linuxmemes linuxmemes One big happy family.
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 4 days ago 100%

    Currently, PopOS although I'm not really that enthusiastic about it.

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  • politics politics Three Democrats Re-Introduce Bill That Would Bring Ranked Choice Voting to Congressional Elections Across America
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 4 days ago 93%

    It will be interesting to see if it passes Constitutional muster. The Constitution only requires that "the people" choose the legislator. Previous attempts to regulate voting like this required amendments (e.g. elimination of the poll tax).

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  • politics politics 'This pig': Observers erupt as ex-president caught 'threatening the voters' at his rally
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 2 weeks ago 52%

    The relevant:

    "I better win or you're gonna have problems like we've never had. We may have no country left," Trump said at his weekend swing-state rally. "This may be our last election. You want to know the truth? People have said that. This could be our last election."

    Eh. The article goes on to quote pundits who claim he's threatening voters -- that if he doesn't win, he's gonna do something to end democracy.

    Seems kind of overblown to me. First, Trump would have to do something (laugh) and second, this is normal posturing. If you elect the other person, it's doom and gloom, if you elect me it's 4 more years of good times. These folks would have watched LBJ's Daisy and concluded that LBJ was planning to nuke the country if he didn't win.

    People trying to make sense of Trump's incomprehensible blather are always gonna come out looking silly.

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  • futurology Futurology A class of 20 pupils at a $35,000 per year private London school won't have a human teacher this year. They'll just be taught by AI.
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 2 weeks ago 95%

    Your AI is glitching

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  • fuckcars Fuck Cars [image] Emotional support truck
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 2 weeks ago 100%
  • memes Memes Costs Less? When That Happened?
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 2 weeks ago 100%

    Certainly, but Apple was comparing itself to other computer companies with international reach, not to the white box PCs coming out of the Floppy Wizard store in the strip center.

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  • memes Memes Costs Less? When That Happened?
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 3 weeks ago 100%

    The interaction between Jobs (Michael Fassbender) and Woz (Seth Rogen) pretty much sums up the Apple ][ era.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fweZsmH4Tw

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  • memes Memes Costs Less? When That Happened?
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 3 weeks ago 100%

    So, I lived through that time, and I supported computers professionally during that time. I started working at a university help desk in 1989.

    It's easy to go back and look at Apple products and white-box PCs of the era (or quasi-legit clones like Compaq, HP, Gateway, etc) and say, "oh, on specs, the Apples were MASSIVELY overpriced -- you can get a much better deal with the PC".

    The problem was that PCs were nowhere near on par, functionally, with Macintosh.

    • Networking. We were running building-wide Appletalk networks -- with TCP/IP gateways -- over existing phone wires YEARS before anybody figured out how to get coax or 10base-T installed. We were playing NETWORK GAMES (Bolo, anyone) on Mac in the late 80s.

    • And when they did... what do you do with networking in DOS? Unless you ran a completely canned network OS (remember Banyan, Novell, etc. ad infinitum?) and canned apps specifically designed to work with it, you were SOL. Windows 3.0 and 3.1 were a joke compared to System 7.

    I configured PCs and Macs for the freshman class in 1995. For the Mac? You plug the ethernet port in and the OS does the rest. For the PC... find a DOS-compatible packet driver that works with your network card, get it running, then run Trumpet Winsock in Windows 3.1, then... then... it was a goddamned nightmare. We had to have special clinics just to get people's PCs up and running with a web browser, and even then, there were about 10% of machines we just had to say "nope". Can't find a working driver, can't get anything working right. Your IRQs are busted? Who fuckin' knows. I ran the "Ethernet Clinic" until the late 90s, when Windows 98 finally properly integrated the TCP/IP layer in the OS.

    • Useful software on the Mac had a pretty consistent look & feel. On the PC? Even in Windows 3.1, it was all over the map. You might have a Windows native program, you might have a DOS program that launches in a console window, you might have a completely different graphical interface embedded in the software (Delphi apps, anyone?). Games were using DOS into the mid 90s because getting anything working right in Windows 3.1 was a total fuckin crap shoot.

    Windows 95 started to fix things, finally. And Windows XP would finally bring an OS with stability comparable to Mac (arguably WIndows 2000 as well, but it was never really offered on non-corporate PCs).

    The short version is: that $3000 Mac could do a lot more than that $1800 PC, even if the specs said that the CPU was faster on the PC.

