At least we tried? #tfr

  • 19 Posts
  • 77 Comments
Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: March 14th, 2021

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  • Been meaning for years to harvest some seeds from a big patch of nettles growing not far from here on a country (canada) roadside. Then this spring someone decided to cut all the grass and weeds back along this road… the nettles disappeared. I watched for months and months hoping they would re-appear. I had almost given up hope, but finally just in the last month they have slowly appeared again by the edge of the cut. A meager little growth, compared to what I was. Will I ever harvest any seeds? All I know for sure is that I will continue to intend to.








  • The annoying part of this for me is that Gates’ name needs to be dropped in, presumably to get attention. But so it goes.

    It’s interesting to see that the concept of butter in the comments seems to be a significant trigger for a bunch of people (in the /c/science posting of this article). This is another level to the problem.

    But the main problem which no one seems to have commented on (maybe because it is mentioned at the end of the article) is, like many animal product substitutes, production cost and scaling.

    Animal products are so embedded and subsidised (and/or at least true externized costs ignored), and politically connected, potential eco-friendly alternatives like this have a really extra hard time getting off the ground even if I could one day be cheaper.








  • What are you talking about. Everyone knows polls are the best way to determine what is or is not a myth. That’s why that TV show Mythbusters failed so miserably and is off the air now. Too much fiddly experimentation and sciency mumbojumbo, and not nearly enough polls. It really helps if the polls ask pointed questions about hot button issues with little to no context also… So people aren’t confused or have to think too much (which also is a form of dishonesty when you think (but not too much) about it). Pretty sure there is a poll out there somewhere that confirms this.



  • Interesting perspective, but I’d tend to argue that the technologies such as WiFi have massively increased inclusiveness and accessibility for magnitudes more people than it has raised issues for.

    WiFi, for example, allows libraries to offer servises 24 hours a day without the need to physically enter the building. Wirh such openness comes some security and resource sharing challenges, and metimrs addressed by throttling or overly aggressive firewalls. But for nearly everyone the expanded accessibility has been fantastic.

    I am also concerned with outsourcing. But worried about cloudflare are pretty far down the list. Adobe controlled DRM on most ebooks, and even third party cloud based catalogues, are way more concerning. But unfortunately these happen to be the most cost effective way the limited funding of libraries can manage in many cases. I hate these circumstances but it seems to me the compromise is providing more access to more resources for more people, not less.

    This is not to discourage always better ways and more freedom and efficiency. But overall I just can’t see how the issues you cite are excluding people more than helping include more people.

    Lets face it, the half dozen people per million (if that) who care about the FLOSS status of thier WiFi hardware’s firmware, probably are technically capable enough to find a way to access library resources securely more than most people!