ForestBoard

Western continental divide wrote:

Ransium's been our delegate for 12 years? Wow.

Hail Ransium.

Western continental divide wrote:

Honestly I'm just really surprised that a region like this still has an active founder after 12 years. Though I don't know too much about the activity part.

He's active.

Finally endoed Ransium. No need to endo a delegate of a region that's no longer a functioning independent body I guess.

I just chose to run my country off sundials and it banned computers on accident lmao

Plifte wrote:

Hail Ransium.

Time flies when your having fun (or some approximate of it)! Also thanks for the endo Jutsa ^_^ glad to see you somewhat active still!

Candlewhisper Archive wrote:

I think if you're expecting folk to remember those names and to make a point of sending you the cards, you're misjudging human psychology, and if you're thinking that posting to one region is going to have much of a chance of creating a success with this strategy, you may not understand probabilities.

I'd suggest instead putting standing bids on the cards you want that are 20% higher than the trash value, and when someone stumbles across them, they'll see that there's a bid in place and will almost certainly sell to you, just out of self-interest.

Thank you for your insightful post. I already did the things you mentioned. Nice of you to take the time!

Canaltia wrote:

Well, I leave for the airport in 7 minutes. This is where I give someone else my login details and bid all of you wonderful people farewell. I might get another chance to be on here, and I might not, but after today, I'll be gone until Christmas.

In which case, good bye and thanks for all the likes! Have fun, and maybe see you around Christmas.

Kinectia wrote:

I felt angered too, and that’s how I feel when I see the extinction rebellion logo spray painted on the electrical box by my grocery store. Everybody wanna be an environmentalist now. Every time I see a cruise ship I can’t help thinking about all the eco-tourists going to Greenland and the Arctic.

Cruise ships can also be destructive to the culture of places they visit.

Let me use Cuba as an example.

Cruise ships from the U.S. for a little while under the Obama and Trump administrations were allowed to visit Cuba (I do believe that Trump recently started enforcing the Helms-Burton act, which punishes private businesses from doing trade with Cuba, no cruises). The island was often part of Caribbean cruise vacations, stopping in Havana for a day or two, unloading thousands of tourists. When you're in Havana for a day, what do you do? Drink, smoke a cigar, visit that one bar where Earnest Hemingway used to frequent, take an old car taxi ride around the city, and then leave.

It promotes such a shallow view of Cuban life and does not encourage basic understanding or respect of the history and culture of the island. The concept of the "one day here, leave, one day at a different place, leave" only shows the shallowest caricatures of each stop's unique and deep culture. Combine that with the massive amount of waste that comes from carrying thousands of passengers on a virtual floating city, it's not something I could ever support.

Western continental divide wrote:

...Combine that with the massive amount of waste that comes from carrying thousands of passengers on a virtual floating city, it's not something I could ever support.

You're missing the disease potential. I have never had a desire to go on a cruise because superficial exploration of a few ports, swimming in a swimming pool when I am on a boat in the ocean, and contracting Norovirus-caused gastroenteritis just do not sound like fun to me.

EDIT: Does anybody know why "Freedom From Taxation" can drop without "Taxation" rising? Those seem to be about as obvious as inverse statistical pairs can get!

Yahua wrote:

Now this is bad faith. This conversation was not about "Windows' technical faults" but rather about Microsoft's corporate policies: I had said that Linux's development was more congenial with a sustainable community, whereas Microsoft was not. You then suggested that Linux Foundation was "corporate through and through", and I simply answered to that statement. We were not discussing Windows' technical issues, which is a whole different topic. ...

