Reach for the Stars @antares@qoto.org

I am still looki g for top notch programmers and data scientists to hire for 100% remote. Hit me up. Open source contributors get top consideration.

#oss #work #programming #ai #agi #java #polyglot #bigdata

It has become clear to me that there are some people who will #maskForever. If you #MaskUp and work in a public facing job, please read this advice from people who are hard of hearing. We need your help: (#Thread, Please share)

#masksForever #MaskUp #CovidIsntOver #CovidIsNotOver #N95 #Covid19 #CovidIsAirborne #WearAMask #BringBackMasks

How many accounts do you have on the fediverse?

if you're interested in how other people answer this question, please boost.

@freemo@qoto.org Also election year. Media isn't going to run stories that threaten the Democrats. And conservative media is racist and hates black people so they aren't going to say shit either.

Alright so toasters

Few years back my toaster failed, and like a total muppet I went "Eh, it's a toaster, it's not worth fixing, new ones are like twenty bucks or whatever," and we had either a new baby or a baby on the way I can't remember so I went "Oh we're a FAMILY now" and (muppet mistake 2) I bought a fancy four-slot one.

Because I didn't do the maths! There's only fifteen amps to go round, and now it's gotta go through two sets of elements, so the only way to square that circle is to chop the power in half (this is in America, land of slow kettles and feeble electricity).

So I ended up with a toaster where the elements don't glow. It didn't get hot enough to actually toast the bread, unless you left the bread in for so long that it dried out all the way through. You'd stick the lever down and go "Is it broken?" because the elements wouldn't even get to dull red until the timer was nearly done. Crap. Infuriated me every single day.

So I was at a thrift store and saw an amazon basics two-slot one for six bucks and went "Right, I'll have that," and it's THE DAMN SAME. It works so slowly that it dries the toast out all the way through before it starts to get golden, never mind brown. Crap brittle toast is the result.

Is there a modern, purchasable toaster in America whose elements glow orange to yellow within, say, ten seconds?

(I have one of those 1940's sunbeam toasters that the youtubers wet their knickers over, no need to tell me about those. Can't do bagels or pop tarts so it's in the attic)

Here's what would happen in the US presidential election if Biden or Trump dropped out before election day. https://www.voanews.com/a/what-would-happen-in-us-election-if-trump-or-biden-dropped-out-/7444855.html

I'm sick of seeing so much misinformation about EVs recently. I own an EV and love it, and can tell you firsthand that a lot of the FUD is false.

So if you also hate misinformation, and if reading lengthy blog posts is still a thing people do in 2024, here you go.
#EV #electriccars

https://www.geekman.ca/single-post/2024/1/18/ive-had-it-with-ev-misinformation

Password fields — especially password creation fields — that don’t allow “paste” are crimes that should be punishable by spontaneous cold-water bucketing. Look out, devs. Be sure your sin will find you out (with a bucket!)

Now that I have lived through an actual plague, I totally understand why Italian Renaissance paintings are just naked fat people lying on couches.

There's a lot to unpack here...

Civil trials are not criminal trials, they require only preponderance of the evidence rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt so the question asked to the jury is fundamentally different than something you could lock someone up for.

For defamation, this is a tort, not a crime. The purpose of the lawsuit isn't to fine anyone (a fine would be paid to the government rather than the victim), it is to recover damage done by one party to another, and for the most part the thing courts can grant is money. The elements of defamation are 1. That a statement of fact is said by the person, 2. That statement is false, 3. If the individual is a public figure then the statement is known to be false or is made with a reckless disregard for the truth, 4. That the false statement of fact caused damages.

Typically, the purpose of suing someone is to make yourself whole, not to get the state to punish someone for you. Therefore, for a relative nobody who is claiming to have been lied about, there's going to be a limitation on the amount of damages that can be claimed, since 5 million dollars is already more money than most people will make in their lifetimes.

There is some additional money you can ask for based on stuff like "pain and suffering", but again that's not punishment for the person you're suing, it's just that you want to be made whole and the court can't undo your pain and suffering so you pay money in recompense.

There is also a thing known as punitive damages, which is more money given to the plaintiff who is suing to ensure the defendant doesn't commit the tort again. However, even this element starts to run up against constitutional constraints because excessive punitive damage awards can go beyond what's allowable under the law.

Don't take the Alex Jones defamation case as representative of how the process works, most people aren't on trial for accusing a bunch of dead kids of lying about being dead on national television and so it ended up with an exceptional outcome.

Regardless of the size of anyone's judgement against them in a civil case, it would be a massive injustice to jail anyone over it. That's not what the civil courts are for, that's not their job, that's not how they're set up, and if you jumped from a 51% preponderance of the evidence jury verdict to jailtime that would send a lot of innocent people to jail (and even the rich deserve to be free if you can't prove they did something beyond a reasonable doubt)

As an example of the differences between criminal trials and civil trials, O.J. Simpson was found not guilty of the criminal act of murder, but was found to be liable to pay damages to the family in the wrongful death. There was enough found to pay a sum of money, but not enough to deprive O.J. of his rights by jailing him.

Another good example of the difference between criminal and civil proceedings is that the person sued may never even have to pay for the judgement in a civil case -- Insurance may not pay a criminal fine, but it can pay a civil judgement, so it's entirely possible that despite losing the lawsuit, a person who was successfully sued may never personally pay a penny. In fact, a regular homeowner may have a million dollar judgement against them but be protected by the liability insurance portion of their home owners insurance. This really doubles down on the fact that the purpose of a civil case is to make the plaintiff whole, rather than to specifically punish the defendant.

Your heart is in the right place with wanting to make sure punishments for millionaires and billionaires are calibrated such that they are actually painful in ways comparable to a poor person convicted of the same crime, but the facts in this matter are not aligned with that particular cause.

Anyway, I'm sorry... I'm always with the walls of text....