Ukraine's parliament backs creation of cyber forces in first reading
Ukraine's parliament backs creation of cyber forces in first reading
The bill aims to establish the Cyber Forces as a military command body responsible for Ukraine's defense and security capabilities in cyberspace.Martin Fornusek (The Kyiv Independent)
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reshared this
James Comey pleads not guilty to criminal charges sought by Trump
James Comey trial set for Jan. 5 on charges sought by Trump
"My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump," former FBI Director James Comey said after being indicted.Dan Mangan (CNBC)
How Israel and its 'digital army' work to silence the truth about Gaza
How Israel and its 'digital army' work to silence the truth about Gaza - Ricochet
In Canada, groups weaponizing claims of media bias are being used to intimidate journalists and reshape coverage of Israel and Palestine under the quiet complicity of Canadian newsroomsZahra Khozema (Ricochet)
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Paraglider bomb attack by Myanmar military kills at least 20 at protest
Paraglider bomb attack by Myanmar military kills at least 20 at protest
Dozens more injured by night strike on anti-government demonstration held during national holidayCarmela Fonbuena (The Guardian)
'Unprecedented dieback': Alarming report warns Earth reached 'point of no return'
'Unprecedented dieback': Alarming report warns Earth reached 'point of no return'
Less than two years after researchers at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom warned that the world was nearing numerous climate tipping points, a report out Monday warns that one such “point of no return” has already been reached, with war…Julia Conley, Common Dreams (Raw Story)
The only way I can survive all the news about Gaza is to read it as "Gazza"
Optus: Telecoms company sent emails to wrong addresses during deadly outage
Optus: Telecoms company sent emails to wrong addresses during deadly outage
The outage in Australia has been linked to four deaths as people could not reach emergency services.Kelly Ng (BBC News)
German industrial output falls to 2005 levels as auto sector craters
cross-posted from: lemmy.zip/post/50548487
archive.md/QW2r4
German industrial production fell back to 2005 levels in August as output in the country’s all-important car industry cratered by 18.5 per cent compared with the previous monthOverall, industrial production fell 4.3 per cent in August compared with the previous month, seasonally adjusted data showed on Wednesday. Economists had predicted a smaller drop of 1 per cent in a Reuters poll.
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This.
Why would I buy a computer on wheels that I really don't seen to own even though I paid for it?
I'd rather buy a pre-2020 Toyota and drive it to the oblivion.
Discussion: Long-term need for automation tools for moderation
I think QoL tools for moderators need to become more of a Fediverse priority. This burns people out. Key moderators of communities quit and communities become abandoned.
Ideas :
- Automatic removal option to remove posts and/or comments for specific keywords. This would be most useful for automatically removing posts and comments when people slur. Piefed already has a keyword filter for visibility. This could be expanded to community settings. Have it also fire-off a report to the moderators when someone triggers it.
- Automatic URL removal. Allow communities to blacklist specific urls. Useful for politics or news communities that want to negate sources known for misinformation.
- Automatic removal for repeat URL posting. Very useful for politics or news communities to prevent double-posting.
- Make it so a community can set itself up to only accept text posts, video posts, or image posts. This should prevent tedious janitorial cleanup for communities that only allow links, or text posts (the most common two).
- Post Delay Restrictions. Some communities, perhaps not many, might be interested in posting cooldowns for users. So you can only post 1 post every hour, or 2 posts every hour - or whatever the chosen limit is. This would help negate spammers and over-enthusiastic posters flooding a topical community.
- Post Formatting Requirements. This one could be trickier and more effort than most of the others, but setting conditions for the formatting of new posts would be useful.
Now, not all communities would make use or have any need to make use of all of these - but many would to varying degrees - and it would help them.
I think going down this road is important to prevent moderators burning out over the drudgery of moderating communities.
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True. I am just mostly trying to make a record of this stuff for the future. Obviously in the event of these tools existing, mods wouldn't have to turn them on.
I definitely think there needs to be some rough guide on making your community federated and then advertising it effectively so communities can get that early kick.
there needs to be some rough guide on making your community federated and then advertising it effectively so communities can get that early kick.
We can draft something on !fedigrow@lemmy.zip
Return of Jared Kushner: Netanyahu's friend and Gulf business ally reappears for Gaza talks
Return of Jared Kushner: Netanyahu's friend and Gulf business ally reappears for Gaza talks
Among Hamas officials, Qatari and Egyptian diplomats, and a Turkish spy chief huddling for Gaza peace talks in Egypt's Sharm El-Sheikh resort is a key American interlocutor: US President Donald Trump's son-in-law.Sean Mathews (Middle East Eye)
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We require the headline match the article, in this case "Return of Jared Kushner: Netanyahu's friend and Gulf business ally reappears for Gaza talks".
