kabe

kabe, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago)

from my perspective it very much appears like it’s along ideological lines.

I wouldn’t say so at all. The admins took action to defederate from the alt-right explodingheads.com instance because the content there broke the servers rules here, and they made a similar judgment with HexBear because of their apparent intention to brigade.

While the decision to defederate from HB was arguably premature, the admins here do at least seem more concerned with protecting their users than they are with deplatforming specific political stances.

kabe, 10 months ago

You missed an important bit:

But, they could evaluate excess weekly deaths by age, state, county, and party affiliation. They found that the gap in excess deaths was larger in counties with lower vaccination rates, suggesting that lack of vaccination among Republican voters may partly explain the higher death rates.

kabe, 10 months ago

The format actually has a lot of benefits - it supports transparency, animation, and compresses very efficiently. So it could theoretically replace GIF, JPG, and PNG in one fell swoop.

The downsides are that many apps don’t currently support it and that it’s owned by Google.

Personally I use webp for images that are not intended to share (e.g. banners and images on my blog), but stick to JPG/PNG for sending to other people.

kabe, 10 months ago

I think so, but I’m no expert on the details of legal ownership.

@Dark_Arc added a good comment here that explains the royalty free licensing.

kabe, 10 months ago

Classic JAQing off by X-Twitter Top Minds:

“Hi. I’m not a doctor. I’m just a simple man of 37 years who pays attention to trends we can see with our own eyes,” far-right commentator Benny Johnson said. “I’m here to tell you that it is NOT NORMAL for thousands of healthy teenage athletes to be collapsing – some dying – from cardiac arrest. Now ask: Why?”

Hmm, aside from the obvious possibility that sudden cardiac arrest in professional athletes has always been a thing, particularly in black males, what on earth could possibly be an exacerbating factor? Oh, I don’t know - maybe the deadly virus that we’ve just spent three years dealing with and still hasn’t gone away - that is up to seven times more likely to cause myocarditis than the vaccines?!

Nah, must have been tHe ExPeRiMeNtAL vAcCiNe!

kabe, 10 months ago

Tidal doesn’t pay that much better; no streaming services do.

If payouts to artists matter to you then buy their music outright from platforms like Bandcamp and Qobuz rather than stream their music for peanuts.

kabe, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

Not in the slightest. The entire build-up/explosion/shockwave sequence on 70mm IMAX is one of the greatest cinematic experiences I’ve ever had.

Nolan is known for wanting to shoot as much as possible in-camera, partly because he loves to shoot on film rather than rely on digital effects. I think that’s admirable.

I thought the entire film was excellent. Zero complaints whatsoever.

kabe, 10 months ago

Because modern cinema is saturated with CGI, to the point where audiences are becoming desensitized to it. Unless it’s done really well, it also tends to feel less realistic than practical effects.

Being able to actually create a real representation of a nuclear explosion and filming it, rather than just shooting in front of green screen and adding it in post-production, takes a lot more dedication and skill.

kabe, 10 months ago

The Thai government never asked for Elon’s help - he volunteered following a tweet by a twitter user who suggested that he help.

www.bbc.com/news/technology-44779998

Also, his solution was never viable to begin with - the rescue organizers said straight away that the submersible would be useless in the cave environment.

kabe, 10 months ago

Apart from selecting the folder view and making it really small, I don’t think so. Maybe look into hacking it using gconfeditor, or something?

BTW - your image link is broken.

kabe, 10 months ago

This is the takeaway, in my opinion :

Previous research has supported the idea that children like to replicate irrelevant actions, especially when the goal of the action becomes increasingly obscure. A 2018 study by Nielsen and colleagues showed that, when children 3-6 years old watch an adult perform unnecessary actions while opening a box, the children are more likely to repeat these behaviors when there is no clear goal to the behavior (i.e., the box is empty) than when there is (i.e., the adult retrieves a sticker from the box). This finding is in line with the precautionary approach aforementioned, as it shows that the more uncertain we are about why an action was performed, the more likely we are to repeat it, just to be safe.

