It really looks to me (a non-lawyer, non-legal-expert) as if the “oh we just need the rights necessary to fulfill the requests you make to Firefox” terms are kind of trying to confuse Mozilla-the-organization with Firefox-the-software-running-on-your-computer. Like, they seem to be saying that if you e.g. submit some text to a comment box on some website, then in order for Firefox, i.e. the copy of Firefox running on your computer, to send that text to that server, it is necessary for you to grant Mozilla, an organization that does not own your computer and whose computers are not running your copy of Firefox, all the rights necessary for them to send your data to the requested server.

It’s as if they’re trying to say that the copy of Firefox on your computer is considered to be part of and acting on behalf of the Mozilla organization and therefore anything it does, even actions directly requested by you like loading a page when you click a link, are legally the actions of Mozilla and not you. Which doesn’t make any sense to me. Like, if a user uses Firefox to do something illegal is Mozilla then liable for that? If I go into my file manager and make a copy of a file whose contents I own the copyright to, do the makers of the file manager and of the filesystem and of every other piece of software in the chain all need to be granted the legal rights to make copies of my content, just to protect against me turning around and suing them for copyright infringement over the copy I myself instructed the file manager to make? That seems completely bonkers.

My understanding is that websites have this sort of language in their ToU because once you submit a comment / post / whatever to be displayed publicly, it is necessary for software running on their server and under their control to then transmit copies of your content whenever someone loads the page. But when you operate Firefox as a web browser to access a (non-Mozilla-owned) webpage, no server owned or operated by Mozilla should be involved in the process unless you have explicitly opted into telemetry, data sharing, VPN/proxy services from Mozilla, etc.

I feel like “downloading a file removes it from the computer you’re downloading it from” was a weirdly common misconception in the 90s. I’m sure I remember some Star Trek episode that felt the need to specify that a bunch of data had been “copied and downloaded” from the hero ship’s computer so that the audience wouldn’t think that the data was now gone. Maybe the desktop metaphor where files are presented as physical objects that can be moved around contributed to this belief. Maybe also all the anti piracy PSAs that likened downloading music to stealing a car

Well, God has concepts of a plan anyway

Strongly agree with this. Even if one is correct about someone being an egg, eggs need to be supported to hatch for themselves, not be smashed open before they are ready. Let eggs hatch.

“Mmm let’s see, the ship is about to go into a potential crisis situation, yes this sounds like the perfect time to break up a ton of working relationships and give my whole crew jetlag”

The glass is twice at big as it needs to be

Ebooks.com often sells drm-free ebooks, depending on if the publisher allows it

I guess I tend to use data as a mass noun when referring to computer data (“there’s a lot of data on that drive”) and as a regular noun when referring to data in the scientific sense (“these data show xyz”)

have they tried graham crackers

I’m pretty sure that’s the design for the enterprise from Star Trek Phase II, a series that never got made; this design was then developed further into the now familiar refit from TMP

Melllvar doesn’t give up, does he?

When I was in grad school I would split the difference with 25 slides and 57 backup slides clicked together frantically 15 minutes earlier

Edit: It seems I may be wrong after all.

Original post: Between this and Johnson saying Biden should resign as president, it makes me think they are trying to limit Harris to one term. If Biden were to die or resign then Harris would become president for a few months but that would still count as her first term, so she wouldn’t be able to run for reelection in 2028 if she won this time. That’s my theory anyway 🤷‍♀️

Things got a bit weird before the invention of the pencil sharpener

Brain getting bigger, I think

That does tend to simplify the aerodynamics modeling

fork()

Horses evolved this way so they could forever be giving you “the finger”

Hmm, thinking about it, I think maybe the direct CO₂ exhaled during exercise may not be the most useful metric for human-powered travel. Every atom of that carbon was recently removed from the atmosphere by the plants you ate or that went to feed the animals you ate. It isn’t carbon that was underground for millions of years as is the case with fossil fuels.

Unfortunately, growing the food does involve carbon emissions from fossil fuels. Taking this page’s number of 2.5t/yr for the typical American diet which they assume to be 2,600 kcal/day that works out to 2.6g of CO₂ / kcal (2.5t / 365 / 2600 = 2.6E-6 t = 2.6g), or 52.7 g / km for cycling, or similar to an electric car if the chart is at all comparable (I don’t know the chart’s methodology; for example for the fossil fuel transport options does it count the carbon cost of producing and transporting the fuel or just the tailpipe emissions?). Changing one’s diet looks like it would improve this; the best-case would be a vegan diet which would result in 31.6 g / km.

Now that’s just based on numbers from that one source, so I don’t know how reliable they are. It does say it includes the large amount of wasted food in the final number, and I don’t know if the numbers in the original chart are that level of conscientious. Regardless I think the takeaway here isn’t that cycling is bad, it’s that our food production system is terrible and it badly needs to become way less carbon-intensive.