An early Slashdot meme: Can you Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of These (usually about things other than computers).

Searching Slashdot comments seems hard now that search engines aren’t what they used to be, but I found a post referencing the by then pre-existing meme from the 14th of July, 2001: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/01/07/14/0748215/Can-You-Imagine-a-Beowulf-Cluster-of-These

This was probably one of my earliest exposures to Internet joke memes (before they were commonly in image form).

Of course, in Dawkin’s original sense, any knowledge passed from human to human is a meme, so if we are being hyper-literal about it, I’d say it’s actually how to talk - we all may have mutant variants of the meme and some may have multiple copies (multilingual), but without have caught some variant of that meme, no one would achieve much! But to meet the ‘dead’ part, I guess it would have to be a dead variant of the meme (possibly still and ancestor of modern languages). Proto-Indo-European is one such (although hard to choose just one).

The best way to use the Portal Device in Hedgewars (especially if you can shoot one end above water), given it doesn’t end your turn.

I think that many historic trades have been automated to the extent their old terminology is obscure but lives on in idioms.

“To the bitter end” (bitter end meaning the lose end of a rope, from rope-working - not entirely extinct but obscure). Perhaps that one could be “To the edge node”!

“Strike while the iron is hot” (from blacksmithing, again not entirely an extinct craft but largely replaced by automation). Maybe “Cross while the light is green?”

Australia has none except crocodiles, I have seen crocs in the wild

Some other apex predators probably count as ‘large carnivores’. For example, apart from crocs (especially salties), Wedge-tailed eagles come to mind. They are an apex predator, carnivorous, with a maximum wingspan of almost 3m (which I think counts as large). Arguably a dingo is big enough to count as well (since OP’s link counts wolverines & lynxes).

But the far right pretending to be socialists and for the workers is a long tradition dating back to at least 1920.

is it technically possible to accurately verify someone’s age while respecting their privacy and if so how?

With your constraints yes, but there are open questions as to whether that would actually be enough.

Suppose there was a well-known government public key P_g, and a well protected corresponding government private key p_g, and every person i (i being their national identity number) had their own keypair p_i / P_i. The government would issue a certificate C_i including the date of birth and national identity number attesting that the owner of P_i has date of birth d.

Now when the person who knows p_i wants to access an age restricted site s, they generate a second site (or session) specific keypair P_s_i / p_s_i. They use ZK-STARKs to create a zero-knowledge proof that they have a C_i (secret parameter) that has a valid signature by P_g (public parameter), with a date of birth before some cutoff (DOB secret parameter, cutoff public parameter), and which includes key P_i (secret parameter), that they know p_i (secret parameter) corresponding to P_i, and that they know a hash h (secret parameter) such that h = H(s | P_s_i | p_i | t), where t is an issue time (public parameter, and s and P_s_i are also public parameters. They send the proof transcript to the site, and authenticate to the site using their site / session specific P_s_i key.

Know as to how this fits your constraints:

Let the service know that the user is an adult by providing a verifiable proof of adulthood (eg. A proof that’s signed by a trusted authority/government)

Yep - the service verifies the ZK-STARK proof to ensure the required properties hold.

Not let the service know any other information about the user besides what they already learn through http or TCP/IP

Due to the use of a ZKP, the service can only see the public parameters (plus network metadata). They’ll see P_s_i (session specific), the DOB cutoff (so they’ll know the user is born before the cutoff, but otherwise have no information about date of birth), and the site for which the session exists (which they’d know anyway).

Generating a ZK-STARK proof of a complexity similar to this (depending on the choice of hash, signing algorithm etc…) could potentially take about a minute on a fast desktop computer, and longer on slower mobile devices - so users might want to re-use the same proof across sessions, in which case this could let the service track users across sessions (although naive users probably allow this anyway through cookies, and privacy conscious users could pay the compute cost to generate a new session key every time).

Sites would likely want to limit how long proofs are valid for.

Not let a government or age verification authority know whenever a user is accessing 18+ content

In the above scheme, even if the government and the site collude, the zero-knowledge proof doesn’t reveal the linkage between the session key and the ID of the user.

Make it difficult or impossible for a child to fake a proof of adulthood, eg. By downloading an already verified anonymous signing key shared by an adult, etc.

An adult could share / leak their P_s_i and p_s_i keypair anonymously, along with the proof. If sites had a limited validity period, this would limit the impact of a one-off-leak.

If the adult leaks the p_i and C_i, they would identify themselves.

However, if there were adults willing to circumvent the system in a more online way, they could set up an online system which allows anyone to generate a proof of age and generates keypairs on demand for a requested site. It would be impossible to defend against such online attacks in general, and by the anonymity properties (your second and third constraints), there would never be accountability for it (apart from tracking down the server generating the keypairs if it’s a public offering, which would be quite difficult but not strictly impossible if it’s say a Tor hidden service). What would be possible would be to limit the number of sessions per user per day (by including a hash of s, p_i and the day as a public parameter), and perhaps for sites to limit the amount of content per session.

