ptz

joined 1 year ago
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 minutes ago

Lol, yeah. Covers pretty much all of my needs and most of my "wants". Even have a Lemmy app (web based) on there.

 

Some just want to promote conflict, cause chaos, or even just get attention.

There has been a lot of research on the types of people who believe conspiracy theories, and their reasons for doing so. But there’s a wrinkle: My colleagues and I have found that there are a number of people sharing conspiracies online who don’t believe their own content.

They are opportunists. These people share conspiracy theories to promote conflict, cause chaos, recruit and radicalize potential followers, make money, harass, or even just to get attention.

There are several types of this sort of conspiracy-spreader trying to influence you.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

Definitely want one of those. My adblock and PiHole are both refusing to allow the link for the $89 samples to load, so will probably have to wait until they're more generally available.

Also wish it had 2.5 Gb LAN as well so it could replace my current, power-hungry router for my 2 Gb service. However, $89 is still a good deal for an OpenWRT Wifi 6 access point.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Good point. Honestly not sure, and probably have no way to tell, how many might have been fine before they were set out. I just know that by the time I come across them, most have seen better days.

The inverter has definitely come in handy. Testing roadside appliances wasn't its original purpose, lol, but it definitely does a good job of it. I usually just check if they power up and, in the case of TVs/monitors, that the screen isn't cracked or horribly glitching. If it gets that far, I'll load it up and take my chances with it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (2 children)

(Luckily?) most of the ones I see out on the curb are usually physically broken (usually the panel is smashed). I have an inverter in my car and will just plug them in right there to test them out, lol. I think I've only successfully rescued one good one recently.

I wouldn't say it's a valid reason to throw them out, but the 32" LCD TV I found and brought home was pretty energy inefficient (110 watts) compared to the 32" LCD I got a couple years ago (17 watts). It's an older model Samsung and has all the input type you could ever want, so I set it up in my basement with all my retro game systems hooked to it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

It's not that they're going to convince me, it's that it's annoying they keep trying (likely by management)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

Thunderbird beta (email), Schildichat (Matrix), bank app, several local web apps (home assistant, etc), Mucke (music), key mapper, Aegis (totp authenticator), Organic Maps, Etar (Calendar), DAVx (contact/calendar sync), traditional T9 (keyboard), MALP and Snapcast (home audio)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago

Yep! Most of my "apps" are just web app shortcuts or self hosted PWAs

[–] [email protected] 4 points 19 hours ago (4 children)

Cat S22 Flip. Not without it's quirks, but I like it well enough. Had to digital detox, and it was great for that.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (2 children)

The problem is most apps are just low-effort web app conversions.

If only that. Web apps are relatively well sandboxed. Most dedicated apps (that should be websites) are designed to harvest as much data as they can and spam you with notifications/ads.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 19 hours ago (6 children)

Not gonna lie, it was. lol. That's one of several reasons I decided to keep it as my daily driver. It's technically a smart phone, though, I just had all the smart stuff disabled for that challenge. I've since enabled those back, but it still looks enough like a dumb phone that I can convincingly bluff with it.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (14 children)

That's what I used to do, but a good portion of the time they'd continue their spiel to try to change my mind. Have only had to brandish the dumb phone once, but so far it's got a 100% shut down success rate.

[–] [email protected] 108 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (25 children)

My favorite part of the 30 day dumb phone challenge I did recently: I couldn't install your crappy app even if I wanted to.

A little over halfway through the challenge, was paying for my order at a local eatery, and the cashier started plugging their new app and rewards points and digital coupons and shit. I was like "I'm gonna stop you right there: flip phone." and pulled it out of my pocket and brandished it like I was the sheriff of Luddite-ville.

Kinda like this, but "Flip phone!"

 

Debt holders oppose $1.6 billion value reduction, throwing wrench into TV merger.

