Archive.today link

Some key excerpts:

On Monday, X filed an objection in The Onion’s bid to buy InfoWars out of bankruptcy. In the objection, Elon Musk’s lawyers argued that X has “superior ownership” of all accounts on X, that it objects to the inclusion of InfoWars and related Twitter accounts in the bankruptcy auction, and that the court should therefore prevent the transfer of them to The Onion.

The legal basis that X asserts in the filing is not terribly interesting. But what is interesting is that X has decided to involve itself at all, and it highlights that you do not own your followers or your account or anything at all on corporate social media, and it also highlights the fact that Elon Musk’s X is primarily a political project he is using to boost, or stifle, specific viewpoints and help his friends

Except in exceedingly rare circumstances like the Vital Pharm case, the transfer of social media accounts in bankruptcy from one company to another has been routine. When VICE was sold out of bankruptcy, its new owners, Fortress Investment Group, got all of VICE’s social media accounts and YouTube pages. X, Google, Meta, etc did not object to this transfer because this sort of thing happens constantly and is not controversial.

Jones has signaled that Musk has done this in order to help him, and his tweet about it has gone incredibly viral.

X calls itself “the sole owner” of X accounts, and states that it “does not consent” to the sale of the InfoWars accounts, as doing so would “undermine X Corp.’s rightful ownership of the property it licenses to Free Speech Systems [InfoWars], Jones, or any other account holder on the X platform.” Again, X accounts are transferred in bankruptcy all the time with no drama and with no objection from X.

Meta, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, and ByteDance have run up astronomical valuations by more or getting people to fill their platforms with content for free, and have created and destroyed countless businesses, business models, and industries with their constantly-shifting algorithms and monetization strategies. But to see this fact outlined in such stark terms in a court document makes clear that, for human beings to seize any sort of control over their online lives, we must move toward decentralized, portable forms of social media and must move back toward creating and owning our own platforms and websites.

Github: https://github.com/MediaHarbor/mediaharbor

Hi!

I recently switched to Fedora 40 from Windows 10 and have finally started working on getting my games going. I have the KDE Plasma desktop version.

I have a lot of mods in Stardew, which I was able to get installed successfully using Vortex and Wine.

But, Stardew is not recognizing my save files, and Steam doesn't know that I'm playing.

Where should I start looking? It's definitely an issue with how I set up Vortex and Steam but I don't know how to fix it.

Vortex is set up through Wine and Steam is the Linux version (I think Proton is included on Steam under compatibility too). One of the instructions I found said to do symlinks from the .steam folder and place it into home/[user]/Games. A different one said to also make symlinks into home/[user]/Documents/Games. I never deleted the one under documents but Vortex is directed to the home/[user]/Games directory, which itself is linked to the apps folder under .steam

My save files are on my computer and not corrupted - they are in the .config folder. I tried linking the save files into the Vortex folder in .wine and that didn't work either. I also tried putting it in the relevant area under .steam folder but no dice. I never did symlinks before so I am not sure if that was a decent way to do it or not. I feel like I tried so many things I am not sure which folders I can remove now! Maybe in a different life I am more organized.

Stardew itself loads fine, if a little slow (my computer is a dinosaur) (still faster than when I had Windows!). I was able to select the mod settings from the home screen so it does recognize the mods, just not the save files.

I have hundreds of hours in Stardew so I would be grateful to be able to access my previous saves!

Thanks in advance!

President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be secretary of the Navy, John Phelan, has not served in the military or had a civilian leadership role in the service. While officials and defense experts said the Navy is in sore need of a disruptor, they cautioned that Phelan’s lack of experience could make it more difficult for him to realize Trump’s goals.

Trump late Tuesday nominated Phelan, a major donor to his campaign who founded the private investment firm Rugger Management LLC. The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment on his qualifications. According to his biography, Phelan’s primary exposure to the military comes from an advisory position he holds on the Spirit of America, a non-profit that supports the defense of Ukraine and the defense of Taiwan.

Not all service secretaries come into the office with prior military experience, but he’d be the first in the Navy since 2006. Current Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth similarly does not have prior military service. She, however, has spent her career in a host of defense civilian positions.

#FCKNZS

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22527997

The new Plex UI has modern visuals and one-handed navigation. But is it a step back for self-hosting enthusiasts?

Despite the efforts of law enforcement agencies to stop and bring to justice those responsible for ransomware attacks, the situation is not improving. While authorities do not recommend making a ransomware payment, some companies are forced to make that choice in order to continue their operations. In this article, we present some important statistics about the ransom demands that companies are facing. 83% of organizations experienced at least one ransomware attack in the last year … More → The post Ransomware payments are now a critical business decision appeared first on Help Net Security.

With all the discussion about owl defense in the grocery store post, I thought I'd highlight some in a new post so everyone can see.

