My reply said nothing about only Tories being solely responsible, only that they have been primarily in charge/in power for the last 14 years and are about to take a major fall from power in the upcoming election this week.

I didn’t praise Labour, merely said they will be the primary benefactor of the change in power, and that they are the UK equivalent of Democrats in the US (a simplified comparison for a non-UK audience, that happens across this thread); which isn’t untrue in general, even with your above complaints.

This is indeed a UK thread, but JK and Tennant are world renowned, and having them both in the title will draw in a larger audience.

I think this is a good place to add context for those outside the UK that don’t pay attention to politics, especially foreign politics:

The UK is having elections on July 4th. The House of commons has… 650 seats, of which the Conservatives (Tories, equivalent UK version of US Rupublicans) have ~350 seats.

They are expected to literally lose hundreds of seats in this elections and fall out of power. Labour (UK equivalent of US Democrats) has not been as progressive as people expected/wanted, but they are expected to be the big winners. Hopefully the UKs situation improves from the past 14-15 years of the Tories rule… seems like they’ve gone scorched earth, and the UK is a shadow of what it was even a decade ago.

Those same whiners in power, are about to experience a near political power extinction event.

I wouldn’t say Trump won the debate, or that it strengthened his position.

More the debate weakened Biden’s position strictly in regards to people’s view on his age and health.

Trump still said some pretty awful things. He lied plenty, but some of those awful things he took credit for, and if Biden was on his game that night, he would have in the past at least, demolished Trump. Problem being he missed those openings, and sometimes changed topics mid sentence from a strong point, to topics that people see as Biden’s weak points. (like abortion -> immigration)

Biden’s biggest enemy at this debate were unforced errors. Based on his performance at his rally the following day, and during past state of the unions when MTG and others are heckling him, he was clearly off his game, and I can only wonder what the debate would have been like if it was in the morning/afternoon instead of of late at night (or some other condition that got him back on his game).

It’s great his performance improved so much the next day, but that won’t be seen by many people. The debate was seen by millions, including many that normally wouldn’t be reached. This was his opportunity, and he sort of blew it. Reaching those people in another form with the modern media environment and media consumption will be difficult.

If Biden continues to run, those who consider abortion, democracy/avoiding fascism, or freedom a top issue, will still vote for him. I will still vote for him.

If he steps down, and Gavin Newsom steps in as the democratic candidate, I’ll vote for him. (granted he isn’t part of the Primary, and there are pledged delegates for others, but those people have either already dropped out, or would get crushed by Trump).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKBFdy4q85w

Short video of him guesting to review some political ads, after his endorsement announcement.

Forums instead of social media, IRC/ICQ/AIM for chat, websites were much more static… unless using Flash, newgrounds full of Flash games.

FTP/IRC was source of media distribution until transitions to, bittorrent was new, and napster, limewire, kazaa were things. Newsgroups have existed for all time, but not really including them because less mainstream.

Windows would allow broadcast messages to just pop-up on your computer. Needed to implement your own firewall like Zonealarm, these things weren’t just default… computers kinds of just ‘directly’ connected to the internet without any appliance in the way at first.

Edit: Oh yeah, and Steam didn’t exist, so games were bought individually in boxes at stores, and valve games were like sharing your IP with friends, listing of servers… speaking of, early Counter Strike and stuff didn’t have any anti-cheat… if you added anti-cheat to your CS server when first coming out, people getting caught would be shocked, since they didnt know they could get caught, always in denial for ‘false positives’, and really find out who of your friends aren’t actually good and were just cheating all along.

I have no actual list outside my head.

atm, Wendy’s because of their plan for dynamic pricing based on how busy they are, and ‘my local KFC’, because in 2017 I had to wait 50 minutes for my order (for 2), and they gave away the last of something I ordered to someone who came in like half an hour later, and they weren’t going to be making more. (that and KFC is way over priced for their standard menu if you aren’t getting some kind of ‘deal’)

This only makes me favor copyright reform more. Should really cut that down to 25 years or less; anything from before the 21st century should be public domain by now.

All companies that plan to have dynamic pricing, please let me know.

I’ve already stopped going to Wendy’s; I’d love to add you to the list of places never to patron again.

Not surprised at all it is something the Trump administration was doing considering his rhetoric on the pandemic in general, and China. Awful all around.

I think this is a hyper/hypo chart in a way, two extremes of bad (over/under medicated).

Maybe thinking of it like the ‘Goldilocks zone’ for planets, in the right distance from their star for life, like on earth.

A measure of healthcare and mental health in your country. Somewhere between Norway and Finland is probably the right place to be (plus/minus a little); If you are not close to this zone, then there is something likely wrong/not being done right in your country.

Could be there is little to no healthcare, you could be under economic collapse, severe unemployment, under authoritarian rule, may be rampant drug use, may be doctors over prescribing medication (and/or prescribing instead of treating), or just no care about mental health (maybe a “get over it” macho attitude toward mental health).

Obviously always outliers, and every country is unique and cannot be conformed to this, but Norway and Finland generally rate pretty high on the happiness scale, so ~60-80 ppt (people per thousand) is a good range to shoot for.

Edit: To be clear, not a perfect indicator type of things; Denmark is scored as a very happy country and scores close, but out of that mentioned range (maybe the range should be a little higher or lower, or have a +/- 10 or something attached); Iceland also rated very happy, but scores way out of that range (though there may be clear geographic reasons for that), and could be a clear indicator of the above mentioned “every country is unique”, and thus that may actually be appropriate antidepressant ppt for a country so far north.

