Only a fifth of Canadians younger than 50 plan on having kids

That’s sustainable as long as those 1 in 5 Canadians who do have a kid each have on average at least 10 kids.

The poll found 51% say it is “not their responsibility” to fund other people’s childcare, with the most likely group to say this are those who have raised children to the age of 18 or older, where the proportion rises to 59%.

While I’ve got sympathy for that position, the flip side of that is that it’s taxes from those kids who will be paying for pension, medical care, and so forth of people who don’t have kids.

So if you don’t want to pay for someone else’s kids, it does seem a bit unfair that their kids should pay for your old age. I mean, it required a lot of time and work and money on the part of people who did have kids to raise that kid.

The social welfare model in most countries, as things stand, is rather loaded against people who have kids.

• Just set up your browser to delete cookies on exit. If you want, just have it delete them from specifically that site. The entire debate over whether-or-not a site sets a cookie seems to me to be pretty pointless. If a site can set cookies, then some bad actor will. The dialogs that sites put up talking about it are pointless. No solution other than having your browser not retain them regardless of what a site wants to do is going to be a reliable solution. Not policies, not laws.

  I have my browser delete all cookies on exit. I have a very short whitelist of sites that I permit to keep cookies and track me. Every one of those is one that I need to log in to use anyway – so I could be tracked with or without a cookie – and the only thing the cookie does is buys me not needing to log in every time, doesn’t have privacy implications.

• Paying doesn’t buy you anything unless they offer a no-log, no-data-mining policy. If you log in to use the site, then they can track you anyway via the credentials you use.

• They’re not imposing it on you. They’re offering you a service that costs them money. They give you news, you give them money or data. If you don’t want to do that deal, there’s a whole Internet out there. Don’t go to that particular site. There are lots of websites out there, many of which offer the same deal. Getting upset that somewhere on the Internet, someone is offering a deal that you don’t want seems pointless.

  If you want to have some kind of tax-funded news site, go advocate for that. Yelling at them isn’t going to get you there.

  If you want to just view news done by volunteers, something like WikiNews, then go visit those sites instead. Maybe contribute work as well. I don’t think that volunteer news is going to realistically compete with commercial news, but hey, there was also a point when people thought the same thing about volunteer-run encyclopedias, so maybe it’ll get there.

I’ll also add that I’m going to be generous to the EU and assume that the goal of their “cookie warning” law, which is why many European websites show these, was to raise awareness of cookies and privacy implications by having warnings plastered all over, so that it starts people thinking about privacy. Because if the goal was actually to let people avoid cookies, then it is costly, disruptive and wildly ineffectual compared to just setting a setting in the browser, makes actually having the browser delete cookies more-annoying, and duplicates a browser-side standard, P3P, that already accomplished something similar, and was just all around a really bad law.

Looking at another article on this community, it sounds like China’s way ahead of you on that.

https://lemmy.today/post/17388857

Chinese authorities demand schoolteachers and other public sector employees hand in their passports as President Xi Jinping tightens his grip on society

I like it.

I don’t know about this new version that will be released, but here’s a link to a PDF of the current version:

https://rib.msb.se/filer/pdf/30828.pdf

You can feed it into Google Translate.

No, that’s from some “disboard.org” service that I linked to. I just used Kagi to find that page.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/russia-bans-discord/

Just seven days ago, Reuters reported that Russia had ordered approximately 1,000 items to be deleted from Discord and Google, including posts “containing…LGBT propaganda…:”

kagis

Servers tagged with:

LGBTQ+: 61597

Tags similar to LGBTQ+

• LGBT (48114)
• GAY (31652)
• TRANS (8568)
• FEMBOY (23724)
• LGBTQ (57310)

And that was only one category they objected to.

Yeah, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that that probably wasn’t gonna be a winnable war for the Russian government.

