I think Discovery had the worst. It isn’t the technobabbke it self that was the problem, it was how it was delivered.

Everyone seemed to be needed to be the most intelligent person in the room. So one person would start with some sudden realisation and solution, and then another would interrupt them and pick up the idea and then either back to the first person, or yet another person would interrupt. Between then all they’d build a tower of technobabble and deus ex machina, and self congratulatory nonsense. It was just so silly.

Person 1 “wait if we reveresed the polarity of the neutron projector…”

Person 2 “yes! It’d cause a build of tachyons and we’d be able to resonate the electron confabulaotr! Oh but there wouldn’t be enough plasma.”

Person 3: “no wait, that might work! We’d have to recomboulate the manifolds and…”

Person 1: "…that would allow us to recrystallise the warp matrix! Of course!’

Whose a genius? Everyone in the room is a genius! Let’s all give ourselves a round of applause.

That and all the space kung fu.

It still helps damage reddit’s commercialisation of users because historic posts have gaps or disappear for new users. Editing posts and replacing with gobbledygook is probably more effective.

Also, its not clear reddit is able to retain deleted posts. They have a vast live site to maintain - why would they ever have been focused on having an immutable back up of all deleted posts? They may have snapshots to restore after short term issues but it does not follow that they keep snapshots going back in time. Perhaps they do or perhaps like many companies they do the bare minimum in favour of keep costs down?

I personally think its worth using sites that edit your posts and replace with garbage, as that is harder to separate out from true edits and helps pollute the data set for AI companies.

Likely consistency of the product. The Cavandish cultivar is a clonal population; it makes then very susceptible to disease but also very consistent in terms of size and taste over time. The original Gros Michel cultivar was similar but then devastated by panama disease. It was also supposedly tastier and better.

But Plantains are also bananas and totally different in terms of taste and consistency. If you were to freely cultivate bananas there is a huge range of possible tastes and textures.

Thats not to say its not feasible; a range of cultivars could be developed. Its also worth bearing in mind that most farmers do not generally develop new cultivars; their business is mass producing the fruit. People experimenting with new cultivars are effectively fringe and it’s likely difficult to break into a market where consumers expectations of what a banana is are so fixed. Most people don’t even think of a plantain as a banana. Its hard to break in and make money with different bananas as people expect a banana to he a Cavendish.

Unfortunately consumers and retailers are the enemy of variety. Even fruits where people known there are varieties, such as Apples, are dominated by a couple of commerical cultivars. And that extends across into many plants and even animal products - there is huge commercial pressure for homogenous consistent products which in the shirt term out weighs long term risks of bad agricultural practicea.

Its a fascinating election when you look at the stats. Labour vote share barely changed, Tories collapsed and Reform took most of their votes. In many of the conservative constituencies lost the Tory + Reform vote combined would have won.

Of course the Tories will make the mistake of trying to be more like Reform or even merge with them. That will be a huge mistake and they will probably turn off their remaining core vote.

This is really just another example of how broken the first past the post system is. I’m glad labour won but they’re kidding themselves that they somehow broke through to the public - they benefited from a split rightwing vote, just as Boris Johnson benefited from a split remain voter base when he won his big majority with just 43.6% of the votes in 2019.

Labour won a huge majority with just 33.7% of the vote! Only 1.6% higher voter share than in 2019 and way off the 43% Blair got in his landslide election in 1997.

The boost in support in the far right is concerning in Europe however it is also over reported and the media often fails to understand the political systems.

Most European countries have proportional representation.

In Germany AFD won 16% of the vote. They came joint second which made headlines but 16% is low. Worst case is they could conceivably join a coalition in a split Bundestag. But AFD are not currently realistically close to power.

In France, the far right was 33% of the vote, again making headlines and troubling. However that is in the first round. France has a second round where the 67% can coalesce around candidates. It’s troubling but the far right is not getting a majority in the French parliament, and it remains unlikely they would won the presidency as the left and centre out weigh them.

In the UK Reform is polling around the same level as the Conservatives at about 18%. In the UK’s system its first past the post so it looks like they’re get a few seats at most - literally 5 - put of 650 seats. The UK is looking very likely to elect a centre left party to power with a huge majority, mainly due to the implosion of the conservative party.

