@chiffchaff FWIW I adapted to mine so much the only time they're weird is if I do it deliberately. (Unless I'm looking down from on top of a mountain or something).
@Sion [main] @Sesquipedality @kæt Most things I do requiring near work can be done in the lower parts of the lenses. This doesn’t work so well for looking closely at fine print at awkward angles, like the RA dial on my telescope.
@sesquipedality My optician mentioned the existence of trifocals, apparently used by electricians, plumbers, etc, which become "close work" again at the top.
When I was working at Royal Mail I put my (reading) glasses on a string, but they got very bashed when I was wheeling trolleys round, etc, rather than reading addresses. In the end I left them on for walking short distances, but that wasn't good for my sense of balance. Luckily the glasses survived being bashed quite well.
@sesquipedality @chiffchaff A few years ago my optician (who kept telling me that my monitor should be placed low so that I had to look down at it) persuaded me to try varifocals. After a couple of weeks I took them back as I didn't get on with them at all, and had them replaced with monofocals. And I ignored his dreadful 'advice' about monitor placement.
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Harassing botnets with zipbombs.
The idea is this: instead of just blocking IP addresses that hit honeypot URLs, feed them a compressed document that massively expands on their end, making them run out of memory and crash.
@chebra As I said elsewhere in the thread, I have observed that many botnets are so crap that they don't know how to process 301 redirects. Also I strongly suspect that a null-bomb would be less effective since they're likely to just interpret the first byte as EOF.
there is no 301 in the comment I linked. Other people are reporting having observed a decrease in bot activity after deploying that, as the bots get stuck on it, while you are reporting errors in logs. It really does seem like the other solution is more proven, less hypothetical. Suspicions can be tested.
A solution that I have used many times. I also used variants that redirect a request to another url with large files, linkux kit, download windows, etc.!
I remember these from the BBS days. They were a nightmare for Sysops as all uploaded files would be decompressed to run them through one or more anti-virus products (F-Prot, Thunderbyte etc).
They'd unpack, run out of space and crash the board. Took some extra scripting to be able to recover and clean-up.
The mind behind this reminds me very much of my old college It professor, brilliant man who loved to deconstruct things just to see if & how they could be broken. The only thing he loved more than tech and teaching, was chain smoking & food. That ultimately was his downfall about 10-12 years after I last took his courses.
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Are you rewatching #Babylon5 or watching it for the first time? Feel free to use my episode bingo sheet. I created it with my friends while we were watching B5 for the first time. Most of the squares should be self-explanatory.
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Today in Assassination Coordinates:
You should follow @TaylorSwiftsJets as Taylor Swift goes Full Musk:
Taylor Swift's attorneys have threatened legal action against a Florida college student who runs social media accounts tracking the flights of her... jwz.org/b/ykMQ
1. Taylor Swift's attorneys have threatened legal action against a college student who runs social media accounts tracking flights of private jets, including hers.
2. The accounts, such as @TaylorSwiftsJets, use publicly available data from the FAA and volunteers to track plane and helicopter flights owned by public figures.
3. The accounts have been used to name and shame famous passengers and estimate their planet-warming emissions.
4. Private jet flights are often criticized for their high impact on climate change.
5. In 2022, Taylor Swift was named the biggest celebrity polluter of the year based on the accounts' data.
6. Twitter banned the student in late 2022 for sharing "assassination coordinates" related to the accounts.
Hm... why can't Sweeny just report the flights' lengths? I mean without locations... Or maybe categorized into 'above 500km', '400-500km', '300-400km' and so on. Swift's amount of flying is critical, but I doubt the necessity of the geolocations. Those are - as mentioned by @ComradeGibbon - only helpful for incels, stalkers, haters, groupies and so on.
The real fantasy element of Dungeons & Dragons is pretending that you have a group of friends who all get along with each other and can manage to meet regularly for four hours at a time.
we got around this by setting up a large group, and having subsets of 3-7 people meeting randomly for 1- and 2-shots. every once in a while there's a 6-session or so mini-campaign to take care of something very significant. sessions are all on VC (but not VTT) to spare everyone the travel time and also allow players from a variety of geolocations. if someone drops from drama, the game survives.
the setup worked well during pandemic lockdown. at least then, everyone had lots of time.
My group meets about once a month, 100 miles away from where most of the players live, and we spend ~12 hours that day eating, drinking and playing D&D. Been doing this for ten years now. Maybe the dedication of a full day to the event is what makes the difference?
I hate that TERFs have taken phrases like, "women and girls", "suffrage", and "equity" and made them into the feminist equivalent of countries with "democratic republic" in their names.
Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko is the new record-holder for the human with the most time in space. He passed colleague Gennady Padalka who had the previous record of 878 days. Kononenko is expected to crack 1,000 during his current ISS mission. svoboda.org/a/rossiyskiy-kosmo…
imagining what kind of panel can can give you clearances for those cursed idea, i imagine a defrocked priest and a grizzled bounty hunter whose eyes color constantly change
Heh, last time I was tempted to abuse ssh-agent for something, I ended up discovering dpipe instead (reverse-sshfs to access... something, I don't remember what, maybe a kerberos credential cache? Or auth cookies?)
Not pointing at any specifics here, but once upon a time there was a political party, and it talked great words about the values it stood for. It had a constitution about how its policy was decided, democratically, by its members. It said what its values were as they pertained to workers rights and individual liberty.
And it was all lies, because ultimately its constitution meant nothing. It gave the illusion of democracy, but what the party did was ultimately decided by three people over drinks one evening in HQ. Its professed values about how individuals should be empowered, and workers protected, turned out to be the exact opposite of how it behaved when it conducted its own business.
And for a long time, it didn’t matter, because times were, at least in the party’s part of the world, relatively benign.
But when the bogeymen came to tear apart everything the people had taken for granted, to the cheers of a baying mob, all the words of the hypocrites meant nothing. They expected others to play by the rules that they themselves ignored.
And so
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Not pointing at any specifics here, but once upon a time there was a political party, and it talked great words about the values it stood for. It had a constitution about how its policy was decided, democratically, by its members. It said what its values were as they pertained to workers rights and individual liberty.
And it was all lies, because ultimately its constitution meant nothing. It gave the illusion of democracy, but what the party did was ultimately decided by three people over drinks one evening in HQ. Its professed values about how individuals should be empowered, and workers protected, turned out to be the exact opposite of how it behaved when it conducted its own business.
And for a long time, it didn’t matter, because times were, at least in the party’s part of the world, relatively benign.
But when the bogeymen came to tear apart everything the people had taken for granted, to the cheers of a baying mob, all the words of the hypocrites meant nothing. They expected others to play by the rules that they themselves ignored.
And so they were utterly unequal to the task of fighting the monsters.
And the tragic thing is, I could be talking about any number of different political parties in any number of western democracies, and everything I wrote above would still apply.
At this point, the British court system is actively transphobic, acting as the judicial arm of a state that seeks to eradicate trans people, especially women.
When the law is unjust, it must be ignored. Resist transphobia.
It is disappointing to see the Open University back down in the face of obvious justice denied.
I suspect actual judges might have applied the law. Employment tribunals are generally one Employment Judge (not a very senior member of the judiciary) and two lay members, one from an employer's organisation and one from a trade union.
Agreed, but you need to appeal the right cases. I suspect Phoenix is not the right case cos of various facts. I hear the OU had pretty good trans lawyers on their team. Appeal wouldn't just be £200k+, low-success-chance, but endless time and ongoing stress for the OU witnesses & staff.
Forstater's appeal success means Forstater is now binding and the TERFs are super smug about it. That employer had shite policies which left the door open for legal awfulness.
@pdcawley I grieve for my UK friends. We have plenty of dysfunction and scary crap in the states but at least we’ve managed to undo some of it the last four years.
@petealexharris @ajlanes Interestingly Phoenix was in the Times last week moaning about how no ex-colleagues from OU have talked to her (I don't think anyone likes her, funnily enough).
Phoenix also whined that the GC Research Network has run out of oomph and blames "TRAs" & OU of course, but not herself for being the only one obsessively bigoted enough to care, not doing the work from new job cos it was prob only ever a "do thing to get challenged & initiate legal action for".
I haven't seen any sensible trans-clued people's review of it and I'm wary of the Guardian for hosting/promoting transphobia/transphobes.
It's a shitty 150 page read. I don't know how you can force people to be nice to you when you're an obsessive bigot. Open letters about uni stuff happen ALL the time. ET said the letter writers did it to get at Phoenix not the GCRN but they barely knew Phoenix so that's an Assumption...
I've had a quick read but given I am an OU law student, I don't particularly want to stick my head above the parapet with a proper analysis as the VC's statement has made me worried about backlash. And as you say it's 150 pages so LONG. Generally, the impression was of a tribunal that did not understand academic politics and was quick to believe every allegation made even without any evidence to back it up. (See, for example, paragraph 85)
There was also a strong undercurrent that the tribunal believed in forced work in an academic context (e.g. paragraph 56, which stated the OU should have compelled academic staff to organise a conference promioting aims they did not believe in) and had misunderstood the law. (E.g. 560)
I don't think the judgement would necessarily stand an appeal. But the OU are likely worried about cost and reputational risk against an extremely well-funded opponent with extensive backing from right-wing media. Nevertheless, the statement from the VC was clearly panicked and unnecessarily obsequious towards transphobic views.
