This is the result of China’s “nine dash line.” If the countries impacted, Vietnam, Philippines, Mtaylasia, Singapore, Indonesia, etc., started a discussion at the UN, it would immediately implicate Taiwan, and nobody wants to touch that. So, local scuffles will continue, as China flexes her muscle.

Aza 'Merican maseff,… um, maybe try for mid-Atlantic.

That’s understandable, but every complex situation requires a good deal of nuance. In this case, for example, not all Israelis are Zionists (anymore than all Palestinians are Hamas), and not even all Zionists (or Hamas) are “bad guys.” There are clearly some fucked up political agendas at work, and could well be more bad actors on one side than the other, and if you look close even “sides” become blurred. But there are definitely agents working to accentuate that distinction, and I don’t trust any of them. Which is different from saying all sides are the same. All I know is that war, greed, and power are all bad, and that good people are suffering, but beyond that I don’t know enough to take a public stand (though I’m working on some opinions).

Edit: let me clarify. I’m not trying to be neutral either. When I see something happening in my immediate world, in front of me, I will say/act for the common good. But I’m not going to read something online, about a place I’ve never been, and take a public opinion about it. I trust that there are people there, in that place, that are doing what I would do, and I hope they succeed.

Kuleshov recently shared on X

Off topic: Ok, I’m doxing myself, but when I read “X” I think of the *nix window manager. Please call it Xitter so it’s immediately obvious.

Edit: OK, Twitter then. Sounds fine.

Stupid? Hold my beer while we put the charging port right on the bottom plate, so it doesn’t interrupt those clean beautiful lines while it lays on its side like a bloated dolphin.

AI: “Um, …these aren’t the droids you want. Squirrel!”

Oh great, just what I want! Another projectile vomit stream of advertising. And not just “real” advertising (quick, load another blocker), but a platform where everyone is financially encouraged to scam everyone. What could go wrong?

Thankfully, advertising is apparently against Lemmy’s ToS (although I’ve never seen that specifically stated). When I see a post that is directly selling something, I immediately report it. Fuck TikTok and the rest of those greedy slimeballs.

“Iceland is green, Greenland is icy.” Oh, shit, it’s also the biggest island that’s not a continent.

Now I got that ZZ Top intro ear-worm…

Escher was first inspired by the tessellated patterns of the Alhambra in Spain during his travels in the 1930s, and the geometric, some would say mathematical, style was prominent through the 1960s. The woodcut Smaller and Smaller was done in 1956. You could almost say he influenced the art of the 60s, more than the other way around.