Random tiny thoughts that don't merit their own full-sized posts.
author: @siiky@siiky.srht.site
license: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
At the end of a year, the distance travelled searching for a free car parking space, is almost 1000000mi.
Houve um estudo na Suécia em que eles agora têm creches em que é tudo de género neutro em que mostram que este tipo de diferenças de percepção espacial, de capacidade matemática, de capacidade emocional, estão cada vez menos perceptíveis entre géneros. Porque, novamente, é uma questão de educação, é uma questão de socialização, porque, por exemplo, tens duas crianças, com dois anos, um rapaz e uma rapariga, uma pessoa a quem atribuíram o género masculino e a quem atribuíram o género feminino quando nasceram. Numa sociedade sexista que nós temos, e patriarcal, tu vais dar uma bola ou uma bicicleta ao rapaz, e vais dar um boneco à rapariga. O rapaz vai começar a chutar a bola para longe, vai começar a perceber como é que um objecto se comporta num espaço tri-dimensional, vai perceber como é que velocidade funciona quando vai andar na bicicleta, e vai construir o seu mundo à volta disso. Enquanto que os brinquedos direccionados para pessoas femininas são muito mais de proximidade, são muito mais de tomar conta, são muito mais de comunicação, são muito mais de role-playing, portanto, bonecos, ou seja, essa capacidade acaba por ser muito mais desenvolvida. O que não quer dizer que isso seja intrínseco, porque todos nós temos cérebros com plasticidade que são capazes de adquirir funções.
This subject is brought on by the host @ 25m02s, and she starts talking about it @ 25m38s.
Very rough translation of this excerpt:
There's been a study in Sweden where they now have kindergartens, where everyone is gender neutral, showing that these kind of differences in spacial perception, in mathematical capacity, in emotional capacity, are less perceptible between genders. Because, again, it's a question of education, it's a question of socialization, because, for example, you have two kids, of two years old, one boy and one girl, one person who's been attributed the masculine gendedr and one who's been attributed the feminine gender when they were born. In the sexist and patriarchal society that we have, you're going to give a ball or a bicycle to the boy, and a doll to the girl. The boy will start kicking the ball far, is going to start understanding how is it that an object behaves in a tri-dimensinal space, will understand how speed works when he rides the bicycle, and will construct his world around it. While on the other hand the toys directed towards feminine persons are a lot more of proximity, a lot more of taking care of, a lot more of comunication, a lot more of role-playing, therefore, dolls, that is, that capacity is a lot more developed. That does not mean that that is intrinsic, because everyone of us has brains with plasticity which are capable of acquiring functions.
Cool questions! I got 59%, not sure how... Tried following the definition "thing used to move (i.e., travel) people/things from one place to another" for "vehicle", but doubted my choice a few times.
For over 10 years the UK government has been using the humming sound of the electrical mains as a surveillance tool and forensic clock to authenticate recordings – to determine their time and date, and whether they have been edited or otherwise altered. They call this technique, invented by Dr Catalin Grigoras, “electrical frequency network (ENF) analysis”. It can be effectively used as a time stamp for almost any recording made within earshot of electricity, which is always – almost silently – humming. This use of the sound of the electrical grid as a fingerprint of the nation's time has only ever been used by the police as a tool of state level surveillance, and yet everyone has access to this same buzz.
This episode of the "Planet Progress" says @23m13s:
Peatlands currently store twice as much carbon as all the world's forests.
A search turns up some results:
I'd never heard of peat before.
Added support for (limited) concurrent execution of transitions (small pedantry: firing is still sequential) with less than 90 LOC:
sad af :'(
Finished listening today to "The Girlfriends" podcast. Not really my thing.
Also listened to "1 Minuto pela Terra" too and discovered some interesting projects!
My first commit merged to CHICKEN! \o/
Awesome, the extreme-right party (CHEGA -- PT for "enough!") got 18% of the votes. Together, PS+PSD, the two parties that tagteam since forever, got 57%. It's like people never learn...
(Un)funnily enough, PSD joined with some other party right before elections to form AD ("Aliança Democrática"). And there's this new party called ADN ("Alternativa Democrática Nacional") that nobody has ever heard of, but somehow was on the list. Guess what? It got almost 2% of the votes from people who can't fucking read.
Cooking brown rice in hot water can reduce the content of inorganic arsenic by 40-60%, although this cooking method also diminishes the content of micronutrients.[5]
This is what it says:
Published studies, including research by the FDA, show that cooking rice similar to how pasta is cooked can reduce 40 to 60 percent of the inorganic arsenic content, depending on the type of rice. However, this method of cooking rice in excess water—using 6 to 10 parts water to 1 part rice and then draining the excess water—also results in lowering the nutritional value of enriched polished and parboiled rice. Specifically, cooking in excess water reduces the levels of folate, iron, niacin and thiamine, nutrients that are added to polished (white) and parboiled rice as part of the enrichment process, by 50 to 70 percent.
