cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22057360

RIP Bob

Relax in peace. He's fine.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22031243

Summary

A baby red panda named Roxie at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland died from “stress caused by fireworks” after choking on her vomit, just days after her mother’s sudden death.

The incident, occurring around the U.K.’s Bonfire Night celebrations, has led to renewed calls for stricter fireworks regulations.

A petition with over a million signatures urging restrictions on public fireworks sales was submitted to the U.K. government.

Edinburgh recently implemented limited fireworks control zones, but animal welfare advocates argue for broader measures to prevent similar tragedies.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21919918

EDIT: Sorry, I meant to edit this post yesterday when the vote was in, but 'Ban' won. I forgot the numbers from 22:00 UTC, but the current vote (by subtracting downvotes from upvotes) is 51–40, which is pretty close to what it was yesterday. So it's not a total blowout, but it does show that most people want these types of posts banned. Thus, they will be banned for at minimum two months, and a reevaluation can (not necessarily will) be initiated on 20 January. A subsequent vote will be held to determine if we want to have Throwback Tuesdays (suggested in a DM) and/or if we want to allow "Historical" leopards (older than e.g. 15 years) while disallowing "Outdated" ones (older than 3 months and younger than e.g. 15 years).

[PLEASE READ IN FULL BEFORE VOTING]

With Donald Trump's recent reascent to the US presidency, there are likely to be a bunch of stories posted here from his first term, especially as Trump is likely to have nearly unchecked power to accomplish his face-eating compared to his first term. No matter what, there will be measures taken to address this (see the 'No ban' section), but you can vote here to determine if they will be banned altogether.

This post will be locked to ensure only the 'Ban' and 'No ban' comments are present. The one with the highest score in three days (14 November, 22:00 UTC) will be the winner. A rediscussion of the decision will not be possible until 20 January 2025, the day Trump is set to assume office. Obviously this isn't strictly a Trump community and any leopard at all is welcome and encouraged for diversity, but it goes without saying that he's the most prominent leopard right now by far.

Ban

The 'Ban' comment means that articles and other stories (e.g. social media screenshots) which are a certain amount out-of-date (this will initially be three (3) months but is subject to change) will be subject to immediate removal regardless of justification. There will be no penalty for the user other than a removal. This will apply to all posts, not just Trump-related ones, but I foresee this mostly affecting Trump posts. Should a ban be enacted, a separate measure can be voted on to determine if we should have e.g. a policy where posts more recent than three months or older than 20 years are allowed, but nothing inbetween, so that historical leopards are allowed to be showcased. For right now, I don't want to unjustly split the vote.

No ban

The 'No ban' comment means that this will not happen, namely that there will be literally no cutoff. However, a minimally intrusive measure will be taken to distinguish posts covering older stories, namely that if the story is older than three months and the story does not take place in the current year, the poster will need to indicate this in the title by prepending it with the year in brackets (e.g. '[1914] I never thought the politicians would send my children off to die!').

Voting

You're welcome and heavily encouraged to upvote the comment you want and downvote the one you don't, since otherwise there's no way to guarantee someone else won't do that and cancel your vote. Both comments combined must receive at least 50 upvotes (regardless of score accounting for downvotes) for this to be binding.

In my town, there's a local gardening store. I often go there by car, but recently having gotten my first commuter bike several months ago, I decided to bike there. It's a longer ride, but no big deal; I had other stops, and I only needed seed packets. I got there as they opened, and I started looking for somewhere to lock my bike. There are several dozen parking spaces and plenty of storefront, but for the life of me, I couldn't find a bike rack. Turns out there was none, so I did the next-best thing and used an out-of-the-way cart return as a makeshift rack, ran inside feeling hurried and embarrassed, bought the seeds, and left.

Instead of giving up, I emailed them talking about my intention to commute by bike when possible, my history shopping with them, why I choose them over a nearer and more bike-accessible store, my experience that day, an argument for why not only I would appreciate it but why others probably would, and how small businesses can get long-lasting, off-the-shelf bike racks for fairly cheap. Not even 90 minutes passed before I got an email which CC'd the business' management team as follows:

Hi [name]

I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to write to us with your suggestion.

We will seriously look in to the possibility of a bike rack.

And thank you for your business too. We appreciate it.

In the meantime, also feel free to lock your bike up against our long line of metal fencing located along our driveway [...] That should be reasonably secure as well.

Copying the [business name] manager team on this well [sic] to see what and where we can make this improvement.

I agree it's strictly possible that I'm being brushed off, but given bike racks can be bought off-the-shelf so cheaply, given there are neighborhoods very nearby, given they sell plenty of small goods that anyone with a bike could pick up, given they're a long-established business, and given they went so far as to CC the entire management team, I feel confident something might actually get done here. I hope this will not only let people who already want to bike there do so, but it might also give the idea to some people who don't yet.