why doesn't gollum like the upcoming debian-stable branch?

it's trixie

@timrichards It's a pretty decent hotel in the front, and then they have a really nice back room - my friends had their wedding reception there!

"My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/opinion/israel-gaza-holocaust-genocide-palestinians.html?unlocked_article_code=1.W08.zx-L.gyT-M6Lx4sFP&smid=url-share

Good morning Melbourne!

The Hurstbridge and Mernda lines remain suspended with buses replacing trains.

However, we've upgraded the incident from "extensive equipment fault" to "interactive art installation". Please interpret any delays emotionally.

#MetroTrains

Why do we say 'slept like a baby'? Babies wake up every two hours crying.

I want to sleep like my cat. 14 hours, no responsibilities, zero regrets.

One thing that has become clear to me is that the United States represents a single point of failure for way too many things around the world. As somebody who has spent many years designing and operating resilient systems, it’s essential that we diversify. A failure in the US (bad leadership, indifferent electorate, tech companies gone amok, whatever) should not doom systems and people around the world to bad outcomes as a result.

There's been talk on the Fedi about why online maps like OSM and Google use the Mercator projection, and I think it needs a bit of clarification. (Do NOT snitch tag.)

Online maps are _mostly_ used at small scales, of a district or a city. At these scales, the earth is approximately flat, so users expect a map that is _conformal_, one that preserves angles and shapes.

Online maps are continuously zoomable from continents down to your house. They usually aren't rendered on your browser straight from vectors, but are batch-rendered offline into square tile images. If you're on a slowish Internet connection, you can see them loading individually.

As you zoom an online map, tiles get replaced with higher-resolution ones, and as you scroll, tiles get filled in to fill the gaps. You could theoretically scroll and zoom forever, so the map needs to not have a magically special reference latitude or longitude. These constrains mean that the map needs to be _equatorial_, so that no point gets special treatment, and _cylindrical_, so that meridians are vertical and lines of latitude are horizontal.

And which is the map projection that is all of equatorial, cylindrical and conformal? Mercator!

#Maps #Cartography #OpenStreetMap

As Trump continues to demonize immigrants and Mexicans, guess what Mexico is doing?

Mexico has sent a team of expert first responders to Texas—experts trained in flood relief. They have “committed to staying until the last victim is found.”

This is what neighbors do. This is putting humanity before politics. Imagine demonizing such amazing compassionate heroes for political gain! I am grateful the compassion of Mexican first responders exceeds the hatred from the American president.

Hooray for ranked choice (aka preferential) voting!
---
The other winner in New York’s mayoral contest: ranked-choice voting - David Daley https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/06/new-york-ranked-choice-voting

#USpol

@KimPerales Even official travel advisories from other governments have been ramping up. This is Australia, where I'm now a dual citizen: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-15/australia-government-travel-advice-usa-trump-border-control/105293186

Dear Contributor,

Thank you for your bug fix. However, we are unable to accept your patch. The bug you spotted is real, but that is a Software Heritage Listed Bug and we're not permitted to alter it.

📜

@carnage4life And this is a not small part of the reason why younger generations have been abandoning religion. If there were a church where sermons and public statements were actually about caring for the poor, not about how awful it is to give women and minorities basic human rights, I might attend...

When history marks the point where we lost the future to China, this will be it.

NIST report on Champlain Towers collapse in Surfside, FL. Initiating failure is down to several high-likelihood hypotheses out of 24+. Summary article is easy to read. 1.5-hour video requires patience. 🤔

https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2025/06/nist-releases-extensive-video-update-champlain-towers-south-investigation

#engineering #BuildingCollapses #science

Google taps ‘world’s first’ grid-scale nuclear fusion plant for 200-million-watt power

Google on Monday announced a groundbreaking agreement with Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) to purchase 200...
#engineering #technology
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/google-invests-in-200-mw-fusion-deal

An Iranian man left this comment on my YouTube channel. It's the single best explanation I've ever heard on the future of #Iran 👇

As an Iranian, I can tell you the situation is no longer just political—it's existential. We are trapped between two collapsing structures: one internal, one external. On one hand, we face a deeply dysfunctional government, led by the Supreme Leader and the Islamic Republic’s unelected institutions.

Decades of economic mismanagement, suppression of dissent, and brutal ideological control have alienated multiple generations. No one believes in reform anymore—because every attempt has either been co-opted or crushed.

But here's the paradox: We are also terrified of regime collapse—because we've watched the aftermath of Western intervention in countries like Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan.

Each was promised freedom; each descended into chaos, civil war, or foreign occupation. So no, we don't trust the U.S. or Israel. Not because we support our regime—but because we know how imperial powers treat ‘liberated’ nations in the Middle East.

Freedom, in their language, often means vacuum, fire, and permanent instability. Right now, many Iranians live with three truths at once: The Islamic Republic is morally and politically bankrupt. The alternatives offered by foreign actors are not liberation—they’re collapse. A bad government is survivable. No government is not. We are not silent because we agree.

We are cautious because we’ve learned—too well—what happens when superpowers decide to "help." In a sentence: Iran is a nation held hostage by its own regime, but haunted by the fate of its neighbors. We are stuck in a house we hate, surrounded by fires we fear more.

https://x.com/thecyrusjanssen/status/1936939653879439617

Time to pick a side, America. Is this the future you want for us?

There are a number of stellar phenomenon seen across all the #StarTrek movies and series. And some even play a small role in the plots. As in the case of today's #TrekTriviaTuesday question.

As always no googling and no spoiling the answer for others. Please boost after voting! :BoostOK:

Vote will run for 24h, then I will reply with the correct answer.

In 2147, a comet was redirected by the verteron array on Mars for impact on the planet's north pole. What was the name of this comet?

AOC is quite on point with this.