Ben Taylor @VoxDei@social.cleverlibre.org
Software Engineer, Trade Unionist, Gamer, Geek, Dad. Lives in Devon
Joined Nov 2022
Ben Taylor
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Ben Taylor
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Our 10yr old has gotten ***REALLY*** into mechanical watches & clocks to the point he's on the verge of starting a side gig repairing them. He mentions his hobby to everyone, and a lot of folks have a not-quite-working item sitting around. He's fixed a number of them.
He has had a tough time with an civil war era pocket watch, but was finally able to salvage a compatible part from somewhere, and he got it ticking today. He was so proud, and wants to share with everyone.
@freemo Doesn't look like it, sadly. Most of the Republican base are too far gone in the Fox News reality where black is white and none of this is happening.
Rupert Murdoch has an awful lot to answer for, but at this point I doubt he could stop it if he wanted to. Even if Fox turned round and started telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, three quarters of Trump's base would just assume they'd been nobbled by the Deep State and double down. Deprogramming people once they've bought into a conspiracy is a bitch.
@freemo Unfortunately, being found guilty, even imprisoned, does not in fact bar him from office.
The only hope of that lies in the 14th Amendment, section 3:
"No person shall... hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, ... who, having previously taken an oath, ... as an officer of the United States, ... to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same"
I understand there are legal moves on to disqualify him on exactly these grounds, but it'll take a while and will presumably end up with the less-than-impartial Supreme Court.
Is a shirt that requires cufflinks "smart casual"?
Ben Taylor
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Hey anyone who uses #etsy, they are changing their terms and conditions so you cannot participate in class action lawsuits against them. You can opt out using these steps, but you have to do it before 23rd August 2023.
It applies if you have a profile there, whether you sell or not!
Ben Taylor
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We generally think that over-fishing is about fish that humans eat. But around a third of all wild-caught fish are turned into fishmeal, because fishmeal is around 65% protein and therefore in demand for for feeding farmed fish and pigs. It's an almost invisible trade with huge consequences. But it's not an efficient way to make more protein. We need to re-think these links and ask whether it's really worth the damage to the ocean & communities.#ocean #fish #fishmeal
Ben Taylor
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Want to pwn a satellite? Turns out it's surprisingly easy https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/11/satellite_hacking_black_hat/
#bot
Original tweet : https://nitter.privacydev.net/TheRegister/status/1689986160763015168
Ben Taylor
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Sir Cloudesley Shovell. Marvellous wig. Fantastic name. Terrible sense of direction.
Banged unexpectedly and fatally into the Scilly Isles. Probably not killed for his ring, doubtfully warned of his true location by a sailor he hanged for impertinence, and certainly not the reason the navy took an interest in longitude because - guess what - sailors had long since realised navigation is easier when you know where the fuck you are.
Great name though. Cannot say that enough.
Ben Taylor
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@emilygorcenski I love how Twitter is so shocked by the notion of a fine that will actually hurt them if they don't comply with the court order. Corporations get so used to relatively tiny fines that can simply be ignored as the price of doing business. More escalating fines for non-compliance please!
Ben Taylor
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People are getting paid for #publishing #AI-written #books, in an #author's name, when in fact the author did not, and knew nothing about this happening.
Then, when the author tries to do something about it to stop this obvious #abuse, they are told no.
@freemo I'm not sure that it is acceptable and sweet to tell a stranger (at least a woman) that they have lovely eyes. Some will take it as a compliment, sure. Some (quite a lot, I suspect) will think you're being creepy. I suspect "You have lovely breasts" is actually the same, just that the proportion who will take it as a compliment vs. the proportion who will think you're being creepy is different.
@cstross Fusion power actually worries me. Because it comes with the implicit assumption that when our power is "clean" we can use as much of it as we like. And we can't: Earth can only shed waste heat via well-understood radiation into space. Which isn't enough if our power usage continues to increase at its current rate, even "clean" we cook ourselves within a couple of centuries.
@freemo @trinsec But a) it's not just wages, it's also safety and other conditions and b) it's easy to establish what your competitors' wages are. No collusion is required, it's just supply and demand.
Also c) we aren't talking about entities with equal power. An individual worker generally has essentially no power over their employer to force them to negotiate things in good faith, but must accept what they are given. Only in negotiating collectively does that change, and even then it's still imbalanced, because only strikes give a truly effective lever, and those are a nuclear option.
@freemo @trinsec But from the workers' point of view, whether the company is gouging its customers by price fixing is irrelevant to how it treats its staff. If the company is telling its workers to work in ways that are unsafe, or it is failing to reward them adequately for their work, why shouldn't they band together to stop it?
You are conflating collective action by people with collective action by companies. The latter is used to extract wealth from customers (people) and give it to legal entities that are not people (companies). The former is the opposite. Since we want wealth in society to sit with people, where it can do some good for them, not in a company's bank account (or their shareholders'), it is reasonable to permit one and forbid the other.
Collective action by workers created weekends, paid holidays, paid maternity care, safety standards for workers and a variety of other benefits. Without it there is nothing to counterbalance the power imbalance between a company and its workers. Companies have huge resources, workers do not, they have to have means for their own protection.
Software Engineer, Trade Unionist, Gamer, Geek, Dad. Lives in Devon
Joined Nov 2022
