Doubts about Starmer's Labour aside, even if I had complete trust in an incoming Labour government, I'd be worried; it's a lot easier to destroy than it is to build, and something I fear is if in 5 years, progress has been made, but the amount of readily visible progress is small enough that the Tories go "see, we told you that Labour couldn't be trusted with the economy" and slide back into government.
Probably not helping is seeing the news from the US also gearing up for an election — it doesn't feel like it's been very long at all since we were all relieved that Biden won out over Trump, but now here we are again.
Graduate workers in California to strike over treatment of Gaza protesters. Widespread disruption expected after workers vote to hold series of strikes, starting Monday with UC Santa Cruz. California’s huge university system is facing widespread disruption after workers voted to hold a series of strikes in protest of its...
My partner and I just had a talk about it. Basically, she celebrated her birthday today. I was on her party, and it was fun, but I left after around 2 hours to get home and relax a bit. After I arrived, a friend of mine texted me and asked me if I wanted to go to a lake and see the sunset. I agreed, we went to the lake and went...
If you didn't tell them what you planned to do, that may be the problem. If you had to ask permission, that isn't healthy in a relationship. Asking them how they feel about you going and making your decision to go, counting their opinion, is wise but understand that you should be able to go do things with your friends and you shouldn't have to ask permission.
I think this is a big point, especially if your partner has been cheated on in the past. There's a big difference between actively hiding a thing and not telling someone just because it didn't seem relevant or necessary, but manipulators blur that line and it can mean that people who have experienced being cheated on may be hyper vigilant in future relationships.
My late best friend and I came up with a bunch of these. "Morrowind in VR" meant "the absurd enthusiasm and dedication of nerds" or an endeavour requiring such. Often said with a shrug when responding to someone surprised at an impressive endeavour. E.g. "oh my god, someone made a 32bit computer inside of Terraria!"
Another one that my medievalist friend came up with when I made her watch this episode of Star Trek was "TV archivists with white gloves", because it really annoys her to see archivists on TV wearing white gloves when that hasn't been best practice for years — consensus is that they reduce dexterity and make cracking pages more likely, and that skin oils are way less of a risk (especially if you wash your hands before handling manuscripts, as you should). She speculates that white gloves have become a signifier of expertise, and that's why they persist. I like this particular phrase as an attempt at Tamarian because it captures aspects of how pop culture understanding takes so long to that it is often straight-up wrong.
I was talking to a friend recently about this. They studied medieval English and aren't especially techy, besides being a Millennial with techy friends; I said that merely knowing and using the term LLM correctly puts their AI knowledge above the vast majority of people (including a decent chunk of people trying to make a quick buck off of AI hype)
The internet has made a lot of people armchair experts happy to offer their perspective with a degree of certainty, without doing the work to identify gaps in their knowledge. Often the mark of genuine expertise is knowing the limitations of your knowledge....
It's strange but listening again to music from about 20 years ago, during a time when I was mostly sad and depressed, and where the musical choices reflected that, gives me a weird sense of nostalgia and longing for that time....
I'm chronically depressed and I have been for as long as I can remember. Sometimes I'm wistful for the sadnesses of yesteryear because it was relatively simpler. The world feels more complex now, and that's probably largely because my perspective continues to grow as I age. However, in addition to this, there's also a very introspective complexity — there was an odd liberation in being so low the only thing I wanted was to die. I'm very glad that I have things to live for nowadays, but also, part of me resents it. It makes things messier and it means that when I'm suicidal, it's not because I want to die, but because I want to live and feel I can't.
There's also all the duties that come with being older that mean that even when I'm not that kind of sad, I also can't really dwell on sadness and really stew like I sometimes want to. It can be cathartic to be a melodramatic arsehole, but often, I can't justify that because if I don't do the work needed to keep life ticking on, my "I want to live but I'm sad" might degrade to a "I want to die".
