memfree

joined 1 year ago
[–] memfree 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

platform tip

Not tip. Something else. Given how much they are getting off each exchange, I feel like tipping is not needed. I checked a few recent donations and took a picture. The most recent transactions are on top.

When someone donates, any tip is excluded from the Beehaw contribution and the Beehaw part is listed. Immediately above it two fees are subtracted from the Beehaw donation: A 'stripe' fee and a 'Host' fee. So Beehaw never gets your actual donation and the Host always gets a cut.

Edit: attached image shows how a $10 and a $50 donation is each charged as well as showing part of a more recent $10 donation with slightly different stripe fee.

[–] memfree 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

making bean burgers

Oh no! Just buy them! My better half is vegetarian, which means I started mostly cook meat-free because it is easier than making two meals, but now I'm just in the habit of not eating much meat. Our bean-burger experiments were never worth effort. We use fake-beef veggie crumbles for casserole-type recipes and big frozen packs of Beyond Burgers (Impossible is also good) if we want an actual burger. For chicken, we'll buy some unbreaded seitan/TVP substitutes, like these examples.

I have the same problem with egg substitutes, so we're still eating eggs -- but from happy-seeming chickens we can visit. The hard part for me is cheese. I'm waiting for lab-grown cheese, but for now I can't match the flavors of actual cheese.

[–] memfree 3 points 2 months ago

Given that Israel has nuclear weapons, they wouldn't be 'sitting ducks', but I don't want to see a nuclear war starting in the Middle East. I doubt it would stay contained to the area. I fear that Russia would back Iran and counter -- or at least threaten to -- with Russian nuclear weapons, which would get the U.S. or our allies back into the mess but escalated to the whole world at risk instead of just a small contested sliver.

I would love to see a workable path to a two-state solution. Experts have spent their lives working towards that goal and it still hasn't happened. I totally blame the government of Israel for not figuring out a peace with Palestinian residents back in the 1970s, but here we are. Bibbi makes everything worse and his public falls for his 'strong man' shtick just like Americans fall for Trump's version. Sitting in the U.S., the best election choice I can make for the sake of Palestinians is to vote Harris. Beyond the election, there is room for letters, protests, and boycotts, but the problem is mostly with Israel's government rather than with anyone in the United States.

[–] memfree 4 points 2 months ago (3 children)

In terms of who to vote for in the U.S. presidential election, 3rd parties are spoilers. The U.S. voter is wasting their vote if they stay home or vote 3rd party.

[–] memfree 10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Politicians are notoriously evasive, and this particular interview sounded more straight forward than most. Okay, most the honest ones, anyway. I mean: it's easy to say "Read my lips. No new taxes" or "Free IVF" if you've no legitimate plan to fund the government, but if you're not going to make stuff up for the sound bite, you almost have to be evasive. Robust and well considered plans are made by experts and a politician trying to promote a good plan has to boil it down to a couple nebulous basics. Doing anything else means you either bore the audience OR skip a contingency or other minutia such that your critics call you a liar.

Remember when Obama said you'd get to keep your doctor? He was trying to summarize explaining that Affordable Care would not mandate what doctor you could use, but what he didn't say was that Insurance Companies would continue to be able choose what doctors they covered, so Obama's critics said he LIED about keeping your doctor. It was NOT a lie. It was just Insurance companies doing what they always did.

Harris said she would support Israel but the war had to end. If Israeli/Palestinian strife has gone unsolved for 50 years through all sorts of Presidents, I don't expect any U.S. election to change what goes on over there. The U.S. could theoretically stop aiding Israel as it commits genocide, but the realistic outcome of that would be neighboring countries committing genocide on Israelis, and since that's the basic reason the country was invented... maybe that's not the best outcome either. It has been a mess for decades, and I'm not blaming Regan, Carter, Trump, Putin, or Tony Blair for any of the mess with Gaza.

Harris said she would not ban fracking but her values have not changed. I suspect this is because she's come to see no one banned horses when car came along, and no one need ban fracking if there's a better alternative. What she did not specify was the carrots and sticks she might employ to get us to which alternatives. That's fine with me because the tech is changing and the outcome is more important than the method.