Dish creditors "plan to block a distressed exchange that's a key part of its tie-up with rival DirecTV, according to people familiar with the matter," Bloomberg reported today. "A group of steering committee investors has gained a blocking position in order to negotiate with the company, the people said. They may even explore a better outcome through litigation, said some of the people." The Bloomberg article was titled, "Dish-DirecTV Deal Sparks Creditor Revolt Over $1.6 Billion Loss."

As Bloomberg notes, "Dish needs consent from its bondholders to exchange old debts for notes issued out of the new combined entity" in order to complete the deal. A previous Bloomberg article said that "just over two-thirds of [Dish] bondholders in each series of notes have to agree to the exchange, with the deadline set for October 29." EchoStar executives argue that debt holders will benefit from the merger by "owning debt of a stronger company with lower leverage," the article said.

 

Mission engineers at NASA have turned off the plasma science instrument aboard the Voyager 2 spacecraft due to the probe’s gradually shrinking electrical power supply.

Traveling more than 12.8 billion miles (20.5 billion kilometers) from Earth, the spacecraft continues to use four science instruments to study the region outside our heliosphere, the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun. The probe has enough power to continue exploring this region with at least one operational science instrument into the 2030s.

Mission engineers have taken steps to avoid turning off a science instrument for as long as possible because the science data collected by the twin Voyager probes is unique. No other human-made spacecraft has operated in interstellar space, the region outside the heliosphere.

The plasma science instrument measures the amount of plasma (electrically charged atoms) and the direction it is flowing. It has collected limited data in recent years due to its orientation relative to the direction that plasma is flowing in interstellar space.

Both spacecraft are powered by decaying plutonium and lose about 4 watts of power each year. After the twin Voyagers completed their exploration of the giant planets in the 1980s, the mission team turned off several science instruments that would not be used in the study of interstellar space. That gave the spacecraft plenty of extra power until a few years ago. Since then, the team has turned off all onboard systems not essential for keeping the probes working, including some heaters. In order to postpone having to shut off another science instrument, they also adjusted how Voyager 2’ voltage is monitored.

Monitoring Results

On Sept. 26, engineers issued the command to turn off the plasma science instrument. Sent by NASA’s Deep Space Network, it took 19 hours to reach Voyager 2, and the return signal took another 19 hours to reach Earth.

Mission engineers always carefully monitor changes being made to the 47-year-old spacecraft’s operations to ensure they don’t generate any unwanted secondary effects. The team has confirmed that the switch-off command was executed without incident and the probe is operating normally.

In 2018, the plasma science instrument proved critical in determining that Voyager 2 left the heliosphere. The boundary between the heliosphere and interstellar space is demarcated by changes in the atoms, particles, and magnetic fields that instruments on the Voyagers can detect. Inside the heliosphere, particles from the Sun flow outward, away from our nearest star. The heliosphere is moving through interstellar space, so at Voyager 2’s position near the front of the solar bubble, the plasma flows in almost the opposite direction of the solar particles.

The plasma science instrument consists of four “cups.” Three cups point in the direction of the Sun and observed the solar wind while inside the heliosphere. A fourth points at a right angle to the direction of the other three and has observed the plasma in planetary magnetospheres, the heliosphere, and now, interstellar space.

When Voyager 2 exited the heliosphere, the flow of plasma into the three cups facing the Sun dropped off dramatically. The most useful data from the fourth cup comes only once every three months, when the spacecraft does a 360-degree turn on the axis pointed toward the Sun. This factored into the mission’s decision to turn this instrument off before others.

The plasma science instrument on Voyager 1 stopped working in 1980 and was turned off in 2007 to save power. Another instrument aboard Voyager 2, called the plasma wave subsystem, can estimate the plasma density when eruptions from the Sun drive shocks through the interstellar medium, producing plasma waves.

The Voyager team continues to monitor the health of the spacecraft and its available resources to make engineering decisions that maximize the mission’s science output.

