Surely it can’t just be because a town name happens to contain “lsd” in the middle of it?

Facebook is a remarkably bad website so i think you’d be quite surprised at how stuck in the past they are over there

As many as one million black-footed ferrets lived on the continent in the late 1800s, but by the late 1950s, the species was presumed extinct. Scientists discovered a wild population in 1964, but even that group died out, and a captive breeding effort failed. Since a second rediscovery of a wild population in 1981, conservationists have worked hard to conserve the species using traditional breeding programs as well as more innovative technologies, including freezing semen and cloning.

One of the challenges conservationists face when tasked with bringing back a species from the brink of extinction is limited genetic diversity, which leads to inbreeding and can make offspring more vulnerable to issues, including hereditary abnormalities, poor reproductive efficiency and increased mortality rates.

The current population of black-footed ferrets—thousands of which have been reintroduced across the western U.S. since the 1990s—is all descend from just seven individuals, except for a few clones and Antonia’s new offspring. That’s a recipe for genetic bottlenecks that threaten the longevity of the species.

Cue cloning. In 1988, scientists had the foresight to collect tissue samples from a black-footed ferret named Willa after she died and preserve the material in the Frozen Zoo at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. Willa never reproduced, so her genetic material was not included in the modern ferret population. Her preserved genes contain three times more genetic diversity than living black-footed ferrets do.

this is an interesting discussion that’s gone on for long enough and been substantive enough that i’ll leave it be, but as an FYI this was a better fit for the Politics section and had it been caught sooner i would have told you to repost it there.

Why are you doing this if you don’t think what happens here matters?

if you think something has to arbitrarily “matter” to be socially valuable to do then there’s your problem. in any case, i certainly don’t think the value of this platform rests on “people knifing each other about a presidential election they have very little power over the outcome of.”

If one takes that attitude, you’re right, you won’t change the world.

i think you’re conflating “having value” with “changing the world” when these are two essentially independent qualities. at no point have we ever sought to “change the world” with this (because we’re five people running this in our spare time, that’s not in our capabilities as people), and from the beginning we’ve said we’d be content with only a handful of people using this place as long as they get something out of doing it (because that’s what we consider valuable, not whether or not this can have sweeping social impact or importance).

because you can play meaningless “what if?” games like this forever. at the end of the day you don’t have to be a pessimist to realize the odds of something here changing the world are so minute that it’s fine to put a moratorium on certain kinds of posts. you’re not going to convince me otherwise. and even in the optimistic scenario: virtually all of what’s discussed here, while interesting, is designed to be fleeting and buried. conversations on link aggregators tend to have a shelf-life of no more than a week, and that’s not really where you’re going to find ideas that make change. here the conversations usually die down after an even shorter period (about two days).

frankly: if the next Lenin or whatever is actually on Lemmy, i’d tell them to get a blog instead of hashing it out in link aggregator comment sections. it’s a better use of their time, it’s a better place to test and hone their ideas, and they have actual editorial control over everything.

Who’s to say some random comment in a random post on the presidential election doesn’t come up with some incredible idea or solution?

if someone does this i trust they won’t limit it to a niche social media website with like 500 users, where it will have no actual visibility and will reach exactly zero actual powerbrokers. i don’t think this is a remotely convincing hypothetical, personally, and its logic would extend far beyond talk of the presidential election.

Because these are literal sky scrapers. Fire on a wood structure is a recipe for catastrophic failure. A fire in a large structure could have similar effects to those large high rise condos that collapsed in Florida from poor maintenance.

i think you’re operating under 1) an extremely 1800s understanding of how fire-resistant a wood skyscraper would be and 2) a misguided understanding of where fire safety problems tend to come from in most contemporary buildings

wood is not uniquely flammable,^[1] and the vast majority of the problem in a fire is not going to be with the actual wood itself (as is true of steel, concrete, etc.) but moreso with the fact that we make nearly everything that isn’t the building itself out of extremely combustible materials and we probably should not do that? as i recall that was the entire problem at Grenfell, where the cladding used was a flammable plastic that rendered any airgapping measures between flats useless and allowed the fire to spread uncontrollably. the fire at Grenfell also reportedly began from a refrigerator that was plastic-backed.

my understanding is yes that’s the general avenue people are researching; there’s also the actual energy inputs powering steelmaking that hypothetically can be made greener (currently, it’s a process that seems to almost exclusively use fossil fuels because of the very high temperatures needed)

as the article kind of notes steelmaking in specific is very carbon intensive, so we either need to use less of it or decarbonize its production (or more likely a mixture of both). the statistics on this according to Wikipedia are:

As of 2021, steelmaking is estimated to be responsible for around 11% of the global emissions of carbon dioxide and around 7% of the global greenhouse gas emissions.[12][13] Making 1 ton of steel emits about 1.8 tons of carbon dioxide.[14]

one thing i’d be interested in: is it possible to make a fun 4X-style game that challenges the very premises of 4X (which are mostly patterned after the models of expansion we’re familiar with in the West)?

The Mozilla Foundation laid off 30 percent of its workforce and completely eliminated its advocacy and global programs divisions, TechCrunch reports.

