@DougG said in We need to start a group like this:

actually, some of those pictures just look like me trying to get out of bed in the morning.

Omg, me too. I swear, the first 15 minutes of being upright in the morning I look like a 100 year old lady.

@Axtremus Have seen "bikes" on the Tucson bike trails that use a motion like an elliptical machine for propulsion. They passed me, which does not mean they are fast.

There are many miles of bike trails here. One trail goes over the pass to Vail. A company takes tourists to the top of the pass so they can zoom down. It is a nice climb.
The Katy trail in Missouri was started when I was a student. It draws people from around the world.

Thanks for all the info WTG 🙂

I'll go take a photo later and share it. I think this bush probably needed to have been.. I don't know, pruned? It's top heavy and thin on the bottom half, which isn't great. And I think the blooms are going to be white, at least initially.

We'll see, I may warm to it.

These are great! 😀

@Axtremus said in Japan - women sue for the right to be sterilized:

A group of women in Japan is suing the government to have the Act overturned, claiming that the Act violated their constitutional right to equality and self-determination.

It does indeed. You hear that women in the US often face challenges getting doctors to agree to these surgeries, esp if the women are childless but still of child m-bearing age. There’s a great deal of paternalistic gate keeping by doctors.

But at least there’s not an actual law. 😑

In China, AI transformed Ukrainian YouTuber into a Russian -
https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/china-ai-transformed-ukrainian-youtuber-into-russian-2024-06-21/

Shortly after launching a YouTube channel in November last year, Loiek, a 21-year-old from Ukraine, found her image had been taken and spun through artificial intelligence to create alter egos on Chinese social media platforms.
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Her digital doppelgangers - like "Natasha" - claimed to be Russian women fluent in Chinese who wanted to thank China for its support of Russia and make a little money on the side selling products such as Russian candies.
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What's more, the fake accounts had hundreds of thousands of followers in China, far more than Loiek herself.
...

Wild! 👍

(Aha!! I see this software allows me to use phone emojis!)

Yikes! So it’s not only boxwood blight we have to worry about when thinking about planting bushes out front 😕

😞

I thought it was a miracle that Rachmaninoff was appearing with Trifonov and Babayan. No wonder it's sold out.

I always found it fascinating to look at mine. The textures, colors...

Another hero of my youth passes from the scene. RIP, Willie.

Big Al

Lamarckianism always seems like an ideological commitment more than an scientific one. I don’t follow epigenetics too closely but a lot of people in the field seem to spend a lot of time over their evidentiary skis.

Jesus. 😟

🤦‍♀️

I have no words.
smh

Woah.

Arity uses the data it collects to create driving scores and then sells them to auto insurance companies, which use the data to set rates for drivers using the apps. Arity claims it has over 40 million "active connections" to US drivers, who have opted into sharing their driving data through "consumer mobile apps, in-car devices, and connected cars."

So in other words, it's not generic data about how "people" drive, it's data that says specifically "this is how Mary Smith of Springfield USA drives."

Wow.

I'm glad I don't use any of those apps. And I have also consciously avoided those apps that car insurance companies try to get you to install as well.

But isn't it just a matter of time before GPS apps start doing that? I use Google maps all the time, and I'm logged in so my profile data could theoretically be matched with any tracking the map app does.

Brave new world.

smh.