I’m gonna take this chance to air my personal grievance with “Iodine”, which is commonly pronounced (in the US at least) “aye-o-dine”, but if we look at all of the other halogen, their “-ine” ending is pronounced “-een”, and therefore iodine should clearly be pronounced “aye-o-deen”.

That’s lame af. Flying on my dragon dude between my bases was badass.

Just a funny story, but, I use an Ubuntu laptop as my work computer as a teacher, and once, while I was helping another student with work, a student opened my laptop and began trying to install Roblox. She got far enough to figure out it wouldn’t work, and started searching for how to install it. When I came over she was trying to figure out how to set up Wine. She got pretty close to getting it working before I came over. I was secretly pretty impressed with how fast she figured it out. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes.

Ubuntu. It was reccomended to me by a few of my mor knowledgeable friends, and I haven’t had any major issues with it. The operating system is doing what I need it to and I just can’t find any motivation to want to change.

Great powers rearming will not be good for anyone no matter what the context is around it. After Napoleon, European leaders were so afraid of war between great powers that they avoided it for 100 years. The moment they let their guard up we got WW1. The weapons do not make us safer. Don’t think for a moment it can’t happen again.

If she’s banned from running it will be the first instance of a western liberal country reacting appropriately to the resurgence of fascism. Good on France.

We have to keep in mind that Europe needs to justify austerity for the citizens and rearmament for their militaries. I have no evidence of this, but I think it’s an entierly sensible read that the warning from Germany is an overstatement with that intent in mind.

I mean, this is good, but isn’t it the case that they basically pay for this by selling Oil and Gas? That’s not replicable for most nations, and is kinda… like, damaging. I’m glad they did it, but unless their next goal is like, paying India to phase out their fossil fuel industry it kinda feels like pulling the ladder up in a way to me.

It could be them getting ready to push a wc1 and 2 remake. Hopefully more of a D2 than a WC3…

As a chemist, I will go ahead and inform you confidently that Potassium Iodide in a dry place will outlast you by a significant margin. It’s very chemically stable.

Something I often find myself explaining to my friends who I game with is just how much objectively terrible shit you can get gamers to not only tolerate, but support as long as you promise to “get rid of cheaters”… which is a hopeless goal. It took a lot of explaining to get them to accept my argument of “I would literally prefer cheaters over a new root kit for every game”

Congress of Vienna was the first time historically I have really read about nation states pearl clutch about “international laws” and “rules based international order”, I might argue that it predates WW1 by about 100 years.

I get why in this momement where Ukraine appears to be dependent on NATO support, and where it seems like NATO is required to counterbalence Russia, why people would support the existence of it. But, it is absolutely a tool of US global hegemonic power. The US has committed some incredibly horrific acts to secure its position as sole global super power and NATO as a tool to develop and maintain that power has been used to that end, and will continue to be used in that way. We should not confuse tools of imperial power projection to be a good thing.

Imagine swearing fealty to a monarch in 2024.

That wasn’t my question. But if you must know, if the choice is between “maintaining the current standard of living” and “stop risking the habitability of the one place known that can support life”, I choose the latter. Everytime. And it’s crazy to choose the former.

So if throwing paint at a entierly replaceable cover for a dusty old painting is too far gone to be acceptable, what action can we take to stop oil production? Like. It needs to stop. To continue producing fossil fuels is a death cult. It needs to stop, like, a decade ago. I ask genuinely, how is this too far, and what is an acceptable response to an existential threat?

edit: On the off chance someone reads this so long after the post, I just want to point out that nobody actually engaged with my question here.

I really wish people would look at it in this lens more. I think this is a big part of why we’re see this same issue in many developed countries. Like, yes. Xenophobia and racism is a part of it, but the other, more actionable part of it is that all of our viable political options have turned into technocrats who have used their political and economic expertise to fatten the richest people, and largest, most profitable industries at the expense of the poor for decades. This reality has bred resentment, distrust, and disinterest in politics, especially of political moderates and “status quo” politicians. All major left-wing opposition has been suppressed, or neutered, and as a result the only truly “oppositional” seeming politics come from far right nut jobs and they end up being the release valve for the political frustration. People can only hear “the economy is doing great”, while watching their children struggle to afford even a modest standard of living (by the standards we’ve come to expect) for so long before they become desperate for a significant change.

Hey! It’s the part where the “centrists” betray the left and cede power to the facists! Damn. You’d think someone would write a new script or something.

Golf With Your Friends

A US citizen who immigrated to Israel. Israel allows (nearly) anyone of Jewish heritage to immigrate (Link) , and so a lot of Israelis are of another nationality as well.