“Fighting for a free and open internet will always be core to our mission, and advocacy continues to be a critical tool in that work. We’re revisiting how we pursue that work, not stopping it,” Brandon Borrman, the Mozilla Foundation’s communications chief, said in an email to The Verge. Borrman declined to confirm exactly how many people were laid off, but said it was about “30% of the current team.”

note: i’ve proposed this to the community mods, if we think it’s a good idea (i think it is, and i’d like to enforce it asap) it’ll go into effect soon.

POLL CLOSED, the results are as follows:

1. Kamala Harris (Democratic) (Condorcet winner: wins contests with all other choices)
2. Claudia De la Cruz (Socialism and Liberation) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 30–10
3. Vermin Supreme (Independent/Pirate) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 34–6, loses to Claudia De la Cruz (Socialism and Liberation) by 15–11
4. Cornel West (Independent) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 31–10, loses to Vermin Supreme (Independent/Pirate) by 15–12
5. Bill Stodden (Socialist) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 34–7, loses to Cornel West (Independent) by 11–9
6. Rachele Fruit (Socialist Workers) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 34–6, loses to Bill Stodden (Socialist) by 9–7
7. Jill Stein (Green) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 34–6, loses to Bill Stodden (Socialist) by 15–8
8. Blake Huber (Approval Voting) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 33–8, loses to Jill Stein (Green) by 13–9
9. Laura Ebke (Liberal) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 37–2, loses to Blake Huber (Approval Voting) by 10–7
10. Joseph Kishore (Socialist Equality) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 35–5, loses to Laura Ebke (Liberal) by 9–8
11. Peter Sonski (American Solidarity) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 38–1, loses to Joseph Kishore (Socialist Equality) by 12–5
12. Lucifer “Justin Case” Everylove (Independent) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 37–3, loses to Peter Sonski (American Solidarity) by 10–8
13. Jay Bowman (Independent) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 37–2, loses to Peter Sonski (American Solidarity) by 9–7
14. Robby Wells (Party) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 38–1, loses to Jay Bowman (Independent) by 8–6
15. Chris Garrity (Independent) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 37–2, loses to Robby Wells (Party) by 8–6
16. Richard Duncan (Independent) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 37–2, loses to Chris Garrity (Independent) by 8–4
17. Shiva Ayyadurai (Independent) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 37–2, loses to Richard Duncan (Independent) by 7–6
18. Chase Oliver (Libertarian) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 37–2, loses to Shiva Ayyadurai (Independent) by 11–8
19. Joel Skousen (Constitution dissident) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 38–1, loses to Chase Oliver (Libertarian) by 10–8
20. Michael Wood (Prohibition) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 38–1, loses to Joel Skousen (Constitution dissident) by 10–6
21. Randall Terry (Constitution) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 38–1, loses to Michael Wood (Prohibition) by 8–7
22. Mattie Preston (Godliness, Truth, Justice) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 37–2, loses to Randall Terry (Constitution) by 10–5
23. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Independent) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 38–1, loses to Mattie Preston (Godliness, Truth, Justice) by 14–6
24. Donald Trump (Republican) loses to Kamala Harris (Democratic) by 39–1, loses to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Independent) by 22–2

Gaming culture and sex has a vexed history when it comes to gender, given the industry’s long history of bad assumptions that ‘real’ gamers are straight men, and that building an adult game audience means sexually appealing to straight men. Female characters in adult games are often expected to have sexualised designs, with entitled male gamers complaining about characters like Horizon Zero Dawn’s Aloy or The Last of Us II’s Ellie not being sexy enough; meanwhile, the BBC has reported about female games workers also being affected by a blasé culture around women’s sexualisation, such as graphic, distressing sexual content being thrust upon female games actors without warning. The few semi-famous titillating console games, like the Leisure Suit Larry series or Playboy: The Mansion, don’t exactly seem like they’re interested in feminism.

But understanding sex in video games means understanding it as more than just cheap eye candy for straight guys. Sex is central to how many video games work, including games that don’t technically have any explicit content. Nintendo games present themselves as bastions of childlike, lightly heterosexual wholesomeness – Mario gets his kiss on the cheek from Princess Peach! – but I’ve written about the gay and trans innuendos common throughout the Zelda games, for instance, and how they’re used to both build Link’s androgynous character and to make use of covertly gay and covertly homophobic comedy. Levels of awareness of sex, from basic focuses on satisfying touch to creating sexual tension, are intrinsic to games in various ways, and the games that play with this awareness often find new and interesting ways to tell their stories, and to reflect on why we play games in the first place.

Dystopika (Steam, Windows) is a city builder in maybe the strictest definition of that two-word descriptor, because it steadfastly refuses to distract you with non-building details. The game is described by its single developer, Matt Marshall, as having “no goals, no management, just creativity and dark cozy vibes.” Dystopika does very little to explain how you should play it, because there’s no optimal path for doing so. Your only job is to enjoy yourself, poking and prodding at a dark cyberpunk cityscape, making things that look interesting, pretty, grim, or however you like. It might seem restrictive, but it feels very freeing.

yes