AernaLingus [any]

  • 78 Posts
  • 4.21K Comments
Joined 4 years ago
Cake day: May 6th, 2022
  • AernaLingus [any]toChapotraphouse•Please come and join me inside my bunker as I show you how simple items like bamboo paper can be an indicator of revisionism or cut up straw can be an indicator of using cocaine
    ·
    14 hours ago

    Hexbears posting fake news again, smh. You really ought to check

    ...your sources?

    https://apnews.com/article/eric-adams-albania-nyc-mayor-de8d3acf07d7a6728f0e03d668d033d5

    NEW YORK (AP) — Former New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Friday that he had become a citizen of Albania, putting him one step closer to his oft-repeated dream of leaving politics behind for a life abroad.

    Adams, a Democrat, received the honorary citizenship "at his request," according to an official decree from the country's president, Bajram Begaj.

    The news was first reported in the Albanian press and confirmed by a spokesperson for Adams, who said the ex-mayor had "long been a friend and ally of the Albanian-American community."

    "The decision by the Republic of Albania to grant Mayor Adams citizenship reflects that enduring relationship and mutual respect," the spokesperson, Todd Shapiro, said in a text message, adding that the recognition "further strengthens the bond between New York and Albania."

    Adams, who once described himself as an "international mayor," has previously expressed an affinity for the small Balkan nation. His adult son lived in the country while competing in Albania's version of "American Idol." Adams traveled there himself in October — one of several international trips taken in his final months in office.

    The purpose, he said at the time, was "to say hello to a friend and learn from a friend and build a relationship with a friendship that will not allow our oceans or seas to divide us."

    "When I retire from government, I'm going to live in Baku," Adams, then Brooklyn Borough President, said at an event honoring the Azerbaijan community in 2018. A few years later, in an interview with a Jewish publication, Adams said he would like to retire in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

    As mayor, Adams' penchant for international trips to Turkey prompted a federal indictment focused, in part, on allegations that he accepted improper travel benefits from foreign nationals.

    Adams denied the allegations, and the case was later ordered dropped by President Donald Trump's Justice Department. Adams later met with Trump administration officials about the possibility of taking an ambassadorship, which did not materialize.

    Shortly after dropping his ailing bid for reelection, Adams embarked on a four-day trip to Albania, meeting with the country's Prime Minister Edi Rama and members of his Cabinet, along with local business leaders. The trip was paid for in part by the Albanian government.

    Since leaving office, Adams has been spotted in Dubai and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He also told reporters that he planned to fly to Senegal for a business opportunity, which he declined to discuss further.

    In January, he launched a cryptocurrency coin that he said would beat back antisemitism and "anti-Americanism," but it drew scrutiny after losing millions of dollars in value.

    It was foolish of me to ever doubt a story involving Eric Adams.

  • AernaLingus [any]totechnology•China unveils electromagnetic coilgun rifle featuring silent firing, no muzzle flash or casings, low recoil, and a claimed rate of 1,000-2,000 rounds per minute. It can also be dialed down non-lethal.
    ·
    3 days ago
    Full text of the SCMP article

    China has miniaturised the technology used to make electromagnetic cannons to develop a handheld coil gun, according to state media.

    The weapon was designed for stealth, non-lethal operations and law enforcement, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Saturday, adding that it could fire between 1,000 and 2,000 projectiles a minute and penetrate wooden boards from dozens of metres away.

    Its power levels can also be altered, meaning that on lower settings there is less chance it will kill someone and instead disable them.

    The lightweight electromagnetic launcher has a barrel just 30cm (12 inches) long and can be easily held in one hand.

    It is also fitted with a laser pointer to improve accuracy, according to its developer, state-owned China South Industries Group Corporation.

    The weapon, also known as a Gauss gun, employs electromagnetic coils to fire metal projectiles at high speeds. Unlike conventional firearms, the electromagnetic weapon produces no muzzle flash or smoke, makes very little noise and does not discard shell casings – all of which make it ideal for stealth operations.

    Saturday’s report from CCTV featured a model that had been upgraded from a test version developed last year.

    The new weapon has a slightly longer barrel and can fire bigger and heavier projectiles. Although the firing speed was slower, there was a considerable increase in both the projectiles’ kinetic energy and destructive power, the report said.

    It also has an electronic display that shows battery life, ammunition count and firing modes, while the shooter can adjust the gun’s electric current to control its output power and vary projectile speed based on the distance from the target and on-the-spot conditions.

    “By spreading impact force to a larger area, it can effectively subdue targets while reducing the risk of fatality,” military commentator Zhang Xuefeng told CCTV.

    The detachable magazine is positioned behind the centrally located grip, enabling the electromagnetic coils to span the entire length of the chassis to maximise the projectile’s acceleration distance, while maintaining a compact frame, according to the report.

