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What are your favorite bands from more obscure, lesser known countries?

After a best mate of mine introduced me to Fela Kuti's works I've been real interested in hearing music from other cultures you don't hear much stuff from. Doesn't have to be traditional music styles (love it when genres and cultures fuse together, like Masayoshi Takanaka taking influence from Brazilian music), but I'd love to...

grue ,

O-Zone (of "Numa Numa" fame) is from Moldova; that's pretty obscure, right?

Ylvis ("What Does the Fox Say?") is Norwegian.

"Epic Sax Guy" is... also Moldovan, apparently. Huh.

https://i.imgflip.com/8vrssd.jpg

grue ,

Super heroes will not save us from this shit. Not ever. (Even if they weren't fictional.)

Super heroes exist to defend the (neoliberal) status quo.

grue ,

I like the part in the video where Chevy Chase sets his glass of water down on the "table."

'There Are No Kings in America': Biden Blasts Supreme Court, Issues Dire Warning After Immunity Ruling ( dailyboulder.com )

“(With) today’s Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, that fundamentally changed. For all practical purposes, there are virtually no limits on what the president can do. It’s a fundamentally new principle and it’s a dangerous precedent because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law...

grue ,

It's on Biden to personally demonstrate to SCOTUS just how dangerous the ruling was.

grue ,

Good luck with that. You can "disagree" all the way to the concentration camp.

grue ,

I really hate Google dictating the use of two-party consent even in my one-party consent state. I have every right to record phone calls without having it play that message, but not the ability because of Google's gatekeeping!

grue ,

From https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/record-calls-on-your-android-phone :

Recording Limitations on Android

Google has never been particularly fond of call-recording apps for Android, at least not those from third parties. With Android 9, the company added limitations that prevented many apps from recording your phone conversations. The apps continued to work, but when you played the recording, you could only hear your end of the conversation—or complete silence.

Android 10 cracked down even further on these types of apps by blocking call recording via the microphone. In response, many app developers started tapping into Android’s Accessibility Service to record phone calls. But Google then updated its developer policy in April 2022 to state that it would not allow apps in the Play Store to use the accessibility service for call recording. That policy went into effect on May 11, 2022.

The company has even gone so far as to label call recording a type of spyware. “Behaviors that can be considered as spying on the user can also be flagged as spyware,” Google said in its developer policy. “For example, recording audio or recording calls made to the phone, or stealing app data.”

In the past, people were able to find workarounds to Google's block, such as changing the audio source or format, turning the speaker volume as loud as possible, recording manually instead of automatically, and even rooting their phones. Others have since taken to sideloading call-recording apps through an APK file rather than downloading them directly from Google Play.

The version of Android installed on your phone also plays a role in all this. Apps on devices with Android 9 and earlier should still be able to record phone calls without bumping into Google’s latest restrictions. But apps on phones with Android 10 or higher that try to use the accessibility service may run afoul of Google’s new policy.


I've looked through the F-Droid repository for a call-recording app before, but didn't find one that worked. It's been a while, so maybe I ought to try again. Otherwise, I'm open to suggestions!

grue ,

TIL augmenting my memory is "be[ing] an asshole," but telling me that I don't have the right to help myself remember isn't.

grue ,

You consented by calling me. Fuck off with this notion that you're allowed to dictate what I am or am not allowed to do with my own property.

grue ,

How do you know they aren’t in a 2 party consent state?

I don't give a shit if they're in a two party consent state, because I'm not and so that state doesn't have any jurisdiction over me.

grue ,

I could be wrong, but I think the zoning laws tend to be much more focused on stopping people from working in residential areas than on living in commercial or industrial ones.

grue ,

Ah, good point. I was thinking about zoning codes, not building codes.

grue ,

When Kai Winn is a more ruthless capitalist than Quark

Conlangs -- A community geared towards people who seek to discuss artificial languages or create and showcase their own.