Be simple enough to implement that non-technical people can do it without difficulty and without purchasing bespoke hardware

ZK-STARK proof generation can run on a CPU or GPU, and could be packaged up as say, a browser addon. The biggest frustration would be the proof generation time. It could be offloaded to cloud for users who trust the cloud provider but not the government or service provider.

Ideally not requiring any long term storage of personal information by a government or verification authority that could be compromised in a data breach

Governments already store people’s date of birth (think birth certificates, passports, etc…), and would need to continue to do so to generate such certificates. They shouldn’t need to store extra information.

In most jurisdictions, part of the definition of a not-for-profit (of which a charity is a more restricted subset) is that it doesn’t exist for the benefit of the members / shareholders, or a specific person.

So creating a charity / NFP and asking people to pay into it is usually okay, but the purpose of that charity can’t be to enrich you, and it is a separate legal identity (i.e. taking a charity’s funds and giving it to yourself would be embezzling). Many jurisdictions allow for sports clubs to exist as not-for-profits, but they’d generally need to be for the purpose of organising a whole team to practice, compete and so on.

Generally charities can employ people to do work for them and pay them, but (varies by jurisdiction) they generally need to be not paid above a fair market rate for the work they actually do to advance the goals of the charity.

If the goal is to help a legitimate cause, you could also ask them to donate to an existing not-for-profit for the cause.

Disclaimer: IANAL, and anyway all of this would vary by jurisdiction - not legal advice!

Liberal by itself is an ambiguous term, so it’s generally best to prefix it with another word / prefix to clarify.

e.g. Neoliberal / Classical liberal - aligned to what I think parent post is saying. Implies economic right. Socially liberal - probably what the GP post means, meaning in favour of social liberties. Can be associated with economic left (usually coupled with positive protection of social liberties) or the economic right (e.g. libertarianism - usually believe government shouldn’t trample social liberties, but businesses can). Liberal is also a political party in many countries - e.g. in Australia it is a (declining, but formerly in power) right-wing party.

That said, I believe most wars are started for reasons of cronyism / crony capitalism, to distract from issues or project an image for the leader and/or for reasons of nationalism, and politicians from all sides will give an insincere pretext aligned to the politics people expect them to have.

Maybe they figure if you can’t fix the form to make it submit, you wouldn’t be up to their standard :-)

What jurisdiction is she in? And (if she knows) what jurisdiction is he in? (Jurisdiction as in country, and if the country has them, state / province). That will make a big difference to next steps.

While someone’s political beliefs are highly multi-dimensional, there are two axes that are commonly used to define where someone sits:

• Economy - Left is favouring social responsibility for people receiving economic support (supporting people to meet their basic needs is everyone’s collective responsibility), while right is favouring individual responsibility (meeting your basic needs is your responsibility, and if you die because you can’t, even if it is due to something outside of your control, tough luck).
• Social liberties - Social Libertarian is favouring individual decisions on anything not related to the economy / rights of others, while Social Authoritarianism supports government restrictions on social liberties.

Since there are independent axes, there are four quadrants:

• Socially liberal, Economic left - e.g. Left Communism, Social Democrat, most Green parties, etc…
• Socially authoritarian, Economic left - e.g. Stalin, Mao. Tankie is a slang term for people in this quadrant.
• Socially liberal, Economic right - Sometimes called libertarian. Some people with this belief set call themselves Liberal in some countries.
• Socially authoritarian, Economic right - e.g. Trump. Sometimes called conservatives.

That said, some people use tankie as cover for supporting socially authoritarian, economic right but formerly economic left countries(e.g. people who support Putin, who is not economically left in any sense).

Does she know which Australian state? Likely every state has cyberstalking rules, but it would be a state law.

I think it was a 18th century British fad that spread to America - for example, look at the date on this London newspaper from 1734:

- in the text it does also use the other format about “last month”, however.

It didn’t make it into legal documents / laws, which still used the more traditional format like: “That from and after the Tenth Day of April, One thousand seven hundred and ten …”. However, the American Revolution effectively froze many British fashions from that point-in-time in place (as another example, see speaking English without the trap/bath split, which was a subsequent trend in the commonwealth).

The fad eventually died out and most of the world went back to the more traditional format, but it persisted in the USA.

In Australia, there is a strong presumption towards keeping left as a pedestrian (and overtaking on the right - e.g. etiquette on escalators is to keep left, but if you are walking up the escalator, overtake to the right).

In some particularly busy places (especially on shared footpath / bike lane zones) there are even arrows on the pavement to ensure tourists know what side to keep to.

There are always a few people (probably tourists) who don’t follow the local etiquette.

Or at least the other way around. Reddit is banned from me.

to lose 100% of the court cases where they try this defense

I don’t think the litigants actually know this. The shady characters they are paying for the information probably know that, but represent that it will just work if they do it right.

