activistPnk 7h ago • 100%
The pics are a bit deceiving. They make it appear as if you get uniform thicknesses, but is that often the case? I doubt it. When a building is demolished, it’s disturbing how sloppy and chaotic they are. They just smash it to bits, producing all different sizes and shapes. I wish they would think about reuse. They could take a cutter and cut uniform blocks off the building which can then be used like building blocks. Instead you got a gnarly mess of blobs with rebar sticking out.
Anyway, I think it’s common to buy much less concrete than you need for a driveway, then mix urbanite with the wet mix so a large portion is reused. I’ve not done it myself but probably entails soaking the urbanite in polyvinylacetate (PVA aka wood glue). I once had to repair a broken concrete step as well as patch some existing stucco. If I had just put new concrete where needed, it would not stick to the old concrete well. So many bonding layers are needed. You water down PVA and paint that onto the old surface. Then when that’s ½ dry you do it again but with a little concrete in it. It’s like a sloppy slurry.. gets everywhere. Then again with a thicker layer. Then you also add PVA in the new concrete mix. That’s how to make it bond. So it’d be the same idea with urbanite. It would only trust that for non-structural projects though. Probably wouldn’t want a foundation relying on it.
activistPnk 8h ago • 100%
We are indeed.
activistPnk 6d ago • 33%
Of course when talking about designs, that’s about the future. After a design has been implemented, it’s too late. You can change a past design but it would only be for a future production because a design has already served its purpose after implementation. Apart from that, you would need a time machine.
But the right to repair in the EU is not just about designs. Design is only a small part of it. If a dishwasher were to end production 1 year before the right to repair law is enacted, that last dishwasher is already under a statutory warranty for another year, and likely under a commercial warranty for a year or three more. So spare parts would already be in production just to satisfy warranty obligations. There would be nothing radical about extending that since it would not have stopped production anyway. It would be foolish not to take that opportunity. And with manuals.. who loses manuals? Consumers do, but not likely producers. Mandating that literature be made available for old appliances would be reasonable, at least in electronic form. The EU would be foolish not to make literature disclosure retroactive. Some EU countries will even enact retroactive taxation. If they will do that, anything is possible.
activistPnk 6d ago • 33%
Emulation is an extremely CPU intensive activity particularly when you are emulating a different instruction set at the hardware level. If you are emulating a gaming system rather than just running that gaming system, you’re doing it wrong (from a permacomputing PoV). The simple physics answer is to pick up an snes at a yard sale for $5 and save it from the landfill, instead of blowing a wad of cash on new hardware you don’t need. Then hack that snes to do whatever you need, such as to attach a copy console. I hacked a Wii to act as a media server, so it can not only play the old wii games but also play AVI movies from the LAN via samba.
Your take is like saying: I want to simulate a nuclear fission reaction in my livingroom.. these old PCs suck and should be tossed. Of course if you select an obscure and heavy task you are limited in the hardware you can deploy for that.
activistPnk 6d ago • 50%
It has not been established on when the law will take effect. If it takes effect the day before the last sale of a dishwasher, then they could have a ten year obligation starting instantly. Or not. Those points have not been pinned down in anything I’ve seen. This law has been discussed in the EU for the past 10 years now. It could be retroactive, if lawmakers decide to do that. If the last dishwasher was sold 5 years ago, they could have a sudden obligation to provide parts for the next 5 years forward.
activistPnk 6d ago • 50%
Right to repair means the parts can’t be drm’d to legally prevent you from repair, not that all out of warranty products must be cheap to repair.
You may be confusing US variations of right to repair, or perhaps you are just judging by the “right to repair” title. US states are ahead of the EU and have different motivations. The EU goes much further than mere new design requirements. It is not doing this to be nice to consumers. It’s part of the “green transition”. If parts prices are priced out of the market, it defeats the purpose of the right to repair. The EU is actively trying to reduce unsustainable consumption of new products and prevention of e-waste.
