If you're book shopping for the festive season, one of the best things I read this year was The Red Scholar’s Wake by Aliette de Bodard. The space pirate love story you didn't know you needed.
As I am in the Caribbean, I have discovered that there is quite a difference in what things cost. Take apple pies, for example: in Antigua an apple pie costs 9 eastern Caribbean dollars. In St Lucia, it’s 12. In Grenada, 10.
The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill has been published with much fanfare, following the conclusion a treaty between the UK and Rwanda that provides for some asylum-seekers to be remo…
> "I am unable to make a statement that, in my view, the provisions of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill are compatible with the Convention rights, but the Government nevertheless wishes the House to proceed with the Bill."
This is a HUGE 100% battery powered tug right here in New Zealand. We went head-to-head with a dirty diesel tug in #Auckland harbour. The planning, filming & editing took WEEKS and the finished result was epic, but sadly Twitter and Facebook's algorithms both decided it sucks and should not be seen by anyone unless I pay hundreds of dollars. 😭 Is this what the internet has become? What do I do?
If neurosis about the English class system were a place, why would it be Essex?
Everyone either wants to be Eastenders or Midsommer Murders, but the reality is that they’re almost all petit bourgeoise, and utterly horrified at the idea.
@rodhilton "Long after retiring from government, he continued to offer his views and ideas" 😂 I changed my number, moved out of state, got a court order, but he always managed to find me.
"Of all the people in foreign policy he was definitely one of them. He was wrong about everything he said, but he never shut up, even long after he should have been dead."
@liquor_american @Belafon @escarpment yeah, not a single nice thing said about the man in the entire thing and people in my replies are acting like it's fawning praise.
I have to assume the folks telling me I lack a proper grasp of English have responded to every backhanded compliment they ever recieved with a cheerful and oblivious thank you.
This is some barely-disguised diplomatic shit right here, people got too used to Trump calling people losers directly I guess.
Reminder that it’s okay to be trans and allosexual. You’re allowed to want to feel attractive, have success in dating, and indulge in your sexuality just like cis people are! Wanting a satisfying sex life doesn’t mean you are invalid or fetishizing. AGP is fake. You’re allowed happiness
I miss the days of the official BT price list, on paper, with updates delivered by courier a few times a month, all for free to any customer that knew to ask, and it covered every service and every price and they were the same for everyone.
I've come to realise that the only reason I ever believed that I "don't have dysphoria" or have "minimal dysphoria" is because my dysphoria is always there, like a sort of background radiation. Therefore I only feel it's absence, not it's presence.
I finally got around to learning the actual figures on the Fukushima wastewater release and honestly: my tap water is allowed to be nearly five times more radioactive than their output water is. It's a massive nothingburger; the bigger risk was honestly holding on to all the waste water for the last 10 years.
@gsuberland Also note that the half-life of tritium is just 12 years; after ten half lives (120 years) the level of 3H in any sample has dropped a million-fold. Taking very low level waste and diluting it further with the entire Pacific ocean would seem like the way to go. Only improvement I can see? Maybe tanker it to a remote patch of ocean that isn't fished for food—but first factor in the environmental damage from burning bunker oil to power the tanker. Probably not worth it.
@cstross @gsuberland Almost certainly not worth it, going on the gut reaction alone.
France's perfectly-functional not-at-all-exploded complement of nuclear power stations already release more tritium and deuterium than this into the ocean on an ongoing basis. I'd be interested in learning more about how the waste actinides being removed from the water before it's diluted and dumped are handled, but that's mostly from a "ooh, trivia" perspective than a "I have legitimate concerns for safety here" perspective.
@benjohn @gsuberland By the way, our legal definitions of "low-level radioactive waste" were drafted with ass-covering in mind rather than realistic concerns. British Telecom used to distribute land line phones in the 1960s/70s (the BT Trimphone™) that were banned from UK nuclear sites because if they got in they had to be treated as low-level waste—the plastic in the illuminated dial was tritiated:
Also, if we stick to chemical content, coal ash also should be qualified as low-level radioactive waste… but it isn’t, because coal industry.
Fossil gas and oil extraction sludge is also radiactive… but it isn’t legally, because oil and gas industry.
Water extracted from geothermal wells is also radioactive because the very concept of geothermal energy originates half in radioactive decay (ongoing) and half in the heat from planet formation (leftover). Of course, it’s not legally radioactive because how could #renewables be regulated in the same way as evil nuclear power?
