PhobosAnomaly

The problem is a little more deeper than that - the very nature of mines is that they are indiscriminate. Whether you’re one force, another force, a civilian, or an animal - it does it’s job and goes boom without any further intervention by a human.

The remainder of your point is absolutely valid, but mines are a shit idea from the outset. Area denial is indeed a tactic, but alliances and boundaries change, and what was once a defensive line may be a suburban district in a hundred years time, until a future innocent party detonates one underfoot and is killed or severely maimed.

I thought mines were prohibited under the Geneva Suggestions, but perhaps there’s a loophole somewhere.

Reminds me of the mid2000’s era of British journalist Gary Cutlack trying to post every instance of a spiral in the real world, linking it to the upcoming announcement of a Dreamcast 2.

I miss that sort of journalism.

I find it quite handy - it’s a bit excessive on nearly every post, but it does add context when I don’t recognise the news source, and it’s useful to see whether I really need to do some more digging on the article rather than should look for other views on a story.

It’s frustrating to see a comment or two on a post preview pane you’re interested in though and boom, it’s a bot rather than another user to engage with.

It would work really well as a plug in or tool, giving you inline information in the post itself.

Oh I like a pessimistic view - partly because it makes a discussion spicier, but also because it’s important for a user to understand the power that an instance owner wields!

Oh man, this is awesome - it’s wonderful hearing from the practitioners of the art!

I’m just trying to figure out what driver establishing the tipping point for breaking or the ban hammer - is there any empirical data to drive these decisions, or is the fediverse user base small enough that you act on “feel” or “professional instinct”?

Managing emerging technologies fascinates me so any input - including the germs you’ve already volunteered - is very much appreciated 👍

That’s a strong viewpoint and I appreciate where you’re coming from, but how many votedicks does it take to derail a post? I appreciate the fediverse is reasonably small in comparison to othe headline social media sites, but does banning one or two bots or people do enough to save posts from getting bombed?

Thamk you for the insight, instance administrator views are valuable and unique.

At the risk of sounding like I’m presenting a bad faith argument, why ban them? I don’t like the whole “free market” analogy but surely it’s one of the liberating features of federated servers, being able to to largely express your votes or content as you see fit within the legal framework of the host nation. Wouldn’t the odd one or two mass downvoters/upvoters/theyvoters ultimately be a statistical abberation or is the fediverse still small enough for this sort of shit to carry weight?

Open criticism of my view welcome, as always!

Purely a subjective opinion (and I apologise if the artist shows up in this thread) but is it me or does it look like the person who made the background took a step back after it was done, marvelled at how pretty it was, and enjoyed the moment before thinking “…fuck I forgot about O’Brien”?

It’s a great bit of artwork but poor Miles looks like an afterthought!

Hey I recognise that part of the song!

Absolutely love that CCC talk, very interesting and quite entertaining too.

Cheeky bastards.

Coffee shops are fantastic. My other half doesn’t get why I go out to buy a coffee that I could easily make in the house for next to fuck all, but it was never about the coffee - it was about being out of the house and watching the world go by. There’s a coffee shop in a hotel that overlooks the thoroughfare between one of my local city’s biggest shopping centres and it’s rail station, and it’s nice just wasting an hour or two watching people go about their lives.

The cost of the coffee is just a warmth and comfort tax really for sitting there.

Good effort, that’s a decent shape to be in. 10k runs are my “thing” but as my march into middle age progresses, I find I can’t do them back-to-back any more, I’m needing more than a day or two to recover.

Maybe go for something a little more varied - I’m training for (but never done) local triathlons. Great way to build physical fitness with only a third of the high impact on the joints. The major limiting factor will be the pool of course, unless you’re fortunate to own (or have unrestricted access to) a pool.

Random turn of conversation direction, are you creative at all? Crocheting seems to make the world go by at an alarming rate - it’s both a time killer and very rewarding.

Unfortunately, this would be gender and/or location dependent. Great advice for daylight hours, but the society we currently live in makes it perhaps less viable for women in certain areas or countries, or even in general if it’s a particularly socially deprived area.

Absolutely on board with the exercise thing though. I’ve taken to trying to waste time on an exercise bike - even an inexpensive one, or a normal bike mounted on a turbo trainer. I’m not expecting anyone to bang in speeds and times like Lance Armstrong on some special supplements, but a slow spin for longer periods of time is great fun… just get a good wide comfortable saddle!

Yes.

It’s not that we’re particularly fucked financially, we’re doing enough to keep our heads well clear of the water, but we’re not wealthy by any means and either parents have helped us by stumping up an initial outlay on something, and we’ve paid them back.

The waste is a fair point - storage isn’t a long term solution but then I suppose it can be managed in the interim, not like the effects of climate change.

I’m not seeing your point of “nukes” though?

Fair warning, I’m going to make a metric fucktonne of assumptions here, but that looks like a fairly modern British housing estate there with the associated infrastructure. Most greenery and pathway maintenance are contracted out to a third party as part of a service charge these days, and it’s cunts like this leaving tyre marks on the grass, or tracks where they’ve done an oopsie with their right hoof in 2WD mode or without traction control on that leave everyone’s maintenance bill that bit higher.

That, and it’s getting to the point where even a Land Rover Disco isn’t so much of a “big” car as it used to be, not with these yank tanks becoming more commonplace.

The size, and the location of it right on the edge of the road, might make it seem clever, but in reality it just makes it more of a bastard to cross the road safely for adults, let alone for kids.

It’s frustrating as fuck.

A good point, but if privacy is their key concern then I would imagine it would have to be a two step approach - rip out the SIM and radio, but also have a couple of plan B’s such as phones with location tracking (the irony isn’t lost on me), land-based EPIRB’s, or satphones or whatever’s needed.

That, or invest in some drop-croc martial arts!

Yeah the charge got binned as internet access became more mainstream.it was inexpensive though, like £2 for half hour or something.

I’d pay a fair bit more to go back to an age when staring at this beautiful icon was all the reassurance you needed that the page was on its way:

Moving on fifteen years, StumbleUpon scratched that exact itch!

I mean you’re not far wrong. I always dreamed of a Ford Sierra or a Vauxhall VX220, but the Scooby with McRae and Grist’s name on it was an absolute belter.