Owl's main weapons are their feet. They've got big claws, they are super strong, and they're lightning fast. In comparison, the beak is weak, short, and curved so it doesn't give much reach. It's also close to the vital eyes and ears.

This Long Eared Owl is defending its egg from a very determined kestrel. You can see all the defense behaviors (clicking, flaring, and fighting) a number of times in the full video.

Here's the description from the video:

I invite you to watch two stories -LEOS courtship including food dance, rodent delivery and nest scraping. Each story takes place in Hungary in March 2024 and each ends in a fight of Long-eared owl (Female) with Kestrel (Female).

In the first case, the nest box belonged to long- eared owls in previous seasons and Kestrels want to take it over this season. They did not succeed. Mrs LEO Won.

The nest box which is shown in the second part of the video belonged to Kestrels in previous seasons but in 2024, LEOS occupied it during the night and Kestrels during the day. Thus, when Mrs LEO had her first egg and stayed in the nest box during the day, a problem arose as Kestrels wanted to have this nest box for themselves and fought for it. In this case, Kestrels won and Mrs LEO left her egg in the nest box. Kestrels do not eat the egg but guard the nest box.

Another nest box has been installed next to it, so that both Kestrels and LEOS Could have their own place but Kestrels guard both nest boxes now and LEOS do not come to any of them. Enjoy!

I've put the best kick attack in the title pic here for you if you don't want to watch the whole thing. The video is great though, the sound adds a lot to the experience and there is so much great bird behavior. The kestrel is really trash talking the LEO before many of the fights.

There's nothing I'd consider especially graphic, but it's bird fighting, and the egg does not make it in part 2, so there is that.

She's hoping that you'll trip over her. If you go around, she'll lunge out at your ankles. Loads of fun either way!

Obviously this is for both, men and women, you know, the song "if I was a rich man" and i saw the meme with...

sigh just answer the question

🙂 Daily Quordle 1039
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ID: A scene from The Good Place in two images. Janet is talking to Chidi, Michael is standing behind her. In the top image she says "Fun fact: Columbus is in the Bad Place" In the bottom image she continues "because of all the raping, slave trade, and genocide."

Circumnavigate the wax tadpole. Tremulous! Indeed, the tuning fork does a raw blink on Hari-Kiri Rock. The deft jackdaw revolves in conclusion.

While we are on the topic of counterfeits, here's this. The oddity of this knife is a double-whammy because it is not only mechanically interesting, but it positions itself explicitly as a knockoff.

And there's a twist there, because I'm almost completely certain that this knife is an AI hallucination. Or the real world equivalent, anyway; a physical artifact you can hold in your hands that's a clone of an original that doesn't exist.

Let me back up and start at the beginning.

This is the "AKC Coltsock II," which is of course endlessly resold under a variety of guises, often including the words "Mafia" or "Stilletto" in the description somewhere. And the distinct "Leverletto by Bill DeShivs" inscription on the blade is pretty hard to miss.

Bill DeShivs is a very real knife designer who is the originator of the Leverletto design and trademark. This has of course been knocked off wholesale and many times over by various Chinese counterfeiters, a point about which Bill himself has become a bit acerbic, and deservedly so. His genuine knives are quite collectible and command a high price, which certainly hasn't gone unnoticed by those wacky Chinamen who are happy to horn in on that particular market with oodles and oodles of cheap fake knives.

Here's the thing.

This "Coltsock" thing has a fake DeShivs trademark on it, and even bills itself as a "Leverletto" (even though the mechanism is actually different from a genuine Leverletto) but near as I can figure it doesn't resemble any original DeShivs design at all. And despite also saying "AKC" on it, nor does it look like anything I can find that AKC -- who is also a real knife manufacturer, and for whom DeShivs has legitimately designed knives -- has ever sold.

Maybe my internet sleuthing skills fail me, and maybe I'm wrong. But to the nearest decimal place I can't find any reference to this thing that isn't clearly yet another knockoff. I can't even find any evidence of any other knife design that's been coped and the DeShivs name simply transferred to it. The best I can do is that apparently one was sold in this auction, featuring no details other than a picture of a knife that looks damn similar to mine, up to and including the slightly sketchy markings, and raises the hilarious possibility that some poor bastard got very, severely ripped off.

So there, the trail goes cold. There's not even anything that even looks remotely like this in Bill's quite extensive online museum.

But if this is a bespoke design, why attach someone else's name to it? This whole thing makes no sense.

What drew me to this knife in the first place was of course it's wacky double-mechanism design. This is a side opening automatic, fired off by means of the large square button on the left side. But it's covered in other toggles and controls, like a toddler's busybox, and you know damn well that sort of thing is right up my alley.

The sliding thingy on the back is a safety, what for to prevent you from setting this off in your pocket.

This is superficially a stiletto design, and has an "Italian style" lockup that works by way of a pin machined into the back of the blade falling into a hole in the flexible spring loaded bar in the spine of the handle.