Rare-earth mining which provides elements critical for modern electronics and especially for photovoltaics also contain a lot of radioactive elements, just as anything mined underground, and it’s also not legally radioactive, because renewables and stuff. That is, unless it happens to be co-mined with uranium, then of course it is, because #
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Also, if we stick to chemical content, coal ash also should be qualified as low-level radioactive waste… but it isn’t, because coal industry.
Fossil gas and oil extraction sludge is also radiactive… but it isn’t legally, because oil and gas industry.
Water extracted from geothermal wells is also radioactive because the very concept of geothermal energy originates half in radioactive decay (ongoing) and half in the heat from planet formation (leftover). Of course, it’s not legally radioactive because how could #renewables be regulated in the same way as evil nuclear power?
Rare-earth mining which provides elements critical for modern electronics and especially for photovoltaics also contain a lot of radioactive elements, just as anything mined underground, and it’s also not legally radioactive, because renewables and stuff. That is, unless it happens to be co-mined with uranium, then of course it is, because #nuclear 😂
Radon spas, popular in some countries, where people literally bathe in geothermal water with high radon content, also don’t count as radioactive waste, and in some countries (Austria, Germany) they are actually refunded as legitimate balneotherapy. You can actually imagine the German anti-nuclear protesters celebrating closure of their nuclear power plants in cold weather because “radiation kills”, only to then jump into cosy radioactive bath!
I follow a lot of trans and non-binary people, but most of you are young and I am older... Where are all the older (40+) people who are trans and non-binary?
Boost for reach and say hi if this is you when this reaches you 👋
I've legitimately been amazed and overwhelmed by both how many older trans people I've met, and by how many younger trans people have sidled into my messages on Tumblr to ask questions. I've been adopted as the 'nerdy trans uncle' by a couple of people and it brings me so much joy ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Howdy! I turn 40 in January. But if we're only as old as we feel, then I turn 87 in January!
I'm a trans woman, and I've been on a long, slow road through transition. I got out of denial in 2017 but spent most of my time in the closet, since Tennessee didn't feel like the safest place to be visibly and openly trans. (Other, braver people manage it, but I don't know how.) Now, I've escaped the south, and I'm in the process of escaping the closet!
Portuguese listening practice. Been listening to podcasts.
One today, interview (cis female) talks to doctor (cis female) and mother of trans kid (cis female) about trans people.
And I have THOUGHTS about this stuff in English, and it’s going to be useful for me to formulate them in Português, but they’re basically this:
Cis people keep talking to cis people, for a cis audience about us. They decide what we are, and then they explain their thinky thoughts. Many of them, as these were, are well meaning. I do not want to piss these people off. They are allies.
But they talk over us, and some of the stuff they say is just plain wrong.
It’s the usual stuff: sex is about chromosomes and your body, gender is about how you identify, blah blah blah, social role, society imposes stuff, trans people feel uncomfortable from a young age. Now let’s talk about a girl who wants to be a boy, or vice versa.
NO!!!!
For the love of golf (that’s a typo, but I’m leaving it, because it’s funny)! Like, lots of tran
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Portuguese listening practice. Been listening to podcasts.
One today, interview (cis female) talks to doctor (cis female) and mother of trans kid (cis female) about trans people.
And I have THOUGHTS about this stuff in English, and it’s going to be useful for me to formulate them in Português, but they’re basically this:
Cis people keep talking to cis people, for a cis audience about us. They decide what we are, and then they explain their thinky thoughts. Many of them, as these were, are well meaning. I do not want to piss these people off. They are allies.
But they talk over us, and some of the stuff they say is just plain wrong.
It’s the usual stuff: sex is about chromosomes and your body, gender is about how you identify, blah blah blah, social role, society imposes stuff, trans people feel uncomfortable from a young age. Now let’s talk about a girl who wants to be a boy, or vice versa.
NO!!!!
For the love of golf (that’s a typo, but I’m leaving it, because it’s funny)! Like, lots of trans people have thought long and hard about this sex/gender thing. We’ve developed some pretty complicated ideas. Nobody ever asks us about them though. Nobody ever asks us about who we are, and whey we do what we do. They tell us.
And the things they tell us are wrong, and we tell people that the things they tell us are wrong, and they don’t listen.
“Being trans is not a mental illness” - true.
“Trans people experience distress and a feeling of ‘wrongness’” - true, for the most part.
“Trans people have existed in every society and every time period” - also true.
“Transition alleviates the distress.” - generally true.
So given this, maybe instead of trying to shove us into your boxes of what it means to be male or female, consider that, given we keep popping up, give good accounts of ourselves, and transition (medical and social) WORKS, maybe consider that our very existence shows that maybe the way you think about how human sexual identity works is incomplete.
You have taken the sum total of humanity and divided it by two, and expected the answer to be an integer, because integers are all you think about.
