estaseuropano

Not to be rude, but it seems you have strong opinions about things you know very little about. A good lithmus test: if you think the rest of the world is all stupid/ignorant/incompetent and misses something obvious, it is very very very likely that in fact you miss something obvious.

E.g. an app doesn't solve any problem for a restaurant because someone has to manage the app, manage data entry, show people his to use it, take decisions when to override the app ("they reserved for 20 minutes ago but didn't show up And that's our last table...") etc. This requires skills knowledge and guidance for everyone involved, And still much manual work to manage it. For. Big restaurant you would not be able to drop the greeter. In covid many restaurants have gone this route and many people actively avoid such restaurants.

E.g. jar of water - of course there's none, except for upscale restaurants where everyone orders wine, as the drinks are a major profit factor for most restaurants. Putting free water on the table will mean lower drinks orders.

I used to lead policy on digital school education for an important organization advising governments on education policy. This was my driving concern: to fight against all the old grumpy people that don't understand and absolutely fear the digital world and think that all would be well if we ban 0s and 1s from school and force kids to go into the woods (not at all exaggerating on the latter part). There were also others that think all problems are solved when you just get everyone to learn coding, which is a starting point but nearly equally wrong and naive as you need societal context and other understanding to make sense of the digital.

It is a basic but at system level not obvious insight that you cannot ignore reality in how you educate your or anyone else's children. It is easy to be careful and conservative but for education to be useful you have to teach them about difficult topics early and thoroughly and both the substance and the methodology have to actually fit the reality these children can and do encounter every day and WILL eventually encounter once they leave the protected environment of school and parents.

You simply cannot teach a child to be a mature, employable, self-confident, independent, informed and sensible adult without the tools of the normal world. By all means, keep them away from tech completely and there are exactly two scenarios: 1) they sneak their way into getting access 2) they fall into an adult life they are not prepared for and will suffer for it.

You, as a parent or educator, mist face reality and discomfort yourself and engage with the world your children encounter. Teach them understanding and insight, not shame or fear.

If you haven't read it yet, pick up "Sex, Power Suicide" as well. Very dense reading but I learned something new or understood something I knew better from basically every page I read.

The book is described explicitly as "not for beginners". Do you have a recommendation for beginners?

"don't sleep there are snakes" - half an adventure book, half linguistic analysis and explanation of a fairly unique language.

This seems to me a well written and reasonable article by a respected and known Czech scholar.

It is far from propaganda channels and false news like on RT.

I assume you're from Turkey? I keep wondering how much the welcome for Syrian refugees was just due to the proximity, or more due to the geopolitics that Erdogan continues to play with them. Basically he holds the "I will release hordes of refugees" as a threat to the EU to extract billions in assistance payments and many other concessions from the EU. And it is a lot of cheap labour that can be exploited, and many women that can be married off to Turkish men.

Sorry to be so cynical but this is what it looks like from the outside.

Syria and most of Africa are not "known terror states", or at least they weren't before the nightmares of civil war that enveloped them and made the people flee.

But I dare to guess that you meant to say "Muslim" without saying Muslim, but even that doesn't hold as many refugees from Syria and Africa are Christians or other religions. Kurds (often Christian), jezidis, zoroastrians, ...

The only other clear differences are the proximity and skin colour of the people.

That said, Europe has always supported refugees, e.g. Vietnamese, Turkish, etc live across Western Europe. Even the Syrian civil war initially saw a warm welcome with wide open arms - it is the sheer number of people fleeing, and indeed that often mainly younger men arrived (with women less likely to flee and more like to get stuck/"married"/trafficked/killed on the way) which turned significant parts of the population to cold hearts.

My healthscare is an admittedly unusual one, but it applies globally - with a single country exempt. I can get treatment in Sri Lanka, Greece, Moldavia, North Korea, Ghana or Iran and they will cover it. But not the US as ithat system is the most broken and most expensive in the world.

We are currently hosting Ukrainian refugees and one of them was suddenly struggling to breathe. We brought her to the hospital two days ago and they made her sign a single sheet that says "you can request the social services on my behalf". Since then she's been transferred to another hospital, has been CT scanned and they did at least a dozen different tests on heart, lungs, etc. all it took was a few hours of waiting and the power of Google translate to make her be understood. We expect that she will not have to pay a single Euro.

Honestly I don't even need to tell you which country that is as that's what I would expect in any western or northern European country (except maybe Switzerland, which is its own capitalist hellscape).

The US is still the richest country in the world. That you are suffering is not needed. It is not a necessary feature of the system. It's a policy choice.

In any country a certain part of the population holds extreme views. If the military represents more or less the population then by necessity it will contain some fascists etc. If anything, you would not expect many vegans or non-violence activists in the military, but you would certainly expect to see those people that love power, weapons and the language of force, which correlates quite strongly with fascist views.

Op did not claim that the whole military is fascist.

First, there is no simple western media. That of Poland is different from Germany is different from France is totally different from the US media. Some of those are better than others

Second, we have a classic dilemma. There is a media openly spreading lies and wartime propaganda. Will you teeate the spread of blatant lies, hatred and incitement in the interest of "freedom" when the aim of that very media is not to inform but to incite anger, aggression and sow doubt about the government?

Azov is one of the batallions there but your post is totally skewed. If your country is attacked and the KKK volunteer to fight, will you stop them from doing so?

Why should the western media focus on which troops fight on the Ukrainian side if we have a clear aggressor, the invading country of Russia. It is a bullshit narrative to say they are fighting Nazis. they are fighting Ukrainians, some of which may be Nazis, but so are some of the Russian troops.

