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Topic: General Discussions (Read 362998 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: General Discussions

Reply #510 –
For something as critical as that knowing the world is watching you?  He will not last much longer.

Re: General Discussions

Reply #511 –
Interesting Biden has made a statement about the Right to Repair.

It'll make him some corporate enemies but if the US go down that route officially it could deliver some of the biggest de-carbonisation and waste reduction impacts of any single law decision.

So much modern waste, a phone or TV gets replaced for want of a $0.10 part, a $200 circuit board gets swapped out for the want of a $0.01 diode.

The other week a relative of mine was sent a whole new air fryer because the one just supplied failed after a couple of weeks, the supplier didn't even want to old one back they told my relative to dump it. Think of the waste, think of the freight. So my relative ended up with two because once they got the new one a mate opened the old one up and found it was just a loose wire, a loose wire! They tried to sell it but nobody wants a used air fryer, so they gave it away!

All because the companies that make and supply this stuff refuse to provide information needed for local servicing and repairs, they keep the knowledge commercial in confidence.

btw., Even if the corporates published the information it bears no impact on patents or copyrights, nobody can use it for a competitive product without a valid license until the patent expires which is typically long long after the technology is redundant.
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: General Discussions

Reply #512 –
So CheatsFC allegedly have more crooks and killers connected to them than any other AFL club.

Surprise, surprise! ::) 
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: General Discussions

Reply #513 –
Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai is now in a tough spot, you'll never get the truth from her at home or abroad, it doesn't work like that.

People count for nothing, lives count for nothing.

Twice while I was in China I've seen people "disappear" off the street, the associate I was with basically repeated the same allegation twice, "They will never be seen again!" The first time it happened I asked him, is that mafia? He said, no it was officials / government! They did something wrong, didn't pay their tax, didn't pay their bribes to officials, perhaps some official thinks they were ripped off by them in some way, perhaps they offended somebody high up, maybe they just said the wrong thing at the wrong time in a public forum.

But they are now gone, no explanation, no investigation, no court case, no record, no trace, the typical official explanation is there are a lot of people in China, if someone doesn't want to be found they won't be found. You can just disappear!

Every Chinese citizen, who has family or relatives remaining in China mainland, Hong Kong, Singapore or even Taiwan, lives with this sort of threat everyday, there is no escaping it without disowning and abandoning your family and friends!
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: General Discussions

Reply #515 –
Sometimes I have to question the motivations of certain areas of research, not so much in regard to why but the how.

For me a good example of this is the recent discussion about cloning Woolly Mammoths. The organisations promoting this effort aren't shy of using a bit of Hollywood to help raise a profile and funds, and I can see the possibility that even if this is successful it will lead to the public becoming disappointed and disenchanted with the outcome / science.

The reason being those promoting the effort are happy to allow an ambiguity to persist about Woolly Mammoths versus other Mammoths. Some of this is a Hollywood created problem, the Hollywood version is often a Woolly Mammoth depicted at the scale of some other Mammoth. btw., Apparently it's not even clear if all "Woolly Mammoth" variants actually had hair, and many versions that did have hair were not as big as a modern African Elephant, although the ancient Mammoths probably had bigger tusks than modern elephants.

I would have though researchers might make an effort to clarify this from the outset, but it seems not to be the case, whoever promotes this cloning effort seems happy to leave the discussion ambiguous enough that people associate Woolly Mammoths with other giant Mammoths. It's not a case of the scientists being foolishly definitive, they haven't made that mistake and they won't because they would be ripped apart by peers, it's just that they leave things understated, they leave it to human imagination.

Journalists / Bloggers are partly to blame, the modern variant of journalist isn't professional enough to ask the obvious unasked question, they just assume and write, a bit like me I suppose! :o
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: General Discussions

Reply #516 –
Social media is sick, and maybe society along with it. If not all the COVID conspiracy theories unravelling the best efforts of health care workers, crazy 5G protests, people setting cell phone or wind turbines alight. But last night I saw the bottom of the barrel, courtesy of Channel Dots.

This week we heard about an utter tragedy, a young man on a mid-afternoon swim taken by a huge shark in front of adult and children witnesses. A event it seems live streamed on social media for all to see, long before the person was identified and / or family notified of his demise. How low can people go, not only failing to assist but broadcasting a total lack of empathy live to the world, probably for profit and fame.

Then the news media keen not to be beaten to the story reports it as a breaking story, again long before the family of the man is identified. How low can they go, surely that is the bottom of the barrel?

But Channel Dots managed to go even lower. In what can only be described as a grubby ratings grab, some sick bastard executive did their best to maximise a bonus by allegedly changing the program schedule to broadcast a re-run of Jaws. What the feck is wrong with these people?

When we lock up drug addicts and the mentally ill, we are locking up the wrong people, we should be lining up these empathy devoid psychopathic executives, or perhaps even setting them against the wall and shooting these sick messengers, after all they only tell you something for profit and fame never as a service, even if it's going to save a life they still put it behind a pay-wall and set the potential victims a honey trap!

Don't worry about going out and shooting sharks, you've got the wrong target!