Please make it match or we'll have to remove it.
Now he is one of two US interlocutors tapped with ending Israel's genocide in Gaza
Yeah, pick someone pro-genocide to end the genocide. That'll work.
EU to double steel tariffs amid influx of Chinese imports
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They're just following the same market trend thats been happening since before the 90'. You cant buy the steel from a mill cheaper than you buy the finished product from China. American manufacturing has been dead for half a century. Itll prolly happen in Europe too. So here's your get rich EU scheme: start fuckin fabricating. You buy the manufactured parts from China because the quality is really hard to fuck up when it comes to machined steel parts that ship with MTRs. You take those parts and weld them into your finished product that you sell for 100x's the actual cost to make.
All the more reason slapping tariffs on imported goods was and will go down in history as one of the fuckin dumbest economic decisions every made by any controlling power.
While expensive for the EU, tariffs on Chinese products are probably sensible.
There are a few actual sane reasons for imposing tariffs, and one of them is protecting critical industries that you can't afford to lose because doing so would expose you to greater risks. Steel, due to its impact on downstream sectors, can reasonably be taken to be one of those. Look at the pain on relying on Russia for energy and how much weaker it made the response to their invasion of Ukraine. Losing critical industries to China makes it harder to exert pressure on China in the future, and easier for them to exert it on the EU.
Germany's AfD seeks closer ties with the MAGA movement
Germany's AfD seeks closer ties to Trump and MAGA movement
Far-right Alternative for Germany's Beatrix von Storch and other party leaders seek to strengthen ties to the Trump administration with Washington visits.Hans Pfeifer (Deutsche Welle)
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Yeah they like it, they're a bit late to the party though. Even maga is waking up, the issue is that they have nowhere else to go, for a decade they were told that democrats are literal demons. So we need to come together and drop partisanship if we want to survive.
Look, I love Germany, I love Germans, a few of my ex girlfriends were German, my best friends are German, I used to live in Germany. But they truly, on a viscerally deep level, do not understand Americans. They don't understand our values, they don't understand our humor, they tiptoe very carefully around race-issues, but they don't understand how we can actually integrate and mix rather than maintaining strict racial neighborhoods organically, (aside from a few places, like Berlin but that's a special place) they don't understand what makes us do crazy things or why we help people we don't know, why we start conversations with strangers if we don't have some goal in talking to them. They don't understand us. And they want to use us. They see racism which basically aligns with theirs, and they hope to form an alliance, but it will never sway the American public at large. Talk all the shit you want about Americans being propagandized by FOX, it's true, but so is your country and everyone else's. Now they have to find out the hard way that deep down, and at a number much higher than any other demographic in the entire nation, we fucking hate Nazis and authoritarianism. Federal agents used to know better than to even walk into some states. That feeling never went away.
You have any guns in your house from the last time your relatives had to fight the government over authoritarian tendencies over there in Germany? I do, everyone I know does, and I'm just some dude from a small-town. We never stopped buying them, because we still remember. My grandfather REFUSED to buy a rifle if it had a registration. My grandfather on the other side was at the Ford strike where the government opened fire into the picket. He never put money into a bank even. He made sure I understood that the government is not there to help us, and he gave me his guns. My neighbor used to get drunk and let off his AK into some dead car in his back yard. There are millions of him. Millions. You'll find racists in the US, but 90% of us fucking hate them too. They're just the loudest whiniest little bitches that exist, doing their gay little color-coded marches because daddy never hugged them enough, and their crimes are heinous, so they occupy a far larger online footprint than they do in the real world. How many videos of Nazis getting rocked in the US can you find? How many videos of them backing down at the slightest resistance? How many videos of nazis rocking opponents in the US? Exactly. They are bitch-boy cosplayers who think that after their shitty homoerotic fascist state is implemented, that they can just go and take women like in caveman days. They can't get laid not because they suck, but because society precludes the natural way of doing it. (I've heard these freaks talk like that) Thing is, there's at least a 50% chance it would be a girl that smoked them in this situation. more like 80%. Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth. And I've seen girls fuck up guys who look like your average y'all-queada marcher. These guys haven't been punched in the mouth enough yet. They think they want it, because any pussy can hold a gun and they assume that they are the only ones who have them, but they really, really don't. The poor fuckers need love, but they've spent their lives creating the most unlovable persona possible. So in short, they need to grow the fuck up and stop being such whiny bitches. Nobody's gonna do it for ya, not even that cool older dude at the paintball place with a lil ss sticker on his gun who invites your teenage friends to his place for practice. Ya know, the neo-n*zi militia recruiter. We know, and if we know, you better get smart before it's too late.