Also, a generalized chart of population for a whole country, should never be applied to an individual person.

Krita is great for drawing. It is made for it.

People really try to use Krita for photo editing?

Not if you add it to a non-dischargable debt the inmate has to repay, and attach any wages to repay it, including government assistance, such as welfare. ♻️♺

/s

The boiling method, and using ultrasonic devices so far sound promising:

https://projectboard.world/isef/project/eaev062t-harnessing-ultrasound-for-microplastic-filtration

Neither method is 100%, and sadly even if it were, there is no way to avoid ingesting microplastics. It’s basically in all food sources at this point. Any animal, or plant have them in them, and those sources are going to be exposed to them; even rain has microplastics in it now.

I suppose the best way to actually avoid microplastics in the food chain would be growing plants in a greenhouse type environment (with dug up deep pre-plastic dirt?) only using properly treated water? For meats, I guess lab grown meat would be the way to avoid it, using plastic free (or less) sources for material?

I’ve actually been throwing out old spices in recent years, but maybe I should be saving them. Maybe they are the last vestiges of plastic free spices, and will be worth a fortune to paranoid rich people that want flavor?

It’s definitely different for every person, and situationally dependent.

If you are as well off as Taylor Swift and get to choose… yeah, rent if you don’t want to deal with the hassle of home ownership. You’re rich and will be fine no matter what you do.

For everyone else, if you generally are going to work in the same geographic area (even if a bit of a commute) for the next decade… then yeah, if afforded the opportunity, buy. It’s better to own something if given the chance (in general).

Hard to say in this current market. I took a 0% down payment mortgage out a decade ago, have paid off 30k, and have 200k in fake equity. Fake equity as the valuation is real estate bubble BS, and buying now could result in a massive negative equity (putting borrowers under water) if/when that bubble bursts, but simple fact of the matter is, as the above poster mentions, as long as you keep paying the mortgage, you actually get some equity/own something.

Worst case, your loan does go under… you go bankrupt and end up… right back where you were if you were renting anyways.

The way I like to look at it, is a mortgage (fixed) only gets cheaper. A decade from now, you’re making more money, but inflation has devalued your income? Your mortgage principle + interest did not change in that time, so inflation has technically made your mortgage cheaper; whereas we’ve seen rents double, triple, or even quadruple in the past decade.

Note for the curious: While FDA and similar loans can get you lower down payments, what I used for 0% was a USDA Rural Development loan - only allows you to buy in certain areas (not metros typically), but you may be surprised what areas do qualify - check out the map, anything not highlighted qualifies - zoom on in, maybe that ‘small town’ a 10 minute drive outside the big city does: https://eligibility.sc.egov.usda.gov/eligibility/welcomeAction.do … even winning a bid on homes in the current market may be tough though…

You’re right, my ad blocker was making it look like an image. My bad. Basically a video of missiles being launched from land, air, and sea in mass.

Was hoping to see the video in the article, but just screen caps.

Was under the impression that Taiwan would likely use thousands of Ukraine style drone boats to sink the Chinese fleet.

Instead all I see is screenshots of missiles the size of cities raining down. I assume it’s a perspective issue, but those missiles are unrealistically large.

The linked batteries all appear to have energy densities of about 130 Wh/kg or less.

I wasn’t denying sodium batteries are not commercially available/viable, just pointing out that while currently available sodium batteries have lower energy density than lithium ion batteries, in the lab, sodium batteries have the ability to reach similar energy density to currently commercially available lithium ion batteries.

The linked batteries are plenty useful for many purposes. I would gladly use them for home energy storage, electronics, or recreation vehicle use. I’m generally wary of lithium battery safety in outdoor, or high heat environments, and look forward to safer options becoming more available/common.

Sodium based batteries have reached at least 247 Wh/kg in the lab at least. While lithium in the lab does have much higher instances, that isn’t far off from current commercially available Li-ion EV batteries.

While such sodium batteries are not commercially available, it at least shows their potential to reach close to current EV batteries (around ~270 Wh/kg).

Source: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/04/25/sodium-ion-battery-could-charge-in-several-seconds/

Also, it is a library… very real possibility they have actual computers you can use/borrow for people that cant use their wifi for whatever reason (such as not having a laptop/tablet/smartphone).

My first reaction is yeah, you don’t just plug into random Ethernet.

The wi-fi is likely a visitor network setup for guests to the library. That ethernet port could provide access to their private intranet, and be a security risk to the library. Worst case scenario, it could result in malware, ransomware, and/or millions of dollars in expenses to recover (on a library budget, that could mean permanently shutting down the library even).

After reading your post, I would say, no harm intended, just don’t do it again.

After reading your comments about intentionally being vague about ‘plugging in’ to lead the librarian to think you were asking to plug in a power cord, and not specifically meaning ethernet connection… yeah, you’re clearly in the wrong. Just be up front; if they say no, so be it. They may be able to direct you to a visitor ethernet plug-in, or maybe not. If this were an AITA thread, i’d say yes, YTA in this case.

Asking in an security community… I would assume some level of technical awareness, and you are likely well aware of network segmentation, and that no IT department would be happy about a guest plugging their laptop into random rj-45 jacks around the building. Maybe it’s not well designed, and that actually has access to firewall administration?