I think that's a fair overview. I'm not even a law student, just a disability-law nerd.
I don't think you can appeal mis-facts in a judgment if you just a rando witness and not sure even if you're Claimant/Respondent.
I wonder how much was cis white lady tears by Phoenix getting sympathy from the ET panel and the OU witnesses being perceived as unsympathetic cos they didn't cry (I know one of them, they're fucking livid). It becomes a DARVO.
@NatalyaD @ajlanes Well yeah it was obviously exactly that. What research was expected to come out of it?
Intellectual enquiry can be into new understandings of things, or the psychology of why people hold to their views, but it can't simply seek to re-affirm a mainstream view. That's not research in any meaningful sense.
Only imagine my surprise that someone who doesn't understand that turned out not to handle robust criticism well and became unpopular with her colleagues.
@petealexharris @ajlanes Phoenix is whining that in criminology there's ~300 academics in the field (seems an under count) and she's been ostracised by them.
That's cos most criminologists follow the Actual Evidence not some "I get to wave my trauma to be a bigot" like Phoenix did. Also there are already prison policies (not always followed) which Phoenix-and-friends (there's a disturbing children's TV prog title) never talk about either.
My Fediverse app of choice, @Mona app is gradually decaying so it copes less and less well with Friendica. I’ve coped with it being unable to parse notifications on my phone for a while but it’s stopped being able to do it on the desktop either. I asked them about this problem a while back and they said it was Friendica emitting notifications in the wrong form. I lack the cutlery to investigate further so… anyone suggest a good Fediverse client for iOS and MacOS that works nicely with Friendica?
»You lived a long and prosperous life, being a DPA officer...« »How do you know?« »You know, I know everything, since I am god.« »And I am a DPA officer and an EU citizen and I did not consent to this data collection and you have no legitimate interest except for your business model so I'll claim damages based on article 82 now and you will be fined, too. How much yearly revenue do you make?«
GPDR is not divine, but it grows on you. You just have to know the historical development to understand the different mindsets in the US and the EU. My speech goes like this: "What does (my home state of) Hesse have in common with California?" - They were the first in their countries to pass data protection legislation. Here comes the clincher: "When was that?" - In 1970 and 2020, respectively. The first nationwide milestone was back in 1983 when the Federal Constitutional Court stopped a planned census because it would violate the privacy rights of individual citizens. So, we are just more than 50 years ahead of you in the development of privacy protection. It will probably be a few years before the managers of US Big-Tech companies will / can understand the European approach - and adopt it.
GDPR is good but "right to be forgotten" for public persons is very bad. In my opinion, every member of national or European parlament, other government institution doesn't have such right.
I've recently been doing some cognitive behavioural therapy care of the NHS, with a particular emphasis on activation (getting up and doing things) and self esteem. The last session is this coming Thursday. I think it's been net beneficial, in the sense that it's given me space to talk about things and think about things, and acquire a few more tools to manage my mind.
And the past week or so working for Hughes Hall to understand their Linux and database systems has been a big boost; it's clear that I'm actually pretty damn good at doing this kind of stuff and people seem impressed as if I'm working some kind of deep magic. And yet somehow when I'm sitting here alone it all feels like some kind of illusion in the face of that sense of stuckness and uselessness and yearning. Which I know is lies. I can effect change, I am capaable, I am cared about.
Could all be hormones. My tits are aching with another growth spurt.
The trailer for the new Avatar: The Last Airbender show looks decent, but even if the show turns out to be a faithful recreation of the original I'm not sure what for? The original is already perfect. It's still there. Why does it have to be recreated again?
animation > live action because the amazingness of the fights will never be recreated irl, in the live action we'll have doubles hitting each other with the camera changing angles every 5 seconds to hide the fight articifiality, in animation they could shoot sick angles and wide views of the characters movement and hits
As someone who came to #ATLA in the last year or so (and watched the entire show in less than a week) it was clear the show wasn't meant to be binged. It was written for an era when you might not catch every episode, or catch them out of order. Being remade for Netflix opens the possibility of telling the story in a tighter way.
Right? That's EXACTLY what I said before the trailer even came out. Not knocking the show, I'm just extremely uninterested...to me, ATLA but not animated = ATLA but less interesting 😂
as many have already said, it’s a great way to bring the material to a new audience.
