I would not be taking any bets, especially ones where eating pants is on the table, related to the clown in chief.

Institutionally, he is an evil pedophile oligarch, beholden to other US elites in his imperialist crusade to keep US a dominant power.

But personally he is a demented narcissistic idiot who can't help but suck it up to the last person who said nice things to him. I can see a near future where some Iranian diplomat gets half an hour in a room with trump and gets him to give away California as an Iranian territory in exchange for a trump Tower Tehran or some shit.

Then again, the list of demands given out by Iran is way too reasonable to happen in this timeline...

No need to worry, it won't even be reflected on any map worth using

(just noticed that it doesn't even get mentioned as an alternative name in the Wikipedia summary lol)

I want us to redefine "pro-life" to mean pro-urbanism, pro-renewables, and pro-universal-healthcare. Just those 3 things would make for such a dramatic increase in life expectancy and fall in child mortality, it's crazy.

It was as ineffective as usual (at military goals - plenty effective at destroying civilian infrastructure and murdering schoolgirls).

But also Iran absolutely did fuck up the US military. Multiple bases are effectively destroyed or disabled, dozens of aircraft shut down, missile interceptor stocks depleted, an entire aircraft carrier is running away shitting its pants (probably literally) and there are close to a thousand casualties. The US military took sizeable losses and achieved literally no strategic goals. This is not just being ineffective, this is both being ineffective and getting their shit fucked up because of it. A bunch of war criminal losers.

That doesn't make sense, the GitHub repo is still up (in fact that's exactly what you're linking to). A DMCA/C&D targeted at github would have the repo disappear immediately until MS lawyers figure it out -- see the youtube-dl situation. Judging from this issue comment C&D was targeted at nitter's author and nitter.net operator, zedeus. The reason he shut down the instance immediately is because the Netherlands, where it is hosted and presumably where he lives, is very much part of the US (and thus epstein class's) sphere of influence. So are all the other countries where third-party instances were hosted, so it's understandable that their hosters are also afraid of C&D's and shut down their instances (e.g. https://nitter.catsarch.com/).

I'm talking about spinning up instances outside that sphere of influence. A person living in Russia won't give a fuck about any letters from Musk so they can host an instance with no fear (at least in that regard). Russia, despite its crackdowns on internet privacy and freedom of speech in many ways, has been a haven for all sorts of cool piracy-adjacent stuff, so this seems quite fitting.

Can't wait for nitter.ru and xcancel.ru. Seriously, the code is open-source, someone should spin up an instance outside the epstein jurisdiction.

I'm not sure "virtue" is the right word. Perhaps "asshole signaling"?

How is this better than a small-medium panel van? Unless you need to do serious off-road stuff or carry bulk cargo regularly, a panel van seems more practical in every way (shorter, lower load floor, better fuel economy, more convenient sliding door, more capacity, easy access to the cargo area from passenger area if desired). I guess it makes sense if there's a sea of lightly used pickup trucks from idiots using them for commuting, so you can get them much cheaper than a van.

Most farmers here in europe rely mostly on beat-up panel vans to carry most supplies to fields and produce away from fields. Pick-up trucks are used specifically for carrying bulk. It just makes the most sense.

I don't remember the exact model number but the short wheelbase second-gen Ford Transit (not Transit Connect, just a regular Transit) is the most popular vehicle in Georgia (the country), used by almost all tradespeople and farmers. Granted it is probably on the medium rather than small side of the scale, but it would work great for the kind of loads pictured above & also for towing. I would be surprised if a Ford product was not available in the US.

Why would anyone leak their identity to Telegram when a certain RUssian torrent TRACKER forum ORGanization is right there?

Since a death penalty conviction basically means “this person is beyond rehabilitation,” I think it should be replaced with prison labor. Not inhumane labor, but “its work or solitary,” and the threshold for conviction should be extremely high.

That's basically what some US prisons are like already tho. There are states where refusal to work, sometimes with no wage, results in disciplinary action.

I think the only realistic solution for this is for hollywood to start pumping out biopics about every single innocent person put to death by the state. Let people sympathize with the protagonist being framed and locked up for doing nothing, and then hit them with what an execution of that protagonist looks like.

After the revolution they must make a biopic about the couple who helped the soviets with nuclear tech, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Kissing and singing L'Internationale while being strapped to an electric chair for helping a socialist nation survive against the empire? C'mon, that's some prime Communetflix material.

