20 inches

doubles in length

takes off my robe and wizard hat Nah I'm good.

Real answer: these are actually real languages! They're just conlangs, or constructed languages, instead of natural languages. The major problem with conlangs generally ends up being the limited vocabulary, but the grammar foundations are usually solid.

I actually really like Klingon as a language because it was intentionally designed to be alien, and specifically to be very Klingon. Most languages are Subject-Verb-Object (like English and other Western languages) or Subject-Object-Verb (like Japanese or Hindi). Klingon, however, is Object-Verb-Subject - it's very direct with the emphasis placed on the target of the sentence, which makes sense with the Star Trek world and Klingon culture.

Fun fact, Klingon has at least one native speaker - some guy raised his daughter to speak Klingon as well as English. (I'm not a fan of this - on one hand, learning multiple languages from an early age is a huge leg up in being able to learn more languages in the future, but on the other hand Klingon is entirely useless as a primary language given its structure and the few other people who speak it.)

Yuga Labs says it’s currently investigating reports of impeded vision and skin/eye injuries believed to be caused by unprotected exposure to UV lights during ApeFest 2023.

Jesus Christ.

Anyway, I'm... Actually somewhat impressed they're still having Monkey PNG meetups. I kind of assumed every NFT was a scam but this one is just a very expensive buy-in to a cryptonerd club, I guess.

"client side validation is fine, nobody's gonna open up the dev console"

Let him play in the legacy code. You can just hose him off later before letting him back into the office so he doesn't track it everywhere.

Bob, short for Bobert. So that every time he has to say his full name to anyone on the phone or fill out forms somewhere, he has to repeatedly explain that, no, it's not Robert, it's Bobert.

You're telling me I can meet a potential partner, have video calls with them, get scammed out of money, and tweet about how sad I am, all from the same platform? Sign me up.

$1/day is pretty cheap. I've been alive around 12k days. For less than the price of a car, I can erase my own existence. Sounds like a bargain to me!

Piracy exists because it's easier than the alternative. Textbooks are expensive as hell and publishers are working to demolish the used book market - first by changing the version every year, and now with one-time-use mandatory software keys. Sites like Libgen wouldn't have to exist if textbooks were $20 a pop, or if the used book market was allowed to exist. These problems are created by greed.

A useful rebuttal in LGBTQ Nation explained why “cis is a slur” is total bullshit: People who say that cis is a slur don’t offer an alternative term to use that is non-offensive. Because they don’t offer alternative inoffensive terminology, as there is with all other slurs, it’s clear it’s not the word cis they’re objecting to, but the existence of any words to describe the fact that some people are transgender, and some people aren’t.

If you were to ask one of these morons, I bet they'd say that the alternative non-offensive term is "normal". "Normal" is a safe and reassuring blanket that tells them that they don't have to change, that they're in the right, and that all these other people are abnormal deviants.

The other portion of it is that they themselves didn't choose the name "cis" and so they feel as if they are being labeled, and labeling is what they do to others to subjugate and humiliate them as abnormal, so that's how they feel now that they are the ones being labeled.

It doesn't seem to be broken. This article gave no screenshots, only a million ads, so I searched up reddit. Yeah, there's some minor visual glitches. The dates have been epoch'd for some people.

It's indicative of Twitter's services slowly breaking down as the engineers left either don't know how to manage everything or simply don't have time to, but what else is new?

This article is pretty sensational for what is the continuing sad decline of an app which was probably a detriment to humanity overall, but which spawned some funny jokes and was occasionally a means of mass communication in times of crisis.

Though the network engineer cries out, the parents do not come back to take care of the hatchling. The newborn must climb down the cell tower on its own and immediately begin searching for food, shelter, and a job in the telecommunications industry. The rapid fledging cycle of the network engineer means that only a handful survive into employment.

Social interaction. It would be nice to not just be so exhausted talking to people. It would be nice to not dread the idea of sending someone a text, like it's some insane mental effort and not the smallest thing. It would be nice to not be lonely but totally unwilling to do what it takes to correct it.

thought: 💭
bonus: touch 👉, taste 👅, sight 👁️

all the senses:
________💭
👂👁️👃👁️👂
______👅
_____👉👉

You're welcome.

