too much power.

Contribute to #OpenStreetMap instead, it's a project by the community, for the community"

"@mspro@social.tchncs.de

'Houses really are just Boomer NFTs'"

@mspro@social.tchncs.de

Firstpost: "Chinese tech giant Xiaomi plans massive production units in India, with local manufacturer Padget"

"@MagnetoMancer@bostonsocial.online

Following a recent share about hydrogen powered buses; this is a quickie refresher essay on hydrogen gas: The preferable way to produce #hydrogen is electrolysis using electricity acquired from Nature's green infinitely renewable clean resources. Electrolysis does not destroy water; but separates it into its two elements Hydrogen and Oxygen which are later recombined into purified water again during 'combustion' or fuel-cell exchange outputting much of the original electrolysis electricity. The same water is split and recombined forever. This is the infinite cycle that sets hydrogen up above all other fuels"

H2 Central: "Working with Loughborough University in the UK and the German Aerospace Centre Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt (DLR), Rolls-Royce has proven a critical engine technology that marks another significant step in the journey to enabling hydrogen as an aviation fuel. Tests on a full annular combustor of a Pearl 700 engine at DLR in Cologne running on 100% hydrogen have proven the fuel can be combusted at conditions that represent maximum take-off thrust"

US PIRG: "Mastercard knows where people shop, how much they spend, and on what days - and it sells that information online"

I can do this all day

US has "gone from barbarism to decadence without bothering to create a civilization in between" -- from the movie A Good Woman.

You don't own your country, private interests do, you are just living in it

But something similar could be said on America .. that it is not a country, but a thin veil for its corporations.

That is funny.. he was a funny man

John McCain: "Russia is a 'gas station masquerading as a country'"

Guilliani cameo on Seinfeld, S5E07, the non-fat yoghurt episode

via @mspro@social.tchncs.de

Storing H2 is more efficient and cheaper than any alternative method, at scale. Nuke + H2 marriage makes perfect sense.

Reuters: "[N]uclear reactors tend to operate full-time because shutting them is expensive and hard on the plants. Some have stored the excess cheap power by [pumped hydro, which] could be replaced by using the cheap nuclear power to run electrolyzers, machines that separate hydrogen from water"

McCarthy can go either way on Ukraine.. so people who were adamantly against on this issue were right not to trust him. What did Tucker say once "he puts on a Ukrainian lapel pin and goes to lunch with [some neocon]"? But from SoH perspective the majority of Senate Reps are pro UA, needs to deal with that, maybe with some House Dems added on top can get something all cons want.

STB did not have anything for the border, nor Ukraine.. McCarthy now says to Dems give me border security I can give you money on Ukraine..

CNBC: "Government shutdown updates: Biden signs 45-day funding bill to keep government open.. The 71-page short-term bill, crafted by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., allocates disaster relief funds, but does not include new financial assistance for Ukraine's ongoing war with Russia"

Firstpost: "Pro-Russian ex-PM Fico wins Slovak election"

F24: "Pro-China candidate Mohamed Muizzu wins Maldives presidency"

Truck News: "Hydrogen-powered Daimler truck passes 1,000 km on single fill"

FuelCellsWorks: "AMSL Aero, An Australian Portfolio Company Of IP Group Plc, Successfully Conducts Its First Test Flight Of A Hydrogen-Powered Air Taxi"

In the lands they migrated to later, such as the US, they were assimilated just like Irish, Polish, Africans had been and became natives after one generation. It is all about the mainstream culture - heritage means nothing.

Palestinian leader Abbas' claims were not baseless. Isaac Asimov wrote in his biography It's Been a Good Life he himself might not be connected to ancient Israel at all. East European Jews are mostly from today's southern Russia, and they took up Judaism as the state religion "[probably] to keep from falling under the influence of either the Byzantine Christians or the Arab Moslems, who were busily engaged in the first part of their centuries-long duel". Theirs was a tactical conversion, had no relation to the Middle East, therefore their descendants' Semitic connection would be in question. People who arrived into modern Israel have grandiose claims that aren't correct. Their grandfathers did not "leave the ancient lands" so their descendants are not "coming back" to anything.. They are pretenders, squatters in a land that was never theirs.

Do you prefer your shelves empty, or under lock and key (the latter obviously being sign of inequality). Could there be a system where shelves are somewhat full, and people are not looting?

Hahah #Cuba #America

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I ain't gettin quelled mfker.. We speaka here no matter what

There were claims back in 2022 MM was mad at the admin on the Ukraine policy and leaked to NYT about his own position.. That could be true - but the admin itself could have told Milley to leak so that outside observers would know gov is hearing all viewpoints, in a way to quell fears they weren't completely gung-ho.

WSJ: "Gen. Mark Milley to step aside as new Joint Chiefs chair takes command"

Tadella Nutella - he doesn't fool around

WION: "Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella set to testify against Google in antitrust trial"

You see who calls the shots in US, business wants cheap workers they get cheap workers. They turned politicians into their bitch. And as long as there is demand for cheap labor, people will keep coming.

Gaetz says some Reps for E-verify changed their minds within a day, he supports it even against big business, the measure will help US workers. That makes sense.

The sim site. South Florida, Lousiana, NY are in trouble.

Shared a 7m sea level rise simulation before, that NY area under water now in Brooklyn is in red. If a place can get flooded by extreme water events today, after sea rises it will remain flooded for good. Flooding today is a sign of permanent burial tomorrow. Heed the warning and bolt.

"@luckytran@med-mastodon.com

Huge storm and flooding in NYC today. This is 4th Ave and Carroll St in Brooklyn, which is near Gowanus Canal"

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