Here is a jan.2022 clip from the EU Parliament briefing:
In its resolution of 4 July 2017 on a longer lifetime for products, Parliament proposed a number of actions to promote product reparability, including: measures to make repair attractive to consumers; requiring products to be designed for easy and less expensive repair; extending the guarantee if repair takes more than a month; discouraging the fixing-in of essential components such as batteries; urging manufacturers to provide maintenance guides at the time of purchase; developing the standardisation of spare parts and tools necessary for repair; encouraging manufacturers to develop battery technology to ensure that the battery's lifespan better matches the expected lifespan of the product or, alternatively, to make battery replacement more accessible at a price that is proportionate to the price of the product.
Parliament raised the level of ambition in the current term by adopting two resolutions that call on the Commission to establish a consumer's right to repair, with a view to making repairs systematic, Right to repair cost-efficient and attractive. Its resolution of 25 November 2020 on a more sustainable single market for business and consumers and its resolution of 10 February 2021 on the new circular economy action plan both called for the adoption of a set of measures, including: mandatory labelling on the estimated lifetime and reparability of products, such as a repair score and usage meter for certain product categories, and ensuring that consumers are provided with the information on availability of spare parts, repair services and software updates at the time of purchase; giving the repair industry, 'including independent repairers, and consumers' free access to repair and maintenance information; encouraging standardisation of spare parts; setting a mandatory minimum period for the provision of spare parts that reflects the product's estimated lifespan, and reasonable maximum delivery times; and ensuring that the price of spare parts is reasonable, and that independent and authorised repairers, as well as consumers, have access to the necessary spare parts without unfair hindrances.
The projector manufacturer doesn’t control those costs. The Dcd isn’t drm’d. It’s not covered by right to repair.
The Right to Repair is not limited to DRM issues. From the briefing:
New implementing acts on servers and data storage products, washing machines, dishwashers, fridges, electronic displays (televisions and monitors) and lamps require manufacturers, for instance, to ensure that spare parts are available for a certain number of years after the last item has been placed on the market (e.g. ten years for washing machines and seven years for fridges); to deliver the ordered parts within 15 days; and to make maintenance information, including manuals, available to professional repairers.
I have yet to see a DRMd washing machine.
Of course manufactures can control the costs by shifting the cost onto the purchase price. If they must offer reasonably priced spare parts for ten years, then they might have to factor that cost into the sales pricing. And fair enough, because consumers should be discouraged from buying new stuff anyway.
activistPnk 7d ago • 66%
I am writing this from a 2008 machine.
Bad software forces people into the market for new hardware. I can run the most recent version of Debian on this old hardware with 4gb RAM just fine. I will never for the rest of my life have to buy a PC or laptop because I keep finding abandoned PCs and laptops that are faster than what I have (faster than what I need). Microsoft will exploit these consumers for decades to come. Glad I am not feeding the ecocide.
activistPnk 7d ago • 60%
The infrastructure established by the right to repair laws will not likely be that sharply keen to deny rights on old products because there is a cost in making that separation.
Think about why Dell computers snap apart easily. The EU forced Dell under environmental law to make their PCs come apart easily for disposal. Dell resisted at first but did not want to give up the EU market. So they complied. Dell also decided that it costs more to have a separate infrastructure for US consumers, so Dell made all their PCs snap apart wherever sold globally. So rights will manifest unintended benefits.
I’ve already accidentally exploited this. I /thought/ a right to repair law was already enacted, so I requested replacement rubber o-rings citing the not-yet-enacted right to repair law. They sent me the rubber rings (which cannot be bought in stores) at no cost.
I think France has subsidised some repair shops and incentivised consumers using them instead of buying replacements. So if some particular manufacturer tries to get persnickety about the timeline, 3rd party repair shops may be willing to step in.
activistPnk 7d ago • 40%
I bought a DJ mixer, which turned out to be dead. I popped it open and could not see any obvious issue, thus fixing is beyond my expertise. So I plan to get out of warranty repair at a reasonable price.
