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Biden says Netanyahu must change, Israel losing global support
  • It’s crazy. On reddit, it’s 90%

    Let’s ignore how many people israel has killed, they need to kill more, and let’s also go ahead an label everyone who says "too much" a hamas supporter

    Then you go here and it’s again 90%

    Let’s not even call hamas terrorist, more like freedom-fighters with some friendly rape and friendly fire thrown in.

  • Is it just me, or is Sci-Fi experiencing a sort of cultural renaissance right now?
  • Picard S1 was great. But then it was a character driven sci-fi drama that just happened to play in the Star Trek universe, while later seasons were essentially Star Trek. And I don’t like Star Trek (nor Wars for that matter).

  • Wasabi, beloved on sushi, linked to "really substantial" boost in memory, Japanese study finds
  • Now the question is, has anyone here actually had wasabi?

    But here's the rub: That tangy paste served up at nearly all sushi bars — even the ones in Japan — is almost certainly an impostor. Far more common than the real thing is a convincing fraud, usually made of ordinary white horseradish, dyed green.

    Japan doesn’t even produce enough to fulfill their own demand, I’m almost certain all Wasabi I’ve ever had was fake.

  • Police raid Moscow gay clubs, photograph passports of patrons inside
  • I avoid visiting fascist sites, I had enough of that when I selfhosted, and before I blocked hexbear, and saw the cheerleading for civilians being bombed in Ukraine. But good to know they are not totally lost.

  • Hamas may have profited from Oct. 7 assault with informed trading — study
    www.timesofisrael.com Hamas may have profited from Oct. 7 assault with informed trading — study

    Researchers find 'significant' spike in short-selling of Israeli stocks in period leading up to massacre, including 'exceptional' activity on October 2

    Hamas may have profited from Oct. 7 assault with informed trading — study

    Referencing the Study Trading on Terror? which is freely downloadable.

    10
    1987 Chevrolet Corsica Alien Commercial

    An ad? Or a really creepy short film?

    I have no idea what they were smoking back then, but it must have been great ;)

    Found it on Reddit

    0
    Sam Altman to return as CEO of OpenAI

    See also twitter:

    > We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo.

    > We are collaborating to figure out the details. Thank you so much for your patience through this.

    Seems like the person running the simulation had enough and loaded the earlier quicksave.

    58
    OpenAI: Gathered Articles from the last few hours (or a Mini-Mega-Thread)

    We had a thread about OpenAI Staff Threaten to Quit Unless Board Resigns, but I thought I might as well add it again. Especially because of this part:

    > Remarkably, the letter’s signees include Ilya Sutskever, the company’s chief scientist and a member of its board, who has been blamed for coordinating the boardroom coup against Altman in the first place.

    Okay then. I think we are in a simulation, someone quick saved, and is now experimenting what the outcomes of random decisions are.

    A minor piece of information was that OpenAI Approached Anthropic About Merger, and The Atlkantic has a slightly longer look and speculation what’s going on Inside the Chaos at OpenAI.

    With Ilya’s recent turn around, there’s apparently also the option of Altman coming back Sam Altman is still trying to return as OpenAI CEO, something even MS would apparently be okay with, at least publically.

    Business Analysis blog Stratechery posted some analysis on OpenAI’s Misalignment and Microsoft’s Gain.

    Loving it, this is like SubredditDrama, but without having any actual chance of affecting me (I don’t believe in AGI coming out of LLMs), and on a global scale.

    14
    Microsoft hires former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman
    www.theverge.com Microsoft hires former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman

    Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was key in OpenAI talks.

    Microsoft hires former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman

    Well, this escalated quickly. So is this the end, or will the mods create an OpenAI megathread? ;)

    18
    Receiver - Unite [Cyprus] [Heavy Metal]

    They finally released their album "Whispers of Lore". Female fronted epic heavy metal (or, I guess, "new wave of traditional heavy metal"). Their singer has an amazing voice that gives me shivers. I’m not much of a traditional/heavy metal fan, but I might buy the album just because of that voice.

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    Vagrus - The Riven Realms: Sunfire and Moonshadow released
    store.steampowered.com Save 10% on Vagrus - The Riven Realms: Sunfire and Moonshadow on Steam

    Vagrus’s first expansion, Sunfire and Moonshadow, offers a new, vast region to explore complete with a swathe of new settlements, new enemies to conquer, new stories to be a part of, a large cast of characters, and new quests to complete through which the vagrus may make their mark on Xeryn.

    Save 10% on Vagrus - The Riven Realms: Sunfire and Moonshadow on Steam

    Thought I'd share this, now that they released the DLC. Vagrus is probably not for the majority of people. It's a very dark, extremely text heavy, trading caravan sim with combat and RPG elements.

    If you don't like reading, don't even think about playing it, there are several novels with of text in there, with amazing world building.

    If this sounds interesting, you get an amazing indie game, that now got the first of 3 DLC (with two smaller, free dlcs already out).