I wonder what's the best cooking method, to get the richest result...
Also this:
The FDA research also shows that rinsing rice before cooking has a minimal effect on the arsenic content of the cooked grain and will wash off iron, folate, thiamine and niacin from polished and parboiled rice.
So the asians do it wrong?!
Very interesting uses of something that I can easily imagine being discarded by an average westerner as useless.
Was gonna vote today but was told instead I was to go to my previous voting place still, because, guess what? It takes TWO MONTHS to update the voting lists... Is this a fucking joke?
Licenses are such a hassle... Trying to understand if I could take Apache 2.0 code, adapt it, and release it under GPLv3.
From (4):
You may add Your own copyright statement to Your modifications and may provide additional or different license terms and conditions for use, reproduction, or distribution of Your modifications, or for any such Derivative Works as a whole, provided Your use, reproduction, and distribution of the Work otherwise complies with the conditions stated in this License.
I understood that I would be allowed to take an Apache 2.0 file foo, make changes to it, and release it as GPLv3 (for my changes) and Apache 2.0 (for the unmodified code).
This page didn't help. However, it links to the following page:
The relevant bits are 2.2 (Adding GPL’d modifications to permissive-licensed files) and 2.3 (Keeping modified files permissive-licensed within larger GPL’d works).
So complicated! c5be at #gnu@libera.chat helped clarify the issue. I'm settling for (2.3).
Reddit is currently in the cadaveric spasm stage, Twitter is becoming the next Gab, Facebook is a nursery house already, Instagram is for brainless zoomers who miss their childhood, TikTok is a spyware and data harvest tool for CCP with no real utility. Youtube is a clickbait sponsored content view farm full of ads if you don’t use a desktop PC or a laptop with an adblocker. Google, StackExchange and Quora are flooded with AI-generated garbage quicker than they can be cleaned, zoomers don’t know how to use a RSS reader and gen alpha can’t copy a file onto a thumb drive or explain where the downloaded file went because hierarchical file systems are the new black magic.
Sad times are coming. I hope that you have enjoyed the public internet, because it’s all over.
Mobile devices are becoming more locked down, it is currently happening to laptops now. There will be no demand for usable phones without ads in the system settings UI because nobody except select few who are interested in tech whose knowledge spans a little over the Unix directory structure.
Is it good that tech is becoming more accessible? Certainly. But making tech more accessible does not mean removing all power user tools and locking down the entire device “just in case”. This is not improving accessibility. This is an attempt at building a market monopoly where almost every internet-connected device is a trojan horse in its most literal version.
Was on vacations last week. In a busy pedestrian path of a park, saw the boldest blackbird (Turdus merula)!
It came running out of a bush, stopped right in front of me and other people, less than 1m away, chest held high. Looked straight at us with its tilted head for a few moments (just enough for me to take a couple of rushed shots), and then ran back into the bush.
I found it very funny. It was a youngun, still with some dark golden brown. I hope it'll do well in life!
Another less enthusiastic sight, was a couple of crows (pretty sure Corvus, possibly Corvus corone) attacking a parakeet and its nest (I think a parakeet or parrot or something similar; didn't get a good enough look).
Back home from my first Arabic class. The writing is one tough nut to crack! Much harder than ひらがな/カタカナ, so far at least. OTOH it looks as if it'll be a lot easier than 漢字 in the long term, once I get familiar with the different characters and their ways of writing.
Today I saw for the second time a parkourist wagtail (Motacilla alba). The first time I saw one jump towards a wall with its legs, turn around and jump back to the ground. This second time I saw one do the same with a sign post. I wonder why...
Two guys wobbling down the road, one trips and almost falls off the sidewalk:
oi
The other one:
caralhos ta foda..!
bora beber shots?
Took a stroll this afternoon. Watched a volleyball match that was going on in a school's gymnasium nearby.
Created a project on SourceHut to aggregate the various parts of the Petri nets work I'm doing. Not many for now: the petrinets repo, and a mirror of two other repos.
In hindsight, I should have created one repo for the implementation in each language...
ghci -e 'return ()' foo.hs
Completed the basic sequential implementation of high-level Petri nets in Go just today, bringing the total number of languages to 3! Erlang will be next.
Also created a mailing list for discussing Petri nets and these libraries, and registered the #petrinets IRC channel on libera.chat.
