In the coastal commune of Saint-Augustin, dozens of makeshift toilet blocks have sprung up near family homes, marking a significant shift in local practices. One such structure, shared between three households, serves 17 people.

"After using them, we must throw ashes in the hole to avoid odours. And when that's done, we close it with the lid," said Linah, a local mother, demonstrating the new routine. For her, this change means no more 15-minute walks to the river mouth. "We people here have always defecated in the open. It's cultural. But they explained to us that it causes diseases when we do that. So two months ago, we decided to change. We pooled our money together. Who built this? We did!" she said.

This enthusiasm signals a fresh approach to tackling Madagascar's sanitation crisis. The latest demographic and health survey, conducted in 2021, shows that just one-third of Madagascar's population has access to basic sanitation facilities – but communities are increasingly taking matters into their own hands.Rather than providing ready-made solutions, a Unicef-funded programme launched in 2022 has put communities in charge of building their own facilities.

"Our approach is that we don't want to build toilets for people. We don't donate them either," said Jean-Claude Vorimasy, director of awareness activities at the NGO Sahi in the Atsimo-Andrefana region. "We realised that if communities didn't pay anything, they wouldn't get involved and would quickly return to their old practices." "Our technique is to convince them they have the capacity to change and build themselves. We explain how to dig the pit, construct the slab with local materials. And they do everything themselves," he explained.

However, this is a challenge that extends far beyond Madagascar's borders. Globally, one in three people lacks access to proper toilets and has to resort to open defecation – which not only promotes the spread of diarrhoeal diseases and infectious illnesses but also poses significant safety risks, particularly for women and girls. Madagascar has committed to eliminating open defecation by 2030. The success of community-led initiatives suggests that engaging local populations in both the construction and maintenance of sanitation facilities could be the key to achieving this ambitious goal.

Credit/sauce:
cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3964820

I'm imagining it delivering nuggets to guys in the trenches over barbed wire and mustard gas.

Does anybody here have a matrix synapse server on docker / podman set up with a database and redis, one or both?

I am looking to set up such a server but I could use some help / templates, as I found the official documentation on this somewhat lacking (or maybe I just missed the correct page).

I feel the obvious answer should be "no" but help me think this through. It came from the previous Q on blackholes and am posting here for more visibility.

So considering two blackholes rotating about each other and eventually combining. It's in this situation that we get gravitational waves which we can detect (LIGO experiments). But what happens in the closing moments when the blackholes are within each others event horizon but not yet combined (and so still rotating rapidly about each other). Do the gravitational waves abruptly stop? Or are we privy to this "information" about what's going on inside an event horizon.

Thinking more generally, if the distribution of mass inside an event horizon can affect spacetime outside of the horizon then what happens in the following situation:

imagine a gigantic blackhole, one that allows a long time between passing the horizon and being crushed. You approach the horizon in a giant spacecraft and hover at a safe distance. You release a supermassive probe to descend past the horizon. The probe is supermassive in the way a mountain is supermassive. The intention is to be able to detect it's location via perturbation in the gravity field alone. Similar to how an actual mountain causes a pendulum to hang a miniscule yet measurable distance off the vertical.

Say the probe now descends down past the horizon, at some distance off the normal. Say a quarter mile to the 'left' if you consider the direction of the blackholes gravitational pull.

Let's say you had set the probes computer to perform some experiment, and a simple "yay/nay" indicated by it either staying on its current course down (yay) or it firing it's rockets laterally so that it approaches the direct line been you and the singularity and ends up about a quarter mile 'right' (to indicate nay).

The question is, is the relative position of the mass of this probe detectable by examining the resultant gravitational force exerted on your spaceship? Had it remained just off of centre minutely to the 'left' where it started to indicate the probe communicating 'yay' to you, or has it now deflected minutely to the right indicating 'nay'?

Whether the answer to this is yes or no, I'm confused what would happen in real life?

If the probes relative location is not detectable via gravity once it crosses the horizon, what happens as it approaches? Your very sensitive gravity equipment originally had a slight deviation to the left when both you and probe were outside the horizon. Does it abruptly disappear when it crosses the horizon? If so where does it go? The mass of the probe will eventually join with the mass of the singularity to make the blackhole slightly more massive. But does the gravitational pull of its mass instantly change from the location in the horizon where it crossed (about a quarter mile to the 'left') to now being at the singularity directly below. Anything "instant" doesn't seem right.

Or.. it's relative position within the horizon is detectable based on you examining the very slight deviations of your super sensitive pendulum equipment on board your space craft. And you're able to track it's relative position as it descends, until it's minute contribution to gravity has coalesced with the main blackhole.

But if this is the case then aren't we now getting information from within the horizon? Couldn't you set your probe to do experiments and then pass information back to you by it performing some rudimentary dance of manoeuvres? Which also seems crazy?

So both options seem crazy? Which is it?

(Note, this is a thought experiment. The probe is supermassive using some sort of future tech that's imaginable but far from possible by today's standards. Think a small planet with fusion powered engines or whatever. The point is, in principle, mass is detectable, and mass is moveable. Is this a way to peek inside a blackhole??)