I bought a projector and the DCD chip turned out to be bad. DCD chips are about as costly as a whole projector. So I expect the right to repair law to force the replacement part to be reasonably priced. I have the same expectation for the boiler mentioned in my other comment.
I have 2 vaccums with broken proprietary nossle/hose and one has a broken plastic part. Both manufacturers ignored my request to tell me of a local parts reseller. I doubt they will be able to ignore that request after the right to repair law passes.
I found a vaccum with missing proprietary floor rolling attachment (so it only functions as a hand-held vaccuum). No idea if the part I need is separately sold or if the price is reasonable. But the right to repair should ensure that repair becomes viable if it's not already.
There are a lot of things I bought 2nd hand for which the manuals are either on tor-hostile websites, or jailed in various enshitified 3rd party manual repos. I hope the right to repair can be used to force the manufacturer to send me a paper manual that avoids the enshitified web. Not sure if that will be a reality as we get more and more to a point where people have lost the right to be offline through legislation that assumes everyone is happily online with no issues.
activistPnk 7d ago • 87%
The right to repair (at least in the EU) is being written to facilitate both people who have the ability to repair and those who do not. If you do not have the ability to repair, the law will entitle you have the device repaired outside of the warranty for a reasonable price.
If you have the ability to repair, the law entitles you to manuals and parts, and the parts must be at a reasonable price.
I had a proprietary valve fail in a boiler. The valve should be under $10, but because the manufacturer bundles the valve with many other fittings people are forced to buy a kit that’s no less than $100. That’s one thing the right to repair should solve.
I’ve been stock-piling electronics that either people throw away, or things I bought 2nd-hand only to find they are broken. Looks like the right to repair law is in very slow motion. Not yet enacted be the European Commission. And once it is, member states have like 2 years to actually enact it in their law. Probably even more time before consumers begin to see results. (edit) I think some US states were the first to enact right to repair laws. So some consumers could perhaps pretend to be from one of those states to demand things like service manuals. But parts and repair is likely more out of reach ATM.
activistPnk 1w ago • 100%
Indeed those are good ideas. In fact it would be possible to solve the enshitification problem at the same time. If someone copy-pastes a whole article into their Lemmy post, then it solves the problem of getting the article out of Cloudflare jail (or other varieties of prisons and barriers).
There is a university that has its own small in-house archive. I forgot which uni. But the idea was that any papers or articles produced by students or profs at that university would naturally refer to outside docs. Of course it’s a problem when those outside references are unreachable. So the university archives everything referenced by in-house papers to ensure the integrity of the sources. Outsiders do not have the power to add a page to the archive.. only to browse the archives made by insiders. Every university should be doing this.
All this only covers articles though. There are lots of web resources that need to be archived. Ideally it should be integrated into the browser. Instead of fetching and throwing it away, browsers could keep a local archive. From there, it’s a matter of getting the browsers talking to each other over Tor. Perhaps using IPFS (something I’ve been putting off looking into but seems to be part of the answer).
You can follow their Mastodon account here: https://mastodon.archive.org/@internetarchive People are rightfully angry. I hope this helps the world relize that we need more than one public digital library in the world. When the EU (for example) does not have a digital public library and relies on archive.org, it heightens everyone’s vulnerability to a single point of failure. For me, I cannot access roughtly half the world’s websites right now because Cloudflare blocks me -- which makes me almost wholly reliant on archive.org and to some extent google caches via 12ft.io. (update) Looks like there is a project underway -- a Digital Knowledge Act being proposed: https://communia-association.org/2024/10/09/video-recording-why-europe-needs-a-digital-knowledge-act/
activistPnk 1w ago • 100%
archive.is is in a walled-garden of its own. For a while the best way to reach NY times content was on their onion host:
https://www.nytimesn7cgmftshazwhfgzm37qxb44r64ytbb2dj3x62d2lljsciiyd.onion/
but now they have enshitified the onion. Normally archive.org is the free world way to reach jailed content. But today archive.org is under attack.
