EchoReflection

“We have received reports that some citizens have been hospitalized due to bacteria in the water. This is a serious public health concern that deserves immediate attention. If your water looks discolored, contains sediment, has a strong odor, or you have experienced related health issues, please send us a message. We are gathering information and reporting findings to the state.”

that is pretty solidly "free speech", not defamation, not allegations of anything, not "libel"‡

‡libel noun 1. a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation

Example: he was found guilty of a libel on a Liverpool inspector of taxes

-defamation -defamation of character -character assassination

2. (in admiralty and ecclesiastical law) a plaintiff's written declaration

verb 1. defame (someone) by publishing a libel

Example: the jury found that he was libelled by a newspaper

---- But law can be complex and "injustices" happen all the time, so we'll see...

Comment · 6 months ago

yeah it told me I'm "in Los Angeles" but that's just the time zone I'm in. It also "thinks" that because I have two different languages as inputs that it has scored some kind of "gotcha", but I just happen to also frequently use a second language .

"English · Chinese Your browser’s primary language is English. It also carries Chinese. This tells us not just what language you speak, but often where you were raised, where you have lived, or who you live with. This is transmitted in the header of every HTTP request. It has been doing this for as long as you have used this browser."

No, the fact that I have English and Chinese as input languages does not tell it "where I was raised, where I have lived, or who I have lived with.". Might as well say "the fact that you're using a phone to look at the Internet tells reveals that you are someone who can access a phone to look at the Internet!". Yes, technologies interact with other technologies. That's how "technologies" work. Is it Orwellian? Yes. But is it more Orwellian than the surveillance states of Russia/China/North Korea. etc? We also can now find our phones/cars/devices that can share location, locate criminals by way of their online activity, record incidents that"need" to be recorded (like when ppl are committing crimes or when police officers need to be held accountable for their behavior). Catastrophizing about the "overreach" of tech is a cognitive choice. That all being said, it is good to be aware of what info our technologies "know" about us.

Comment · 6 months ago

that's a good quote. I have to say though, despite the appeal of "rejecting 'tribalism' ", it is (or should be) "undeniable" that some "tribes" are "better" than others. There are reasons literally nobody wants to go to North Korea and people all over the world want to "flee" to countries that are meritocracies and support ideas like freedom of speech, women's rights, freedom of religion, etc. "Nobody" would claim (anymore) that "life is 'better' in countries that still have slaves".

Modern Slavery Stats:

1. Asia and the Pacific: ~29.3 million (6.8 per 1000 ppl)

2. Africa: ~7.0 million (5.2 per 1000)

3. Europe and Central Asia: ~6.4 million (6.9 per 1000)

4. Americas: ~5.1 million (5 per 1000)

5. Arab States: ~1.7 (10.1 per 1000 [highest] )

https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/

Comment · 7 months ago

100%. It's amazing how unfriendly/hostile MS has become with things like forced updates, trying to force users to use their shitty, bloated "Edge" browser, MS "Copilot", building location "services" as an "on-by-default" aspect of the OS. it's like they were deliberately trying to make users switch to Apple or Linux. But since Linux is a little more for "tech-savvy" ppl, I imagine Apple has been the biggest winner of MS's blindness.

Comment · 8 months ago

100% 100% 100% humanity is so obsessed with ai that we're losing...our humanity. "blame the mindless, soulless robots! how could we have possibly known that they need to be supervised?! aren't they basically just humans that don't need to rest or eat?"

Comment · 8 months ago

-Overall, we rate the New York Times Left-Center biased based on wording and story selection that moderately favors the left.

- Overall, we rate The Washington Post as Left-Center biased based on editorial positions that moderately favor the left. Due to a few failed fact checks, they earn a Mostly Factual rating.

- Wired: These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. These sources are generally trustworthy for information but may require further investigation.

https://youtu.be/tRq-vVptMOk?si=t6xzvtqdhOZm80un ↑ Victor Davis Hanson: The Left’s Rage is a Symptom of a Movement in Decline

https://profrjstarr.com/the-psychology-of-us/the-need-to-be-...

"this too shall pass"

Comment · 8 months ago

I imagine Steve Jobs would not have agreed with the statement "Nobody gets promoted for simplicity".

Comment · 8 months ago

https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMi1jb3B5_f52a6bb5-dc0d-4a3a-8...

Multiple peer-reviewed studies and analyses indicate an increase in traffic accidents—particularly fatal ones—following the spring transition to DST. This is often attributed to acute sleep deprivation (losing one hour of sleep), circadian rhythm disruption, and altered light conditions during peak commuting hours, which can impair alertness, reaction times, and visibility. Key findings include:

A large-scale U.S. study analyzing over 732,000 fatal motor vehicle accidents from 1996 to 2017 (published in Current Biology, 2020) reported a consistent 6% increase in fatal crash risk during the workweek immediately following the spring DST transition, equating to approximately 28 additional deaths annually in the U.S. The effect was more pronounced in western regions of time zones and persisted into afternoon hours despite longer evening daylight. Other research has documented short-term spikes, such as increases of 16% on the first day and 12% on the second day after the spring change in some analyses, or broader elevations in fatal crashes linked to the "DST effect." Systematic reviews and meta-analyses confirm short-term elevations in collision risk post-spring transition in many (though not all) contexts, with some evidence of higher fatal accident rates in the U.S. specifically.

The fall transition back to Standard Time shows more mixed or opposite patterns: some studies report small increases in certain crash types (e.g., due to darker evening commutes increasing pedestrian or deer-vehicle collisions), while others note decreases in vehicle-occupant fatalities or no net increase overall. A 2017 systematic review of road traffic collision risk found inconsistent short-term effects across studies (some showing increases, decreases, or no change), but long-term analyses often suggested a net safety benefit from DST periods due to evening light. Recent Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) research (covering 2010–2019 U.S. data) indicated that spring DST increases fatal motor-vehicle occupant crashes (+12% in the following five weeks) but decreases fatal pedestrian/bicyclist crashes (−24%), resulting in a near-neutral net effect on total fatal crashes (slight increase in occupant deaths offset by fewer pedestrian/cyclist deaths). In summary, your memory is correct in that empirical data—particularly from U.S.-based studies—support an increase in traffic accident frequency (especially fatal crashes) associated with Daylight Saving Time variations, most reliably in the immediate aftermath of the spring transition due to sleep loss and misalignment. However, effects are not uniform across all studies, regions, or crash types, and some research highlights trade-offs (e.g., benefits to pedestrians from evening light). Debates continue regarding permanent DST, permanent Standard Time, or abolition of changes altogether, with organizations like the American Academy of Sleep Medicine favoring permanent Standard Time to minimize disruptions.