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I wish everyone who's using and visiting this forum a happy, peaceful, creative and prosperous new year. Cheers and take care
- LemonYellow

Paul Hardcastle 19
https://www.discogs.com/release/687286-P...dcastle-19
nice samples! ^^

What do you think about playing Windows games with wine?

WINE = WINE is not an emulator
xD

Wow! :P


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Hello admins,
I find it difficult to navigate and read some of the must-see areas of the forum due to changed font colours. This includes "View New Posts View Today's Posts Private Messages (Unread 0, Total 0) area at the top. Could you please improve it by using contrasting colours?

Thanks!
LemonYellow

https://mon.host.bsdforall.org/pub/as.mp4
https://mon.host.bsdforall.org/pub/e.mp4
https://mon.host.bsdforall.org/pub/eur.mp4
https://mon.host.bsdforall.org/pub/hah.mp4
https://mon.host.bsdforall.org/pub/k.mp4
https://mon.host.bsdforall.org/pub/live.mp4
https://mon.host.bsdforall.org/pub/pads.mp4
https://mon.host.bsdforall.org/pub/slane.mp4
https://mon.host.bsdforall.org/pub/t.mp4
https://mon.host.bsdforall.org/pub/verve.mp4
https://mon.host.bsdforall.org/pub/xD.mp4

October 2024
I'm usually reluctant to make predictions about technology, but I feel fairly confident about this one: in a couple decades there won't be many people who can write.
One of the strangest things you learn if you're a writer is how many people have trouble writing. Doctors know how many people have a mole they're worried about; people who are good at setting up computers know how many people aren't; writers know how many people need help writing.
The reason so many people have trouble writing is that it's fundamentally difficult. To write well you have to think clearly, and thinking clearly is hard.
And yet writing pervades many jobs, and the more prestigious the job, the more writing it tends to require.
These two powerful opposing forces, the pervasive expectation of writing and the irreducible difficulty of doing it, create enormous pressure. This is why eminent professors often turn out to have resorted to plagiarism. The most striking thing to me about these cases is the pettiness of the thefts. The stuff they steal is usually the most mundane boilerplate — the sort of thing that anyone who was even halfway decent at writing could turn out with no effort at all. Which means they're not even halfway decent at writing.
Till recently there was no convenient escape valve for the pressure created by these opposing forces. You could pay someone to write for you, like JFK, or plagiarize, like MLK, but if you couldn't buy or steal words, you had to write them yourself. And as a result nearly everyone who was expected to write had to learn how.
Not anymore. AI has blown this world open. Almost all pressure to write has dissipated. You can have AI do it for you, both in school and at work.
The result will be a world divided into writes and write-nots. There will still be some people who can write. Some of us like it. But the middle ground between those who are good at writing and those who can't write at all will disappear. Instead of good writers, ok writers, and people who can't write, there will just be good writers and people who can't write.
Is that so bad? Isn't it common for skills to disappear when technology makes them obsolete? There aren't many blacksmiths left, and it doesn't seem to be a problem.
Yes, it's bad. The reason is something I mentioned earlier: writing is thinking. In fact there's a kind of thinking that can only be done by writing. You can't make this point better than Leslie Lamport did:
If you're thinking without writing, you only think you're thinking.
So a world divided into writes and write-nots is more dangerous than it sounds. It will be a world of thinks and think-nots. I know which half I want to be in, and I bet you do too.
This situation is not unprecedented. In preindustrial times most people's jobs made them strong. Now if you want to be strong, you work out. So there are still strong people, but only those who choose to be.
It will be the same with writing. There will still be smart people, but only those who choose to be.
Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Ben Miller, and Robert Morris for reading drafts of this.

Quote:Taken from: https://paulgraham.com/writes.html

Japan and the European Union have announced a security and defence partnership, as they seek to step up military ties amid growing tensions with China, North Korea and Russia.

