RunawayFixer

@RunawayFixer@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Potentially habitable planet TRAPPIST-1b may have a carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere, The innermost Earth-like planet in the famous TRAPPIST-1 system might be capable of supporting a thick atmosphere⁩ ⁨⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Against a dark background

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Potentially habitable planet TRAPPIST-1b may have a carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere, The innermost Earth-like planet in the famous TRAPPIST-1 system might be capable of supporting a thick atmosphere⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  I read a science fiction book from Iain M Banks over the holidays that was set in a rogue star system that was millions of light years away from the nearest galaxy. No matter how advanced that society could get, they would never be able to travel to the nearest star. They were doomed to isolation in their 1 star system basically. Compared to that, a mere 40 light-years at least gives the hope that it might one day be possible to travel there within a few life times (or less) of traveling.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I think we might be leaving the "boring" part of this dystopia⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  One of the benefits of living and working in a liberal society is that stuff like this can get publicly published, discussed and rejected if deemed bad. Under totalitarian regimes that public forum is absent, which is why some of the worst ideas/atrocities of the Soviet Union only came to light years after they had happened (instead of being rejected before they could happen). When it comes to human rights, liberalism > communism, and it’s not even close.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Belgium's sex workers get maternity leave and pensions under world-first law⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  We’re the most southern European country in the north of Europe ;)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Belgium's sex workers get maternity leave and pensions under world-first law⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, like the other guy said that’s basically the same experience as most Belgians get with the youth vacation days.

  The way that the Belgian state treats it’s income and expenditures is very unfair. People who can’t figure out things (and as you noticed it’s very hard), pay the most taxes of anyone in Europe, while people who earn enough can hire a specialist that tells them how to profit from deductibles, subsidies and fake self employment etc. The tax services routinely issue fines that were deemed illegal multiple times by judges in the past and it’s up to their victims to protest against this. And if there is a new scandal of some kind and it turns out that some fines or tax were illegal, it does not automatically get refunded, but instead the victims have to see the news, get documentation together and then ask for their money back.

  But the thing is, if we were not in the eu, then it would probably be worse. I think our scummy politicians is one of the reasons that Belgians are so pro eu. The example I like most is clean rivers and streams, because without the eu those would still be dead, smelly and full of shit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Belgium's sex workers get maternity leave and pensions under world-first law⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Young people get “youth vacation days”, but they have to apply for it themselves or they lose the money. It’s a decades old system and imo it’s a disgrace that it’s not automatic, but when I graduated we all knew about it atleast. New workers who arrive from outside Belgium only have a solution since 2 or 3 years ago: “supplementary vacation days”. Before that they had no solution for them and it was up to the employer to invent something (or not), which is why many went without. That change and other recent changes is basically the eu forcing Belgium to be a little less exploitative.

  I’m not in HR so I may be off on some points, but this is what I remember from when it was news.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sympathy for their PTSD⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  They’re gloating about it, absolute monsters.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's been 30 years and I still can't get over the fact that the French word for "potatoes" is "ground apples." Have The French never had an apple?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  French people do eat apple beignets, which are basically fried apples.

  If you’ve never had one before, apple beignets are easy to make and delicious, plenty of recipes around.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨💸💸💸⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s a bit of a stretch, but Netanyahu used to allow Qatari funds through to Hamas and Qatar is home to the largest USA military base in the middle east. So the USA government spend money in Qatar and Qatar send money to Hamas, so one could argue that some USA tax money ended up with Hamas that way.

  But in the same way all economies and trade are interconnected. It’s not because my garagist gave money to his addict child, who used part of that money to buy drugs, that I’m now suddenly guilty of funding the drug trade. Money goes around.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Snow Leopard⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  …api.news/…/0b31d94e3bff7d6804274d24562f62cd?widt…

  From escape.com.au/…/bcc5e99d35292787175a13f489ebd7aa. Brought to you by reporters copying things of reddit, but at least escape didn’t butcher the image, unlike boredpanda.

  The photographer’s website wouldn’t load for me, so I don’t know if it has a better quality available.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New York Times 1924, Hitler leaves prison⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It seems like “the new York times company” and “the new York times” are different entities, the “company” one seems to fill a role similar to Bloomberg or Reuters. Which makes it less strange for the Times contacting the Times by wireless.

  Before 1989 copyright notices had to be in all works in the usa : en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_notice And since different articles can have different sources, they probably gave each article a separate copyright notice.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨MBFC Credibility - High⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Your alternative titles really highlight how little you value factuality.

  Hezbollah did not claim to be launching a pre-emptive attack. And claiming that they launched a pre-emptive attack after they were already attacked is … Weird.

  No one is reporting that Hezbollah was launching these rockets in self defence, because Hezbollah has already let it be known that their attack was a retaliation for the murder of one of their commanders in july.