All cultures share traditions of ritualistic practices that, in one way or another, relate to things that were for thousands of years beyond humanity’s understanding or control - fertility, the weather, the harvest, etc.

Early communities found that doing Thing X seemed to bring about a favorable outcome so they kept doing it even though they had no idea how or why their actions had an effect.

kabe, 10 months ago

That’s what we call the placebo effect.

Try telling 256kbps AAC and lossless apart when you don’t know which is which beforehand:

abx.digitalfeed.net/spotify-hq.html

kabe, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

The main reason for the Linux operating system not seeing widespread adoption is because of its multitude of distros.

No it isn’t - it’s because the vast majority of computer/laptop users just stick with the OS that comes installed on their device and probably aren’t even aware than installing a new one is even an option. Your grandma isn’t sitting there thinking “should I install Ubuntu or Fedora on my MacBook?”

Lemmy/Kbin do have something in common with Linux in that the Fediverse concept requires a certain amount of technical knowledge to understand, but it’s far easier to grasp that than it is to install Linux on your home computer.

kabe, 10 months ago

Same here.

After the infamous AMA, I made a post in my subreddit basically saying “peace out, I’m off to Lemmy. Good luck, everyone.” Lucky for them, I’d set up a pretty robust automoderator over the years so that’s still taking care of the majority of the moderating tasks I’d imagine.

I visited that post today and saw over 500 comments, each one by a mod and each one of them angry. Why they’re still there, I have no idea.

kabe, 10 months ago

To play devil’s advocate (pun not intended), this community poses an interesting quandary.

When seen in context, their rules do clearly prohibit any hate speech against the LGBTQ+ community:

Rule #5: Remember that we are all fellow image-bearers. We may disagree with people, but we are never to tear down another person’s inherent dignity and value as someone made in the image of God (Imago Dei). This includes those in the LGBTQ+ community. They need Jesus, too, just like we do, and we can’t say we represent Him while we tear down the works of His hands.

Rule #6: Banned subjects include … Anything calling for direct/indirect violence against any individual or group, including LGBTQ+ individuals or groups; …

Rule #8: This community does not affirm practiced LGBTQ+ lifestyles, with the exception of the ace/aroace (asexual/aromatic-asexual) lifestyle in certain contexts. However, abuse towards members of the LGBTQ+ community will not be tolerated. Pro-LGBTQ+ content is not allowed; however, sincere questions and discourse about LGTBQ+issues are permitted.

I’d be interested to see the admin’s ruling in this case.

kabe, 10 months ago

I think that would depend on what “Pro-LGBTQ+ content” means. It’s quite a vague term. Does it refer to posts, discussion topics, or what?

They do follow up by saying that serious discussion about LGBTQ+ issues is acceptable, so the fact that are open to discussion, in theory, could be a point in their defense.

kabe, 10 months ago

Yep, drinking bleach will certainly cure you of that problem sooner or later.

kabe, 10 months ago

IIRC, over half of Reddit’s traffic was US-based. I’d be interested to see if the same is true for lemmy.world.

kabe, 10 months ago

The term “Asian” is almost never used in the geographical rather than socio-cultural sense, though.

Cypriots are certainly European, culturally, and a good number of these nationalities are considered “Middle Eastern” rather than “West Asian”.

kabe, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

That support for Ukraine must be localized to specific communities on lemmygrad, because all the discussion I’ve seen over there has been very pro-Russian, painting Ukraine and NATO as the warmongers.

kabe, 10 months ago

Surfaces are abysmal for repairs and upgrades, as well. They’re literally glued together like a smartphone.

kabe, 10 months ago

I’d argue it’s significantly more preferable to have a laptop that’s a little thicker but you can safely open in a couple of minutes with a screwdriver, but your mileage may vary.

kabe, 10 months ago

I mean, there are plenty of reasons not to use Brave but this poorly-written, obviously-not-a-paid-review doesn’t really rank up there.

kabe, 10 months ago

So how did the term go from cars to Linux customization?