Simplicator

dangillmor, 9 days ago to random

Climate scientists are angry, helpless, and overwhelmed as they watch humanity accelerate toward the climate cliff that will likely destroy much of our civilization. But they have no choice other than continuing to fight, as long as they can.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2024/may/08/hopeless-and-broken-why-the-worlds-top-climate-scientists-are-in-despair

fkamiah17, 11 days ago to random

Does anyone else get the feeling that, rather than listen to their own or their constituents' humanity and stop the genocide, the Powers That Be ™️ have decided to drop the last vestiges of pretence that the west is any kind of a democracy and go full fascist?

morgfair, 1 month ago to random

Former Obama adviser: Kushner engaged in ‘level of corruption that we’ve just never seen’ with foreign relations | The Hill
https://thehill.com/policy/international/4589465-former-obama-advisor-kushner-engaged-in-level-of-corruption-that-weve-just-never-seen-with-foreign-relations/

carnage4life, 1 month ago to random

Whenever people complain about their favorite intellectual property from their childhood becoming “woke” it’s usually because it simply went over their heads as kids.

carnage4life, 1 month ago to random

Boeing is an example of the observation that by the time you realize you've made a strategic mistake, it's too late.

sundogplanets, 2 months ago to random

I wrote an essay already about how sad I am that my love of rocket launches has been totally destroyed by SpaceX. https://theconversation.com/an-astronomers-lament-satellite-megaconstellations-are-ruining-space-exploration-215653

I can't get excited that they were successful today, I just can't.

ajsadauskas, 2 months ago to car

Are microplastics from car tyres contributing to heart disease?

"Add one more likely culprit to the long list of known cardiovascular risk factors including red meat, butter, smoking and stress: microplastics.

"In a study released Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, an international team of physicians and researchers showed that surgical patients who had a build-up of micro and nanoplastics in their arterial plaque had a 2.1 times greater risk of nonfatal heart attack, nonfatal stroke or death from any cause in the three years post surgery than those who did not."

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-03-07/microplastics-may-be-risk-factor-for-cardiovascular-disease

The research is particularly noteworthy, given that one of the biggest sources of microplastic pollution is the synthetic rubber in car tyres: https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/112015017609398126

So it's not just the sedentary lifestyles that car-dependent planning encourages that's causing health issues.

And it's not just exhaust fumes either.

There's also the health impacts of microplastics, including from car tyres.

Worth noting as well that internal documents from the big oil companies show that they knew since the 1970s that recycling wasn't going to solve the problem of plastic pollution. They promoted it anyway: https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/112064312364853769

#tyres #tyre #car #microplastic #microplastics #pollution #environment @fuck_cars #fuckcars

mattblaze, 2 months ago to random

Prediction: The state of the union will be described as "strong", and the president will end by calling upon god to bless the country.

ajsadauskas, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to tech

In an age of LLMs, is it time to reconsider human-edited web directories?

Back in the early-to-mid '90s, one of the main ways of finding anything on the web was to browse through a web directory.

These directories generally had a list of categories on their front page. News/Sport/Entertainment/Arts/Technology/Fashion/etc.

Each of those categories had subcategories, and sub-subcategories that you clicked through until you got to a list of websites. These lists were maintained by actual humans.

Typically, these directories also had a limited web search that would crawl through the pages of websites listed in the directory.

Lycos, Excite, and of course Yahoo all offered web directories of this sort.

(EDIT: I initially also mentioned AltaVista. It did offer a web directory by the late '90s, but this was something it tacked on much later.)

By the late '90s, the standard narrative goes, the web got too big to index websites manually.

Google promised the world its algorithms would weed out the spam automatically.

And for a time, it worked.

But then SEO and SEM became a multi-billion-dollar industry. The spambots proliferated. Google itself began promoting its own content and advertisers above search results.

And now with LLMs, the industrial-scale spamming of the web is likely to grow exponentially.

My question is, if a lot of the web is turning to crap, do we even want to search the entire web anymore?

Do we really want to search every single website on the web?

Or just those that aren't filled with LLM-generated SEO spam?

Or just those that don't feature 200 tracking scripts, and passive-aggressive privacy warnings, and paywalls, and popovers, and newsletters, and increasingly obnoxious banner ads, and dark patterns to prevent you cancelling your "free trial" subscription?

At some point, does it become more desirable to go back to search engines that only crawl pages on human-curated lists of trustworthy, quality websites?

And is it time to begin considering what a modern version of those early web directories might look like?