It looks like the important part is here:

After publication, Maca Ferguson, a spokesperson for Volunteers of America Western Washington, said the pixel was used for fundraising efforts and “not intended to collect personally identifiable information for purposes of tracking or transmitting this data back to Meta, its subsidiaries, or any third party for any reason” and that any data was sent “without our knowledge or consent.” Ferguson told The Markup the organization has since removed the pixel.

It's possible these crisis websites were using Facebook for fundraising efforts without reading the fine print of what adding a "click here to go to Facebook and donate" actually captures. It's part of what makes these integrations with large social media corporations so insidious.

It's amazing how something so innocuous can provoke such a viscerally disgusted reaction in me.

Technology was a mistake. It's time to return to the wilderness.

Important context autotldr missed:

The incident happened when the engineer was programming the software that controls the robots, which cut car parts from aluminium, The Information reported.

Two of the robots were disabled, but a third was inadvertently left on. As it went through its normal motions, it caught the worker in its claws.

Yikes, that should be checked multiple times before someone gets close to the clawed aluminum cutting robot. Failure of process, I suspect.

Sorry, I've been out of the cryptoscam news for a while. We're doing eyeball-backed currency now? Someone invented eyeball coins? People are investing in the Orbchain?

Can we just collectively take a step back and... Not?

Devil's Tower is apparently not even a volcano according to science, but "but was injected between sedimentary rock layers and cooled underground. The characteristic furrowed columns are the result of contraction which occurred during the cooling of the magma." source

Anyway, science can be wrong, assume everything is a volcano until proven otherwise. Devil's Tower? Volcano. The hill outside your house? Volcano. Your dog? Believe it or not, volcano.

OK so I've read this whole thing and I'm still a bit confused, so help me please: this refers to the "Driving Mode" which hides all my apps and gives some weird simplified interface, right?

Because there's also a "Driving" mode which is only accessible via a widget (why, Google) which gives you a map while driving without having to specifically enter a destination. That one's staying, presumably?

When this was linked a previous time, I wrote up a reply to it which I think applies here as well, so I'm gonna shamelessly copy and paste myself 🙂

I think the big thing to take away from that article is... XMPP developers cared so much about retaining federation with Google Talk that they "became watchers and debuggers of Google’s servers" as it is put there. Google came in and said "this is our house now, adapt or die."

For our current fediverse, it's important I think, as a community, we put our foot down with Meta and say "no, this is our house. If you don't adapt to us, we don't federate with you. If you deviate from the ActivityPub protocol or our other implementations that we do above the ActivityPub protocol (things like boosts/upvotes/downvotes standards as agreed upon by Lemmy/kbin, for example), you will break federation with us, and we will be okay with that." We cannot become the Meta watchers.

ActivityPub is just a protocol and they can use it. It doesn't mean they have to be compatible with us. Let them have their Twitter/Instagram hybrid application. Do we care that much whether we can or cannot see their posts?

To your point, many of us will defederate, either out of politics or financial necessity. There's rumors milling around that Meta / Threads will only initially federate with a few trusted larger instances and be monetarily compensated for it (aka those who will make a deal with the devil to moderate - more on my thoughts on that here).

It may come to the point where a lot of us are running on our own smaller "Fediverse", intentionally divorced from Meta and those instances which have federated with Meta and taken their advertisements and paid posts. If this is the case, we must take the bad with the good - we will always be smaller and niche, and our less techno-idealistic friends will not join our tiny Fediverse because the barrier to entry will remain high.

I just tried the photo sphere mode again for old times' sake. It sure hasn't gotten any better. Maybe they're removing it so they can make and release a better version, but I won't hold my breath.

So... let me get this straight. Google sucks and Pixels are only sold in some countries, so their solution is to reduce Fitbit devices to those same countries?

This is foreboding. Could this be the start of either a rebrand of Fitbit or, worse, a culling of the line in favor of Pixel smartwatches?