I've been so busy with Uni stuff I haven't written anything in a while :|
My hands and head are starting to figuratively twitch... I'll fix it with this I wrote during SourceHut's downweek, unedited:
Given this week's events @ SourceHut, I started thinking again about alternatives. Nothing yet, though I've learned of radicle, and I'm gonna start mirroring all my repos across all my computers. Currently, it's easy for any particular repo to become out-of-date in any particular computer if I don't work on it. If I want to update a repo I have to manually git pull. I plan to experiment with Syncthing because I already use it for a ton of things, it's super easy to use. Put all bare repos in a shared folder, and add a remote pointing there. Pulls (reads) will work flawlessly. Pushes (writes) maybe not so much. Have to experiment.
You can tell I was awake for long because that bit about updating repos manually doesn't make sense with the rest... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
あの女の子に引かれてしちゃって｡｡｡
And the thing is, no matter what level you're at, you can always find somebody to compare yourself to that makes you feel inadequate.
yes
Acordo de manhã
Com perfume da desgraça
Zombies descontentes
Arrastando as carcaças
Danados com a vida
Ar triste
E carrancudo
Carregam nas costa
O peso do mundo
Eu não quero que me fodam a cabeça
Eu só quero é cerveja e depressa
Se o mundo acabar
E morrer ao meu redor
Venha outra rodada
Não me fodam por favor
Os atrasos
Nos transportes
E as contas
A pagar
Outra guerra suja
Que ninguém irá ganhar
Eu não tenho a culpa
Se o mundo está perdido
Venha a cerveja
Senão fico é fodido
Eu não quero que me fodam a cabeça
Eu só quero é cerveja e depressa
Se o mundo acabar
E morrer ao meu redor
Venha outra rodada
Vou dar de beber à dor
Matam-se a lutar
Sem que nada
Vá mudar
Todos a remar
E o barco a afundar
Tenho prioridades
A missão está definida
Não contem comigo
Se não for para bebida
Eu não quero que me fodam a cabeça
Eu só quero é cerveja e depressa
Se o mundo acabar
E morrer ao meu redor
Venha outra rodada
Não me fodam por favor
amazing
I can't really understand if it means that, either my EF 24-85mm will appear to "zoom-in" like an EF-S 39-138mm, or simply that the view area is that much smaller...
WTF had 2 vim swp files using a total of ~16GiB in my $HOME!
Degrading? Hah! man.. I've prioritized this problem over everything else in my life to the point where it has almost killed me and it has robbed me of everything.. when you are living on the street with 0 money in your pocket and you need to take a shit and the bathroom costs a coin to enter then what do you do? Cause I guess the difference between us and dogs is that you can poo straight into the plastic bag, no need for the intermediate step... Now if I would accept a job creating problems for regular people I'd have north of 100k for sitting in my chair and occasionally pressing a few buttons on my keyboard. But my refusal is absolute, the problem I am working on is important and if no one is willing to pay me for it then that is not my problem (yes it is but it is even more everyones elses problem than it is mine).
Posting on a throwaway for obvious reasons that you'll see in a minute. In general, I smiled reading the news. Scams, fraud, and absurd energy waste have given crypto such a ridiculously tainted image.
But I think the sanctions evasion line is silly, personally. I may have a controversial opinion here, but I think sanctions avoidance is one of the few legitimate uses of crypto.
Sure, North Korea benefits, but so do plenty of other normal, everyday people. For example, I went to university in Siberia for a few years, and so I know a ton of Russians. Quite literally, out of my entire department, I can think of, maybe, two people, at most, who are in favor of the invasion of Ukraine, or, at least, don't see it as black and white as most others (and fairly understandably so, given one of them lived in Donetsk until a couple of years ago; of course things aren't going to be as black and white when the military has been shelling you for years).
Despite the fact that no one is happy about the war, they all must suffer the consequences of it [1]. As an example, in Russia, all men under 27 can be called up for conscription. One way to avoid it is to do military training during university (basically their ROTC equivalent). Normally this has been a relatively "good deal" for years; you spent one day a week for a couple of years doing training, and at the end you're an officer and avoid spending twelve continuous months in the actual military, whilst never getting called up to serve. So, I have a handful of friends who made that choice. One of whom recently got accepted into a study abroad program, but due to the sanctions would've been unable to pay the dorm fees as there was no way to legitimately transfer the money. Shortly afterwards, the news broke that Russia would begin calling people up in the reserve, like him, to serve.
Surely it doesn't make much sense, if we actually want peace, to be complicit in sending young people who aren't in favor of the war to go die invading someone else's land?
