Notices by Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐 (gcvsa@mstdn.plus), page 2

#Urgent #Security #Privacy #Alert To reiterate, I saw someone else's files in my pCloud Drive, running #pCloud for Windows 5.0.12 on Win 11 Pro 25H2.

I did not see any foreign files in the pCloud web interface, or pCloud for Linux 1.14.18 on #Linux Mint 22.3 Cinnamon.

I did not check my pCloud clients on my iPhone or iPad.

Seeing multiple reports of the same issue on Reddit r/pcloud, I backed up my data, deleted it from pCloud, deleted the clients, and requested account deletion from pCloud.

This data leak is really upsetting, because #pCloud is the only cloud storage service that offers a free account, and clients for all major platforms (Win, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS/iPadOS), with no device limits, and since I've switched to #Linux as my primary OS this year, I absolutely was relying on it every single day.

The only other known alternative is Dropbox, which limits the number of devices, so I can't use it.

I have 7 syncs:
Win/Linux PC
Win/Linux laptop
Linux laptop
iPhone
iPad

@skinnylatte I, too, love weird potato chips flavors, but being Filipino/German/English/American, I especially love chip flavors with vinegar. All of my heritages use vinegar-heavy condiments.

RE: https://mastodon.stevesworld.co/@steter/115951640113220395

ICE just proved that the Constitution doesn't protect cishet white men peacefully exercising their Constitutionally-guaranteed #AmendmentII #RTKBA #SecondAmendment #2A right to keep and bear arms.

Where is the outrage from the #NRA, from the #GunOwnersOfAmerica, from the #RepublicanParty?

When will it be time for a revolution? When exactly does the tree of liberty get refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants? What are all our guns even for? Asking for a nation under siege by #fascism.

@thelastpsion The sad fact of the matter is that most old computers should not be repurposed, because newer devices are available that are vastly more efficient uses of electricity.

A Raspberry Pi 5, for instance, is more powerful than a lot of older computers, but consumes a small fraction of the power.

The amount of electricity I would save in a single year of running a Pi 5 compared to most older machines of similar capability would pay for the Pi 5.

@Pinchy63 @bkahn That is indeed what they want to go back to. This is how eugenicists think. They believe the "weak" should perish, and that this will leave only the "strong" to survive, thus somehow "improving" the human race. For these people, dying of an infectious disease is the proof of "weakness", of "inferior genetics" that deserve to die.

@skinnylatte FTR, I think you're pretty cool.

@steter You know you can put extra light strings (usually .010) on an acoustic, right? And you can even put electric strings on an acoustic. I normally play with 10s on my electrics, and I do the same on my acoustic, because I'm not a masochist.

@skinnylatte I was a little bummed out recently when i found out my favorite headlamp has been "improved" by the manufacturer, and no longer has a high CRI emitter. Maybe I should buy a second one while they still have stock of the original model. (edit: too late, they are already out of stock.)

@skinnylatte Huh. That's super interesting. I've never heard of this distinction between proteins in milk. I am lactose-tolerant, although my father wasn't, and my brother isn't, and I think my niece is intolerant, as well. I evidently take more after our German-English mother, and my siblings after our Filipino father.

@siege I am, even as I write this, lying on a heating pad, in my bed. I have a K&H Products outdoor pet heating pad that is designed for 24/7 outdoor use in Winter, and consumes only 40 W of power.

It's thermostatically controlled to 102°F, so it can't burn you or harm you even if you fall asleep on it, and it costs pennies per day in electricity to run.

I also just got myself from eBay an OHOM Ui induction mug heater for my desk, which is 22.5 W and doubles as a wireless phone charger.

10-12 years ago, I got seriously involved in the tiny house on wheels community, and spent a lot of time seriously thinking about house design and the ramifications of the THoW movement.

My ultimate design settled on an 8' x 16 ' floorplan, with a 4' screenable front porch/greenhouse extension.

This, I judged, was the bare minimum size that could support 2 adults and 1 small child.

It would sleep 2 in the loft and fit a standard 52" crib mattress on the main level.

people who have difficulties—whether internally or externally imposed—that make it difficult for them to live in urban environments.

I realized this very early on in my investigations, and concluded that there are a lot of people, like me, who are often subject to extreme, undue discrimination, and for those people, tiny houses on wheels can be a boon.

One benefit of THoWs is that they impose very little burden on the landscape and are not permanent structures.

Many people in the tiny house community wanted tiny houses to be the answer for everything, but I am here to tell you that tiny houses are a generally terrible idea that really is only suitable for certain types of people in certain extenuating circumstances.

Tiny houses, especially those on wheels, have very few advantages and very many disadvantages, compared with good #urbanism that allows people to live in dignity with humanscaled spaces and fixtures.

However, there will always be some…

#Cities are cities precisely because—demonstrably—more people want to live in urban environments than those who abhor the idea altogether, for all the advantages that cities have to offer.

Only in America and other places where land and fossil fuels have been historically cheap and abundant, have people developed the idea of #suburbia and glorify and idealize #ruralism supported by private motor vehicles.

#urbanism #architecture #planning #design #housing #policy #economics #politics

Yes, not everyone wants to live in an apartment, but that doesn't imply that most people don't want to live an an apartment, when it means being able to live affordably in close proximity to jobs, shopping, schools, cultural events, public transportation, and infrastructure.

Cities everywhere have testified to this truth for over 7000 years of the history of human civilization. That's why cities are cities, why they have high populations.

No one is trying to force you to live in a city.

Where land is dear (that means expensive and in short supply), tiny houses should not be permitted, except possibly as temporary or accessory dwelling units.

Many cities are waking up to this problem, and getting rid of single family occupancy zoning.

The answer to the housing crisis is always and only "build more apartments". Only by flooding the market with supply can we control the cost of living.

The only way we can sustainably achieve this is by making it more expensive to not build.

As a native of NYC during the bad old days, I well understand that our social experiments with public housing in the US have ended almost entirely in disaster, and that is precisely because those developments were built with efficiency as the only goal, not human dignity and community.

This does not mean we should not build apartment buildings, it means we need to build apartment buildings with human dignity and community as our foremost concerns. #urbanism #architecture #design #housing

But it needs to be understood that tiny, individual dwelling structures are literally the most inefficient type of structure that can possibly be imagined or built, because they have a comparatively high ratio of external building envelope to enclosed volume, and a comparatively low possible density of occupancy, compared with multiunit residences, making them the least efficient possible use of valuable land.

They absolutely should never be used for housing the poor or unhoused.

What deters many people from wanting to live in a multiunit structure is the lack of privacy and lack of control over propriety that has historically been missing from apartment buildings.

However, this is not a necessary consequence of multiunit building design, it is a choice made by landowners to offer the absolute bare minimum of accommodation in order to maximize their profits.

We can mandate architecture and design that respects human dignity and human frailties.