If the cause for muted celebration persists, for next year I’d suggest reviving International Workers’ Day and/or Beltane, possibly with Cinco de Mayo influences. Nothing like solidarity marches, or bonfires, pagan magic and feasting.

Ehhh.

As much as the traditition of yearly votes on some version of Chat Control sucks, it’s just two mentions (The Register missed the reference to COM (2022) 209 under “Fighting serious crimes/child sexual abuse”, because of course it’d be there) in a document with way juicier tidbits. Like

• actual enforcement of the DSA (finally some consequences for social media giants gleefully profiting from manipulation, or an affront to freedom of speech, depending on your opinion)
• overhauling Europol’s mandate to make it “a truly operational police agency”, whereas the current mandate doesn’t cover such things as “sabotage, hybrid threats or information manipulation” (cool or creepy)
• “strengthening border security”, “countering weaponised migration”, “security considerations in EU visa policy”, and “revision of the Visa Suspension Mechanism” are all probably necessary steps, but taken together paint a picture of something that shouldn’t be allowed to go too far

The DSA enforcement is something strongly opposed by social media giants, so I’d expect more denigration of the document as a whole in the future.

Hate is such a strong word. Some bad, some good.

Bad:

• Copyright infringement and other unethical practices in acquiring training data
• Unimaginative AI art flooding the graphics market and the Internet
• Taking work from actual artists that might generate something new
• So much energy used on pointless, quickly forgotten “single-use art” in the middle of a climate crisis

Good:

• Okay starting point for logos for eg. small associations or clubs, preferably treated as version 0.1 and later worked on, but still an affordable option, and more personalised than clipart
• Creative visual outlet for people with no interest in developing their graphical skills, but who have an urge to get a small number of specific images out of their system
• Probably a good media for some commentary on the relationship between real a unreal, familiar and alien cognition, and such, but that itself is such a cliche
• Simply a fun toy

Completely opposite for me. Full bush keeps everything more “airy”, whereas shaven is underwear directly against the parts that bleach them, plus it all gets all sweaty.

Not disagreeing, we should strive for good or at least civil relationships with our neighbors, even if we don’t exactly like each other, but the problem is that

• any agreement or peace deal with Russia isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, they’ll just ignore it when they want to
• make peace with one country in Middle-East, you’ll anger another

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This, and if they’re a friend, not pausing to think before a shared activity that would make you consider finances. A weekend/weeklong trip, concert tickets to a costly performer/seats, trying a new more expensive restaurant for lunch, etc. Even if they aren’t interested that time, the explanations say that openly or they address the cost in time, not money.

Why do anything? Every goal is a value choice. Pleasure? Money? Leaving a legacy in children or added knowledge or whatever? Learning? Improving your community? Improving the world in general? Raging against the absurd?

If self-centered hedonism is the way you want to spend your brief meaningless time in this meaningless world, go for it! Just go for it with the same full knowledge of its pointlessness and your mortality as you would anything else.

In a defensive war against an equal or more powerful enemy, everyone is needed to do the part the military organisation needs them to. For many it’s their civilian job, for the rest it’s whatever’s needed, including the front lines (after training, well-equipped and well-led). War’s ugly.

I’d be highly sceptical of any beatings occurring. Common sense suggests that an unwilling soldier you got to the front that way would likely bring more harm to the morale of their fellow troopmates, than benefit through their own efforts.

When Real Men fuck, women just get in the way.

It’s not exactly the same physical brain though? Neurons die and are sometimes, if rarely in adulthood, generated. They are constantly repaired, the exact molecules that make them up change. Glial cells die and form and they have supporting functions. Diseases change brain structure more slowly than immediate trauma. And so on.

I certainly wouldn’t say I’m the same person I was as a toddler.

Eating a banana. First you bite both heads off, then sink your front teeth into one end to nibble away one third, then separate the other two thirds and eat them separately. You can think of them as the corpora cavernosa and the corpus spongiosum to maintain the penis-analogue in a slightly more disturbing form.

Not American, but definitely would. I’d get it a new fun/tacky paintjob for shits and giggles, maybe a realistic/stylized total rust bucket look, or grandma’s crocheted lace. Or, if possible, just black and enhance any scratches with fineline gold paint, overscratch swastikas and replace them with flowers, etc.

Same. Hetzner has a solid business in hosting, they don’t make their money from mining my data. They’d hand it over for a lawful request, but the data is not -that- secret and thus possible false accusations aren’t really an issue.

I’ve barely hosted anything and those must have leaked like a sieve. Trusting Hetzner way more.

Depends on how out of reach. Stocks exchanged in other, possibly hostile countries? (Edit: Right, needs that account to hold them that others are talking about, duh.) Property in other countries that allow it (eg. most of EU does afaik)?

Well shit, I wasn’t planning on assassinations but some people already behave like they have a baguette up their ass, and this could be improved.

“Lukee kuin piru Raamattua” (Finnish).
Literally “to read like the Devil reads the Bible”.
Meaning to examine something in bad faith. Never heard it used it in context of the Bible or anything religious, but eg. when interpreting law or contract, looking for the details that could be twisted for your purpose, rather than what the text attempts to convey.

Homeless. My country has decent social security and “housing first” policy, it’s reasonable to expect to be able to exit the situation soon.

US, same, but exit for edgier reasons.

I don’t think community service for women would be anything but a punishment, it wouldn’t improve defence in any way and would just be an excuse to not pay someone to do the same job.

I’ve lately been thinking that some kind of weekend-long preparedness course every year, or every few years, might be a good option. With an intensive 1-4 week infodump and practical training to start with. Hopefully in case of SHTF we could help keep everyone warm, fed and un-panicked for at least a few days while everyone further up the chain has their hands full. Also might help combat misinformation, maintain first-aid and civilian firefighting skills, enhance home cybersecurity, establish a neighborhood LoRa/Meshtastic network or get everyone on Briar for communication without major infrastructure (okay, that’s just me daydreaming), etc.

But yeah, pro-mandatory-military-training in our case, target group however the defence forces wants to set it, but don’t really see the point in a US setting.

Stubbornly not taking my antidepressants in the morning, whether relenting later in the day or not. Venlafaxine, how I love thee and thy withdrawals.