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Link 1: Important announcement: Retrospring is shutting down on 1st March 2025
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Important announcement: Retrospring is shutting down on 1st March 2025https://blog.retrospring.net/retrospring-is-shutting-down-on-1st-march-2025
Retrospring is shutting down on 1st March 2025
After about ten years of providing a social Q/A experience to you, it is with a heavy heart that we announce the closure of https://retro...Retrospring
Content warning: psa about unclear content warnings drug, fat fetish, & sex mentioned as examples
This is your semi-regular reminder that if you're an Admin but not the Owner for a TG chat, make sure you know who the Owner is and that you feel you can trust them.
Because when push comes to shove, being an Admin will mean nothing if the Owner decides they want to exercise nuclear options.
The wave of racist attacks taking place around the UK is, in part, the consequence of right-wing billionaires acquiring control of social media. After Elon Musk bought Twitter, he reinstated the accounts of Tommy Robinson and many other fascists. One of Tommy Robinson's key henchmen posted the video that contributed to setting off this wave of attacks. Musk has continued to stoke the fires.
While liberals may respond by calling for more crackdowns on "extremism" on social media, such crackdowns would inevitably target the anti-fascists who represent the last line of defense against despotism. Instead, let's start by asking what billionaires like Elon Musk stand to gain from scapegoating immigrants and promoting civil war, then consider what it will take to stop them.
https://crimethinc.com/twittercanary
Is there life after social media? Will reactionary billionaires determine all we can imagine and do, or will we establish other forms of connection?CrimethInc.
In the past, “just asking questions” was limited by the reach of one’s voice. Now, anyone with a Twitter account can broadcast their “inquiries” to millions. This has given rise to a new breed of pseudo-intellectual, the “Just Asking Questions” influencer.
Social media has given rise to armies of self-proclaimed skeptics and truth-seekers who wouldn’t know the truth if it slapped them in the fucking face. We’ve all encountered these assholes. They…Joan Westenberg (@westenberg)
THIS is the moment I've been waiting for!
I've always wanted a "solar skin" on my car. Or even on my backpack, with a USB port inside for charging my devices.
Four decades ago the only available candidate was amorphous semiconductors that you can put on a flexible substrate: look up Sharp and Ovonics for those. The (big) problems:
1. the efficiency sucked;
2. the semiconductors degraded under solar UV exposure.
It was frustrating.
But no more!
https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/oxford-scientists-ultra-thin-solar-cell-27-energy-efficiency/
Scientists at the University of Oxford have revealed an ultra-thin solar cell that can deliver over 27% energy efficiency.George Heynes (Solar Media Limited)
A decade ago, I did an optimistic back-of-the-envelope estimate that said a Nissan Leaf with PV on its horizontal area could get 20 miles from a one-sunny-day charge.
But you can hardly mount three solar panels on top of your Leaf, can you.
A solar skin changes everything.
And with the efficiency of the perovskite material, you can cover most commutes, charging your car while you're at work. No charging station required.
http://www.cellomomcars.com/2012/01/ev-unplugged-truly-zero-emission.html
There has been a lot of noise lately about plug-in electric vehicles. Of course, those are not really zero-emission cars : in the US, th...www.cellomomcars.com
Part of why perovskites are great for PV is that it is well matched with the spectrum of the solar light on the surface of our planet . Our eyes are likewise matched, tuned to the peak of the spectrum, at "visible" wavelengths!
Because silicon and other semiconductor solar cells kick in in the infrared, you can build efficiency by stacking cells made with a variety of spectral response. Of course, people have done / are doing just that.
https://qdsolarinc.com/technology/
Our Technology Traditional solar technologies, such as the common silicon solar cell, only capture a fraction of the available solar radiation, because of their intrinsic material properties.qdsolarinc.com
"So when someone keeps “just asking questions” about whether vaccines are safe, or if climate change is real, or if a particular ethnic group should be put in a fucking camp, they’re not engaged in a genuine search for truth. They’re exploiting our cognitive biases to make their ideas seem more plausible through sheer repetition."
"Continuing to entertain long-debunked ideas in the name of “just asking questions” isn’t open-mindedness — it’s a waste of time and mental energy."
In the past, “just asking questions” was limited by the reach of one’s voice. Now, anyone with a Twitter account can broadcast their “inquiries” to millions. This has given rise to a new breed of pseudo-intellectual, the “Just Asking Questions” influencer.Nobody Who Says They’re “Just Asking Questions” Actually Wants an Answer
Social media has given rise to armies of self-proclaimed skeptics and truth-seekers who wouldn’t know the truth if it slapped them in the fucking face. We’ve all encountered these assholes. They…Joan Westenberg (@westenberg)
On the way back from a night out partying.
Hope you all had a relaxed weekend.
/w @/courgus
/w @/Midas_Qu
📸 @HypiTheFox
🪡 @Areksim (Vino Studios)
Mythies with a dash of pony I see ;) I see:
1 Gilda
2 Twilight Sparkle
1 MLP styled hippogriff
1 Celestia
1 Ember
1 King Sombra
I'm sorry; I can't stop laughing.
