activistPnk

joined 11 months ago
[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Just a week ago I saw a comical shoplifting attempt. A guy had a bottle of spirits of some kind with the neck of it sticking out of his jacket. He just walked through the line parallel to the person being rung up. The cashier said “mister!” and he started jogging out. Two cashiers left their registers and bolted out the door after him. They caught up with him down the street. One of them collected the items he tried to jack, and the other cashier grabbed him by the collar and marched him back into the store and left my view.. probably took him to a back room for some kind of processing.

I was surprised by a few things. I would not think cashiers would have the authority to search and detain someone. But I was more surprised by their energy and motivation. If they were overworked and underpaid, and did not give a shit about their employer, why the motivation to spot a shoplifter and chase them down the street, get physical, and perhaps even take some legal risk not having the power of the police?

Big business often implies unethical conduct. But not necessarily. If a business is big, it’s wise to look for unethical conduct and if something is found, then boycott. But being big in itself is insufficient for boycotts and theft. There are actually quite big competitors of Lidl which have significant ethical problems (Carrefour and Delhaize).

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

thanks - i’ve updated the post.

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net -1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

There are countless ways to implement autoplay. You apparently got lucky with one particular toolchain in one situation. Tor Browser is FF based and should not be extended by plugins (as that changes fingerprints), and TB plays whatever junk is on that page.

Have a look at how long Google has been unable to disable autoplay (2009).

The maker of Ungoogled Chromium made an autoplay blocker but it had so many failures he abandoned the project hoping Google would have the resources to tackle the problem.

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Interesting lesson in this story:

Pkg with contraband was intercepted, documented, all needed warrants secured. Pkg is delivered while the house is staked out by LEOs. Sometime after delivery (a day later, iirc) they bust in, find the pkg, and arrest. The pkg was sitting just inside by the door, unopened. Defense argued “my client knows nothing about this unexpected package. Who’s to say the sender wasn’t framing the recipient?” So he obviously got vindicated.

So there’s a game of timing. Recipients need to be given the chance to open the pkg and react by calling the police. Not sure how it goes if you consume it immediately after opening and burn the box. Certainly the wrong move is to open it and let it sit around open.

/cc @snausagesinablanket@lemmy.world

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

To be clear, the spores are perfectly legal. You can mail order spores that come in saline solution in a syringe without trouble. The businesses selling that are smart enough to not use media mail, which of course would cross a line (fraud). I wonder why someone would risk media mail. Perhaps they thought it would be trusted as such and thus have less scrutiny.

The nuance here is you said “kit”, which suggests everything you need for growth and thus intent. Maybe you’re right on that bit. Buying everything separately would require surveillance to put all that together that you have a kit, in effect.

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I think not. But then I’m not living in a wealthy part of town. I think I’ve only seen one, ridden by a colleague. It only takes one of those little 2-stroke 50cc gas fuckers to wake up 10,000 people.

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

And don’t neglect the disease factor. Recent research shows that stressed animals (both human and non-human) have weakened immune systems. And as you might expect farmed animals are stressed in high numbers. This has been linked to diseases. Diseases in non-human animals sometimes jumps to humans. There would be substantial overlap between climate activists and those valuing safety from pandemics. And indeed, that same political party in the US who fought masks and vaccines happens to be the same group of people who deny climate change.

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

Why not? If the right eco answer is to eat more of a certain kind of meat instead of quitting meat,

First of all that’s not likely correct info. I can’t see the uncited chart you posted but it certainly sounds untrustworthy. I’ve seen several charts in documentaries and research papers and they generally show roughly the same pattern, comparable to this chart.

But let’s say someone managed to convincingly cherry-pick some corner-case legumes that are bizarre outliers to the overall pattern. Maybe there are some rare fruits that get shipped all over the world. It certainly does not make sense to divide, disempower, and diffuse the vegan movement in order to make exotic fruit/veg X the enemy of climate action in favor of preserving chicken factory-farming. Not a fan of Ronald Regan but there is a useful quote by him:

“if you’re explaining, you’re losing.”

IOW, you’ve added counter-productive complexity to the equation at the cost of neutering an otherwise strong movement -- or in the very least failed to exploit an important asset we need for climate action. This is not an environmental activist move. It’s the move of a falsely positioned meat-eating climate denier strategically posturing.

The wise move is to consider action timing more tactfully. That is, push the simple vegan narrative for all it’s worth to shrink the whole livestock industry (extra emphasis on beef is fine but beyond that complexity works against you). No meat would be entirely eliminated of course (extinction mitigation is part of the cause anyway), but when a certain amount of progress is made only then does it make sense to go on the attack on whatever veg can really be justified as a worthy new top offender. The optimum tactful sequence of attack is not the order that appears on whatever chart you found.

The somewhat simplified take is: “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, then beat ’em”. Vegans are united and it’s foolish to disrupt that at this stage.

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 1 points 6 months ago

I’d far rather deal with the noise than having yet more surveillance.

