Because China is socialist* and President Xi presonally oversees every decision that every company makes, meaning he has access to everyone who has given any of their data to Tencent. As they are the very important main character, China cares immensely what microtransactions they choose to purchase. Which they will use to uh…make more targeted microtransactions!

*When they do something bad. If they do something good it is because China is actually capitalist.

China is going to threaten the entire western way of life by plying vulnerable american politicians with waifus. They will withhold specific banner releases unless american politicians vote their way.

…I wish.

Photographic evidence that China is enslaving westerners!

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“far-left forum”

Surprised they didn’t just go full horseshoe and claim we were far-right.

Agreed, it is absolutely my favourite way to travel, especially long distance. Air travel is such a hassle comparatively.
Something about the way trains rock puts me right to sleep too, and I struggle to sleep in a bed normally.

I live in a bit too cold of an area for growing figs, but actually having a fig tree sounds amazing. I love figs, but I only very rarely get any to use. Did you grow it yourself or was it already there?

I use it for some of my other more mundane interests still (music and cooking stuff predominantly), but not politics. Trying to be a leftist on twitter is a special kind of futile. I don’t actually post much of anything on it, but there are some good recipe and music resources I keep an eye on from time to time, it remains decent for that.

We invested in a roomba-style robot that has actually been fantastic. Less for the “I am lazy and don’t want to hoover my flat” and more for its ability to reach places I can’t easily. Keeps under the sofa/bed/etc pretty tidy. Also change the A/C filter regularly never hurts.

It’s actually been pretty popular a choice for Japanese students here. Russian remains a very popular language to study. It’s obviously a close neighbor (technically the closest) and was one of our biggest trade partners prior to the sanctions.

I am not sure if recent events have changed that much though, as we tend to follow US’s lead in most things.

Even though Chinese universities are fantastic, I can totally appreciate the desire for students to want to study overseas, there is definitely a benefit beyond the purely academic.

I would encourage them to maybe not go the US though. Other countries in Asia would probably be my first choice. South Africa and Egypt also have some very good schools. Even Europe has some of the same issues, but at least you are less likely to be shot.

Since I left the city, I probably end up only drinking 3-4 times a year, so that’s been an inadvertent benefit. I like to drink on occasion still, but I have a general policy of never drinking at home. Since I can’t go out much here, it naturally limits itself.

Active goals, I have been trying to get my weight back to what I was when I was in university (around 48 kg). Technically it might be a little bit low for my height, but I always felt most comfortable at that weight. I definitely have gained some weight as I have gotten older though.

Wait, what is the jellyfish one, that’s new to me.

Haven’t they already turned on the Kyiv Independent too?

Pretty soon we will come full circle, and they will argue that the entire war was actually Russian propaganda that never happened.

Anti-democracy disney villain authoritarianism is when leaders are held to account for their actions. This goes against Freedom^tm !

The phrasing is a bit strange honestly, I don’t really think of states as having a favourite or not. I would sooner credit them when they deserve it and critique them the same.

I tend to agree with Cuba most often, so maybe them?

Personally: I work. I am in hospitality so Christmas/New Years is the busiest time of the year, especially christmas. Basically all hands on deck, even if I am back office.

Generally in my country, it’s the one day that everyone is off (basically minus city services and hotels) so tends to go back home. Everything is closed, so the western style party new years isn’t a big thing outside of Tokyo. Fireworks aren’t common either, those are a summer thing here. People sit at home with their familyand watch the [absolutely awful] new years specials.

I don’t mind working, I would rather do that than have to watch another multi-hour long new years TV comedy special.

Team Cyborg Implant Checking In.

I used to wear contacts/glasses, I was EXTREMELY near-sighted.

I had surgery a few years ago. My eyes were too bad for lasik, so I got ICL. Basically like a permanent contact implanted in my eyes. Best choice I ever made. It’s been about 7 years and I have 2.0 (20/10) and 1.5 (20/15) eyesight still.

In a long parade of terrible leaders, Yoon is perhaps the worst president the ROK has had, so I am not overly surprised by him making statements like this. He has based his presidency on being very anti-DPRK (and anti-women and anti-labour, tangentially).

I still have even odds on Yoon arranging the attempted assassination of his rival yesterday. He just failed to arrest him over some trumped up political charges.