Notices by David Hunt (davehunt@social.mayfirst.org), page 6

Brisk Menu, our distro-agnostic menu implementation for the MATE Desktop, is now available to be translated on our Weblate! Do you want to get involved? Learn more at https://discuss.getsol.us/d/2040-brisk-menu-is-now-translatable-on-our-weblate 🎉

Do retired military canine units go to...

...veteranarians?

#WordOfTheDay

cenotaph

/ˈsɛnətɑːf/ /ˈsɛnətaf/
noun
1 A monument to someone buried elsewhere, especially one commemorating people who died in a war.
1.1 the Cenotaph - The war memorial in Whitehall, London, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and erected in 1919–20.

Origin
from Greek kenos ‘empty’ + taphos ‘tomb’.

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The Washington Monument serves as a national symbol for the USA while also being a cenotaph, of sorts. President Washinton's remains are buried at Mount Vernon, Virginia.

♲ @jplebreton@mastodon.social: In the early 21st century it was customary to entomb the dead with all their unread browser tabs which, it was believed, they would finally have time to read / listen to / play.

♲ @SenorOblong@monsterpit.net: Humans are astonishingly efficient machines. The human brain runs on an average metabolic power of just 12 watts ... there are flashlights that use more power than that. (Meanwhile, a high-end PC will suck down hundreds of watts, while being way dumber than I am.)

(And chemical energy is way more energy-dense than even the best batteries ... an iPhone's battery can store just two and a half Skittles of energy - or a quarter-teaspoon of butter - and it takes way longer to charge than it takes me to eat two and a half Skittles)

Biological muscle is also an astonishingly good actuator; the main reason we've had trouble developing effective prosthetics is that no technology currently in existence is capable of matching the strength, dexterity, compactness, lightness, and speed of human muscle. (Certainly there are ways of being better at a few of those things - but not all of them at once.)

We are astonishingly efficient, flexible, and adaptable devices made of intricately complex self-repairing nanotechnology. As eager as I am to abandon this meat prison and enjoy the Glorious Transhumanist Future:tm:, it's going to be a long time before we can do better than meat.