Spyke

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Think again, buster.

Summary for those who don’t get the references:

  • In Futurama (a show about a young man who gets accidentally cryogenically frozen until the year 3000), Fry finds the fossilized remains of his pet dog from the year 2000. Ultimately he assumes his dog had a good and full life after his disapperance, but in the epilogue we see that his dog waited for him in front of his workplace (Panucci’s Pizza) throughout the seasons, regardless of the weather, until he aged and died.

  • In Full Metal Alchimist: Brotherhood, the Elric brothers visit an alchemist (Shou Tucker) who is known for having created a chimera capable of understanding human speech. While they study under him, they also spent time playing with his 4 year old daughter Nina and her dog Alexander. Upon returning one day they find Shou has created a new chimera capable of understanding human speech in order to satisfy his yearly alchemist assessment requirements; when the chimera indicates it knows who the Elric brothers are and wants to go out and play it becomes obvious that the chimera was made by combining Shou’s own daughter with the family dog. The resulting being is very sad and confused and doesn’t really understand what has happened to it, and just wants to be back to normal, but there is no way to undo . This chimera is the creature pictured here.

Ultimately, these are two of the most heart-wrenching scenes in animation.

(PS: Fuck Shou Tucker!)

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Reddit faces content quality concerns after its Great Mod Purge

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Hey — one of the mods mentioned in the article here.

The idea was that if enough subreddits banded together and shut down, we could have brought Reddit to the negotiating table and helped to save the 3rd party apps so many of us relied upon for our daily Reddit experience.

Unfortunately, it seems that way too many mods preferred the sense of control they had over their communities rather than what was right or just. All those subs that went public again after 48 hours, and all the other ones that went public again but with protest content killed all momentum the protest had, and doomed it.

The part all too many people miss is that Reddit is like an iceberg on the ocean — while frequent visitors see the new content at the top, it’s the huge mass of old content that brings Reddit the bulk of its revenue. It’s all that old content that is indexed by Google and which shows up towards the top of Google search results — and during the shutdown, all of those links were broken. Google even took note during the protest that a significant number of search results were leading to broken links.

This look was terrible for Reddit, and hit them directly in the pocketbook. But then some mods decided they didn’t mind being bent over a barrel by Reddit so long as they could put “moderator” on their resume and reopened too soon. The subs that went with John Oliver content were droll, but also reopened the huge mass of content that lies beneath the waves and which Google indexes into. Reddit didn’t lose anything from those subs.

I was fully expecting to be turfed. I pretty openly dared Reddit to do it. After the shit they pulled I wasn’t going to go back and do free work for them on their terms. I forced them to be the bad guy. We had to show people how Reddit was treating its volunteer moderators, and in the end they didn’t disappoint.

In the end, for me, I chalk this one up as a win.

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CFCs

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The Conservative Party led Canadian Government and the Regan-era Republican US Government started working on the US-Canada Air Quality Agreement, which was signed by the George H.W. Bush administration into law in the US (and the Brian Mulroney led Government of Canada).

That’s right — two Conservative governments identified a problem, listened to their scientists, and enacted a solution to acid rain. And now the problem has virtually disappeared.

Oh how low Conservatives have fallen on both sides of the border since those days.

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Computer Science, a popular college major, has one of the highest unemployment rates

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The industry went to shit after non-nerdy people found out there could be a lot of money in tech.

I started my undergrad in the early 90’s, and ran into multiple students who had never even used a computer, but had heard from someone that there was a lot of money to be made in computers so they decided to make that their major.

Mind you, those students tended not to do terribly well and often changed major after the first two years — but this phenomenon certainly isn’t anything particularly new. Having been both a student and a University instructor (teaching primarily 3rd and 4th year Comp.Sci subjects) I’ve seen this over and over and over again.

By way of advice to any new or upcoming graduates who may be reading this from an old guy who has been around for a long time, used to be a University instructor, and is currently a development manager for a big software company — if you’re looking to get a leg-up on your competition while you look for work, start or contribute to an Open Source project that you are passionate about. Create software you love purely for the love of creating software.

It’s got my foot in the door for several jobs I’ve had — both directly (i.e.: “we want to use your software and are hiring you to help us integrate it as our expert”; IBM even once offered a re-badged version to their customers) and indirectly (one Director I worked under once told me the reason they hired me was because of my knowledge and passion talking about my OSS project). And now as a manager who has to do hiring myself it’s also something that I look for in candidates (mind you, I also look for people who use Linux at home — we use a LOT of Linux in our cloud environments, and one of my easiest filters is to take out candidates who show no curiosity or interest in software outside whatever came installed on their PC or what they had to work with at school).

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Just saw this while getting gas. Why is it illegal to get less than 4 gallons?

Does this pump also dispense marked fuels through the same hose?