Kind of a trashy headline - here's the full quote:

we keep writing it, and we keep turning things in, and they keep saying, 'Please keep writing.' So, as long as they allow us to do that and they don't say, 'Stop. Close your computers and go home,' we'll continue making it.

Source: https://mastodon.art/@meyuu/112117708222274468 | @meyuu

stolen with love

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22439539

cross-posted from: https://hcommons.social/users/adachika192/statuses/113538212148196325

Official German statement to the decision of #ICC

Erklärung der Bundesregierung zum Beschluss des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofs (Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, 2024-11-22)

https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/erklaerung-der-bundesregierung-zum-beschluss-des-internationalen-strafgerichtshofs-2321638
———
…
“The German government was involved in drafting the ICC Statute and is one of the ICC's biggest supporters. This attitude is also the result of German history.

“At the same time, as a consequence of German history, we are bound to Israel with unique relationships and great responsibility.

“We will carefully examine the domestic steps. Any further action would only be taken if it is foreseeable that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Joaw Galant will be visiting #Germany.”

So, keep them outside of German territory, and forget. 🙆

@[email protected]
@[email protected]
@israel

For the majority of artists, making music is financially unsustainable. According to a census conducted by the Musicians’ Union, nearly half of working musicians in the UK earn less than £14,000 a year from their craft, while a further half have to sustain their careers with other forms of income. It’s easy to imagine that these are the aspiring performers making tunes in their bedrooms and moonlighting as bartenders, but even household names are turning to alternative income streams.

British singer Kate Nash announced on Thursday that she would start posting pictures of her bottom on adult website OnlyFans to raise money for her tour. The Foundations singer has nearly a million monthly listeners on Spotify, and is playing all across the UK, including a sold out gig in London, but says that touring is a loss making exercise.

She started her “Butts 4 Tour Buses” page in order to ensure “good wages and safe means of travel for my band and crew”. Nash would rather you gawk at her gluteus maximus than listen to Foundations on Spotify. "No need to stream my music, I’m good for the 0.003 of a penny per stream thanks," she told her followers on Instagram.

For an independent solo artist to make the UK living wage they would need 9 million streams a year. But most artists need far more as revenue is split between bands, with record labels often taking a hefty cut.

While Spotify can provide a reliable if paltry source of income, touring is only profitable for musicians playing big venues to sold out crowds. A survey conducted by rehearsal space network Pirate Studios found that only 29% of artists make a profit from tours. Rising costs and a flailing economy have exacerbated this, and a government report earlier this year found that artists are facing a “cost-of-touring” crisis, with travel, accommodation and food prices all higher than ever.

...

With her backside hustle, Nash follows in the footsteps of Lily Allen, who started selling pictures of her feet on OnlyFans over summer. She had the idea after seeing that her feet had a perfect five star rating on WikiFeet, a photo-sharing foot fetish website. Subscribers pay £8 a month to access her posts. In October, Allen claimed that shots of her well-pedicured trotters were earning her more money than Spotify streams – and that’s saying something, considering Allen has over 7 million monthly listeners and more than a billion streams on her top three songs.

cross-posted from: https://hcommons.social/users/adachika192/statuses/113543251442332677

Nan Goldin Opens Exhibition In Berlin With Fiery Speech Against Israel (Dawn News English, 2024-11-24)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLfeJhtrqlw
------

20 min. video from the New National Gallery Berlin, opening speech by Nan Goldin (about 13 mins.), and 'counter-statement' by the Director Klaus Biesenbach, accompanied by several chants from the audience. Biesenbach's speech* was not disturbed and the chants were moderate yet passionate.

If you find it too long, start watching from 13:20. 😉

*)Official print form on the museum's site:
https://www.smb.museum/en/whats-new/detail/statement-by-klaus-biesenbach-on-the-opening-of-the-nan-goldin-retrospective-at-the-neue-nationalgalerie/

@[email protected] @[email protected]
@israel
#NanGoldin #FakeAntisemitism #Berlin #NameGenocideGenocide
#KlausBiesenbach

Summary

Child care costs for many U.S. families during peak inflation in 2022 ranged from $6,552 to $15,600 per child, comparable to rent, according to Labor Department data.

These high costs strained household budgets, disproportionately impacted women’s workforce participation, and fueled economic dissatisfaction among voters.

While Kamala Harris proposed policies to reduce child care costs, Donald Trump capitalized on broader economic grievances to expand his voter base, despite offering few specifics on addressing the issue.

Pandemic-era federal aid helped stabilize costs but left parents bearing much of the financial burden.

Summary

Russia has reportedly recruited hundreds of Yemeni fighters to bolster its forces in Ukraine, promising high wages and Russian citizenship, according to the Financial Times.

Recruitment was facilitated by a company linked to Yemen’s Houthi rebels, amid growing ties between Russia and Iran-backed groups.

The move reflects Moscow’s reliance on foreign fighters to sustain its war effort, which has seen heavy casualties due to “meat grinder” tactics.

Similar reports have detailed recruitment of fighters from Syria and Nepal, alongside Russian reliance on mercenaries like the Wagner Group.