There might have been a time, a few years back, where they could have jumped on the train and taken advantage of the confusion, but now it's too late. Their open nazis are getting ousted and facing real legal consequences and they know they can't hold on for too much longer. Nobody gives af about Czech president, the tide has turned fully against Putin and Trumpsim, now the only issue is watching which sandcastles last the longest against the inevitable eroding flow of the social pendulum.
EDIT: Sorry, these guys rile me up. No bad vibes intended.
Missouri attorney general demands Planned Parenthood hand over abortion patient records
Missouri attorney general demands Planned Parenthood hand over abortion patient records
The office of Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway is subpoenaing patient medical records, incident reports, “adverse event documentation” and more from Planned Parenthood.Anna Spoerre (KCUR)
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Anti-immigration politics contribute to racism in Germany
Far-right gains, economic stagnation and increased political focus on migration can be major drivers of racial discrimination in European countries such as Germany.
The ongoing political focus on migration in Germany could have spillover effects. Decades of progress in making the country more inclusive of Black people could be rolled back, Tahir Della, of the rights organization Initiative of Black People in Germany, told DW.
"We already notice that, especially when there are debates related to migration, the presence of Black people and people of African descent in Germany is called into question," Della said.
Germany, the European Union's most-populous country, has had the bloc's biggest reported increase in anti-Black racial discrimination, according to the 2023 "Being Black in the EU" report by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights.
How Black Germans fight for recognition of Nazi-era crimes
The Nazis targeted Black people living in Germany, excluding them from society through forced sterilization and denial of citizenship. Activists and historians still strive for recognition of these injustices.Okeri Ngutjinazo (Deutsche Welle)
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I was about to say that they have the causality backwards but then I thought about it and realized that it's both ways:
Racist demagogues complain about immigrants, which makes people more racist, which makes people more anti immigrant, which makes people more racist etc until everything is so fucked that fascists take over.
The only way to stop the process is to have highly influential politicians and journalists who are both ethically principled and at least as skilled at effective rhetoric as the fascist demagogues and their astroturfed echo chamber.
Which means that the US, Germany, the UK, India, Russia, Israel, and several other influential countries are COMPLETELY fucked right now.
FIX THE AI CHAT
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UK plastic waste exports to developing countries rose 84% in a year, data shows
UK plastic waste exports to developing countries rose 84% in a year, data shows
Campaigners say increase in exports mostly to Malaysia and Indonesia is ‘unethical and irresponsible waste imperialism’Karen McVeigh (The Guardian)
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Young lives cut short on an unimaginable scale: the 18,457 children on Gaza’s list of war dead
Young lives cut short on an unimaginable scale: the 18,457 children on Gaza’s list of war dead
Every name on a list compiled by health authorities in Gaza of the child victims of Israel’s offensiveGuardian staff reporter (The Guardian)
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install issues?
Hey there! Loaded POP OS to replace Windows on my daily driver:
Dell G15 5530 (I7 - NVIDIA Geforce RTX - 64GB RAM)
and it seems to brick itself? If I refresh OS everything seems to work fine. But as soon as I update UEFI firmware 480 - 20241101 it will not only not find nor update firmware, but I'm having to frequently hard reboot my machine. It might work. It then becomes unresponsive (won't load past disk encryption password, mouse stops working) until I get to the point of refreshing the OS. Rinse and repeat.
Am I doing something wrong? Is it my machine? Anyone else run into this
Ecuador arrests five for alleged presidential assassination attempt
Ecuador arrests five for alleged presidential assassination attempt
A large group of people threw rocks at Daniel Noboa's car, which bears "signs of bullet damage", an official says.Ione Wells (BBC News)
Chad cuts ties with wildlife charity linked to Prince Harry
Chad cuts ties with wildlife charity linked to Prince Harry
The government says the charity African Parks displayed an arrogant and disrespectful attitude.Mayeni Jones (BBC News)
King Vegeta: "Chad as in the country, the organization or the person?"