We want to be a welcoming community, for people to share and dicuss each others conlangs, and to find and share resources for making them. Promoting positivity and encouraging each other to keep making conlangs! Come join us at !conlangs

grue ,

Could we just make Weird Al the Democratic presidential nominee instead?

grue ,

Waiting for one of the various global crises to change in such a way as to become individually actionable, so that the famed ADHD crisis mode superpowers can finally kick in:

https://c.tenor.com/Ci-iIbZAB0gAAAAd/tenor.gif

grue ,

I hate that they decided to have Morpheus hold up a battery instead of a processor because some empty suit thought audiences were too stupid to get it.

grue ,

The context is that he's doing a stand-up comedy routine. Although "it's funny because it's true" is a thing, he's not necessarily endorsing every single punchline as his closely-held genuine belief.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews block highway to protest Israel’s new mandatory military service ruling ( apnews.com )

BNEI BRAK, Israel (AP) — Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men blocked a major highway in central Israel for two hours on Thursday to protest a recent Supreme Court decision ordering young religious men to enlist for military service....

grue ,

You'd think the Feds would step in to fix that sort of Establishment Clause violation, no matter how powerful the cultists are at the NYC (or Clearwater, or Salt Lake City, or...) local government level, but I guess not.

grue , (edited )

But seeing as it’s a free account, it’s their prerogative

Oh, so not charging money magically exempts companies from meeting ADA accessibility requirements for their public accommodations?

Edit: what I'm taking issue with is the notion that being on the free tier of service changes anything. Maybe Spotifiy has an obligation or maybe it doesn't, but either way, it's the same regardless of how much or little the customer pays. Being a second-class customer does not make you a second-class citizen who doesn't get equal protection under the law!

grue ,

I never said it was. I said that the requirement is the same whether it's a free account or a paid one. It's either always required or it's never required, but it sure as Hell is not "their prerogative" based on how much they get paid.

Think about it for a second: what the parent commenter is suggesting is that it's somehow okay for a company to use compliance with legal requirements as an upselling opportunity! You do see the problem with that line of thinking, right?!

grue ,

What's relevant is that the commenter I replied to suggested that it's Spotify's "prerogative" whether to comply with the law or not. It isn't.

This issue here is people spouting dangerous late-stage-capitalist nonsense, not the content of the ADA rule. Your demand is actually just a derailment tactic.

grue ,

At least they're clean dishes on the drying rack and not dirty ones in the sink!

grue ,

That said: I ended up waiting like 3 years for my diagnosis (and I had to chase those bastards every single time for a response),

That sounds this close ->||<- to being some Catch 22 nonsense where they use your success in managing to follow up as an excuse to claim you're not ADHD.

grue ,

Russia’s high tech side of their military industrial complex is incredibly weak compared to the old USSR days

They've been screwed since like the '60s because of the gap in microprocessor tech.

Alternative uses of a 3D printer: Toner transfer on a watch dial ( i.imgur.com )

I've watched a lot of resources about toner transfer over the last few days, and while everything was quite experimental and empirical, the main gist was : heat + pressure = toner transfer. As I didn't want to, for obvious reasons, cook a dial full of unknown glues, paints and metals in the family's kitchen oven, I started...

grue ,

As I didn't want to, for obvious reasons, cook a dial full of unknown glues, paints and metals in the family's kitchen oven

IMO everybody ought to get themselves a cheap toaster oven and a PID controller for craft purposes.

grue ,

It makes me sad that these sorts of things never get released in the US, even on a "pay twice the price to get one for you and fund one for the needy" kind of scheme. We want them too!

grue ,

WTF are you talking about? The "Buffalo Bike" isn't a Surly; it's apparently designed by an organization called "World Bicycle Relief."

OP's third link specifically says:

But you can’t buy a Buffalo Bike, or at least not for yourself. A $165 donation helps donate a bike to someone in need.

grue ,

10/f/935 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington DC, 20535

grue ,

There's a quote that came from ICQ's heyday that I had in mind when I wrote that:

"The Internet: where men are men, women are men, and little girls are FBI agents."

grue ,

The truth is that the internet kinda needs at least some ads to be viable.

It really does not.

  • Wikipedia does not need ads (it's supported by donations).
  • Bittorrent does not need ads (the load is distributed to the users themselves).
  • Labor-of-love amateur websites from the '90s (that had more actual useful information than the SEO-optimized lazily-copywritten (or increasingly, AI-generated) bullshit we have today does) did not need ads.
  • Fediverse services do not need ads (being a combination of donation-supported nodes and, in the case of PeerTube, Bittorrent-style load distribution).