    Although the portable coil gun is currently intended for specialised non-lethal scenarios, mainly due to the limitations in battery power output, Zhang suggested the weapon could play a more significant role in future warfare, potentially supplementing or replacing traditional firearms in certain combat environments, as battery technology continues to improve.

    China has also been developing much larger electromagnetic weapons. In 2023, the PLA Naval University of Engineering reportedly tested the world’s most powerful coil gun that could fire a 124kg (273lbs) projectile at speeds of 700 km/h (435mph).

    A rail gun, another type of electromagnetic weapon that uses a pair of parallel rails to accelerate projectiles, is also under development. A prototype was reportedly seen on a People’s Liberation Army naval vessel for testing as early as 2018.

  • AernaLingus [any]tonews•Trump cancels attacks on Iran tonight, claims Iran has agreed to a 2-week-ceasefire and to reopen Strait of Hormuz
    ·
    3 days ago

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/4/7/iran-war-live-trump-warns-of-devastating-attacks-as-deal-deadline-nears?update=4471472

    Statement on two-week ceasefire from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council

    The following is a statement by the Supreme National Security Council of Iran on the two-week ceasefire and the conditions for negotiations:

    These negotiations will begin in Islamabad with complete distrust of the American side, and Iran will allocate two weeks for these negotiations. This time can be extended by agreement of the parties.

    It is necessary to maintain complete national unity during this period and to continue the celebrations of victory with strength.

    The current negotiations are national negotiations and a continuation of the field, and it is necessary for all people, elites, and political groups to trust and support this process, which is under the supervision of the revolutionary leaders and the highest levels of the system, and to strictly avoid any divisive statements.

    If the surrender of the enemy in the field becomes a decisive political achievement in the negotiations, we will celebrate this great historical victory together, otherwise we will fight side by side in the field until all the demands of the Iranian nation are achieved.

    Our hands are on the trigger, and as soon as the slightest mistake by the enemy is made, it will be responded to with full force.

    Supreme National Security Council

  • AernaLingus [any]tobadposting•yeah i'm a gamer
    ·
    4 days ago

    If you're on Windows and just need to view PDFs, save yourself the mental anguish and just use SumatraPDF. FOSS, blazing fast, loads of customizable hotkeys and tweaks and stuff; I really like being able to toggle invert colors and manga mode (right-to-left page order), and it's got a command bar for, well, commands but also quickly switching between files. And they added a lazy-loading feature recently so even if you're like me and keep 40 tabs of PDFs open for some reason it'll still open quickly and not eat all of your RAM.

  • AernaLingus [any]toart•Raccoon balls
    ·
    5 days ago

    FYI the spoiler tag doesn't display correctly on at least some mobile Lemmy clients if you don't put a space between the ::: and spoiler (it's okay, I've seen Pom Poko)

  • AernaLingus [any]totechnology•Target Warns That If Its AI Shopping Agent Makes an Expensive Mistake, You'll Have to Pay for It
    ·
    5 days ago

    I just don't understand the use case for this. Surely, the most common items that people buy are the things they've already bought, and any online store worth their salt already has a page where you can easily add all that shit to your cart with a few button clicks, or even set up recurring purchases. For the one-offs, how long does it really take to buy them that you'd let a stochastic parrot roll the dice? If your time were actually so valuable that you couldn't spare the two minutes, you'd have a real personal assistant who could do that for you without accidentally buying $1000 of toothpaste or whatever.

  • AernaLingus [any]tonews•Dental student died in ICU overseen by remote 'tele-health' physician: Lawsuit
    ·
    5 days ago

    The family's legal complaint, which was obtained by Law&Crime, says the ICU and its operators "violated hospital policy because no on-site doctor assessed Mr. Hylton from the time he was admitted to the ICU until after he exhibited seizure-like activity."

    What the actual fuck? How can it be an intensive care unit if there are literally no fucking doctors taking care of you? Absolutely horrifying.

  • AernaLingus [any]toAnime & Donghua•mfs casually skipping the disabled part
    ·
    6 days ago

    ...if it's real, which I'm not convinced that it is. If it were, there'd be a million threads picking apart every detail of the job posting, but I didn't see a single serious discussion; there was one other basically verbatim repost from an equally dubious source.

  • AernaLingus [any]toAnime & Donghua•mfs casually skipping the disabled part
    ·
    7 days ago

    Found the original tweet (same post also exists on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube):

    https://xcancel.com/Rinne_yt/status/2028019374687195616

    The archived copy of the Hololive career page closest in time to this post is from March 19, which doesn't have a listing like this, although I did see a different job listing aimed at disabled applicants[1]. Would be nice to see some hard proof, but given that the only place I could find anything about it was this exact post across all their different social media accounts, I'm gonna assume it's just the result of taking some bad machine translation at face value (since obviously someone who would call Cover "a company operating Hololive Production" does not have a strong grasp on the subject matter).