    2
    Recommendations for beginner winter running clothes?

    2 1/2 weeks ago, I started going for short (25-40 minutes) daily morning runs. Right now the temperature is mostly 10C or higher, so I can just wear shorts and a t-shirt. One day it was below 8, felt a bit cold, and so I got a functional (=plastic) sport long sleeve. That works well, and I can even wear a t-shirt under it if it gets colder (tested it, currently too warm, but I'll probably do that for 6c and lower). Cleaning is easy, I just take it in the shower with me.

    But now I'm worried about it getting colder, not running, getting out of the routine and not starting again.

    What does one get for temperatures around 0 or slightly below, that's also cleanable and dryable for the next day, that preferably also doesn't break the bank?

    Edit: just to clarify, mainly looking for pants, but will happily take top recommendations as well.

    edit2: Just wanted to say thank you to everyone here :) I got a merino beanie and a running windbreaker with a neck-protection. I’ll get running tights if I start feeling the need for them.

    17
    Night Crowned - Flickan Som Försvann [Blackened Melodic Death with Hurdy-gurdy]

    Found this via an AMG review. So far, only 2 songs are out (release in 3 days), the opener sounded great, but the 2nd song I linked here blew me away. And as a lover of folk-metal, but also extreme metal, I’m really enjoying the combination for this song.

    0
    German journalists detained by Israeli soldiers: 'Asked if we were Jewish at gunpoint'

    Original article in German

    While not clear from this article, the German one mentions

    > According to the team, the soldiers were probably settlers from the area who have now been called up as reservists. They were travelling in a private vehicle and were wearing civilian headgear.

    27
    Germany’s president apologises for killings in Tanzania under colonial rule
    www.aljazeera.com Germany’s president apologises for killings in Tanzania under colonial rule

    Steinmeier sought forgiveness from the descendants of hundreds of thousands of victims of violence over a century ago.

    Germany’s president apologises for killings in Tanzania under colonial rule

    > During the revolt — known as the Maji Maji Rebellion — between 200,000 and 300,000 Indigenous people were murdered, as German troops systematically wiped out villages and fields, experts say.

    > Germany’s long-standing commitment to historical remembrance has centred around the atrocities it committed during World War II, specifically the slaughter of six million Jews and other minorities during the Holocaust.

    While I had heard about the genocide in Namibia, I don’t think my history lessons (which mainly center around WWII and the surroundings, including the holocaust) ever mentioned such a slaughter in Tanzania. (edit: They were also 20 years ago, if you are German and younger, feel free to tell me if anything changed)

    Wikipedia (German links are far more detailed if you speak it):

    1
    Fantasy: Realms of Imagination exhibition opens at the British Library soon, along with events with Neil Gaiman, and many more

    Not only literature, but this still seemed like the best community for it.

    Seems like a cool thing to do if you are in or around London.

    0
    Doro - Children Of The Dawn (2023) [Heavy Metal]

    All this Doro talk we are having today, and while checking out Heavy Blog is Heavy’s Release Day Roundup I come upon a Doro Video, turns out she just released a new album "Conqueress - Forever Strong And Proud" ;)

    If you are a sap like me, you might instead prefer Total Eclipse of the Heart from the same album, Rob Halford of Judas Priest. Damn, I love all covers and versions of this damn song, it’s so catchy.

    0
    Favorite secrets, tips & tricks in the kitchen?

    I love cooking, and I cook every day for me and my wife (home office since 2008 helps there), and I love hearing about new things. I have the book "The Science of Cooking" which was fascinating.

    56
    Two-tier licensing is about to become a reality

    This article is weirdly written, but the one I found it via is so clickbaity and overexcited Spotify is changing its royalty model to crush streaming fraud and introduce a minimum payment threshold. Its plan? To shift $1 billion in payouts towards ‘working artists’ over the next 5 years. (what a title… and in all caps…)

    Relevant and why I’m posting this:

    > Introducing a threshold of minimum annual streams before a track starts generating royalties on Spotify – in a move expected to de-monetize a portion of tracks that previously absorbed 0.5% of the service’s royalty pool;

    As a fan of some bands that checks currently have only 191 monthly listeners for all their works combined on Spotify, this is absolutely moving in a direction that I’d expect a major label owned service to move in.

    5
    Kenyan businesses are dropping the world’s favorite mobile money service
    www.semafor.com Kenyan businesses are dropping the world’s favorite mobile money service | Semafor

    Small businesses in Kenya are increasingly rejecting mobile money payments in favor of cash as they look to sidestep aggressive tax compliance measures.

    Kenyan businesses are dropping the world’s favorite mobile money service | Semafor

    Thought this was interesting. Partially because of raised prices, but apparently mainly because of tax enforcement.

    > The shift follows the deployment of 1,400 paramilitary-trained field officers by the Kenya Revenue Authority

    7
    In the defence of Object-Relational Mappers

    I’m an accidental DBA, but I still never quite got the hate for ORMs. I thought this article does a good job explaining the issue, and why they aren’t so bad.

    25
    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)CW
    cwagner @beehaw.org
    Posts 20
    Comments 151