Nappa: "Yes."
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World's first resort hospital opens in gambling hub Macau
Gambling hub Macau bets on healthcare tourism
Beijing has been pushing for Macau to diversify its economy away from gaming to healthcare tourism.Osmond Chia (BBC News)
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At least 24 killed as paraglider drops bombs at Myanmar Buddhist festival
Myanmar: At least 24 killed as army paraglider bombs Buddhist festival
Locals tell the BBC the carnage has made it hard to identify victims of the military attack.BBC Burmese (BBC News)
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I fly a paraglider. I was paranoid about getting shot before the Hamas attack on October 7. This just worries me more.
It's all so sad.
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Not trying to put myself or my own worries above the obvious travesty and senseless murder.
I'm just sharing my perspective and not making any political points.
I posted this story from Irrawady yesterday: lemmy.ca/post/52965387. The numbers are much higher.
Myanmar Junta Strike Kills at Least 32 on Buddhist Festival of Light
cross-posted from: lemmy.ca/post/52965336Several children were among at least 32 people killed and over 50 injured on Monday night when junta paragliders bombed a peaceful candlelight vigil in Sagaing Region’s Chaung-U Township.
irrawaddy.com/news/burma/myanm…
So, 32-min dead, 5 from the people who'd been providing protection, some from the non-violent group & some from the junta-resistance group,
& the rest were all just candlelight-vigil Buddhists, participating in a normal periodic festival,
AND the junta also returned to bomb again,
AND the junta also bombed other 2 other regions in the Northern Shan State, according to that story..
Given today's "journalism", I don't expect this to even exist according to the West's reporting.
For context, for people who don't follow the violences in Buddhist regions of the world, in this case I'm defaulting to siding with the Buddhists, but .. please keep in mind that the Buddhists in Sri Lanka apparently have been good a genociding Tamils, & the "Buddhists" of Pol Pot's regime certainly made effective/murderous communists, or whatever they were "identifying" as ( that country was as Buddhist as any country could be, until then, ttbomk ) .. so, same as with Africa, the only default-position that automatically is going to be right, is that line from the youtuber of Africa who tries explaining African politics/wars/genocides for the outside-world.. "it's complicated".
< digging >
brookings.edu/articles/myanmar…
Right.
So, the junta's dismantling gov't-by-the-people-for-the-people.
Their action demonstrates that they're the bad-guys, then.
That article, however, caused me to see that IF a government isn't ruling entire-regions of a country, THEN .. it shouldn't be recognized as government of those regions, should it?
Shouldn't locally-legitimate government be a global civil-right, at some point/degree of dispute?
Making international-law so the rabies that Assad was enforcing in Syria, automatically can't be treated-as "legitimate" by world governments?
( he was ethnic-minority, genociding Syria's majority, because as soon as he caved, then the ethnic-majority would be retaliating against his ethnic-minority again..
which means that the country has, objectively, to be carved into ethnic-regions, & deemed to be distinct countries, instead-of kept in its if-this-side-is-ruling-they-are-genociding-the-other/if-the-other-side-is-ruling-they-are-genociding-the-1st-side political-rabies.
Obviously, this also indicates that enforcing non-partisan gov't, UN-neutral, would be also strategic & wise, & could even prevent carving-up-countries, if held long-enough, but .. it costs outside-countries, so they aren't likely to be investing in that, are they?
but since when has either world-strategic or wisdom had ANY say in human geopolitics??
Bah and Humbug, on all this ego-driven butchery-addiction! )
_ /\ _
Myanmar’s junta doesn’t have to ‘win,’ it just has to wait
While control of many areas in Myanmar are contested, the ruling military junta does not need to control the entire country to “win”.Brookings
the “Buddhists” of Pol Pot’s regime certainly made effective/murderous communists
Your post shows a lot of errors and erroneous logic. Pol Pot wasn't "Buddhist" Pol Pot was a communist. Conflating conflicts in Sri Lanka to the conflict in Myanmar into a "violence in Buddhist regions around the world" is a logical fallacy, and intellectually stupid as can be. A brief look at your post history shows your interest in colouring every conflict into a religious one is rather disturbing.
The culture that Pol Pot was of, was Buddhist.
The country was Buddhist.
The regime took people from Buddhist culture & created that.
Cultural-roots do count.
Ideological-roots do count.
That is exactly why Trump is succeeding in his religion's possessing of the US of A: cultural-roots are leverage.
