My kids have a pile of cardboard screws that they use to turn boxes into all sorts of things; rockets, forts, cars and you could probably make organizers, shelves and the like too. The screws grip the cardboard surprisingly well, and it’s easy to make even quite large structures robust.

It’s an interesting observation. We observe the world in landscape because our eyes are positioned to give us a goid balance between binocular vision and seeing predators in our peripheral vision, but most of our interactions are portrait, I suspect due to our upright posture. Most of the instances you mentioned are with things that either are, or are evolutiobs if things that were, designed around the fact we are talker than we are wide.

It would be interesting to observe whether animals with a different posture interact differently.

A valid point, trackers often give you a certain amount of upload credit for free, and there are often other ways to earn those credits too, so all users’ ratios would be above 1.0, but that should have read “A closed group of users can all have a seed ratio of 1.0” if we’re looking at just the data transfer itself.

A closed group of users can all have a seed ratio above 1.0, but it’s a bit of a contrived set up. For simplicity, in the following examples we assume that each file is the same size, but this also works for other combinations.

Consider the smallest group, two users. If user A seeds a file and user B downloads it, whilst B seeds a different file, which A downloads, both users will have a ratio of 1.0 as they’ve up and down loaded the same amount.

For three users, A seeds a file, B and C then download a different half each, which they then share with each other. A has a total (upload, download) of (1,0), whilst B and C have (0.5,1). If you repeat this with B seeding and A and C downloading, then C seeding to A and B, you get each peer uploading 2 files worth of data, and downloading 2 files worth, for a ratio of 1.0 each.

You can keep adding peers and keep the ratios balanced, so it is possible for all the users on a private tracker to have a 1.0 ratio, but it’s very unlikely to work out like that in real life, which is why you have other ways to boost your ratio.

No, you cannot meaningfully delete your posts or comments, but that’s not because of any issue with lemmy, but because you posted them publically. They will be archived and indexed in other services.

It is always best to remember that all your activity here is public, and will be linked to your username. Given that, you may wish to minimise any personally identifying information you post, and use several accounts to split up your activities by topic.

I’ve read the NYT article, and I can’t see anywhere where the author ‘sincerely considers the idea that Rachel Griffin-Accurso, the popular children’s entertainer known as Ms. Rachel, might be financially compensated by Hamas.’ Instead they report that ‘the advocacy group StopAntisemitism’ ‘sent a letter urging Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate whether Accurso is receiving funding to further Hamas’s agenda.’

The article as a whole seems pretty positive towards Miss Rachel, and uses her comments to point out how bad things are in Gaza, and insinuates that StopAntisemitism are the problematic ones.

Your points are well made. I was just considering the passage as quoted, rather than in a larger context. As a response to Social Darwinism, and a demonstration of cooperative behaviours, it makes a lot more sense. I may have to add some of his writings to my reading list, although, as you can probably judge from the time it’s taken me to reply, I don’t seem to have much spare time right now!

Cats’ social behaviour, when there’s no resource shortage, is fascinating. They seem to go from hissing, growling and general agression at a new member to head rubs and purring remarkably quickly, although when food gets short all bets are off again. Dropping the agression is beneficial to the individual, as they’re less likely to be injured, and coincidentally helps the group. Cats are an unusual species in that they naturally form social groups where rest, but have individual teritories where they hunt. If you haven’t seen it before, you might enjoy a documentary series called ‘The secret life of cats’ by the BBC. They monitor various groups of cats to see how they interact and go about their lives.

Fair point, I wasn’t sure it was the equals, hence my initial question. Drawing boxes with the box drawing characters does make a lot more sense.

The #define = line would mean the = would be effectively removed, rendering the for a syntax error. That is, assuming it is an equals sign they’ve redefined, and not similar looking character.

Have they #defined out the equals symbol? I don’t think that for loop is going to compile.

Try writting ‘Deceased’ on it and return it. At the very least it’ll give any human who sees it a momentary pause, and maybe they’ll take it more seriously.