Harris said she would enforce laws regarding immigration AND she wanted the tabled border bill on her desk so she can sign it. There's a bunch she could have said there, too, but my point is that again, she wasn't particularly evasive.

[–] memfree 2 points 2 months ago

Amazon offered up “Treatments for High Cholesterol” along with a link for an Amazon One Medical consultation as well as links to prescription medications.

That’s weird, because my doctor and my wife are the only people who know about my cholesterol numbers. They’re pretty good, too! But there are certainly data points, including my age, my food preferences, and my past purchases, maybe even news stories I’ve read elsewhere on the web, that might suggest I’d be a good candidate for a statin, the type of cholesterol-lowering medication Amazon recommended to me. And while I’m used to Amazon recommending books I might like or cleaning products I might want to buy again, it felt pretty creepy to push prescription drugs in my direction.

What did the author expect? Is anyone surprised that a big business is pushing people to buy more product?

HIPAA, the federal law that protects health privacy, is narrower than most people think. It only applies to health care providers, insurers, and companies that manage medical records. HIPAA requires those entities to protect your data as it moves between them, but it wouldn’t apply to your Amazon purchases, according to Suzanne Bernstein, a legal fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

HIPAA has always been a questionable law that does more for Pharma than for citizens. By signing a HIPAA form, patients basically allow their medical info to be distributed/sold to drug makers and other product/treatment vendors. I'm glad health information is legally considered private until you sign, but I'm not sure why the public is okay with signing away their privacy on every trip to a new doctor.

should my Amazon purchases be associated with Amazon’s health care services at all?

Well, Amazon isn't going to restrict itself, so we -- as the public -- will have to make a fuss about it if we want anything to change.

[–] memfree 1 points 2 months ago

black swans?

[–] memfree 3 points 3 months ago

I, too, think Biden did a great job as President -- especially given the constant pushback he got from Congress and the corrupted Court. It frustrated me that the public didn't notice or care, but I could see from the polls and negative press that there was no way Biden was going to get re-elected, so I was living in despair for our future until he dropped out. With Biden out of the race, the public is paying attention to the race again, becoming aware of the crazy Trump/2025 "agenda nobody asked for", and (if we're to believe the polls) becoming more interested in voting for a new face. Yay!

[–] memfree 6 points 3 months ago

Have hope! But also, if you can volunteer to talk to potential voters, do that too.

If your schedule is too tight to volunteer, or if it is physically/emotionally too much, consider at least talking about her in a positive way.

If that is too much, maybe at least, at least mention that you're hearing lots more support and enthusiasm than even when Biden won, so you are going to be very suspicious of claims that Dems 'steal' elections. Yes, Trump is still supported in the boonies, but more and more suburbs and cities are increasingly wanting Harris -- you know, the places with most the people.

[–] memfree 13 points 3 months ago

There are additional details from ammoland.com (emphasis from source article):

Mr. Soukaneh claims that Officer Andrzejewski demanded that he tell the officer where the prostitute and drugs were located. The officer searched Soukaneh pulled out pills from the man’s pocket. The officer thought he found illicit drugs. In reality, what the officer discovered was Soukaneh’s nitroglycerin pills for his heart condition. In addition to the heart medication, the officer seized the $320 in cash plus a flash drive that contained pictures and videos of Soukaneh’s deceased father. Neither the flash drive nor the money was returned to Soukaneh.

They also mention that the cops DID run a check on the gun permit before figuring out how to write Soukaneh up.

Officer Andrzejewski ran Soukaneh’s gun permit and found it to be valid. Shortly after, another officer and a sergeant arrived on the scene. Andrzejewski asked the two what he should “write him up for.” The sergeant told Andrzejewski what to write into the computer system.