The next best port of call is normally 12ft.io, but NYT has managed to sabotage them too. At this point the only just, egalitarian and inclusive way to discuss NYT content is to either copy the NY Times text into your post, or don’t share that content at all.
activistPnk 2w ago • 75%
What do you mean by “good”? I see a constant stream of articles about EVs being enshitified with cloud-attached surveillance tech and vulnerable to unwelcome remote hacking. To privacy advocates and tech rights proponents this means the ones designed as EVs are worse.
If you mean efficient, I’d be tempted to say the difference would be negligible in the big scheme of things. Factory produced EVs are not only surveillance systems on wheels, they are more hackable by threat agents than they are by their owners. Whereas a converted EV is likely more conducive to a /right to repair/.
The best scenario I could envision is this:
You bring your car to shop of expert converters. You watch over their shoulder as they convert it. This serves as training to know your own car. And as well to know how the power generator is built. You drive away with an open source EV that you can fix yourself, pulling behind it a trailor with a power generator, which is then connected to the charging inlet of the EV.
Okay, that last sentence was a joke, to be clear.. Some Teslas have been spotted pulling a power generator on a trailer which then plugged into the car. I hope that practice of towing a generator is not actually a serious trend.
The avg. age of a car bought in Africa at the time of purchase is 21 years old. All these people buying EVs think they are taking a gas-burner off the road. But in fact cars do not get thrown away. They get shipped to Africa where they live on and continue to emit GHG for decades longer. So what’s the answer? Destroying the car is a non-starter, as no one would throw away value. It would be like asking people to set some of their cash on fire. Why not remove the engine and repurpose it as a backup power generator for power outtages? Then convert the rest of the car into an EV. Conversions are being done. There are some companies offering to do the work. But these are very small scale operations that are rarely spoken of. I have to wonder why (what seems like) the best solution is being overlooked.
activistPnk 2w ago • 100%
I had one of those great Iiyama CRTs -- and still do, in storage. I heard when LCDs emerged that LCDs cannot achieve the refresh speeds and color richness of CRTs and that CRTs were still the best for gaming. Not sure if that still holds true. But as a kid, I embraced the Iiyama.
Anyway, I do not imagine desk space can be a reason people are tossing out LCDs.
activistPnk 2w ago • 100%
IMO if something is particularly inefficient, it’s better off not being used if there’s a substantially more efficient alternative to do the same thing.
It’s hard to get a clear-cut measurement and compare the different kinds of eco impacts like that.
But also consider this: the avg. age of a car bought in Africa at the time of purchase is 21 years old. All these people buying EVs think they are taking a gas-burner off the road, but who destroys their car? They sell it. Then it goes to Africa where it continues to pollute for decades more.
If you dump your e-waste in a reckless manner, it ends up in a landfill where the toxins pollute ground water. Or it goes to a trash heap in a poverty-stricken part of India where someone salvages it.
If you dump your e-waste in a responsible manner, the chain of handlers will repair if needed, and ultimately get the working products on the shelves of charity-operated 2nd-hand shops.
In my particular case, I have no TV and don’t watch TV. If I salvage a TV, I would likely watch it occasionally. So I think it’s clear cut in my situation the usage harm would be shadowed by production harm. But note as well my ethical values are not limited to ecology. There is an enshitification of products and digital rights at hand as well. Buying a new electronic appliance supports the makers of shitty cloud-dependent “smart” devices that have supercharged designed obsolecence. So even in neglecting the environment, it’s an injustice to support the makers of electronic goods today.
activistPnk 2w ago • 100%
When you host a neighborhood party and give neighbors access to your house, they will all feel right at home.