How it unlocks, though, has nothing to do with the button, unlike most side opening autos. Instead it's by way of this lever on the side. When you press this down it pushes the locking bar upwards just a smidge by way of a little prong, releasing the blade and allowing you to fold it up.

One other random thing of note is that despite snapping open with vicious alacrity...

...The spring only engages with the blade for the first little bit of its travel. Let's say 20 degrees or so. For the rest, it just flaps around freely. So again unusually compared to a lot of side openers, it also allows you to half close the knife for a gratuitous glamor shot.

Like this.

The Numbers

The Coltsock, or whatever it actually is, stands at 7-3/4" long when open and 4-3/8" when closed. It has very modern injection molded scales which various ~~sources~~ sellers sometimes describe as "FRN," i.e. glass filled Nylon, and that seems plausible. The liners, lock bar, and so forth are all steel and there are no wonder-materials to be found anywhere in it, all adding up to a net weight of 92.5 grams or 3.26 ounces.

It has a 3-1/4" long blade as measured from the forwardmost point of the handle which is incessantly described as a "stiletto" profile, although in reality it's basically just a drop point that's got a narrow footprint. It's hollow ground and not to an especially fine degree. The final product is bead blasted and satiny, but still has a visible pattern of machine marks in it. It's the usual 0.110" at it's thickest point, so you probably won't be using this for your next bushcraft knife even with the best will in the world.

All added up, the Coltsock is a pretty chunky number despite its wafer thin blade. 0.634" across its handles, not including any of the bits of its user interface sticking out. If you include the unlocking lever, which is its widest point, it's 0.857". There is neither a clip nor a lanyard hole, so you're on your own figuring out how you want to carry it.

Oh, and as you can see the blade in my example isn't quite centered.

The steel itself is pretty straight and there isn't much lash in the pivot, but it just sits in there a hair cockeyed. And while it doesn't wiggle at the pivot noticeably, the blade is thin enough -- especially on its forwardmost half -- that it's quite easy to make it flex noticeably.

I did not take this apart because it is undoubtedly full of small fiddly springs. You can see that it has brass, not bronze, pivot washers, though.

Messing With It

The Coltsock is certainly a mechanical oddity. It's certainly a lot easier to bust out than put away, for whatever that's worth. And I'm not super sold on the inclusion of the safety, honestly. The button takes a pretty concerted push to set off the mechanism, but on the bright side it also takes a deliberate effort to set and unset the safety, too. So it's unlikely to get accidentally activated, either way.

Fortunately, at least, the safety has no effect whatsoever on the unlocking lever. You can also fold the blade up even with the safety engaged, so it appears to work by blocking off the fire button only and not by jamming up the entire mechanism solid. So that's nice, and not a dumb as it could have been.

The Coltsock is a pretty good cutter for light duty tasks, despite itself. That's probably down to the thin hollow ground blade geometry. That's also true of lots of other small, thin hollow ground knives as well for the same reason, of course. And I'll bet you most of those won't also be illegal to carry in 99% of the world, and you might even be able to prove who actually made a lot of them.

Here's the edge. The factory grind certainly isn't great. It has this weird compound angle thing going on, which is going to have to be ground out if you want to properly sharpen it. If we're feeling charitable we might theorize the manufacturer did this on purpose, rather than through ineptitude, to preserve the sharpness of the edge knowing full well the strengths and limitations of the steel they used.

But do you know, I'll bet you they didn't.

And you'll be grinding away anyway, because as expected the edge is quite out of true. It's actually not bad towards the middle of its length, but it gets progressively worse towards the tip until it culminates in what you see here.

It's not as awful further up.

As a "fighting" knife, the Coltsock probably leaves a lot to be desired. All the marketing hyping up its stilettotude, plus the pseudo-tactical black injection molded scales with their high tech slots and runnels in them, are obviously trying to tell a story to the mall ninjas and whackers in the audience. As a fast opening auto with very easy to locate controls, it'd certainly be better than nothing for self defense. But it also hasn't got any kind of cross or fingerguard on it, not even the perfunctory one usually found on an Italian style stiletto, so you'd better hope your opponent is unarmed and you probably also ought not to stab him too hard lest your hand slide right up and off the handle.

On the bright side, not having a guard on it means you can almost kinda-sorta bring most of the cutting edge to bear on a flat surface. So it wouldn't be completely hopeless for cutting up your peppers and onions at camp.

Of course, your guess is as good as mine as to what the hell this is made of. There's nothing marked on it to say -- nobody's even thought to engrave a creative lie on it. It's probably 440C. That should be fine for what it is provided it's heat treated correctly. But if I were you, I wouldn't go around grinding too shallow an angle on the edge.

The Inevitable Conclusion

I'm still as baffled as you are.

If this is a knockoff, I don't know what it's a knockoff of. And if there is no original, is it still actually a knockoff? Philosophers might argue over this until the end of our days.