I don't use TikTok because I don't like the heavily algorithmic feed nor do I vibe with videos. However, the ongoing Palestinian genocide has caused me to appreciate TikTok in a way that I never expected because of how it has facilitated the spread of Palestinian stories. I remember seeing one clip of a "nurse" supposedly in Al-Shifa hospital get thoroughly debunked on Tiktok itself [(which was covered widely by mainstream media afterwards)] (https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/11/17/fact-or-fiction-israel-needs-fake-nurses-to-justify-killing-gaza-babies). I remember being struck by how the debunking included stuff like "her stethoscope and scrubs aren't even the right colour", and how this was easily verified because of the sheer mass of footage we had from within Al Shifa hospital. I've read that Israel's hasbara strategy can't keep up with TikTok and other modern social media, and Israel hates these platforms because of that. I'm still not a fan of TikTok personally, but I've certainly had to re-evaluate my stance on it
And it's definitely correct. Before this update, there were, I believe, three designated bathing sites, but even they were too unclean to swim in. Water companies are going to keep dumping sewage in rivers until they're stopped.
Thanks for making this comment. I've seen too much lately that demonises israelis in a way that feels very "cycle of violence" for lack of a better phrase.
A while ago, I read an account by an Israel anti-zionist where they reflected on their journey from being raised heavily Zionist, through the cognitive dissonance, to where they are now. Something that's stuck with me is how she described the dread she felt when she was beginning to recognise the injustices being done unto Palestinians. Her "Oh God, are we the baddies?" moment came with a fear that almost pushed her back into ignorance and Zionism — the fear that if the atrocities committed in the name of Zionism weren't necessary and justified, as she had been taught, then so many people were justified in hating her and people like her. For a brief flash, she almost doubled down on the zionism in a sort of "well, it's too late to right the wrongs of the past, and now there really is a group of people who hate us, so now we really are fighting to stay alive"
I think there's even more questions that spring forth from this also. Like, it's not just head hair Vs pubes, but also the soft downy hair on arms or women's faces. Moles that have hair coming out of them, they're weird too. And I'd love to know why my toe knuckles have been getting hairier with age.
The United Nations General Assembly has voted in favour of granting "new rights and privileges" to the state of Palestine, paving a pathway for full UN-member status....
Oh my gosh, that's hilarious. It's a baby shredder. What gets me is imagining a bunch of people in an office figuring out what scale to print out the UN charter so it would fit in the tiny shredder.
Oh man, I loved Dusa's interactions. It was nice that being close to Dusa wasn't framed as being "just" friends, because that would implicitly put friendship as less important than romantic and/or sexual relationships. Like, friendship isn't a consolation prize, nor is it "rolling to seduce" and failing, but so many games and other media depict it that way
I was learning python as a wee scientist in training, and my variables were beyond dreadful. I tried naming a list "list" and the interpreter told me I couldn't, so I opted for "listy". When I needed to name a new list but listy was taken, I'd often resort to "listyy".
Scientists who work with computers without having much (if any) targeted training on how to code can write the most horrendous programs.
When I hear about a new game, I usually read the first sentence or two on Wikipedia. I rule out games described as certain genres or types, like soulslike or online-only multiplayer games. Then, I check reviews on a site like Metacritic. If the critic or user reviews (doesn't need to be both) are good enough, I add it to a list...
Oh yeah, what an incredible game. I usually don't mind spoilers for media, but I was careful to avoid them for this one, because everyone swore down how important it was to go in blind, and now I've played it, I completely agree. Sometimes I wish I could erase it from my memory so I could play it for the first time again, but actually, I don't want that, because then I'd be a person who had never played Outer Wilds. It's probably the most sublime game I've ever played.
And now I'm partaking in a key cultural touchstone amongst Outer Wilds fans: being aggravatingly cryptic when talking about one of my favourite games, what fun.
Yeah, I'm sick of everything being connected to what came before. It feels pretty eugenicsy when everyone who is powerful and of note seems to be descended from someone who was powerful. Something something midichlorians.
I have a friend whose research requires a thorough understanding of quantum mechanics. She told me that she feels like she understands quantum mechanics, until she stops and thinks about it in a way that isn't limited to the equations and data that she's used to manipulating. Then, it blows her mind so much that she feels like she has to sort of "reboot" her brain and tell herself "it's okay, just don't think about it too much bro". I find this hilarious, and quite relatable (even though I know relatively little of quantum mechanics)
I'm just one data point, but certainly I have seen a shift in both the overall coverage, but also my own awareness. For perspective, I'm a grad student in the UK, and very left wing. You're right that people have been trying to raise awareness of, and condemning Israel's actions for decades, and that's why I feel shame that my voice wasn't part of that until recently.