All my furniture is salvaged from neighbor’s curbs. So I think if I hosted a local event everyone would find something that was theirs.
activistPnk 2w ago • 100%
That’s interesting indeed because only the 1st bullet would impede me from rescuing one. I avoid buying new electronics to large extent to mitigate excessive production and then disposal of e-waste.
activistPnk 2w ago • 100%
I would say roughly ~40% of the TVs I see are visibly damaged, and I wonder if kids had destructive fun with it after it was set on the curb. If it’s damaged but the backlight works, one option might be to remove the LCD and leave the light diffuser in place, then use it as a light table (e.g. for stained glass work).
A portable testbed sounds like a good idea. Since you found a good one, I get the impression it might make sense for me to go grab battery + invertor and a laptop and test it before carrying it.
In the past few years I have salvaged 4 LCD screens from curbs. All of them function without defect. I have no idea why people are tossing them out. One of the 4 was perhaps tossed due to size (it was about the size of a laptop screen). But the other 3 are a decent size. Most of them even have DVI connectors. I think one of the three only has a VGA connector, so perhaps the owner did not know that could be adapted. If you notice a dumped LCD, grab it. Don’t assume it’s broken. I also often see flat screen TVs being dumped. They are too big to easily carry on my bicycle so I’ve not made the effort to collect them and test them. Has anyone? I just wonder if I should make the effort. Why are people tossing them? Is it because ”smart” (read: cloud dependent) TVs are becoming obsolete and owners are not smart enough to use the HDMI inputs? Or is it more commonly a case of broken hardware? (update) Saw ~4 or so big flat TVs in the “proper” city e-waste collection. The city provides a pallet with walls (a big box) where people dump their electronics. Then the city goes through it and gives anything that works to 2nd-hand shops. They also try to repair some things. In principle, it’s a good idea to have a process like this. But I’m somewhat gutted by this: * no one labels the waste as working or not * the designated middleman who sorts through it does not bother testing most things.. e.g. printers are categorically destroyed. * the public gets no access to the waste in the step between salvage and dump (I need a spare part for a particular device and have no hope of getting it) * the stuff is just dumped unprotected in this big box. So other appliances get tossed on top LCDs and edges of those things damage screens in transport It’s illegal to dump e-waste on the street or in landfills in my area. They must follow the above process because persnickety neighborhood cleanliness people have pressured the gov to enforced the ban on curbside dumping. But curbside dumping is actually more environmentally sound because locals have a chance to grab something in a less damage-prone way.
activistPnk 4w ago • 100%
What disgusts me about this is the digital markets act names all the tech giants except Cloudflare as gatekeepers. The single most harmful bully on the block is Cloudflare. I can (and am) boycotting Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Amazon. It’s difficult for most civilians but possible.
But if you want to be free from Cloudflare, it’s impossible because Cloudflare has even MitMd public services. You cannot get public information from government sources operating on public money without Cloudflare. Because I choose to boycott Cloudflare, I have had to give up my voting rights. I cannot vote in elections because of Cloudflare. So indeed it’s disgusting that Cloudflare is not even on the radar when it should be at the top.
activistPnk 4w ago • 100%
BTV can cause abortion, in animals? WTF? I guess they must mean miscarriages. AFAIK non-human animals don’t do abortions.