Note, however, that the PDF of the ruling linked by techdirt has a footnote on page 6 saying, "It is unclear from the record when Andrzejewski determined that Soukaneh held a valid firearms license, and whether that determination occurred before, after, or during Andrzejewski’s search of Soukaneh’s car. Andrzejewski does not specify whether he ran the check on the firearm license before or after he searched Soukaneh’s vehicle. "

Of course, the medication, cash and flash drive were all found through an illegal search of the car, so that whole chunk is somewhat irrelevant, and thankfully, it looks like the lawyers all knew that because the PDF suggests it was only the cop who suggested a legal gun was probable cause to search the car.

So Soukaneh is suing the cop. It has now gone through two courts. Per the Techdirt piece:

Unsurprisingly, the lower court rejected the officer’s request for immunity, pointing out that while the initial encounter may have been justified, nothing that followed that (pulling Soukaneh from the car, handcuffing him, searching his vehicle, detaining him for another half-hour while trying to figure out what to cite him with) was supported by probable cause.

The Second Circuit comes to the same conclusion. Simply being made aware Soukaneh possessed an item millions of Americans also own legally is not probable cause for anything the officer did past that point.

[–] memfree 1 points 3 months ago

As I recall, it wasn't just hot food, but any food meant to be consumed on the premises, such as fountain sodas instead of canned ones. I remember a talking point about that being would get more nutritious and cheaper food buying a bag of rice and dried beans than it would for them to buy pre-made burritos, chili or whatever.

[–] memfree 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You can adjust them, but it is better if you get them adjusted wherever you bought them because they know how to do it properly. In particular, the spot where they touch your nose might get sore, and maybe moreso on one side than the other. That'd be a sign to get them adjusted. Some people even have one ear slightly lower than the other, needing an adjustment to the arms.

Glasses have an optimum focal point so your glasses were meant to be a particular distance from your eyes and over adjusting might change that. On the other hand, the change is going to be so small that it probably only matters to the people selling glasses rather than the wearers.

 

ghost archive | Excerpts:

... findings with null or negative results — those that fail to find a relationship between variables or groups, or that go against the preconceived hypothesis — gather dust in favour of studies with positive or significant findings. A 2022 survey of scientists in France, for instance, found that 75% were willing to publish null results they had produced, but only 12.5% were able to do so2. Over time, this bias in publications distorts the scientific record, and a focus on significant results can encourage researchers to selectively report their data or exaggerate the statistical importance of their findings. It also wastes time and money, because researchers might duplicate studies that had already been conducted but not published. Some evidence suggests that the problem is getting worse, with fewer negative results seeing the light of day3 over time.


At the crux of both academic misconduct and publication bias is the same ‘publish or perish’ culture, perpetuated by academic institutions, research funders, scholarly journals and scientists themselves, that rewards researchers when they publish findings in prestigious venues, Scheel says.

But these academic gatekeepers have biases, say some critics, who argue that funders and top-tier journals often crave novelty and attention-grabbing findings. Journal editors worry that pages full of null results will attract fewer readers, says Simine Vazire, a psychologist at the University of Melbourne in Australia and editor of the journal Psychological Science.


One of the most significant changes to come out of the replication crisis is the expansion of preregistration (see ‘Registrations on the rise’), in which researchers must state their hypothesis and the outcomes they intend to measure in a public database at the outset of their study (this is already the norm in clinical trials). ... Preliminary data look promising: when Scheel and her colleagues compared the results of 71 registered reports with a random sample of 152 standard psychology manuscripts, they found that 44% of the registered reports had positive results, compared with 96% of the standard publications^7^ (see ‘Intent to publish’). And Nosek and his colleagues found that reviewers scored psychology and neuroscience registered reports higher on metrics of research rigour and quality compared with papers published under the standard model^8^.

 

Over 1,000 cases of streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (STSS) were reported in Japan in the first six months of 2024, surpassing the total number recorded last year in the country.

Andrew Steer, director of infection, immunity and global health at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia has warned that those suffering from STSS often have no prior warning signs.

“You tend to be well, and then become acutely quite sick,” he said, adding that a sunburn-like rash could also be one of the first indications of infection.