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  • memes Memes Costs Less? When That Happened?
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 3 weeks ago 100%

    Well, that button probably dates from the late 80s or early 90s, when Apple was comparing Macs to branded IBM PS/2s and such that were sold to schools and enterprises.

    And they weren't wrong, at the time. Those PS/2s were fuckin' expensive.

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  • technology Technology Microsoft backtracks on deprecating the 39-year-old Windows Control Panel | Microsoft has either backtracked or clarified its language to remove the note about Control Panel being deprecated
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 3 weeks ago 100%

    Then they would have to remove the various hooks in the Settings app that actually call and open the Control Panel.

    How many are there? I can think of several (advanced mouse settings, advanced network settings, printer properties, date & time has a callout back to the old panel..)

    Windows 10 came out nine years ago, so they don't seem in any particular rush.

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  • games Games Firaxis' big swing with Civilization VII? Convincing players to actually finish their games
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 4 weeks ago 100%

    "Main Quest". What does that even mean? That's nonsense.

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  • games Games Firaxis' big swing with Civilization VII? Convincing players to actually finish their games
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 4 weeks ago 90%

    The idea that anyone finishes a game of Civilization is a myth.

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  • politics politics Last week RFK Jr. tried to meet with Kamala Harris' campaign about possible cabinet position, sources say
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 4 weeks ago 100%

    How hard were the sources laughing?

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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 4 weeks ago 100%

    What, is this a Canadian assassin?

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  • asklemmy Ask Lemmy What's one brand whose products you can always trust?
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 4 weeks ago 88%

    I went through two defective EVGA cards within the original card's warranty period. On the second card, EVGA tried to deny my warranty.

    They eventually made it right, after I shamed them on Reddit.

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  • fuckcars Fuck Cars [image] Emotional support truck
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 1 month ago 100%

    Yeah I'm not excusing the driver parking it like a jackass.

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  • fuckcars Fuck Cars [image] Emotional support truck
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 1 month ago 30%

    It depends on the use case, though. If that driver's main concern is getting in and out of muddy work sites safely, maybe carrying cargo is less important than 4WD cred.

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  • fuckcars Fuck Cars [image] Emotional support truck
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 1 month ago 90%

    FYI, Fortnine is based in Canada.

    Increases or decreases in the frequency of pedestrian-driver fatalities is affected by lots of things, although I suggest that poor road design and traffic laws might have a positive feedback effect when combined with limited forward visibility (e.g. a truck with poor forward visibility isn't a huge liability in Canadian road designs might be a larger liability in typical US road designs).

    Unfortunately I don't know if we collect the right accident statistics. Perhaps the more relevant question is: are pickup trucks over-represented in pedestrian fatalities as a result of vehicle collision compared to other vehicles, and has that representation grown as truck grill heights have grown? I found a doc on Canadian pedestrian fatalities, but it classified all passenger vehicles as a single class -- and unfortunately that doesn't tell us much since most 4-wheel pickups are classified as passenger vehicles.

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  • fuckcars Fuck Cars [image] Emotional support truck
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 1 month ago 95%

    Fortnine has an excellent video about this issue.

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  • fuckcars Fuck Cars [image] Emotional support truck
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 1 month ago 56%

    I don't pretend to know what professional landscape contractors need for their job.

    I'm all for f*ck cars but people who have actual jobs that involve moving stuff like gravel and sod probably have different needs than I do, I assume?

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  • politics politics Peter Thiel, eccentric billionaire, says he is thinking about leaving the US
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 1 month ago 100%

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  • technology Technology ISP to Supreme Court: We shouldn’t have to disconnect users accused of piracy
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 1 month ago 100%

    Yeah, but ISPs are rich and VPN providers are not. The most recent numbers I can find for Cox (2020) show $12.6 billion in revenue.

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  • unpopularopinion Unpopular Opinion CDs are better than vinyl and most people listen to music on systems that sound dreadful
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 1 month ago 100%

    So I'm getting a bit fascinated by this question, because I can do practical tests -- I've owned CD-Rs since the format was invented w/ the original Pinnacle SCSI CD writers circa 1994.

    I don't think I have any CD-Rs that old any more, but I definitely have many from that era. Just for the heck of it, I popped an azo CD-R in my drive that I wrote in 1998, and I happen to have a hard drive copy of these files that I've carried forward on hard disks since that time as well (the CD-R was a backup).

