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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)SP
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EVs are cleaner than gas cars, but a growing share of Americans don't believe it
  • Definitely better to charge an EV with clean energy. But it's probably better to charge an EV with dirty electricity than it is to keep using a combustion vehicle.

    IIRC a gas vehicle is something like 20% thermally efficient, whereas a coal/oil power plant can be up to 60%. So even if my EV is charging off oil or coal, I'm getting 3x the energy per unit of emissions compared to a gas vehicle (though who knows how that translates to miles of range).

  • Starlink v2 satelites will ruin science.
  • We actually reserve frequency bands specifically for radioastronomy. No devices can get licensing to transmit on those bands, and anything passing regulations shouldn't (usually) interfere with it. The bands are chose specifically because their use in detecting certain astrological features.

  • The Ohio Supreme Court Just Greenlit an Egregious “Fraud Upon the Voters”
  • I don't understand how SPAV fixes gerrymandering in this case. It seems like the re-weighting operation is meant for a pool of identical ballots. When you have district-level elections that differ between ballots, how is this meant to work?

    Edit: Ooooh you meant for selecting the redistricting committee, not for running the elections. Gotcha, makes sense now.

  • Not all ai is bad, just most of it
  • The script doesn't go away when you replace a helpdesk operator with ChatGPT. You just get a script-reading interface without empathy and a severally hindered ability to process novel issues outside it's protocol.

    The humans you speak to could do exactly what you're asking for, if the business did not handcuff them to a script.

  • Traveling this summer? Maybe don’t let the airport scan your face.
  • As the article points out, TSA is using this tech to improve efficiency. Every request for manual verification breaks their flow, requires an agent to come address you, and eats more time. At the very least, you ought not to scan in the hopes that TSA metrics look poor enough they decide this tech isn't practical to use.

  • Court documents show that not only is Valve a fraction the size [only 336 employees in 2021] of companies like EA or Ubisoft, it's smaller than a lot of triple-A developers
  • The points linked above allege Valve will delist a game from their platform if the price is lower off-platform (even for non-key sales), correct?

    This is called a "Platform Most Favored Nation" clause, and it has anti-competitive effects. It is controlling the price off-platform using the leverage of market share to coerce behaviors out of publishers.

    Please also link me this European court case, I have been unable to locate it myself.

  • Court documents show that not only is Valve a fraction the size [only 336 employees in 2021] of companies like EA or Ubisoft, it's smaller than a lot of triple-A developers
  • It's an ongoing case, so I don't know what you expect of me here. My reply was to correct your misunderstanding about the focus of the case, which is not limited to the use of steam keys as you originally claimed.

    I am not aware of the european case you reference, would you mind pointing me to where I can learn more?

  • Court documents show that not only is Valve a fraction the size [only 336 employees in 2021] of companies like EA or Ubisoft, it's smaller than a lot of triple-A developers
  • I like Wolfire. Their head (David Rosen) had a really good procedural animation talk at GDC about a decade ago, their games are pretty good, and they started up Humble before it spun off on its own.

    Before tarnishing their reputation, I'd suggest reading up on the actual complaints put forth in the lawsuit. I've done so extensively, I think they have very solid grounds to go after Valve (Valve's behaviour is comparable to Amazon's in terms of anticompetitive practices).

  • Announcing the Ladybird Browser Initiative
  • I'm curious what issue you see with that? It seems like the project is only accepting unrestricted donations, but is there something suspicious about shopify that makes it's involvement concerning (I don't know much about them)?

  • Canada doesn't count emissions from oil and gas exports. So we did
  • It's only double counted in a situation where you're actually counting both sides. This is a Canadian study published by a Canadian outlet about the impacts of Canadian policy.

    They're not trying to balance the books, so to speak, they're evaluating transactions on a single account.

  • Girl, 15, speaks out after classmate made deepfake nudes of her and posted online
  • 404media is doing excellent work on tracking the non-consentual porn market and technology. Unfortunately, you don't really see the larger, more mainstream outlets giving it the same attention beyond its effect on Taylor Swift.

  • Outstanding idea.
  • I first heard a full breakdown of the environmental regulatory aspects of SpaceX's operations in Tech Wont Save Us ep. 186 from September of last year. Definitely worth the listen (every episode of that show is worth the listen, in fact).

  • The Framework Laptop 13 is about to become one of the world’s first RISC-V laptops
  • Right concept, except you're off in scale. A MULT instruction would exist in both RISC and CISC processors.

    The big difference is that CISC tries to provide instructions to perform much more sophisticated subroutines. This video is a fun look at some of the most absurd ones, to give you an idea.