Can be monitored with NUT over USB or Ethernet

NUT has a hardware compatibility list.

https://networkupstools.org/stable-hcl.html

Looks like China’s got a pretty large lead, even relative to London.

https://www.comparitech.com/vpn-privacy/the-worlds-most-surveilled-cities/

The 10 most surveilled cities in the world – cameras per person

Based on the number of cameras per 1,000 people, these cities are the top 10 most surveilled in the world:

1. Cities of China* — 626m cameras to 1.43bn people = 439.07 cameras per 1,000 people

2. Hyderabad, India — 900,000 cameras for 10,801,163 people = 83.32 cameras per 1,000 people

3. Indore, India – 200,000 cameras per 3,302,077 people = 60.57 cameras per 1,000 people

4. Delhi, India — 449,934 cameras for 22,547,000 people = 19.96 cameras per 1,000 people

5. Singapore, Singapore — 109,072 cameras for 6,080,859 people = 17.94 cameras per 1,000 people

6. Moscow, Russia — 214,000 cameras for 12,680,389 people = 16.88 cameras per 1,000 people

7. Baghdad, Iraq — 120,000 cameras for 7,711,305 people = 15.56 cameras per 1,000 people

8. Seoul, South Korea — 144,513 cameras for 9,988,049 people = 14.47 cameras per 1,000 people

9. St. Petersburg, Russia — 75,000 cameras for 5,561,294 people = 13.49 cameras per 1,000 people

10. London, England (UK) — 127,423 cameras for 9,648,110 people = 13.21 cameras per 1,000 people

To put it another way, when I first joined, it was to kbin.social. Kbin has a feature to help people discover new communities where it will suggest random comments. This leads to…rather dramatic cross-pollination. So, for example, I remember looking at a technology community on pawb.social. Some other random kbin.social user also showed up there, I’m sure via random comment, and was complaining that everyone in the forum was a furry. I mean…yeah, you just hopped right into the middle of their den. Same thing with yiffit.net and probably a number of other instances. Does that mean that the Threadiverse is all furries? Well, no. I’d say that it’s disproportionately so compared to Reddit, but it’s more that it’s got special-interest instances.

Or transexual users on lemmy.blahaj.zone.

Or porn enthusiasts on lemmynsfw.com.

Or underage anime porn fans on burggit.moe.

Or science enthusiasts on mander.xyz.

Or Star Trek fans on startrek.website.

Hop onto any of those or communities on those, and you’re likely to find a lot of content of the sort that the instance focuses on. But if your instance doesn’t federate with them, you may not see that material at all, nor the users on those instances.

I’ve seen multiple videos of barn owls “dancing” to music.

I have no idea what’s going on in their heads, but it’s something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fUIx_cmqM4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKU_PRt9rpg

I don’t think anyone has polls. There is a much higher far-left proportion than on Reddit, as things stand.

Note that Reddit is one unified world, albeit with division by subreddit.

The Threadiverse is not. Some instances have very different communities – some only permit certain types of users. And not all instances federate with each other, and if your instance doesn’t federate with another, you won’t see content from those instances.

So, for example, lemmygrad.ml and to a lesser degree lemmy.ml has a bunch of people – including the lead Lemmy dev – who are enthusiastic about Stalin and the Soviet Union, pro-authoritarian-left. Hexbear.net is kinda out there too.

Then you’ve got exploding-heads.com, which I believe is far-right.

Lemmy.world is more-mainstream, but I’d certainly place it left of Reddit on average. It doesn’t federate with lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net or exploding-heads.com.

Beehaw.org is what I’d call far-left, but less in the authoritarian camp, but they’ve defederated from lemmy.world.

You can see defederations on an instance under “Blocked instances” at /instances. So for example:

https://lemmy.world/instances

Most instances also say something about their policies in the right-hand sidebar.

I think that some of it is also that some people are very vocal about their political views, and I think that some of those are disproportionately in the far-left camp. Like, if someone wants to vent that they think that society would be better off as an anarchy or that private ownership of industry or money or whatever shouldn’t exist, I think that those people are gonna be more likely to have strong feelings about and repeatedly post about their point of disagreement than someone saying “I think that things are going pretty well, but I’d like Tweak X and Y”.

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:305150/zoom:14

Service status: Aground

Honestly, concerns over the possibility that religion might be a political opponent and trying to neutralize it by replacing figures with one’s own are not new.

It’s just a little unusual to have it happening in 2024 between gods and secular leaders.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_syncretism

Religious syncretism is the blending of religious belief systems into a new system, or the incorporation of other beliefs into an existing religious tradition.