“We live in a very dangerous world,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters in Tokyo on Friday, alongside Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya.
“We live in a world of growing rivalries, climate accidents and threats of war. And there is only one antidote to this challenging world, which is partnerships among friends,” Borrell added, announcing the security partnership.

The agreement is the first that the EU has concluded with an Asia Pacific country, the two officials said.
“It is an historical and very timely step given the situation in both of our regions,” Borrell said.

The EU official is in Tokyo as part of an East Asia tour that includes South Korea, where he will also hold a strategic dialogue, underscoring the EU’s increasing engagement with the Asia Pacific region, as China and Russia step up joint military activities and North Korea sends troops to Russia.
Their talks came a day after North Korea test-fired what is believed to be a new type of ICBM-class ballistic missile.

Borrell and Iwaya also shared “grave concern” about Russia’s deepening military cooperation with North Korea, including the North’s troop deployment to Russia and arms transfers between the two countries, according to an EU statement. The two officials reiterated their commitment to supporting Ukraine and condemned Russian aggression.

Japan, under a new security strategy adopted in 2022, has been rapidly accelerating its military buildup through its alliance with the United States, its only treaty ally, and other partners, including Australia, the United Kingdom and a number of European and Asia Pacific countries, to deter an increasingly assertive China.

Tokyo has also significantly eased its voluntary arms export ban, seeking to expand its defence industry and play a greater role globally. Japan is jointly developing a next-generation fighter jet with the UK and Italy.

The text of the EU-Japan Security and Defence Partnership said they would promote “concrete naval cooperation” including through activities such as joint exercises and port calls, which could also include “mutually designated third countries”.

It also said the EU and Japan would discuss “the development of respective defence initiatives including exchange of information on defence industry-related matters”.
Earlier on Friday, Borrell met Japanese Defence Minister Gen Nakatani and shared the view that security in Europe and the Asia Pacific is interconnected as they agreed to deepen defence cooperation, Japan’s Ministry of Defence said in a statement.

The two officials expressed grave concern about North Korea’s missile development programme and its growing military cooperation with Russia, saying they are significant challenges for the international community.
“We reaffirmed the need for strengthened EU-Japan cooperation in security and defence, including on maritime security, cyber and hybrid threats amid growing regional and global security challenges,” Borrell said on the social media platform X.

Quote:Taken from: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/1...source=rss

Tuesday Lancent released the 2024 Lancet Countdown report updating on environmental issues status, and their impact on health, this year. On Wednesday Lancent had an online launch event for the report.

122 people including advisors from World Health Organization, agencies of United Nations, and academic institutions contributed to the report. The report was on a global scale rather than a specific region such as Europe.

Among other conclusions, the authors noted heat caused deaths increasing rapidly and requiring urgent attention. The report noted an average person was exposed to 50 more days of dangerous temperatures this year compared with 2023. Other factors affecting health included extreme weather events, such as heat waves and floods, dust storms.

For instance, heat related sleep loss increased worldwide except three regions -- north-west of Australia, a region in Brazil, and a region near the Great Lakes in the United States.

The report included notes that less than 35% of countries were capable of assessing early symptoms of heat caused health issues, and less than 10% for mental issues pertaining to increased temperatures. The authors wrote this limited the resources available for prevention and for planning emergency response if needed.

Additionally, in the report, the authors noted the fossil fuel industry was continuing to setup new mining sites, a concerning trend in light of ready availability and necessity to adopt renewable energy sources.
The report included a summary of 15 parameters. The analysts wrote that in 2023, the planet was already 1.45 C warmer than pre-industrial levels, and was on track to reach 2.7 C heating by 2100.

The authors called for urgent action to reverse the effects of climate change and pollution to reduce their impact in the future, and for improvements to risk assessment and management of associated health and wellbeing issues.