In my province of residence gas stations near farming communities often sell “marked fuel” (fuel with an added red dye in it) that are taxed less, and which are intended for farming machinery, road work equipment, boats, and other non-highway use only. If you’re caught with red-dyed fuel being used for any other purpose you can be charged with an offence, and levied fines or other penalties.

If you dispense a small amount of regular gasoline after another purchaser had bought marked gasoline, the dye in the fuel remaining in the lines likely isn’t diluted enough to tell the difference — and you could (hypothetically) then be charged with possessing marked fuel without the proper paperwork.

(Anywhere I’ve ever seen marked fuels sold usually has a separate hose for the marked fuel to be dispensed from to prevent this from happening — but I don’t know your gas station or where you live, so maybe they rely on dilution rather than separation to differentiate?)

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Won't somebody think of the children 😱

Towards the beginning of the current school year, I was standing in my child’s classroom with other parents on a “meet the teacher” night, when she showed everyone her cabinet of “challenging” books — those with LGBTQ2S+ themes and books on very basic (and age appropriate) sexuality. Parents had the option to opt-out permitting their kids from reading books from that cabinet.

I think that’s a fairly reasonable way of handling such books in the classroom — but at the time as the parent standing closest to the cabinet my first thought was to say (out loud for all the other parents to hear) “Ooh, they have Hustler for Tweens now!”.

Sadly, better judgement took hold and I kept my mouth shut. Certain local weirdos who can’t seem to stop thinking about what other adults do with their sexy bits in private were fairly riled up at that time, and I decided it was better to keep the teacher from having to defend herself from them were any int he room with us.

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Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren't working

I want an EV.

I have the money for an EV.

I put a down payment on an EV back in April 2022.

It still hasn’t been ordered, because the manufacturer won’t permit the dealership to order any, and is barely shipping any to Canada, even though they advertise it as their flagship EV.

Meanwhile, lots in the US are full of unsold units.

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Reddit faces content quality concerns after its Great Mod Purge

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Hey — I’m one of the former r/Canning mods quoted in the article.

The issue with trying to get data on unsafe canning from Reddit is twofold: firstly, people who undertake an unsafe canning practice who fall ill (or die) don’t typically come back to Reddit to report on their situations. If you’re fighting for your life in a hospital bed, you’re not likely going to login to Reddit to post “Well, I followed some bad advice here, and now I’m in the hospital”. So while we do know from a small number of documented sources that people who have got sick (and died) did so from following bad advice online, it isn’t as if they routinely self-report this.

(And conversely, if you just wind up with the shits for several days you may not even connect it in your mind to eating bad home canned food — and you’re probably less likely to go online and brag how you were able to shit through a sieve because you followed a bad canning recipe).

Secondly, time is a significant factor. Something you cook up in a pot on your stove and eat right away will be perfectly safe for all but the most immune-compromised of people, but stick that same food in a jar without proper processing and put it on a room temperature shelf and it becomes a time bomb, with the danger ramping up as more time passes.

That passing time doesn’t really work with publishing deadlines, and considering the unlikelihood of people self-reporting doing bad canning and hurting themselves (or others) there really isn’t any way of “waiting to see if someone hurts themselves”. People sometimes can stuff and then leave it on a shelf for years — so the harm may not be realized for quite some time.

Sure, it would have made for a better article if there had been a slam-dunk obviously unsafe recipe/practice posted and someone had died in the process — but gathering such data could take a very long time, and I’m sure Ms. Harding can always post another article in the future should such data become available.

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Landlords Demand Bank info, SIN (Social Security), Licence just to VIEW a Suite

Don’t know where you are in Canada (which I’m assuming based on “Social Insurance Number” and “Prov.” fields in the form), but at least here in BC much of what they’re asking for here is illegal to even request in the first place.

Your Drivers License, and banking info are all personal private information which are covered by the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA). This guidance document from the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of BC outlines what a perspective landlord can ask for, and what they can’t.

This is either a scam, or a really shitty landlord. Either way, don’t deal with them. You can open a complaint with the OIPC if you want (probably most useful if you’re sure they’re legit; not too useful if it’s a scam).

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Reddit faces content quality concerns after its Great Mod Purge

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Hey — one of the former mods of r/Canning here.

I don’t want to see people get sick, and I don’t want to see people die from what usually amounts to less than $5 worth of home canned food.

But that doesn’t mean I’m now bound for eternity to Reddit to help ensure they don’t hurt anybody. That only helps Reddit. After what they put us through I’ve stopped any and all contributions to their ungrateful website.

Nor does it mean I have to stop criticizing Reddit for choosing questionable mods to replace us.

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What is a dish whose component parts you all like individually, but put together as a dish you think is nasty?

