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| It was a real nail biter. |
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| Looking north, toward Ottawa... |
The organization behind National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is being slammed online after it claimed that opposing the use of AI writing tools is "classist and ableist."
We believe that to categorically condemn AI would be to ignore classist and ableist issues surrounding the use of the technology, and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege.
Classism. Not all writers have the financial ability to hire humans to help at certain phases of their writing. For some writers, the decision to use AI is a practical, not an ideological, one. The financial ability to engage a human for feedback and review assumes a level of privilege that not all community members possess.
Ableism. Not all brains have same abilities and not all writers function at the same level of education or proficiency in the language in which they are writing. Some brains and ability levels require outside help or accommodations to achieve certain goals. The notion that all writers "should" be able to perform certain functions independently or is a position that we disagree with wholeheartedly. There is a wealth of reasons why individuals can't "see" the issues in their writing without help.
General Access Issues. All of these considerations exist within a larger system in which writers don't always have equal access to resources along the chain. For example, underrepresented minorities are less likely to be offered traditional publishing contracts, which places some, by default, into the indie author space, which inequitably creates upfront cost burdens that authors who do not suffer from systemic discrimination may have to incur.
The German Navy is searching for a new storage system to replace the aging 8-inch (20cm) floppy disks which are vital to the running of its Brandenburg class F123 frigates. According to an official tender document, the ideal answer to the German Navy's problems would be a drop-in floppy disk replacement based upon a storage emulation system, reports Golem.de. Germany's Brandenburg class F123 frigates were commissioned in the mid 1990s, so it is understandable that floppy disks were seen as a handy removable storage medium. These drives are part of the frigates' data acquisition system and, thus "central to controlling basic ship functions such as propulsion and power generation," according to the source report.
Germany's Brandenburg class F123 frigates were commissioned in the mid 1990s, so it is understandable that floppy disks were seen as a handy removable storage medium. These drives are part of the frigates' data acquisition system and, thus "central to controlling basic ship functions such as propulsion and power generation," according to the source report.
https://x.com/JerseyBillz/status/1806513100834656286
Dana Bash signals #Brandon who he should be looking at. That's the most perfect encapsulation of this wretched farce I've seen.
I am beyond disgusted today. This plastic banana has been propped up in that office since 2020. What the actual fuck.
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| Bro was irritated, it seems. |
Canadian systems builder 45 Drives is perhaps best known for the dense multi-drive storage systems employed by the likes of Backblaze and others, but over the last year the biz has expanded its line-up to virtualization kit, and now low-power clients and workstations aimed at enterprises and home enthusiasts alike. 45 Drives' Home Client marks a departure from the relatively large rack-mount chassis it normally builds. Founder Doug Milburn told The Register the mini PC is something of a passion project that was born out of a desire to build a better home theater PC.
Housed within a custom passively cooled chassis built in-house by 45 Drive's parent company Protocase, is a quad-core, non-hyperthreaded Intel Alder Lake-generation N97 processor capable of boosting to 3.6GHz, your choice of either 8GB or 16GB of memory, and 250GB of flash storage. The decision to go with a 12-gen N-series was motivated in part by 45 Drives' internal workloads, Milburn explains, adding that to run PowerPoint or Salesforce just doesn't require that much horsepower. However, 45 Drives doesn't just see this as a low-power PC. Despite its name, the box will be sold under both its enterprise and home brands. In home lab environments, these small form factor x86 and Arm PCs have become incredibly popular for everything from lightweight virtualization and container hosts to firewalls and routers.
The Home Client is a Linux-based, small-form-factor personal computer by 45HomeLab (not primarily a storage device).
The Home Client is a single-board-computer-based device, with a pre-installed Linux operating system. It has an extremely small footprint, making it perfect to stick on a TV stand or fit onto a desk. It is fanless, so it will remain quiet and unobtrusive while staying in a sleek, small-form-factor low profile.The Home Client is built in North America with an aerospace-grade aluminum milled chassis.
We see the Home Client as functioning best in virtualized environments, where it can stream applications from your lab. It can also be great for light office work, streaming, and other similar applications. But it is completely open, so it is up to you to make whatever use of it that fits best into your home environment.
"What's happening here is very alarming," said Ashley Salvador, councillor for Ward Métis during an urban planning committee meeting on Tuesday."As we heard today, you walk in, and right next to the chocolate bars is a wall of knives that are designed for harm," said Ashley Salvador, councillor for Ward Métis.
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| Because "a wall of knives that are designed for harm" needs a picture to go with it. |
And...
Bryan LaFleche, president of Crystal Kids Youth Centre also spoke at the meeting to express how prevalent knives, as well UnWTas brass knuckles and bear spray have become amongst the kids at the centre, which they have to confiscate regularly. "When we ask them: 'Why are you carrying a knife? Why are you carrying bear spray?' The answer every single time is 'it's for protection'," LaFleche told the committee. "Our great fear with that is when an 11-year-old child pulls a six-inch knife out of his knapsack and says 'I need this for protection,' we spend hours trying to convince them that that knife affords them absolutely no protection."
