26
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by fiat_lux@kbin.social to c/aww@lemmy.ml

Photo is a bettong that has been caught by researchers. The good news is their population has maybe tripled over the last few years in Australia's largest nature preserve that is free of introduced predators - it has 45km (28mi) of 1.8m (just under 6') tall fencing to keep it that way. Just 3 years ago they were reintroduced to the area after 60 years of local extinction.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2024-05-31/brush-tailed-and-burrowing-bettong-populations-thrive/103898216

Burrowing bettongs have little underground communities. Their cousins, the brushtail bettong have a prehensile tail they use to collect nesting material. The researcher thinks the burrowers are cuter, but the prehensile tail is adorable in its own right, I think.

[-] fiat_lux@kbin.social 132 points 6 months ago

Hm, 5 year old journal, with the editor board, funding and half of the authors all from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, but significant hospital contribution. I remain skeptical of the headline but hopeful of the science.

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submitted 6 months ago by fiat_lux@kbin.social to c/adhd@lemmy.world

It's time to know your rights!

If you have ADHD, and you come across a website or app that is playing an animation (video or gif, or any other type), and you live in the US (you don't need citizenship), you can complain to your government that someone is breaking the law and violating your rights.

Yes, you could just use ad-blockers, but you can easily help solve the problem too for everyone just by filling in a form online.

The people you complain about might only get nasty legal letters that annoy their lawyers and cost them time and money to defend or fix, but for like 10 mins of effort on your part, that's a pretty good deal. There could also be fines for them, especially if people have complained before about them. You can even complain anonymously!

How?

To be considered a valid complaint, the animation must:

  • start without you triggering it (so on page load, not clicking on something)
  • last for longer than 5 seconds (yes, looping counts as lasting forever)
  • be alongside other content (like videos in articles, not like a video as the main thing on a page)
  • not allow you to pause, stop or hide it with your mouse and/or keyboard and/or touch (or whatever else you use to get around).

For your complaint to be most effective:

  • both you and the site should be in the same general location. (US located people complaining to the US Government about a US company is always more helpful than trying to do international stuff.)
  • you should probably mention that you have a medical condition that makes it difficult to focus when there are distractions
  • you could mention they are not following this rule: "WCAG Pause, Stop, Hide (SC 2.2.2)"
  • screen recordings are helpful evidence, but don't let this stop you, you can't upload them to the form and they might not request them anyway

Complaining about any organisation that gets government money is bonus points, they have even less room to wiggle out of it. Anyone from big business to small police department or anything in between has to follow this rule. They might also give some extra weight to complaints from US veterans?

If you think you tick all of those boxes you can fill out the online form on the Civil Rights Division site, but you should read first this ADA info about what happens when you complaint.

So if you find yourself getting annoyed by yet another distraction when you're just trying to get shit done in the US online, you now know you have an option to channel that frustration.

EU residents will be better able to channel their frustration June 2025. Some countries do have options now

A little extra info for the intrigued:

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, feel free to verify or refute this info with your own hyperfixation

14
submitted 7 months ago by fiat_lux@kbin.social to c/buildapc@lemmy.world

Anyone got any recommendations or warnings about specific hdd / ssd / storage brands or models at the moment? Thinking about buying another drive instead of being smart and cleaning up my files. I've been pretty happy with Samsung but I've heard they had a clunker of a drive with high failure rates lately. HDD, SSD and I think I have an extra spare M2 nvme slot on my motherboard, so all recommendations are welcome. Price isn't a huge concern, but I don't feel the need to drop a thousand dollars on a single 22TB drive, anything 5TB and above will do fine for now.

[-] fiat_lux@kbin.social 122 points 8 months ago

I don't consider a TV producer insulting a (obviously terrible) politician to be news, but I do enjoy this particular insult. It's nicely crafted. It's a pity he continues to use Twitter.