My awareness was limited to what coverage I saw in mainstream news, which was mostly "there's conflict in the middle east, because that part of the world is general spicy. Hamas are shooting rockets, they're terrorists". I'm deeply cynical of mainstream news, so had I been actively watching this, I'd have probably questioned what was being presented and found the truth out sooner, but I ignored what was happening because it appeared too complex and I was scared of saying something "wrong." Basically, I felt out of my depth and instead of going and learning more to amend that, I ended up ambiently absorbing propaganda that made me ignore the plight of the Palestinian people.
I'm writing this because like I say, I do feel ashamed, but I think shame can be a good human emotion, in moderation. If anyone like me is reading this, I'd urge you to look into whatever local activism is taking place near you, and seeing if there's anything you can go to. I "abstained" for so long because understanding a conflict on the other side of the world from me felt difficult, and it felt like staying out of things was wise and correct, because what difference could I make, anyway? However, I've realised (and I'm realising more each day) that there wouldn't be such a strong response to the protesters if what they were doing didn't matter. To people like me, who have regrettably had their head in the sand for much too long, it certainly does feel like the tides are shifting.
It reminds me of an article I read recently about Ukrainian porn actress Josephine Jackson, who used her notoriety to raise money and awareness for disabled veterans
As a biochemist who is better at stats than the average biochemist (which is concerning, because I'm not that great), I greatly appreciate statisticians telling us off when we're fools.
This was a switch that got its wires pulled out. I learned how to desolder today in order to remove it from the little switch board and now there's three holes where this used to be. Does this component have a name, because I'm wondering whether I can just get a replacement one like this. There are lots of tools and supplies at...
After a day of protest and confusion on its Manhattan campus, Columbia University announced Monday evening that it had begun to suspend students who had not left a pro-Palestinian encampment by a 2 p.m. deadline....
Universities under neoliberalism remind me of the adage about online stuff: "if you're not paying for a service, you're the product, not the customer". Except of course, at university, we do pay — quite a lot, in some countries. Even being customers is bad in this context though, because the over-businessification of universities is a huge problem, in my view. <Shakes fist at Thatcher and Reagan>
The primary product of universities nowadays is metrics, which is why the ratio of bureaucrats to teaching staff has shifted so much over the last couple decades.
It's a long read, at 34 pages, but is easier to read than the title might suggest, possibly because Duchin is a mathematician, which I speculate contributes to her pretty straightforward prose.
Big agree. I also want the option of having evil, edgy queers who aren't from the mirror universe, but that would only make sense against a backdrop of more representation in general
I miss my notification LED. My first android phone was a Nexus 6, and I loved that big old thing. I rooted it and made it link up to my medication tracker so it would be a different colour when I had taken medication Vs when I was due (alarms work for medication you take on a schedule, but less so for PRN meds like painkillers)
I'd like for there to be phones with keyboards available for the people who want them though, even if I personally share your opinion. I feel like the overall array of smartphones are all very bland and samey, and I wish that the people with weird, idiosyncratic preferences could live their best life.
I'm annoyed that smartphones are so much more powerful nowadays but they don't especially feel like it. It's like the average bloat level of websites and software increased alongside processor speed, so actual improvements are barely noticeable.
I think it's more about what we mean by "failure". That probably sounds silly so I'll lean into the coffee shop example. Imagine if a coffee shop was successful, but then something beyond the control of the owner happened to make it no longer profitable. In this world, the business may have failed, but it may not be accurate to say the business owner has failed. Or maybe the business becoming less profitable is directly because of the owner, who may be taking less time being active in managing things, perhaps because of other things in their life taking their attention. Again, there's a sense in which they're a failure here, but in practice, it may just be that their life circumstances and priorities have changed. It might be failure with respect to the coffee shop, but I don't think that's failure with respect to their life. Even if the reason the coffee shop shut was because they didn't anticipate how stressful it would be and they regret ever attempting this endeavour, I think that considering this a failure risks not acknowledging the growth and learning involved.