Allan Bolstad with the Alberta Avenue Community League purchased several knives at a convenience store on 118th Avenue to present the committee with a slideshow illustrating the intended purpose of the knives being sold. "When you hold these knives, when you actually have them in your hand, you realize how lethal that they are, and that they're designed for one thing and that's for hurting someone badly, or killing someone," said Bolstad. "These aren't for buttering toast. They're for trying to kill someone." Bolstad suggested the city create a separate business licence for stores looking to sell knives, akin to the one currently in place for selling firearms.
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| Mr. Bolstad, keeping weed-grown lots vacant in Alberta! |
Once again, one of those gap-tooth hillbilly redneck tinfoil hat nutter conspiracies... is actually being done.
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| Remember when we thought this was fake? |
Aboard the deck of a World War II-era aircraft carrier, University of
Washington scientists flicked the switch on a glorified snow-making
machine," reports the Seattle Times.
They describe the scientists "blasting a plume of saline spray off
the coast of Alameda, California... trying to perfect a shot of salty
particles that would make clouds better at reflecting sunlight back
toward space, and help cool the Earth.
"It's called marine cloud brightening."
Compressed air was pumped at hundreds of pounds per square inch
through a nozzle full of a salty mix with a similar composition to
seawater housed in an apparatus similar to a snow-making machine. The
New York Times reported the machine produced a deafening hiss, releasing
a fine mist that traveled hundreds of feet through the air. The
scientists wanted to see if the machine could generate a consistent
spray of the right size salt aerosols, taking samples downwind with
instruments mounted on scissor lifts, commonly used in construction.
"This study is not yet large enough to affect local weather," the
article points out. Yet "the idea of interfering with nature is so
contentious, organizers of Tuesday's test kept the details tightly held,
concerned that critics would try to stop them," reported the New York Times.
Yes, real-life chemtrails, that fruitbat crazy conspiracy theory from the 90s.
Done in secret, no less.
So now I need to go back and reconsider laughing at David Icke and his lizard people.
Judge Coleman, a Barack Obama appointee, initially found the gun ban for illegal immigrants was constitutional back in April 2022. However, she agreed to reconsider the case in light of rulings from the federal appeals courts in the Third and Seventh Circuit that questioned whether those convicted of non-violent crimes could be permanently disarmed after the High Court handed down Bruen in June 2022. She concluded breaking misdemeanor immigration laws alone is not enough justification to strip somebody of their gun rights under the new test.
"[C]arbajal-Flores has never been convicted of a felony, a violent crime, or a crime involving the use of a weapon. Even in the present case, Carbajal-Flores contends that he received and used the handgun solely for self-protection and protection of property during a time of documented civil unrest in the Spring of 2020," Judge Coleman wrote. "Additionally, Pretrial Service has confirmed that Carbajal-Flores has consistently adhered to and fulfilled all the stipulated conditions of his release, is gainfully employed, and has no new arrests or outstanding warrants."
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| It's dead, Tim. |
The decision to ultimately wind down the project is a bombshell for the company, ending a multibillion-dollar effort that would have vaulted Apple into a whole new industry. The tech giant started working on a car around 2014, setting its sights on a fully autonomous electric vehicle with a limousine-like interior and voice-guided navigation. But the project struggled nearly from the start, with Apple changing the team's leadership and strategy several times. Lynch and Williams took over the undertaking a few years ago -- following the departure of Doug Field, now a senior executive at Ford Motor.
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| Environment Canada approved. |
"Our government has made the decision to stop investing in new road infrastructure," said Guilbeault, who represents the Quebec riding of Laurier-Sainte-Marie. "Of course, we will continue to be there for cities, provinces and territories to maintain the existing network, but there will be no more envelopes from the federal government to enlarge the road network.
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"The analysis we have done is that the network is perfectly adequate to respond to the needs we have. And thanks to a mix of investment in active and public transit and in territorial planning and densification, we can very well achieve our goals of economic, social and human development without more enlargement of the road network."
Guilbeault also said money spent on asphalt and concrete for road expansions would be better invested in projects that will help fight climate change and adapt to its impacts, the Gazette reported.
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| My Hugo mood today. |
Recently released documents showed that several works or authors – some with links to China – had been excluded from the ballot despite receiving enough nominations to be included on their respective shortlists. The excluded nominees include Kuang and Zhao, authors who were born in China but are now based in the west.
Concerns have been raised that the authors were targeted for political reasons, connected to the fact that the ruling Chinese Communist party exerts a tight control on all cultural events that take place inside its borders.
Dave McCarty, the head of the 2023 Hugo awards jury, wrote on Facebook: "Nobody has ordered me to do anything … There was no communication between the Hugo administration team and the Chinese government in any official manner."
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| You know what she's saying. |