170
submitted 8 months ago by fiat_lux@kbin.social to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

My feed is filled with bad news, which is my fault for using the fediverse as a news feed, but it made me wonder: Which organisations, groups or individual people in the world are doing the most good for our world? I'm particularly interested in those who manage to do good on a larger impact scale (quantity or quality), but if the unknown person on your street who fosters kittens is a great example, I'd love to hear about them too.

Mr. Rogers told me to look for the helpers in times of trouble. Tell me about your favorite helpers!

[-] fiat_lux@kbin.social 110 points 9 months ago

I feel ashamed of how I used to think and act.

Hey friend, I would like to offer you a reframing of this situation. Despite being exposed to some of the strongest cultural indoctrination into warmongering and the military, you made it out and embraced empathy and learning. That's huge. I'm proud of you, that's a positive change most people never make. You should be proud of it.

I just hope that is makes it’s way down the ranks

You have a powerful and important story. Sharing it like you did just now helps more than hopes can. Keep sharing it, you never know who might be reading it and encouraged to question the lessons they were taught.

[-] fiat_lux@kbin.social 285 points 10 months ago

It sounds like Charles Edward Littlejohn is a fucking badass and overall rad dude worth celebrating. Additionally, if he gets the maximum sentence of 5 years, that will be drastically longer than many of the January 6th rioters. I can't change the outcome for him, but I do wish him luck.

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submitted 1 year ago by fiat_lux@kbin.social to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a new pact with the low-lying island country of Tuvalu, allowing residents facing displacement from climate change the ability resettle in Australia.

Key points:

  • The deal is the first time Australia has offered residence or citizenship rights due to the threat posed by climate change
  • The US and New Zealand have similar agreements with other Pacific countries
  • Mr Albanese described it as the most significant agreement between Australia and a Pacific island nation ever

I think it's also worth noting that in return they're handing over their foreign policy / security decision autonomy, so colonialism once again manages to mar an otherwise humane decision. The IMF is getting their own policy pound of flesh too, they love a good bit of disaster capitalism.

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submitted 1 year ago by fiat_lux@kbin.social to c/science@beehaw.org

Urine samples collected from wild chimpanzees in Uganda over decades have revealed older female chimps undergo hormonal changes much like those in menopausal humans.

[-] fiat_lux@kbin.social 151 points 1 year ago

He's been calling her that for years, and it's kind of wild nobody really mentions it. Michael Cohen tried to play it off as "oh its probably commentary on how she handles lawsuits" (paraphrased) but it's pretty clear from this list of nicknames that Trump just likes rhyming nicknames for bullying people about things he thinks makes others inferior, including but not limited to racism, ableism and sexism.

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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by fiat_lux@kbin.social to c/news@aussie.zone

The title for the 12ft link to the SMH article is "Police should not be responsible for Closing the Gap targets, says commissioner", which is accurate, but even after a quick skim of the actual report, seems to very much understate the problems. This quote buried in the report is an example:

"The Commission considers that any future NSW Police Force Aboriginal strategy requires the NSW Police Force to look at its own influence on over-representation. A strategy that purportedly aims to reduce over-
representation but does not encompass the impact of proactive policing is neglecting a key factor."

The full 86 page Aboriginal Strategic Direction (ASD) monitoring report by the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) is a garbage PDF as usual. But it contains some interesting data, and as far as public government reports go, is pretty damning. Pages 35-50ish are the meaty parts - make no mistake, this is an inter-department shitfight padded out with professional pleasantries.

Necessary knowledge

The Aboriginal Strategic Direction 2018-2023 (ASD) is the NSW Police Force's own self-made overarching plan and framework to address Aboriginal overrepresentation in the criminal justice system as part of requirements in the government's commitment to the "Closing the Gap" agreement. The LECC monitors their progress as an outside agency.