    It's played for laughs here, but if it actually were an accurate job posting, from the talent perspective that seems kind of chilling—like a prelude to your manager chewing you out for not hitting your KPIs because you failed to mention merch at least once an hour and cross-promote three brand deals per stream.

    1. There were also paid moderator positions—wonder how long that's been a thing? Interesting to note that even though they were hiring moderators for Hololive English and Indonesia those jobs are only available through the JP portal. ↩︎

  • AernaLingus [any]toeurope•In Germany, men aged 17–45 are required to obtain permission to leave the country for more than three months
    ·
    7 days ago

    I went to check for myself and, yup, that seems to be the case, assuming my machine translations hold water (Teutophones, feel free to weigh-in!). Here are the two bits of the Conscription Act (WPflG) they mention, as well as some other related parts:

    Section 2(3)

    (3) Außerhalb des Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfalls gelten die §§ 3, 8a bis 20b, 25, 32 bis 35, 44 und 45.

    This is the subsection that was apparently amended, which now says that Section 3 applies even outside times of "tension" (Spannung).

    Section 3(2)

    (2) Männliche Personen haben nach Vollendung des 17. Lebensjahres eine Genehmigung des zuständigen Karrierecenters der Bundeswehr einzuholen, wenn sie die Bundesrepublik Deutschland länger als drei Monate verlassen wollen, ohne dass die Voraussetzungen des § 1 Absatz 2 bereits vorliegen. Das Gleiche gilt, wenn sie über einen genehmigten Zeitraum hinaus außerhalb der Bundesrepublik Deutschland verbleiben wollen oder einen nicht genehmigungspflichtigen Aufenthalt außerhalb der Bundesrepublik Deutschland über drei Monate ausdehnen wollen. Die Genehmigung ist für den Zeitraum zu erteilen, in dem die männliche Person für eine Einberufung zum Wehrdienst nicht heransteht. Über diesen Zeitraum hinaus ist sie zu erteilen, soweit die Versagung für die männliche Person eine besondere – im Bereitschafts-, Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall eine unzumutbare – Härte bedeuten würde; § 12 Absatz 6 ist entsprechend anzuwenden. Das Bundesministerium der Verteidigung kann Ausnahmen von der Genehmigungspflicht zulassen.

    This is the subsection that contains the provision about males 17 and up needing a permit from the Bundeswehr to leave the country for three months or more if the provisions of Section 1(2) do not apply. The permits shall be granted while they are not conscription-eligible (which I take to mean "before they turn 18")—but just as the article says, they must apply for the permit regardless. Subsection 3 specifies the maximum eligible age for conscription (45). It also says that permits must be granted if not doing so would cause "special" (besondere) hardship; in a state of readiness/emergency/defense the standard is "unreasonable" (unzumutbare) hardship and the provisions of Section 12(6) apply (I assume these specific adjectives are legal terms of art). Finally, it says that the Ministry of Defense may grant exemptions to the permit requirement, which I imagine they'll have to because this seems incredibly onerous (as it says in the article, "[The Ministry of Defense] are currently working on 'more specific rules for granting exceptions to the permit requirement,' as well as to 'avoid unnecessary bureaucracy.' ")

    Section 1(2)

    (2) Die Wehrpflicht ruht, solange Wehrpflichtige ihren ständigen Aufenthalt und ihre Lebensgrundlage außerhalb der Bundesrepublik Deutschland haben, wenn Tatsachen die Annahme rechtfertigen, dass sie beabsichtigen, ihren ständigen Aufenthalt im Ausland beizubehalten.

    This detail wasn't in the article, but it basically just says you're exempt if you're a permanent resident of another country and it is clear that you intend to continue to reside abroad.

    Section 12

    Full text

    (1) Vom Wehrdienst wird zurückgestellt,

    1. wer vorübergehend nicht wehrdienstfähig ist,
    2. wer, abgesehen von den Fällen des § 10, Freiheitsstrafe, Strafarrest, Jugendstrafe oder Jugendarrest verbüßt, sich in Untersuchungshaft befindet oder nach § 63 des Strafgesetzbuches in einem psychiatrischen Krankenhaus untergebracht ist.

    (1a) Vom Wehrdienst wird ferner zurückgestellt, wer auf Grund eines völkerrechtlichen Vertrages für die Dauer einer Tätigkeit in einer internationalen Behörde nicht zum Wehrdienst herangezogen werden kann.

    (2) Vom Wehrdienst werden Wehrpflichtige, die sich auf das geistliche Amt (§ 11) vorbereiten, auf Antrag zurückgestellt. Hierzu sind beizubringen:

    1. der Nachweis eines ordentlichen theologischen Studiums oder einer ordentlichen theologischen Ausbildung und
    2. eine Erklärung des zuständigen Landeskirchenamtes, der bischöflichen Behörde, des Ordensoberen oder der entsprechenden Oberbehörde einer anderen Religionsgemeinschaft, dass sich der Wehrpflichtige auf das geistliche Amt vorbereitet.