Meta, Alphabet, News Ltd and the like must be brought to heal, they are biting their owner, they bite the general public! Do any of our politicians have the metal, or are they all spineless?
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: General Discussions

Reply #518 –
Interesting final sentence in an opinion piece by Darren Kane published in The Age (online):
Quote
And, she’s 15 years old, FFS.
I love my swear words, so it doesn't outrage me. But it's interesting that this would go thru to the keeper. It says a lot about the extent of proofreading (or the lack of it) that goes into published articles these days. Or am I missing some more milquetoast meaning of FFS?

Re: General Discussions

Reply #519 –
Quote from: LP – on
Meta, Alphabet, News Ltd and the like must be brought to heal, they are biting their owner, they bite the general public!

I know this is a bug bear of yours, but if you want to live longer, try this simple trick....




Don't watch it.
Don't read it.
Don't waste your time with it at all.

I don't bother with any of it and my life is better for it.

If 'news' is actually important enough that you must know it, it will find you.

Re: General Discussions

Reply #520 –
Quote from: kruddler – on
I know this is a bug bear of yours, but if you want to live longer, try this simple trick
It's a bug bear because I see it's impact on youth, it doesn't affect me at all, but young adults are harming themselves at higher than ever rates and the fakeness of the way the world is presented to them is a big contributing factor.

These organizations are run by adults who make deliberate choices to harm for profit, a different type of weapon but a weapon no doubt!
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"
 

Re: General Discussions

Reply #521 –
Quote from: LP – on
These organizations are run by adults who make deliberate choices to harm for profit, a different type of weapon but a weapon no doubt!

I don't believe they harm for profit, but rather profit at any cost. An important distinction. Accountability, responsibility... Empathy, all fly out the window. Just get those 'clicks'. But I certainly am equally outraged by this profound, and harmful, lack of decency from too many commercial media enterprises. Some of the opinion writers for the HUN engage pure divisiveness. Perhaps as Denzel W said recently, "Don't watch the News and be uninformed, watch the News and be misinformed!"

However, K does have an extremely valid point re subjecting yourself to sh1tty information that actually brings you down. I am reminded of Stoicism (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy actually has a measure of its roots in Stoicism) and the principle of understanding what you can change and what you can't change. Getting 'up in Annie's room' over things you can't influence, impact or change is a recipe for unhappiness or worse. Though a letter or some communication to these purveyors of misery will satisfy a sense of having at least done something. Then just move on. That's the tack I choose. Apologies for any preachiness!

Only our ruthless best, from Board to bootstudders will get us no. 17

Re: General Discussions

Reply #522 –
My Dad was a newspaper man.
Printer/Journalist/ Editor
The media bias has always existed in some form.
Your employment basically depended on aligning yourself with your publisher's views.
You could stretch it a little but go too far and 'goodbye job.'

The problem is that over the years the bias and influence of the folks that run the various form of media has drifted so far from the basic reporting of facts without an added biased opinion thrown in that it becomes impossible to get a fair opinion on anything without constant channel or newspaper changing... and naturally folks tend to gravitate to outlets that support their own views and bias, rejecting most information no matter how valid from alternate sources.

Now multiply all that stuff by a factor of 100 and you have the 'grubbiness' that is social media.
A kangaroo court of opinion that has folks  tried, judged and executed before they're even given an opportunity to defend a position.



Re: General Discussions

Reply #523 –
Quote from: Lods – on
My Dad was a newspaper man.
Printer/Journalist/ Editor
The media bias has always existed in some form.
Your employment basically depended on aligning yourself with your publisher's views.
You could stretch it a little but go too far and 'goodbye job.'
@Lods‍ Sounds like I've walked a similar path to your dad, I've been through that industry spending more than a decade in it filling a range of rolls in both print media and broadcast radio. In the end I came to realise that I was wasting a good education, and exited to an engineering career after luckily reaping some of the rewards of a Murdoch led takeover bid.

As @Baggers‍ points out, my main issue is the modern lack of accountability. If we published back then what they publish now you would have got the sack. In the past no matter how you coloured the report, it still had to be based in defendable facts, that seems to no longer be a requirement. Probably the closest I came to modern media behaviour was working with Scotty Palmer on sport, but even then he only embellished and dramatized stuff that was otherwise true, now they just make it up and they do not care who they hurt in the process! I distinguish Palmer's sporting journalism from the The Truth's UFO policy! ;D

The recent argy bargy surrounding Sam McClure awards shows you they no longer have boundaries, they even stoop to eating their own!
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: General Discussions

Reply #524 –
War is nothing to brag about, the media coverage is abhorrent!

There are segments of the media lauding the sinking of a Russian ship today, like it's something to brag about. But in the case of the Soviet navy those ships are full the children of fellow humans, I'm not sure how it works in Russia but it may well be the case that many on board are perhaps even conscripts or on national service.

Deaths on any side is abhorrent, the war lords of the world should target those tyrants that value life so little, but they don't because they know if they do it will be Quid Pro Quo. So they send the little people who they know have no hope of administering retribution against those who issue the orders! Minions against minions, sent to war like Lemmings.

Putin or whoever, are the gutless, they make war because they basically live in fear!
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"