tal

joined 2 years ago
[–] tal@lemmy.today 3 points 7 hours ago

Because governments love taxes.

I mean, they're talking about the number of different taxes rather than the total tax load.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 6 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

All of the letter openers I've used have been relatively blunt.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 2 points 7 hours ago

Nothing there looks clearly broken to me. XDG_DATA_DIRS pointing at a directory that doesn't exist shouldn't hurt anything. Note that Steam does update itself occasionally when it starts, and I don't recall what that looks like, so it's not impossible that it was updating itself.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 7 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

For the US, my experience:

  • Way more smoking (which people also mentioned last time this was asked). Cigarette butts everywhere.

  • Government was more dignified.

  • Houses were smaller.

  • Cars were smaller. And more colorful -- the last decade or so has really favored colors between white and black. Oh, and a wider variety of interior upholstery.

  • Telecommunications were much more expensive.

  • People smashed trees into pulp, bleached it, rolled it into sheets, and then put their messages on them.

  • Libraries were more important.

  • Store selection was way, way more limited, and if you lived somewhere rural, even more so. Amazon and similar let you have anything delivered anywhere today.

  • I kinda miss some of the styles, like 1980s denim jackets, but there were also things that I disliked compared to today. Oh, yoga pants were not typically worn in public. Or flannel pajamas pants


that seems to be a thing where I am now. If you were female, you were a lot more likely to be wearing a skirt or dress than today. Clothing was more formal, in general.

  • On that note, the necktie was still a thing. It's pretty dead today.

  • Carpeting in houses was more popular.

  • People spent a lot more time staring at the TV, which I think is a lot more mindless than Internet use today. Oh, and you had far fewer channels than you do on a TV today.

  • Lighting was yellower, because of the use of incandescents. Nighttime in houses was darker and yellower.

  • The logistics of communication and navigation were more complicated without GPS-equipped smartphones. One typically kept maps in the car. Asking for directions was a thing. You might even have a car compass. Finding payphones was a thing.

  • Much less omnipresent surveillance, like the security cameras and automated license plate readers of today.

  • If you had a computer, it was much more likely not to be connected to a network, so software couldn't rely on network access. It couldn't phone home or transmit information about you.

  • Video games were much less mainstream, especially before the 1990s. Not many adults playing them.

  • Way more handwriting done. The fancy pen was more of a thing.

  • Flashlights and penlights were more prominent, since everyone wasn't carrying a smartphone that could act as a flashlight.

  • I'd say that probably the majority of people wore a wristwatch.

  • Computers were much more expensive than they are today, and became obsolete far faster. The rate of computation speed increased such that about every 18 months, computers ran software twice as fast as before. This has a huge impact on other industries, since that constantly made new things viable.

  • Lots of devices with disposable batteries.

  • Dedicated portable music players with far less battery life were much more common. You carried around much less music.

  • Cars, IMHO, looked more interesting. Certainly more varied. Mileage was worse.

  • You certainly didn't omit spare tires in cars. Much harder to get roadside assistance.

  • I'd say that woodworking skills were more common. A lot of guys could and would do basic projects.

  • People spent more time outdoors.

  • People were thinner.

  • Motor noise was more obnoxious along roads. Cars are quieter today.

  • Airline security was way less obnoxious. Didn't have all the security screening stuff that 9/11 spawned. Air travel was more expensive.

  • More casual conversations with strangers that one sat near, I'd say. Smartphones severely degraded the custom of chatting with strangers.

  • Magazines and newspapers were much more common.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I've done some maps in GNU R.

Here's a (cropped) choropleth map I did for a discussion thread about legislative representation in Europe:

https://lemmy.today/pictrs/image/b6f28602-ab94-4901-b5e1-158061624c75.png

sourceif (!require("pacman")) install.packages("pacman") pacman::p_load_gh(c("ropenscilabs/rnaturalearth", "ropenscilabs/rnaturalearthdata", "ropenscilabs/rnaturalearthhires")) pacman::p_load( countrycode, dplyr, ggplot2, readr, rvest, tmap, tmaptools, viridis )

page <- read_html("https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_legislatures_by_number_of_members&oldid=1010580360")

df <- html_table(html_node(page, xpath = "/html/body/div[3]/div[3]/div[5]/div[1]/table"))

df$per_capita <- df$"Population/\nLower house seats" %>% parse_number()
df$name <- df$Country

europe <- df %>% mutate(continent = countrycode(Country, origin = "country.name", destination = "continent")) %>% filter(continent == "Europe")

shapes <- ne_countries(scale = "medium")
shapes_merged <- sp::merge(shapes, europe, by.x = "name", all.x = TRUE, by.y = "name")

map <- tm_shape(shapes_merged, projection =  "epsg:3035", bbox = bb(c(-8, 34.5000, 43, 72))) +
    tm_fill(col = "per_capita", palette = plasma(256), title = "persons", legend.reverse = TRUE) +
    tm_borders(col = "black") +
    tm_scale_bar() +
    tm_layout(bg.color = "#e6f7fe", outer.margins = 0, legend.outside = TRUE,
              legend.outside.position = "bottom",
              legend.position = c(0,.9),
              main.title = "Persons per Lower House Legislative Seat",
              attr.outside = TRUE)

tmap_save(map, width =  1920, height =  1080, dpi =  96, "map.png")

And if so, what would you tell someone who is contemplating such a thing with no prior practical experience of such systems?