To me, the "Christians" of Trump's regime, the "Buddhists" of Pol Pot's regime ( was the country culturally communist-party, before his regime, for the 3-4 generations required, to define the culture? No? then there had to be many still "Buddhist" people in that regime ), the "Jews" of Netanyahu's regime, etc, are all playing the same game:
they are having motivation opposite-to what they are purporting to be.
That is significant, in my view.
Historically significant, & significant in whether our-kind survives this century, or not, too.
_ /\ _
I realized that my incompetence-in-communicating probably added this mis-communication:
The inquisitors were Christian, right?
The fact that what they were doing went against everything their root-guru's religion was made-of, doesn't have any bearing, to them.
Nazism is Christian, in identity.
The KKK is Christian, in identity.
Identity has deep roots.
Cambodia's Buddhist.
Has been for centuries.
Yes, I know that Pol Pot was Communist, but when you raise communism in a country as deeply Buddhist as Cambodia, .. you end-up with many of the people in the ruling-regime having "Buddhist" identity, fundamentally in them.
THAT is what I meant:
it was the underlying Buddhist-identity, that I was attacking, and not, in any way, pretending that Pol Pot was claiming Buddhism ( which not-even an idiot would claim ).
You simply can't raise an institution in any culture, without having that-culture being the underlying identity in the people of that regime.
That is why Chinese Buddhism is to me partially an oxy-moron:
Confucianism ( form/tradition/authority/establishment ) is sooo much of the bedrock of the fundamental Chinese mind, and Buddhism is the opposite ( essence, instead-of form, centered ), that the 2 modes of mind are fundamentally mutually-exclusive.
( this doesn't mean that Chinese Chan Buddhism is somehow worthless: it's got some excellent insights for us!
However, if one is working at dissolving-beyond-form, then being fundamentally of the form-and-establishment-and-authority-are-LORD religion that Confucianism is, & I've linked on other sites to a pair of legal-cases which show Confucianism's bedrock instinct..
both in Japan & in China, both Confucian-culture ( Japan's fundamentally more Buddhist & also Shinto ), people have been convicted of murders that they confessed-to, .. and then the person they'd "murdered" returned to town, or was found alive.
In Confucian culture, authority is the LORD.
Authority beating people into confessing is "valid" ( and cost authority some "face" in those cases, when accountability came knocking ), for authority to do.
In OUR culture due-process is more real, in Confucian culture .. it inherently isn't.
Same with truly-Buddhist cultures, like Cambodia.
Any truly-Buddhist culture which is temporarily ( for a few generations ) highjacked by some physicalist/materialist ideology .. the underlying identites of the people staffing the regime is going to remain rooted in the underlying-culture, isn't it?
That goes all ways, not just to the traditional-religions, it goes to moneyarchy, it goes to legalism-archy, it goes to physicalism's religion, it goes to fundamentalist-atheism, it goes to all axiom-based, system-of-meaning that rejects falsification
( which is my definition of "religion" ).
You can't instantly get the underlying identity out, no matter how you change the apparent identity: it takes generations to do that.
( the Soviet Union lasted long-enough to change the fundamental-underlying-identity in people, not completely, but significantly )
So, you've proven I'm incompetent at communicating:
I meant underlying identity, underneath the party-affiliation or otherwise "flag carrying" "identity",
but I appeared to mean something fundamentally-different.
Typical..
My inability to think the way proper, acceptable, valid, western-minds think, keeps creating miscommunications & problems.
That isn't likely to cease, as long as I continue earning more-complete understanding, instead of remanufacturing me to make me be acceptably-conforming/"belonging"/etc.
That underlying-level & surface-level both affect outcomes, is to me sooo obvious as to be automatically-assumed.
Normals don't assume any such thing.
Incompetence-at-communicating can have many causes.
_ /\ _
Malaysia rejects Fifa accusations it forged players’ citizenship and says it will appeal sanctions
Malaysia rejects Fifa accusations it forged players’ citizenship and says it will appeal sanctions
Malaysia’s football association says it will appeal Fifa sanctions and fine after seven players on national team suspended for one yearIma Caldwell (The Guardian)
Burning down the house: Milei plays rock star as Argentina economy crashes
Burning down the house: Milei plays rock star as Argentina economy crashes
Facing protests and scandal, Argentina’s ‘rock star president’ performs in Buenos Aires, saying: ‘I’m human’Facundo Iglesia (The Guardian)
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There are 3 categories of game:
- Positive-Sum game: win-win alliance
- Zero-Sum game: competitive-narcissism
- Negative-Sum game: competitive-nihilism
Mass-shooters, Accelerationists, street-gangs butchering life for kicks, & dictators-committed-to-making-CERTAIN-that-nobody-amounts-to-anything-once-they're-gone: the entire country is their epitaph, .. these are playing negative-sum game.