Stop trying to make us fit that. Consider that the answer might have a remainder.
And for the love of golf (I’m keeping that), stop referring to trans women as “men who want to be women”, trans men as “women who want to be men”, and the same thing with kids. We have told you who we are, and we have used VERY SIMPLE LANGUAGE, because apparently it still fails to go in.
So I will reiterate. Trans women do not want to be women because we are men who want to be women. Trans girls do not want to be girls because they are/we were boys who want to be girls.
Trans women want to be women because we are women. It’s that simple. Why do people keep not getting this?
Trans women are women. Trans girls are girls. Trans men are men. Trans boys are boys. Non binary people are valid.
That’s why we are distressed without transition. It’s not because we are “unhappy with social roles” - if I was the only person alive on a desert island, I’d still be a trans woman.
I’d still be a trans woman, because I’m a woman. When I was a child, I was a girl. Always have been.
If you (the world at large) stopped talking over us and, given you agree that we aren’t “insane”, actually considered that we might have some insight into our condition, then we might be less “ooh, so mysterious, nobody can understand!”
You’d understand if you listened to what we told you.
Nada sobre nós sem nós - nothing about us without us.
Most of these "debates" by cis people are completely useless, at best, so I don't participate in them. I think my role, as a cis man, is to accept people as they are with no need for discussion - it's not hard. I care that people can be who they really are without fear or prejudice, no matter what "other" they might represent.
Israel’s communications minister Shlomo Karhi has accused Israeli newspaper Haaretz of - “subverting Israel in wartime, undermining the spirit of Israeli soldiers and residents and serving as a mouthpiece for incitement of Israel's enemies. Propaganda in the service of the enemy and presenting the narrative of our enemies, while presenting lies, using anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli terminology and justifying the enemy.”
So, you know, in case you were wondering which Israeli newspaper to read...
@Lazarou At the minute, as far as I can tell, the move is limited to cancelling all government worker's subscriptions and stopping all government advertising in Haaretz. This could easily escalate, but I don't think the government are going to come out of this well.
It's taken 6 months, but my latest labour of love is finally complete! You can now explore fully documented and annotated source code for Elite on the #NES, reconstructed by hand from a disassembly of the original ROM. Please enjoy!
Fully documented and annotated source code for Elite on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) - GitHub - markmoxon/nes-elite-beebasm: Fully documented and annotated source code for Elite on the N...
@ariaflame Oof, though I bet they were both still easier than using a NES controller and the icon bar in NES Elite. After playing Elite on keyboard and joystick, the NES controller feels super-restrictive. Though the fact that the interface works at all is some kind of miracle!
You can’t beat keyboard for old-school Elite, I reckon… 😀
@kometbomb Thank you very much! Hopefully the soon-to-be-released web version will be a good way to explore the code too - there is an awful lot of it. 😀
@C8H10N4O2 Thank goodness for the hints sections in computer magazines! That escape pod thing is particularly harsh.
I’ve not played the mission in the C64 version, so don’t know if it also does this, but the NES version has two dedicated sound effects for the sound of Trumbles dying in the heat. It’s quite entertaining - I’m just finishing off some NES deep dives, and will include the audio in the one on the Trumbles mission… 😀
@C8H10N4O2 Nice video - much easier than me trying to do the C64 mission myself! Thanks.
Looks like the C64 Trumbles don’t make a sound when they perish, so that’s a unique NES feature. The NES also makes a noise when they multiply, so that’s the same. Interestingly, they aren’t called Trumbles in the NES - they’re Squeakys, according to the Inventory. 🤔
And they don’t eat narcotics, either, as the NES version renames narcotics to rare species. They still eat food, though…
Try it. You know you want to.Referenced Videos:The Antique Microwave Oven that's Better than Yourshttps://youtu.be/UiS27feX8o0And the follow-up to that oneht...
@robotistry actually now that I think about it the situation may be reversed; i've definitely seen 1200W microwaves in stores but i've never seen someone own one, possibly because of the aforementioned cheating thing.
also the "it makes your food radioactive" myth is unfortunately still alive and well in some circles.
Don't get residential three-phase in the UK, (unless you have a fast EV charger). Our solution is to hardwire anything over the 13A of a standard socket, then control it with a big red wall switch (or pull cord for a shower).
Your video inspired me to look at the buttons I've always ignored on my microwave. There's six buttons identified as "sensor cooking" and one of them is for popcorn.
@lime @robotistry I work for an Asian tech company’s US office and they have 2 700W micros. That keeps the power draw below 1500W when two people are heating up their lunches!
