@aihorde@lemmy.dbzer0.com draw for me a spider’s web with a red light that attracts male fireflies to come have a good time at the web bordello

Reminds me of the incident in February where a waymo tried to get through a bunch of street revelers, and their response was to set it on fire. From the old pcmag story :

San Francisco Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson noted that it had tallied 55 incidents where self-driving vehicles had interfered with rescue operations in the city.

Edit: unrelated to above quote, pc mag also says:

In some cases, residents have put orange cones on the hoods of cars, which makes them temporarily immobile.

(see also the autopian story it references)

Reminder that Palantir is the same company whose bosses are deep in bed with AmericaPAC – which got big write-ups (link is to one comment, but you can read more there and lots of places) because Elon Musk is gathering voter data seemingly for that PAC to target swing state voters with canvassing efforts.

I knew about the police getting access, but I missed that home insurance companies were checking properties with drones. I guess I don’t mind them spending their own money to send their own drones to verify properties they insure, but I agree that using MY camera that I bought to get info or sell MY data is at least unethical and ought to be illegal. It should be required that they get my explicit consent to that sort of thing for each instance of data collection or sale.

Who? The Senators? I think they’re genuinely interested in stopping the practice (obviously it also gets them good press, possibly even votes, but they coulda probably got cash if they did nothing).

I think the car companies are just trying to make money anywhere they can.

I wish I could remember the source, but it was about the Catholic Church in central/south America with the gist of, ‘When I was young, I hated The Church for building grand structures amid an impoverished population. I thought they could spend the money better on food, education, or so many other things – but as I got older, I realized that having a glorious space to share with the community was worthwhile in its own right.’

I’m not saying that the Olympics aren’t vulgar, but at least a lot of it is carried on network TV so it is more public than, say, the latest Marvel movie that not only costs a fortune, but also requires everyone fork over the cash if they want to see it.

I was NOT expecting that in an Olympic Opening Ceremony! Audio aside, it was really good.

I can’t argue with you on that.

I misinterpreted your first sentence… until I read the rest of your comment.

I thought you were saying null results shouldn’t be published. Hackles go up. Keep reading angrily. Ohhhh… ALL results should be publicly available! We’ll that’s very different!

I do have a nitpick, though: if the internet has taught us nothing else, it is that all kinds of scammers, influencers, conspiracy theorists, deniers, and exploiters will ALL post lies and disinformation in any unvetted space they can find. Somebody has got to do some curation and somebody has to pay them enough to ensure that work gets done.

If you’ve seen the original Blue Brothers movie, you’ve heard a snippet of ‘Hold On’ and another Sam & Dave hit, “Soul Man”. I’m told they were fantastic live but not so much in studio. Back in the 60s the chorus might as well be a porn quote given radio stations were squeamish about playing something so ‘explicit’, but the writers maintained it was simply about rushing back to song writing. HBO recently released a short documentary series about their original label, Stax which covers the big concert the label threw, WattStax. I recommend all of that as better than trying to hunt down random Sam & Dave songs.

I actually DO have some hope it will be rewritten, but I figure we know about it and maybe contact someone? https://usun.usmission.gov/mission/ ?

Could be worse. Could be an Elsevier site (Lancet, Cell, ScienceDirect, etc.).

Please read wonky news, vote, and tell your friends and neighbors about the stuff you learn about candidates. We get crappy government by voting for it. We could fix the government if we elected people who would write legislation to stop corruption, was there to fix roads and balance budgets rather than scream about triggering issues, and wanted to make a better rather than to simply ‘win’ no matter the price.

I heard a strange take on this story. I know someone whose spouse worked at that very school and has heard the gossip about the incident. While the hen clutch has been gossiping in private conversations rather than internet posts for the world to see, their speculations about the Principal are almost as slanderous – and have been for years.

Long story short: the hens felt this wouldn’t have happened if the Principal didn’t let the kids run amok and instead provided consistent disciple.

Recent big sites that closed down: Jezebel, Pitchfork, Vice, Popular Science, and my hopes for the Messenger were dashed when they announced their demise: https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4440773-news-startup-the-messenger-shutting-down/

LA Times and the like are hit with layoffs and – worse – Sinclair heavyweight added the Balitmore Sun to the list of ‘compromised’ media outlets: https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/01/15/baltimore-sun-sold-david-smith-sinclair/

That said, there are always new sites, but gaining trust and reputation takes time.

Social sites seem doomed to crest and then fall. Digg? MySpace? Friendster? Who remembers the good old days of (moderated) UseNet? Do we want any of those back? Would any of them have remained were it not for spam/bad-actors?

I’m not the lego person, but I am not taking that selfie because: 1) I don’t want to clean the house to make it look all nice before judgey relatives critique the pic, 2) my phone is old and all its pics are kinda fish-eyed, 3) I don’t actually want to spend the time doing the task right now when AI can get me an image in seconds.

Watch out for the sloppy reporting in the Salon piece. For example, it states:

“Hur’s claim that Biden couldn’t remember the day his son died was an outrageous lie,” argued Tommy Vietor, a former Obama staffer and commentator.

Vietor DID tweet that, but Salon doesn’t mention that Hur didn’t make that claim. Rather, Hur claimed Biden couldn’t remember the YEAR (not DAY).

“He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died,” the report said. (source NBC).

I liked Tamara Keith’s more accurate coverage posted over here: https://www.wbur.org/npr/1237745840/biden-hur-report-memory-classified-documents

I appreciate that the “Gradient Canopy” roof is covered in solar cells and collects rainwater while also letting in natural light, so maybe the problem is they didn’t do enough by not adding in some shielding, too.

In addition to the delay, the court asked for arguments to an over-broad question:

“Whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.”

Note that they COULD have asked something more like, “Were Donald Trump’s actions on and surrounding the January 6th incidents official acts of a President and is Trump therefore immune from criminal prosecution because the conduct was both within his tenure in office and within the scope of his duties?” Of course, that is not what was asked. The actual question asks for long and careful considered speculation on all possible contingencies where the relevant case is about a specific set of actions that could be quickly assessed.

see also: https://www.salon.com/2024/02/28/the-is-indulging-immunity-claim-further-delaying-his-trial/

This Op/Ed expresses my sentiment better than I’d do: https://crooksandliars.com/2024/02/mitch-mcconnell-steps-down-senate

As gun control advocate Shannon Watts writes, “Sen. Mitch McConnell’s legacy will be that he purposefully undermined America’s first Black president, he broke the Supreme Court, he helped elect a fascist President, and he abetted up an insurrection on American soil.”

(and)

Let’s not pretend his successor will be any better. He is likely to be a Trump toady who will bow before the pressure and screw this country even more.