I also think people put the original show too much on a pedestal. The show being animated is not the only reason people might not be watching the original. Compared to “adult” animated shows like Arcane and Castlevania, Avatar is quite cartoonish. I’ve recently finished season 2 which I really loved, but season 1 could’ve done without much of the slapstick humor aimed at kids IMHO
Can we just all sit back and appreciate just how good this joke is? It plays on folklore that many English-speakers know about, it references two similar wading birds, and there's a double-entendre about cranes (one being a bird and the other being machinery). This may be my favorite yet!
We have finally got the nomination statistics for the 2023 Hugos, and understandably there is a great deal of concern being express. Some very strange things have gone on. Believe me, I'm not happy either. Fairly inevitably there are plenty of people who know little about how WSFS works who assume that there must be some overriding authority who could, and should, have prevented Chengdu from doing what they have done.
maybe it’s time that there is. Certainly, they should be required to adhere to the transparency and open meeting discussions that kept the Hugos from being politically derailed previously.
Can anyone who knows about the Hugo Awards/WSFS Constitution explain under which section of the latter R F Kuang’s Babel was deemed ineligible as a Best Novel nominee? (thehugoawards.org/wp-content/u… , p 20)
you need to ask the Chengdu Hugo Admins. You’ll note that when there was a constitutional reason for deeming a work ineligible they cited the applicable clause.
@CherylMorgan I will. I can’t see that the Constitution permits exclusion of any otherwise eligible work without a justification from a clause permitting this to happen - would you agree?
my reading of the Constitution agrees with yours. Nevertheless, a decision was taken. I understand that Chengdu had their reasons, but I can’t speak for them.
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Yesterday our remote sensing team did 3 ortho surveys over the eruption area, the latest acquisition at 16:15 UTC. The team is a cross agency effort combined with people and equipment from Icelandic Institute of Natural History, National Land Survey and the Institute of Earth Sciences at the University of Iceland. These have now been made publicly available as an #opendata tile service and can be explored here for example: umbrotasja.gis.is/mapview/?app…
I did indeed miss the point about diesels rather than turbines. Thanks!
Improvements in operating costs and noise are indeed compelling.
It makes me wonder about a different potential customer - the military. Currently, we see tanks are annoyingly vulnerable to dense mine fields, but the comparatively less armored Bradley seems surprisingly useful.
A bunch of less expensive LCACs might glide over mines/rivers/mud to deliver more IFVs and stuff than helos.
@isaackuo I gather the USMC is planning on replacing their LCACs with a cheaper, more numerous equivalent. (And I suspect a hovercraft tank transporter would be VERY useful to Ukraine during the muddy season(s).)
The headline seems wrong because this article concludes that we might find small ones useful because "climate change is happening and we're getting more intertidal zones," (which is a pretty gradual change surely!) but no particular reason to bring back big ones.
@harry_wood What it's not saying: we're getting more flooding and hovercraft are good for skimming over wreckage and getting medical and other aid to survivors rapidly (bigger payload and cheaper to run than helicopters).
@lispi314 @harry_wood Yes, because they don't move through water, they fly *over* it. (The really big ones, like the SRN.4 or the Russian Zubr-class, fly about 3 metres above the surface.)
"these were not exceptional individuals – they were individuals doing what they (wrongly) believed to be their job or performing what they (wrongly) believed to be their function or protecting what they (wrongly) saw to be legitimate interests."
Excellent blog post from @davidallengreen on the failures of the UK legal system and the professional classes that allowed the #Horizon scandal to flourish.
12th January 2024 The Post Office Horizon scandal is both simple and complex, straightforward but also difficult to grasp in all its interconnected detail. The essence of the scandal is, of course,…
@Adrian McEwen @d a t green Apart from the issues in DAG’s blog, the issue that stands out for me is the cost of legal action to get justice and redress. More legal aid, some sort of restriction on costs that can be awarded to the side with the bigger pockets; I don’t know what the answer is but there’s a real equality of arms problem that’s preventing access to justice.
kæt
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in reply to Alexandra Lanes • • •@sesquipedality My optician mentioned the existence of trifocals, apparently used by electricians, plumbers, etc, which become "close work" again at the top.
When I was working at Royal Mail I put my (reading) glasses on a string, but they got very bashed when I was wheeling trolleys round, etc, rather than reading addresses. In the end I left them on for walking short distances, but that wasn't good for my sense of balance. Luckily the glasses survived being bashed quite well.
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Colette
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