Rentlar

@Rentlar@lemmy.ca

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨is it spelled "grey" or "gray"?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  A “Pint” of beer served commercially in Canada must be 20 imperial (UK) ounces (aka ~568 mL), with a 2.5% margin of error permitted within the law, unlike a US pint (16 US fl oz ~473mL).

  Just for fun, “Une pinte” of alcohol in French served commercially is “a quart” of alcohol in English which is double that value.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Welcome to Lemmy, glad you’re here!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I come across many users less than 3 months old, and they tend to introduce themselves occasionally on !reddit@lemmy.world.

  It’s fine if they come over a little at a time or in large waves or even if they don’t. I do worry about sometimes there are periods where discussion feels a little more toxic, bandwagoney and rigid, and others where people allow themselves to be a little more nuanced when discussing with each other. I like this site more when the latter is happening. Maybe new users need a little time settling down into a slightly different culture which is normal and expected.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Albanese, Taylor hit back at Trump tariff threat as US blasts 'unacceptable' failures⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  US blasts “unacceptable” failures makes up an excuse to circumvent domestic court rulings against capriciously levying tariffs on its own consumers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a way to view the comments on a deleted Lemmy post?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
  aramis 87's story part 3

  Various epilogues: The FBI confiscated the crystal ball and the Osiris statue, and re-confiscated the stand, for “forensics analysis”. But the staff at the Museum had thoroughly cleaned the stand before putting it into storage, the housekeeper took obsessively good care of the crystal ball, and the Osiris statue had been through too many locations under different conditions and entirely too many hands for anything useful to be found. Eventually, after many years of us asking, they returned the items to the Museum. There had been a reward offered for the successful return of the items - maybe $10k or something? The homeowner tried to claim it, but was turned down. I personally think it should have gone to Al the homeless junk guy: he explicitly saved the statue from the trash, his actions are the ones that triggered the whole recovery process, and he’s definitely the one who could have benefitted the most. But no :( Eventually they decided to give the money to Jes, who promptly turned around and donated it back to the Museum. While the theft shows clear signs of some insider knowledge - that there would likely be no Security response to alarms going off, and that the garage would be open and homeowner away - they never caught the thieves. I personally think the number of people who knew both things would be pretty small, but no one was ever charged. The FBI did a bunch of press conferences congratulating themselves on their diligent fieldwork and years-long persistence in recovering the objects - completely ignoring that they’d long since given up and that there would have been no discovery at all if Jes hadn’t wandered into that junk store. Years later, one of the FBI guys wrote a book and it turned out these were the guys from the FBI’s semi-newly-created Art Crimes Unit, and this was one of their first successful “investigations”. And, finally: the artifacts have been lovingly cleaned and returned to their display positions at University Museum. If you visit the Museum today and head to the Rotunda, you can see the Dowager Empress Cixi’s crystal ball sitting proudly on it’s solid silver stand, while the Osiris statue lives just a few yards away. Anyway, OP, that’s my answer to your question: a stolen, 2500 year old, 60 pound bronze statue of the Egyptian god Osiris. I can guarantee that it will cause much confusion over many years.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a way to view the comments on a deleted Lemmy post?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
  aramis 87's story part 2

  Then one day, Jes Canby (one of our Museum workers) happens to visit a junk store a few blocks off campus - Jes loves junk stores! As she’s wandering around looking at stuff, several aisles over, she sees something and thinks to herself, “Hunh. That kinda looks like the Osiris statue that was stolen from the Museum a few years ago.” She gets a couple aisles closer and thinks, “Wow, that really does look like the Osiris statue that got stolen!” She goes over to get a closer look and discovers the Museum accession numbers still on the side of the statue. She calls the police. The police show up. The FBI shows up (again). The shop owner is interrogated: Where did you get this statue?! Why, from Al the homeless junk guy, of course. Al wanders around on trash day and pulls out stuff, and the junk store guy buys it from him. Just last week, he paid Al $25 combined for the Osiris statue and an old side table. Does the FBI want the old side table, too? After much examination and consultation, the FBI does not want the old side table. And where, they ask, might the FBI find Al the homeless junk guy? I dunno, says the store owner, he’s homeless. So the FBI starts searching West Philly for Al. Eventually they find him. Where did you get the statue? they ask. “From the curb in front of some house a couple miles away; sometimes they throw away some nice stuff in that neighborhood.” They put him in the car and drive around a whole lot until they eventually find the right house (things look different from a car). They question the homeowner: Where and how did he get the Osiris statue? “I didn’t,” he says. "I have a large garage and my family and friends sometimes store things there. I was on vacation in Europe a few years ago, and when I got back, this statue was there. I asked my family and and friends about it and no one knew anything about it. “I started clearing out my garage a month or so ago, and asked again and no one still knew anything about the statue, so I gave it to my brother-in-law; he wanted it for a lawn ornament. Except his wife thought it was ugly and made him bring it back. I didn’t have any use for it, so I put it out with the trash.” Oh? asks the FBI real casually. Did anything else happen to show up around the same time? A pause while the homeowner thinks. “Oh yeah - there was a crystal ball, too. I gave it to my housekeeper - she’s really into all that New Age-y stuff. Where does she live? Oh, somewhere across the river - maybe Trenton, I think?” So the FBI gets the housekeeper’s info and drives across the river to Trenton and knocks on her door. She truly does have a bunch of New Age-y stuff in her place. They ask her about the crystal ball the homeowner gave her. “Oh yes,” she says. “You know, I used to keep it in my bedroom, but the light in there was just too strong - it burned a hole in my arm!” And where, they ask patiently, is it now? “Oh, it’s right over there.” She points. It’s on the coffee table; she’s using it as a hatstand. [continued]