  No news source worth their salt is going to use those titles, because it’s straight up inventing alternate facts.

  Your 4 examples of what you want to portray as “non credible reporting” are professionals. Unlike you, they’re not just going to invent news to push their narrative. Yes they have their biases, but unlike your alternate facts, their reporting is based on actual facts.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨MBFC Credibility - High⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Hezbollah counter-attacking after being attacked by Israel, does not mean that Hezbollah would have attacked if they had not been attacked first. If your neighbour is a bully, then it’s probably best to not be a pushover.

  What does lend the “pre-emptive” claim credibility, is that afterwards Hezbollah said that they had retaliated for the murder of one of their commanders in Beirut. So the Hezbollah attack was not a counter-attack, but rather an attack that they had been preparing for weeks already.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨MBFC Credibility - High⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Lots of us know this. Lots of us can also see that the 4 titles that you posted are not an example of this.

  Some of those article titles that you are trying to paint as inaccurate, are in fact highly accurate. I can’t find anything wrong with the titles of the guardian and the new York Times that you posted. They are reporting a thing that happened and a thing that was said. They make it very clear that the “pre-emptive” thing is a claim of Israel and not a fact.

  Unlike your claim in the OP, The Guardian also doesn’t have a credibility of high on that shitty mbfc site, but only “mixed”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨MBFC Credibility - High⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yep, this is a good example of what actual inaccurate/deceitful reporting would be like. Unlike the headlines in the post of the op, your made up title is reporting things that didn’t happened, and your quotes are not things that Hamas’ spokespeople have said. It is vaguely based on things that have happened, but it’s mostly just made up and thus completely inaccurate and deceitful.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨MBFC Credibility - High⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The tnyt title looks accurate to me: it says Israel is striking Lebanon AND that Israel is casting these strikes as pre-emptive.

  The title is not saying that tnyt believes that the strikes are actually pre-emptive, instead it’s reporting that Israel claims that the strikes are pre-emptive. Which is accurate, since Israel does in fact claim that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Black Myth: Wukong studio requests influencers not include "feminist propaganda" or Covid-19 references in coverage⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I was wondering what “feminist propaganda” was and apparently it’s talking about misogyny.

  Another forbidden topic seemed to be targeted at criticism of misogyny at Game Science. The company has come under fire for lewd and sexist comments attributed in media reports to its founders as well as recruiting materials from 2015 replete with sexual innuendos. Those original job postings and comments were deleted, and the company has not commented. nytimes.com/…/chinese-videogame-wukong-censorship…

  But this anti feminism attitude is not limited to this 1 gaming company, but government policy under Xi Jinping’s authoritarian rule: www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-08/…/100165360

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Elon Musk loses fight with ex-Twitter staffer, must pay $600K⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  In 2022 there were some stories of how people on work visas were unable to jump ship while others were fleeing en masse. And now after all the tech layoffs in the USA, I imagine that finding another company to sponsor their visa, has become a lot harder still. So that’s one group still working there: people who will be deported if they lose their job.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why haven't car manufacturers standardized automatic brake lights when a built in accelerometer detects deceleration?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Blinkers should be blinking before you turn the wheel. I once drove as a passenger with a driver who only started blinking after he started his manoeuvres and those 40T trucks were hammering their horns for a good reason. Scary as hell experience, would not recommend.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google Maps tests new pop-up ads that give you an unnecessary detour⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m absolutely certain that it wasn’t ads that put a firm like TomTom on a downward slope. This was actually the first time that I’ve heard someone proclaim that ads are the reason.

  If your business is to sell maps + navigation devices for money and then the times change and now nearly everyone already owns a smartphone with built in gps + some car manufacturers provide sat nav as a default + another company is giving access to a map away for free, well then your business is in trouble.

  I’ve never even heard of ads in TomTom or Garmin, since I stopped using a dedicated sat nav once I had a smartphone, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was one of the things they tried to stay afloat after smartphones became ubiquitous.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft really wants Local accounts gone after it erases its guide on how to create them⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I consider as most effective, the system that is most effective for the whole market in the long term, not the system that only works best for a few in that market. And yes, I realize that authoritarian market intervention is great for maximizing short term profits for those few companies/persons, but if the rest of the market suffers in the long term because of it (and they are), then we’re dealing with rent seeking and that’s pretty commonly accepted to be bad in the long term. Bad for society, but also bad for wealth creation. And if it’s bad for wealth creation, then it’s definitely not effective capitalism. This is why I consider authoritarian capitalism to not be the most effective form of capitalism.

  And yeah, I’m aware that the USA is on this trajectory. Other western democracies are too, but of those that are, I think it’s still mostly to a lesser extent than the USA.

