Jho

This article was an interesting read. It goes into detail about Gary Bowser's life growing up, his role in Team Xecuter, what his life is like today, and his thoughts about his $14.5m fine to Nintendo.

Some choice quotes:

“I started becoming a middleman in between the people doing the development work, and the people actually owning the mod chips, playing the games,” [Gary Bowser] says. “I would get feedback from the testers, and then I would send it to the developers … I can handle people, and that’s why I ended up getting more involved.”

Bowser was charged with fraud over his connection to Team Xecuter. While in custody, he was also hit with a civil suit from Nintendo. Between the civil and criminal cases, he was ordered to pay $14.5m.

Pirates are usually fined in court, but Bowser’s case was meant to draw attention. “The sentence was like a message to other people that [are] still out there, that if they get caught … [they’ll] serve hard time,” he says. As he tells it, Bowser didn’t make or develop the products that sent him to prison; he “just” updated the websites that told people what they could buy, and kept them informed about what was coming next.

Bowser maintains that he could have fought the allegations, and that other members of the hacking group remain at large. But fighting against 13 charges would have cost time and money. It was easier, he claims, to plead guilty and only deal with a couple of the charges. As a part of that agreement, Bowser now has to send Nintendo 20-30% of any money left over after he pays for necessities such as rent.

“I’ll pay them what I can, which won’t be very much money, that’s for sure,” he says. Despite his predicament, Bowser counts his blessings. “It could be a lot worse,” he says. Bowser has now managed to secure housing, and he thinks that after rent, he has a couple of hundred dollars leftover for food and other necessities. He assumes he’ll be turning to food support services.

Some choice quotes:

Of the roughly $1.2 billion (€1.09 bn) a year spent on endangered and threatened species, about half goes toward recovery of just two types of fish: salmon and steelhead trout along the West Coast. Tens of millions of dollars go to other widely known animals including manatees, right whales, grizzly bears and spotted owls.

At the bottom of the spending list is the tiny Virginia fringed mountain snail, which had $100 (€91) spent on its behalf in 2020, according to the most recent data available. [...] yet it remains a step ahead of more than 200 imperilled plants, animals, fish and other creatures that had nothing spent on their behalf.

An analysis of 2020 data by news agency the Associated Press found fish got 67 per cent of the spending, [...] mammals were a distant second with 7 per cent of spending and birds had about 5 per cent. Insects received just 0.5 per cent of the money and plants about 2 per cent.

Such spending inequities are longstanding and reflect a combination of biological realities and political pressures. Restoring salmon and steelhead populations is expensive because they are widespread and hemmed in by massive hydroelectric dams. They also have a broad political constituency with Native American tribes and commercial fishing interests that want fisheries restored.

[A study] show[s] [that domestic cats] eat more than 2,000 species globally – including hundreds that are of conservation concern.

“Our study sheds light on the predatory habits of one of the world’s most successful and widely distributed invasive predators,” the researchers, led by Christopher Lepczyk from Auburn University in the US, wrote in the paper.

A public statement signed by more than 1,000 scientists in support of meat production and consumption has numerous links to the livestock industry[.]

The declaration and associated studies are viewed as “propaganda” by leading environmental scientists. Prof Matthew Hayek of New York University in the US said: “The scientific consensus is that we need rapid meat reduction in the regions that can afford that choice.”

Studies in the highest-ranking scientific journals have concluded that cutting meat and dairy consumption in rich countries is the single best way to reduce a person’s impact on the environment and that the climate crisis cannot be beaten without such cuts. People already eat more meat than health guidelines recommend in most developed nations.

The statement has been used to target top EU officials against environmental and health policies and has been endorsed by the EU agriculture commissioner [...] The EU was pursuing policies to reduce meat consumption on environmental and health grounds, but some of these have recently been dropped.

I've been seeing a lot of people talking about how their android phones are rooted here. I'm very fed up with all the bloatware on my phone and I want to de-Google my life so I'm very interested in rooting my own phone.

People we're really helpful with the last post I made here, thank you all so much! I've been doing a bit of research but I'm hoping for some advice/pointers since I've never rooted my phone before and I'm nervous about trusting random internet guides I find.

My phone is a ROG 3 Strix. I'm mostly using this as my guide but I've read a couple of other guides too. I couldn't find a guide specifically for the Strix so I'm assuming (hoping) the steps will be the same.