While these are all concerning and reflect lots of local trends, there is a huge difference with the US. In the US the republican party is viable for the presidency, the house and the senate and already hold the supreme court.

The US is in a far worse position than almost any European country when it comes to the extreme party being at the doors of power. Europe has much work to do, but the US is fucked because its much vaunted electoral system and constitution has been shown to be extremely weak and fatally flawed, and seems to be unfixable.

Yeah its just not a good show.

I just watched a scene where Michael and Mol were working together, then suddenly Michael decides to attack Mol, then they have a kung fu fight and finally Michael asks Mol stop and says she needs to trust her, as if Michael hadn’t just violently assaulted her. The writing is nonsensical.

Unfortunately that is symptomatic of the show as a whole and just one of many problems.

Also the constant deus ex machina, with the characters having a conversations where everyone finishes each others sentences. Its tiresome to watch. I really wanted to like the show but never could.

Yeah, this is a desperate policy to appeal to the right wing elderly voters to try and save some seats.

As a software developer you should have a bit of a head start - you can read the code - one of the big pluses of open source projects is it’s all there in the open. Even if not familiar with the specific language used you can see the source and get a rough idea of scope and complexity.

And look at the Github details like the age, the frequency between releases, commits, forks. Malicious projects don’t stick around for long on a host site like that, and they don’t get 1000s of stars or lots of engagement from legitimate users. It’s very difficult to fake that.

Look at the project website. Real projects have active forums, detailed wikis, and evidence of user engagement. You’ll see people recommending the project elsewhere on the net if you search, or writing independent tutorials on how to deploy or use it, or reviews on YouTube etc. Look for testimonials and user experiences.

Also look at where the software is deployed and recommended. If it’s included in big name Linux distros repos thats a good sign.

Look at all the things you’d be looking at for paid software to see it’s actually in use and not a scam.

And try it out - it’s easy to set up a VM and deploy something in a sandbox safe environment and get a feeling if it does what it claims to do. Whether that be a cut down system with docker or an entire OS in the sandbox to stress test the software and out it through its paces.

There are so many possible elements to doing “due diligence” to ensure it’s legitimate but also the right solution for your needs.

Something dry that even in hot humid air won’t spoil quickly.

Cheese seems like a good bet. Certain cooked and cured meats similarly; salami or beef jerky, cooked sausages etc.

But ultimately why would you eat in the shower? The real problem is either time management issue or eating too much of you really need to cram food in your gob while showering. Also would waste more water and time in the shower if you’re both eating and cleaning yourself.

Its the sort of seemingly innocuous question that actually shows you maybe should be taking a long hard look at your life priorities. The shower is a good place to think about that, maybe while chewing on a block of cheddar cheese.

Spot it, use the same technique and double down on your opinions. Deliberately become rigid and take the exact opposite position from the person you’re talking with. It’ll gradually annoy and frustrate them.

The key is awareness. Once you’re aware, you can take more control of the situation.

Not really. That windows is targeted more is not to do with it being closed source or necessarily less secure; it is ubiquitous and so from a hacker/malware point of view it’s the best chance of getting a financial reward from their efforts.

However it being closed source makes it harder to identify and patch the holes. We only come across those holes either because a good actor has taken the time to find them (which is hard work) or a bad actor has started exploiting the flaws and been caught - which is terrible as the horse has already bolted, and often stumbled across after damage has been done

Open source does not magically fix that problem, it just puts the good and bad actors on a more level open playing field. Software can be secure with open code as security is about good design rather than obscuration. But open source code can also be very insecure due to bad design, and those flaws are open to anyone to see and exploit. And it requires people taking the time and effort to actually review and fix the code. There is less incentive to do that in some ways as it is currently less targeted.

However there are a lot more benefits to open source beyond that, including transparency, audit, and collaboration. It’s those benefits together that make open source compelling.

Security is also more than being hacked. There are lots of examples of closed source software doing things to benefit it’s makers rather than its users - scraping user data for example and sending it home to be exploited. It’s harder to hide in open source software, but someone also has to take the time to look.

