Spyke

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The wall of lake effect snow in Buffalo yesterday.

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Cold air from the north moves over a large body of water which is (relatively) warmer and thus takes up warmth and humidity.

It then hits the cold shore, causing air temperatures to drop again as well. Colder air can carry less humidity, so it nearly instantly forms into heavy fog and clouds.

As air can move more swiftly over water than over land, it also gets "compressed" slightly upon hitting the shore, which can lead to the just-formed clouds to thicken up enough to cause heavy snowfall.

EDIT: what you see on this photo is the superhumid air condensing into fog and clouds.

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GOP congresswoman who used IVF wants to ban IVF

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During IVF, you don't prepare a single embryo. You prepare dozens at once.

IVF is used when for whatever reason the natural process fails. This can be due to had sperm, bad eggs, trouble with the path to the womb, hormonal imbalances, and a large number of illnesses that fuck up this delicate process. So IVF has to fight a steep uphill battle, and you want multiple fighters in the ring to increase the odds. Why do it all at once and not over after the other? Extraction of the eggs requires intense, weeks to months of hormonal therapy. The extraction is also a surgical procedure, requiring a surgeon to access the ovaries. This is painful and has health risks, you don't want to this every week. Less time and less procedures also help reduce costs. IVF is expensive, quickly costing many thousands of dollars. Last but not least, IVF is an intensely stress- and painful time for the couple on a psychological level alone. Every failed attempt weighs heavy, every miscarriage is a huge loss. Those emotions should not be toyed with and it's clearly ethical to follow the medical process with the highest success chance and least suffering.

Explaining the process: You extract many eggs and fertilize them with sperm at once. Then you wait for them to do their first couple cell divisions, usually until they are a count of 4, 8 or 16 cells, varies by nation and its laws. The more splits, the easier to qualify the health and success chance of the embryo.

Even during this early stage, multiple of the embryos typically fail to divide properly and are then discarded.

Then, the most vital and hopeful embryos are selected and implanted during another surgical procedure directly into the womb. Again, always multiple. This is because some embryos will die during the process, others will not attach. In the end, you only need one embryo to attach and get supplied by the womb, then you're on track to getting pregnant.

All the other good candidates are frozen, so you have them ready for possible future implantation attempts. It's common that the attachment process doesn't work at first try.

Once your pregnancy is carried out (miscarriage is always a big risk up until the end during IVF) and you are certain you don't want more kids, the rest of the frozen embryos are discarded.

With this new interpretation of the law, doctors and lab techs would be mass murderers.

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X Races to Contain Damage After Elon Musk Endorses Antisemitic Post

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"Help" is a inflammatory hyperbole. IBM had good financial relations with Nazi Germany, and its tech was heavily used in many bureaucratic endeavors, just like in many other nations. This included holding a census, organizing many of the fairly recently federalized infrastructure systems such as railway, telephones, etc. Remember, Germany was only merged a couple decades before from a mix of dozens of highly individual states with history going back almost a thousand years. So it was a lot of work to do in short time, and Germany was never before and never since(!) as centralized as it was under Nazi rule.

As far as I am aware, there is no evidence that IBM as a company was even aware of, much less actively and intentionally "helped" the Holocaust. With that logic, everyone that did any business with Germany in the 1930s "helped the Holocaust". I think a more nuanced view is beneficial for all. Don't dilute the blame from those that truly deserve it.

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subs > dubs

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To each his own. Some prefer the original audio simply because it is foreign, making it easier to mentally dive into a fantasy world. Others get taken out of the immersion by having to read subs and not focusing on the screen all the time.

Isn't it great that nowadays we have a real choice, so everyone can enjoy media how they want?

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ProtonMail and SimpleLogin emails will be blocked from registering on websites

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Where do you live that providing your government id to a business is standard? In Germany, the only one outside of a judge to be allowed to request that is law enforcement ( even then only with proper cause ). Of course, some businesses are legally required to request and process your ID number ( e.g. when booking international flights, medical insurance companies etc), but these are under tight federal control and supervision to ensure data safety.

Age verification sometimes is a thing for purchasing 18+ things ( media or drugs like alcohol & smokes), but even then businesses will only ever perform a visual check of the date of birth on your ID. Technically they can never demand to hold your ID, not even for a short time just to better read the date. You only have to show them your ID. And actually recording and/or storing any of that information would be insanely illegal.

Germany / Europe might have its issues, but we at least try and take our freedom and data privacy serious. I would never dream of handing my ID to a generic business like a club for anything more than the age check.