The issue is Microsoft and "intellectual property," and apparently how the use of the latter by the former is somehow bad. But, if so, one needs to explain why the use of the latter by F/OSS "sustainable communities" is somehow not bad. All I've seen so far is some reference to Montsanto. This is bizarre since Microsoft, F/OSS have basically bugger all to do with terminator genes, save for some hyper-overstretched reference to "intellectual property" in general. Such a scattershot at "intellectual property" is insufficient, however, since "intellectual property" is the lifeblood of the F/OSS "sustainable community." And the Reuters link you provided doesn't explain the link to Montsanto either. It merely says:

Monsanto will join a Brazilian investment fund with up to 300 million reais ($92 million), managed by Microsoft, evaluating ideas for new digital tools to be applied to agricultural production in the country, executives said

So, apparently Microsoft is developing "digital tools" in Brazil (because duh), and Montsanto is throwing some money at it. So.........what? If this means Microsoft automatically endorses and supports everything Montsanto does, then HOY BOY, I am personally responsible for every action ever undertaken by anyone I've ever paid, or have been paid by, for anything ever.

Sorry, but, again, that's silly.

And software licensing (which is at the heart of the "sustainable community" aspect of F/OSS, since it is said licensing which codifies and regulates the said community) is certainly a technical issue, since it directly affects the use and portability of the relevant code, and thus the use and portability of any relevant solution. When I'm writing code, step one is answering "does it already exist," and step two is "if yes, what's the license."

Yahua wrote:

You're making fun of a straw man.

I don't make fun of them. I burn them.

Yahua wrote:

...Finally, the relationship between Microsoft's history of aggressive lobbying and biotech companies depredating the third world (but not only) doesn't end in their common interest regarding intellectual property rights, but also in common ventures (an example here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-monsanto-microsoft/monsanto-microsoft-to-invest-in-agricultural-technology-in-brazil-idUSKCN0ZK22I).

This continues to be a wholly bizarre point. Anyone who produces software, be it Microsoft or a F/OSS "sustainable community" has a "common interest regarding intellectual property." F/OSS "sustainable communities" largely utilize software licensing agreements that place restrictions on the end user of the code. If one wants to specifically criticize some set of end user restrictions Microsoft uses, then one should do so. Vague scattershots at "intellectual property," however, are useless and equally condemn the "sustainable communities" one champions.

Again, I get the feeling that one might think that F/OSS is the antithesis of "intellectual property." If this is so, one is sorely mistaken. Without "intellectual property," F/OSS does nothing but die, as the Microsofts of the world could use contributed code in closed-source software without restriction and the Extinguish stage of "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" becomes trivially easy.

At any rate, Microsoft is still a Platinum Partner in the Linux Foundation, and thus is among the largest corporate supporters who directly fund and employ Linux kernel development/developers. If Microsoft is toxic waste, Linux is as well.

Turbeaux wrote:

You're missing the disease potential. I have never had a desire to go on a cruise because superficial exploration of a few ports, swimming in a swimming pool when I am on a boat in the ocean, and contracting Norovirus-caused gastroenteritis just do not sound like fun to me.

Agreed! Just thinking about being trapped on a vessel with 1500 people makes me feel claustrophobic. And do they really have lifeboat capacity for that many?

...back to palm oil...
Suggestion for a future issue of the month: Reframing the debate around travel as being “bad for the environment.” Travel could be very good if it involves seeking to better understand other people and places. If each one of us stays close to home just to minimize our carbon footprint, that can exacerbate the xenophobia underlying so many social and environmental issues.

As Western continental divide mentions, most travel is very superficial - all about the traveler - their bucket list and selfies and souvenirs. It doesn’t have to be that way. The more diverse people and places we really get to know, by interacting with intention when we travel, the easier it is to understand that the only way out of our global crises is through letting go of the idea that we know what’s best for the world.
Rather than cutting travel, we could be aspiring to make real connections when we travel, not just sightseeing. International agreements and political debates aren’t having much effect - real change is going to come from people caring about each other, and gamers can understand better than most people the concept of a billion people from all over the world collaborating.

Turbeaux wrote:

Also, don't stop using X OS because X OS maker donated to a political campaign you do not like because they almost certainly donate to other campaigns also. That goes for anything that does not result in unsustainable environmental degradation.

I sold my house and liquidated everything I owned because housing can hurt the environment. #blessed