The US reported 145 cases of STSS in 2021.

See also: https://www.diseasedaily.org/2024/07/23/the-rise-of-streptococcal-toxic-shock-syndrome-stss-in-japan/

17
submitted 4 months ago by memfree to c/socialism
 

Trump judge. Heavy Project 2025 vibes. archive

A federal judge in Texas on Tuesday cast new doubt on the National Labor Relations Board’s ability to oversee labor disputes, agreeing with Elon Musk’s SpaceX that the agency’s board members and administrative law judges are likely serving unconstitutionally.

SpaceX faces a range of labor complaints, including at least two complaints to the NLRB, amid a broader conservative push to limit the power of federal regulatory agencies. Along with SpaceX, other major companies including Amazon and Starbucks have filed legal challenges to the NLRB’s authority.


SpaceX noted that NLRB board members and administrative law judges — like many federal civil servants — are nonpolitical appointees and therefore can’t be fired at-will by the president. The company claims the board members therefore are “unconstitutionally insulated from the president’s oversight," making the board's action an unlawful attempt to "subject SpaceX to an administrative proceeding."

In an order on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Alan Albright agreed. Finding SpaceX was likely to succeed on its claims that NLRB officials were serving unconstitutionally, he issued an injunction blocking the NLRB hearing.

Albright, a Donald Trump appointee, acknowledged in his order that "there is a strong public interest in providing employees a mechanism to vindicate their NLRA rights." Nonetheless, he found that "Congress exceeds its power when it attempts to neuter the president’s constitutional power to remove and control executive officers."

A paywalled article: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/spacexs-constitutional-challenge-to-nlrb-gets-judicial-support

 

Two people were thrown into the ocean after a humpback whale landed on their fishing boat off the New Hampshire coast on Tuesday morning, and the entire incident was caught on video.

The Coast Guard also confirmed that the men who were on the boat were recovered by other boaters and brought to Great Bay Marina.

Edit: ghost archive

 

Per author, if the treat passes as-is, it will hurt security and stifle speech.

while this treaty creates broad powers to fight things governments dislike, simply by branding them "cybercrime," it actually undermines the fight against cybercrime itself. Most cybercrime involves exploiting security defects in devices and services – think of ransomware attacks – and the Cybercrime Treaty endangers the security researchers who point out these defects, creating grave criminal liability for the people we rely on to warn us when the tech vendors we rely upon have put us at risk.

This is the granddaddy of tech free speech fights. Since the paper tape days, researchers who discovered defects in critical systems have been intimidated, threatened, sued and even imprisoned for blowing the whistle. Tech giants insist that they should have a veto over who can publish true facts about the defects in their products, and dress up this demand as concern over security.

Time and again, we've seen corporations rationalize their way into suppressing or ignoring bug reports.

The idea that users are safer when bugs are kept secret is called "security through obscurity" and no one believes in it – except corporate executives. As Bruce Schneier says, "Anyone can design a system that is so secure that they themselves can't break it. That doesn't mean it's secure – it just means that it's secure against people stupider than the system's designer"

the Cybercrime Treaty creates new obligations on signatories to help other countries' cops and courts silence and punish security researchers who make these true disclosures, ensuring that spies and criminals will know which products aren't safe to use, but we won't (until it's too late)

 

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/37773477

Please consider signing this petition and sharing it broadly.

Meta has announced it will be abandoning CrowdTangle, its industry leading transparency tool, this August - in the middle of the biggest election year on record.

CrowdTangle is used by thousands of researchers, journalists and advocates to monitor political disinformation and hate speech on Facebook and Instagram.

The decision to kill this crucial tool without an equivalent replacement couldn’t come at a worse time: Elections affecting approximately half of the world’s population are taking place this year. Meta’s irresponsible decision poses a direct threat to our ability to safeguard the integrity of these elections - but we can still stop it.

Sign the petition now to call on Meta to maintain CrowdTangle during this critical period of elections worldwide to protect election integrity in 2024 and beyond!