Frankly, if all the corporate content that exists only to make a buck off advertising were deleted tomorrow, the Internet not only would remain viable, it would be better off!

grue ,

Were these yet more no-name crap from Amazon/eBay/AliExpress, or were they actually UL-certified ones from a company with an American presence/accountability to US laws?

grue , (edited )

Don't forget to think about how to keep the salt air from corroding the electronics. Either build a spare or two that you keep sealed in plastic, or find an airtight case with an integrated heat sink or something.

Edit: you might want to look into conformal coating and dielectric grease (for the connectors) as well, although I don't know enough about that to competently give advice beyond the mere suggestion.

grue ,

Wait, WTF does "removed from the statute block" mean? Did they pass a new law repealing the old one, or did the new government just say "nah" and cross it out without a legislative vote?

grue ,

This, but not ironically. (Please stop subsidizing gasoline!)

grue ,

Nah, just make the alternatives cheaper

Or make the animal stuff more expensive; same difference.

grue ,

If you're gonna do that, you can't just have it be a normal shop! There's got to be consequences:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday

grue ,

Alternatively, for a shop to be economically viable in the middle of a swamp, it needs to be one of those tourist traps with kitschy signs all over the place for miles around.

grue ,

When they decide to tax the rest of us they just do it. When they decide to tax billionaires, they hem and haw forever over feasibility studies first.

Tesla is recalling its Cybertruck for the fourth time to fix problems with trim pieces that can come loose and front windshield wipers that can fail | The new recalls each affect over 11,000 trucks ( apnews.com )

The company says in the documents that the front windshield wiper motor controller can stop working because it’s getting too much electrical current. A wiper that fails can cut visibility, increasing the risk of a crash. The Austin, Texas, company says it knows of no crashes or injuries caused by the problem....

grue ,

Let me get this straight: you not only actually want a vehicle that decides where to go based on software instead of with a mechanical linkage you can reliably control, but you also want Tesla, of all companies, to provide it?!

grue ,

I wouldn't trust any software from any manufacturer to steer for me, at least not in such a way that I can't easily disable and use a mechanical manual backup.

Also, steering isn't "power train." If you're gonna lump it in with something, it fits closer to the [alleged] self-driving system.

grue ,

The L2 driving system decides to go left or right and will send the same signal you would by steering left or right.

Exactly: the same signal. If the electronics controlling it receive one input from the steering wheel and a different input from the self-driving computer, are you sure it will prioritize the steering wheel input in every single possible circumstance? 'Cause I'm not!

I guess it’s just it’s own thing just like power steering is it’s own thing.

The difference between this and regular power steering perfectly illustrates my concern: the way power steering works is that it assists the driver's movements by amplifying the force that you've applied to the wheel. If it fails, you can still steer the car; it's just harder. (I know this from personal experience BTW: the power steering in my old pickup truck is out right now. I haven't fixed it yet mostly because I'm still deciding whether I want to keep it or downgrade/simplify to a non-power steering rack.)

In contrast, if something goes wrong with this system, it is very unclear to me that the driver could override what the car wants to do, no matter how much force you apply to the steering wheel. Or, for that matter, if turning the wheel would be effective at all: you might end up just sawing the wheel left and right with no effect whatsoever on the way the tires are pointing.

I don't like those failure modes! At least in a mechanical steering system, for it to fail completely like that would require something like a tie rod breaking or the splines in the steering column shearing off -- in other words, metal ripping apart that (a) shows warning signs you can easily inspect for (e.g. deep rust or cracks on the tie rods), (b) you probably notice happening because it makes noise, and (b) probably happens kinda gradually rather than instantaneously because steel is ductile.

I'm not fully opposed to self-driving, by the way: it's just that (a) I want the system to be Free Software so I can inspect and trust the code, and (b) I want it to be coupled to the steering column with a belt or a clutch or something that can slip and allow me to mechanically override it if I yank hard enough on the steering wheel.

Obviously this is first gen tech in cars, but it’s been around for quite awhile in aviation with no backup mechanical link, we haven’t all died yet.

First of all, aviation has vastly more stringent oversight than cars do, in terms of manufacturing regulations, maintenance regulations, and pilot regulations.

