BananaTrifleViolin

joined 1 year ago
[–] BananaTrifleViolin@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think that's true but South Parks humour has also changed over time. That's the nature of satire - it lampoons human folly and vice, including the ideas of offence and moralising which are so often borne out of hippocracy.

You mention taboo topics like 9/11 as if it's a no go area but actually that has been a rich source of comedy and satire due to the level of hippocracy displayed around it. The hippocracy of Uber patriotism, religious nationalism, racism (you mention people having to be careful about the target and culture of jokes, but many groups found the exact opposite after 9/11 - certain ethnic and religious groups were all tarred with the same brush, particularly in the US) and more. Even the idea of self censorship out of fear of causing offense. Some of this is being replayed right now with a contemporary conflict.

South Park is in a similar tradition to other satire such as Private Eye in the UK, or The Onion, or various other TV shows. South Park is just a sometimes more extreme version more willing to be deliberately offensive. But satire moves with the times like any other type of humour.

[–] BananaTrifleViolin@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is actually a hugely important project if successful. Storing data long term is a huge hidden problem globally. Magnetic storage and optical discs have limited lifespans, and paper remains the most reliable long term medium IF stored in perfect conditions.

We are losing our heritage slowly all the time as books degrade or are lost, or library's struggle. Even data on the internet and digital media is fleeting without a long term solution to archive stuff robustly. Genetic data in seed stores for example would last much longer if we could store it in coded form and "rebuild" the gene later for use.

I hope this project or something similar succeeds as we need to be thinking about how we preserve knowledge and data for not just the next 10 to 20 years but the next 10000 years.

Going futher into sci fi territory, if our species is going to go to other solar systems then it will probably be generation ships unless we make some major discoveries. A civilization that spreads slowly across the stars will need reliable ways to transfer data over 100s and 1000s of years to benefit new worlds. That is all data - our science, arts, music but also genetic data of earth's bio diversity.

[–] BananaTrifleViolin@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (8 children)

It's good users are now aware that Brave includes redundant features that you have to pay extra for to activate. Users browser will update everytime the browser or the VPN software needs an update.

For example Firefox VPN from Mozilla is separate software. They don't force millions of users to download it even if they don't want it.

This is yet another example why people should not be using Brave and should be skeptical of its intentions.

[–] BananaTrifleViolin@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah this is dodgy. Basically he's saying "we cannot say something but we'll say it anyway,". You only need 1 confounding factor or 1 incorrect adjustment to completely break the validity of any link.

To say the link got stronger as they adjusted for different confounding factors doesn't mean anything. It's a specious argument.

[–] BananaTrifleViolin@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Essentially the engine is more modern, the graphics are nicer, and the simulation seems to be better. It is also hopefully a better base for newer mods.

I love CS1 but the engine is 8 years old and PC gamers in particular have been hitting the engines limits in multiple ways for years. There were also some fundamental design decisions which limited the scope of what could be done with the game going forward - it is definitely time for a sequel.

To be fair though, CS1 is going nowhere and has a massive amount of content available for it (including the massive free community content). It will probably take a couple of years before CS2 surpasses it. Although for Console gamers it'll probably quickly surpass what CS1 was and is able to offer.

[–] BananaTrifleViolin@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

They made a mistake in removing SMS support - that was a good way to become useful to people with the current paradigm and encourage them over to the new. Sometimes Signals decisions are self destructive.

I still have signal but I use it much less since it stopped SMS support; I just open it less and so when starting conversations default to WhatsApp. For a while signal was growing amongst my friends and colleagues but it appears to have stalled.

Google are now doing the same pushing their RCS in the default SMS app in Android.

[–] BananaTrifleViolin@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Or was this the first example of gurilla paid advertisement in the comments section? "How do I advertise my dental practice? I know I'll pretend I was disturbed by a telegram and they shall print my complaint! And it shall goeth viraleth"

[–] BananaTrifleViolin@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Part of it comes down to trust. I just don't trust Brave Inc long term - it may well be a private browser now but I don't trust that in to the future. I don't trust a company that Peter Thiel invests in. I don't trust a company that has already been shady and caught redirecting traffic secretly for referrer codes. But I also don't trust Google or Microsoft either.

