@zdl@mastodon.online
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

zdl

@zdl@mastodon.online

Half-German, Half-Chinese, Half-Canadian, all-bad at math, currently living to her consternation in the People's Republic of China.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

dogzilla, to random

A battery price war is kicking off that could soon make electric cars cheaper. Here’s how https://theconversation.com/a-battery-price-war-is-kicking-off-that-could-soon-make-electric-cars-cheaper-heres-how-225165

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@dogzilla Oh joy. So people will still continue to drive wasteful personal transportation.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@dogzilla Except electric cars aren't even good. They just let you move around the pollution so you can't see it.

Public. Transit.

That's the solution. Anything else is putting a children's band-aid on a sucking chest wound.

I'm sorry your country can't figure this out, but those of us who haven't driven a car in 20 years because we don't need to have seen what "good" is and electric cars ain't it.

timkmak, to random
@timkmak@journa.host avatar

Here's what we are reading today:

launched 31 mainly targeting all of which were shot down.

At least 13 people were injured in the attack, which included and missiles and damaged, among others, a kindergarten and residential buildings.

https://kyivindependent.com/explosions-heard-in-kyiv-amid-threat-of-massive-russian-missile-attack/

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@timkmak This would be the same Russian military that couldn't take a country with a far smaller military that they sucker-punched?

montecook, to random

I was scrolling through YouTube and saw one of those "first reaction" videos for a guy listening to Stairway to Heaven.

I I could think of was, "you big liar." (I didn't actually watch it, it might be true, but come on)

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@montecook I'm closing in on my 60th year. I don't think I've ever listened to Stairway to Heaven in its entirety. What can I say? I'm not a huge fan of the band. It's not been a priority.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@montecook By not listening to radio, in my case.

I've heard snippets of the song here and there in movies, etc. but in those kinds of venues they rarely (ever?) play the whole thing. So I know the opening bit. I know the part where they get loud. And that's about it: the two parts that get used in movies and TV most times.

I have not, however, listened to it from beginning to end in a single sit-down. Ever.

seedling, to random

A thought about in game prophecies, oracles, and determining the future

The issue with mechanics around determining the future are that you don't actually know what will happen and then the GM has to kind of railroad things. One solution is to give a hint at what is already determined in an adventure, e.g. if there's a dragon behind the door you might divine a negative result from opening it, if there's treasure, a positive result.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@seedling C&S2 had a mechanism where diviners of various stripes could invoke their divination and get a result that was a "dice adjustment pool". If the augury was good, that was a positive number. If the augury was bad, that was a negative number.

Then for the targeted period of the augury, the positive pool could be used by the player to adjust die rolls in the group's favour (like changing a key failure into a success), or the negative one by the GM to impede the group.

It was nifty.

glaad, to random

This is huge 👏 Mastodon has made it clear that targeted misgendering and deadnaming, as well as promotion of “conversion therapy” content is prohibited. As GLAAD has noted, all social media platforms should do the same.

“Conversion therapy” is also a harmful practice that attempts to change an LGBTQ person’s sexual orientation and/or gender identity. It’s great to see Mastodon stand up to say that anti-LGBTQ hate has no place on its platform.

From its updated server rules ⬇️

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@183231bcb @glaad Ah yes. The ineffective way to do things.

@183231bcb welcome to basic human interaction. You will find that offering to do what you want from people after explaining why it's a good idea is a better idea than making demands.

Please supply alt-text in copy/paste form (with instructions) in your next piece of scolding as a form of leadership by example. You will find it's far less likely that you get muted or blocked.

(See how obnoxious this is now? It works both ways.)

zdl, to random
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

http://wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-2023-hugo-awards-somehow-it-got.html

I seems if you say "Hugo Awards" three times into a mirror another scandal pops up.

"Appalling as it is, the choice to screen English-language nominees for ideological compatibility may, in fact, be a sideshow to the real scandal, which is that hundreds of Chinese voters have been disenfranchised. And—barring even more revelations—this disenfranchisement cannot be blamed on PRC sensibilities and censorship."

Fuck #Worldcon.
Fuck the #Hugoawards.

With a rusty chainsaw.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

(Of course most western SF fans won't give a shit because it would have been "bad" to have a Chinese-language only SF novel winning a Hugo. Time for the hashtag or is that too unfair? Should it be instead? Either way, Chinese SF fans are going to be the next social group with interests in common with western counterparts who are going to tell westerners to get fucked in future collaboration outreaches. Like Chinese LGBT groups.)

zdl, to random
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

Could someone explain to me why I'm getting HUNDREDS of these popping up all the time today on Mastodon?

It does this non-stop while I'm just sitting here doing nothing, sometimes stacking six or seven high.

@Mastodon

dansup, (edited ) to random
@dansup@mastodon.social avatar

Edit: As mentioned below, it appears to be a bug, not intentional!