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Remote work is still 'frustrating and disorienting' for bosses, economist says—their No. 1 problem with it is how difficult it is to observe and monitor employees

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I find it odd and oppressive how important this detailed oversight and control seems to be to employers. Home Office compatible jobs are mostly computer and thus "brain work", and here productivity never has related linearly correlated with "time staring at monitor". In office there would be plenty of smell talk, coffee breaks, diddling with smartphones and other ways to relax in between. These breaks are an important part of the productivity cycle, giving the mind a chance to process ideas and problems. In other countries/cultures there's more reliance on the concept of good faith: I work at a company that uses home office contracts by default. I can go to the office if I want, but I don't have to. Last time I've been there is five years ago, long before COVID. The company does not track our computer activity ( illegal here anyway) or working hours at all. Obviously it is still my duty to task the hours I spent working for clients for billing reasons, but that's it. The bosses expect that we spend our time in a manner that is beneficial to the company. If one runs out of work, it is expected to notify one's boss so be take can be found and assigned. Of course they still keep an eye out for slackers, but the metric never is working hours or office hours, it's "what have you spent your time on and how has it benefitted the company?" This approach leads to us employees reciprocating the trust shown. This is the first job I never minded putting in extra hours at critical days, because I know I'll just plan on more off hours or even off days during calmer weeks, giving myself to balance the hours. And no, I don't have to get approval from my employer to do that, as it is expected I schedule my time offs in a manner that is least disruptive. This means I just ask a colleague working on the same or similar projects if he's gonna be there so clients have a point of contact in case of emergency. I don't think I ever can work for a conservative, controlling employer again after having enjoyed this level of mutual trust and maturity in the working environment. It's almost as if I'm self-employed, but with all the benefits of being salaried.

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Remains of Osaka after a night of American terror bombing, Japan, WW2, 1945

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Japan had a lot more wood-only city buildings back then compared to the colder climate in Europe, where more massive stone architecture was common. In Europe, cellars are also common/default, unlike in Japan.

During high heat firestorms, most of the wooden material burns up and the ash gets carried away. The photo definitely shows cleanup and very likely was not taken the day after the bombing, but a single firestorm definitely can produce these results, much like other examples in Cologne, Hamburg, Dresden, Würzburg,... Except those had much more stone rubble standing afterwards.

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Europe gives China a taste of its own trade medicine: Europe is using the threat of tariffs to press Chinese electric car makers to set up in the EU and share know-how.

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Everyone wants cheap cars, but that's not what this is about. This is about fair and competitive markets and products.

China heavily subsidizes their car industry. Actually everyone had been doing that, but currently China is doing it more.

Subsidies become a problem when they don't serve to make necessities affordable in-country, but are used to boost sales in foreign countries, while hurting their local industry.

Now you might conclude that "why don't we just subsidize or own manufacturers more as well so cars get as cheap as China's?"

Well, where do you think the money for subsidies comes from? Taxes. So in the end, it's just another scheme to make the general public pay for things that only part of the population needs, and it reduces pressure on manufacturers to innovate, leading to stale products. Which is a big reason why Western car companies are not competitive: the West has done exactly what China is doing now. We have subsidized the car industry massively in order to push or products into the global market. Those subsidies were considered worth it, because it created a trade surplus, effectively meaning wealth is transferred from the global market to mostly the car industry leaders, and a bit of it trickling down to workers as well.

After a while, the subsidies lead to corruption, inefficiency and lack of innovation, and the bubble bursts. That's how you get histories like Detroit. Equivalents exist in almost any Western country.

A means to protect against subsidized products ruining the local markets is to impose tarrifs. The US has many of those, not only against China, but also against EU companies, especially in the car market. See chicken tax. American car manufacturers were so far behind after decades of heavy subsidies they couldn't even compete with European cars ( and apparently still can't, given that the chicken tax and similar tariffs still exist). In the end, tariffs run the same risk as subsidies: over time, a protected market means the industry can get lazy and keep selling the same, because competition is forced out of the market. Tariffs and subsidies are never a viable long term solution. Both can only serve strategic purposes: either providing actual essentials to ones population or nurture change ( eg subsidized regenerative energy build up) that only exist for a limited time. Tarrifs can be used to protect strategically important industry: e.g. military or technological cutting edge tech where you don't mind paying extra for the privilege of maintaining in-country know how and manufacturing abilities.

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Why don't schools simulate a typical 9 to 5 work week for students and remove homework entirely?