Google, I swear if you fuck with my Fitbit I'm adding it to The List (right under Play Music and Inbox). I don't want a smartwatch, I never wanted a smartwatch. I want my compact little step tracker that gives me a ton of metrics data.

I feel like the Fediverse hasn't yet reached the Eternal September moment, and I'm happy for that. A smaller footprint means we get to have our own culture.

On the other hand, even though it means losing this culture, I would like to see greater general adoption of the fediverse and decentralized social media in general. Sure, there will likely be some big-name domains serving fediverse instances, the same way email is primarily served by Gmail et al, but anyone should be able to spin up their own instance and interact as well. I don't believe Internet communication should be locked behind various walled gardens, and people should re-acclimatize themselves to a version of the Internet where anyone can host and contribute.

Couple points:

The issue isn’t “net neutrality.” The issue isn’t even about an “open internet.” The issue that is once again before the FCC is whether those that run the most powerful and pervasive platform in the history of the planet will be accountable for behaving in a “just and reasonable” manner.

Absolutely true. The Internet is essentially a basic utility at this point and those managing it should have accountability, like other basic services, like water... I'd say "or electricity" but I live in PG&E territory...

Second point:

Mischaracterizing net neutrality as “blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization” also creates an opening for ISPs to proclaim they are now against such practices. “We do not block, slow down or discriminate against lawful content,” Comcast’s web page proclaims.

This is disingenuous on so many fucking levels. Sure, Comcast doesn't slow anything down anymore, but they do offer the Peacock streaming service for free on certain tiers, which naturally incentivizes you towards watching those shows rather than paying for a second service. T-Mobile used to do the same thing with Netflix, I remember. This is still a violation.

Anyway, once the FCC does its best to keep the Internet from being a shithole, who do we yell at until it's considered actually a basic utility and prices come down and it's available to literally all Americans?

Great to hear! Asking for refunds to Premium memberships will hit harder than any amount of "fuck spez" on r/place.

________💭____🧱
👂👁️👃👁️👂_🧱
______👅______🧱
_____👉👉____🧱

he is pointing at a brick wall to indicate that he knows where he is in relation to it and will not walk face first into it

Unfortunately, I think due to the way ActivityPub works, the domain name is inexorably tied to the instance. Trying to migrate to a new domain name would break a lot of federation to my understanding.

It looks like someone posted an attempt at a workaround here (latest reply): https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/5774

But it does require the self-destruct button because the old domain name has to be erased from other servers.

There's a video in the article and... oof, that's good to know in case I end up behind one. It's definitely a bit confusing and likely won't alert distracted drivers because the red light is always present. (Not that drivers should be distracted on the road, but it happens often.)

Ok, I'm gonna get into this.

2005: Google Talk released.
2013: Google Hangouts released.
2015: Google announces Google Talk shutting down, encourages people to move to Hangouts.
2016: Despite Hangouts being a one stop shop for SMS and Chat, Google discourages people from using it for SMS, asking people to use the Google Messages app instead.
2016: Google Allo released.
2016: RCS adoption begins.
2017: Google Talk shuts down.
2017: Google Chat released.
2017: Hangouts is re-targeted for business and moves to some sort of consumer freemium model?
~2018(?): YouTube Chat released, a 1:1 messaging system inside of YouTube. No idea when it was discontinued but it didn't last long.
2019: Google Allo discontinued.
2022: Whatever was left of Hangouts is discontinued.
2023: RCS through Google Messenger is now default instead of SMS and group messages are finally encrypted.

Compare this to:
2011: iMessage released. As far as I can tell, it's been e2e encrypted since at least 2012 and potentially since release.

Google, you have no fucking leg to stand on. Get your shit together. If you had had a coherent messaging strategy, maybe Apple would have been amenable to working with you, but what incentive do they have right now? For all anyone knows, you'll drop RCS by 2026 in favor of moving everyone to Google Heythere, the new ridiculous app for messaging!

Oh boy, I'm looking forward to going all in on Google Home only for it to be deprecated in three years!

(Hey folks, Home Assistant is pretty cool and you can run it locally on an old laptop.)