Growing up my mother would occasionally make a dish my father enjoyed that she called “Depression Dinner”. It was mashed potatoes covered in fried ground beef with beef gravy poured on top of it.

I like mashed potatoes. I like using ground beef in a variety of dishes. And who can say anything bad about gravy? But mix those three together — ugh, no thanks. It was like baby food for adults. There was a reason why my brother and I took to calling it Depressing Dinner growing up.

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ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options fail, sources say

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AWS already had to effectively do this. AWS only exists in two regions in China because they licensed much of the AWS software to be run by a pair of Chinese-government affiliated ISPs inside China (that is, Amazon doesn’t run AWS in either of its China zones — it’s run by a pair of Chinese companies who license AWS’s software).

This is why the China AWS regions are often quite far behind in terms of functionality from every other region (they either haven’t licensed all the functionality, they don’t keep up-to-date at the same cadence as Amazon, or Amazon is holding certain functions back), and why you can’t really access them from the standard AWS console.

So in effect, Amazon did have to give their software to Chinese-government affiliated companies in order to continue operating in China.

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Atypical tips to quit smoking?

I suggested to a friend years ago that he keep all of hit used butts in a jar beside his bed. He came up with this idea that he should add some water to the jar.

The reminder every time he got up or went to bed that the black goop shit was the same stuff he was putting into his lungs every day eventually got him to stop. He couldn’t even look at the jar anymore — and certainly didn’t want to add to it. That thing was nasty.

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Computer Science, a popular college major, has one of the highest unemployment rates

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I was always shocked at the time why the university or the government does not project these things and adjust the available program sizes so that kids and their parents don't end up spending boatloads of money and lives in degrees under false promises of prosperity. I didn't have an answer then and people around me couldn't explain it either but many were asking the same question.

You are looking at Universities^0 all wrong. Predicting the markets are not their job or role in society.

The primary purpose of a University is research. That research output comes from three primary sources: the faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students. Naturally undergrads don’t tend to come into the University knowing how to do proper research, so there is a teaching component involved to bring them up to the necessary standards so they can contribute to research — but ultimately, that’s what they exist for.

What a University is not is a job training centre. That’s not its purpose, nor should it be. A University education is the gold standard in our society so many corporations and individuals will either prefer or require University training in exchange for employment — but that’s not the Universities that are enforcing that requirement. That’s all on private enterprise to decide what they want. All the University ultimately cares about is research output.

Hence, if there is valuable research output to be made (and inputs in the form of grants) in the field of “Philosophy of Digital Thanatology” (yes, I’m making that up!), and they have access to faculty to lead suitable research AND they have students that want to study it, they’ll run it as a programme. It makes no difference whether or not there is any industry demand for “ Philosophy of Digital Thanatology” — if it results in grants and attracts researchers and students, a University could decide to offer it as a degree programme.

We have a LOT of degree programmes with more graduates than jobs available. Personally, I’m glad for that. If I have some great interest in a subject, why shouldn’t I be allowed to study it? Why should I be forced to take it if and only if there is industry demand for that field? If that were the case, we’d have nearly no English language or Philosophy students — and likely a lot fewer Math and Theoretical Physics students as well. But that’s not the point of a University. It never has been, and it never should be.

I’ve been an undergraduate, a graduate, and a University instructor in Computer Science. I’ve seen some argue in the past that the faculty should teach XYZ because it’s what industry needs at a given moment — but that’s not its purpose or its role. If industry needs a specific skill, it either needs to teach it itself, or rely on more practical community colleges and apprenticeship programmes which are designed around training for work.


[0] — I’m going to use the Canadian terminology here, which differentiates between “Universities” and “Colleges”, with the former being centres of research education that grant degrees and the latter referring to schools that are often primarily trade and skill focussed that offer more diploma programmes. American common parlance tends to throw all of the above into the bucket of “College” in one way or another which makes differentiating between them more complicated.

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Microsoft and IBM make MS-DOS 4.00 Open-Source

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As someone who has done some OS dev, it’s not likely to be of much help. DOS didn’t have much of any of the defining features of most modern OS’s — it barely had a kernel, there was no multitasking, no memory management, no memory protection, no networking, and everything ran at the same privilege level. What little bit of an API was there was purely through a handful of software interrupts — otherwise, it was up to your code to communicate with nearly all the hardware directly (or to communicate with whatever bespoke device driver your hardware required).

This is great for anyone that wants to provide old-school DOS compatibility, and could be useful in the far future to aid in “digital archaeology” (i.e.: being able to run old 80’s and early 90’s software for research and archival purposes on “real DOS”) — but that’s about it. DOS wasn’t even all that modern for its time — we have much better tools to use and learn from for designing OS’s today.

As a sort of historical perspective this is useful, but not likely for anything else.