fiat_lux

Photo is a bettong that has been caught by researchers. The good news is their population has maybe tripled over the last few years in Australia's largest nature preserve that is free of introduced predators - it has 45km (28mi) of 1.8m (just under 6') tall fencing to keep it that way. Just 3 years ago they were reintroduced to the area after 60 years of local extinction.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2024-05-31/brush-tailed-and-burrowing-bettong-populations-thrive/103898216

Burrowing bettongs have little underground communities. Their cousins, the brushtail bettong have a prehensile tail they use to collect nesting material. The researcher thinks the burrowers are cuter, but the prehensile tail is adorable in its own right, I think.

It's time to know your rights!

If you have ADHD, and you come across a website or app that is playing an animation (video or gif, or any other type), and you live in the US (you don't need citizenship), you can complain to your government that someone is breaking the law and violating your rights.

Yes, you could just use ad-blockers, but you can easily help solve the problem too for everyone just by filling in a form online.

The people you complain about might only get nasty legal letters that annoy their lawyers and cost them time and money to defend or fix, but for like 10 mins of effort on your part, that's a pretty good deal. There could also be fines for them, especially if people have complained before about them. You can even complain anonymously!

How?

To be considered a valid complaint, the animation must:

• start without you triggering it (so on page load, not clicking on something)
• last for longer than 5 seconds (yes, looping counts as lasting forever)
• be alongside other content (like videos in articles, not like a video as the main thing on a page)
• not allow you to pause, stop or hide it with your mouse and/or keyboard and/or touch (or whatever else you use to get around).

For your complaint to be most effective:

• both you and the site should be in the same general location. (US located people complaining to the US Government about a US company is always more helpful than trying to do international stuff.)
• you should probably mention that you have a medical condition that makes it difficult to focus when there are distractions
• you could mention they are not following this rule: "WCAG Pause, Stop, Hide (SC 2.2.2)"
• screen recordings are helpful evidence, but don't let this stop you, you can't upload them to the form and they might not request them anyway

Complaining about any organisation that gets government money is bonus points, they have even less room to wiggle out of it. Anyone from big business to small police department or anything in between has to follow this rule. They might also give some extra weight to complaints from US veterans?

If you think you tick all of those boxes you can fill out the online form on the Civil Rights Division site, but you should read first this ADA info about what happens when you complaint.

So if you find yourself getting annoyed by yet another distraction when you're just trying to get shit done in the US online, you now know you have an option to channel that frustration.

EU residents will be better able to channel their frustration June 2025. Some countries do have options now

A little extra info for the intrigued:

• The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines aren't guidelines anymore, they're pretty embedded in a lot of law. It's the list of things websites must do for people with disabilities. It's a bit difficult to navigate if you're new to it though.
• if you want to know more about this particular rule and why it exists here's an explanation of WCAG SC 2.2.2: Pause, Stop, Hide
• The WCAG is a requirement for places which accept government money under the Americans with Disabilities Act Title 2 Regulations while private companies are under Americans with Disabilities Act Title 3 Regulations. Same rule applies to both, so you don't even need to know this.
• a disability is defined as "a person with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment." Using the internet is a major life activity for many of us, and you don't need to identify as being disabled to fill in the form. The US Department of Labor's own website, the Job Accomodations Network lists ADHD as a disability and details employment accommodations though, so, it's not like you have to prove your life experience or anything

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, feel free to verify or refute this info with your own hyperfixation

Anyone got any recommendations or warnings about specific hdd / ssd / storage brands or models at the moment? Thinking about buying another drive instead of being smart and cleaning up my files. I've been pretty happy with Samsung but I've heard they had a clunker of a drive with high failure rates lately. HDD, SSD and I think I have an extra spare M2 nvme slot on my motherboard, so all recommendations are welcome. Price isn't a huge concern, but I don't feel the need to drop a thousand dollars on a single 22TB drive, anything 5TB and above will do fine for now.