My cognitive dissonance triggers on this point because one of the reasons I cycle is privacy. I am also firmly in the #fuckCars camp (noise, pollution, death, selfishness of people putting their convenience above lives of other people & animals). It’s hard to give a shit about car drivers having privacy. And also realize that car drivers inherently sign up to give up privacy in order to use a personal car anyway (registration, insurance, banking transactions tied to those activities and their fuel purchases, etc). The fuel purchases of car drivers feed the oil industry, which in the US feeds the war chests of republican candidates who disrespect both privacy and the environment.

Yet people making the wise pro-privacy considerate decision to cycle are still exposed to breath car fumes, noise, and life-threatening physics (e=mc²). Hard to have sympathy for car drivers.

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Electrics cars will make it a non issue

I do not see EVs replacing scooters (which are driven by lower budget commuters). A single unmuffled scooter driving through #Paris at 3am can wake up 10,000 people according to Bruitparif. And don’t forget horns. Assholes will used their horns at 3am on my street. The only thing they give a fuck about is their own convenience when their favorite parking spot is taken.

The idea of harsh punishments works if a vehicle is continuously loud because it will eventually cross paths with a cop. So that position is fair enough. But what about horns? There’s never a cop around when horns are misused.

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net -1 points 6 months ago (2 children)

⚠ That article is a bit enshitified and autoplays video. Just a warning to anyone on a limited internet connection.

[–] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Note as well that if the chocolate comes from:

  • #Nestlé
  • #HaagenDazs or
  • #Hershey’s

then the supply chain has child slaves as well.

 

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/4160051

There are several DiY communities in the fedi but if we ignore the big centralized instances, there is:

Perhaps each would consider mentioning the other sister community in the sidebar?

 

There are several DiY communities in the fedi but if we ignore the big centralized instances, there is:

Perhaps each would consider mentioning the other sister community in the sidebar?

40
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by activistPnk@slrpnk.net to c/climate@slrpnk.net
 

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/4118072

Consumerism is part of the climate problem and perhaps more so a waste disposal problem. Consumerism probably cannot be stopped but it can be reduced. It’s disturbing in the current climate that #BlackFriday still exists. To encourage the kick-off of mass consumption a month before Christmas likely does a lot damage.

I suppose cancelling Black Friday would be impossible in the US (where I suspect it started). A large number of democrats would oppose it and probably every single republican in the US would fight to their death an anti-consumerism action like that.

But what about Europe? Doesn’t Belgium and Netherlands restrict store-wide sales to just two weeks or so out of the year? For Europe, perhaps instead of cancelling it (which many would view as over-interventionist) they could double the VAT rates on that day on clothes and electronics. IDK.. that’s probably crazy talk. Ideas welcome. There’s no real issue with sales on services, but consumption of goods is where the damage is done.

I hate the idea that one of the most environmentally reckless companies in the world (#Amazon) gets a huge boost in sales on Black Friday. It makes the day depressing to see the masses rush to enrich a company they should be boycotting all year. I loved Black Friday back in the days when I was a loose cannon consumerist myself. Now it’s just a shit day where I deliberately avoid shops in order to not support it.

UPDATE

To be clear, I would not propose cancelling the unofficial holiday US employers often give on Black Friday. Just the sales.

 

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/3317096

I bought this machine from the 1960s (cost: 12 Big Macs). I did not clean it or oil it as I wanted to just see if it works.

It made a straight line without issue. Then on the 2nd straight line the top thread got bundled below the plate. I cleared that & started over. Then went to the narrowest zig-zag setting and the needle broke.

I’m just starting to learn. I know from videos that pushing the fabric while the needle is down can bend the needle and put it in harms way. I don’t think I was pushing or pulling the fabric when the needle broke. So I wonder what would cause this-- does this mean the timing is off and needs adjustment?

I’m not enthusiastic about doing much experimentation at this point because needles seem pricey enough that I don’t want to break many (1¼ the cost of a Big Mac in my area buys 5 needles). But I just removed the top thread and bobbin and installed the empty bobbin case. When I manually spin the wheel with no thread at various zig-zig widths, there is no apparent contact with the needle. So perhaps the thread occasionally bundling up under the plate is part of the issue.

update: if I load thread and manually crank for the zig-zag patterns, most stitches are missed. The thread is plunged in from the top but does not get grabbed from the bottom most of the time.

 

I bought this machine from the 1960s (cost: ~5 Big Macs). I did not clean it or oil it as I wanted to just see if it works.

It made a straight line without issue. Then for the 2nd straight line I spun the wheel manually (no motor) to see things work in slow motion. The top thread got bundled below the plate. I cleared that & started over. Then went to the narrowest zig-zag setting and the needle broke. I think I used the motor for the zig-zag.

I’m just starting to learn. I know from videos that pushing the fabric while the needle is down can bend the needle and put it in harms way. I don’t think I was pushing or pulling the fabric when the needle broke. So I wonder what would cause this-- does this mean the timing is off and needs adjustment?

I’m not enthusiastic about doing much experimentation at this point because needles seem pricey enough that I don’t want to break many (1¼ the cost of a Big Mac in my area buys 5 needles). But I just removed the top thread and bobbin and installed the empty bobbin case. When I manually spin the wheel with no thread at various zig-zig widths, there is no apparent contact with the needle. So perhaps the thread occasionally bundling up under the plate is part of the issue.

update: if I load thread and manually crank for the zig-zag patterns, most stitches are missed. The thread is plunged in from the top but does not get grabbed from the bottom most of the time.

