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Bruncvik

@ Bruncvik @lemmy.world

Posts
1
Comments
215
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • Nobel Peace Prize 2025 live updates: Venezuelan politician Maria Corina Machado wins

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  • I sincerely hope that this is not to troll Trump, but that she genuinely deserves the prize. The world isn't revolving around Trump. We should have our own lives, joys and worries, without caring what Trump would think of them.

  • A cartoonist's review of AI art - The Oatmeal

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  • I'm not a known artist. I like to paint and draw, but except a few paintings I did as presents, everything ends in my drawer. So, A.I. doesn't threaten my livelihood. And until they make 3D printers that can emulate the brush strokes or oil pastels on canvas, nobody can accuse me of painting with A.I. Still, I often use A.I. to help me with my painting.

    Whenever possible, I use my photographs as a model for a painting. However, I often want to paint something I don't have a picture of. In those cases, I generate one using A.I. For example, right now I'm doing a series of Halloween paintings. A prompt of the likes of "Halloween pumpkin with flaming eyes, sitting of the ground, with twisted plants in Tim Burton style, and a red full moon illuminating the scene from top right" gives me the midel for my painting in minutes, rather than spending hours in Inkscape or Gimp.

  • Plight of Roma in EU 'one of the greatest human rights scandals on the continent'

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  • I grew up in a country with a large Roma minority. Before WW2 they were travellers. They roamed the country in search of odd jobs. My grandma told me that they always paid them to cut their grass into hay bales, or to fix their pots and crockery.

    Then communism came, and they were forced to settle dowwn and hold jobs. The vast majority never adjusted, and they treated their housing as temporary camp sites, devastating everything and then demanding new housing. This, naturally, created discontent that was aimed against the Roma, instead the authorities who forced them to change their way of life.

    I now live in Ireland, which sees the same kind of "racism", even though they are white: the Travellers. As the name suggests, they also come from the roaming background. They are also forced to settle, and they are treating their halting sites as temporary camp sites. I have one nearby. I pay some people from there to clean my driveway or gutters. They do a better and cheaper job than professional contractors. I know that it's impossible to live a nomadic life in a civilised society, but sometimes I think how nice it would have been to let them roam again, and not care about them anymore.

  • Ireland poised to blunt sanctions on Israel under corporate pressure, say sources

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  • It's more about not buying services from companies that profit from providing services in the occupied territories, such as Airbnb and Booking.com. The Irish government is bending over backwards for the hospitality sector, so this is in line with their policies.

  • More for folks from walkable environments, my question is: would you walk an hour and 15 minutes to go to say, the library?

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  • Today, my longest walk was 6.8 km. Took about 2 hours, but I had frequent stops as I was collecting kids from their schools and taking them to their respective sports clubs. When I have to go to the office, I run commute, 8 km each way. My watch says that my average step count for the past 7 days is 20,109 per day. I may be an extreme case, but walking 3.7 km to the library would be so routine I wouldn't even think of taking a bus.

  • Netanyahu accepts Trump proposal to end war in Gaza

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  • Can anyone actually think of a case where governments acted on what they promised Trump? To me it looks like everyone's humoring him with "sure, whatever you say," and then going on with their daily business. I would trust promises made to Trump about as much as I'd trust Trump himself.

  • What would you name this New vehicle outta science fiction movies

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  • What was your number one favorite website 'back in the day', that is now defunct?

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  • Back in 1995, I was still using Gopher, when someone showed me WWW. I soon found the chatroom at Mrshowbiz.com, and was hooked to this new Internet technology.

    But my favourite was Geocities. Had several sites there. They taught me HTML coding, and that there was such a thing as too many "Under construction" animated gifs.

  • How do Europeans use their digital ID cards if they are not using stock android or iOS?

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  • Samsung Galaxy S2. I've been always using it only for calling, texting, checking the weather in the morning, and automatic sync with my watch after a run (and perhaps with some light Internet browsing), so combined with a phone case, the phone has seen very little outside world, which limited any potential damage. I did have to replace the battery twice, though.