Been watching The Lazarus Project on Sky. It turns out their HQ is the TUC. Hands up anyone who knew the trades unions were a front for a top secret organisation dedicated to turning back the clock. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congre…
I'm still using my old Malaysia-no-name-Cherry-clone (bought July 1993 here in Germany) as my primary keyboard. It has only a DIN connector, but PS/2 adapetrs work just fine.
Happy Keyversery! However, as old as that keyboard is, it still doesn't have the ctrl key next to the A "Where God intended it to be." (The tagline from an old third-party keyboard company)
In English as used everywhere except the United States, an ouster is someone who ousts someone. It is not a synonym for dismissal, resignation, firing, removal, sacking, ejection, or termination.
“A group of academics has apologised after their submission to an [Australian senate] inquiry contained false allegations of serious wrongdoing, which were collated by an AI tool [Google Bard] and not factchecked.”
Senate inquiry into Australian consultancy industry concedes its integrity has been undermined by reliance on case studies generated by Google Bard AI tool
If you are a mathematician and you are reading this (and you're interested in responding), can you tell me a little bit about the maths you do, in a way that a ten year old could understand? If not, what age/level of mathematical understanding do you think someone would need in order to get a sense of what you do?
I am interested in the way small stupid things can do something smart together without someone telling them what to do.
The stupid things — we call them “cells” — are arranged in a long line and can see only a few of their direct neighbours, say the two cells left and the two cells right of it. And they have only a very small memory: they usually remember only one number, and the number can only have a few values, say from 0 to 4. Next to the line of cells there is a big clock, and at each tick of the clock all cells look at the numbers in their memory and in the memories of their neighbours and remember a new number. And they all follow the same rule.
So this is a very simple world. But with the right rule and enough cells, such a ”cellular automaton” can do any computation an ordinary computer can do, no matter how complex it is. There are also other things that the cells cannot do, and we can prove that. And there are a lot of things that we cannot prove. I think that we do not have yet found the right way to think about cells, an
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I am interested in the way small stupid things can do something smart together without someone telling them what to do.
The stupid things — we call them “cells” — are arranged in a long line and can see only a few of their direct neighbours, say the two cells left and the two cells right of it. And they have only a very small memory: they usually remember only one number, and the number can only have a few values, say from 0 to 4. Next to the line of cells there is a big clock, and at each tick of the clock all cells look at the numbers in their memory and in the memories of their neighbours and remember a new number. And they all follow the same rule.
So this is a very simple world. But with the right rule and enough cells, such a ”cellular automaton” can do any computation an ordinary computer can do, no matter how complex it is. There are also other things that the cells cannot do, and we can prove that. And there are a lot of things that we cannot prove. I think that we do not have yet found the right way to think about cells, and my ultimate goal would be a good “language” that helps us to have the right thoughts.
@Ianagol it's amazing how 3D printing has changed how we can visualise things in abstract mathematics. Such models would have been much more complicated to manufacture in the past.
Say people are waiting in line for some food. But the people making food can only barely keep up with the customers arriving. How long will the line get? Will the people coming in balance out the people leaving with their food, keeping the line at a fixed length, or will the line get shorter and longer and shorter again?
When people stand in a line, it's called a queue, so this area is called queueing theory.
Recently, I studied the scenario where different people's orders need different numbers of food-making staff to make them. Maybe a simple order just needs one person to make it, but a complicated order needs three people working on it together. Will some employees end up with nothing to do, because all the orders need a big group? How does this affect how long the line is?
I know, right? Even those much older than ten can be flummoxed by how BIG numbers can be. Take, for example, an UNO deck. It's literally impossible to write down every possible ordering of its cards you can get from shuffling it - there's not enough matter in the entire universe to write them all on! (about 8.17 x 10^156 for the cards, at most about 10^85 for the number of atoms in all known existence - and yes, that's taking all the duplicate cards into account)
@Zotmeister and then you can get into how we can still say things exactly even if it's not physically possible to write the number down, and how do we know how big things are, and so much more! Combinatorics is a brilliant area for me as a maths communicator.
I'm more of a CS dilletante. Much of what I do with math is combinatorics - I would say that it relates to how you can count or divide a chocolate bar. Imagine that you have many chocolate bars - it quickly gets complicated. 😅
I'm not a mathematician, but an engineer. So I do lots of applied mathematics. To those workers that are not mathematically trained, the results are like magic.
For example my seminar paper was on echo compensation for hands-free devices in 1992, a technology that was new development back then and mew routinely built in cars.
Today we develop machines with electronic compensation of unavoidable mechanic tolerances based on stochastic mathematical models.
BeeCycling
in reply to Harry T. Tuttle • • •@aliettedb