Ah, a youngling.

My first programming language was Basic; my second, assembly; third, C. I didn’t get to new-fangled languages like Pascal until i was in college, long after I’d learned the only really useful fundamentals of programming and computer software.

Everything else is just gloss, convenience, and bloat.

And boating (which is actually illegal, in Minnesota, at least), although you mostly end up killing only yourself.

And bicycling, where drunk bicyclists are almost more of a hazard to pedestrians than cars, if to less effect. You might only be put in the hospital, but bicyclists are not required to carry insurance, so good luck recouping your medical costs.

The dozer has an enclosed compartment, but that like like a pretty violent tumble. Was the driver’s compartment (which isn’t really identifiable) enough to protect the driver, or is s/he now part of the machine?

Also: Badger 288 would have simple eaten the dozer, and added it to the souls its already reaped.

I… I don’t get this. The trains are functioning as batteries? Regenerative braking is nice, but why is only a third going to power the trains themselves? Why not 100%? TFA says they’re issuing the “spare electricity” in the grid; “spare?”

These aren’t perpetual motion machines; they’re not violating the third law, and they consume more energy than they produce. Most off these article is about the (obvious) benefits of adding regenerative braking to subways around the world, regardless of cost; what confuses me is: why are they spending money and effort to route regenerative braking into other uses, which is what the title literally says (“trains”, not “train power grid”). It seems like an inefficient and circuitous way to tap other demands into a subway power grid.

Unless what’s really happening is that Barcelona is just tapping other demands into the (robust) subway power grid, and coincidentally adding regenerative braking, and someone decided to make the wild conceptual link that the power being fed back into the grid by braking is part of the overall power being used by new sinks. Which is like saying that my piss is being used to provide drinking water, because it goes back into the overall water cycle one way or another.

I, for one, have never seen that bumper sticker. So you’re good with me.

They should have kept them there, like badges. Collected more and gotten totally blinged out. It should have a badge for WWII.

I can’t speak for other Americans (USA, in particular, which is who I assume you meant), but for me it’s the nature of the oligarchical regime and their views on individualism. I’ve read the Chinese CSL, and spent a couple of days in a session presented by international lawyers and security professionals explaining what it meant for our business, how we needed to navigate it, and how it was being implemented. It’s scary.

Information is power; specific information about you is power over you. It’s control.

As for the government, I think it’s more a matter of the fact that China is far more well positioned and equipped to surveil US assets. Russia is bumbling, pre-occupied, and doesn’t make any computer components we use. Chinese chips, on the other hand, are in everything. The US is worried that, in a conflict, we could discover that China is able to simply… turn off all of the F35s. Or shut down or coopt firing systems on our war ships. Or disable coms or NV gear of ground troops. All of our modern equipment is computerized to more or lesser degree, and the failure of even seemingly simple resisters, sourced from China, could result in misoperation of gear, at best. If the espionage is more sophisticated, with more important components, it’s conceivable China could locate and monitor assets; missiles which ignore counter measures and always hit because the target is broadcasting a homing signal.

Most off these hypotheticals are probably not within the realm of current technology, and that what access China is able to embed in computer components is far more limited. But we don’t really know, and it’s far more dangerous to underestimate than to overestimate capabilities.

Agreed. By @FundMECFSResearch’s distinction, you (well, Americans) could choose to not pay taxes. You literally are able to not do it. Of course, you then have to deal with the consequences, but it falls in the same category of “optional.”

Gender-affirming surgery is “optional.” Eating food other than cat food is optional. Simply having the ability to make a choice between two options is not sufficient to justify saying both options are satisfactory.

This thing is exactly my exit strategy. My living will gives my wife absolute authority to decide to terminate my life if she sees fit; whether or not the state would allow it is another matter, but at least my wishes are known. These include conditions of cognitive decline; my step-father recently passed after a protracted decade of horrific decline, and no fucking way all I going through that.

While you’ve got a more pragmatic solution, to be frank, if I’m going I’d like to do so with some guarantees and comfort. I’m not comfortable with the risk of accidentally half-assing the attempt with something I jury-rigged and end up with brain damage and the inability to complete the job. I’m hoping that some state will have the balls to jump into suicide tourism and open clinics full of these specific devices, so if things get bad and I’m still able to travel, I can go in some comfort.

I’m fucked if I’m comatose, because most options are simply removing support and letting the patient starve to death, and I fear being conscious (enough) through that protracted process.

We have such shit laws in this country (USA) about giving people autonomy over their end-of-life process.

“For the first time, we are able to explain a mystery that nobody could before: why rubbing matters,”

sigh The jokes write themselves. He had to know, when he said that.

This is the right answer. I specifically don’t use beets because it does this, and (1) I have things organized how I like, and (2) I’ve changed music servers a half dozen times in the past decade and am leery of an app that has to “own” the library.

But the reasons I don’t use it are exactly the reasons you’re looking for, and it sounds like a perfect fit for you.

So, do I extrapolate to the rest of the world?

Yes. Also assume that anyone who disagrees with you is either insane or stupid. It’s the modern human condition!

Nothing wrong with having a key pair, but yeah, most of the content in Nostr is unfortunately cryptocurrency related.

Yeah, despite the strong anti-crypto sentiment on Lemmy, this is exactly the problem that projects like Nostr is trying to solve by integrating Lighting as a first-class payment system in the ecosystem.

Services get paid for by one of four ways:

• Harvesting and reselling of user data. Which is wildly unpopular, and why a lot of people are on Lemmy and not Reddit or Facebook.
• Ads. Which is also unpopular and again why people come to services like Lemmy
• Pay-for-service, which is what you’re suggesting, only via crypto, which is easier than accepting credit card transactions, and safer for users.
• The hosted paying for it out of the goodness of their hearts. So, charity. Sometimes there’s corporate charity, and that’s nice, except for the potential for money coming with strings attached, now or eventually.

Someone always pays; its expensive to host a popular instance. People suggesting you should host for free are selfish freeloaders, so know that some people understand that hosting costs, and sympathize with with your desire to offset that cost.

I like the volunteer micro-transaction model. Those who can afford to pay some amount for good service, and hopefully this provides welfare for those who can’t afford to pay. But the cryptocurrency space is a mess at the moment, and an economical currency (probably proof-of-stake rather than proof-of-work) needs to gain some traction, and overcome a lot of ignorant bigotry.

I like to internalize this as a victory, and the utter humiliation of the person who offended me. They said “Sorry.” That’s admitting defeat!

I agree. I do appreciate the spirit of OP’s comment, that we are agents. I observe a lot of people who blame everything but themselves for their circumstances, and take responsibility for nothing.

However, sometimes you get the meteorite, and sometimes the meteorite gets you; we’re none of us 100% in control of our fates.

Compiling has never been the hard part. The challenge is making it through the entire configuration menu system before succumbing to the urge to gouge your own eyes out with blunt sticks.

Once that’s done, kick off make take a long break; it’ll be compiled by the time you get back to it.

I hear build times are getting longer with the Rust parts, though, so do it soon before you need mainframe access to get a compile within your lifetime.

The AMD graphics driver is reputedly the biggest that mainstream Linux users will encounter, approaching six million lines of code.

That does seem a bit … excessive.

I stub my toe. Is that a “have to?”

That’s a lot of phaelenopsis.