This can occur for many reasons, where religious traditions exist in proximity to each other, or when a culture is conquered and the conquerors bring their religious beliefs with them, but do not succeed in eradicating older beliefs and practices.

Upon further consideration, it was decided that perhaps what Marx had meant was that certain varieties of opium were, in fact, good for the people.

Hail, Mary Mao, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus Xi.
Holy Mary Mao, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

Hail, Mary Mao, full of grace…

Multivitamins

Some of this article is just summarizing the current situation, which I don’t think is all that interesting.

But it does have discussion on an important perspective that I hadn’t considered or read much about.

Right now, there’s a lot of focus on the response to Iran’s October 1st ballistic missile attack. We’ve talked about what Israel is likely to do, what the US supports or does not, and so forth. Most of what I’ve read focuses on one of three potential targets:

• IRGC facilities

• Iran’s oil infrastructure

• Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities

I also recall reading one (early) article that cited an anonymous US official saying that they were hoping to convince Israel to hit Iranian-linked targets outside Iran, that that might be sufficient to satisfy Israel. I haven’t seen more discussion on that. Looking closely at what each party has said, that’d permit Israel to damage a bunch of things that Iran values, but also permit Iran to say that Israel hasn’t crossed the line that the IRGC drew in Bagheri’s statement when he threatened a larger ballistic missile attack in response to any Israeli attack on Iranian territory.

But…assuming continued escalation, that’s not the end of things. I’ve read a few articles talking about what the end game between Israel and Hezbollah is, but not longer-term Iran-Israel.

The author is a nuclear weapons specialist focusing on the Middle East. His perspective is more “where does this go if Israel hits Iran, and then Iran hits Israel back again harder”.

He stated that he didn’t presently believe that Israel would likely hit Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities in this strike.

What’s on the table? Israel may target military installations, such as surface-to-surface missile bases or anti-aircraft systems, or Iran’s energy sector and political regime symbols. An attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is being debated in Israel, but is not likely at the moment.

Factors being considered include the operational capability to execute such a strike effectively, the time that would be required to rebuild the facilities, expected regional reactions and the impact on Iran’s future decision to develop nuclear weapons. Additionally, the Biden administration’s opposition to attacking the nuclear sites is a consideration, particularly in view of the upcoming presidential election.

However, he also looks down the line of an escalation spiral – if Israel hits Iran, then Iran conducts a large-scale ballistic strike against Israel in response – as Bagheri had threatened after the earlier attack – then the author believes that Israel hitting Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities becomes more-likely:

Recently, however, there has been a possible shift in the Israeli stance — evident, for instance, in a growing public discourse on the issue. The increased attention in Israel stems partly from the unprecedented advancement of the Iranian nuclear project, the overconfidence this gives Tehran and the intensifying internal Iranian calls to acquire nuclear weapons. An underlying cause for the shift is the absence of an international mechanism to control and monitor the program and the looming expiration of the “snapback” mechanism in October 2025, which would hinder a quick reinstatement of U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran.

The significant weakening of Hezbollah and the reduced risk it poses to Israel in a future confrontation with Iran, coupled with the high costs Israel is already bearing in its fight against the “axis of resistance,” might be viewed by Israeli decision-makers as an opportunity to act. The trauma of Oct. 7 and the public’s increasing support for more aggressive responses against external attacks intensify belligerent Israeli sentiments towards Iran.

All eyes are now on Israel. Its response is likely to follow a military-regional logic aimed at preventing further direct attacks from Iran and isolating the various fronts of conflict. However, continued intense confrontations between the two countries, along with escalating attacks on Hezbollah, could further amplify the discourse in Tehran favoring a nuclear breakout and increase support in Jerusalem for striking the nuclear facilities. This would create a dangerous self-perpetuating cycle.

The history of the Middle East and beyond is being shaped right now. In the years to come, scholars will explore the crucial decisions facing leaders in Jerusalem, Tehran, Washington and elsewhere that today may seem like just another news update.

Like, in looking at the situation, it’s worth considering actions both in the light of the action themselves, and where they’ll wind up, after multiple iterations of the responses involved.