    Now that my Canon Powershot died, though, I'm still considering whether to upgrade to a phone with good optics or get a new camera. They are roughly the same price.

  • How do Europeans use their digital ID cards if they are not using stock android or iOS?

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  • My phone is 14 years old, so no modern apps (especially the ones needing extra security) work there. In Ireland, we don't have a digital ID card, but there have been some equivalents:

    • During Covid, we had a digital vaccination pass. However, it was possible to request a paper version, which was supposed to be accepted everywhere (it wasn't).
    • Due to 2FA, many companies require a phone authenticator. Those companies that provide legally mandated products or services are required to provide an alternative to people without smartphones. For example, when I needed to renew my car insurance and couldn't do it online, the company had a phone number for over the phone renewal.
    • There's currently a fight whether one of our airlines can mandate app-only boarding passes, effectively excluding people without modern phones. Since they don't provide essential service that's mandated by law, they argue they should be able to do so.

  • OK what is your Roman name?

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  • Pringlius. Actually, the Aldi knockoff brand that tastes so much better.

  • USUAL in your country but NOT anywhere else.

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  • In Dublin, everyone would enter and leave via the front door. Only Covid changed that, and drivers started opening the second doors in the middle of the bus. Still, people are used to exit through the front, or shout their thank-yous from the other door.

  • USUAL in your country but NOT anywhere else.

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  • Got it in one :)

  • USUAL in your country but NOT anywhere else.

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  • Thanking the bus drivers when exiting the bus.

  • Jimmy Kimmel's show to return to air after suspension over Charlie Kirk comments, says Disney

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  • Kimmel would have been okay, but by some estimates there are as many as 200 staff members out of their job, and he'd never be able to take all of them with him. As cathartic it would have been to see him levave Disney, staying was the best option for his team.

  • Dublin is building more housing but parking continues to be a point of conflict in the city

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  • When I moved in my new build in my estate, the rules were 1.5 parking spaces per dwelling. That was 10 years ago. Then they built apartment houses, but even though the planning permission specified 1.5 spaces per dwelling, new DCC rules allowed the builders to lower it to 0.5 parking spaces per dwelling. Now, we have cars clogging the footpaths, and house owners started installing parking bollards in their spaces as others tend to park there.

    I personally don't care much for driving. I run commute to work, and it takes me less time than driving or taking the bus. But many people are not so fortunate, and taking away their ability to use a car, while ignoring cycle infrastructure and more efficient public transport will just create frustration and resentment.

  • Say what you will about Kirk, but he made some great points in his debating

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  • Ireland is a special case here. Not that the population wouldn't be willing to vote in some extremists, but they may actually be unable. Ireland's voting system, the single transferable vote, almost guarantees a regression to centrist parties. It would take a change in our Constitution to move allow extremist parties to gain any political power, and given our history and existing political culture, the easiest way to achieve that would indeed be a direct military intervention.

  • Say what you will about Kirk, but he made some great points in his debating

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  • But of course it's happening here, but at least where I'm sitting, there is an overwhelming rejection of this "bullshittery". Here in Ireland we have small fringe nationalistic parties, which so far only faced outright ridicule, even though recently I heard about outright hostility (a group of such nutcases was beaten up and stripped to their underwear). We are facing political and financial pressures from the US, and so far we dispatched with them fairly easily. And even though our government's incompetence invites the more radical groups, I'm fully convinced that it won't happen here, unless we're directly invaded.

  • Say what you will about Kirk, but he made some great points in his debating

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  • The US used to export its culture, and people were eating it up. But I actually see an uptick in appreciation of local culture in Europe. As you said, there is lots of external financing to push American culture across the world, but I think that this is just a reaction to people not consuming as much of it as before. I see that here in Ireland as well. So far, we've rejected most of it (especially the American religious nutcases who tried to influence our abortion referendum), but it's a constant struggle.