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Our national ID card (“DNI”) is 78 years old. Mandatory ID cards are anathema in some places (US) and to some ideologies (libertarians) — but they're so convenient and solve many day-to-day problems. In #Spain, most people don't give it a second thought and can't even imagine red tape or mundane chores without the #DNI. I despise #surveillance as much as anyone, but I fail to see how an #IDcard makes things much worse, compared to the plethora of information governments have about us already…
https://qoto.org/@tripu/108817322350690142
In the same vein (more sophisticated, but still quite naïve):
I remember chatting with a classmate during our first (or second?) year of college (MSc in CS and Software Engineering) and suddenly realising that although we knew already a lot about the basics of programming, computer architecture, OS'es, etc we had no clue about how to make a computer do _two things at the same time_ (concurrency, multithreading, etc). We knew how to program linearly, and how to manipulate OS interruptions to respond to events such as the user pressing a key or a certain timer ticking — but we didn't know what parallelism even looked like.
It's so enlightening to remember what one once didn't know.
Around 1996 I was programming in BASIC and reading about that thing, “the internet” (I used it for the first time one year later). I was so confused by the apparent ability of e-mail to live in the ether: how come one could send mail to someone whose computer was off, then shut down their own computer, and the message would still arrive hours or days later when the recipient switched on their computer again? Where had that mail been lurking in the meantime??
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Enviro rant, Europe drought, fecking cows
In drought conditions, people consider the water usage of different crops, and you'll often hear opinions voiced about whether crop X or Y should be allowed because of high water use.
But cattle farming uses more water than practically any crop, indeed cattle will often require *drinking quality water*, and lots of it, but you don't hear people suggesting herd sizes be reduced.
Maybe they fecking well should, though. Ireland is close to a drought right now and we have far more cattle than people, competing with humans and with nature for premium quality water and air and food.
You can help, human! Incentivise fewer cattle by buying less of the associated produce. And maybe ship a letter to a representative about adjusting agri incentives. There are exciting alternatives that will improve your health and require a fraction of the water or land or carbon to produce.
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RT @Rainmaker1973@twitter.com
In 1951, Adelbert Ames created the mind-boggling ‘Ames Window’. It’s so effective that even when you know how it works you can’t break the illusion [video from The Curiosity Show: https://buff.ly/36DvRNs]
🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1556690024527273984
I know a couple who remind me of [Caleb](https://bigmouth.fandom.com/wiki/Caleb) from #BigMouth: they always speak in clichés and platitudes, so much so that it's hilarious.
> _“Humanity went from thinking that the sun was a hummingbird-shaped warrior god requiring human sacrifice to using solar radiation pressure to power interplanetary spacecraft. We credit most impressive achievements like that to science, and some to Al Gore.”_
[I sympathise with the sentiment](https://pixelfed.de/p/tripu/257292372667404288), but:
1. Hybrids and electrics too? Sure, they _still_ pollute. But what doesn't!? Your bicycle pollutes. Electric cars pollute significantly less than equivalent dinosaur-juice-based ones. Electric cars are still quite expensive and some (many?) people make that effort out of concern for the environment. Do they (we) deserve to be punished, too?
1. Isn't this going too far? It's bordering on vandalism. One thing is to put a leaflet on the windscreen, or approach the a driver to start a conversation — a very different thing is to _completely disable a vehicle_. BTW, doesn't the recovery vehicle that will have to be summoned to tow the SUV pollute a ton, too?
1. This kind of actions across the board are always tricky: you just _don't know_ the owners of that car, nor their circumstances. I can think of a few scenarios where an SUV parked on a city street at a given point in time makes sense and is justified.
I just discovered this, and I'm quite conflicted about it:
Curious about the inner workings of the @w3c? Interested in [their job openings](https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Recruitment/)? Willing to join their broad community, either as a member company or as an individual contributor?
My ex-colleague @koalie has written a great intro for the world:
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Reading #Dynomight explaining #DerekParfit I realise that just as #liberalism/#libertarianism is the most inclusive political/economic system because it allows for other orders to emerge within it, #consequentialism may be the most inclusive moral theory because it may contain other systems just by redefining what a “good outcome” is.
That is:
A group of free individuals (liberalism) may enter voluntary agreements and commit to redistributing their wealth (socialism), transferring all power to a certain person (autocracy), abiding by rules decided by the majority (democracy), etc.
A consequentialist, in its narrowest definition, is free to conclude that the best possible outcome is one in which they and their special ones enjoy the best of life (egoism), one where certain rules are obeyed most strictly (deontology), one where all actions align perfectly with the word of god (theological voluntarism), etc. — and to act accordingly.
Useful taxonomy of moral theories (#DerekParfit via #Dynomight)
https://quillette.com/2022/07/23/stop-sharing-political-memes/
I agree with the sentiment, although “memes” is too broad a category. A quote is a #meme; a blog post is a meme; a chart is a meme. And all that may be useful to advance political understanding
So I'd rather say “stop sharing **simplistic and confrontational** political memes”. That's the truly corrosive, mind-numbing stuff.
