Erika3sis

Below these three icons you see some braille.

⠗⠑⠌⠗⠕⠕⠍⠎

...It says "restrooms" in English. In fact it even uses ⠌ as an abbreviation of "st", something only done in English and Irish braille.

You then place your fingertip on the braille. It isn't actually raised.

You then realize that it isn't even plural restrooms in the first place, it's single-user.

The threat to Jewish and Israeli targets in Norway is seen as significantly increased. The terror threat level is therefore raised from moderate to high, and the police is armed.

• There are multiple negative conditions that have increased the terror threat, among others conditions related to the ongoing escalation of the conflict in the Middle East. In Norway it is first and foremost threats to Jewish and Israeli targets that are significantly raised, says PST senior advisor Eirik Veum to the Norwegian News Agency.

He says that the PST does not wish to say anything concrete about what this entails, but informs that the PST is available for the press from 17 o'clock.

• The PST has at the time no information on if there are concrete plans at hand for committing terrorist acts against targets in Norway, but we are working quickly with clearing up threats and points of insecurity, Veum says.

The "high" terror threat level is a level 4 on a scale of 1 to 5.

The police director has based on the threat evaluation decided that the police should be armed nationwide.

• The PST describes a serious and tense situation in the Middle East. Increased likelihood for attempted terror in Norway is a situation the police take incredibly seriously, and we have a number of measures for protecting the people and ensuring we are as prepared as possible, says police director Benedicte Bjørnland in a press release.

The temporary arming of the police is effective immediately.

• The decision is based on that the police should be able to go quicker into action in the case of a possible terror attack to prevent it, limit the area of damage, or stop an ongoing attack, says Bjørnland.

The police have for a longer period had more measures for the purposes of protecting Jewish and Israeli interests in Norway. This effort is now being strengthened.

• Going forward we will have increased attention directed to the fact that state actors can use criminal networks for committing terrorism, and which consequences this has for the police's efforts against these milieus, says Bjørnland.

The Klossekode Libre Operating System (KLOS) would be an operating system for touch screen mobile devices probably based on the Linux kernel and Gecko browser engine, with a robust privilege model, installable either by flashing devices, or as an APK running over top of Android. Though this is similar to Firefox OS, what sets KLOS apart from Firefox OS is that all the apps would specifically be made using a block-based visual programming language known as Klossekode (lit. "block-code"). Every app would then have a "see inside" button on the navigation bar that one could tap on, launching the Klossekode mobile IDE to see and edit the code in any way one pleases; and the IDE would of course also have a button on the navigation bar that would take one back to the app in question.

Presumably the code would be run through a compiler à la Turbowarp rather than an interpreter à la Scratch, because the compiler would be faster and more efficient. Turbowarp does not currently support live script editing, because the compilation process makes this very difficult to do, however the Turbowarp documentation says that they believe this is possible and that they want to implement live script editing "eventually".

KLOS would come pre-installed with basically nothing except whatever one needs for the device not to crash, and whatever one needs to allow users to either create Klossekode apps themselves, or transfer the Klossekode files to the phone using the USB or SD card. It should also be possible to develop the apps on a PC and test them live on a USB-connected phone.

So, what's the point of this?

The first point of appeal is that VPLs are generally more accessible to laypeople than the more traditional text-based programming languages. This means that a VPL would make it easier for laypeople to personally check the code running on their phones, and to try changing it for themselves if they're dissatisfied with it. Having the Klossekode IDE would incentivize people to be more creative and try making apps for themselves: it is of course possible for anyone to make an APK using a mobile device, but a drag-and-drop based visual programming language with distinctive colors and shapes and perhaps some haptic feedback, is quite simply better suited for programming on a mobile device than a normal textual programming language.

The other point of appeal is that KLOS would incentivize one to cut down on distractions. Like nothing's stopping you from having a clock and a web browser and an app store on your phone, but if these things don't come pre-installed on your phone, and you reflect on all the times you decided to check the time and ended up doomscrolling... Are you really going to go through the effort? And when you're now used to being able to check and modify code really easily whenever you want, are you really going to be so keen on visiting websites with proprietary software? And when app development has the barrier of entry of learning a new language, for such a niche market as "people who really want to see the code on their apps, but don't know how to read a textual programming language"... How many companies (hell, people) are going to go through the trouble of writing and maintaining apps? The apps themselves would also be incentivized to be small due to the constraints of the VPL.

So yeah, that's the idea, basically.

Those were something, weren't they? I thought it was the coolest thing ever as a kid, just the absolute peak of technology.

And in hindsight... Yeah, it was a pretty comfortable way to play videos and music, wasn't it? And the click wheel iPods even had a surprisingly decent selection of games.

While I'm here, whatever happened to those Kindle e-readers with the physical page turn buttons and keyboard? I kinda feel like they stopped selling those, but I feel like that was kind of preferable to a touch screen, too.

I guess just in general I don't like touch screens and it'll be a good day when they stop being integrated into things that don't actually need them. I'm out here thinking that flip phones beat smartphones still

ala,kokosila,don't,crocodile,esperanto,toki,pona,conlang,ial

This is cropped from a photo taken by Wikimedia Commons user Pikolas.

Saluuuuton!

— O Mija Sijo!

— MI VOLUS ESTI BIRDO.

— sina toki e toki Epelanto tan seme?

— meli lili mi li tawa ma Molene.

— waso?

— mi ala waso. mi soweli. mi ala soweli la, mi seme?

— sinpin sina li sama... jan Pili Le Waton.

When the package says "add half a teaspoon of butter" or whatever, it's just straight up lying to you. There is literally ZERO perceivable difference between instant rice made with only water, and instant rice made with water plus a little butter. I've tested this myself. If you think the half-teaspoon of butter does some kind of fancy chemistry thing that's necessary for the instant rice to do its thing... No. The butter literally doesn't do anything. Absolutely nothing. Zilch. The package literally just tells you to add butter because market analytics show that if the package tells you the truth — that you really only need to add water — people will be biased to think it's a "worse product". So the butter is literally a placebo! Just a placebo, nothing more! And the same also goes for an enormous amount of instant foods that tell you to just add water plus, very conveniently, exactly one Extra Ingredient™!

How fucking many cows had their boobs fondled all because instant food companies noticed a slight increase in sales if they lied on their packaging? Hell, even for those who used margarine, how much margarine did you end up wasting on a literal placebo? How many teaspoons did you have to wash for no reason?

What the fuck