I liked the marriage example because I used to be engaged to someone who I spent the first chunk of my adult life with. We broke up because we had grown into people who were no longer compatible, and it was a moderately messy breakup because we didn't want to acknowledge that fact. I think that in this, and many other relationships I've seen, people's aversion to "failure" causes them to stick it out for far too long in bad relationships, which ironically leads to messier breakups and a situation which is much more clearly a failure.
I think the big problem that OP attempts to highlight is an overly binary view of success. Like with the coffee shop thing, I posed personal and commercial as two different axes of success, and I think there could be more. It encourages us to attempt to gauge the "objective" value of things that are incompatible with that kind of quantification — the bit of your comment about longer lasting friendships is something I actively disagree with you on. Some of my most cherished friendships are ones that belong to the past and it wasn't because of lack of importance why they stopped because active: most of the time, it was just that we had become different people, in different circumstances, such that our lives were no longer compatible. There is still great love and care that exists between us, but as active friends, things have changed. In a way, these friendships feel like they were actively successful, because of how instrumental they were in helping me grow to the person I am now. I don't think failure is a useful lens to view outgrowing something
Edit: I worry I have come across as overly argumentative, so I want to clarify pre-emptively that whilst there are aspects of your comment that I disagree with, I appreciate the time you spent writing it because the ways in which I disagreed was thought provoking. The primary reason I wrote my response was more an exercise in articulating myself than an attempt to sway you — this subject area is subjective and nuanced enough that agreeing to disagree is more than fine.
I mean, I'm not religious but I'm excited to die ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
(This is a half serious joke. I have a long history of suicidal feelings and whilst I generally do want to live and am not in any acute risk, I wont lie — many days are a struggle. )
Edit: escaped a backslash so my shrug could have both arms.
I think people like your father make bank because even though new programmers could learn COBOL, that wouldn't be enough for them to be able to fulfill the same niche your father and other established COBOL programmers occupy; any programming language has a disparity between "the proper way to do things", and the kind of kludges you see in the field, but few have the kind of baggage that COBOL does, in terms of how long it's been around and having things built on top of it.
I used to do tutoring when I was in school and this pun was actually great for helping students remember. They all hated it, and that's why they remembered it.
I guess that's what the people who are suing are alleging. Like if we imagine they did severely fuck up, and it led to a defendant losing the case, then suing is probably the only way you'd be able to get formal acknowledgement of that fuck up.
I think it sucks from that angle too, because as someone who has had to litigate against an organisation, it really sucks to have to do, especially when you know you're in the right.
Rishi Sunak announces 4 July general election ( www.bbc.co.uk )
Good estate ( jlai.lu )
Egypt pyramids: Scientists may have solved mystery behind construction ( www.bbc.com )
Believe it or not, no aliens were likely involved! Just some very smart humans and a massive amount of labor.
“Outrageously” priced weight-loss drugs could bankrupt US health care ( arstechnica.com )
Graduate workers in California to strike over treatment of Gaza protesters ( www.theguardian.com )
Graduate workers in California to strike over treatment of Gaza protesters. Widespread disruption expected after workers vote to hold series of strikes, starting Monday with UC Santa Cruz. California’s huge university system is facing widespread disruption after workers voted to hold a series of strikes in protest of its...
What are things considered romantic, to be avoided in a relationship?
My partner and I just had a talk about it. Basically, she celebrated her birthday today. I was on her party, and it was fun, but I left after around 2 hours to get home and relax a bit. After I arrived, a friend of mine texted me and asked me if I wanted to go to a lake and see the sunset. I agreed, we went to the lake and went...
Oh, bother ( slrpnk.net )
Not my OC, just sharing
EA SPORTS WRC will be adding EA anticheat, game will not playable any more. On ProtonDB game is rated Platinum ( lemmy.ml )
https://www.ea.com/en-gb/games/ea-sports-wrc/wrc/news/ea-anticheat
We have to stop ignoring AI’s hallucination problem ( www.theverge.com )
Qualified experts of Lemmy, do people believe you when you answer questions in your field?