Quote:Taken from: https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Lancet_rele...sed_deaths

Yeah, is that somekind of a joke? : - P

Why is Trump's face so orange? xD

Ex-president’s comments come after comedian at one of Trump’s recent rallies called Puerto Rico ‘island of garbage’

Donald Trump praised Puerto Ricans on Tuesday during a Pennsylvania rally, days after a comedian made a racist joke and referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” at one of his rallies.
“Nobody loves our Latino community and our Puerto Rican community more than I do,” the former president said a little over an hour into a rally in Allentown, in the Lehigh Valley, which has a sizable Latino population.
More than 68,000 people – over half of the total population – in Allentown are Hispanic or Latino, according to US census data. A few blocks from the rally, a home had a Puerto Rican flag posted on the door.
He also claimed that he had done a lot for Puerto Rico as president. Trump drew ridicule for tossing paper towels into a crowd on the island after it was ravaged by a hurricane; blocked hurricane aid; and mused about selling the island.

He also again praised the rally at Madison Square Garden, saying “the love was unbelievable” and told a rambling story about watching a SpaceX rocket that lasted longer than his discussion of Puerto Ricans.
Many of the speakers on Tuesday, including the Puerto Rican official Zoraida Buxó, emphasized their Puerto Rican heritage, signaling the campaign’s effort to win Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania, the key battleground state in this election, where polls show a tight race.

“We won’t get rattled, we won’t yield to ignorance, foolishness, or irrational thoughtlessness,” she said.
Senator Marco Rubio, another speaker at the rally, also joined Trump onstage during the former presidents remarks to share with the crowd comments from Joe Biden Tuesday in which the president condemned the remarks about Puerto Ricans and said: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s – his – his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American”, according to a White House transcript. After

Republicans circulated a clip of the statement, calling it an attack on Trump supporters, Biden put out a statement saying he meant to refer to the comedian who made the joke.
A small protest arrived outside the arena just before the rally began on Tuesday. Some of the protesters were carrying signs that said Latinos for Harris-Walz, while others wore the Puerto Rican flag.

One of the people marching was Luis Gonzalez, a retired 65-year-old truck driver from Allentown. He wore a sweater with the Puerto Rican flag stitched on it.
“
The guy has no idea what he’s talking about,” he said. “I was born in Puerto Rico. That island as well as all the other islands around it are beautiful.
“For anybody to say that it’s a garbage island – they’ve never been to the Caribbean.”

But inside the rally, few people thought the fallout from the comment would have much effect on Trump. Some had not heard it.

“It was made in poor taste, I have to admit. But Donald Trump is Donald Trump, ” said Mark Melendez, 55, who is Puerto Rican and traveled to the rally from New Jersey. “I don’t think it will affect him; it might.”
At least one audience member was holding a sign that said “Boricuas for Trump”, using a term that describes people of Puerto Rican descent.


Jackie Beller, 60, who lives near Allentown, thought the joke was funny.
“If you take a comedian out of context and you look at it as a serious thing, yes, you would be offended,” Beller said.
“It’s all a joke – I’ve spoken to some Puerto Rican people and they weren’t offended, so I don’t know,” said Mary Mendez, 65, a retired paramedic from New York.

Trump’s speech kicking off the final week of the presidential race mixed personal attacks, grievance, anti-immigrant rhetoric and a smattering of policies. He accused Democrats of having already cheated, misrepresenting an ongoing investigation in Lancaster county in an example of how he is priming his supporters to challenge the election results if he loses.

His remarks were less an appeal to undecided voters than a full-throated appeal to his base, pledging that he would be able to fix all of the US’s ills.

“This is gonna be a very special time. It’s going to be America’s new golden age. Every problem facing us can be solved,” he said.

As Kamala Harris made her closing argument in Washington and called Trump “unstable” and “obsessed with revenge”, Trump called Harris a “low-IQ individual” and mused about getting retribution against Michelle Obama for criticizing him on the campaign trial.
“Michelle Obama was very nasty,” he said. “I’ve gone out of my way to be nice to Michelle. Haven’t said a damn thing about her. She hit me.”

Quote: Taken from: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024...nnsylvania