 

Their new, 23rd album =1 follows a run of chart hits including top 10 records Infinite (2017) and Whoosh! (2020), suggesting a band in late-career resurgence. Driven, perhaps, by the fact that their audience seems to consist almost entirely of horn-waving Benjamin Buttons.

“It’s very exciting,” Gillan enthuses. “About 15 years ago, something weird happened. There was a whole new generation of fans. Our audiences from about 2009 or 2010 onwards have been mainly 15- to 22-year-olds. That’s been a great input of energy in the shows.”

“In the Seventies we just broke up,” he says. “Everyone’s seen Spinal Tap and that’s pretty much what happens. Outside influences come in, too much money, ‘we’re immortal’, all that rubbish. Then you go off and you try to do things individually and realize it’s the collective effort that really made it work.

See also:

  • musicradar: Ian praises Paice, recall Yes confrontation
  • loudersound: Ian touts Black Sabbath as more influential than Purple or Zeppelin
  • short 2018 metalinjection piece with a bit more about joining Black Sabbath
 

Harris’s move to seek permission to use the hit song comes after the co-writer of a song used in Donald Trump’s rallies spoke out to reveal his disapproval.

At the Republican National Convention last week – days after surviving an assassination attempt – Trump walked on stage to the song Hold On, I’m Coming.

The co-writer of the Sam & Dave’s 1966 hit David Porter told The Independent that the 78-year-old former president had never asked for permission to use his music in his political campaign.

“I can say [that] I don’t want any of my songs used for political campaigns,” he said. “We create music for uplifting people, not separating them.”

ghost archive | cnn coverage

 

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the long-time associate of The Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb said a severe crash is on the way and stocks could lose more than half their value, while acknowledging that his latest warning should come as no surprise.

“I think we’re on the way to something really, really bad—but of course I’d say that,” Spitznagel said.

Since Fortune is mostly citing WSJ, here's an archive of that WSJ story. From that source:

Governments have been so active tamping down any conflagration in the economy that the dry brush of debt and other hidden risks have built into the ingredients for a severe blaze.

How should mere mortals without access to tail risk hedges respond to his prediction? Probably by doing nothing, says Spitznagel.

“Cassandras make terrible investors.”

 

This isn't a new idea, but if you haven't tried doing something like this, I do agree with the author that it is a lovely summer/fall treat -- and the local peaches I'm getting are perfect with a strong cheese. Personally, I add a large shot of tarragon to dressings like the one given.

Italicized items in the below are my comments and not from the article.

archive

So, the magic formula is this: Choose two seasonal fruits, a cheese (feta, blue or goat cheese) and a nut (walnuts, sliced almonds or pecans). These are the changeable elements. The other ingredients stay the same as does the dressing, which let me say is an exquisitely balanced vinaigrette made with apple cider vinegar, raw honey and extra-virgin olive oil - a veritable health-giving trifecta on its own. The dressing makes the salad.

Ingredients:

  • 2 bunches or 2 regular clamshells mixed greens (a partial head of red leaf lettuce and baby spinach also works fine)
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or sliced almonds, toasted
  • “2 fruits” sliced thinly (one type of fruit would also be fine)
  • 1/4 red onion, peeled, sliced paper thin (I need more onion than that!)
  • 1/3 cup crumbled feta, goat or blue cheese (this list can be widened to any strong cheese, like limburger. manchego, or even a sharp provolone either common or boutique -- but not a mild cheese like typical grocery store cheddar or brie ... though an Epoisses de Bourgogne would work)
  • Salt & Pepper
  • (I might add thin sliced radishes and/or julienned carrots for color/variety)

Dressing:

  • 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar (I'm tired of cider vinegar and often use rice wine, champagne, or other vinegars)
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 1 tablespoons Dijon mustard
  • 1 shallot, peeled
  • 1 clove garlic, peeled
  • 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • ( I add tarragon, but any one of several other herbs would also be nice)
 

“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this,” he added.

103
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by memfree to c/politics
 

"It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term," Biden wrote.

Edit: He's endorsing Harris. all the news sites have live feeds.

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