One of my banks is threatening to freeze my account unless I disclose my residential address where I sleep at night (with proof! Thus all info that proof comes with). Their privacy policy starts with the standard “we take privacy seriously” then they go on to say deeper in the doc that they may share my personal info around to the full extent allowed by law (using weasel words that try to imply the contrary to sloppy/fast readers), vaguely to credit bureaus (who I have no contract with and who will share the data further, or leak it in a breach). This bank claims “regulations require…” No, they do not. The regs say they must collect residential address OR business address, or if those are not available an address to a family member. So the bank is bullshitting. At the same time, another bank says in so many words: sorry to inform you we were breached. Cyber criminals have all your sensitive info. We take privacy and security seriously. We offer you a credit monitoring subscription to compensate you. If you are interested, you can share your sensitive info with that monitoring org, who in turn will share the info with their subcontractors. And anonymous access is blocked so you must also share your IP address. In light of these two shitty¹ banks, I would like to give a big **fuck you** to those who say: * “You don’t want your bank to know where you live? What are you hiding? What kind of dodgy shit are you into?” * “You expect your bank to let you access your account from Tor? LOL. Why don’t you trust your bank with your IP address? Why don’t you want your ISP to know where you bank? What kind of dodgy shit are you into?” * Bruce Schneiere: “cryptocurrency is a solution looking for a problem” * “Cash is for tax evaders. You have no legitimate cause to demand cash payment or to pay in cash.” * “A cashless society protects us from criminals & money launderers” In the very least, we need a general right to be unbanked. ¹ I don’t mean two imply these to banks are exceptionally shitty. They are just like any bank. All banks, credit unions, etc, are shitty in the same way. (edit) Bank B also waited several months after they knew of the breach to inform me. So I imagine there were months of backroom chatter: “can we hide this? Do we have to tell the press and the victims?” They must have spent those months debating about whether or not to tell victims. Makes me wonder how many other breaches I was exposed to by banks without my knowledge.
Heat pump water heaters already exist. These are hybrid things where a traditional electric water heater is fitted with a heat pump. The heat pump can increase the water temp but cannot deliver enough, so heating elements are still needed to reach a usable temp. I’m wondering if that design can be improved on this way: instead of powering the heat pump from the wall, the heat pump can be connected directly to a PV. I think that would be more efficient and cheaper because PV output is not normally directly usable. IIUC, it’s variable D/C which must be regulated and/or inverted to A/C involving more hardware, conversion, and waste. But exceptionally, I’ve heard that a PV can directly power a compressor with no middleware. Any reasons this would be infeasible or uninteresting? Of course the tank still needs wall power for the heating elements, but would use less wall power and entail less conversion loss.
eu.indystar.com
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/13145612 > (edit) Would someone please ship some counterfeit money through there and get it confiscated, so the police can then be investigated for spending counterfeit money?
eu.indystar.com
(edit) Would someone please ship some counterfeit money through there and get it confiscated, so the police can then be investigated for spending counterfeit money?
If you open a PDF document in the browser (thus in pdf.js) and click the down arrow (↓) to save it locally, it redownloads the document instead of simply saving it from the cache. If you lose network connectivity or disconnect then try to save the PDF locally for later viewing, the browser reports connection issues when there was no need for the network. Tor Browser (Firefox based) does not have this problem.
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/12826007 > Is this a thing? > > I always have spare keyboards out of use either from old machines or pulled out of the trash. Many of them have a dead key which ruins their purpose as a primary keyboard. It’s probably not worth the effort to [bypass a bad trace](https://www.instructables.com/Fix-Membrane-Keyboard-With-Some-Non-working-Keys/). So why not have a 2nd keyboard just for symbols and emoji? ATM to enter a €uro symbol I have to type 3 keys (`$specialkey+c+=`). Or more importantly, the properly angled single and double quotes (`’ ‘ “ ” `) each require typing 3 keys. That shit is annoyingly tedious. And consider all the superscripts¹. > > I attached a qwerty keyboard and azerty keyboard at the same time (Debian, wayland + sway). The AZERTY board was treated as QWERTY. So that’s bizarre. Sure it’s useful that the layout is controllable by software, but strange that the keyboard’s native layout is not the default. It seems as if the layout choice (`man xkeyboard-config`) is universally imposed on all attached devices. Is it possible to configure a QWERTY or Dvorak layout for keyboard 1 and a totally custom or symbolic layout for keyboard 2? > > ¹ all the digits on a secondary keyboard could be superscripted like this footnote. E.g. ¹²³⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹.. typing each of those requires 3 key presses. > update > --- > Possible answer: I hear this project enables different layouts to be assigned to different physical devices: > > https://github.com/rvaiya/keyd > > Bit annoying that that project has not made it into Debian official repos, but at least there are [deb files](https://salsa.debian.org/rhansen/keyd/-/jobs/5430067/artifacts/browse/debian/output).