As (technically) a Russian dissident, the majority of Russian dissidents are idiots. See: support for Navalniy, support for Gaza genocide. Telegram is not private at all, it is not encrypted by default, and there are likely ways for three-letter agencies to leak your identity even without full cooperation from Telegram LLC.

While it's true that Durov is somewhat anti-Putin, that doesn't help you as (likely) a citizen of a western country. Durov will clearly cooperate with western governments on their demands, he holds French citizenship and regularly travels to Europe.

Yeah as a movie it was pretty bad. Animation-wise there are parts where clearly a lot of effort went in (mostly in the beginning), and then others which were just transparently careless (you could see certain assets being reused multiple times when it doesn't really make sense). The plot was predictable and weak, suitable for very young kids only (but then some of the jokes are a bit too mature I thought). It doesn't really explore mutual aid in any real way apart from "would be cool if we didn't fight each other I guess". For an adult it gets boring quick, and I say this as someone who rewatched 2001: A Space Odyssey like 5 times now. I haven't thought about it for 2 years and will not be rewatching it.

All that said, I think it may be a good family watch if you have young kids. Set your expectations low and let the kid enjoy the movie.

No, actually what you should do is run a good socialist platform. Mamdani and his great governance has done more to fix the perception of socialism in the US than any reverse psychology tricks would ever do.

IDK about France, but the Rammstein base is American, so I don’t know hoe much control Germany has over what USA does with it.

I think a stance like that of Spain would be ideal: close the airspace to US military aircraft. Let them use the base however the fuck they want.

I know they’ve made problems enough for Trump to be extremely pissed.

I feel like it had more to do with Merz making public statements humiliating trump. There was (and still is!) plenty of US military aircraft landing and taking off from Rammstein. The clown-in-chief is a narcissist who can't stand public criticism or humiliation of his person, so a reaction like this sounds up his alley.

That is understandable IMO, refueling and recon are not acts of war. So I think they have found that a sensible balance to not seem unreasonable.

Both are logistical support for a war that is poised to seriously hurt their economies.

Look at it another way: what would you say if Romania let Russian spy aircraft use their airfields for recon over Ukraine, and Russian support aircraft fly refuelling missions for bombers, in exchange for "military protection" and "economic support"? Would it still be a "sensible balance" then?

it seems to me that most European countries have done a lot to prevent USA from having an easy time.

Idunno, almost all of them allowed the US to use their territories to wage an illegal war. Whether actual bombing runs were permitted is a bit immaterial here just like the "defensive" label on those operations. Recon and logistics are necessary components of a war, and allowing the US to perform them makes no sense for a war that will hurt you.

This is a very strong signal from Europe that we don’t agree with what USA is doing.

While I agree that there has been some good marginal changes from the last illegal war, it is still clear who is the empire and who is the de-facto vassal. If the relationship is that of equal allies, where are all the European military bases on continental US soil?

Waterproofing a 3.5mm jack is not that difficult compared to a USB-C port. There are quite a few phones on the market right now which are waterproof and have a headphone jack: https://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?chk35mm=selected&sAvailabilities=1&sIPCerts=11

The problem is that it takes away a chunk of space which usually means less battery life.

It’s like expecting fender benders to not happen. And people die in auto accidents. We accept that risk as a part of driving, and we understand that safety improvements over the years have made accidents more survivable. And yet we drive, take that risk, and know that it could be worse.

Not to take away from the rest of your point with which I agree, but we absolutely must stop driving. Like, completely ban personal cars in populated areas. The risks of driving are not necessary. There are plenty of other forms of transportation that are not only safer but also faster, healthier, more environmentally sustainable, reduce harmful pollution, make for better cities, and help eliminate poverty. Motonormativity is a crime perpetrated by capital to sell everyone more cars, tarmac, and gasoline, at an enormous cost to human wellbeing and life.

Do you think it's more difficult to waterproof than a USB-C port? And if so, how did 148 phones from the list above get their IP68/IP69 ratings?

Yeah, Google Translate also translates carpet as "ковер" instead of the proper spelling (ковёр), and it actually does translate "carpet mold" as "ковер плесень" (instead of a more proper translation like "ковровая плесень" or "плесень в ковре").

I'd say it's 99% google translate

Fair enough. I tend to use it because it just reduces scanning ambiguity when reading text quickly.