My feed is filled with bad news, which is my fault for using the fediverse as a news feed, but it made me wonder: Which organisations, groups or individual people in the world are doing the most good for our world? I'm particularly interested in those who manage to do good on a larger impact scale (quantity or quality), but if the unknown person on your street who fosters kittens is a great example, I'd love to hear about them too.

Mr. Rogers told me to look for the helpers in times of trouble. Tell me about your favorite helpers!

Urine samples collected from wild chimpanzees in Uganda over decades have revealed older female chimps undergo hormonal changes much like those in menopausal humans.

The title for the 12ft link to the SMH article is "Police should not be responsible for Closing the Gap targets, says commissioner", which is accurate, but even after a quick skim of the actual report, seems to very much understate the problems. This quote buried in the report is an example:

"The Commission considers that any future NSW Police Force Aboriginal strategy requires the NSW Police Force to look at its own influence on over-representation. A strategy that purportedly aims to reduce over-
representation but does not encompass the impact of proactive policing is neglecting a key factor."

The full 86 page Aboriginal Strategic Direction (ASD) monitoring report by the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) is a garbage PDF as usual. But it contains some interesting data, and as far as public government reports go, is pretty damning. Pages 35-50ish are the meaty parts - make no mistake, this is an inter-department shitfight padded out with professional pleasantries.

Necessary knowledge

The Aboriginal Strategic Direction 2018-2023 (ASD) is the NSW Police Force's own self-made overarching plan and framework to address Aboriginal overrepresentation in the criminal justice system as part of requirements in the government's commitment to the "Closing the Gap" agreement. The LECC monitors their progress as an outside agency.

My favourite professional shade from the report

there is little evidence to support the statement contained in the ASD that:
"The ASD is a living document subject to ongoing review to ensure its relevance and currency to reflect emerging issues and to enable the development of innovative solutions"

Highlights

Aboriginal Community Liaison Officers (ACLOs) hired by the police are underpaid (max. $86k not incl. super) with no room for career or pay progression beyond that.

The LECC says that (paraphrased):

• the police didn't achieve their own goals / outcomes, and,
• that's the leadership's responsibility,
• the police made/use a framework that is internally incoherent, partly based on problematic assumptions and not evidence, not up to standards,
• they sometimes take actions that contradict their own goals,
• there are a lot of police who think community relationships are not compatible with law enforcement,
• the police aren't measuring and/or aren't providing required measurements for the LECC to review,
• the police are just using Wikipedia, if there is any listed source, for local community information and history instead of talking to their communities,
• the police may be using their discretion and powers in harmfully discriminatory ways,
• both the NSW government and police are avoiding dealing with goals that require their work if the agreements they signed are to succeed

And the LECC is pretty fucking sick of telling them their shit is broken, that they are required to fix their shit, and how to fix their shit over and over again.

Table 2 shows 0 police from Kings Cross or Surry Hills have completed "Working with Aboriginal Communities" training (because training never was provided, even though it's mandatory for everyone other local police dept?). Surry Hills is also ten times more likely to search an Aboriginal person and covers the largest Aboroginal populationin Australia, so, you know, what even is that about?

Appendix C shows that the Nepean and Orana Mid-West police have never gone to a consultative committee meeting with their communities even though they were required to. Table 3 also shows that no Orana mid-west police have completed locally focussed training either.

Appendix F and G show brief logs where you can see the Coroner's Office and LECC specifically being ignored or palmed off repeatedly, but the LECC being ignored is all through the report too.

One of the things that gets me about this is how long we've been using the familiar arch gravestone shape, in so many cultures, for nearly 5000 years since.

Dimensions:
Height: 143 cm / ~4'8" ;
Width: 65.5cm / ~2'2" ;
Thickness: 25 cm / ~10";
Weight: 700 kg / ~1543 lb

Medium:
limestone, protruding bas relief

Text content:
𓅃𓆓𓊁 Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Serekh Name (royal crest, basically) of the Pharoah Djet, represented by the falcon form of the god Horus standing on top of a rectangle with a snake at the top, and the palace façade/doorway architecture on the bottom.