  About China: China’s competiveness has significantly regressed in the last few years. Xi Jinping’s authoritarian and imperialistic policies have not been good for business. Under Xi Jinping guanxi is also much more important again than it was under Hun Jintao: companies have no real rights, they too are dependant on maintaining relations and obeying the government. If they fail to maintain relations or if they bet on the wrong political horse, then the company leadership will be gone pretty fast.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft really wants Local accounts gone after it erases its guide on how to create them⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Authoritarian capitalism is not the most effective form of capitalism. It is the most effective for those that are already on top, but for the market as a whole (and especially for the society around that market), it’s going to be worse in the long run.

  Companies that are protected from competition by an authoritarian government will be able to extract higher profits in the short term, but their products and services will become worse in the long term, which not only harms their customers, but also the company’s chances of selling their products on actually competitive markets. The American car makers are a good example of this imo.

  Companies that are protected from having to pay fair wages and/or providing good working conditions, will be faced with labor shortages if the workers have alternatives, or with a depressed consumer market because the people have less money/time to spend on consuming things.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Even Apple finally admits that 8GB RAM isn't enough⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I really like their pagewide xl printers, but those are purely aimed at businesses. Just to name one thing I like :D

  And those xl printers are the only thing that I can think off. I won’t even consider buying a current HP computer/laptop/small printer/…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Verge shows how Google search is useless⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I found that Qwant gives decent results in my native non English language, results similar in quality to Google, but way better than DDG which often just gives English results.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Kagi silently removed all references to Google's index from their website⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I didn’t read every little bit as well, but that was my take away as well. I saw an emotially invested CEO who could not bear seeing his baby dragged through the mud, and so he wanted to provide a counterpoint to what he saw as misinformation and accusations, but in a polite professional manner. My first instinct would be that he would have been wasting his time with that, but seeing as his comments got posted and they make a more convincing level headed argument then the accusations, maybe it was worth it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google Search is getting even worse for independent sites⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Not until I searched for “restaurant town name” and got as results tripadvisor.com, tripadvisor.co.uk, tripadvisor.ch, tripadvisor.fr *5, … ;)

  But in another search it did way better than duckduckgo. So it’s not perfect, but definitely good enough to try as main search for a while :)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google Search is getting even worse for independent sites⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Just gave it a quick test drive it and it’s pretty promising, thanks for the tip.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Windows 11 just isn't enticing Windows 10 users to upgrade, and its market share is actually falling⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m going to disagree on this one, at least for me personally using the base functions of the different windows versions was never a problem. Even when completely ignoring the UI changes (including the always increasingly messier system configuration pages), Windows has definitely been regressing.

  The user transition from win XP to win 7 was completely smooth for me, it didn’t feel different at all. It’s only after using it a bit that the downsides became obvious: I remember that file search worked less good, they had made a bit of a mess of config screens and the bloat needed more ram. But it came with a smashing chess program. It felt like there was some minor regression, but it wasn’t a trainwreck.

  Windows 8 upon first startup was awful since that was the first time that MS wanted to force the user to create a cloud account through dark pattern design. Even if I had not grown up in a time when my operating system did not use dark patterns against me, I would still be pissed off when I encountered it for the first time. Once I got past that hurdle, the Os was usable and problems only emerged when I tried to do more things.

  Things like closing a stuck full screen game with task manager, which didn’t work because the new task manager would not come on top. Or the new store app, which installed “apps” that were not “programs” and could fe not be uninstalled in a normal way.

  From my first experiences with windows 10 I remember that out of the box you could not control when it would update. That pc would wake up in the middle of the night despite the settings saying that it shouldn’t and I had to dig deep till I found how to make it behave permanently. Then at a later point I also made the mistake of using the recommended OneDrive sync system for my documents folder and nearly lost all my personal files, fortunately I had a backup on an external hard disk. And the main goal of Windows search was no longer to find files, but instead to trick users into opening bing, to boost microsoft quarterly statistics.

  Microsoft has been adding more and more dark pattern design into Windows, it’s not a case of “old man yells at clouds”, it has really been getting worse and worse with each new release.

  And Microsoft firing their qa team and using their customers as canaries is definitely not helping either. So many issues that should have never gone life.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Windows 11 just isn't enticing Windows 10 users to upgrade, and its market share is actually falling⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Windows 7 is good compared to Vista, but bad compared to Windows Xp SP 1 or SP 2 (in my memory at least). Windows 10 is good compared to Windows 8, but bad compared to Windows 7.

  After a couple more years of MS pushing win 11, we’ll probably get a win 12 that is less good than win 10, but better than win 11, so thanks to people’s short term memory, it will then be considered “good”, but anyone with a memory and some critical thinking ability will recognize it as shite.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨checkmate, big geology!!⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Not knowing how much is not that big an issue. If it’s too much, then it becomes an interplanetary ship. If it’s not enough, then it will come down soon enough and we can just try again on an another volcano. It’s probably going to require a bit of patience from the crew, passengers and offspring, but eventually there will be a big enough eruption and it will all work out smoothly in the end.