Know it for what it is.
Competitive-nihilism is becoming more & more normal among world "leaders", while our whole judging-everything-paradigm is pretending that everyone is within the competitive-narcissism/zero-sum-game category.
Stampeding off a cliff, "to 'make our [ political/ideological ] statement', exterminating everyone in the world with us", kind of commitment..
Treat it as it actually is, not as the false-god "status quo" is committed to pretending that it is.
Status-quo doesn't have a soul of its own: it can't die.
We can.
Break such highjackers-of-our-world from ruling-authority,
XOR Universe's NaturalSelection's going to be awarding us with our very-own entire species wide DarwinAward, later this century.
That's objectively humankind's choice.
_ /\ _
Macron under pressure to call snap parliamentary elections or resign
Macron under pressure to call snap parliamentary elections or resign
French president’s former allies join opponents in demanding he act to end a spiralling political crisisJon Henley (The Guardian)
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Alleged ‘kill team’ charged after arrest en route to hit near Sydney daycare
Alleged ‘kill team’ face court after arrest en route to hit near Sydney daycare
Police allege they identified the trio ‘mobilising’ to kill a man near a childcare centre in city’s south-westNick Visser (The Guardian)
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Emmanuel Macron: I won’t resign, I was elected ‘to serve, to serve, and to serve’ 🤡
Emmanuel Macron: I won’t resign, I was elected ‘to serve, to serve, and to serve’
Sebastien Lecornu will face a no-confidence vote this week after being reappointedAlessandro Parodi (The Independent)
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It was a good read until he started with the art is a skill and anyone can do it. He's kind of in his bubble there making assumptions about people. People have various levels of aphantasia, it's not binary. Those that are good at visual imagination do art, people without can't draw a fucking apple from memory reasonable art is beyond many, even if they had the time to dedicate to it.
Everything else he said was on point. well eventually on point, that was a long ride.
Edit: Man, look at all these talented people telling me I could be talented too if I just tried. Some of you might find a shocking revelation in thevfact that not everyone has the ability to perform the skill you perform. Some people, like me, have put several thousand hours into trying to improve my ability to draw, and while it has improved slightly, I am still not capable of drying anything above rudimentary. Talented people find it easy to project their skill onto other people but that's not how it works. It's not just a feeling that you can't do it, it's trying for years and not being able to do anything appreciable with it. My seven-year-old had more skill out of the gate than I had after scoring around with it for 30 years. So keep on telling me that I could just do it if I'd just invest the time and make yourself feel better that you invest at the time. That's truly helpful to me.
One of the things I find most awesome about art is seeing how so many people with different capacities find ways to make art.
I likely have aphantasia, and whilst I call myself an artist, there are times where I see a particular shape or form within the world and think "damn, that's beautiful". I find myself taking a mental note of it, because whilst I don't make art, I do enjoy making clothes. Aphantasia does make it hard to take those experiences and make cool stuff out of them, because without a mental image to work from, it may take me many attempts to correctly mark out the shape, where my only guiding sense is whether a particular attempt looks right though. It hasn't stopped me from making things I'm truly proud of though, and a key thing that drives me to keep creating is that sense of fulfillment I get from taking something beautiful from the world and reusing it in a manner that allows me to share that slice of wonder with other people.
I feel like I've only been half decent at that in recent years though; before that, I tended to focus on the more technical aspects of the craft, but that doesn't mean it wasn't creative. I made a chainmail hauberk for myself once, because the base technique didn't seem hard and it seemed like it would be fun (turns out the hard part is sticking with it long enough to make a whole item). Part of my quest was that I knew that wearing a sturdy belt over a chainmail hauberk is essential for the weight to be properly distributed, and I thought it might be cool to use an underbust corset in place of a belt. The creative part of that required little, if any, visual imagination — I mostly just enjoyed the juxtaposition of the traditionally masculine armour with the femininity of the corset.
