John BS @johnabs@social.cleverlibre.org

@mhamzahkhan I think you raise a LOT of very valid points; however, I want to point out one inconsistency which I think lines up with my proposal a bit better: your mention of the support for BLM protests being shared plastered all over social media. If this were truly a primarily racial issue, I don't think the double standard would exist across racial lines, right? Why would racial apathy toward this middle eastern countries not apply to other races (e.g. blacks)?

And don't get me wrong, I'm sure for many people there is at least somewhat of a racial component, but I think just as many people are being inconsistent when trying to ascribe motivation behind the apparent disparity.

Thoughts?

@mhamzahkhan 100% agree that we need to be more consistent with applying morals to all situations, not just the ones we find convenient. I've been saying it for years, yet people rarely listen.

However, I'm unsure exactly how much of this is attributable to racism, and how much is attributable to media coverage and "playing the political game" well.

Ukraine, specifically Zelenskyy, has done an excellent job using social media to spread the word, and more importantly the western media has been reporting on it. I think this is because Ukrainians have been recording everything and posting it, which fits in with their 24hr news cycle.

In Yemen/Afghanistan/etc, you don't see much media other than the professionally produced work of journalists who have to pay for expensive equipment, plane tickets, etc, which limits the amount of videos and how much the western media is willing to report on it. So if we can get more live recordings of the tragedies as they occur (as we've seen happen in Ukraine), it may alleviate this issue.

Thoughts?

@dev_nadine instead of dollar signs, have you tried \[ and \] ?

Can anyone explain to me why I cannot bike through a drive through to get my food? No wonder this country is so morbidly obese: we actively penalize people for trying to accomplish basic tasks in a way that doesn't guzzle gas like a frat party guzzles kegs. This is ridiculous.

@wonderfall To be fair, my preferred standard is just the Unix epoch counter, so if we define correctness by universality and widespread adoption, I win by default

@wonderfall
YDM, MYD, and DYM are all missing from your survey.

Personally, I'm a "how many seconds from an arbitrary point in the 20th century, not counting leap seconds" kind of guy myself: it is currently 1649352148, figure it out yourselves.

"I am silent, save the soft clack of my keyboard. I ponder deeply over the current quandary; progress has been slow of late, and late it is indeed.

Drip, rumble: the sounds of rain outside my window softly caress the ragged corners of my mind with the temptation of a dark, warm shower to cut off the assault on my senses. I know even in my damp solitude I cannot escape my yoke, for my mind continues to pull it.

Piano notes flit gently like moths drawn to my ears. They hit their targets with unexpected force, each chord jolting my fraying psyche into focus anew, if only for a brief moment. I continue working as I have done all day: beyond my limit.

Thoughts of sleep haunt me, the desire for true repose I don't believe will come; only a poor facsimile which provides barely enough to complete another day.

'Why?'

The question echoes in my mind. After hours of staring at a blinking cursor, and countless error messages, I fail to steel myself into action. I am finally still.

After what seems like both an instant and eternity, I decide rest may prove more fruitful, and head to sleep. Before my drift into that all too temporary bliss, I pray I will finally awaken with renewed vitality."

--My life right now 😩 😭

@mhamzahkhan If you don't mind me asking, what hardware do you recommend for integrations??

I've been wanting to get a nice doorbell camera, and some other nice cameras and minor automations set up, but most of the smart devices aren't FOSS, and like to phone home which I'm not comfortable with (like the Blink cameras for example, not a fan).

I've found some products with mixed reviews, but I think it'd be best to ask someone with experience directly, if you don't mind that is :)

I just realized, this May will mark the 10 year anniversary of me starting my career as a researcher, and will be 10 years since my trip to Taiwan to work on my first research project.

I've learned a lot since then, but I still love what I do.

@mhamzahkhan Can you use the hass.io image on a normal PC? I recently did some system re-configuring, and was worried about exactly this sort of thing happening and thought it may be wise to migrate to a complete "server" (old desktop lol). Alternatively, can you schedule backup images so you can quickly reflash to a new card without losing data?

@barefootstache Glad I was able to provide a perspective you hadn't considered yet! :)

Also, for modifying Minds (or at least the interface you view in your browser), their terms ultimately don't have any sway over the software you choose to run on your computer, including the HTML/CSS/JS/etc. they are serving you over the web; this is why ad-blockers aren't illegal. If the script is hiding/showing certain elements on the page and not attempting to access or modify the back-end or send "3rd party" requests via an unofficial API, what you're doing is completely legitimate.

@barefootstache Honestly, this is just hair splitting and a hefty dose of recency bias. Salicyclic acid has been used since ancient Sumer, even though the effects were unpredictable due to variable dosing and personal acid sensitivity. Surprise surprise, you'll get the same variable effects if you give a person a random amount of ANY pharmacological compound; that doesn't mean the compound isn't effective.

Additionally, the personal sensitivity to the original compound was not due to the (likely more biologically active) salicyclic moiety, but the acidic one. Hence, by reducing the acidity of the medicine, and replacing the acid with an acetyl moiety instead, it improved the medicinal properties of an ALREADY medicinal compound.

This replacement can occur within a single esterification step from the salicylic acid which can be directly extracted from plants. Thus, considering the historical use of salicylic acid, and this being only a minor sidechain modification of a millennia old drug, it's not unreasonable to claim it's derived from willow extract, because it literally *can* be derived from it.

Of course we can control dosing better with modern isolation, titration, and gravimetry techniques, and of course modern chemistry provides a load indispensably useful solutions to age old problems. However, whether or not the compound is derived from industrial waste or willow bark, the inspiration to investigate this avenue came from early medicinal wisdom, which I think is an incredible legacy for our ancient ancestors to leave us.

Y'all ever heard of Zulip? I just saw it on hackernews and I think I'm going to recommend it to my advisor that we use for our research group, especially since it's free for researchers! Sometimes it pays to get paid way less than what you could generate in the free market 😂

https://zulip.com/case-studies/lean/

@barefootstache Both but with varying degrees of accountability.

Clearly the developer was willing to risk his reputation to try to effect change. He is within his right to do so, as it is ultimately up to the users of his "product" to verify that any changes made are non-malicious and will not impact their system, without just blindly pulling them. Especially since the MIT license includes the following tidbit:

"THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE."

With that said; I would say this may not be the best idea. If you want to do some morally grey cracking, at least try to anonymize it and don't directly link it to a well-respected open source project. It may damage FLOSS's reputation in the long run.

As someone with a moderate fear of heights, Elden Ring is seriously making me anxious XD

@lurker @trinsec Fleece is also a synonym for wool; hence the (likely intentional) confusion.

@jmw150 What fraudulent research??

@Pat @zpartacoos @namark

Thanks for your advice everyone! My wife and I finally got a bit of a break to regroup and think out a new strategy we'll be trying once our puppy gets back from our in-laws this weekend. She's having a blast with their 5 kids, and we think something that really excites her and tires her out is meeting new people, which we'll try to incorporate into her routine!

She already learned fetch which helps with her activity needs, and after spending some time with their boys she was just tuckered out. Worst case scenario, she seems like a great fit for their family, since they have so many hands on deck to keep her occupied, but we're going to do our best to provide an awesome home for this dog and play it by ear with my in-laws too!

So I won a teaching award from my university, and I'm really happy about it. I always tried really hard in my previous program to teach well, but rarely got recognition aside from my students. I'm so glad my efforts were noticed and even awarded this time. It's a huge boost, and I'm super grateful 😁