@degoogle #tech #google #web #internet #LLM #LLMs #enshittification #technology #search #SearchEngines #SEO #SEM

mekkaokereke, 2 months ago to random

Somewhere, someone is looking at recent Biden poll numbers, and convincing themselves that pushing a few boxes of MREs out of the back of a plane will fix this.

It will not fix this.

No I'm not interested in having a "discussion" about this. I know how the conversation ends: someone yelling "Trump is worse!" at me while being convinced that the only possible solution is for voters to accept what is going on.

drahardja, 2 months ago to Toyota

Very interesting to hear what #Toyota NA CEO Ted Ogawa has to say about #BEV investment in the US.

Essentially, Toyota is ignoring EPA guidelines about BEV mix and focusing entirely on customer demand, and they will not make BEVs in numbers higher than expected demand lest they waste their resources.

Toyota’s now-well-known reticence in jumping into the BEV bandwagon, preferring to sell #PHEVs instead, may prove to be the better bet. The EPA is likely to reduce their mandate for 50% BEV new car sales by 2030. If they do, then Toyota’s strategy would have been proven right.

(Article is paywalled, but video is viewable)

#ev #cars

“Toyota's Ted Ogawa: Better to buy credits than ‘waste' EV investment”

https://www.autonews.com/executives/toyota-na-ceo-ted-ogawa-us-ev-demand-will-be-30-2030

American Taylor Swift fans are flummoxed by the MCG's lack of parking. But Australia still has way too much of it (www.crikey.com.au)

TonyStark, 2 months ago to random

The Republican justices know why they were put there and have delivered for their party once again. Not sure why anyone really expects them to be non-political at this point.

Trump appointed 3 of them. I’d be sure to be doing everything I can voting-wise to be sure he doesn’t get back in.

Supreme Court to hear Trump's appeal for presidential immunity, further delaying Jan. 6 trial -
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-agrees-hear-trumps-case-presidential-immunity/story?id=107373438

raymondpert, 2 months ago to Aviation

deleted_by_author

spacetelescope, 3 months ago to random

Join the #NASAWebb imaging team on a colorful journey!

Science visuals developers at STScI pour a lot of work into processing Webb’s full-color images, which begin as black-and-white exposures.

This playlist takes you step by step through the process.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm0MBdI3VlBVYtifm_shSFhfICogfE91W&si=GR6K3F6L_sgd3Ku5

golgaloth, 3 months ago to space

It's Rorschach Nebula time!

What does the Carina Nebula look like to you? I'm going with Crab Man Dancing.

#space #science #nebula

indivisibleteam, 3 months ago to random

This is an alarming moment for our democracy, and we must be clear on what this is about: Governor Abbott is choosing to defy the federal government in order to unilaterally pursue a cruel and illegal policy of murder on our southern border, outside the checks and balances of our governing system. https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/texas-border-national-guard-supreme-court-ruling-rcna135745

GottaLaff, 4 months ago to Texas

🤦🏻‍♀️ The attorney general of #Texas on Wednesday defied federal officials who demanded state authorities abandon a public park along the U.S.-#Mexico border that state National Guard soldiers seized last week, setting up a legal showdown with the Biden administration over the country's immigration policies.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-border-us-mexico-ken-paxton-attorney-general/

GottaLaff, 4 months ago to random

I’m a Katie Porter fan, but this got my attention. In a very good way.

“Adam #Schiff is calling for a major overhaul of American institutions, including getting rid of the Electoral College, expanding the Supreme Court and eliminating the filibuster.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/12/schiff-pro-democracy-plan-filibuster-electoral-college-00135232

chargrille, 4 months ago to random

Does the Bush-era warmonger & Trump appointee who's leading Biden around by the nose (Brett McGurk) really think the world is going to be distracted from the evidence South Africa presented today at the #ICJ of the genocidal intent of #Netanyahu's government against #Gaza?

Relying on a Trump appointee like McGurk has led Biden into shooting his 2024 campaign in the foot - and showed the world the worst face of America.

#Yemen

mrawdon, 9 months ago to random

@RickiTarr Lots of mentions of #Alien (1979) of course, and that was pretty terrifying, as I was 10 when it came out. Yes, I saw it in a theater.

But I didn’t see mention of #InvasionOfTheBodySnatchers (1978), with Donald Sutherland, with its gradually growing horror building to its fateful climax. I haven’t seen it since, but that final scene still sticks with me.

The 1981 BBC adaptation of #DayOfTheTriffids has a similar feel, although I saw it when I was older so it didn’t frighten me as much, although it is really well done.