It's interesting how different the quality of schooltime can be, and how perception of said time can differ for school kids as well. I was in a "full day" school starting from age 9 in a country where regular schools end at lunch time. Our school had the same curriculum to go through as every other, but lots more time to do it. The extra time was filled with dedicated self-learn time ( basically to do homework, but you have your classmates around to talk and help each other and can reach out to teachers if you really struggle with something) and elective extracurricular activities. It was mandatory, but you had free choice between all the offers. Teachers had to offer something, and usually offered their personal passion activities/hobbies. This led to these activities being the highlight of every kid's week, because there was enough variety to choose from to find something you liked. Kinda like club activities in US schools, but much less codified and without competitive objectives. Some examples are photography, pottery, soap box car building, school beautification ( we literally were allowed and encouraged to graffiti/mural the school walls :D ), gardening, natural science ( basically constantly doing fun physics and chemistry experiments without boring theory), electronics etc. . This was intentionally kept separate from sports or music, which also were partially elective: you had to do sports and music, and some basics were mandatory for all, but you could opt for specializations. All this semi-forced mingling served well to prevent the formation of strong clique boundaries, without inhibiting kids from pursuing their talents and passions.

All that had huge advantages. Kids from troubled families had a much easier time of keeping up with everyone else, as help from home was hardly necessary. Lunch was provided by the school. Wasn't stellar, wasn't horrible. But it was available to all students for free, and that can be very important to some as well. It took me a long time, often only after visiting school friends for the first time or even after schooltime was over entirely, to realize how crazy rich or poor some of my friends' families actually were, or what difficulties they sometimes faced at home and that there was a reason we never were invited to visit them. At school, it simply didn't matter to us. Sure, some wore more brand clothes than others, but nobody thought of using this as a measure of personal quality. Class cohesion also was usually strong. Sure, kids still were assholes and bullies like everywhere else, but it usually got solved internally quickly, because it was harder to keep it up for full days with plenty of "forced" social time, and you ended up being more confronted with the damage and hurt you caused. And in really bad cases the proximity to school made it much easier for teachers to pick up on any developments in their students and classes and react quickly. There also were some mandatory "social skill" classes to teach everyone basic conflict solving and mediating. It was only one or two sessions per year, but I think it actually helped, even if we kids usually scoffed at it at the time. It was very clear the school philosophy was not to push through a curriculum, but to use the extra time to help explore and form personalities that later will hopefully enmesh well in society. And yes, our school had a bit more teaching personnel than other schools to fill all the time slots and extra activities, but we still had 25-35 students per class, it was not some utopian dream.

We kids loved the full day spent at school as well. No homework, and what's better than spending the entire day with your friends? The school was far from my home, so I left the house at 6:30 and usually got back around 18:00, with about 40min of train commute plus 30min of walking (one way). Only Friday ended at lunch. Still never felt that I was lacking "me" time.

Tl;Dr : It matters a lot how the time at school is used.

android

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Google released this weather feature inside google maps, only on iPhones over 4 years ago. Is it ever coming to Android?

Funny enough, Google is being sued in the EU right now by commercial weather service providers precisely because Google is showing their own weather results at the top of any other possible search result, which they consider unfair competition. Recent EU legislation restricts market leaders from using their near monopolistic position to gatekeep other content.

https://www.heise.de/news/Wetter-com-klagt-gegen-Google-9304318.html

So I doubt this feature will be pushed further right now.

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A conversation with my wife

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I'm curious, why are you "happy it's been done"?

I live in a country where we don't perform this procedure out of tradition/religion, or at least not in the majority. I'm only aware of it being done for specific medical pathologies such as phimosis.

Because I kind of agree with the sentiment that performing unwarranted surgeries on someone that is unable to voice his (non-)consent is an ethical problem. Even more so with excisions, which always are drastically and usually irrevocably diminishing the body.

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Performance Review [Mr. Lovenstein]

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It really shouldn't. My company has reprimanded people for not responding their vacation days. The law is very clear on this and courts have stated as well: vacations are meant for recovering your energy. Healing from an illness does not allow you to recover from work, so you must be granted that time again.

Only a refreshed worker is a productive worker.

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Contradicting federal health officials, Florida Gov. DeSantis recommends against new COVID booster

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I would agree if this decision would only affect themselves. But vaccination against infectious diseases works best if the majority is vaccinated. Then you can actually stop it from spreading. Which is important for all those that cannot be vaccinated for legitimate health reasons. Some vaccines are dangerous for specific subsets of the population. And usually it's the same subset that would be most affected by an actual infection of the diseases we vaccinate against. Small children, pregnant people, any immunocompromised people... Vaccinating is an act of solidarity and community.