This was like writing out the royal name in a fancy way, eg. "His Majesty, The Serpent Of Horus - The Living Incarnation Of The God Of Kingship, Healing, Protection, And The Sky". The cobra is the hieroglyphic syllable "Dj" as in English "adjacent", but we're not sure if people called him "Djet". The falcon is the bird-form of the god Horus, everything else is just to indicate the royal title.

Provenance:
Purchased from archaeologist at a public sale in 1904. Now owned by France and in the
Louvre Museum, Department of Egyptian Antiquities

This song came up in a "Best Music Videos of all time" thread the other day and it has been haunting me since then.

Content warning for song and especially video: it deals with basically every awful subject in humanity

The only thing that dates the song is the reference to 2010 as being in the future (and the CRT monitors in the clip), but maybe that's my nostalgia talking. This song and clip made a huge impact on me 25 years ago, and the fact it is so accurate still breaks my heart. We were warned, and here we are still.

The clip is animated by Todd McFarlane who made "Spawn" and the clip for Korn's "Freak on a Leash". And partially directed by Kevin Altieri who worked on "Batman: The Animated Series".

Lyrics (for people who don't speak Eddie Vedder):

[Intro]
Woo...

[Verse 1]
I'm ahead, I'm a man
I'm the first mammal to wear pants, yeah
I'm at peace with my lust
I can kill cause in God I trust, yeah
It's evolution, baby

[Verse 2]
I'm at peace, I'm the man
Buying stocks on the day of the crash
On the loose, I'm a truck
All the rolling hills, I'll flatten 'em out, yeah
It's herd behavior, uh huh
It's evolution, baby

[Chorus]
Admire me, admire my home
Admire my son, he's my clone
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
This land is mine, this land is free
I'll do what I want but irresponsibly
It's evolution, baby

[Bridge]
I'm a thief, I'm a liar
There's my church, I sing in the choir:
(Hallelujah, hallelujah)

[Chorus]
Admire me, admire my home
Admire my son, admire my clones
'Cause we know, appetite for a nightly feast
Those ignorant Indians got nothin' on me
Nothin', why? Because...
It's evolution, baby

[Verse 3]
I am ahead, I am advanced
I am the first mammal to make plans, yeah
I crawled the earth, but now I'm higher
2010, watch it go to fire
It's evolution, baby
It's evolution, baby

[Outro]
Do the evolution
Come on

Video summary (for people who can't or don't want to watch)

Throughout the video, a animated seductive woman (similar in appearance to the character Death from the DC comic book series, The Sandman) dances and laughs, representing "Death" as it follows mankind through all of its history. The video begins with the evolution of life, from the smallest cell to the extinction of dinosaurs and reign of Homo sapiens. The video then cuts back and forth throughout human history, depicting man's primitive, violent nature has essentially unchanged over the centuries. Such depictions include a knight preparing for the coming slaughter during the Crusades, a ritual dance by KKK (the dance is repeated with other groups throughout the video), a rally by Nazi-esque troops (with a symbol reminiscent of the Sig Rune instead of a swastika), concentration camp prisoners, a book burning, carnage upon a World War I-era battlefield, a girl stepping on an anthill as she runs blissfully through a field with the image suddenly changing to that of a landmine going off (as if the mine had been buried under the anthill itself), a death row inmate nervously waiting on an electric chair, the apparent virtual-reality rape of a woman, and the bombing of a Vietnamese village by an American jet, specifically an A-4 Skyhawk, the pilot of which removes his oxygen mask to reveal a skull laughing wildly, and a scene with a crying baby representing Bloody Saturday. Every scene portrayed complements the song's meaning and tightly follows the lyrics. When Vedder sings "Buying stocks on the day of the crash," a scene is shown where businessmen are committing suicide by jumping from buildings, a reference to the apocryphal suicides of Black Thursday during the Wall Street Crash of 1929.[14]