Second, fly-by-wire passenger jets are also just categorically different not because it's flying vs. ground transport, but also because it's public transport vs. an owner-operated private vehicle. If I'm already entrusting my safety to a pilot or bus driver anyway and they decide fly-by-wire or drive-by-wire is acceptable, that's one thing. But when I'm the one operating the thing myself, it's entirely another.

grue ,

That’s an interesting point there, but have you considered that even with a mechanical link and current safety features, it can still override you? I unfortunately almost drove into someone at very low speeds in a dark rainy parking lot, but the cars safety systems overrode me thankfully. I don’t think they would have been injured it was so slow, but just to show that nowadays with cars you don’t always have full control. In that case it was the brakes not steering, but modern cars can and will prevent you from changing lanes into someone in your blind spot for example.

I'll be honest with you: all but one of the half-dozen (which is too many, BTW) cars I own have manual transmissions, and half of them don't even have ABS, let alone any other fancy electronic nannies. I mention that to help explain the extent to which I am fundamentally Not On Board with anything that interferes with my manual control of the car. (I'm also a Linux user and a DIYer, which are some more clues to how much of a control freak I am: I expect my property to be exactly the way I want it to be and do exactly what I want it to do, and nothing else.)

Putting torque on the wheel while in these semi self driving modes disables the self driving features, but that’s software that disables it when you take over. What if that software failed and you were now fighting the self driving car also trying to steer and as you tried to steer it put equal power against you thinking the steering was rough?

Don't get me wrong: I wouldn't mind having radar cruise with lane-keeping for long trips on the freeway, but only if such a system were fail-safe enough that even if it were stuck on, yanking on the wheel hard enough would get the car to turn. I would absolutely insist on the maximum torque the self-driving system could apply being much less than the strength of the human driver. I don't know if that's the case in late-model vehicles or not, but if it isn't, I would consider those vehicles to have an unsafe design.

grue ,

Considering that the vast majority of hydrogen isn't even "green hydrogen" (produced from electrolysis) but rather "grey" or "blue" (produced from cracking hydrocarbons), I don't think it was anything more than a straight-up greenwashing scam in the first place. Even the niches where people claim hydrogen is suitable (long-haul trips without battery charging infrastructure) would be better off just burning the damn hydrocarbon as-is to begin with!

Even in the best-case scenario -- "green hydrogen" produced from electrolysis -- I think it would be better to immediately (at the point of production) combine it with CO2 pulled from the atmosphere to make synthetic gasoline and then handle that with our existing ICE vehicles and infrastructure. It's just so impractical to store hydrogen (since it's so small it leaks through everything, yet so low-density that it requires either extremely high pressures or cryogenic temperatures to fit enough of it in a reasonable amount of space) that it's simply not worth the effort.

grue ,

You have unrealistic expectations on someone who is vastly in the minority with commutes like this.

If you admit you're vastly in the minority, then why did you feel the need to chime in in the first place? If you actually aren't a reactionary concern troll, you need to realize that making the perfect the enemy of the good like that adds nothing to the conversation and only discourages people from embracing alternatives.

And if I'm angry, by the way, it's because the sort of shit you just did happens every single goddamn time and is THE major impediment to actually getting shit changed. It's not some small-but-loud minority of coal-roller (or "Chelsea tractor" in your case, I guess) blatant right-wing assholes who are stopping improvements from happening; it's all the allegedly-well-meaning moderates quibbling everything to death for not being perfect who are the real problem!

grue ,

I’ll admit it was a reactionary comment as I see the sentiment a lot without any nuance and it kinda annoys me, considering I make conscientious choices all the time and people like you (maybe not you in this instance) will pass judgement and make me question myself.

I apologize for having come across as "passing judgement." I was going for a tone closer to this (trying to shock you out of complacency), but missed the mark a bit.

It was also a little strange shitting on a places public transport infrastructure

Technically, I didn't dispute your mention of Manchester having good public transport (which I have no reason to disbelieve); I shat on British Rail's intracity public transport. And yeah, I freely admit that Amtrak is infinitely worse: the entire 5-million-people Atlanta metro area is served by one train a day, which shows up roughly at midnight! I figured that just means I know a thing or two about extremely shitty rail, LOL.

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