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a way to view the comments on a deleted Lemmy post?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
  aramis 87's story part 1

  Oh. Oh god. Okay, so bear with me. Many years ago, some friends and I worked at the University Museum of Archeology and Anthropology at University of Pennsylvania. At the time of this story, the museum was undergoing a bunch of renovations. The renovation dust would intermittently get kicked up by the ventilation system or would fall in a clump or whatever, and the movement would set of the security alarms. After a couple months of this, Security became somewhat lax in responding to alarms, because every night there were a number of false alarms. So, one early morning, a student is walking to the university and spots something weird sitting in the middle of the pedestrian walkway on the South Street bridge. As they get closer, it starts to look familiar. They get up close and recognize it as the solid silver stand that usually supports the Dowager Empress’ crystal ball in the Rotundra of the Museum. This is the first indication that anyone has that the museum was burgled the night before. The police are called, the stand goes through evidence collection, everyone traipses over to the Museum, Security (and the museum administration) is shocked. Everyone starts looking around for whatever else might have been taken. Eventually we conclude that only three items are missing: the Dowager Empress’ crystal ball, the solid silver stand the ball usually rests on, and a 2500 year old bronze statue of the Egyptian god Osiris. [The ball is gorgeous: it’s like the third largest crystal ball in the world, it’s absolutely flawless, and John Wanamaker bought it for like $50,000 back in 1920.] All three items were taken from either the Rotundra itself or just nearby. This is somewhat confusing, as the Rotundra is all the way toward the back of the Museum, and up a couple staircases. Why wouldn’t the thieves grab stuff from a more accessible area instead of crossing almost the entire Museum? Also, the objects are heavy or difficult to carry - why wouldn’t they take something smaller, more easily portable, and more valuable - for example, the Tang dynasty horses that are also in the Rotundra and much more valuable? Even more confusing is why the thieves decided to ditch the stand for the crystal ball. Presumably they were having problems carrying all three items and decided to leave one behind. Did they drop the four-foot tall 60-pound statue of Osiris? No. Did they leave the 50-pound crystal ball which is very round and can be hard to hold safely? No. They decided to leave behind the 20-pound stand, which has lots of easy finger-holds, is made of solid silver, and is easily meltable into easily-sold unidentifiable metal. It’s all just … very weird. Anyway, the police show up. Because of some University association with the state that I can no longer remember, the FBI shows up. There’s lots of chaos. And … nothing happens. The FBI takes the stand into custody for forensic examination, but they can’t find any clues. They keep the stand in custody for a couple years in case “something else turns up” but the case goes cold. Eventually they return the stand to the Museum. We clean it carefully and, heartbroken, put it into storage. And for a couple more years, nothing happens. [continued]

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a way to view the comments on a deleted Lemmy post?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Ok I sleuthed and found it using Lemmy’s searchbar for the mention of “museum” in asklemmy community, sorted by new, good thing you asked quickly enough.

  You can read it in @aramis87@fedia.io 's profile. I’ll post a reproduction of it under this comment. (DM me aramis if you want me to take my copy of your story down)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I am propane and propane accessories⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They looked at you and said “That boi ain’t right”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Vibe management⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You know that wouldn’t happen. Which AI company wants to be the one that says, “we’re happy with where the model is at right now” and stops throwing cash into the boiler of the investor hype train and let their competitors exceed them in real or imagined metrics? Clearly firms like Anthropic have to rely on circus marketing tricks like “This model is too dangerous for the general public to see! Ooooh scary! Coming Soon!”, and they can’t do that without continuous training.

  For you and I, the offline models aren’t too bad for getting little side projects started, but for major AI firms, the ongoing training cost for the next model and the one after that has become ingrained into the operating model.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨David Lammy promises 25% cut in number of children jailed while they await trial⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Better than Lammy promising to cut children in jail awaiting trial by 25%.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨60% of PC gamers have no plans to build a new PC in the next two years — AI pricing crunch on RAM and other components paralyze enthusiast market⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Perhaps some of them are betting on the AI bubble crashing in the next two years, bringing prices down, maybe, hopefully?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is it like traveling with two passports at the same time?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  You should enter and leave the country with the same passport (important if your country checks passports on exit), but you can switch it up en route. Generally if you need help with something in one of the countries of your nationality you go to that embassy, for example if a disaster hits and you need to be evacuated, whichever embassy would attempt at assisting you to get to that nation.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨SBA #94 THE FOOT LONG COMPENDIUM CONUNDRUM CONTINUES⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  graph of this equation

  Its lower side tends to -3, asymptote at x=-2, a discontinuity between 0 and ~0.66, and an upper side tends to 3. The x+/-infinity ends are the least interesting parts of this eqaution’s graph…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Some folks might call me a dreamer⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Why are you celebrating the good thing? Whatabout bad thing #768390626?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do I ACTUALLY get hired by the United States Postal Services (USPS)?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Are you able to attach a reference from the local manager in your application? Can you attach a cover letter?