My favourite professional shade from the report

there is little evidence to support the statement contained in the ASD that:
"The ASD is a living document subject to ongoing review to ensure its relevance and currency to reflect emerging issues and to enable the development of innovative solutions"

Highlights

Aboriginal Community Liaison Officers (ACLOs) hired by the police are underpaid (max. $86k not incl. super) with no room for career or pay progression beyond that.

The LECC says that (paraphrased):

  • the police didn't achieve their own goals / outcomes, and,
  • that's the leadership's responsibility,
  • the police made/use a framework that is internally incoherent, partly based on problematic assumptions and not evidence, not up to standards,
  • they sometimes take actions that contradict their own goals,
  • there are a lot of police who think community relationships are not compatible with law enforcement,
  • the police aren't measuring and/or aren't providing required measurements for the LECC to review,
  • the police are just using Wikipedia, if there is any listed source, for local community information and history instead of talking to their communities,
  • the police may be using their discretion and powers in harmfully discriminatory ways,
  • both the NSW government and police are avoiding dealing with goals that require their work if the agreements they signed are to succeed

And the LECC is pretty fucking sick of telling them their shit is broken, that they are required to fix their shit, and how to fix their shit over and over again.

Table 2 shows 0 police from Kings Cross or Surry Hills have completed "Working with Aboriginal Communities" training (because training never was provided, even though it's mandatory for everyone other local police dept?). Surry Hills is also ten times more likely to search an Aboriginal person and covers the largest Aboroginal populationin Australia, so, you know, what even is that about?

Appendix C shows that the Nepean and Orana Mid-West police have never gone to a consultative committee meeting with their communities even though they were required to. Table 3 also shows that no Orana mid-west police have completed locally focussed training either.

Appendix F and G show brief logs where you can see the Coroner's Office and LECC specifically being ignored or palmed off repeatedly, but the LECC being ignored is all through the report too.

[-] fiat_lux@kbin.social 159 points 1 year ago

He made very specific defamatory statements accusing fellow citizens / parents of murdered children of participating in a government conspiracy and those people were able to prove they experienced harm as a consequence of his words.

The plaintiffs also had enough financial backing from (understandably horrified) strangers, and a high enough chance of winning for lawyers to want to represent them. Those factors allowed the plaintiffs to survive the legal system long enough to get a ruling, and the severity of the situation maintained their motivation to keep pushing for it instead of accepting settlement so they could somewhat move on with their lives.

Sometimes, the planets align to create the trifecta of enough energy, money, and evidence to force the justice system into enforcing justice. And I am grateful that can sometimes still happen, as rare as it feels.

[-] fiat_lux@kbin.social 109 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

For anyone interested in why the guy lost it, it's because similarities between the Ancient Greek stories and stories found in Hebrew scripture used to be explained away some Jewish followers as "Both were independently inspired by (my) God and it is testament to His Power".

They claimed that there were almost no Greeks in ancient Israel, and that no worship was of other religions was really tolerated by the rulers then anyway, so the Greeks couldn't have even have had their own temples even if there were enough followers of a Greek god. If there were enough people for it to be a thing, there would be... you know, archaeological evidence of Greek temples and religion and worship in Israel predating the Judeo-Christian split. Right?

The followers claimed that because of all that, when the Talmud was written by a group of rabbis arguing about what the exact teachings of God really were (because it used to only be handed down through spoken word and Christians were being all "lol no, He never said that"), each Rabbi who contributed to the Talmud could not have been influenced enough by man-made beliefs for it to have hugely affected what the group agreed God definitely said and did. And they definitely couldnt have put things from multi-god religions in there. Therefore the basis of modern Judaism is and always has been rock solid, even though there is a huge chunk of time between when it happened and when it was written down.

And all was well... until 1978 when someone dug up the 2.5m tall statue of Athena imported from Greece and attached to a purpose-built Greek temple in Beth Shean / Scythopolis from 200 years earlier than the Talmud, 37km / 22mi from Nazareth (in the opposite direction of Greece) - in a pretty unavoidable place on the road to Jerusalem. Oops.

tl;dr You got your many-God filthy religious icon in my certainly pure, true, and original single-God belief system that we declared 200 years afterwards!