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An easy guide to anti-war positions in the Ukrainian War!

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One of the key differences to other instances is that Ukrainian culture was not really tolerated in the USSR, and definitely not in the imperialistic cute of Russia today. Rather, Russia learned from the demise of the USSR that it's better to remove cultural and societal differences within its nation. And it's going the same route as other empires have in the past and are doing today. Enforcing the use of its language, forcibly educating the youth in Russian culture and schools, often by literally abducting them from their Ukrainian homes and relocating them to Russia into Russian families. Kidnapping a people's children is literally one of the five acts that make a genocide, according to the UN genocide convention from 1948.

There are many examples to show that putting peace above all else is dangerous. Using your example, the Welsh were violently suppressed and exploited for centuries by the English, following a similar scheme. The Welsh language was forbidden to teach, Welsh traditions were replaced by English, and power of autonomy was transferred to the English. Nowadays less than 20% of the Welsh can speak their language, and that is after the "resurgence" and it being allowed to be taught again.

Other examples are Native Americans, the Armenian genocide, Czech Sudetenland, Poland, oh, and remember what China is doing in Xinjiang? All of them posed no or little violent resistance in exchange for promises of peace and cultural autonomy. It rarely takes more than a few months before contracts with powerless people are broken.

Nations are just figments of imagination, but are an expression of communal will of a number of people. Modern ( as in last two centuries) concepts of human rights revolve around the freedom of people to choose how to live their lives. We usually consider it admirable if people are allowed to freely live their chosen cultures and tradition. We also consider it proper that people are allowed to choose what kind of society they want to live in/migrate to. We also grant asylum to those forcibly prevented from living their way of life and being persecuted in their home nation.

Nations are a construct allowing specific sets of societal rules to be applied to a large populace. An internationally recognized nation is also considered integrally protected, even if one nation might not agree with the internal societal rules of another country. These global base rules are very bare bones, but they are one of the big reasons we all get to live in the era dubbed "long peace". Yes, there's still wars and ugly conflicts, but at least there has been no major total war involving superpowers. Even the Ukraine war is luckily still limited in scope. Were Russia to unleash their full military might, it quickly would devolve into a humanitarian disaster not seen since the world war.

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*Permanently Deleted*

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I mean, he did. Such poison damage is a bit similar to bad chemical or fire damage, except it often affects deeper tissue stronger and can "hide" behind a relatively healthy surface skin.

The damaged deep tissue has died and turned to slush from the poison, which the body needs to dispose of and then rebuild from scratch. However, with large damage in the deep tissue, which is where skin repair should originate from, this is often impossible to achieve perfectly. So you often get enclosed pockets of "weird/wrong" tissue that has no proper drainage to the outside or inside to the lymphatic system. So occasionally, bacteria or viruses crawl in and fester. The bad circulation due to the previous damage means the immune system has a hard time fighting it, which usually leads to it cordoning off the area, forming a so called abscess. If this abscess can then be properly drained to the surface and sterilized(!), this can keep it calm for very long times and is comparably easy to manage and monitor.

And there is no good alternative. You can try and remove all the damaged tissue, which has the unpleasant side effect of having the surgeons carve a huge hole in you. Which the body again will have to try and repair, including massive scarification, possible los if function is nerves and/or muscle tissue is lost and a very high risk of formation of more abscess-prone internal scar tissue. If there's no way to deal with the occasional infections in a hygienic manner, there's a high risk of abscesses draining internally sooner or later. This almost always leads to intense sepsis, which is very often lethal after mere days.

Which is why the usual alternative to large-scale deep tissue damage is called amputation, even today and with all the crazy medical advances we have.

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Are there any individual cells that make decisions, or do they all react to their immediate environments according to chemical and mechanical laws?

"self-Determination" and "decision-making" are conscious, complex processes. A single cell is incapable of that.

On the other hand, how do we as humans form decisions? We use sensory input from various organs, process those by combining with existing knowledge/memories and form decisions based on that. But in the end, it's still all based on "chemical and mechanical reactions".

You quickly get into philosophical territory there: is our conscious self more than the sum of all the processes in our brain? Is there some extra "spark" that allows true self-determination, or are all our decisions a given result of the exact state of our brain and body?