I trust Firefox and Mozilla. I don't like that they are dependent on Google revenue but I trust that they're open and transparent about what they do, and not motivated or compromised by a desire to maximise profits for their venture capitalist investors.

So the way evolution works, the design we have works well enough that it doesn't cause problems. It might be the best possible design or it might not, all that mattered is that whenever it arose in evolutionary history it was either an advantage over what camebefore in terms of survival so propagated or it was not detrimental and paired with something else genetically that propagated.

We can't definitively answer your question but we can speculate on why it's a good idea to separate urine and faecal matter. Urine is a reasonable medium for growing bacteria. That wouldn't matter in the colon but would matter if bacteria from the colon could ascend into the kidneys and diarupt it's function. Valves could help or a bladder that drains into the colon, but complete separation may just be better.

It may also be that the acidic nature of urine would disrupt the helpful bacteria we rely on to colonise our guts to help digest foods.

Another possibility is the constant flow of urine would mean our faecal matter would never dry out. It'd be like having diarrhoea all the time and we'd need to poop constantly. The colon retrieves enough water - but not all water - that's why poop isn't hard as rock. If it was flooded with fluid it may not need to retrieve fluid.

The fluid might even be stuck in a cycle between the colon and the kidneys and make it harder for the body to keep homeostasis - as the kidneys excrete more fluid to try and regulate fluid volume the the colon could just resorb it. Basically the colon could end up working against the kidneys and cause even more work for thenl body. It may just be less efficient than discarding water as needed.

Drier faecal matter in the colon and a reservoir of fluid in the bladder does also give us freedom to release when it is safe to do so, which may protect us from predators (having to stop to poop even a few times a day is dangerous compared to only going when you know it's safe to as there are more opportunities to be attacked by a predator). It would also be very easy to track an animal that leaves a constant trail of poop and urine uncontrollably behind it.

All or none of these may be reasons why we have separate urinary and alimentary tracts; it's impossible to know and would always be speculation. But regardless these do seem like reasonable reasons why we may have separate tracts.

[–] BananaTrifleViolin@kbin.social 18 points 1 year ago (7 children)

What was your dream about windows?

[–] BananaTrifleViolin@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah we had this in the UK for a time when minimum wage was introduced. Up until about 2008-2009 when it was finally changed so that employees had to have minimum wage regardless of tips the hospitality industry didn't collapse despite the noise made in the right wing press.

However we now have issues with employers stealing tips from employees via various dodgy practices. The law is likely to change again here to protect tips too.

Chicago are making a step in the right direction but employees will still lose out of tips aren't protected too

[–] BananaTrifleViolin@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Its usefulness as a laptop replacement may be limited. Remember it's a locked down read-only version of Linux. The steam deck uses an a/b model to update. Basically there are two separate versions of the OS on the machine - when it updates it replaces one copy and makes that the default, and uses the other as the backup. Next system update it replaces the other copy and switches to that. It switches back and forth that way, putting a stock image on with each update. So you'd probably want to go down the route of running your own OS on it.

Without that it does limit a little in how useful it is as a laptop like device. It depends what you want to do on it of course, and your Flatpak apps and personal files will stay but any other customisation you do to the device will get wiped each time it does a major update. That would include any installed software outside the Flatpak route if you unlock Pacman.

It seems like a capable machine though. I have mine hooked up to my TV at 4K when at home. I use it to stream 4K game content from my desktop to my living room, but I've also played with the desktop mode in 4k and it's been good. It renders 4k video well, and we know it's capable of playing video games at 720p directly which is still generally intensive.

I can't see why it wouldn't be able to do basic graphics work, but no idea about more intensive work like 3D modelling and video encoding.

Personally I'd get a dedicated device for work but if you can't afford that or you dont want to carry more than one device around then I guess it's worth a try?

Just remember if you do use it for work that also entails setting it up to back up your personal data. Your game data is largely backed up by Steam but if you put your work stuff on there then you'll need to be protecting yourself in case of damage or theft.

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