Edited to add: a little extra context. This Museum keeps the Dead Sea Scrolls and has an entire separate building of the museum, away from the archaeology collection, that is very religiously targeted where those Scrolls are shown. The Scrolls have also not been on display for a long while because of conservation work, but they just started exhibiting them again. So this guy was likely a religious zealot who came to see the Scrolls exhibit, but he stumbled into the archaeology department where they're a little more... science and evidence-based. And the museum is state funded. And the government owns the statue, Scrolls, and basically every Jewish religious artifact in existence. There are a lot of layers here, like everything in the region's history.

[-] fiat_lux@kbin.social 111 points 1 year ago

The photo looks like it's of their Head of Athena which was found in Israel despite being made from Greek marble and representing a Greek goddess. It is hard evidence that non-judeo-christian belief systems existed and interacted, and were at least somewhat allowed to do so, before the Talmud but still inside Jewish territory. Specifically, groups like the Cult of Zeus-Akrios, which some people say influenced the development of Judaism and the writing of the Talmud around the time Judaism and Christianity split.

When your worldview requires that you follow the Talmud and that it is the foundations of Judaism and divine law handed down through Moses and oral rabbinic tradition only, but you have evidence that predates the Talmud which demonstrates visible and open polytheistic religious integration in a society you believe was only monotheist judeo-christian... it gets really difficult to dismiss some uncanny similarities between the religions. Similarities that are otherwise easily explained by religions stealing things from other older religions they encountered.

The very idea his God was created partly from pieces of a polytheistic religion is against everything he was raised to believe as truth. His brain probably broke trying to process it.

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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by fiat_lux@kbin.social to c/90smusic@lemmy.world

This song came up in a "Best Music Videos of all time" thread the other day and it has been haunting me since then.

Content warning for song and especially video: it deals with basically every awful subject in humanity

The only thing that dates the song is the reference to 2010 as being in the future (and the CRT monitors in the clip), but maybe that's my nostalgia talking. This song and clip made a huge impact on me 25 years ago, and the fact it is so accurate still breaks my heart. We were warned, and here we are still.

The clip is animated by Todd McFarlane who made "Spawn" and the clip for Korn's "Freak on a Leash". And partially directed by Kevin Altieri who worked on "Batman: The Animated Series".

Lyrics (for people who don't speak Eddie Vedder):

[Intro]
Woo...

[Verse 1]
I'm ahead, I'm a man
I'm the first mammal to wear pants, yeah
I'm at peace with my lust
I can kill cause in God I trust, yeah
It's evolution, baby

[Verse 2]
I'm at peace, I'm the man
Buying stocks on the day of the crash
On the loose, I'm a truck
All the rolling hills, I'll flatten 'em out, yeah
It's herd behavior, uh huh
It's evolution, baby

[Chorus]
Admire me, admire my home
Admire my son, he's my clone
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
This land is mine, this land is free
I'll do what I want but irresponsibly
It's evolution, baby

[Bridge]
I'm a thief, I'm a liar
There's my church, I sing in the choir:
(Hallelujah, hallelujah)

[Chorus]
Admire me, admire my home
Admire my son, admire my clones
'Cause we know, appetite for a nightly feast
Those ignorant Indians got nothin' on me
Nothin', why? Because...
It's evolution, baby

[Verse 3]
I am ahead, I am advanced
I am the first mammal to make plans, yeah
I crawled the earth, but now I'm higher
2010, watch it go to fire
It's evolution, baby
It's evolution, baby

[Outro]
Do the evolution
Come on

Video summary (for people who can't or don't want to watch)

