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Comment Re:Welcome to the Precarious Economy (Score 1) 34

The biggest flaw of the citizens of the USA, as that they don't seem to care about this gradual decline in job quality and living standards.

Oh, I think people care. Bernie is very popular for a reason. One of the political parties clearly isn't interested in fixing this, and the donor class of the other party doesn't want them to make material changes, even if they give lip service to improving material conditions for people.

And those are the only two choices when we vote. I hope that peaceful political activism becomes more common.

Comment Re:Wow (Score 1) 90

Someone else commented that there are some smallish internet forums still kicking, and those are nice. I agree.

I feel like your timeline needs another breakpoint for the pre-facebook post-1993 internet, when people still made individual websites or had their own blogs outside of major platforms. I remember some fun times on IRC in the mid 2000s.

I think the problem that would face is a lack of users ready to buy things from the ads they click on. Which was the same problem we had in the first 20+ years of the Internet. Most people really didn't spend money on there if they could avoid it.

How is this a problem? It sounds nice. I like what neocities and nekoweb are doing.

Comment Re:money (Score 2) 46

Nobody really knows how to finance themselves without ads anymore. Decades of market shares built on cheap investor money have set people's expectations of service costs unsustainably low. But someone has to pay for the party. Pretty much the only business model that has worked for anyone is to turn oneself into an ad company.

Ads and monetization have made Google search so useless for finding technical information that I now pay for a search engine subscription with Kagi. The irony is that they use the same backend data as Google, Bing, etc. but due to the subscription model are motivated to return relevant search results rather than the most monetizable links.

So there's at least one precedent for the excesses of advertising and monetization creating a market for actually useful services funded by means other than advertising.

I've hated advertising with a passion since I was a teenager.

Comment Re:In the state where I live (Score 1) 159

What happens is that they are ALLOWED to increase the rent by max 13 %/year, in case an area suddenly becomes very popular and the market rent therefore suddenly soar to much more than an 13 % increase. In other words, people living there will get a couple of years to adjust rather than overnight get their rent raised by 100 % because that's the new market rate.

Comment Re:Great idea, in theory (Score 1) 144

Art is not good.

Sturgeon's law: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

90 % of everything is crap. Why should we subsidise crap?

99 % of everything will be forgotten in a generation. Meanwhile, the 1 % that is not forgotten will survive for long - people should focus on that 1 %. Get back to me when you have read all classics, listened to all the great composers all works, visited all great art museums, seen all 100 top rated movies from all times. Then, but only then, is new art needed.

Lindy effect: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

Submission + - Should the Autism Spectrum Be Split Apart?

XXongo writes: A New York times article suggests that merging the diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome into the Autism diagnosis in 2013, thus creating the "autism spectrum disorder", was not helpful. That broadening of the diagnosis, along with the increasing awareness of the disorder, is largely responsible for the steep rise in autism cases that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called “an epidemic” and has attributed to theories of causality that mainstream scientists reject, like vaccines and, more recently, Tylenol. But the same diagnosis now applies to both people who are non-verbal, frequently engage in self-destructive behavior such as pounding their heads against the floor, and may require full-time care, but also to people who are merely somewhat socially awkward, possibly engage in repetitive behaviors, and have a narrow range of interests. "Everything changed when we included Asperger’s [in the diagnosis of autism],” said Dr. Eric Fombonne, a psychiatrist and researcher at Oregon Health & Science University. He noted that in the earliest studies of autism rates, 75% of people with the diagnosis had intellectual disabilities. Now, only about a third do.
(The NYT link is paywalled, but a shorter non-paywalled version is here.)

Submission + - This Isn't Your Father's Weed - and It's Tied to 42 Percent of Fatal Crashes (facs.org) 1

schwit1 writes: The study, just published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, reviewed data for 246 deceased Ohio drivers, and found an average THC blood level of 30.7 ng/ML — 15 times the state's legal limit — in 41.9% of dead drivers.

Here in Colorado, the average THC concentration of the legal stuff is approximately 21%, based on comprehensive lab testing of weed statewide. That's just the average concentration.

Frogurt — a name-brand grown and sold in Michigan — tests at 41%. Something called Future #1 is up to 37% THC, and the Permanent Marker brand runs at an average of 34%.

Back in the day, the hard-to-find 15% stuff was the much-sought-after "one-hit weed." The average pot today is 50% stronger. But for people willing to pay a little more, they can get stuff four times more powerful than much of anything your typical 1990 dorm-room smoker enjoyed behind the Redwood Curtain.

The industrial-scale pot-growing enabled by legalization made the stronger concentrations possible, probably even inevitable. Easy availability changes the equation, too. Around 2000, 5% or so of adults reported "regular" pot use of at least once a month. In 2024, that number was 15%.

But cultural conditions have changed greatly since 2000. People were likely less willing back then to answer positively. So we just don't know what the true figures are, but if the trendline is up for regular pot smoking, then the trendline for potency is way up.

About the only thing we can conclude with any certainty is that you'd have to be stoned out of your gourd to think it's a good idea to drive while impaired.

Submission + - Black holes might hold the key to a 60-year cosmic mystery (sciencedaily.com)

alternative_right writes: Scientists may have finally uncovered the mystery behind ultra-high-energy cosmic rays — the most powerful particles known in the universe. A team from NTNU suggests that colossal winds from supermassive black holes could be accelerating these particles to unimaginable speeds. These winds, moving at half the speed of light, might not only shape entire galaxies but also fling atomic nuclei across the cosmos with incredible energy.

Submission + - Researchers show how mouse sensors can pick up speech from surface vibrations (techspot.com)

jjslash writes: Researchers at UC Irvine have shown that high DPI computer mice can detect tiny desk vibrations and reconstruct speech from them. Their Mic-E-Mouse project reveals how everyday hardware could be turned into a covert listening device under certain conditions. TechSpot reports:

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, have shown that the sensors in high-resolution optical computer mice can detect tiny desk vibrations and translate them into speech. Their project, called Mic-E-Mouse, demonstrates how an ordinary mouse can become a listening device when paired with the right software.

High-performance optical mice – especially those with resolutions of 20,000 dpi or higher and rapid polling rates – are sensitive enough to capture minute surface vibrations. In gaming and graphic design contexts, this sensitivity enables highly precise control.


Submission + - Your Fresh Vegetables Could Be Sucking Up Plastic Right From The Soil (sciencealert.com)

alternative_right writes: A team of scientists from the University of Plymouth in the UK placed radishes into a hydroponic (water-based) system containing polystyrene nanoparticles.

After five days, almost 5 percent of the nanoplastics had made their way into the radish roots. A quarter of those were in the edible, fleshy roots, while a tenth had traveled up to the higher leafy shoots, despite anatomical features within the plants that typically screen harmful material from the soil.

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