I wish Signal was developed more openly, more like the linux kernel for a "critical infrastructure" example. I wish it had more features, so it could take the place of something like Slack. I wish it supported interoperability like fedi.
But it's good for what it is and I sure am glad it's around. People who disrespect it don't know what they're talking about.
Name a bacterium you wouldn't consider weird.
It's perfectly normal I guess but I'm still not quite used to seeing so many people who don't know much about linux talking about how they use linux.
Rebuilding Israel's global reputation is going to be almost as hard as rebuilding Gaza.
The first Mass Effect game was the good one IMO.
Both Mass Effect sequels and Picard are fine examples of the recent abundance of things where the fan base (or the Internet as a whole) having earned a reputation for being inclined to complain about anything new is often used as an excuse to try and discredit the opinions of anyone who dares to point out what was a fairly disastrous drop in quality of the new thing compared to the old. Maybe there's bullshit in the field but that doesn't mean there aren't also apple trees, and maybe you've fixed your gaze on the wrong one.
Z-Library. Despite reports of its demise I've seen no interruption of service. And of course if there's one I want to pay for I'll buy a printed copy.
A company? What do you even mean? I suppose it might've been a straw man if I'd said anything like whatever you're imagining. PR is a class of voting systems. One that it would do the country much good to adopt. I'm in favour of it. This ad says very little of substance about it. I just wanted to point that out for the benefit of others who might be considering spending their time watching so they know what they're in for before blindly following a youtube link.
It's a 2-minute video. This is not an explanation of anything, it's an advertisement for proportional representation.
I don't think many people would go so far as to consider photographs "the linchpin of social consensus" but even so, many of the assumptions we tend to make about them have always been false ones. I've seen things in real life that later featured on the front page of newspapers. The difference can be more stark than is often appreciated. Like any powerful medium of expression they can capture truth or they can obscure it.
Disappointing, Germany. How can we trust you to find the best pirate sites when not even thepiratebay.org is on the list?
Quantitative information that's up to date about how much area has burned this year compared to a normal fire season was not easy to find, but this time my web search was fruitful: https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/report/graphs
As the NYT reports, along with the many other sources that tend to drown out better results when you're trying to find the actual numbers, it's well above average although nothing like the disaster of last year.