Other social and environmental issues such as slavery, whaling, colonialism, Manifest Destiny, uncontrolled urbanization, vivisection, pollution, genetic modification and techno-progressivism are included. The music video blames humankind's brutality on leadership; with various scenes depicting a judge, a bishop or pope, a Communist dictator and an American president candidate, who is being portrayed as a puppet, controlled by someone unseen, from behind the scene. The video concludes in what seems to be future scenarios of the self-destruction of the human race, including the carpet bombing of a city of clones by futuristic aircraft, computers hijacking the human mind, and finally a nuclear explosion which leaves not only a city in ruins, but the planet damaged beyond recognition. However, near the end of the animation, the earth is briefly seen as an ovum, suggesting a rebirth and the perpetuation of the human condition. During the sequence of flashing images near the end of the video an image of a yield sign being smashed at the corner can be seen, which references the album title and cover art.
- Lifted from the song's wikipedia video summary

Title changed from original for better internationalisation, because the ABC hates assuming you see their articles outside of their specific site categories.

Original linked article title:

"Pride, but also grief': Government to start taskforce following disability royal commission final report

Linked article lead paragraph:

After an inquiry lasting four and a half years, the royal commission makes 222 recommendations for change.

Some numbers from the Inquiry itself:

• 222 recommendations (mostly for federal government)
• 32 public hearings
• 7,944 submissions from the public received
• 17,824 Phone enquiries
• 1,785 Private sessions held

Some of the findings:

• There are around 4.4 million people with disability in Australia, or 18% of the total population. Reflecting that disability increases with age, the number of people with disability falls to 2.4 million when we look at people aged under 65 years. This is 12% of this age category.
• Around 35% of First Nations people under 65 had disability in 2018–19, nearly three times higher than the general population. Children accounted for 24% of all First Nations people with disability.
• As at 31 December 2022, there were 573,342 participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
• Across all age groups, people with disability experience considerably higher rates of violence than people without disability. People with disability also experience violence more frequently. This is unacceptable.
• Rates of violence are particularly high for: Women with psychological or intellectual disability, First Nations women with disability, young women with disability.
• Neglect of people with disability occurs in multiple forms and across different stages of their lives. We heard of many instances of people being deprived of necessities of life and assistance with daily activities. We also heard of systemic failures to provide an environment for each person to maximise their potential.
• The data on exploitation of people with disability is limited. However, people with disability shared with us experiences of both sexual and financial exploitation by other individuals.

Some of the recommendations (my summary):

• A new Australian Disability Rights Act
• Intersectionality, especially with First Nations peoples
• Legal obligation to prove 'unjustifiable hardship' as reason for not making accommodations for a person with disability
• Alter the migration act to prevent systemic disability discrimination, (amongst many other laws)
• Requiring the government to provide interpreters, both spoken language and sign language
• Transitioning to non-segregated education settings
• Transitioning to removal of 'group homes'
• Creating a National Disability Commission as an independent statutory body to monitor outcomes, with a majority leadership by people with disabilities
• Legal obligations for guardians to show they're attempting to act in the best interests of their guardee
• An extra $36 million in funding for disablity advocacy and insurance programs
• Making a number of restraint techniques and solitary confinement illegal in health, justice and education settings
• laws to prevent non-therapeutic permanent non-consensual sterilisation of people with disability
• Increased housing protections for tenants with disability
• teacher, police and healthcare worker training and requirements, especially around cognitive disabilities
• a registration system for disability support workers that defines their roles and requirements and gives them benefits like sick leave and retirement savings
• lots more data and reporting being published by the government
• way better complaints processes and investigations
• targets for disability employment at all levels of public service, including executives
• so many more, ~~read the article or inquiry links if you're keen.~~

Edited to add: A better breakdown of recommendations by category instead of my casual list