Depends pretty much entirely on what it is that you want to do and what software you're using.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It's not so much the individual guy that I'm aiming to highlight. It's just...here was Russia's plan. A lightning strike, and victory (ignore the inset):

And four-and-a-half years in, here is what Russia is creating new government ministries to try to defend:

https://lemmy.today/pictrs/image/83d767a3-1b07-435c-8bcb-2f959e5cb03c.png

[–] tal@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/48707727/fifa-triples-best-available-world-cup-final-ticket-33k

FIFA tripled the price of its best available tickets to the FIFA World Cup final, making $32,970 seats available Thursday for the July 19 match at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Soccer's governing body listed those seats as front category 1 on its sales site on a day that saw members of Congress question the pricing structure for World Cup tickets and ask FIFA for more transparency on asking prices.

FIFA previously had a high price of $10,990 for category 1 at the final. However, that ticket was now available Thursday night only as wheelchair and easy access amenity category 1.

Tickets for the July 14 semifinal at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, were listed at $11,130, $4,330, $3,710 and $2,705. Seats for the following day's semifinal at Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium were at $10,635, $3,545 and $2,725.

More expensive than for NFL tickets!

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/super-bowl/2026/01/21/super-bowl-60-ticket-prices-purchase-cheapest/88274794007/

Face value for tickets to Super Bowl 60 range from $950 to $8,500, according to Friedman, who provided USA TODAY Sports a screenshot of a seating chart with ticket prices.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Personally, the idea of “extending the life” by installing Linux is foreign to me because I immediately put Linux on any hardware I get anyway.

Well, that's still sort of extending it past 0, so...

[–] tal@lemmy.today 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

The Nazis wouldn't have qualified by the standards at the time of the American Revolution in Benjamin Franklin's eyes. Nor even the Italian side of Bovino's family.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observations_Concerning_the_Increase_of_Mankind,_Peopling_of_Countries,_etc.

https://www.profmarkbaker.com/blog/2017/6/3/whiteness

I recently read derogatory comments a prominent political leader made about non-white immigrants swarming into our towns and cities and ruining our way of life. It was not Donald Trump, but Benjamin Franklin. And the threatening masses were not Latinos from south of the border, but immigrants from Germany—my ancestors.

“Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc.” – what follows is an excerpt from the 1751 original by Benjamin Franklin

[W]hy should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.

Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.

I have always been labeled as white—by myself and others. Yet not according to Ben Franklin. My ancestors are the exact people he sees as a threat to whites. They came from Germany and swarmed into Franklin’s beloved Pennsylvania. My father is a 6th generation German-American. And even after five generations in Pennsylvania they still spoke German. My grandfather did not learn English until he went to school. According to Franklin I am not white, but a swarthy German—a threat to the ways of whiteness.

It is common place to observe that most of those who complain about immigrants today are part of ethnic groups that once were slandered and scorned in similar ways. Franklin’s comments reinforce that important observation. Important, but not new for me. What was new for me was the realization that there was a time when some people would not have seen me as white.

"White" is a surprisingly mutable term over time as social norms change.

EDIT: I'd also add that you can also watch, over the course of America's history, "Protestant" morph into "Christian" and then morph into "Judeo-Christian" in political speeches and the like among people complaining about traditional American values being under threat.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Glad to hear it. Just out of curiosity, and for anyone who might run across this in the future trying to accomplish something similar, is your copy of Termux running rooted? I wouldn't have thought that it'd be possible without root privilege. You did mention Magisk above.

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submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by tal@lemmy.today to c/world@lemmy.world
 

Japan recorded the highest ever temperature of 41.2 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, beating the previous high of 41.1 C marked in 2018 and 2020. Authorities are strongly urging people to take precautions to avoid risks of heatstroke.

The mercury hit the above-human temperature of 41.2 C in the city of Tanba, Hyogo Prefecture, at 14:39, while two cities — Fukuchiyama in Kyoto and Nishiwaki in Hyogo — also recorded extremely high temperatures of 40.6 C and 40 C, respectively.

 

Some quotes that people might not expect, given their originators and the political views and groupings of the present day:

Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.


Karl Marx, Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League in London, March 1850

It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.


Adam Smith, Chapter II, Book V, The Wealth of Nations

I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermingling with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which will ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior. I am as much as any other man in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.


Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln-Douglas debates, October 13, 1858

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