Beyond my own personal experiences, I've been awed by seeing so many examples of creative people working with what limitations they have, and honing their skills in whatever way they can. A close friend has such poor vision that they legally count as blind, but their paintings have such incredible colours — they have a beautiful diffuseness to them, which is apparently how they see the world. Seeing their art makes me feel closer to them. Unfortunately, they've recently suffered injury to their hands, so they can't paint like they used to — so they have found new ways to paint that don't rely on their hands so much. And there's even more examples of this kind of persistence if we consider music to be art too.
I don't really give a fuck about art — not really. I care about the people who make it. I get that it's frustrating to try something creative when your skill can't match up to your figurative creative vision, but that's also a problem that even experienced artists struggle with. If you made something that required little to no skill, but it was something that you had cared about, then that's enough to make me care. That might sound silly given that you're just a random person on the internet to me, but that's precisely why I care; art makes me feel connected to people I've never even met.
People who make the point that you're making are often people who have within them the desire to make art, but they feel that it's inaccessible to them. I know, because I was one of them (years before AI hit the zeitgeist). I realise that this may not apply to you, and you might be speaking in a more general sense, but if it does, then I would hope that you would someday feel able to give things a go. I think it'd be a shame if someone with a desire to create never got the chance to see where that could go. I'm not saying "maybe you could start a career as an artist", because even highly proficient artists often struggle to make a career out of art that doesn't kill their soul (most working artists I know use their paid work to support work that's more artistically fulfilling to them). Just know that if you make things that you care about, there will always be people who will care about what you make.
I say this as someone who has just written out a veritable essay full of care in reply to someone I'm probably never going to speak about. And hey, if you've gotten this far, then that is surely evidence towards my point about how making stuff you care about causes people to care about what you've made — either that, or you've jumped to the bottom in search of a TL;DR. Regardless, people like me care so much about art because human connection helps us to survive this pretty grim world, and art is our most reliable way of doing that. I'd love to have you here with us, if you'd like to be.
But... It is a skill... And anyone can develop that skill. That's how skills work. Nobody is born good at anything. It takes practice and education.
And aphantasia does not stop one from being able to draw. There are a lot of artists, authors and other creatives that have aphantasia.
Uh, lots of really great painters have aphantasia. It's very prominent in the population and 100% not a medical disability. Art is a skill. There's people without arms that paint. Deaf people who make music. There's blind people drawing. There's this cool japanese girl without an arm that plays the violin. There's all sorts of people who make art, because humans can't not make art.
Are you going to win prices and sell work for millions of dollars, or feature at the MOMA, or play at the Superbowl half time show? Or achieve any of the inane arbitrary goalpost that people like to set for calling stuff real art. Most assuredly you won't. Because less than 0.1% of all the people in the planet will achieve any of that. But every single child has and will be born an artist. Every child draws, sings, dances and plays spontaneously. All that is art.
If you think only people born artists can make art, congratulations, you were born an artists, every human is, go do your art. If you think only specific people with extraordinary characteristics get to make art. I'm sorry you were hurt so bad to develop such bleak worldview and poor self image.
If you do art, you'll get good at art. If you don't do art and instead make the slop machine manufacture expensive Styrofoam for you to chew on, then you'll never get good at art. Regardless of your biological makeup. Being shit at doing something is the first and mandatory step for becoming good at doing something. Do it poorly until you can do it decently, then do it some more. Art is the experience of doing art. Even bad art is superior to mass consumption generated pixels.
While I appreciate the pep talk, I truly think your heart is in the right place. You just claim that my artwork is better without having any view of my artwork or knowledge of my skill.
This is a very common thing that people do. You can't conceive that someone can't do something, so you blame them on their persistence, or their ID or their ego. I don't know what your skills are, but it feels an awful lot like projection.
It's not like I'm useless at art, I can sculpt 3D objects from 3D objects. I can even, with limited success, use Zbrush.
It was none of those things actually. It's impossible to objectively judge our own artworks. We can analyze it, tell others what we think are the strong and weak points, but it's extremely common for most people, especially when it comes to art, to judge it with a much higher degree of scrutiny that we do not reserve for others.
It's something I've had to work through myself, both with my art and myself as a person. And with that comes an inherent distrust of others opinions of themselves and their work, especially when it's excessively dismissive or pessimistic.
Trump reportedly ends remaining diplomatic channels with Venezuela, frustrated with Maduro’s reluctance to relinquish power
Donald Trump has reportedly ended all diplomatic outreach to Venezuela, instructing envoy Richard Grenell to cease all efforts as he grows frustrated with authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro's reluctance to relinquish power.