The internet has made a lot of people armchair experts happy to offer their perspective with a degree of certainty, without doing the work to identify gaps in their knowledge. Often the mark of genuine expertise is knowing the limitations of your knowledge....
Do you ever feel nostalgia for a type of sadness?
It's strange but listening again to music from about 20 years ago, during a time when I was mostly sad and depressed, and where the musical choices reflected that, gives me a weird sense of nostalgia and longing for that time....
What's been an interesting safe for life linkhole you've found on the web recently?
There's probably a different word for it, but linkhole like rabbithole....
New swimming sites for England but are they clean? ( www.bbc.co.uk )
England will get dozens of new monitored bathing sites, the government said on Monday, in the largest ever expansion of wild swimming areas....
Thousands protest in Israel amid anger at Netanyahu over hostages held in Gaza ( www.theguardian.com )
Why is head hair different from other hairy parts?
Why is my hair smooth and soft compared to the other hairs?
Anon seeks enlightenment ( sh.itjust.works )
General Assembly endorses pathway for full Palestinian statehood at UN ( www.middleeasteye.net )
The United Nations General Assembly has voted in favour of granting "new rights and privileges" to the state of Palestine, paving a pathway for full UN-member status....
Parrot and the word "No" ( lemmy.world )
Gambling can be Deception vs Insight, or Sleight of Hand vs Perception... or raw INT, or Strength (if it's arm wrestling) or Intimidate or- ( ttrpg.network )
This comic follows on from the Previous comic which might help provide context....
The easiest problem ( discuss.tchncs.de )
https://mastodon.social/@lovegame/112402050452885908
I prefer to buy video games without knowing anything about them
When I hear about a new game, I usually read the first sentence or two on Wikipedia. I rule out games described as certain genres or types, like soulslike or online-only multiplayer games. Then, I check reviews on a site like Metacritic. If the critic or user reviews (doesn't need to be both) are good enough, I add it to a list...
Star Wars should learn from Andor and stop making Disney Plus shows that are so obsessed with the Jedi ( www.yahoo.com )
Star Wars Disney Plus shows should move away from Jedi-centric stories and explore other aspects of the Star Wars universe...
North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs ( www.bbc.com )
Mine does the exact same thing ( lemmy.world )
Wave Particle Duality ( lazysoci.al )
#BDS 🇵🇸 ( lemmy.cafe )
Soviet-era attitudes to disability hinder Ukrainian fighters’ recovery ( www.politico.eu )
Injured soldiers face social stigma … and their numbers have soared....
Our bffs ( mander.xyz )
What's this thing called? ( slrpnk.net )
This was a switch that got its wires pulled out. I learned how to desolder today in order to remove it from the little switch board and now there's three holes where this used to be. Does this component have a name, because I'm wondering whether I can just get a replacement one like this. There are lots of tools and supplies at...
Columbia Begins to Suspend Student Protesters ( www.nytimes.com )
After a day of protest and confusion on its Manhattan campus, Columbia University announced Monday evening that it had begun to suspend students who had not left a pro-Palestinian encampment by a 2 p.m. deadline....
No Web Without Women ( nowebwithoutwomen.com )
More comments : https://lobste.rs/s/upufua/no_web_without_women
The Ten Forward Hot Take Thread
Lets say contentious things about Star Trek! I'll start!...
Swedish rhubarb ( aggregatet.org )
It seems that I'm into sweet stuff lately...
Come on, science! ( lemmy.world )
Mola the Fucktress ( mander.xyz )
I like this text. In which Lemmy community can I best share it ? Thanks. ( lemmy.ml )
Found here, where the image also has the text as an ALT image description. https://chaos.social/@saxnot/112349120606446433
Shouldn't most religious people in theory be excited to die because then they get to experience the afterlife?
esp if you're one of the devout ones who think they've been really good
Japanese city loses residents’ personal data, which was on paper being transported on a windy day ( soranews24.com )
Archive/mirror: https://archive.ph/gSEjU...
What an impressive collection ( lemmy.world )
what u actually signed up for ( lemmy.ml )
Beansitive ( mander.xyz )
Academic job talks ( mander.xyz )