Following a conversation on here I am asking for some help to work out what products are produced from crude oil and how we can produce alternatives.
https://www.personaljournal.ca/paulsutton/products-from-crude-oil
I am throwing this out to the community to between us we can start to gather information and present this so we can make a better argument to reduce and eliminate our need for crude oil.
Granted some products are going to need some R&D to replace, but maybe that will inspire people to study STEM and undertake that research.
I am looking to find others here who are cynical Christians. People of faith ,who want to occasionally discuss mattters of faith, but not be argumentative about it.
If that is you or anyone you know here, please let me know.
Bear in mind that anyone who wants to argue with me - tell me what I must or should believe - I am not interested. I want genuine engagement. And people who understand that I prefer the company of passionate atheist anti-church people often.
Disinformation researcher accuses Meta of meddling in Harvard’s research https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/7/23989458/harvard-disinformation-researcher-meta-meddling-joan-donovan?utm_content=buffercc3d9&utm_medium=social&utm_source=bufferapp.com&utm_campaign=buffer
DOH !
US govt close to dropping Firefox:
Because Firefox blocks Google Analytics code, someone at the US government tech department is about to drop support for the Firefox browser from US government websites - because they think the browser is not being used by site visitors
Israel presses ahead with bombarding Gaza, including areas it told Palestinians to evacuate to https://apnews.com/article/7625885f326b5a294479c6e8fc61355c
On Thursday, December 7th, news broke that Israel killed the beloved Palestinian writer, poet, and professor, Dr. Refaat Alareer. Refaat was passionate about storytelling and used his love of literature and poetry to inspire a generation of Gazans to tell their stories to the world.
The “Hunt for Hamas” Narrative Is Obscuring Israel’s Real Plans for Gaza
Israel has targeted courthouses, universities, and legislative halls. It has razed orchards, farmland, and greenhouses. Adam Johnson asks: Does any of this sound like a “hunt for Hamas?"
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/hunt-hamas-narrative-gaza-israel-palestine/
9 December 1914 | A Czech Jewish woman, Markéta Lubiková, was born in Prague.
She was deported to Auschwitz from Theresienstadt ghetto on 18 May 1944. She did not survive.
#Auschwitz #Birkenau #Holocaust #Shoah #Jews #history #histodons #Nazis #Germany #NeverForget #ww2 #Memorial #Remember #memory #otd #facts
The EU has passed the AI Act — another set of rules that let them fine US big tech companies since there aren’t any European ones.
The law will require foundation models, including GPT & Gemini, to comply with transparency obligations before they are released to the public. These include respecting EU copyright law and providing a summary of training data. There also rules around preventing systemic risks.
Failure to comply results fines of €35M or 7% of global revenue
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4350934-europe-ai-rules-deal-reached/
Do you want another reason why the fediverse is fucking essential to humanity? I will give you one that I urge you to take seriously.
If and when the Trumpistas do take over, the ONLY source of “real” news (assuming all you journalists aren’t dead or in prison), will be this decentralized model that can survive many different efforts to crush it. It won’t be easy, but it will be possible. Unless they could shut down the entire web. (Which they just might try.)
This is really quite something... #Antarctic sea ice extent is back to a record low for the current date. This is actually below 2016, which was previously a massive outlier in November and December.
More sea ice graphs at: https://zacklabe.com/antarctic-sea-ice-extentconcentration/
Palestinian writer and academic Refaat Alareer killed in airstrike
‘Brilliant’ academic killed along with his brother, sister and her four children #press
@fkamiah17 Facism has arrived! We were dismissed as scaremongers when we pointed to the signs the Tories were moving in this direction. The law is now whatever the UK Parliament says it is
Credit scoring firms face curbs after landmark EU data protection ruling
Credit scoring companies operating in the European Union could be facing tighter curbs under the bloc’s privacy laws following a ruling issued by the Court of Justice (CJEU) today. The referral relates to complaints brought against the practices of a German credit scoring company, called Schufa, but could have wider significance for... #press
https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/07/cjeu-credit-scoring/?utm_source=press.coop
Montreal Botanical Gardens Cool Respite
#photography #digitalart #wallart #homedecor #art #artist #artwork #artmatters #artbooster #fediart #fediverse #fedigiftshop #shopsmall #ayearforart #buyintoart #giftideas #Canada #gardening ##montreal #giftideas #thegiftofart #travel
@babe
Yeah, very much this.
I do find it cool that Fedi doesn't even require constant content generation, unlike most platforms that use weighted algorithms.
This works for me, because I go through flurries and dips in posting and finally no longer have to feel that I'm using the platform wrong.
I just follow many many cool people who post shiny things, some people follow me for (presumably) similar reasons, I post sometimes, reply sometimes and somehow it all works out without anyone bring de-prioritised for inactivity.
Bonus video: A 360° video tour of the 70-meter deep space communications antenna at Goldstone in California, used in the Deep Space Network.
@rolle so many folks seem to have forgotten that the key part in social media is the bit where it's social. They all want to act like internet celebrities and quit as soon as they aren't showered with attention.
@rolle fairly certain that a person with enough followers, on any social network, could post "Have a nice weekend, everyone" and get blocked by at least one person for trying to dictate how they live their life.
Interested in Technology, Science, Chemistry, Education, Fediverse, GNU/Linux and free software.