MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown

  • 0 Posts
  • 44 Comments
Joined 6 months ago
Cake day: March 7th, 2024
  • MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown@fedia.iotoWorld News@lemmy.world•US conservative influencers say they are ‘victims’ of Russian disinformation campaign
    13·
    7 days ago

    Per this:

    An indictment charging… conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and conspiracy to commit money laundering was unsealed today…

    Between in or about October 2023 and in or about August 2024, RT sent wire transfers to U.S. Company-1 totaling approximately $9.7 million, which represented nearly 90% of U.S. Company-1’s bank deposits from all sources combined. The wires were sent from shell companies in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Mauritius, and were often accompanied by wire notes ascribing the payments to the purchase of electronics. For example, the wire note for a $318,800 wire payment from a shell entity in Turkey to U.S. Company-1 on March 1, read: “BUYING GOODS-INV.013-IPHONE 15 PRO MAX 512GB.”

    U.S. Company-1 never disclosed to its viewers that it was funded and directed by RT. Nor did U.S. Company-1 or its two founders register with the Attorney General as an agent of a foreign principal

    The first amendment right to free speech does not include the right to defraud. Fraud is generally considered a crime in the US. The indictments are not regarding the content that was produced/influenced, the indictments are regarding RT pretending to not be RT and falsifying financial records in order to do so.

    Also, RT is still allowed to broadcast in the US. RT voluntarily pulled out of the US market after cable providers dropped the channel following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as is there first amendment right.

  • MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown@fedia.iotoNo Stupid Questions@lemmy.world•Ok so coffee is made from coffee beans. And beans are *also* made from beans. Why is nobody making, like, black bean coffee?
    38·
    7 days ago

    Just to piggyback on this. The simple truth is that lot of things are just called things because they resemble other things, either in form or function.

    Coffee is not a bean; beans come from legumes, coffee fruit seeds are roughly bean sized and shaped.

    Cacao and vanilla are also not legumes.

    The peanut is a legume like beans and peas, but the it’s fruit treated like a culinary nut.

    Cashews are not true nuts. They Grow outside the actual fruit.

    Nut milk and butter do not come from mammary glands.

    Tea is made for the leaves of the tea plant (Camellia sinensis), which is a shrub or small tree, but many infusions of dried plant matter are often referred to as teas. The Tea Tree (Melaleuca) of oil fame is a different plant entirely. It got its name because some sailors made a ‘tea’ from its leaves after they ran out of real tea leaves.

    Currants (genus Ribes) are actually named after raisins. Raisins of Corinth were small raisins that were produced and exported from… well… Corinth. Over time ‘Corinth’ morphed into ‘currant’, they dropped the ‘raisins of’, and the local small dryable fruit started being referred to as a currants too. Eventually, production of the tiny raisins migrated to other parts of Greece and some smart guy thought “Hey! Let’s market these fancy tiny raisins that we are importing from Zante (the greek island Zakynthos) by calling them Zante Currants to distinguish them from the common local currants.

  • MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown@fedia.iotopolitics @lemmy.world•Portland enters ‘uncharted territory’ with first-in-nation City Council election system
    171·
    23 days ago

    It looks like the difference between the RCV elections you linked and the Portland one is that the Portland election has 3 seats available per district race instead of 1. There are at least 3 ways that could be managed:

    1. Do a standard RCV elimination, but stop once you have 3 candidates left.

    2. Do a standard RCV elimination until you have a majority candidate. That candidate gets one of the seats. Then remove that candidate, reassign their votes, and continue elimination until you have a new majority candidate. Repeat.

    3. Do a standard RCV elimination until you have a majority candidate. That candidate gets one of the seats. Then restart the RCV count for the second seat with voters’ 1st choices, but the first seat winner removed from the running. Repeat for the third seat.

    Edit: It’s none of the above! 😂 It’s a combination of 2 & 3 known as Single Transferrable Vote. The article (archived) doesn’t at all explain how counting works, but this video does.