Spyke

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Ancient Iran had air conditioning

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I agree with you that we should be exploring alternatives, but aircon is extremely energy efficient for how much thermal energy it moves (reaching 400% efficiency in some cases) . The problem isn't aircon itself, but what is being used to power it (coal/natural gas power plants)

In fact the technology behind aircon can be expanded into a heat pump to both heat and cool, being more efficient than electro-resistive or gas heating. There's even water heaters that will actually cool the area they're in and use the heat they gather from the space to heat the water.

Technology Connections has a great series of videos that go in depth on both heat pumps and aircon.

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📄 rule

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Letter paper (8.5" x 11" | 215.9mm x 279.4mm) is kinda sorta pretty close to A4 (8.27" x 11.69" | 210mm x 297mm) so without having the two next to each other, it can seem like A4 is just a funny piece of letter, and vice versa. But to answer the actual question, USA and Canada (and apparently the phillipines???) use the "North American Standard" which is a terrifying mess in comparison to the beauty that is the ISO standard.

Edit: typos

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IT support work be like

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If I'm ever doubtful that someone has unplugged something, I'll ask them to describe something that may or may not be on the plug.

  • Color
  • metal type
  • "can you please read me the serial number stamped on the prongs of the power cable"
  • "what color is the plastic inside the plug" Etc.etc.

Have not had it fail yet

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Centerists

To everyone pearl clutching in response to this correct meme with one of the following phrases:

  • "That's how you create an echo chamber"

  • "paradox of intolerance doesn't say how to fight fascism"

  • "This is about silencing opposing thought"

I would like to take this moment to remind you that the paradox of intolerance isn't about exiling those who disagree on economic policy; it's about recognizing and directly opposing those who are trying to harm or disadvantage others and doing so in a meaningful way that will actually change the outcome. You can't debate Hitler out of doing a genocide, but you could have jailed him before he gained power.

Being too spineless to call out and fight intolerance enables fascism. The longer you live wrapped up in your civility politics, the overton window shifts further right, and it strengthens the fascist support. It happened in pre-WW2 Germany, and it's being repeated in dozens of countries worldwide. If you feel the urge to block me, go ahead...

...but know that this is your fault

Edit: spelling

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Facebook and Instagram Restrict the Use of the Red Triangle Emoji Over Hamas Association

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Now I might just be too stupid to understand what I'm displaying, but last I checked, the red triangle has been a symbol of pro-Palestinian support since the Palestinian Revolt in uhhhh... 1938. It's possible Hamas might have co-opted it, but then you might as well ban the Palestinian flag as well since that's the source of the triangle, and it has also existed since 1917, I'm failing to follow how this is a symbol of Hamas

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Kansas Is About to Pass the Most Extreme Age Verification Law Yet

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TL;DR: IANAL, however, the document this bill references to define what content is harmful to children directly, verbatim defines sexual conduct as including "homosexuality" broadly

Okay so this bill is SB394 (linked above obviously) and it opens with the following

Any commercial entity that knowingly shares or distributes material that is harmful to minors on a website and such material appears on 25% or more of the webpages viewed on such website in any calendar month, or that knowingly hosts such website (...)

It carries on to later define "harmful to minors" in section h-3 as the following:

(3) "Harmful to minors" means the same as defined in K.S.A. 21-6402, and amendments thereto.

If we go look at K.S.A. 21-6402 we can find that it is regarding "Promotion to minors of material harmful to minors" and goes on to declare in section d-2 that "harmful to minors" refers to several things including sexual conduct (I'm omitting this full quote for brevity, you can find it in the linked document).

Now if we look a little further down, we can see that Kansas currently defines sexual content as defined in section d-8:

(8) "sexual conduct" means acts of masturbation, homosexuality, sexual intercourse or physical contact with a person's clothed or unclothed genitals or pubic area or buttocks or with a human female's breast; and (...)

Considering all this, i think extremely reasonable to believe that this could outlaw LGBTQ+ content from being displayed openly online within Kansas

Edit: fixed sexual conduct/content mixups

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The whole internet loves Kagi, a lovely paid search engine that can find things! *5 seconds later* We regret to inform you the CEO is an unhinged narcissist who will harangue you in email

Can I sincerely ask what we're supposed to use instead?

Kagi has given me the best search experience ive had in at least a decade, I'm not going back to the enshittification engine, and everything else is just bing in fancy wrapping paper. Is there something else like Kagi? Is there something like DDG or Searx that arent just slightly better bing?

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The US finally takes aim at truck bloat

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Well... Back when a truck wasnt $60+k... Yes thats exactly what people did. They had a truck that guzzled gas and provided the bed space or towing capacity they needed for work, and a daily driver for other things.

From the last time I saw this 'debate'... ~30% of truck owners use the bed once a year or less, ~75% of owners tow once a year or less, and ~70% go offroad once a year or less.

Now, obviously there are applications where a truck is needed. That can't be denied... But there are so many applications here that use massive fucking trucks where another country would use a sprinter van or similar vehicle for the exact same application.

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It's coming for yea

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I mean, a four day work week still benefits blue collar jobs, though it's understandably more difficult to implement this in a some blue collar workspaces, and I dont claim to have the answer for how to do it by any means.

Factories would benefit from seven day work weeks, more time producing not less.

Factories benefit from higher efficiency, and less downtime, which can be achieved with more employees, working less, being less tired, more satisfied with their pay and benefits, and having fewer accidents which interrupt production.

It can be done, but other systems also need changing to help it along.

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Palestinians plead ‘stop the bombs’ at UN meeting but Israel insists Hamas must be ‘obliterated’

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It's possible for more than one thing to be true at the same time.

It's true that Hamas is a terrorist organization, yes.

However it's also true that the Israeli government is undertaking actions which are fitting for a genocidal, fascist government. Do you seriously thing that their 24 hour evacuation notice sent to an excess of 1 million people who had/have no power, water, heat, or communications is reasonable?