Imagine you have some kind of legal problem, and you go to your lawyer, and your lawyer tells you they know what to do that will let you win. You’ll probably do it. Now for the litigants, it is the same thing, except instead of a lawyer, it is some person with an Internet and/or in real life following, who dazzles you with lots of fake formality that aligns to your preconceptions of the legal system based on TV. Of course, it is all just pseudolegal and a scam, but you don’t know that.

Now you might except that some critical thinking and/or research of authoritative sources like case law, or consulting a real lawyer might let the litigant see that it is a scam, but critical thinking skills are not as common as you might hope, and secondary education in many places doesn’t cover much about the law or how to do legal research.

Consider that 49.8% of voters in the 2024 US Presidential election voted for Trump, even after seeing the first term. Many people are easily hoodwinked into acting against their own best interests, especially if they are convinced there is a community of other people like them acting the same way (SovCit like groups do have some numbers), that people who endorse those theories get a lot of recognition / are influential (the leaders of the groups can create that impression), and that their theories have a long traditional backing (usually they make up a historical backstory).

Easy! Why do you think it happened? Inadequate food regulation? Underfunded healthcare? Insufficient regulation of pollutants that can impact health and cause chronic disease?

I don’t know your individual circumstances, but given the state of the world right now, I’d bet it’s a combination of all three.

IANAL, but it is an interesting question to consider whether it would be illegal in Australia (if anything, as a test to see if the right laws are on the books to block this kind of thing). The laws are likely different in the US, and it might vary from state to state.

The Fair Work Act 2009 (Commonwealth), s325 provides that:

An employer must not directly or indirectly require an employee to spend, or pay to the employer or another person, an amount of the employee’s money or the whole or any part of an amount payable to the employee in relation to the performance of work, if:

(a) the requirement is unreasonable in the circumstances; and

(b) for a payment—the payment is directly or indirectly for the benefit of the employer or a party related to the employer.

I think you could imagine the employer arguing a few lines:

• The employee is not required to spend, it is only a factor in promotions and not retaining the same role. OP said you can “get in trouble for not using this” - countering this defence perhaps depends on proving what kind of trouble to show it is a requirement. In addition, under s340, employers are not allowed to take an adverse action against an employee for exercising or proposing to exercise a workplace right, and adverse action includes discriminating between and employee and other employees of the employer.
• That the employee is not required to pay any particular person, they can choose what to buy as long as the select from a prescribed list. However, I think that could be countered by saying this is an indirect requirement to spend, and the “or another person” attaches to the “pay” part, so I don’t think that argument would fly.
• The the requirement is reasonable - however, that could be countered by arguing the privacy angle, and the fact that this is for personal shopping, far outside the reasonable scope of an employment relationship.
• That the payment isn’t for the benefit of the employer. I think that could be countered firstly by arguing this is a requirement to spend not pay, and event if it was to pay, it is indirectly for the employer’s benefit since it allows them to attract and retain clients. The way they are pushing it could further prove this.

So I think it would probably be contrary to s325 of the Fair Work Act in Australia.

Another angle could be the right to disconnect under s333M of the Fair Work Act:

An employee may refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact, or attempted contact, from an employer outside of the employee’s working hours unless the refusal is unreasonable.

If someone has a work and a personal phone, and has the app on the work phone, but refuses to use take the work phone or install an app on their personal phone so they can respond to tracking requests from the employer, then maybe this also fits.

I also wonder if in Australia this could also be a form of cartel conduct - it is an arrangement of where purchases (other than those the company should legitimately control) are directed centrally under an arrangement by an organisation.

Under s45AD of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010,

(1) For the purposes of this Act, a provision of a contract, arrangement or understanding is a cartel provision if: (a) either of the following conditions is satisfied in relation to the provision: (i) the purpose/effect condition set out in subsection (2); (ii) the purpose condition set out in subsection (3); and (b) the competition condition set out in subsection (4) is satisfied in relation to the provision.

So the purpose condition has several alternatives separated by ‘or’, one of which is:

(3) The purpose condition is satisfied if the provision has the purpose of directly or indirectly: … (b) allocating between any or all of the parties to the contract, arrangement or understanding: (ii) the persons or classes of persons who have supplied, or who are likely to supply, goods or services to any or all of the parties to the contract, arrangement or understanding; or

It sounds like there is a solid argument the purpose condition is met - they are allocating where people who are part of the arrangement (employees) shop.

They’d also need to meet the competition condition for it to be cartel conduct. For this to be met, the arrangement might need to include the clients of the company:

(4) The competition condition is satisfied if at least 2 of the parties to the contract, arrangement or understanding: (a) are or are likely to be; or (b) but for any contract, arrangement or understanding, would be or would be likely to be; in competition with each other in relation to: … © if paragraph (2)© or (3)(b) applies in relation to a supply, or likely supply, of goods or services—the supply of those goods or services in trade or commerce; or

So it could be argued that this is a cartel arrangement between the company, its clients, and its employees, and so attract penalties for cartel conduct.

To save on costs, QAs could be paid in exposure.

I believe nothing in the podman rm family worked because the container was already gone - it was just the IP allocation that was left.