  If you see the listing, can you basically paraphrase each qualification and/or key duty and tie it to your experience on your resumé? I don’t know what ARC role is but for example, “Sorted 100s of files per day as a Mytown Public Library volunteer.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨China’s Electrostate Is Poised to Win From War in the Middle East⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yep, both China and Russia are the victors of the war between USA, Israel and Iran. Russia for the short term boost to their coffers from sanction free oil, and China for having been prepared to meet the moment in renewable energy and battery tech.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's tax season and my parents don't really feel lime paying this... Alright Lemmy, what should they do? 👀⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  According to NZXT’s advertising partners, all your parents need to do is to win a Fortnite tournament, then they can afford it, easy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Finally, a real name for your penis⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Danny DeVito would say, “Oh, whoops! I dropped my Monster Condom that I use for my Girthy Injector”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Amazon’s idea of improving Luna involves stripping back most of it⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What do you even get from a Luna subscription? Just a Amazon-only rental library of games?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨aaand it's closed again⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  My read on the situation:

  • Iran said "We will stop attacking if US and Israel stop attacking and considers our plan"
  • USA said "We will stop attacking, not go through with our genocidal war crime threat, and remove the time pressure we put on ourselves"
  • Israel said “We will keep doing our extermination and colonization campaign in Lebanon on the side while you two talk, surely that doesn’t count as attacking”
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there no rule against politics in shitposts? I mean, most of y'all are way into regulation. I guess maybe not when it applies to you.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Anything (not illegal and within reason). Post corn if you’re upset about that 🌽.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Three Big Questions Delaying New York [State]’s Budget⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Wealth tax on the richest in New York City and State now!

  Mamdani:

  Well? We’re waiting…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How long until the rise of games with mods turns into user created games.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Legion TD2 is a game that was originally a Starcraft mod.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨how is lemmy funded?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Many small server instances are paid for out of pocket (you can make your own too, about $60/year renting a cloud server and $10/year for a domain name). Bigger servers rely on user donations.

  The Lemmy software development relies on donations as well, but they also receive grants from NLNet. Some of the grants are tied to accomplishing specific features. Third party app developers generally rely on donation support as well, if they’re not doing it just for the fun of it. Unsupported projects tend to get dropped after a while, though, so money does help keep up motivation.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨As a Chinese American, if I wanna travel internationally, is it better to just say I'm American, or pretend to be a Chinese National (to hide from Anti-American sentinments)?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If you can be respectful of the local culture where you’re visiting while you’re there, you’ll be fine. Being an obnoxious American tourist is just as bad as an obnoxious Chinese tourist. Outside of unwarranted xenophobia, your behaviour matters more than your race.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wealth Taxes Are Pointless While Tax Havens Exist⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If it hides, we go to find it. Countries like the US, Canada, Ireland etc. choose to recognize as valid these elaborate schemes involving shell games in multiple countries, instead of insisting on their formula. But what would be better is a Canada-Europe agreement on a standardized taxation and deduction system that includes minimum wealth taxes applied across all member nations. Sketchy accounting is nothing new, we just have to agree to deal with it together.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What the fuck is going on with Iran and what will happen next?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Trump and his staffers are desperately trying to find a way to TACO but still somehow claim victory like his other two expeditions in Venezuela and Iran (2025), because it clearly didn’t have the effect they thought it would have like when Bush II did it.

  Unlike the US, Iranian forces had a plan that was formulated for years. Doesn’t mean things will go as they envision, due to US, Israeli, Gulf state, and internal factors putting a lot of uncertainty in the mix. Iran is okay with the current situation in the short term unlike the US, but there is elevated risk for a potential coup, an Israeli-style drawn out genocide and annexation, just a stalemate war of air defense attrition, or who knows what in Iran. There will be pressure from all sides to figure something amicable between the belligerents, hopefully sooner than later.

  I predict: Oil/gas prices will stay high for months, air ship and truck transportation costs will be somewhat higher and goods will be a little higher for the same period. Over the next year, governments, businesses and people will turn to electricity and renewables pretty much out of necessity (look at Indian residents turning to Induction Stoves in droves) that will lower our needs for fuel which will hopefully offset the shock from future oil supply crunches. Optimistically, it could accelerate the world’s efforts to net zero.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Sorry, I’m taken already. Isn’t that right, Nicole the Fediverse Chick?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lutris now being built with Claude AI, developer decides to hide it after backlash⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s a mixed bag, I’m pretty neutral on it since it prevents copyleft licensing as much as copyright.