Throughout the video, a animated seductive woman (similar in appearance to the character Death from the DC comic book series, The Sandman) dances and laughs, representing "Death" as it follows mankind through all of its history. The video begins with the evolution of life, from the smallest cell to the extinction of dinosaurs and reign of Homo sapiens. The video then cuts back and forth throughout human history, depicting man's primitive, violent nature has essentially unchanged over the centuries. Such depictions include a knight preparing for the coming slaughter during the Crusades, a ritual dance by KKK (the dance is repeated with other groups throughout the video), a rally by Nazi-esque troops (with a symbol reminiscent of the Sig Rune instead of a swastika), concentration camp prisoners, a book burning, carnage upon a World War I-era battlefield, a girl stepping on an anthill as she runs blissfully through a field with the image suddenly changing to that of a landmine going off (as if the mine had been buried under the anthill itself), a death row inmate nervously waiting on an electric chair, the apparent virtual-reality rape of a woman, and the bombing of a Vietnamese village by an American jet, specifically an A-4 Skyhawk, the pilot of which removes his oxygen mask to reveal a skull laughing wildly, and a scene with a crying baby representing Bloody Saturday. Every scene portrayed complements the song's meaning and tightly follows the lyrics. When Vedder sings "Buying stocks on the day of the crash," a scene is shown where businessmen are committing suicide by jumping from buildings, a reference to the apocryphal suicides of Black Thursday during the Wall Street Crash of 1929.[14]

Other social and environmental issues such as slavery, whaling, colonialism, Manifest Destiny, uncontrolled urbanization, vivisection, pollution, genetic modification and techno-progressivism are included. The music video blames humankind's brutality on leadership; with various scenes depicting a judge, a bishop or pope, a Communist dictator and an American president candidate, who is being portrayed as a puppet, controlled by someone unseen, from behind the scene. The video concludes in what seems to be future scenarios of the self-destruction of the human race, including the carpet bombing of a city of clones by futuristic aircraft, computers hijacking the human mind, and finally a nuclear explosion which leaves not only a city in ruins, but the planet damaged beyond recognition. However, near the end of the animation, the earth is briefly seen as an ovum, suggesting a rebirth and the perpetuation of the human condition. During the sequence of flashing images near the end of the video an image of a yield sign being smashed at the corner can be seen, which references the album title and cover art.
- Lifted from the song's wikipedia video summary

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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by fiat_lux@kbin.social to c/news@lemmy.world

Title changed from original for better internationalisation, because the ABC hates assuming you see their articles outside of their specific site categories.

Original linked article title:

"Pride, but also grief': Government to start taskforce following disability royal commission final report

Linked article lead paragraph:

After an inquiry lasting four and a half years, the royal commission makes 222 recommendations for change.

Some numbers from the Inquiry itself:

  • 222 recommendations (mostly for federal government)
  • 32 public hearings
  • 7,944 submissions from the public received
  • 17,824 Phone enquiries
  • 1,785 Private sessions held

Some of the findings:

  • There are around 4.4 million people with disability in Australia, or 18% of the total population. Reflecting that disability increases with age, the number of people with disability falls to 2.4 million when we look at people aged under 65 years. This is 12% of this age category.
  • Around 35% of First Nations people under 65 had disability in 2018–19, nearly three times higher than the general population. Children accounted for 24% of all First Nations people with disability.
  • As at 31 December 2022, there were 573,342 participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
  • Across all age groups, people with disability experience considerably higher rates of violence than people without disability. People with disability also experience violence more frequently. This is unacceptable.
  • Rates of violence are particularly high for: Women with psychological or intellectual disability, First Nations women with disability, young women with disability.
  • Neglect of people with disability occurs in multiple forms and across different stages of their lives. We heard of many instances of people being deprived of necessities of life and assistance with daily activities. We also heard of systemic failures to provide an environment for each person to maximise their potential.
  • The data on exploitation of people with disability is limited. However, people with disability shared with us experiences of both sexual and financial exploitation by other individuals.

