In the 1990s, we all knew. And we had enough time and the technology to stop it.

That technology was nuclear, since solar and wind just weren’t developed enough back then.

But we collectively decided that nuclear power was too risky, so now we are here today.

After the election win, I am no longer that certain in how bad of an investment Twitter was for Musk.

It probably helped the Trump campaign somehow, even if not decisive.

And he will probably get billions in AI subsidies which he will partially spend on licensing Twitter content for AI purposes.

That subreddit was one of the few things I miss from the Trump days.

Looking forward to the quality leopardsatamyface posts the next four years

Ahh, I didn’t know it was already June next year.

Hopefully my current phone will last another year.

Yep, this is it.

They are trading battery longevity for faster charging.

Personally, I generally prefer battery longevity, since that is the main factor that causes me to buy a new phone.

This is also the main reason I would like to buy a Fairphone for my next phone. I can get a new battery for $50 and replace it myself. And with 8-10 years of updates, I figure I can actually use it for 8 years with two battery replacements along the way.

The continuing American embargo on Cuba after the Cold War has always been toddler tantrum level of pettiness.

I thought Obama had finally closed that chapter, but I was wrong.

That would be more in line with the actual American tradition.

But personally, I would recommend to only allow filibusters in the House, which has a more proportional representation, and to not allow it in the Senate, which has the least proportional representation, even less than the electoral college.

There are two considerations.

For the American government and corporations, Chinese espionage is an obvious and real threat. NVidia doesn’t want China to steal their chip designs and the Pentagon doesn’t want China to steal military info.

For American private citizens, it isn’t really a threat. It’s actually preferable in a way, because you know they won’t disclose whatever they learn to the American government. You might even consider buying a fully “designed and made in China” device, which the NSA might not have a backdoor to.

This only makes it more concerning to the American government, because they lose control over their citizens.

Storage tech is indeed the laggard.

The most readily available form of stored energy is still natural gas.

We really need to change our energy pricing and taxation to reward green ways to store energy better.

Also, having been on the other side of such a situation: it’s not cool to pressure or guilt trip your guests. Either be hospitable and let them do whatever they want, or don’t invite them.

If people aren’t hungry, then they aren’t hungry. Maybe they are on a diet, maybe they misunderstood OP’s intention and ate beforehand. Maybe they are recovering from something and don’t want to eat too much.

And as for the two that did not showed up. It’s a good practice to reconfirm the night before. Sometimes people forget. Sometimes life gets in the way.

If they did reconfirm and still didn’t show up and did not have a good excuse, then I would start looking for better friends.

Hope OP has better success next time. I do understand that the situation sucks.

But it’s also a situation that, in my opinion, is preventable.

Exactly. Every time the UN does something, people say “they can’t enforce it”.

Well, that’s the whole point of the UN. To resolve things without using force.

It’s a good design, designed by people who learned from the horrors of WW2.

It’s sad to see how many people nowadays forget those lessons and are itching for global war.

Yep, all the electrical engineers who have chimed in say it looks more like explosives.

A battery would get hot and start a fire. It wouldn’t instantly explode like this.

I agree with this take.

AI will definitely make some white collar jobs way more productive, and thus change the nature of that work and reduce the number of people employed in those jobs.

A good example is translation, where translators are now mostly reviewing translated texts instead of translating from scratch.

This means the ability to read fast and take on the role of editor is what remains important in the remaining jobs for translators.

The only country that can be blamed for destroying Iraqi industry is the USA. Two decades of war, one decade of sanctions and another decade of war (by Saddam against Iran) sponsored by the USA in the 1980s.

Obviously, Iranian industry will outcompete Iraqi industry at this point in history.

Iraq needs to rebuild and they need outside help.

I’m not gonna defend Iranian war mongering. And neither will I defend Turkish war mongering, or IS, USA or Israeli war mongering.

But the only path forward for Iraq is by making peace with the two power brokers in the region: Turkey and Iran.

And that’s what the current government is trying to achieve. The Turkey-Iraq corridor and the new port they are building are going to lay the foundation for their future prosperity.

As for Iran, Iran is desperate for allies. It won’t be that difficult to find some mutually beneficial relationship with them.

It’s more-or-less geographic destiny that Iran and Turkey will become the dominant powers in Western Asia.

They both basically ruled the area for most of history.

The best we (the West) could do is nudge them towards human rights and peace and friendship. For Turkey, that’s mostly a done deal.

For Iran, that was exactly what Obama tried to do. And it’s also what Iran has been trying to get for the past 25 years.

Iran is inherently on a path towards secularisation and more dovish policies. It’s the threat of war by the US and Israel that keeps the defense hawks in power.

Iran, especially, will never fully trust the USA - and for good reason. But they do want better relations with the USA. They just don’t want to get burned or bombed.

He said those things towards the end of his life after he had been smeared for years.

Prior to that interview in 1983, he had criticized Israel for the atrocities they committed in Lebanon and people called him an anti-semite for comparing Israel to Nazi-Germany.

Eventually, he said fuck it, and went full anti-semite.

I don’t blame the guy. He’s only human and people can only take so much shit before they turn into bitter old men.

I used to think Jeremy Corbyn was an anti-semite. I also used to think Roald Dahl was an anti-semite.

But after researching what they actually said, it’s clear that they were just smeared, because they weren’t racist enough against Palestinians and (shockingly) thought Palestinians deserve human rights.

Honestly, I am now highly skeptical whenever someone calls another person an anti-semite.

The fediverse would be an improvement for now. But if it gets popular, bots will take over.

And corporate owned media hasn’t really brought us much good, either.

It got us into wars in Vietnam and Iraq and it also got us the destruction of the middle class.

I don’t think there really is a silver bullet. Best I can think of is, media owned by the people and for the people.

The US never did anything about Rachel Corrie or the USS Liberty or Hersh Goldberg-Polin. And we can probably add hundreds of Palestinian Americans to the list, but even their names aren’t known in the mainstream media.

It seems the USA capacity to care depends on how much AIPAC will allow it to care.

They aren’t combatants or PoW, taking them hostage was a human rights violation from the beginning.

But Israel can’t really expect Hamas to follow Geneva conventions when they themselves violate it a hundreds times as often.