I have seen little evidence that sanctions work. Even using North Korea as an example, it's not like they've stopped their weapons program [2]. My view is that:
- sanctions are ineffective.
- sanctions by far hurt the average person the most (and that's the point: they are meant to cause instability to the point of revolution unless the leadership stops doing whatever it is they are doing -- except this neglects to take into account that most of these sanctioned countries will also supposedly murder you over the smallest grievances, so....).
- sanctions cause many who'd normally be against the government to gain sympathy for them after suffering at the hands of those sanctioning them.
Sanctions avoidance is good! I am tired of seeing people from countries that cannot unify over things as 'minor' [relative to genocide, etc] as public transport and healthcare to expect a hundred million people to unify against a totalitarian dictatorship when they could simply, you know, not risk dying. The expectations people have of people like Russians et al are absurdly and irrationally high.
I am especially tired of the virtue signaling coming from people whose countries have been responsible for the deaths of millions in the very regions we act so concerned about -- e.g., West and East Asia. There is an irony in acting as if sanctioning North Korea is for the Koreans when the Korean war [a US-Soviet proxy war] resulted in the deaths of millions of Koreans. There is an irony in sanctioning Syria and Iran for 'peace' while Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria are irreparably damaged due to wars and invasions by the same countries which have sanctioned them.
As an Arab, it may be petty [3], but it boils my blood seeing the "Save Ukraine" flags on half the damn sites and GitHub projects I click on. The IDF has killed so many Palestinians, yet we continue to fund Israel. Yemen is at the brink of starvation, yet we fund the Saudis who kill them. Iraq and Afghanistan are destroyed, yet we invaded them -- HELL, not only did we invade them, UKRAINE WAS PART OF THE COALITION THAT INVADED IRAQ, yet I am not meant to hold any resentment.
It makes me so angry. I am sick and tired of the ONLY time Europe and the Anglo outposts seem to care about 'peace' and war being when their white brethren are killed. Fuck your sanctions, man. I could not care less about the agenda of your governments; the US military is the largest, most well-funded terrorist organization in the world.
[1]: I am sure someone will read this and think "this is what you get when you elect XYZ". However, I find the logic beautifully ironic, given a year ago, you'd read how one cannot protest in Russia without getting detained, beaten or killed, and yet now we expect the average Russian to throw away their life just to get arrested or worse. These people have just as little control over their circumstances as most Americans did during the invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq, if not less.
[2]: As a side note:
- A: Why would they ever stop? The US backed out of the Iran deal because Trump was, well... Trump. When Gaddafi agreed to stop the Libyan weapons program, the US funded the very rebels that overthrew Libya and sodomized Gaddafi with a bayonet before brutally executing him. What sane person would EVER trust the U.S. and Europe to hold their words regarding weapons programs when time and time again, it has been shown that words mean nothing. Nuclear weapons are the only way for North Korea to ensure they have a future as a country.
- B: Why should they stop? If nuclear weapons are not the defensive necessity that North Korea claims they are but instead, simply a global threat, why does to the US, France, UK, etc, get to keep their nuclear stockpile?
[3]: I should be clear. I don't support the war in Ukraine. It hurts my heart listening to the parents who've lost their children, and vice versa. But I am petty in the sense that I am jealous: I am so deeply saddened by the fact that places like Poland nearly caused a political crisis in the EU by refusing Arab refugees, despite being part of the coalition that invaded Iraq, yet the moment Ukraine gets invaded, Poland offers to take millions. Like fuck you, if you want to talk about bearing responsibility for your actions, fuck you, bear some responsibility.
Like, yes, amazing, I am happy; that is a GOOD thing. But Jesus Christ if that doesn't make me feel worthless as a human being, what should? It feels like confirmation that simply due to my ethnicity, my life will NEVER be valued the same as a white man. I am so sadden by the fact that the whole world cares about these situations, yet cannot be bothered to care about their own damn war crimes.
I moved to the United States as a child shortly before 9/11. I will never forget the way we were treated afterwards. I will never forget being in school and having the teacher inform us about the Turkish kid who'd be enrolling next week, and having the little white kids initially react with excitement and curiosity, come back the next day and play a game where they made imaginary traps for the Turk, talking about dumping their imaginary boiling hot coffee on him, etc. These are children. Who taught them that way? Their parents. Children aren't like that naturally.
I am tired of the most hateful countries in the world acting so concerned about others.
My father is not a terrorist, yet when my father returned to Israel while studying in Germany, simply due to the fact that he ran the Palestinian student union at his university, he was detained. They claimed he was a member of the PLO, and tried him as a terrorist, and held him in Israeli prison for two years. He never got to finish his degree.