I learned that a jackdaw is not, in fact, a crow.

But more seriously... While I'm struggling to come up with concrete examples right now, I learned a lot of trivia, read some really interesting anecdotes, and broaded some of my knowledge via Reddit. For all of Reddit's many (many) faults, the people who were willing to take the time to converse and share knowledge were never the problem. They were the reason I stuck around for so long.

So, the physical release is just... actual garbage? Like sure, someone may proudly display it in their bookshelf or whatever, but then, it eventually becomes trash, and there's no reason to keep any of it because there's no physical copy of the game which can be resold or even borrowed out to friends?

That's not a "physical release", that's a piece of merchandise, as useful as a Funko Pop.

It probably won't make you ill immediately, more likely the texture or flavor would begin to suffer first (hence "best by" rather than "expiration" date). Keeping it stored properly (i.e. not an open bag but something sealed) would likely allow it to last longer.

You should probably not eat 3.5lb of candy within 10 days unless you are trying to make your intestines suffer, but if you choose to binge please update us as to the state of your health so that you may be used as a cautionary tale.

Pants sizes. For women, drop the even/odd numbering for women and juniors and move to waist and inseam like men. For everyone, implement some sort of standard policy where the actual measured size can't be more than an inch off the stated size (to account for variability in manufacturing and such).

smh getting tancos from kurger bing when there's a perfectly good taco baco right around the corner

you could even get a conmbo with a tanco, a chapula, a burro jr., and fries

some people, man.

Aw man, the feels. I wish I could have told my cat during euthanasia how much I love her and how everything was okay, I know she was in a weird unknown vet's office and she was in pain but it was going to be over soon, and how much she transformed my life and made it better, and that I hope I did right by her for the eight years she was part of my life. Love you babycat ♥️

People need to feel some sort of pride in their lives. Traditionally this has been pride in their accomplishments or their contributions to the community or to society.

But in today's hyper capitalist society, what is there to be proud of? Most jobs are a single redundant cog in the wheel and one's absence either wouldn't be noticed or quickly backfilled. And we spend the weekends doing the chores we couldn't get done during the week, or just existing and recovering, so we don't have the time previous generations had to contribute as a member of society, go to our clubs or church gatherings and bring a potluck meal or whatever.

So in an absence of pride based on accomplishments, people sometimes turn to pride based on identity - there's no criteria to meet, you were simply born and you can be proud of that. And that can be twisted and mutated into a feeling of superiority over people who aren't the same identity as you.

A widely shared type of video, created by Africa-based Chinese social media influencers, portrays Africans as impoverished and dependent, while Chinese people – often the content creators themselves – are shown as wealthy saviors who provide them with jobs, housing, food, and money.

Another common type of racist content reviewed denigrates interracial relationships. Black people married to Chinese people are accused of “contaminating” and threatening the Chinese race. Perceived relationships between Black men and Chinese women are particularly vilified.

This isn't just China, it crops up everywhere in different forms, and it's distressing on all fronts because it speaks to a failure to address a critical need of society - the ability for people to meaningfully contribute and feel accomplished.

retain control

Notably, in Quarks, every user operation and information exchange that takes part on a channel is carried out via the ledger's so-called smart contract. In practice, this means that no-one outside of a channel should be able to send or read messages on it. In addition, all messages on the channels cannot be altered or edited, yet they can be audited, meaning that users should be able to derive information about when they were created, sent, delivered, and so on.

Ah, yes. I definitely want anyone in the world to figure out who I'm communicating with by checking the timestamps of when various messages were delivered. Much like how the "anonymous" Bitcoin could be pretty easily de-anonymized just by checking where various bitcoins go and inferring who those wallets likely belonged to.

Somewhat unrelated, but I do find it funny that farts aren't considered acceptable, but sneezes and coughs are. Like, farts have an extra barrier in the form of your clothing (assuming you're not at a nudist colony or bathhouse) and won't make other people sick. I guess it's just because they're stinky.

I vote to normalize farting with an "excuse me", and saying "bless you" to people when they fart.