Some large PVs for rooftops were at a street market for €35 each. I’m not deeply knowledgable about them.. I just know that there are two varieties of solar panels and that the kind that are used from small appliances (e.g. calculators, speakers, lawn lights, etc) are junk. And that junk variety is sometimes used in large rooftop panels. What I was looking at resembled the kind I see on a bluetooth speaker with a slight blue tint so I was skeptical. The info on the backside of the panel indicated “1000 V”. The other thing is, all solar panels degrade over time and reach end of life after like 15 years (though this is improving). They may have been a good deal but I passed on them because I didn’t want to buy them on a blind risk. How would I know how much life a used PV has left? Would a volt meter give that info, assuming it’s sunny when I encounter them again?
phys.org
Two Cloudflare-free tor-reachable articles: ① [Australia gives millions of workers 'right to disconnect'](https://phys.org/news/2024-08-australia-millions-workers-disconnect.html) ② [Australia gives workers right to ignore bosses’ after-hours calls, emails](https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/8/26/australia-gives-workers-right-to-ignore-bosses-after-hours-calls-emails) Those links are also popup-free (at least in my config). But note that ② is a little more junked up and has some video (but my image and autoplay blocking config seems to work). The wording of the new law sounds flimsy.. leaves it to employers to define whether an interruption is “reasonable”. But nonetheless it’s a step in the right direction.
A Belgian woman told me she received a gift from a relative for €300 in cash. When she tried to deposit it into her bank account, the bank interrogated her over the source of the money, as if this one-time transaction is some kind of terror or money laundering. In case no one is paying attention, it’s good to be aware of the extremes the #WarOnCash is evolving toward. Banks have become like police without training.. bullying people arbitrarily. We are collectively like boiling frogs as cashless people are oblivious to what’s going on. Only cash users see the water boiling.
Not sure if this has been scientifically studied but I’ve noticed a couple situations where continuous heat can be avoided. My mom’s way of cooking corn on the cob: bring a pot of water to boil, lid off with two wooden spoons resting on the top to prevent boiling over. She keeps the heat continously quite high for what, ~30—40 min? Seems wasteful because with the lid off the pot is evaporative cooling the whole time so more heat is needed to offset the cooling. I just tried it this way: bring to boil with lid on. Shut the burner off as soon as it boils. The corn continues cooking as the water temp drops. I could probably improve on that even more by using a pressure cooker. (I’m stalling on buying one because I boycott InstantPot due to the fact that they have a closed source phone app exclusively in Google Playstore; it’s optional but InstantPot buyers are still financing that. I should probably get a 2nd hand manual pressure cooker). Hydrating dried beans: soak overnight (which I skip because it seems to make little progress). So I do the “quick soak” -- bring to boil with lid on, turn off right away, and let them sit ½ the day in warm water. Pressure cooking speeds up the 2nd stage cooking for sure (I’ve tested with other people’s pressure cookers). Since I don’t have a pressure cooker, I end up doing the quick soak method ~3 or 4 times throughout the day.. which just means bring to a boil then shut off. Anecdotally this seems to reduce the time needed in the final phase of cooking. Am I going OCD on this? This all might be a drop in the ocean.. cooking is not a significant portion of energy consumption. But maybe notable in the summer when cooling systems have to work against the kitchen heat. Which is one reason I like the electronic pressure cookers: I can set the pressure cooker outside.
An important part of the Youtube content is the transcript at the bottom of the video description. There are some 3rd-party sites that collect and share the YT transcripts separately but then the naive admins put the service in Cloudflare’s walled garden, which is worse than YT itself and purpose-defeating to a large extent. (exceptionally this service is CF-free, but it says “Transcript is disabled on this video” in my test: https://youtubetranscript.io) Invidious should be picking up the slack here. And Lemmy could do better by automatically fetching the transcript of youtube/invidious links and include it, perhaps spoiler style [like this](https://slrpnk.net/post/12116953/10319381).