That you demand western media acknowledge the absurd and made up casus belli of denazification is simply crazy. It means you bought into the Russian propaganda, whether you know it or not.

I heartily disagree. Maybe its just my privacy conscious european-ness but seeing how companies keep leaking data I do not went to give my data, much less my CC, to a service I'm not actually sure i will end up using.

Ok true for a pure scanner these might indeed be fine. Too few ways for the manufactured to additionally fleece you :-)

Is vuescan not a safer choice? Epson, canon and hp software tend to do automatic updates and may choose to brick your device if you use the wrong ink. They also tend to collect data unless you carefully fight every setting. Why even expose yourself to that? I only biy oki and brother printers for this reason - fine tech without the evil.

First you would have to prove this was intentional and done by the authors themselves (not e.g. an assistant).

No need to attribute malice. Why would that be intentional? Its just ambiguous drafting.

I don't think this is a great article, but you are simply wrong. There are well tested universally attractive things, like

* hourglass shape (although the dimensions vary the proportions stay attractive) in women * tallness and muscles in men * symmetrical features * clear skin (no patches or spots) * healthy, strong hair * straight, complete teeth * limbal rings * ...

All these are basic biological fitness markers for youth, virility, nutrition and overall health. E.g. symmetry is a very powerful one and is known as a proxy for a healthy and well fed mother during pregnancy.

Those biologically (as far as we know) universally attractive features are not contradictory to cultural preferences (which often are basically status markers), rather these go hand in hand. And they are instant, basically unavoidable and exist in more or less all cultures. E.g. limbal rings and symmetry are immensely easy to test and have been demonstrated in hundreds of studies across cultures, not just WEIRD people.

While you describe a general trend, this does not seem to apply here. The initiative vastly improved quality of life for the local population. While we might romanticism stilt-walking shepherds, that is an incredibly harsh and difficult life.

The forestation project improved longevity and allowed the area to build other sectors and to integrate with the wider economy and society. I'm sure if you reforest the Sahara some will lose their livelihoods but it also would have many benefits for many people.

More technologically advanced yes, richer no.

Note that was china the region and the reason was most of the time war - either internal between different kingdoms or with the various steppe people and ultimately the Europeans.

Europe was a backwater of global affairs for millennia, with essentially all wealth moving through different steps further east to China. Then advances in weaponry and shipbuilding enabled it to subject others and extract vast amounts of wealth for ca 150 years (colonialism/imperialism/slavery and mercantilism), which ended about 80-100 years ago. Nothing has managed to fully destroy the advantage since then as technology builds cumulatively, but the traditional superpower china is on the way back up.

Your summary/points looks as if the things listed are the authors view when hr is rather ascribing those views to Putin. E.g. whether Crimea is Russian, Ukrainian or something else will get you the same diverse answer as the questions what Tibet or Kashmir belong to. It depends on whether you ask a nationalist/revisionist Russian, a Ukrainian, a Crimean Tartar, a French politician, etc.

Actually this thread is even better, suggesting that this was a planned propaganda move for a moment when Russia expected to have 'won'

https://mobile.twitter.com/theACentauri/status/1504956221463...

I agree in principle but not everything is useful for the public, and making code FOSS is not just a matter of uploading it somewhere - this requires documentation, regular updates, clear assignation of responsibility, etc. You'd be surprised by how strapped for resources even powerful government bureaucracies can be - committing time to foss-ing is time not spent on operational needs.

So I would argue: open source anything that can be expected to have wider reuse or transparency benefits. But don't just spam any code produced to the public.

This appears to be a strange self-conversation. You take words and twist them until they fit a point you wanted to make.

Apparently you believe in things that most don't believe and that have been labeled (by whom?) as Russian propaganda. What does this add or subtract to the article?

And if I dare say so: if others get the impression that ideas you share are propaganda it is worth reflecting how you formed these opinions/beliefs. We are all victims of one form of propaganda or anotherz so it is generally a good idea to sometimes question whether important beliefs are indeed true, and especially what it would take to falsify them. What could someone show to you to prove that your views are false?

That seems like a very harsh interpretation. Very few people will care whether their specific download is tracked. I do honestly wonder how that adds vakuento Mozilla, but no one will not use Firefox due to this- especially as every single alternative is much worse than Firefox on such metrics.

I practice anapana and vipassana so can empathise, but it is plain ignorant to think Buddhists are necessarily peaceful. Tibet was a violent warrior kingdom and Buddhists have committed many crimes too. See the ongoing (!!) genocide in Myanmar where Buddhists slaughter Muslims. You could argue those agent real Buddhists, but thats just another Scotsman.

I don't mean to diminish the crimes the Chinese continue to commit against the Tibetans, nor the benefits of Buddhist practice, but seeing Buddhism with rose tinted glasses is just not reflecting reality.

Not true.

I lost access to gmail because of 2FA - Google Authenticator to be precise.

One random sunny day my 2 year old bit in my phone, thereby breaking it. A few days before i had reinstalled linux and apparently had not yet logged into gmail. So suddenly I have only unrecognized devices and no authenticator. Despite living in the same place, using the same wifi, etc, I simply cannot get back in since then. Its been years with dozens of attempts from any possible 'known' device, but there simply is no way. I know the password, I know previous contacts, i have old emails, i have the password, ... But even when I enter all the info Google requests for account recovery I simply get a screen saying they will get back to me - and never do.

My fault for not having a backup sheet of codes, but I was too worried someone would find and abuse that sheet. Well, goodbye 10 years of email.