For more information about NASA’s Voyager missions, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager


Note: Whole article available in post as it from a US government agency and is not bound by copyright.

 

Have been using the CAT S22 Flip for almost 2 months now as my daily driver, and I frigging love this thing.

 

Some go gently into the night. Others die less prettily.

Billions of cells die in your body every day. Some go out with a bang, others with a whimper.

They can die by accident if they’re injured or infected. Alternatively, should they outlive their natural lifespan or start to fail, they can carefully arrange for a desirable demise, with their remains neatly tidied away.

Originally, scientists thought those were the only two ways an animal cell could die, by accident or by that neat-and-tidy version. But over the past couple of decades, researchers have racked up many more novel cellular death scenarios, some specific to certain cell types or situations. Understanding this panoply of death modes could help scientists save good cells and kill bad ones, leading to treatments for infections, autoimmune diseases, and cancer.

“There’s lots and lots of different flavors here,” says Michael Overholtzer, a cell biologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He estimates that there are now more than 20 different names to describe cell death varieties.

 

The former President's plan to bring water to the California desert is, like a lot of his promises, a goofy pipe-dream.

In an apparent effort to address the pressing issue of California water shortages, Trump said the following: “You have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north with the snow caps and Canada, and all pouring down and they have essentially a very large faucet. You turn the faucet and it takes one day to turn it, and it’s massive, it’s as big as the wall of that building right there behind you. You turn that, and all of that water aimlessly goes into the Pacific (Ocean), and if they turned it back, all of that water would come right down here and right into Los Angeles,” he said.

Amidst his weird, almost poetic rambling, the “very large faucet” Trump seems to have been referring to is the Columbia River. The Columbia runs from a lake in British Columbia, down through Oregon and eventually ends up in the Pacific Ocean. Trump’s apparent plan is to somehow divert water from the Columbia and get it all the way down to Los Angeles. However, scientific experts who have spoken to the press have noted that not only is there currently no way to divert the water from the Oregon River to southern California, but creating such a system would likely be prohibitively expensive and inefficient.

 

Mars' missing atmosphere may be locked up in the planet's clay-rich surface, a new study by MIT geologists has suggested.

According to the researchers, ancient water trickling through Mars' rocks could have triggered a series of chemical reactions, converting CO2 into methane and trapping the carbon in clay minerals for billions of years.

Billions of years ago, Mars was a very different place—likely wet, with rivers flowing across its surface and a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide (CO2) insulating the planet. However, around 3.5 billion years ago, the red planet's atmosphere thinned and its water dried up, leaving behind the cold desert we see today.

A central mystery in planetary science has been: where did all that carbon dioxide go?

 

The universe’s hidden mass may be made of black holes, which could wobble the planets of the solar system when they pass by

Black holes the size of an atom that contain the mass of an asteroid may fly through the inner solar system about once a decade, scientists say. Theoretically created just after the big bang, these examples of so-called primordial black holes could explain the missing dark matter thought to dominate our universe. And if they sneak by the moon or Mars, scientists should be able to detect them, a new study shows.

...

If primordial black holes are responsible for dark matter, they probably zip through the solar system about every 10 years, a new study found. If one of these black holes comes near a planet or large moon, it should push the body off course enough to be measurable by current instruments. “As it passes by, the planet starts to wobble,” says Sarah R. Geller, a theoretical physicist now at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and co-author of the study, which was published on September 17 in Physical Review D.* “The wobble will grow over a few years but eventually it will damp out and go back to zero.”

 

VOY 4x10 "Random Thoughts"

I've always interpreted this episode as mocking the parents who claim their kids would be angels if not for video games.

The Mari. Mario. Coincidence? lol

 

VOY 4x08 "Year of Hell"

284
Oops! (dubvee.org)
 

VOY 3x26: Scorpion Part 1

Is there some kind of Starfleet form I can sign to opt out of transporter hacks you "just came up with"?

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