gramie
@gramie@lemmy.ca
- Comment on France mobilises police to regain control of New Caledonia airport road 8 hours ago:
Is it strategically important? They have a very small military presence there (less than 2000 normally), no Naval Base, and the nickel mines are in the process of shutting down and leaving, partially because of severe problems obtaining adequate electric power.
I’m also unsure why non-native people who have lived on New Caledonia for more than 10 years should be excluded from having a say in the government of the island, given that most of them are French and the island did not choose independence.
I can understand why the Kanaks do want keep the control they have, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they should.
- Comment on France mobilises police to regain control of New Caledonia airport road 11 hours ago:
You should be aware that the people who have been rioting and burning are French citizens, but they are actually the local people of New Caledonia, known as Kanaks. There have been three referenda to decide whether the island should declare independence from France, all of which failed. The separatists, after losing three times, have been trained and assisted by Azerbaijan, who are angry at France’s support of Armenia.
Source: I have a family member on New Caledonia.
- Comment on Australians stranded in New Caledonia 'running out of food' amid civil unrest 1 day ago:
I have a family member in New Caledonia. He said that things have settled down somewhat. He also sent an interesting article describing how Azerbaijan is using unrest in the Pacific to punish France for supporting Armenia in a territorial dispute. The article said that the leaders of the violence in New Caledonia were trained by Azerbaijani security forces.
- Comment on After announcing increased prices, Spotify to Pay Songwriters About $150 Million Less Next Year 1 week ago:
I think that you are off by about an order of magnitude. Spotify pays $0.003 per stream, and title apparently pays $0.01 -0.05.
- Comment on With two Boeing whistleblowers dead in one month, either Boeing is actively killing them, or there are enough whistleblowers that this rate of death is not statistically significant 2 weeks ago:
Or, as The Onion reports, Boeing intentionally hires employees with suicidal tendencies.
- Comment on Calculus made easy 2 weeks ago:
- Comment on Calculus made easy 2 weeks ago:
This exact explanation is in the book: calculusmadeeasy.org/4.html
- Comment on Calculus made easy 2 weeks ago:
I also studied chemical engineering, and throughout high school and university that was exactly it. Calculus was a kind of magic, and you just had to learn all the spells.
With this book I finally understood why the derivative of x^2 is 2x.
- Comment on Calculus made easy 2 weeks ago:
The online version can be found at calculusmadeeasy.org
35 years after graduating from engineering school, this book helped me finally understand why calculus works, instead of just learning how to mechanically apply it.
- Comment on When did breasts become a thing that needed to be concealed in public and why? 5 weeks ago:
But this ignores all the cultures where women’s breasts are not considered sexually. I lived in Africa, and it was actually a big adjustment for me, even though the local people’s attitudes were changing due to Western media. 25 years of Canadian upbringing made it hard not to look when women or teenage girls took off their shirts. But that was my problem, not theirs.
And not just Africa. In rural Japan japan, before WWII, women were often topless.
- Comment on First game you played 3 months ago:
Original pong, at the Toronto international boat Show, probably in about 1977.
- Comment on Ultraviolet light can kill almost all the viruses in a room. Why isn’t it everywhere? 3 months ago:
I could see UV light also causing plastics to oxidize and become brittle much faster, because they might not be made for that kind of exposure. So using UV light might mean having to replace a lot of plastic things too.
- Comment on Why do some websites have a "Continue Reading" button? 4 months ago:
page load
It would be fine if they only loaded a partial page so that it will render in my browser quicker.
However, what usually happens is that the entire page loads, then an overlay pops up to get me to register or pay, or whatever.
Being a web developer, it’s not hard for me to inspect the page and remove the overlay so I can read everything, but it is an annoyance.
- Comment on Duolingo lays off 10% of contract workers, partly due to AI 4 months ago:
I strongly recommend [Language Transfer ](language transfer.org). The best language course I have ever done, and I have done many (I speak five languages, at varying levels of fluency).
They have an app, that is simple, streamlined, and very functional.
The app also has also an Introduction to Music Theory course which people say is very, very good.
- Comment on The lamest countries 4 months ago:
Do you have something to back this up? That wasn’t the feeling I had during the seven years I lived in Japan. There was something of a victim mentality, but it wasn’t as militant as you are making out.
- Comment on Headphones are a crutch 4 months ago:
My son, who is an aspiring composer, can do this. It blows my mind, and makes me think of the scene in Amadeus where Salieri is reading the score and hearing it play in his head.
- Comment on YSK that chiropractors are not medical doctors and "Systematic reviews... have found no evidence that chiropractic manipulation is effective" 5 months ago:
In Germany, if you are a medical doctor with a PhD, you are addressed as Herr Doctor Doctor.
- Comment on 'They Want To Be The Gatekeepers': Car Dealers Are Stopping Customers From Buying EVs 5 months ago:
And who are (by far) the largest advertisers in the print media? Car dealers and real estate agents. Is it any surprise that you don’t find any articles about these parasites?
- Comment on Is a Lemsip Max just a paracetamol? 6 months ago:
Except that phenylephrine has been shown by multiple studies not to have any effect. It’s only there as a replacement for pseudoephedrine, which does work, but can be used to make meth.
- Comment on Something we can all agree on! 7 months ago:
If only we could all agree on how to spell “Australians”!
- Comment on [VERGE] Sam Bankman-Fried was a terrible boyfriend 7 months ago:
She seems to have been okay with him as long as the money was there.
- Comment on The games industry sucks 7 months ago:
The solution is not for you to show contempt or lack of empathy to these people, it’s for them and you to demand better treatment from the owners and executives.
The system is fucked and it is skewed wildly against anyone who is not at the top.
- Comment on Don't let it lose! 7 months ago:
The title makes a lot more sense if you understand that it should be “loose”, not “lose”.
- Comment on [HN] Are You a Software Engineer or a Software Developer? 8 months ago:
Well, considering that in Canada it’s illegal to call yourself an engineer if you aren’t a P.Eng. (Professional Engineer, obtained by writing an exam and joining the Society), it’s pretty clear here.