 

I watched several sewing videos in preparation to buy a machine. The consensus is that drop-in bobbins are easier for beginners than front-load. Well I’m the kind of person who wants to get to the /expert/ stage & if that means doing things the hard way, so be it. But then the question is, what are the advantages of front-loads?

Youtube video id rbhfilt68vI titled “TESTED Best Sewing Machines for Beginners” suggests that front-load bobbins are more likely to get tangled and jammed. That sounds like an anti-feature for both beginners and experienced users. So why do front-load bobbin designs even exist?

(edit)

I think I got my answer. Video F7GTjrc-m5w says front-loading enables the machine to go faster and also enables you to switch bobbins mid-task.

I care more about jamming than speed. But the mid-task swapping sounds useful because I don’t suppose you can predict when it will run out. So I guess I need to consider how much stock to put into the comment about jamming.

 

There is apparently a printer that can use spent coffee or tea leaves to print. I love this idea but I would not buy a printer when so many are being thrown away. I pull them out of dumpsters with intent to repair them. So the question is, can they be hacked to work with coffee or tea?

Canon actually disclosed how to hack their cartridges as a consequence of a semiconductor shortage due to coronavirus. So this suggests #Canon could be a candidate for this hack. Has anyone tried it? How precisely do we have to match the viscosity of homemade ink to the original ink?

 

Sometimes I report a bug & the dev starts off asking for more details. But then there’s a kind of scope of effort creep where you start to realize you’re being tricked into finding where in the code the problem is so you can fix the bug.

It’s a bit of social engineering of sorts. When I post a bug, I do that from the back seat of the car. And it’s like the dev sits in the backseat as well while coercing me into the front seat. So sometimes there’s a bit of weasel words and nuances with sneaky wording that needs to be deployed in order to stay in the backseat while trying to get the dev into the front seat where they belong!

 

The problem:

The web has obviously reached a high level of #enshitification. Paywalls, exclusive walled gardens, #Cloudflare, popups, CAPTCHAs, tor-blockades, dark patterns (esp. w/cookies), javascript that makes the website an app (not a doc), etc.

Status quo solution (failure):

#Lemmy & the #threadiverse were designed to inherently trust humans to only post links to non-shit websites, and to only upvote content that has no links or links to non-shit venues.

It’s not working. The social approach is a systemic failure.

The fix:

  • stage 1 (metrics collection): There needs to be shitification metrics for every link. Readers should be able to click a “this link is shit” button on a per-link basis & there should be tick boxes to indicate the particular variety of shit that it is.

  • stage 2 (metrics usage): If many links with the same hostname show a pattern of matching enshitification factors, the Lemmy server should automatically tag all those links with a warning of some kind (e.g. ⚠, 💩, 🌩).

  • stage 3 (inclusive alternative): A replacement link to a mirror is offered. E.g. youtube → (non-CF’d invidious instance), cloudflare → archive.org, medium.com → (random scribe.rip instance), etc.

  • stage 4 (onsite archive): good samaritans and over-achievers should have the option to provide the full text for a given link so others can read the article without even fighting the site.

  • stage 5 (search reranking): whenever a human post a link and talks about it, search crawlers notice and give that site a high ranking. This is why search results have gotten lousy -- because the social approach has failed. Humans will post bad links. So links with a high enshitification score need to be obfuscated in some way (e.g. dots become asterisks) so search crawlers don’t overrate them going forward.

This needs to be recognized as a #LemmyBug.

 

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/2890733

I think I need a sewing machine that can do a variety of different kinds of stitches. One use case is to repair holey socks by cannabalizing fabric from other holey socks. Thus the stitch needs to be the kind that can stretch and ideally not create an awkward feeling on the foot.

Some sewing machines have a fixed number of stitches they can do. Would it make sense to get an embroidery machine and use #inkStitch (an Inkscape variant)? I’m not sure if that’s strictly for embroidery -- or does that give the ability to do a variety of stitches using FOSS?

The inkstitch.org website steers people toward taking a basic sewing machine and modifying it using 3d printed parts. That’s too ambitious for me. I don’t want a hardware project. I just want to buy hardware that’s ready to go and use free software to control it. Is that possible with things that exist already?

8
submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by activistPnk@slrpnk.net to c/solarpunk@slrpnk.net
 

I tried to create a community called buyitforlife (in part because !buyitforlife@lemmygrad.ml is apparently unreachable from here). When I click “create” the button spins for a moment but reverts back to a “create” button & nothing happens.

This was the sidebar I submitted:

For practical, durable and quality made products that are made to last.

Please be sure to tag your post based on topic in the post title.

  • [Request]
  • [Request - answered]
  • [Discussion]
  • [Review]
  • [Repair]

Like !buyitforlife@lemmygrad.ml but copied here because for whatever reason lemmygrad is unreachable.

 

When I type @user@node.tld, there is no hyperlink created. Does that mean I did not properly mention them? I also tried u/user@node.tld.

The docs do not cover this.

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