Absolutely, this is a good explanation.

And to add, so many pieces of software share code through shared libraries or systems. Open source means if there is a flaw in one library that is found and fixed, all the software that uses it downstream can benefit.

Closed source, good actors might not even know their software is using flawed older libraries as it’s hidden from view.

Plus open source allows audit of code to ensure the software is what it says it is. There are plenty of examples of commercial closed software that does things deliberately that do not benefit it’s user, but do benefit the company that makes the software.

Interesting. What’s the US’s excuse for Trump?

Self discipline is a skill in itself and it is something you can learn.

At it’s most basic you restrict things you want and make them a reward for doing a task.

It can be hard to restrict things as you say. When I used to study, I used to go to a “3rd place” to do it. That is somewhere that is not home or work - I used to go to a library. In that environments you don’t have TV, or food, and hopefully you won’t be masturbating.

Mobiles can be very difficult though - if you can’t stop yourself using your phone to watch YouTube then either leave it at home (I know, shocking idea in this day and age!) Or install parental locking/anti distraction software that locks your phone down for certain periods. This can help you learn self discipline with your phone.

Similarly if you study with a laptop, then look at anti distraction tools to keep you focused on your work rather than surfing or on YouTube.

The reward side is very important. You need to be consistent and follow through on your promises to yourself. Don’t use unrealistic rewards - like “if I study for 6 hours today I’ll have dinner tonight”. You’re going to have dinner anyway, and you don’t want to go down the road of punishing yourself. Make it a favourite meal, or promise to watch next episode in a favourite TV show.

The idea is that you will be still enjoying those things because you will study and work. But be prepared to deny yourself those things if you fail to reach your goals in the beginning.

Self discipline is hard, not least because you can cheat yourself too easily. But it’s worth putting in the effort, and the forced physical separation from the distractions and rewards at home makes it easier.

Dead is not the same as gone. We are a stream of consciousness moving through time. The past isn’t “dead” it is just behind us, just as the future is not “birth”.

If you imagine yourself as a river of water, there is still a river behind you and In-front of you, but all you are aware of is now.

Whether or not we can go back or forward in that stream of consciousness - who knows. We don’t know what we perceive when we do actually die.

If you can’t get past this focus on the concept then at least stop thinking of it as “death”. That’s anthropomorphising what is happening (trying to attribute a human experience to it) but it’s adding the baggage of all those negative or anxious feelings we feel about death. Our consciousness moving forward through time is its own thing, it is not death.

The word Soccer is actually British - it’s short for Association as in Association Football, although it’s slang from Oxford University of all places, and is late Victorian.

Irony is a surprising number of “Americanisms” turn out to be old British terms that died out in Britain but reached and continued in the US.

You literally ended your post with “phone the boss lol”.

I stand corrected, you are obviously very relaxed about the whole topic to the point you will “phone the boss lol”. To me you’re sneering at people who are doing poorly paid gig economy jobs. Maybe when you get some experience of the real world you will learn things are seldom so straight forward and black and white.

Next time you ask someone to give you some slack in your job (maybe extending a deadline? Maybe moving something around to accommodate you?) you might understand how even something as simple as “moving from a to b” is not always as easy as you think.

The seller has decided the domain costs $1m. It’s unlikely any “cart” they’ve set that up with would allow such a transaction. It’ll be some kind of bank to bank transfer that is needed with various fraud checks.

Also as with most expensive purchases, the list price is total bullshit. When you see expensive price tags, the final price will be less unless demand is high.

When you see expensive apartments or properties up for $1m the selling price is likely to be less unless there is a lot of competition. In property hotspots it is getting normal to pay the full price but in all areas the prices are inflated deliberately to see what the seller can get away with. The actual price is what someone is willing to pay. People aren’t fools - they negotiate.

If you’ll haggle over a $10k car then of course you’d haggle over a $1m domain. (And if you’re not haggling the price down on a $10k car then you’re an idiot and wasting money)

A $1m domain - it might sell for $900k or $100k or never sell as it’s actually worthless.

These are the words of someone who is destined for a life of disappointment from his deliveries. If you expect perfection then expect to be disappointed.