From what I've read my understanding is that I need to do the following steps:

• Unlock the bootloader using a tool like fastboot. I believe ASUS has it's own tool for doing this on ROG phones (obiwan-0902-1738_SIGNED_UnlockTool_9.3.0.0_200820_fulldpi.apk).
• Install TWRP so that I can install a custom OS onto the phone after rooting.
• Root the phone using a tool like Magisk.
• Use TWRP to install my OS. I've seen GrapheneOS and LineageOS being used by various people here on Beehaw.

Is there anything else I need to consider, or other guides/reading that would be worth me checking out? And what OS would people recommend I install on my phone?

I'm aware that some apps won't work on rooted phones (e.g. banking apps) but I have another device I can use for those purposes. To install all the apps I'll need I believe I need to download the FOSSAPPS Magisk Module which installs F-droid, which can then install Aurora Store.

I want to get into self-hosting. I've done a bit of self-hosting before using a Raspberry Pi (pi-hole and Discord bots) but I really want to start self-hosting almost everything I can like I've seen many people here doing.

However, I'm not sure what kind of machine I should build which would be suitable for these purposes. I've never even built a PC before though my fiancee has and he will be able to help me...

Here are some services I'm thinking of self-hosting to start with:

• AdGuard
• OpenMediaVault
• Bitwarden
• Mastodon
• Matrix

Eventually I would also like to host PeerTube, Kbin, Plex, and many other things...

What are the most important things I'll need to consider with a self-hosting machine, and what I will need to upgrade over time as I self-host more services? Ideally I'd like a machine which is as energy efficient as possible too.

Also, is it a good idea to host so many services, both publically-accessible websites as well as services only available on my home network, from the same machine? What are the security considerations when self-hosting?

Any links/articles for me to read would be appreciated too!

Here is my controversial take: if it is true that a cat needs to be let outdoors unsupervised in order to live a happy life full of enrichment, then we should not have pet cats at all.

TW: Discussions of animal death.

Letting a cat wander outside unsupervised is cruel both to local wildlife, but also cruel to the cat.

Letting cats outside is often introducing a non-native species to an ecosystem which has not evolved to deal with cats. How is it any different to us accidentally introducing invasive rats, weasels, and other small predatory mammals into ecosystems? We invest a lot of money into ridding sensitive ecosystems of these invasive species but we turn a blind eye to cats because we selfishly benefit from them being around us, whether it's because we find them cute or because they provide a practical use for us as mousers.

I'm fed up of my neighbours cats who visit my garden. They poop in my planters where I grow vegetables that I eat, which presents a serious health risk to me. The cats predate the birds who visit my garden, which has exclusively been successful on fledglings and other young birds. So far, it has not been a species that is vulnerable and it's only common garden birds, but cats will kill indiscriminately and I have heard many horror stories of endangered birds being predated by cats owned by friends-of-friends.

A pigeon couple has been building a nest in a tree in my garden, but this morning I saw it was predated. I found a chewed open egg, and when showing a photo to my ornithologist friend she theorizes it was most likely a cat as the puncture into the egg shell will have been cleaner if it had been a predatory bird. Predation is a natural part of life, but this predation was not by a natural predator which is part of our local ecosystem and thus I am very upset...

But not only that, I believe letting a cat go outdoors unsupervised is cruel to the cat. Cats so often go missing, more often than not killed by cars. In other countries there are dangerous animals who can kill cats. This is not an issue here but I have personally had to dispose of dead cats who turn up in my garden after being run over on the road in front of my house. I don't think there is any other common pet animal where we so easily expose them to dangers we cannot protect them from.

Just to say, I do not hate cats. I do not blame the cats for pooping in my vegetable beds, or hunting on my property. They are animals only doing what their instincts dictate, and often are doing what we ourselves have taught them when we first domesticated them. Equally, to a degree I struggle to blame some cat owners as people will often argue that keeping a cat inside is cruel, and they do not desire to be cruel to their cats. The intentions are good, and education on this matter is poor.

There is an issue here which needs to be discussed, and the hypocracies we have normalized need to be challenged. For me, I feel that cats either need to be kept indoors if we can verify that this is not cruel to the cat, or we should be required to supervise our cats outdoors like we are supposed to do with dogs, or we should stop having pet cats. Having unsupervised outdoor cats is unacceptable.

Edit: Grammar and adding a TW just to be safe!

The next Splatoon Splatfest is going to be between 5pm PT on the 14th July to 5pm PT on the 16th July!

Which team is everyone planning on joining?

For non-Splatoon players, feel free to join in on the important debate of which flavour of ice cream is best!

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/506794

Do you enjoy these Big Run events? What score did you get?

My highest score was 129 but one of my friends got 151