The linked PDF is the EU’s proposal to amend the [current ADR¹ policy](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32013L0011). One favorable change for consumers is that traders will have a duty to respond to the ADR agencies. But I also see regressions for consumers. E.g. the EU wants to remove the requirement that traders inform consumers about ADR entities. I only read the first 6 pages or so but it looks like the changes will overall weaken consumer protection. I try to consume as little as possible and live somewhat as a minimalist. But I still get ripped off plenty and want protection. OTOH, I wonder if weakened consumer protections will perhaps create more minimalists who ditch their consumerist habits out of frustration with lack of protections. ¹ alternative dispute resolution
The article does not state how she paid and got caught, but this should serve as a situation that highlights the importance of cash preservation. (update) prosecution seeks a 15 year sentence.
I browse with images disabled. But sometimes I encounter a post where I want to see the image, like this one: https://iejideks5zu2v3zuthaxu5zz6m5o2j7vmbd24wh6dnuiyl7c6rfkcryd.onion/@JosephMeyer@c.im/112923392848232303 When opening that link in a browser configured to fetch images, it redirects to the original instance, which is inside an access-restricted walled garden. This seems like a new behaviour for Mastodon thus may be a regression. It’s a terrible design because it needlessly forces people on open decentralised networks into centralised walled gardens. The behaviour arises out of the incorrect assumption that everyone has equal access. As Cloudflare proves, access equality is non-existent. The perversion in this particular case is an onion is redirecting to Cloudflare (an adversary to all those who have onion access). There should be two separate links to each post: one to the source node, and one to the mirror. This kind of automatic redirect is detrimental. Lemmy demonstrates the better approach of giving two links and not redirecting. (But Lemmy has that problem of not mirroring images).
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/12108012 > The EU guarantees most people a [right](https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-products-and-services/bank-accounts-eu/index_en.htm) to open a “basic”¹ bank account. Superficially that sounds good, but of course having a right to open a bank account implies that you can then be *expected* to have an account. It’s an enabler for the #warOnCash. The right to a bank account is a masquerade of freedom from which oppression manifests. > > Anyway, you have to ask: do you really have a *“right”* to open a *basic* bank account if the procedure for opening the account is inherently exclusive? That is, if a bank only offers a basic account to people who are online, doesn’t a problem arise when this *right* to an account then leads to an assumption that everyone has an account? > > Some banks take the requirement to offer basic accounts seriously by making the application a static PDF which can also be obtained on paper form. So the only thing you need is a pen (to open the account and presumably to use it). But it’s bizarre some banks put the application for their basic account exclusively in an interactive online format. Are offline people just getting “lucky” if a bank happens to offer a basic account application on paper? > > ¹ “basic” is not just common language here. It refers to a specific type of account that fulfills specific legal criteria.
The EU guarantees most people a [right](https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-products-and-services/bank-accounts-eu/index_en.htm) to open a “basic”¹ bank account. Superficially that sounds good, but of course having a right to open a bank account implies that you can then be *expected* to have an account. It’s an enabler for the #warOnCash. The right to a bank account is a masquerade of freedom from which oppression manifests. Anyway, you have to ask: do you really have a *“right”* to open a *basic* bank account if the procedure for opening the account is inherently exclusive? That is, if a bank only offers a basic account to people who are online, doesn’t a problem arise when this *right* to an account then leads to an assumption that everyone has an account? Some banks take the requirement to offer basic accounts seriously by making the application a static PDF which can also be obtained on paper form. So the only thing you need is a pen (to open the account and presumably to use it). But it’s bizarre some banks put the application for their basic account exclusively in an interactive online format. Are offline people just getting “lucky” if a bank happens to offer a basic account application on paper? ¹ “basic” is not just common language here. It refers to a specific type of account that fulfills specific legal criteria.