    (3) Hat ein Wehrpflichtiger seiner Aufstellung für die Wahl zum Deutschen Bundestag, zu einem Landtag oder zum Europäischen Parlament zugestimmt, so ist er bis zur Wahl zurückzustellen. Hat er die Wahl angenommen, so kann er für die Dauer des Mandats nur auf seinen Antrag einberufen werden.

    (4) Vom Wehrdienst soll ein Wehrpflichtiger auf Antrag zurückgestellt werden, wenn die Heranziehung zum Wehrdienst für ihn wegen persönlicher, insbesondere häuslicher, wirtschaftlicher oder beruflicher Gründe eine besondere Härte bedeuten würde. Eine solche liegt in der Regel vor,

    1. wenn im Falle der Einberufung des Wehrpflichtigen
      a) die Versorgung seiner Familie, hilfsbedürftiger Angehöriger oder anderer hilfsbedürftiger Personen, für deren Lebensunterhalt er aus rechtlicher oder sittlicher Verpflichtung aufzukommen hat, gefährdet würde oder
      b) für Verwandte ersten Grades besondere Notstände zu erwarten sind,
    2. wenn der Wehrpflichtige für die Erhaltung und Fortführung eines eigenen Betriebes unentbehrlich ist,
    3. wenn die Einberufung des Wehrpflichtigen
      a) eine zu einem schulischen Abschluss führende Ausbildung,
      b) ein Hochschulstudium, bei dem zum vorgesehenen Diensteintritt das dritte Semester erreicht ist,
      c) einen zum vorgesehenen Diensteintritt begonnenen dualen Bildungsgang (Studium mit studienbegleitender betrieblicher Ausbildung), dessen Regelstudienzeit acht Semester nicht überschreitet und bei dem das Studium spätestens drei Monate nach Beginn der betrieblichen Ausbildung aufgenommen wird,
      d) einen zum vorgesehenen Diensteintritt zu einem Drittel absolvierten sonstigen Ausbildungsabschnitt oder
      e) eine bereits begonnene Berufsausbildung
      unterbrechen oder die Aufnahme einer rechtsverbindlich zugesagten oder vertraglich gesicherten Berufsausbildung verhindern würde.

    (5) Vom Wehrdienst kann ein Wehrpflichtiger ferner zurückgestellt werden, wenn gegen ihn ein Strafverfahren anhängig ist, in dem Freiheitsstrafe, Strafarrest, Jugendstrafe oder eine freiheitsentziehende Maßregel der Besserung und Sicherung zu erwarten ist, oder wenn seine Einberufung die militärische Ordnung oder das Ansehen der Bundeswehr ernstlich gefährden würde.

    (6) In den Fällen des Absatzes 4, ausgenommen Satz 2 Nummer 1 Buchstabe b, Nummer 3, sowie des Absatzes 7, darf der Wehrpflichtige vom Grundwehrdienst höchstens so lange zurückgestellt werden, dass er noch vor der für ihn nach § 5 Absatz 1 Satz 2 und 3 maßgebenden Altersgrenze einberufen werden kann. In Ausnahmefällen, in denen die Einberufung eine unzumutbare Härte bedeuten würde, kann er auch darüber hinaus zurückgestellt werden.

    (7) Vom Wehrdienst soll ein Wehrpflichtiger auf Antrag auch zurückgestellt werden, wenn er für die Erhaltung und Fortführung des elterlichen Betriebes oder des Betriebes seines Arbeitgebers oder für die ordnungsgemäße Aufgabenerfüllung seiner Dienstbehörde unentbehrlich ist. In diesem Fall sind die Eltern, der Arbeitgeber oder die Dienstbehörde des Wehrpflichtigen antragsberechtigt und verpflichtet, den Wegfall der Voraussetzungen für die Unentbehrlichkeit der zuständigen Wehrersatzbehörde anzuzeigen. Die Zurückstellung bedarf der Zustimmung des Wehrpflichtigen. Die Einberufung des Wehrpflichtigen ist bis zur Entscheidung über den Antrag auszusetzen.

    I included the entire section, which covers deferral from conscription; valid circumstances include various forms of education, being a small business tyrant, being a caretaker for a family member, and the like. I had trouble parsing Subsection 6 (the one mentioned in § 3(2)) says that for certain provisions a maximum deferral may be granted, provided provisions of Section 5 apply (but I'm not gonna look any more German today). But this is actually the part I'm most interested in—how easy is it to get a deferral/exemption from conscription? I realize that de jure and de facto can be two very different things, but for the time being the statute's all we've got.