Trump is also frustrated that Maduro keeps rejecting any ties with drug cartels, The New York Times reported. Officials told the outlet that the administration has drawn up multiple military plans for an eventual escalation.
Trump Reportedly Ends Remaining Diplomatic Channels With Venezuela, Frustrated With Maduro's Reluctance To Relinquish Power
President Donald Trump has reportedly ended all diplomatic outreach to Venezuela, instructing envoy Richard Grenell to cease all efforts as he grows frustrated with authoritarian President Nicolas...Demian Bio (Latin Times)
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So, militarily-enforced "regime-change" is going to happen in Venezuela, for Trump's regime's satisfaction.
But will militarily-enforced "regime-change" be tolerated when Trump proves "reluctant" to relinquish power, when he disallows the 2028 elections?
Of course not!
2-facedness is shameless, nowadays.
Too bad it's on humankind to do the enforcing-of-correction: the cost is going to be .. close to 99% of the human population, it looks like, throughout the rest of this century, given how bad the balance-of-power ( between corruption vs integrity ) is..
shrug
99% gone or 100% gone: those look to be the only actual possibilities, for next-century, now: corruption's eradicated integrity from sooo much of the world, that it really is the vast-majority position, now.
"Majority-rule" means integrity/justice cannot rule: the 2 "centers" are mutually-exclusive.
So long as herd-style majority-rule outranks integrity, then .. integrity has no right to rule.
Integrity's breaking corruption-majority from ruling, including oligarchy, dictatorship-backed-by-obedient-"votes", etc, would be minority-but-upright rule, which is .. prohibited, by majority-rule, isn't it?
shrug
Natural-selection'll decide, & Universe'll keep the accounting-books accurate.
Universe doesn't "need" our species to live: our assumed entitlement has no power over universe, & it never had any.
If we won't grow-up, then .. our world's remains will serve as a warning to others, of the consequences of indulging-in-toddler-mentality while having global-scale militaries.
Which is a socially-"valid" choice, obviously..
The herd-beasts who lie broken & dying at the bottom of a cliff they just stampeded off of .. their "going along with the herd's opinion" is every bit as valid as humankind's doing the same thing.
_ /\ _
Yeah it is pretty fucked up. I want to throw up everytime I hear a conservative say the President has a mandate.
Last time I checked no one voted for Miller, a white supremacist, to be running the country. Didn't we used to vet people to prevent this kind of shit.
What fucking mandate!? 90% of deported people don't have a violent record. It was all big fat fucking lie so we can all live out Miller's KKK fantasy.
Repeat after me, no one voted for this shit show. Stop blaming the victims and start messaging the fucking truth.
He's so fucking stupid. And now that he's demented, we're seeing the unfiltered reactions.
How weak the entire world must know the United States is right now.
Hackers can steal 2FA codes and private messages from Android phones
Hackers can steal 2FA codes and private messages from Android phones
Malicious app required to make “Pixnapping” attack work requires no permissions.Dan Goodin (Ars Technica)
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This is a very big hypothetical.
They'd need to already have access to your account credentials (email, password or at least something that is regarded the same) then have you install this malicious app, then you'd need this app to be open at the same time as your 2FA app
It's possible, yes, it's an awesome find, yes, and this should be patches, yes yes yes, a thousand yes
Having said that, I'm not too worried about the potential impact of this, it'll be fine.
The Right's Secret Plan to Help Billionaires Buy Elections
J.D. Vance and the Right's Plan to Help Billionaires Buy Elections
J.D. Vance and other MAGA interests are working to get the Supreme Court to end restrictions on campaign spending limits.David Sirota (Rolling Stone)
Denmark plans social media ban for under-15s as Prime Minister warns phones ‘stealing childhood’
Denmark plans social media ban for under-15s as PM warns phones ‘stealing childhood’
Mette Frederiksen links social media use to anxiety, depression and lack of concentrationMiranda Bryant (The Guardian)
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Sounds like someone is trying to avoid regulating social media platforms.
How about "User must be subscribed to see an activity" so the algo doesn't just roll you into a rabbit hole.
Subscriptions can still recommend other subscriptions and people can share stuff from their subscriptions but liking something shouldn't qualify.
Between a revolution and a whisper
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mrdown
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NChiwana76
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Bonifratz
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Numinous_Ylem
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in reply to schizoidman • • •Lumisal
in reply to schizoidman • • •I'm more surprised they were every in any such alliance in the first place.
I mean eat stealing and baby killing just auto cancels anything good they may ever try to do it than maybe self destruction.