But what Ms Salagaras and the dozens of others who purchased the cookies didn’t know was that their baked goods were five days old, purchased at a store in Hawaii by people unaffiliated with Crumbl Cookie (Crumbl), and flown back to Australia.

Hmm. Setting aside trademark law, that sounds like a legitimate concern from a consumer standpoint. This “Crumbl Cookie” company presumably wouldn’t intentionally sell five-day-old baked goods under their brand, and as a consumer, I’d distinguish between fresh cookies and five-day-old cookies, even if five-day-old cookies are perfectly edible. Maybe there’s an argument for making it normal to also rate the maximum age of a given baked good – I don’t know if that’s mandated in the US, but bakeries I’ve seen normally distinguish between bagels and day-old bagels, for example.

But setting legalities aside…I wonder how practical it would be to do something like this and get better output than these guys flying the things did?

Most of the time, it probably makes sense to just bake whatever the thing is domestically. But it sounds like the issue here is that the demand is small in scale, not enough to support a domestic bakery:

“I think the fact that our market is small here, means that there’s a lot of things that never get here,” said Ellen Garbarino, a professor in marketing at the University of Sydney’s Business School.

According to Professor Garbarino, many international brands are unlikely to open permanent locations in Australia due to the required costs and expected return.

“The cost of setting that up is pretty high, to get it into the shelves or to get a retail outlet and pay rent and get customers and get staff and all those kinds of things, and get over the laws of a different country.”

So for Australia – and, hell, anyone to some degree – it might make sense to just try to do a better job of being able to ship stuff and keep it as fresh as possible.

https://www.quora.com/What-chemical-reaction-causes-food-to-go-stale

There isn’t a single well-defined meaning of “stale.” When we say bread is stale, we usually mean it’s hard. Interestingly, this is due to the bread absorbing water from the air (water usually softens things, doesn’t it?) If bread is slightly hardened, you may be able to restore some of its freshness by microwaving it. This will make it obviously moist, and you can then toast it. This is also a good procedure if you freeze bread, which we have to do in our household because otherwise we eat way too much :) It’s not like super-fresh bread, but I find it edible.

Another meaning of “stale” is partially rotten or rancid. Rotting is generally due to bacterial growth. Rancidification is chemical oxidation of fats to fatty acids, which is why rancid butter tastes sour (acids are sour).

I mean, there are ways that you can counter that. They will add cost to the item. But they’re doable.

Like, you can make something not rot by irradiating it sufficiently and then sealing the food in a sterile environment.

Storing them in a low-oxygen environment, like under carbon dioxide, can cut into oxidation (though I’m not sure that that’d help much for cookies if they use yeast to rise, since the yeast would require oxygen, though maybe they’re okay if you use baking soda to make them rise).

You could control humidity in the transport container.

https://discover.texasrealfood.com/food-shelf-life/oreos

The shelf life of Oreos can depend on various factors, including the storage method and whether the package has been opened. A packet of Oreos typically comes with a “best before” date, which is usually set for 9 to 12 months after the manufacturing date. This date serves as a guideline for optimal freshness rather than a hard expiration date. When stored properly in a cool, dry place, unopened Oreos can retain their quality slightly beyond this date, while opened Oreos should be consumed within a shorter timeframe to enjoy their characteristic crunch and flavor.

Oreos are designed to have a pretty impressive shelf life, as long as you don’t open the package. They’re very dry. The problem with these “Crumbl Cookie” things is trying to use a cookie that isn’t designed to have a shelf life but to get more of one. So you can’t alter the cookie, can’t add preservatives or something.

But some of the processes I listed above don’t require modifying the original cookie.

Even if it doesn’t happen prior to some form of peace agreement or something…that’s an interesting thought. Like, any scenario where the conflict restarts would place Ukraine in a considerably more-favorable position militarily than is the case today. Today, simply by dint of weapons each has available, Russia has much more ability to attack Ukrainian territory than vice versa. But in the event of such a guarantee and Russia restarting conflict with Ukraine in some form, Russia wouldn’t be able to touch a lot of Ukraine’s territory without starting a conflict with NATO, but Ukraine would have a free hand to hit Russia’s territory, with whatever weapons it could obtain.