    I think the files are still in perfect condition -- was able to copy w/ verify all 360MB of MP3s (and yes, before you ask, I was making MP3s in 1998 using the Fraunhofer DOS command-line encoder), and compare them to my hard drive copies which show matching SHA512 hashes.

    If I'm still around 25 years from now, I'll try again :-)

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  • world World News The Right-Wing Campaign to Purge Women From Women’s Sports
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 1 month ago 50%

    What is a sport? Why does it exist?

    It exists because people come together to play it. And maybe because some people are willing to pay for tickets to watch it, or sometimes because powerful people want it (to sell product, to train people in national defense, etc).

    If you're not engaged with any of those stakeholders, you can't change the sport. Ideas about the limited women's class of sport will only change if the players & organizers want it to change -- or in the rarer case, because the ticket buyers demand change. But many of these sports are not driven by ticket sales, so there is limited opportunity to win hearts and minds.

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  • unpopularopinion Unpopular Opinion CDs are better than vinyl and most people listen to music on systems that sound dreadful
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 2 months ago 100%

    You claim induced me to do a little tidying on my CD collection. I just copied the oldest data CD that I own: the Hugo & Nebula Anthology 1993. It copied & verified no problem.

    Unfortunately, that's probably the oldest proper test I can do. Although I was using CD-ROMs as early as 1986, e.g. in libraries, I didn't own any music or data CDs until about 1990. I could re-rip some of those old music CDs, I suppose, but I'm not sure it would tell us much as I'm not sure how to do a bit-for-bit comparison and I certainly don't want to listen to the files.

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  • unpopularopinion Unpopular Opinion CDs are better than vinyl and most people listen to music on systems that sound dreadful
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 2 months ago 100%

    I have many 30 year old CDs. They’re fine. They’ve just been kept in a typical home storage environment. I just ripped a Toad the Wet Sprocket CD I bought in 93.

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  • world World News The Right-Wing Campaign to Purge Women From Women’s Sports
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 2 months ago 100%
  • world World News The Right-Wing Campaign to Purge Women From Women’s Sports
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 2 months ago 70%

    I not telling you to accept or be happy with anything. I am saying that if you want women's sports to work the way you think they should work, you'll need to go through their governance bodies.

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  • unpopularopinion Unpopular Opinion CDs are better than vinyl and most people listen to music on systems that sound dreadful
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 2 months ago 100%

    I kept the CDs for a while, much to my wife’s annoyance, before donating them to a local charity

    I took them out of the jewel cases and put them into a binder, 4 CDs per page. It hasn't exactly been a burden to carry it around for the last 20 years.

    I couldn't tell you how old my oldest MP3s are, except to say that a significant portion of my music library consists of MP3s I made myself with the Fraunhofer DOS command line encoder, and the Cassady & Green SoundJam software for MacOS. Of course, SoundJam is the software that Apple purchased and re-badged it "iTunes".

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  • unpopularopinion Unpopular Opinion CDs are better than vinyl and most people listen to music on systems that sound dreadful
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 2 months ago 100%

    The fact that CD sales are behind vinyl is a sign that the world has gone mad.

    I mean... CD sales are only behind vinyl because vinyl has become collectible, while CDs offer no practical advantage over stored files on a hard drive or high-quality streaming.

    And before you say, "but what about compression?", the fact is that even lossy compression is good enough that most audiophiles can't tell the difference. Audiophile publications started doing blind comparisons back in the 90s, and it quickly became clear that somewhere around 192kbps MP3 the ability of humans to statistically discern the compressed vs. uncompressed versions started to disappear.

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  • world World News The Right-Wing Campaign to Purge Women From Women’s Sports
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 2 months ago 68%

    That really doesn’t answer my question, it just splits it up between different bodies.

    Sorry, that's just reality.

    I can't give you a general answer that applies to all of women's sport, and for a specific answer regarding a particular women's sport, you'll need to consult with the governing body of that sport, and recognize that body may pander to interests (commercial, or the preferences of its participants and other stakeholders, etc) that have nothing to do with how you prefer to define "woman".

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  • world World News The Right-Wing Campaign to Purge Women From Women’s Sports
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 2 months ago 47%

    The determination of who may compete in limited-class sports must be made by rules.

    It’s not a matter of who you or I think is a woman who qualifies. Only the governing body of that sport makes that determination.

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  • truecomics Everett True Comics What we used to say (July 21, 1905)
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 2 months ago 100%

    Ladies be spending too much on clothes, AM I RIGHT?