Thank you for a thoughtful reply, and my appologies for only responding to what appear to be the key points, life has decided to get busy.

You are correct in saying that the animal behaviours discussed are largely evolutionary, the question is what the driver is. Maybe I am being too cynical, but in each example I see a behaviour that is tailored to the benefit of the individual and their genetic line, rather than to the benefit of the group as a whole.

The horses forming a defensive ring have their young on the inside, and are acting to protect them, not the young of others. The person acting to put out the fire at a neighbour’s house seeks to stop it spreading to their house (look at reports of historical fires in cities for many examples) or to encourage others to help them in times of trouble. Kittens playing together rather than attempting to kill their siblings benefit directly from the play, and lack the necessary strength to kill anyway. Other species’ young are not so delicate. Any altruistic behaviour can be framed as selfish when you consider the benefits the individual gains, both in terms of a positive feeling and in terms of social ‘credit’ for want of a better term, although that take may really be too cynical for most.

One of the most obvious ways to see how selfish these behaviours are is to see what happens when they don’t work out for some reason, say lack of resources, or where a larger benefit can be gained by acting differently. Lions kill each others cubs, in many species the strong will monopolise resources to the detriment of weaker members of society, others will steal cached food from members of their own kind. Even herd animals will leave the slowest members behind if it means personal survival.

As I said, I do think humans would benefit from much more cooperation, but I think Kropotkin’s point is weak and mostly relies on the reader thinking the animals mentioned are cute and fluffy, or majestic, rather than thinking about their behavior. I think his point would have been better made by comparison to either bees or ants, which clearly operate communally, with little regard to individual benefit. They’re perhaps not so pleasant a comparrison, and are notably hierarchical with a ‘queen’ as the topmost tier, but, to me, they seem to fit his argument better.

The problem with that passage is that every behaviour that he attributes to ‘a feeling infinitely wider than love or personal sympathy’ can more readily and obviously be seen in terms of self preservation and individual gain. This is not to say that every instance of these behaviours in every species is selfish, but his explainations do nothing to disprove that. Neighbour’s house on fire? Put it out before it spreads here. Ruminants being attacked by wolves? Form a circle to protect your sides and rear. Woleves hunting as a pack? More members bring down bigger prey so there’s more food per member, and less personal risk of injury. Kittens play to hone their hunting abilities, and to start to form dominancy hierarchies. Birds flock together because it’s more efficient to follow another bird, rather than lead. And so on.

None of this is some gotcha that proves that cooperation is somehow unnatural, or that selfishness is more natural, but to assume the opposite is hopelessly naive.

More cooperation and working towards the common good would do wonders for the human race, but it’s fighting against a lot of instincts, both old and new.

Clearly fake, it says there’s a tty number in the top left corner and there isn’t.

We fix it with rockets. Circularize the orbit and set it to an integer number of days that’s divisible by 28.

That only gives you 364 daya per year and we need just fractionally less than 365.25. You end up needing an extra day every year, and if we want to keep midnight in the middle of the night, and extra full day every four years (except when we don’t). Adding those sorts of bodges onto an otherwise elegant system would be awful to work with.

Instead, I propose we build giant rocket engines pointing straight up on the equator, and adjust the Earth’s orbit until one orbit around the sun takes exactly 364 days.

Rather than a platform, I’ve been wondering if you could rig it so opening the box opens some holes on the bottom, so they think they dodged the worst of it, pick it up to dispose of it and get a desk full from underneath.

That’s a fair observation, but I assume they’re trained to deal with suspicious packages safely, and that stuff will get transfered throughout the whole building and make everyone’s lives that bit more ‘special’. It’ll still hit the bottom line too.

Don’t use a rock, use 10lb of glitter.

Possesive spirit, 5 minutes later: “Let me out! Let me go back to hell!”

Me: “Nope, you pushed in, now you gotta drive.”

Spirit: “Please? At least it’s warm there.”