The problem I've had with Mastodon, assuming it's representative of fediverse microblogging, is that its search relies almost completely on hashtags. Full-text search is opt-in per post, and very few users have bothered to hunt for the switch to opt in and turn it on. Posts made before the introduction can't be found at all except through tags. And the users of Mastodon think that's a good thing because it protects vulnerable members of marginalized groups from abusive bigots searching for them.

This leaves users like me to play "guess the hashtag" all the time. I search for what I think is the right tag for a topic, and all the posts I find are my own. Or I write a post and nobody else engages with it because nobody else is searching for the tags I used. What am I supposed to do to get my posts seen?

That and we need to accept that nothing will bring Kurt Cobain back. Cutting pollution now buys us time to cut pollution further later.

The alternative to diesel and petrol doesn't have to produce zero pollution. It can produce substantially less pollution. It's a lot easier to scrub a handful of power plants than to scrub millions of tailpipes. Not to mention that if the USA still had electric light rail in this century, a lot of it would run on wind and solar.

Think back to 1940, just before the United States got dragged into World War II. Chevron and Phillips Petroleum were among the investors in an joint venture to put the electric streetcars of California out of business in favor of fossil-powered buses. Others included Firestone Tire and Mack Trucks.

"I wanted to use public transportation to avoid the pollution of using a personal car, but public transportation was made unavailable to me in part because of the actions of defendants." Compare defendant Chevron's role in the present case to the role of Chevron (then called Standard Oil of California) and Phillips Petroleum in the demise of streetcars in transit systems in California.

For all my paper notebook needs I'm more than covered by Leuchtturm and Muji.
Leuchtturm for the german premium quality spin on the Moleskine-type of notebook. Notebooks don't get any better than Leuchtturm IMHO. Once you've gone from Moleskine to Leuchtturm you don't go back.

For more affordable options I use Muji as my go-to brand.

Best of all: Both brands are also prefectly city-snob/hippster compliant and go perfectly well with Freitag or Crumpler messenger bags, lumberjack shirts and the smug 'I don't give a f*ck' attitude if that happens to be a requirement. And Leuchtturm will make you officially and ISO-certified more hippster than any Moleskine person present. 8-)

The OceanGate disaster was a long time coming and the string of ignorant, stupid, neglectful and flat-out malicious decisions that lead there is a staggering and breathtaking example of dumbass dimwitts with way to powerful tools for their own (and others) good screwing up epic-style. And dying and taking others with them in the process.

The most absurd thing about this all is that mini-subs going to such depths is basically a solved problem a few times over. Even James Cameron who isn't even a sub engineer but has solid experience with this type of exploration stunt pitched in and noted that it might be a really dumb and dangerous idea to use composites for this sort of thing. As did many engineers and experts in the field. And just about any 10th-grader with some cursory interest in engineering could've told them too. Camerons bubble that he took down to the bottom of the mariana trench was thick solid acrylic glass, custom manufactured to handle the crushing pressure. Given, that depth was a completely different ballgame, but humanity has a solid fleet of subs that can go 4000m deep and building on that sort of know-how for a safe and solid tourist sub with room for rich people wanting some excitement would've been completely doable. And reasonably safe too.

This disaster was totally preventable. What a waste and what a shame.

... devops and eventually pay the price.

You'd think the l33t coders at Google would have this little basic truth deeply engrained in their genes. Humans doing human stuff I guess.
At least they did make a decent rollback happen.

... And wuttthefuk is there to research? This "phenomenon" has been common knowledge for decades, since the 90ies for sure, for anyone dealing with email spam. The mx admins even have a technical term for it: backscatter.

Isn't it cute when the kids today "discover" the internet? Like calling 2015 "the early days of the web" (no joke). LOL.

That depends on the country's takings law. I'm more familiar with the United States Constitution, which provides: "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." Canada's Expropriation Act (fact sheet) likewise guarantees market value to the property owner.

... which just ditched MS for software in public service. The northerns are the most reasonable when it comes to public service IT. (For context: I live in Germany and they're both to the north :-) )

Not next generation. And people did notice.

... my government has spent on shitty proprietary software is patently absurd. This being Germany were people should know better but deciders and their digital culture are still stuck in the steam age. Maddening. Germany and Europe as a whole is way to slow in appointing FOSS as it's primary source of software.

... significance if all goes well. That's a good thing, by and large. It's called post-scarcity-economy and in a perfect world it's capitalisms end game.

Mosquitoes are a core part of the ecosystem and a critical part of the food chain. It is also obvious that they are likely a critical part of ongoing mammalian herd immunisation. For obvious reasons.

Yes, they transfer some really bad diseases like Malaria or that recently arisen nightmare Zika (holy cow, creepy stuff), but we have no idea of how much good they actually do and I don't want to find out the hard way when they're all dead.

Regular protection and heightened awareness in areas where Dengue, Malaria, Zika & Co. are prevalent are the ways to deal with the downsides of these pesky bloodsuckers. Simply wiping them out with no further regard however is very likely to be a very stupid idea.