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  • world World News Dutch Olympian who raped a 12-year-old girl ‘is not a paedophile’, official says
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 2 months ago 100%

    He is on the UK Sex Offenders' registry.

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  • games Games Indie developer behind 'Overwhelmingly Positive' rated shipbuilder argues that Steam's "free advertising" is worth the 30% cut
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 2 months ago 98%

    Is this controversial? You're paying for the storefront.

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  • starwarsmemes Star Wars Memes AI is going to be used to change the world.
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 2 months ago 33%

    angryupvote

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  • 196 196 Doorbell rule (continued inside)
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 2 months ago 100%

    By M. Night Shamaladingdong

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  • historymemes A sub for Historymemes Need me some cough syrup
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 2 months ago 100%

    One night of cough syrup makes a hard man humble.

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  • technology Technology Nvidia reveals that 150 RTX A6000 GPUs power the Las Vegas Sphere
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 2 months ago 100%

    But can it run Crysis?

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  • politics politics Pete Buttigieg fact-checks a GOP congressman to his face at House hearing
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  • RickRussell_CA RickRussell_CA 3 months ago 100%

    Compared to Defense, State, Homeland Security, Attorney General...

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  • music
    Music RickRussell_CA 6 months ago 100%
    The HU Band - Wolf Totem (Mongolian Hunnu Rock) youtu.be

    The Hu (stylized as The HU) is a Mongolian folk metal band formed in 2016. Incorporating traditional Mongolian instrumentation, including the morin khuur, the tovshuur, and throat singing, the band calls their style of music "hunnu rock", a term inspired by the Xiongnu, an ancient tribal confederation of uncertain origins, known as Hünnü in Mongolia. Some of the band's lyrics include old Mongolian war cries and poetry in the Mongolian language.

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    "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearWT
    WTF RickRussell_CA 8 months ago 97%
    Advertisement from 1904: “Absolutely Safe”
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    thepoliceproblem
    THE POLICE PROBLEM RickRussell_CA 1 year ago 92%
    A pernicious case of mistaken identity goes to the Supreme Court www.wired.com

    David Sosa was mistakenly arrested twice in the same county, by the same cops, on the same warrant issued decades earlier for a completely different David Sosa in another state, with different age, height, weight, and distinguishing tattoos.

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    support
    Support (lemm.ee) RickRussell_CA 1 year ago 100%
    Possible username abuse? (Resolved by lemm.ee admins Aug 29 2023)

    Hey folks. A question for you. I'm RickRussell_CA on lemmy.world, kbin.social, lemmy.ml, and beehaw.org. When I saw that lemm.ee was coming up in the rankings, I decided that perhaps I should stake my claim here. But, as you may guess, [there is already a RickRussell_CA on lemm.ee](https://lemm.ee/u/RickRussell_CA). It's even using the profile picture that I had originally used on lemmy.world. It's made 1 comment (on a since deleted post) and no submissions. I've used the "Forgot password" link and it's definitely not my account, as it doesn't recognize my email. I understand that this is a risk under the Fediverse model, but I'm a bit worried that somebody staked this out as a way of impersonating me. Is there any way to address this? EDIT: lemm.ee admins saw this post, and banned the account. Thanks to them!

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    world
    World News RickRussell_CA 1 year ago 95%
    Take the high road: the man who visited every country in the world – without boarding a plane www.theguardian.com

    Fascinating story of a Danish traveler who visited every country on Earth, only by land and boat.

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    thepoliceproblem
    THE POLICE PROBLEM RickRussell_CA 1 year ago 84%
    Go read Radley Balko on Substack https://radleybalko.substack.com/

    He's arguably the nation's most decorated journalist on law enforcement and criminal justice issues. He was released from The Washington Post last October and moved his new original content to Substack.

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    pcgaming
    PCGaming RickRussell_CA 1 year ago 94%
    Big pack of AD&D titles from Humble Bundle (Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment, Neverwinter Nights), $12 for 8 titles www.humblebundle.com

    I already own all of these titles on multiple platforms, but if you're missing any of these classics, now's a good time to build out your Steam library for just a couple bucks per game.

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    "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearCY
    Cyberpunk RickRussell_CA 1 year ago 96%
    HOTEL R9, in Minokamo, Japan
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    totallynotrobots
    GREETINGS TO ALL

    ``` 10 LET A$ = "LEMMY" 20 PRINT "I AM SO HAPPY TO BE HERE AT " 30 PRINT A$ ```

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