Some of the recommendations (my summary):

  • A new Australian Disability Rights Act
  • Intersectionality, especially with First Nations peoples
  • Legal obligation to prove 'unjustifiable hardship' as reason for not making accommodations for a person with disability
  • Alter the migration act to prevent systemic disability discrimination, (amongst many other laws)
  • Requiring the government to provide interpreters, both spoken language and sign language
  • Transitioning to non-segregated education settings
  • Transitioning to removal of 'group homes'
  • Creating a National Disability Commission as an independent statutory body to monitor outcomes, with a majority leadership by people with disabilities
  • Legal obligations for guardians to show they're attempting to act in the best interests of their guardee
  • An extra $36 million in funding for disablity advocacy and insurance programs
  • Making a number of restraint techniques and solitary confinement illegal in health, justice and education settings
  • laws to prevent non-therapeutic permanent non-consensual sterilisation of people with disability
  • Increased housing protections for tenants with disability
  • teacher, police and healthcare worker training and requirements, especially around cognitive disabilities
  • a registration system for disability support workers that defines their roles and requirements and gives them benefits like sick leave and retirement savings
  • lots more data and reporting being published by the government
  • way better complaints processes and investigations
  • targets for disability employment at all levels of public service, including executives
  • so many more, ~~read the article or inquiry links if you're keen.~~

Edited to add: A better breakdown of recommendations by category instead of my casual list

[-] fiat_lux@kbin.social 159 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm not sure food blogs are the best choice for this. The article goes on to talk about BPA and phthlates, but neither of those exist in pure HDPE or PP.

BPA is found in polycarbonate plastics (~~acrylic~~) (Edit: brain lapse, acrylic is PMMA) and epoxy resins. Phthalates are in PVC (vinyl). Using the word 'plastic' as a ~~monomer~~ mononym (Edit: lol wrong mono) is dangerous for many reasons, and causation vs correlation is one reason why.

I mean, definitely go with glass if you have the choice, sure, but let's also actually try to be accurate if we invoke the scientific method.

I would also love for there to be really robust testing of food containers of all varieties direct at the manufacturers, with heavy fines involved if they're using additives but claiming it's a food-safe plastic.

[-] fiat_lux@kbin.social 109 points 1 year ago

Ceramic storage, I love it. We've looped all the way back around to reimplementing cuneiform tablets, just on a microscopic level.

I look forward to storing the complaints about the quality of my copper deliveries on them.

Yours faithfully,
Ea-nāṣir.

[-] fiat_lux@kbin.social 108 points 1 year ago
  • Waste pickers in the clothing canyons of Ghana, or any other landfill/wasteland

  • Volunteer caregivers for people with disabilities, especially in places where there are limited or no social safety nets

  • Street vendors like the children hawking goods in Yemen or Samoa or Zimbabwe...

  • Cleaners, such as the Sewer divers in places like India where there is no protective equipment provided

  • Food services workers.

  • "Domestic" services workers like childcare, housekeeping, etc. I include victims of forced marriages here.

  • All other exploited, outsourced, trafficked, and/or forced labour, such as the cobalt miners in Congo, or the clothing sweatshop workers in Bangladesh, or the Phillipines call centre workers, or the hazelnut pickers in Turkey, or construction labourers in Qatar, or the chaingangs in the US.

Our supply chains for everything are filled with slavery. 49.6 million people were living in modern slavery in 2021, of which 27.6 million were in forced labour and 22 million in forced marriage. That's an estimated increase of 10 million people from 2016 to 2021.

[-] fiat_lux@kbin.social 192 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

From the linked techcrunch article:

will face fines of up to one million NOK (~$100k) per day.
unless it obtains users’ consent to the processing

From the order itself:

The order applies from 4 August 2023
we may decide to impose a coercive fine of up to NOK 1 000 000 (one million) per day

Misleading title.

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fiat_lux

joined 1 year ago