Apparently at least 6 big companies won't insure Tesla's $80k+ Cybertruck in some states. Partly because they're so incredibly expensive to repair, and partially because parts are only available directly from Tesla and they're very expensive. Plus the liability of a vehicle that is marketed as being rigid so as to protect the passengers - the part not said out loud is that it does so at the expense of the people in the other vehicle.
In those states the only viable insurance is from Tesla. That's right, Tesla. Otherwise, they can't be driven & they can't be sold. Which might not be so bad except Tesla's policy is expensive and Tesla gets real time constant surveillance of driving habits AND ADJUST RATES ACCORDINGLY.
Also? The states where nobody will insure the Cybertruck & the 12 states where Tesla is licensed to sell insurance ARE NOT THE SAME STATES. NY, for instance.
I can't see why Cybertruck owners would complain though; it seems like a Libertarian dream to me!
The whole AI thing has me endlessly confused. Half the market is crashing because investors didn't see any signs of payoff in the quarterly earnings report, but I'm so lost as to what exactly they were expecting to see. Did they just not pay any attention at all to what these companies were actually doing with AI?
Were they expecting exponential Instagram usage growth as a result of Meta making it so you can have a conversation with the search bar? Or maybe everyone was going to buy 10 new Windows licenses in celebration of Microsoft announcing they want to install AI powered spyware on everyone's computer? Or was Google going to sell more ads by replacing all the search results with reddit shitposts? Either I'm missing something or everyone's last 2 remaining brain cells are really busy fighting to the death for 3rd place.
Postgres stores data on disk – this one's a page turner
https://drew.silcock.dev/blog/how-postgres-stores-data-on-disk/
A high-level overview of how PostgreSQL stores data on disk, covering segments, pages and more.drew.silcock.dev
A long good bye...
"Fifteen years minus one day between these photos. Taken at the Rhone glacier in Switzerland today.
Not gonna lie, it made me cry."
From @misterduncan at birdland/ @duncan
https://x.com/misterduncan/status/1820168563350450324
"...What, was it something I said?" 🙊
🦌: @SurgeryDeer
🦊: Levi the Fox
🦓: Dashing Zebra
✂️: @poeproductions
📸: Akyr
#AC2024 #Anthrocon2024 #Anthrocon #FursuitEveryday #Fursuiting #Fursuiter #Fursuit #Furry
Or maybe it's both... and others.
Funny how all the jet-set people are pro-multiculturalism.
J.D. Vance says that people who have no children have no stake in the future.
Yet he's a Catholic: a religion headed by *checks notes* a childless Pope, and run by *checks notes again* thousands of childless priests. (Supposedly.)
Plus nuns!
And wait, news has just come in that Jesus, the man whose teachings Catholics claim to follow, was yet another man who (according to their own orthodoxy) had no children.
Childless people have no stake in the future.
Shouldn't he convert, or something?
People of Bangladesh protesting for their rights.
But the world is unaware about it, while thousands of people are dying. Please boost the post, let the world know.
www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1dm4519l48o
#bangladesh#politics#fediverse#mastodon#students#savebangladeshistudent#asia#worldaffairs
More than 200 people have been killed in recent weeks after a crackdown on demonstrations.Lipika Pelham (BBC News)
☑ I'm in this picture and I like it.
(Although I couldn't afford someone to help even if I had enough stuff to do to need the assistance.)
“Homosexuality was well known in the ancient world, well before Christ was born, and Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things—he never said that gay people should be condemned.”
- Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States
We need more leaders--and people of faith--like Jimmy Carter.
The Walking World!
Its a world where walking vehicles were invented before wheeled vehicles. Solar power invented before fossil power. Rail travel never declined. Cars never took over the world. Its a slightly kinder world.
People walk everywhere they need to go, whether with their own feet or in their own mecha.
This is the setting I've had in mind while drawing civilian mini-mecha. I just put a name to it today. That'll make it a lot easier to talk about!
Whenever I see a post about RCS it always takes me longer than it should to realise they aren't talking about the Revision Control System. #BeingOld
The task of a healthy publicly owned rail company is this:
To run as many trains as possible, within the financial constraints under which it operates
Note trains. It’s not “transport as many passengers as possible on the fewest number of trains”
That 5am train with a dozen building workers on it, or the last train home in the evening *matter for the trust and reliability of the system*, even if those individual trains make heavy losses and are largely empty
Indeed. The money from the 8am packed-to-the-gills 5-car subsidises the 5am empty-but-for-a-dozen-builders 2-car, and that's the way it should be.
edit: And for that matter, the 10-car highly profitable Edinburgh to London major-stops InterCity subsidises the less-profitable local services... which is another reason why carving it up and privatising it was a terrible idea.
Your periodical reminder that all clothing is hand made by humans, usually underpaid!
Polyester doesn't breathe and sheds microplastics when manufactured, worn and washed!
Cotton farming takes immense amounts of water and pesticides!
Viscose can be made from recycled fibres & waste cellulose, but it's a fairly toxic process!
Linen is more ecological to grow but expensive!
"But what do I wear then, Sini?"
The garments you already own, until they fall apart or someone else needs them!
#Sustainability #FastFashion #WorkersRights
okay, I finally found a good use for an LLM. no, really.
https://github-roast.pages.dev/
this thing is brutal