To this day, despite being an Israeli citizen myself, when I go through the Ben Gurion airport I am assigned a 'six' in the first digit of the barcode they place on my passport -- the "secret" security rating they give you, on a range of 1 to 6, with 1-2 being common for most Israeli citizens, and 6 being the highest level of threat.
When my grandmother was sick and at the end of her life, we returned to Israel. After she passed, upon trying to re-enter the United States, they found out about my dad's false terrorism conviction, and he was, of course, denied entry. I was 10, and I was told I'd see him again in six months, and that we'd figure things out. I didn't get to see him again for another 8 years.
When I first saw him again as an adult, I was so happy, but it was the most bittersweet feeling in the world. When you communicate with someone over Skype on a 480p webcam for years, it hides the wrinkles in their face. I cried and cried and cried all night that first night -- I was so happy but I was so sad; he looked so old. I didn't realize how old my father was. I felt robbed by the universe; it wasn't my mother's fault, it wasn't my father's fault. I was just unlucky.
I know I am rambling, but the point is: really, if anyone actually cared about the morality, why do countries like Israel get away with ruining my life? Why do countries like the US get away with killing millions? These sanctions aren't here for peace, they are here for someone's political agenda, and that's all.
--
Anyway, I know my schizoposting anti-American ramblings are not helping my cause whatsoever, but I am very upset. I shouldn't be this upset, but I don't know why, I think it was just the straw that broke the camel's back tonight. I am very exhausted.
I guess the last thing:
To anyone who reads this and thinks "what a nutter - it's probably a good thing they watch people like him and deny them entry" -- sure, maybe. But remember: my feelings of resentment were not something I was born with. I am a child of American and European foreign policy.
Aaron Swartz died today 11 years ago.
Not sure I like it, but it's... interesting?
(...) Nevertheless, the study is interesting for its detailed breakdown of components, with the display and the electronic circuits responsible for the largest environmental damage. The total impact for the Framework Laptop is estimated to be 200 kg CO2e. Almost 70% of this is due to the production phase.
The embodied energy of the memory chip alone exceeds the energy consumption of a laptop during its life expectancy of 3 years.
Not buying new laptops saves a lot of money, but also a lot of resources and environmental destruction. According to the most recent life cycle analysis, it takes 3,010 to 4,340 megajoules of primary energy to make a laptop – this includes mining the materials, manufacturing the machine, and bringing it to market.¹
(...) Findings indicate that the overall skin temperature, as well as the cheek, thigh, toe, and torso temperatures, remained significantly higher when wearing the caribou skin ensemble compared to changes observed when wearing the military or expedition clothing ensembles.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech that "Hamas is not a terrorist organization, but a "mujahideen liberation group struggling to protect its people and lands."[151]
“Hamas is not a terrorist organization,” he said, but a “mujahideen liberation group struggling to protect its people and lands.” Erdogan also chided the West over its unconditional support for Israel’s unrelenting retaliation against Hamas’ brutal surprise attack into southern Israel on Oct. 7.
(...)
Turkey and Israel's differences over the Palestinian issue and Erdogan’s inflammatory anti-Israel rhetoric had led to more than a decade of estrangement. The Turkish President has been a vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause since his premiership, with his angry exchange with Israeli President Shimon Peres in 2009 at the World Economic Forum in Davos going viral in the Arab world.
Is this ironic or what?
The Turkish government had accused Sweden of not doing enough to rein in Kurdish anti-Turkey activities on its soil. (...)
Ah there it is!
“Copyright law should want to promote access to works, because it does nothing to promote progress if the law incentives the creation of works that no one can actually enjoy. In this case, enabling the books that were already lawfully readable to be read is what copyright law should instead be glad for the Internet Archive to do.”
“Neither the public nor authors, both of whom are the intended beneficiaries of copyright, benefit from libraries spending public or community funds on the same content repeatedly instead of acquiring new content. The logical consequence is that the public has access to fewer authors and works, fewer authors get wide exposure, and fewer works are preserved for future generations.”
Well, at least the 1928 version of Micky Mouse [1] is free and in the public domain. It's no coincidence that Disney has worked the past few years turning the 1928 version of Micky into a trademark. Grab the popcorn! It's going to be an interesting year in copyright law.
My three favorite 2p games with traditional playing cards are slam, color gin, and haggis. Slam is probably the most fun but one thing about color gin that’s great is how it uses all 52 cards, it uses suits, it uses melds, and it uses sets. Ranks and ordering, it all matters. Slam and haggis both use stripped decks.
Not listed on Pagat :/
First reclog entry of the year:
