NZ Off topic

When I joined Lemmy during the Reddit exodus it felt like a new breeze and very positive. It feels like this has changed, posts and comments are more negative. Lots of complaints, even positive news posts receive a lot of negative comments. I am always trying to see the positive in things. Just doesn't feel fun anymore. Perhaps it's just me though.

Also still mainly see technical posts, lots of Windows/MS bashing. I'd like to see more communities about non technical things. Perhaps I haven't discovered them.

I saw a couple of short clips and ended up watching the whole thing one evening, while trying not to fall asleep. The last question that Tucker asks, is "will there be a civil war". Trump comments on Jan. 6 and says he's never seen such an out-pouring of love, but equally, he's never seen such an out-pouring of hatred.

I know most of you don't care about these figures all that much, but what Trump said is quite revealing. America is probably screwed now. If Trump doesn't get elected, his supports might go crazy. Likewise, if he does get elected, it might embolden his supporters anyway. I don't think that anyone will fix the problems in America. It's too late now. If they'd hadn't spent billions of dollars trying to rule the world, they could have paid reparations to blacks and possibly avoided the ugliest parts of the current political environment. They'd need jobs and manufacturing too of course.

There is a risk posed by people who misdirect their anger, like that 21 year old kid who shot random black people, painted swastikas on the wall of a supermarket or something, and then shot himself. Of course he's 21. If he'd made it to 24 or 25 without deleting himself, he would've realised that there's more to life, even if the economy is in the toilet.

2024 is gonna be a war I reckon. There's no reconciling the differences with most people. If they can't get justice and a fair standard of living for all people, then things won't improve (conflict, division).

I suggest that victory in the war be defined by who docks their ships at Sevastopol. Most people just focus on who is killing the most, which isn't a useful measure. It's worth considering the waste of life though.

Back in 2004, the Mozilla Foundation placed a two-page Firefox advocacy ad in The New York Times, featuring the names of 10,000 donators.

What I wasn't expecting though, was this prominently featured quote:

“I installed Firefox on my laptop
today. It’s so fast — I never knew
there could be that much of a
difference.”
— Stephen Cropp, New Zealand

What a legend. I wonder if Mr. Cropp is still using Firefox, and what he's up to these days.

Source: Hacker News

Great that Ukraine is now getting western aircraft to go with their tanks, armoured vehicles, and artillery.

Such great service from Aramex. Definitely a suitable place to put a parcel marked as fragile in winter. Never mind that the front porch was only 3 metres away.

For some bizarre reason, the algorithm behind the adverts on Tinder has decided that what I need in my life is a 135 hp, 13 ton tractor.

I have absolutely no need for this, it would barely fit on my section, and I certainly don't need it for work.

This is the only advert I've seen for weeks on Tinder.

Catching the bus is my main way to get into the city centre, though on rare occasions I drive or e-scooter. I found that catching the bus is sometimes useful on short trips, such as going to the bakery (if the bus is every 10 minutes). Really great for me since I don't have a job right now, but if I get a job again I'll need a car, because employers insist.

I don't like owning a car because other tenants can suddenly move in and block me off with their car, which they expect to park on the driveway too. All the nearby streets have problems with parking. An e-scooter would suit me most of the time. I could sell my car, buy an e-scooter, motorcycle helmet, rain-repelling pants and gumboots. ** Just a couple of problems:**

1. safety - a guy I know recently had an accident in the Opawa/Sydenham area and broke his shoulder + other bones. I was told that he wasn't hit by a car, apparently he lost traction and fell off. Maybe he was going 30 km/ph if not 40 km/ph, but I don't know. Based on the injuries he wouldn't have been going under 20 km/ph.

2. winter - traction problems and visibility at their worst, potentially for months. So far, this winter has been mild. Most times 11am - 5pm are good temperature for an e-scooter, without too much moisture on the road. Next winter might be colder and less suitable for an e-scooter.

I could use the bus in winter, borrow a car from family, or rent a Zilch vehicle for 4 hours every 1-2 weeks. Everything else should be possible on a scooter, most days. Part of the trick is to buy a large enough backpack from the Army & Outdoors store!

Transport in Christchurch is troublesome, because of the city's one storey high design. Employers expect me to pay for fuel and then drive several kilometres to get to work, because there's no way I can find a rental that's near a job, or which has a suitable bus route for getting to a job. With the increases to rent, fuel and food, I think I'll give up driving before I give up anything else. To hell with what employers expect.

So I guess the reason I made this thread is to speculate that I'll be one of the test subjects for e-scooter ownership in Christchurch. I'm not a competitive, angry person who tries to flex on other road users. I used to speed constantly in a Mazda mx5 without giving a damn but now I drive a more modest vehicle, and I notice how many people overtake me even when I'm driving slightly above the limit. Sometimes I like to drive 30 or 40 km/ph on narrow streets because I don't want to kill a cat or someone's child. It may be legal to drive at 50km/ph but that's not always safe. Luckily, motorists are surprisingly courteous on narrow roads when they are forced to yield or get through a small gap.

Affordable apartments (complete with bikesheds) are still 5 or 10 years away, so I expect that public transport won't get more routes or become much more popular. E-scooters may be the fix we require. I'd rather ride my bike but I can't store that in my bedroom. Most boarding houses are just a bedroom and nothing else, so I think an e-scooter is the way to go.

If it makes me unemployable to some employers that's just too bad. In the current situation I doubt I'll save up enough money to buy a car again (cue for someone to suggest I buy a piece of shit for $1,000)

We have to move with the times and accept that not everybody can own a car and afford a place to park it, where it won't be blocked off by new tenants moving in, who also wish to use the driveway. We've been warned since last year that 91 fuel could reach $3 a litre and we're only a few months away from that. If I give up my car this spring-summer-autumn it will save me at least $1,000 on insurance and fuel. Not even that much, but I think the lifestyle change will be the selling point. I just hope I don't get killed lol

See this photo. https://imgur.com/a/xxvKKCU

It's growing and spreading across the wood chipped part of our garden. According to Google Lens it's liverwort, so I've bought Yates Moss and Algae killer, which also lists Liverwort. I've done this twice, but I see very little change. I've also tried generic weed killer.

It's also growing on our footpaths between rocks and that's very hard to get rid off by hand. For other areas I could use garden tools to clear it, I'm aiming to get rid of using weed killers. So it's just for small areas.

Any tips for a weed killer that works on this?

Just laughable...

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/2515668

Please note this is just a beta and there are going to be bugs, but it works and it works nicely. Have fun.

I've been looking for some old films to watch online and I'm looking at

• On The Beach (1959)
• Patton (1970)
• The Great Escape (1963)
• The Guns of Navarone (1961)

Those last two inspired parts of the video game series, Metal Gear Solid. In Metal Gear Solid 3, a lot of films get mentioned by characters throughout the game.

On The Beach is one I heard about because Alex Jones was talking about nuclear war earlier this year, and he showed a scene from that particular film. There's a newer version of On The Beach but I'd always go for the original, or better, read the novel it's based on.

Recently I watched 2 old Soviet films

• Amphibian Man (1961)
• Only 'Old Men' Are Going To Battle (1973)

Some links

Patton

The Guns Of Navarone (this one costs $ on YouTube)

Amphibian Man

Only 'Old Men' Are Going To Battle, black and white version

Only 'Old Men' Are Going To Battle, colourised in 2009

It's disappointing that many films are 48 hour DRM'd and cost $4 or $6 despite not being restored

but...

https://www.aliceinvideoland.co.nz/

w00t!

Got to get me some novels too.

The top three stories on Radio NZ are about her, do we really need this much coverage?

I'm looking for a robo vacuum that integrates nicely with home assistant, and ideally no cloud dependency. I don't want to buy such an expensive device that doesn't work when the manufacturer goes out of business or the Internet is down.

Valetudo seems to be the only option. However, even the so called easy installation involves many steps. I'm technically pretty capable as I work in IT, but I'm reluctant to possible brick a device worth hundreds of dollars. FYI more info here https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/getting-started.html

Would someone be able to assist? Or know a company that provides this service? I'm based in Wellington.

Well Apollo has shut down so time to get rid of Reddit. I am currently using Power Delete Suite https://codepen.io/Deestan/full/gOQagRO/ to overwrite all of my old posts with some random text, then tomorrow I will run it again to actually delete all of the posts / comments.

Apparently if you just delete they can be easily restored.

Anyone else going down this path?

Hopefully it's okay to ask here, but does anyone have a Calckey invite they'd be willing to share? I'd like to check it out and would prefer a local instance.

If this is the wrong place let me know.

I call it “Enlarged Prostate Dribble” on a Coffee Workshop / Herrick Creek Distillery Bourbon-barrel aged espresso.

Ok so this is a bit weird out of context, so here's some context.

• @nick@campfyre.nickwebster.dev shared this post.
• Here they suggested trying to use a plunger to foam a long black
• So that's what I did. There's no milk or milk alternatives in here, just coffee and water.

~~I tried to do some art on the top but it's all the same colour so didn't work.~~ So here is my beautiful art, I call it "A dirty polar bear in a sand storm"

Featuring some art I did on a flat white I made.

The five people aboard a missing submersible died in a "catastrophic" event, a Coast Guard official says, bringing a grim end to the massive search for the vessel that was lost during a voyage to the Titanic.

"The debris is consistent with a catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber," Mauger said.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/831266

Hi lemmings, I switched over from Reddit 10 days ago now but I couldn't find a mobile client that I was happy with with an experience similar to the Reddit experience I was used to. So I decided to build my own and I hope you will like it as well!

Play store link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kuroneko.lemmy_connect

Features:

• Material U
• Dark and Light themes
• List view / Card view / Fullwidth view
• Filter lists for hiding posts
• Multiple accounts + switcher across multiple instances
• Guest accounts for viewing an instance without signup
• Search and community autofill
• Markdown support + attempt to navigate links correctly (/u/foo will open that user instead of browser kickout. Same for /c/, !, and @)
• Saving posts
• full sort types
• NSFW view options (hide, blur, show)
• copy text and url on all posts and comments
• add comments, replies, and new posts
• comment replies with line indicators

Here's other screenshots:

Future plans:

• Improving the inbox
• Swipe actions
• Multi-~~reddit ~~communities

Thank you for taking a look. I hope others who are migrating from Reddit like me will find the app useful and I'd love to know your thoughts!

Edit: Community for the app is here: https://lemmy.ca/c/lemmyconnect

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1421735

The protests get even more creative. PoliticalHumor mods have set it so that if you subscribe to the community you can now do moderator actions through comments.

No more "Landed Gentry" here, just a total shitshow of deleted comments and lack of cohesive moderation.

They can't ban all of us