aleph

aleph, 29 days ago (edited 29 days ago)

Unsurprising, given how the pro-Zionist cause has been consistently pushed through Congress since October 7th.

First, was the House resolution declaring officially that “Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism”.

Then the House declared that the phrase “From the river to the sea” is antisemitic, despite the fact that it historically, and still is, used to mean different things by different groups.

Then, of course, there was the predictably one-sided Congressional drubbing hearing where Pro-Israel politicians lined up to criticize Columbia University for, according to them, letting Antisemitism run amok when in fact Columbia have implemented various draconian crackdowns on pro-Palestinian protests and voices on campus.

The lobbying has sadly been very effective in creating a situation where simply saying “Free Palestine” is increasingly framed as being antisemitic, so it’s always good to see that there are some media outlets that are pushing back against this narrative.

aleph, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

Right. Like, why would anyone pay a subscription for that?

Edit: I think I get it now:

Those who buy the MC02 get a year for free, after which they’ll pay around $20/€15/£13 each month (discounted if paid annually) to access a handful of services, including email, a VPN (dubbed “Digital Nomad”), online synchronization for calendar and contacts, secure storage on Punkt’s own Swiss servers and the express promise that there will be no ads or third-party crawlers.

So you can access cloud services without being tied to Google, I suppose. Still, the value proposition is questionable.

aleph, 5 days ago (edited 5 days ago)

That reminds me of this real exchange in the Missouri state legislature regarding the “Don’t Say Gay” bill that banned any mention of “sexual orientation or gender identity” in schools.

aleph, 4 days ago

Why shouldn’t three elected politicians make a statement to the local press?

aleph, 3 days ago (edited 3 days ago)

It depends how you’re using the term ‘genocide’.

While the CCP might not necessarily be intentionally mass-killing ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region, there is very strong evidence that they are doing their utmost to stamp out Uyghur culture and forcibly assimilate them. In the process, people are being incarcerated, tortured, and raped, amongst other things.

It could be argued that this is a crime under international law, where the definition of genocide includes

intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".

Or you could argue it is ethnic cleansing instead. Either way, it’s a lot more serious than just overzealous “counter-terrorism” measures.

aleph, 7 days ago

You’re fine as long as you don’t decide to jump in and offer a contrary opinion.

aleph, 7 days ago

I find that lemmy has less of an echo chamber, but the average political stance is a lot more left-ish than reddit.

This is true once you’ve blocked Lemmygrad and Hexbear, which are as much echo chambers as r/The_Donald ever was.

aleph, 9 days ago

Grace Ocean and Synergy filed a petition on April 1 in Maryland federal court to limit their liability from the crash. If the court grants it, the companies’ liability could be limited to the present value of the ship, which they estimated to be $42.5 million, according to the petition. Source

Which would leave the tax payer footing the bill for the remaining $1.46B cost of reconstruction. Classic.

aleph, 8 days ago

If the showrunners learn from their mistakes and actually fix the myriad pacing/characterization/dialogue issues from season one, there’s a slim chance they might be able to turn the show into something half decent.

Now that they’ve got all the pointless mystery boxes about the identity of Sauron/The Stranger out of their systems, they can hopefully leave those far behind as well.

aleph, 2 days ago (edited 1 day ago)

I think it’s a generational thing. Most/many older Star Wars fans (such as myself) who were already adults when the prequels came out hated them from the get-go.

I recall being the reaction being pretty much this:

youtu.be/zJlgpozN31s?si=GH7G1NF-_3Wlh-IK

aleph, 1 day ago

Political intrigue just like Andore! I mean people love that one and it’s just a guy being a giant dickhole for 12 episodes.

That right there is fighting talk.

the sequel trilogy is bullshit.

Oh, indeed.

aleph, 1 day ago (edited 1 day ago)

Sure, the acting and dialogue in Start Wars were always dodgy, but at least in ANH you had a solid retelling of The Hero’s Journey and the charm of practical effects. tPM was just a big, bloated, incoherent, CGI-ridden mess with only a couple of good actions scenes thrown in.

aleph, 1 day ago (edited 14 hours ago)

I’m seeing exactly the same thing. Certain companies re-listing the same position for months on end, despite hundreds of people applying.

According to this article I read recently, some companies are either doing it to give the illusion that they’re thriving and planning to take on more staff, or just to keep a pool of potential applicants on the back burner just in case.

It sucks. I’ve been looking to make a career change for over a year, and have only had two interviews despite sending out literally hundreds of applications.

aleph, 6 days ago (edited 6 days ago)

-> Protests go on peacefully for X number of days.

-> University management call in the cops.

-> News headlines the next day: CAMPUS PROTESTS TURN VIOLENT

aleph, 6 days ago

They show how fossils contradict evolution

I’ve heard most creationist talking points before but this one is new.

How do they attempt to argue that the existence of fossils contradicts evolution by natural selection?

aleph, 6 days ago

Ah ok, so what they mean to say isn’t so much that fossils contradict evolution but that the existence of fossils can be explained by the biblical account of Noah’s Flood.

Not the same thing of course, but then hardly surprising given the apparent level of scientific understanding on display.

aleph, 6 days ago (edited 5 days ago)

They could simply continue from where they left off in Season 1 and fill in the blanks? I personally felt the ending was a little unsatisfying.

Either way, it’s a bold move. It wouldn’t be the first time a team of writers has had to come up with completely original material and fallen flat on their faces.

aleph, 3 days ago

I wouldn’t put it past these showrunners. It’s probably going to be because she’s “too proud” to make it known that Sauron tricked her, but if you ask me that isn’t any less stupid than a Sauron-Galadriel romance.

aleph, 7 days ago (edited 7 days ago)

First order of business: justify why Galadriel spends the entire first season looking for Sauron, discovers who he is, and then proceeds to tell absolutely bloody no one as he helps forge the three elven rings and then saunters out of Eregion like he owns the place.

aleph, 1 month ago

I think they mean that it’s non-partisan. The movie clearly is broadly political.

aleph, 21 days ago

That’s quite uncharitable. We don’t know anything about the woman, much less that she thought school shootings elsewhere were “fine”.

It’s pretty normal for people to mentally compartmentalize these types of shocking incidents as “things that happen in other places” rather than their own local community.

aleph, 8 days ago (edited 8 days ago)

I still wouldn’t call it “precise” in the slightest.

Even assuming that this ratio remains constant after the remaining 10,000 unidentified bodies are accounted for, men of fighting age only account for 40% of those being killed and not all of those will be actual Hamas fighters.