otter

5

Some more context

The history of the Finnish air force’s use of the swastika, which since the 20th century has largely been associated with Nazi tyranny and hate groups, is more complex than at first appearance. It is an ancient symbol and Finland’s air force began using it many years before the birth of Nazi Germany.
Change has been underway for years. A swastika logo was quietly pulled off the Air Force Command’s unit emblem a few years ago. But swastikas have remained on some Finnish air force flags, raising eyebrows among NATO allies, tourists and other foreigners who spot them at military events.
“We could have continued with this flag, but sometimes awkward situations can arise with foreign visitors. It may be wise to live with the times, Col. Tomi Böhm, the new head of Karelia Air Wing air defense force, was quoted as saying in a report Thursday by the public broadcaster YLE.

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Otter @lemmy.ca 4mo ago

Also brick walls don't really go through iterative changes, which is an important issue with tech debt.

If the wall works, then it works

A software project will work now, but may not hold up when you need to change something

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Otter @lemmy.ca 4mo ago

Same creator as Faster than Light, which is also on sale

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Otter @lemmy.ca 4mo ago

I love it 😄

Did you extract those clips for this post, and do you have a recommended method for doing that? I sometimes find clips on getyarn, but the site barely loads half the time

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Otter @lemmy.ca 4mo ago

I blame all the similar sounding terms and organizations in the fediverse space. It's actually pretty cool

What SWF is:

In a gesture that’s been a long time coming, Evan Prodromou, co-author of the ActivityPub protocol, has launched The Social Web Foundation. The organization aims to tackle the various headaches and challenges the ActivityPub ecosystem has faced over the last decade of its development. Their mission? A bigger, better Fediverse.

From this article:

the SWF has been working on several interesting projects outside of these stated scopes, and it’s something Evan Prodromou has been bullish about: leveraging the ActivityPub Client-to-Server API. Historically, this piece of the ActivityPub protocol is rarely ever implemented, due to complexity as well as the fact that Mastodon’s own client API has seen widespread adoption.

To really understand the C2S API, we have to go back in time to when the protocol was being developed. The basic concept was that any ActivityPub implementation would effectively act as a generic server, with clients providing unique experiences. Compared to Mastodon’s dedicated API, C2S isn’t explicitly limited to microblogging or statuses. Instead, clients dispatch activities to and from an Actor’s inbox and outbox.

Instead of every new social experience in the Fediverse acting as a bespoke server, the C2S API instead lets a wide range of clients interact with an instance. Instances no longer become specific delegates of what activities can or cannot be used. C2S opens the floodgates for any kind of application to hook in to a Fediverse account. Instead of an instance doing all the hard work, clients would handle much of the advanced logic themselves.

Setting aside unique applications for a moment, one of the key killer-features that ActivityPub C2S could offer the Fediverse is a coherent and streamlined login system for any Fediverse account.

It then has some other examples of how this protocol is being used

Otter @lemmy.ca 4mo ago

I saw some at the store, but I need to go back and confirm that they are still there

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Otter @lemmy.ca 4mo ago

Oh, I thought this was going to be the genetic modification type. Rather it's injecting the plant with some (hopefully harmless) glow stick liquid?

The team developed a light-emitting phosphor compound that enabled succulents with fleshy leaves to charge in sunlight or indoor LED light in just a couple of minutes, and then emit a soft uniform glow that lasts up to two hours.
The afterglow phosphor compound – which is similar to those found in glow-in-the-dark toys – is inexpensive, biocompatible, and negates the need for more complex methods of infusing bioluminescence in plants, like genetic modification. It simply gets injected into the leaves.

Otter @lemmy.ca 4mo ago

They do make it possible to adjust the ratings on your own account for the ones you disagree on. It doesn't affect the newsletters, but I find those to be too american-specific anyway

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Otter @lemmy.ca 4mo ago

specifically trained chatgpt not

Often this just means appending "do not say X" to the start of every message, which then breaks down when the user says something unexpected right afterwards

I think moving forward

companies selling generative AU need to be more honest about the capabilities of the tool
people need to understand that it's a very good text prediction engine being used for other tasks

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Otter @lemmy.ca 4mo ago

Well that's disappointing, I loved how they were all facing the camera

Otter @lemmy.ca 4mo ago

Scratch and sniff style bandaids could be cool, just maybe without the scratching part in case that affects the healing process

Otter @lemmy.ca 4mo ago

Your post isn't showing up right. I think you meant to put the link in the post body: https://www.hphhfoundation.org/blog/origin-of-cats

Otter @lemmy.ca 4mo ago

Being able to bend backwards is genetic, and at the extremes it's commonly called this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchhiker%27s_thumb

I haven't heard of your case where you can't bend it forward. Does it hurt or cause any discomfort if you try to move it forward (without help and also with some gentle pressure)?

Otter @lemmy.ca 4mo ago

~~I imagine it might be free for citizens and similar groups, and at some cost for international visitors.~~ You're best bet is to contact the health authority of the province you'd be looking to get it in

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/managing-your-health/immunizations/covid-19-immunization

I'm not a resident of B.C.
Non-B.C. residents can contact their local Health Authority Public Health Unit.

edit:

Whether or not it's free for residents might also depend on the province, for example:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/free-covid-vaccines-bc-albertans-1.7615154

Albertans who don't qualify for free COVID-19 vaccinations in their home province can get one in British Columbia.

Which makes sense, it helps us here in BC if others are vaccinated since it limits the spread of the disease overall.

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Otter @lemmy.ca 4mo ago

We do test some things on humans for human diseases, and we have strict guidelines on proving safety / efficacy before human tests are approved + how those human tests are conducted. It might be helpful for everyone (humans / animals) to adopt some of those guidelines to animal studies.

Since yes, as you said, studying why cats suffer health issues can improve the lives of lots of animals. The key is doing the studies compassionately

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Otter @lemmy.ca 4mo ago

https://xkcd.com/2030/

I appreciate that when you find a relevant xkcd, the explainxkcd page also has relevant information to the discussion:

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2030%3A_Voting_Software

When the reporter follows the interview up with a mention of blockchain technology, Megan and Cueball reflexively tell the reporter to avoid any voting system using the technology at all costs. Blockchain is a relatively new technology that is intended to solve some computer security issues by making it difficult to doctor old data. However, in the process of solving the old computer security issues, it has introduced new computer security issues that have not yet been ironed out; for instance, it doesn't solve input fraud issues, only data-doctoring fraud, so if a program caused the voting machine to record a vote for candidate B whenever a vote for candidate A was cast (such a program could be uploaded to the voting machines through USB, or through the internet which the voting machine must be connected to for blockchain), blockchain would not prevent it. Blockchain has also had a large number of high-profile scams, thefts, and implementations with critical security holes. Thus, Megan and Cueball may not trust this blockchain solution because of this history.

Blockchain is really great at preventing post-facto data changes. With blockchain you can somewhat guarantee that no one comes in after the election and changes the votes on the machines. (Unless they're handling the blockchain in a stupid fashion, for example without the distribution.) But you cannot prevent tampering with the machines themselves, such as making them record votes that didn't happen, or tampering the data before it's written to the blockchain.
Also, the security issues that Blockchain solves could also be solved via write-once memory, which would be more secure and more difficult to doctor.
Most computer security specialists are more worried about programs that randomly and/or deliberately misreport a vote, than people changing the votes after they're already recorded, so blockchain would solve an issue that most computer security specialists are less worried about, while causing new issues (the perpetual internet connection among them).