JohnnyEnzyme

did they use the N word back then?

Of course they did. My understanding is that it was both a common-parlance word with no particular mal-intent, but also a pejorative, loaded word, going back to the very founding of slavery in terms of the Colonies.

As others have pointed out, the word goes back to ancient Latin. Forms of it were likely in use whenever Latin and Latin-based languages were commonly-used in the presence of darker-skinned peoples, similar to how others and other cultures might refer to lighter-skinned peoples, reddish-skinned peoples and tawny-skinned peoples. So, same idea, I believe-- a relatively innocent language descriptor at base, which could also be scaled up to a dog whistle, or even worse. There are a quite a few similar words when it comes to cultural and ethnic descriptors coming from the POV of outsiders.

Wait, PixelFed?

I thought that was an open-source good thing, with a Fediverse-counterpart of PixelFed.Social, no…?

Er… who was talking about current Windows?

I was talking about the original, which absolutely ripped off the GUI from the early Mac OS. That’s the whole point when it relates to IBM at that stage-- they lost the hardware, OS-GUI and software battles to everyone else, spelling their doom.

Apple ripping off Xerox is a well-traveled myth. In fact Jobs & team famously negotiated a walkthrough of PARC, with the specific intention of drawing inspiration from the Star’s rudimentary GUI, in return for shares of Apple. They then greatly expanded on those ideas to create their own OS. What Gates did with the Mac OS was similar to what M$ did with dozens of other companies, i.e. finding loopholes & barely-legal means to steal their content, one way or another.

That article pretty-much tells the tale as I remember it, even if in super-condensed form. The IBM PC went hard for the business and ‘high-end consumer’ markets, and really whiffed upon everyone else who was curious about getting in to computers, but didn’t have such disposable income. And then Bill Gates came along, who managed to rip off the Mac OS with relative impunity, and absolutely nuked IBM’s chances of dominating with its own next-level OS and GUI.

Shareware Doom played from a single floppy was amazing, though. What an incredible breakthrough for those of us who’d only known laggy wireframe 3D simulators played on older 8-bit machines.

Some years back, a little family of squirrels got in to our attic and made it their playground. After the outer hole was patched, I began humanely trapping and releasing them with good ol’ peanut butter as the bait. I then had the idea to add some white spray paint to their backs, to make sure they weren’t still getting back in. Actually I only tagged one squirrel that way, as it just… well, something felt off about the process, and I only needed one test subject, I thought.

A couple weeks later I saw a squirrel running around with a lot of its back-fur missing, and realised that I’d F’d up. Fortunately (I think, I hope) that given it was summer, the little one would have plenty of time to ‘fur-up’ before winter.

Dunno if this helps you, but in web pages AFAIK the tracking usually comes from javascripts running in that particular page. Google, Facebook, etc. If you allow those to run, then such services can track you in various ways.

I run uMatrix to specifically allow only the JS’s I want to run, and of course, some of the ad-blocker extensions should do similar, I think.

No seriously, matey-- got something useful to reply upon there, mate?

@savethetuahawk@lemmy.ca,
That’s YOU, right?

This sounds like it was written by a bot.

Okaaayyy… I guess I’d be interested to hear how that’s working in your mind. Care to explain?

I have never seen a burnt one.

Really, were you expecting them to keep the remains of the few that created dangerous fires around for you to examine? Were you hoping to see a little pile of melted plastic and ashes, is that it?

You guys are delusional if you think brand = higher quality.

And you lack reading comprehension if you think that’s what I said. Want to try again, boss?

I’m no kind of expert, but as I understand it, lithium-ion batteries are something to be treated with significant care & caution. Poorly-constructed ones for example are evidently more prone to developing filament damage and becoming exposed out of their protective cases, with the fire risk (in the presence of O2) scaling up by size. Actively charging from AC seems to boost that risk.

So it seems pretty clear to me-- research that sucker when you’re buying replacement cells / batteries, or simply dealing with an old, poorly-performing one. Even if the risk of an Li+ cell event is less than 1% (or whatever), avoiding the disaster of that seems pretty wise to me. Personally, I charge my Android devices and my DeWalt module in a metal container, just in case. Also, old cells are stored in steel baking pans & similar.

Looks like a bit of Matt Dillon rubbed off on him in that pic.

Too bad he’s so cool in some ways, yet a high-ranking member of a terrible cult OTOH.

Or maybe do like Putin / Xi do-- agree respectfully, then do whatever you were going to do, anyway.

Their War against the West has already been raging for some years now, even if mainly by non-traditional areas, such as internet / electronic propaganda & espionage means.

Also I would say Atilla is usually called Atilla the Hun

Good point, and I think I whiffed a bit on that one. “Atilla” is actually a name still used sometimes today across Europe, so “the Hun” definitely adds some helpful context.

Also since Caesar became a position/title we still say Julius to specifically refer to him.

You mean, in Italy?

In the States, I feel like it’s pretty clear that “Caesar” without further context refers to either a leader / dictator / emperor of the Julio-Claudian line, or more commonly to Julius himself. The point being that if you’re referring to one of the emperors, it’s usually necessary to name them, i.e. “Caesar Tiberius,” etc.

Sand of various types are running out around the world, and it can be quite the expensive challenge to get the right type for your particular project, many times involving trying to preserve land from water erosion.

Maybe industry is working to create artificial sand grades for current and future projects, I’m not sure…

Caesar, or Charlemagne or Attila.

Well, those are fairly uniquely-identifiable names in the scheme of things. “Caesar” isn’t just the guy at your local pizzeria, but THE Caesar of Caesars. “Charlemagne” is a combination of the common name “Charles” and <“great”> as with Alexander. “Attila” is a rarer name, already with a certain stigma, so quite unique in that sense.

“Alex” / “Alexander” is still a pretty common name today, so it makes some sense that there’d be a qualifier. Not unlike with Peter the Great , Catherine the Great, etc…

“Marsupial,” let’s not forget.
I.e. it’s a nickname, and nothing more.

most frogs lay eggs in water

Yup!

This is also true of some other amphibians IIRC, but the comparison certainly holds up.

Thanks for explaining.

Sorry for this fuss-budget comment, but how can a frog possibly be “marsupial?”

Just one of those funny species-naming things…?

I remember watching a show about these, some years back. Didn’t know they were called MOSE. IIRC, Italian and local bureaucracy slowed the project way down, unfortunately. I suppose if they built these on the original timeline, Venice would have had a lot more leeway here, but now they’re right up against it.

Pretty much every scientific prediction I know of about rising sea levels and global warming has been on the cautious side, not fully taking in to acct additional factors such as various tipping points, from which there is no known or anticipated recovery.