Threads hiding @pixelfed mentions, not a good look Meta 🙄

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@dansup @pixelfed Is there ever any kind of real good look for corporate antisocial media, though?

Emmadrime, to random
@Emmadrime@mastodon.social avatar

New Zealand, I hope you're building protections for the inevitable influx of billionaires.

Only seven countries meet WHO air quality standard, research finds

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/19/air-pollution-health-report

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@Emmadrime Are firing squads protection enough?

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@Emmadrime Sparkly or non-sparkly?

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@Emmadrime OK, then the solution is clear. Put large mirrors in space that reflect sunlight onto New Zealand 24×7.

jemmesedi, to australia
@jemmesedi@c.im avatar

@pixelcats
@rLok

Have you ever encountered one of these?

https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2017/02/worlds-deadliest-spider-the-sydney-funnel-web/

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@jemmesedi @pixelcats @rLok How deadly are they compared to drop bears?

jemmesedi, to random
@jemmesedi@c.im avatar

>>I haven't taught (outside of private tutoring) since 2016 <<

Sorry - my mistake to assume you were in teaching.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@jemmesedi I've casually referred to students, so it's an easy mistake to make.

I quit a marketing career (in high tech) way back when and taught for 16 years. Then I found a company I could stand working for again and got back into my old career, doing some tutoring on the side.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@jemmesedi I'm not in tech marketing. I do market research for a firm that helps businesses trying to do business inside China (and vice versa).

I won't touch tech ever again. Disgusting field.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@jemmesedi You know how stomach-churning people like Jack "Genocidal Buddhist" Dorsey, Elon "Apartheid Manchild" Musk, and Mark "Mr. Roboto" Zuckerberg are?

The percentage of techies who are wannabe that trio (and others), only just didn't have the ability and prior wealth to do it, is shocking. It's the least human sector I've ever encountered. Just white, male, libertarian manchild paradise. (And a lot of them would be classified as "incels" today: we just didn't have that word back then.)

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@jemmesedi As for the research, it's very rewarding, yes. I use it also to do a bit of education, helping people understand that other cultures aren't just about funny costumes and gibberish words. There's profound differences that have to be respected if you want to succeed at anything.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@jemmesedi I think his heart is in the right place, but his head isn't following. He has superficial understanding of Chinese culture (more superficial than my own, even!), viewed very squarely through western lenses (albeit held in reverse).

I like what he was trying to accomplish, but I don't think he accomplished it.

50years_music, to random
@50years_music@mastodon.online avatar

Which artists should be on the Mount Rushmore of music?

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@jemmesedi @50years_music

> “The idea that he was sort of somehow speaking his true mind there is misplaced,” Oakes says. “It was the booze.…"

I call bullshit. No, check that. I call TOTAL FUCKING BULLSHIT!!!!

Booze doesn't make you think things. Ever. It removes the inhibitions you have in place from expressing thoughts.

If this happened, and it seems almost certain it did, Clapton was speaking his actual mind, not the social front he put as a filter in front.

酒后吐真言

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@jemmesedi @50years_music White, wealthy America vs. poor, coloured America, yes.

And I'll hang out with the poor folk over the rich assholes any time.

rbreich, to random
@rbreich@masto.ai avatar

Four years ago, Trump continued his dereliction of duty in the face of national crisis, telling governors they were on their own in the fight against Covid. “Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment – try getting it yourselves,” he told them.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@Odiseo79 @rbreich The Chinese government knew AND WAS BROADCASTING THIS FACT since early 2020: https://globalce.org/downloads/Handbook_of_COVID_19_Prevention_en_Mobile.pdf

The Chinese government had commissioned AND TRANSLATED literally dozens of books on managing COVID-19 that the west simply ignored.

To later surprised Pikachu faces when China's numbers were multiple orders of magnitude better than theirs, choosing to spout conspiracy theories rather than to own up to their own complicity in the millions dead.

mattblaze, to random
@mattblaze@federate.social avatar

Today, 3/14, is Pi Day in the US, where the date corresponds to the first three significant digits of the eponymous mathematical constant. Europeans find this baffling, since there, under the metric system, Pi is exactly 10.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@jens @mattblaze By "not entirely serious" you meant "not even slightly serious", right?

hannah, to random
@hannah@posts.rat.pictures avatar

It's funny that they told me not to trust wikipedia in high school when at this point it's the only link in the first page of google results that was written by humans intending to convey information

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@hannah That won't last long. Wikipedia editors will succumb to the siren's song of "free" writing.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • JUstTest
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • cubers
  • osvaldo12
  • mdbf
  • magazineikmin
  • normalnudes
  • InstantRegret
  • rosin
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • khanakhh
  • ethstaker
  • Leos
  • ngwrru68w68
  • everett
  • cisconetworking
  • tacticalgear
  • anitta
  • thenastyranch
  • Durango
  • tester
  • GTA5RPClips
  • modclub
  • megavids
  • provamag3
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •