Even the equipment isn’t apples to apples. China pays Chinese wages to troops sure, but they also pay Chinese wages to factory workers. So even the basic inputs like ammunition, uniforms, rations, and small arms aren’t directly comparable to Russia, Korea, or the US.

$300 for a PC speaker? Madness.

As someone from the E coast, Olympic is like someone took a forest and turned it up to 11. I understand the technical term is temperate rain forest, but nothing prepares you for the shear density of life.

Groups of trees in a line are common, like in the 2nd pic. That’s because they grew on a fallen log that has since rotted away. If you leave anything there for a week, shit will be growing out of that too.

Did the kid in your school have access to experimental kit?

The kid in my school had a special prototype that displayed the Nintendo on the windshield for the passenger of a car. I’ve been waiting 35 years for that product to hit the shelves.

I can’t spell anything without a dictionary or, these days a spell check. I usually know where the vowels go, so I cycle through them until the word “looks” right, or the red squiggle goes away.

I don’t like grammerly bc I know how to write, it’s just the spelling that vexes me.

The terminally online debate-me-bro brand of atheism.

It’s always been curious to me that you can define yourself by something that your not. I’m also vexed why an atheist would proselytize. They’re not saving souls or capturing 10%. What’s the motivation? And please don’t say it’s because atheists are better people. Because all the famous “new” atheists were regular cast members on Epstein Island and the whole movement had deep ties to the alt-right and Gamergate.

I’m not saying they’re wrong, I’m saying they’re obnoxious, belligerent, and annoying. To be clear, I’m atheist. That’s half the problem. These MFers are making me look bad.

You can’t solve systems by focusing on individuals.

None of us a free moral agents. We’re surrounded by systems of family, culture, and law that compel and coerce us. And all of that is built in to the signifiers “employment” and “labor”. It’s incoherent to slice off a traunch of all these interconnected systems, strip it of all context, and pretend it’s a free moral choice.

Changing systems requires collective action. Individuals are weak and the Western obsession with individualism is no coincidence.

Can I see it?

Snyder made the same soft-core porn twice. “SuckerPunch” for straight guys and “300” for gay men.

I liked “The Watchmen”, but yea, everything else he did is low quality.

I hate “Man of Steel”. He made Superman a cop, and the climax is eleven nine-elevens in Metropolis.

Later versions of Bluetooth do encrypt data, but not all hardware developers use the feature. Those 2.4Ghz keyboards usually broadcast your keystrokes in plain text.

If you’re going to buy a wireless keyboard, you should be aware.

I got called for the penalty phase of a capital murder. (death penalty).

The parties settled before anyone was selected. It took 2 days. I found out later that the convict was already on death row, but had gotten a re-trial because of a recent SCOTUS ruling. I was in no danger of being impaneled.

I’m unfamiliar with AI chatbots that you pay for. What is a token?

This is just more proof that law enforcement doesn’t need age verification or backdoors to fight crime.

I don’t deal in absolutes, but one move I watched recently that I really enjoyed was Predator: Badlands (2025).

Like a Verhoeven move from the 80s, Predator sneaks in genuine and interesting themes into an ostensibly crappy sci-fi movie. The Thia character is good feminism that reminds me of Lewis in Robocop (1987). That is to say she’s powerful without being coded masculine. And her relationship with Dax is as a partner and eventually a mirror. Dax’s character arc can be summed up as overcoming toxic masculinity. Just delightful, I watched it twice in two days.

Complaining about bitching. Wow! Is that ironic or meta?

I just look at vanilla lemmy.world on a browser. I’m not really sure what an “instance” is, other than .mil sucks.

Solar panels get an ROI in about 2 years, meanwhile they last 30 and are low maintenance. You can generate your own, or sell it to the grid. It’s free money for anyone who has land and can get a loan. And the best part is, the Sun doesn’t pass through the straight of Hormuz to get here.

Even conservatives are starting to figure it out.

Fred Hampton. I don’t mean to pass over other civil rights martyrs, but the Black Panthers were something special. Real revolutionary politics, organised, and taking direct action; the high-water mark of leftest politics in modern America.

I strongly prefer games with fixed character(s). The biggest problem with open character creation is that it necessitates a narritive full of generic dialogue and events to accommodate every possibility the player might choose. Fixed characters live in a world where they belong, and that world regards them as developed and known individuals, rather than rudimentary flavor dialogue that may account for species, gender, faction, or class.

Roleplaying Geralt, Aloy, Arthur Morgan, and Cal Kestis means pathos, story, and character development. Vault dweller, Dragon-born, and the Tarnished One are coat-racks that you hang armor sets on.