in reply to GG

mastodon - Link to source

The Saanich Daily

Yep, Canada isn't doing well. Just like the rest of the western democracies, we are being crushed by neoliberalism, austerity, corporate greed, and the commodification of basic nessecities like housing, food, and energy. Sadly, most people dont have the political understanding to see this, so they are lashing out and voting for people that will make it worse even faster. People figure if the current govt can't help they might as well burn it all down. #bcpoli #cdnpoli
#cdnpoli #bcpoli

pixelfed - Link to source

I am brimming with pride, gratitude, and joy after the 1st annual Matrix Conference. So much to say!

Grateful to punctuate a great week sharing a lovely time at
Café Botanico, a delightful garden-to-table restaurant hidden in the heart of Neukölln, with some of my colleagues at the Matrix.org Foundation. Thanks for being amazing, team 💖

@thibaultamartin@mamot.fr, @travisr@mstdn.ca, @matthew@mastodon.matrix.org, @amandine@mastodon.matrix.org

#Matrix #MatrixConf

Josh, Thibault, Travis, Amandine, and Matthew stand together for a group selfie in front of a lush garden.
#matrix #matrixconf @thibaultamartin@mamot.fr @travisr@mstdn.ca @matthew@mastodon.matrix.org @amandine@mastodon.matrix.org

mastodon - Link to source

Contra the “humans are a virus” discourse that’s popular among eco-fascists and, unfortunately, a sizable segment of the left that likes to imagine other people (but never them) are The Problem, humans have a long history of sustainably and often *beneficially* interacting with their environments.

“Even 12,000 y ago, nearly three quarters of Earth’s land was inhabited and therefore shaped by human societies, including more than 95% of temperate and 90% of tropical woodlands. Lands now characterized as ‘natural,’ ‘intact,’ and ‘wild’ generally exhibit long histories of use, as do protected areas and Indigenous lands, and current global patterns of vertebrate species richness and key biodiversity areas are more strongly associated with past patterns of land use than with present ones in regional landscapes now characterized as natural.”

In other words, much of the wilderness we imagine as pristine reservoirs of biodiversity is in reality the product of human effort.

pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2023…

in reply to HeavenlyPossum

mastodon - Link to source

HeavenlyPossum

The Amazon River basin is covered with rain forest that many people mistake for a primordial sort of natural reserve, lightly peopled and untouched until recent deforestation.

On the contrary, we now know that the Amazon was once densely peopled as archeologists continue to discover the remains of city after sprawling city. The Amazon forest we see today is the remains of what was once a vast garden, cultivated to supply food to those cities.

Indigenous land use was once so pervasive and intensive that the forest’s soils, normally fairly poor, are pockmarked with patches of terra preta de Índio—“black earth of the Indians”—which are particularly fertile and self-sustaining soils produced by human activity.

nature.com/articles/s41467-022…

mastodon - Link to source

Cum Ex - eine der größten Banken- und Finanz-Betrugsreihen der letzten Jahrzehnte.
Aber was soll‘s?
„Nächste Woche soll ein Gesetz im Bundestag verabschiedet werden, das es Banken ermöglicht, quasi legal Beweise zu vernichten, die ihre Beteiligung an CumCum-Geschäften belegen könnten.“

Anne Brorhilker von @Finanzwende ruft zum Widerstand auf.

Unterzeichnen könnt ihr hier: weact.campact.de/petitions/cum…

@Finanzwende

mastodon - Link to source

people are told that equinox is the start of autumn and yet can't understand why it starts to feel like autumn weeks before. but if you go by the old calendars, equinox isn't the start: it's when autumn really comes into itself and is entirely its own season.

it used to be, in celtic countries but also elsewhere, that the quarter days — equinoxes and solstices — marked the mid points of the seasons, whereas the cross-quarter days marked their beginnings. the cross-quarter days are at the beginning of february, may, august, and november, and correspond to the modern/christian groundhog's day/candlemas, may day, lammas, and hallowe'en/all saints'.

but just like solstices and equinoxes, the cross-quarter days are specific astronomical points in the year and technically fall sometime during the first week of the month in question.

so northern hemisphere spring is born in february, when the wind begins to change and the air feels different sometimes. summer in may, when the world has truly come to life. autumn in august, when the wind changes again, and winter in november when the world begins to sleep.

this is why winter and summer solstice are traditionally known as midwinter and midsummer. and in china, this time of year is when the mid-autumn festival occurs.

so if the dates of the seasons have never really made sense to you, maybe this is why?

whatever you do, have a blessed and beautiful equinox. may we all find balance today, and rest in the darkness to come.

in golden evening sunlight, a field of dried corn (maize) glowing almost copper-bronze. the sky above is pale blue with scattered grey and white clouds. the maize runs on a slight diagonal up from the bottom left of the image, and there's some dried grass just visible in the bottom right.

mastodon - Link to source

Today I refactored the code when sending files in FluffyChat. Now the app does not try to load all bytes from the files at once. It first checks the sizes and queries the max file size from the server.

Previously the app could even crash when picking a too large file. Especially videos. Now it is possible to pick large videos and let the app try to compress them, without the risk, that the app crashes.

This should make sending large files a much smoother experience.

github.com/krille-chan/fluffyc…

mastodon - Link to source

🚲 Rolling through life one pedal at a time.

Can you imagine a city with less noise and less air pollution?

Today we experienced it here in Brussels and in hundreds of EU cities on #CarFreeDay!

1929 cities from 43 countries are participating with a single motto: ‘Shared public spaces’ and show their commitment to cleaner and more sustainable urban transport during #MobilityWeek.

This image shows a street scene with cyclists and runners moving towards a large mural in the background that reads "THE FUTURE IS EUROPE." In the foreground, a person on a bike wearing a pink jacket and helmet is on the left, while two runners are on the right, one wearing a red shirt and the other in black running gear. Additional cyclists are seen further down the road, heading toward the same direction. The surrounding area features tall buildings and urban infrastructure, with street signs, lampposts, and some pedestrian activity. The atmosphere is active, with the mural being a prominent focal point.
#mobilityweek #carfreeday

mastodon - Link to source

The BT Speak (blazietech.com/bt-speak-pro), particularly in its "traditional" (non-GUI) mode, takes such an interesting approach to implementing a UI specifically for blind people.

From the mid 2000s until I got my BT Speak, I thought the only viable options were to either implement a screen reader for a GUI, or implement a fully custom UI designed specifically for speech output and whatever kind of keyboard or keypad the device supports. The BT Speak does neither. 1/?

reshared this

in reply to Matt Campbell

mastodon - Link to source

Jayson Smith

Very interesting writeup on this. Now if they want to keep everything open-source, I don't really see how they can allow NLS talking book playback. Yes I know that in a good security system only the private keys and not the source code need to stay hidden, but still I can't see NLS being happy with anyone being able to look at the source code on-device and find out where those keys are stored.
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