@LargePenis@hexbear.net with a full roundup as well as a summary of results of Iraqi elections, building on his post about Iraqi electoral parties last week
@MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net, @Torenico@hexbear.net @darkcalling@hexbear.net in a subthread about the strength of the American naval buildup versus Venezuelan defences
DM me to highlight good posts in the newsmega and newscomm
Some more brilliant strategic thinking by the EU here, see point twenty regarding establishing closer official relations with Taiwan.
When various EU thinkers have talked about europe needing strategic autonomy instead of just following the American lead, I doubt they meant independently following the most fervent American neocon fantasy as policy.
This kind of thing where the US eggs on its vassals while having more conciliatory policies itself is interesting though and might be valuable for American interests. I'm not sure what the consequences would be if the loudest voices for war and interference are coming from the lapdogs instead of the master.
I like that newsmega posters are doing teasers for effort posts. That's accountability
most people’s concern with surveillance is that they are going to get caught cheating for some reason.
No shit, people don't want to get caught in the ever expanding, baroque nightmare that is the legal system and penal code. It's already inhuman, and the more the reins are in the hands of algorithms, the less human the system gets.
Yes this is a good one, thank you.
wow, what a life. thanks for bringing him up.
one was a specific personal attack aimed specifically at another user of the site. the other isn't.
I reiterate: there is currently no site wide policy with respect to comments about masking or not. I am not going to unilaterally set site policy in this thread. There is currently a code of conduct thread where literally this exact topic is being discussed. I encourage you to advocate there.
Sorry but I'm not going to revise site policy unilaterally to protect someone's "right" to tell another user to go fuck themselves. Since we just had a big struggle session where users were complaining about mods doing exactly this type of unilateral decision, I encourage you to take it to the code of conduct thread and advocate for what you would like to see.
this is not comradely. being adamant about masks is appropriate, but this is just rude. if you would like to see hard rules about COVID measures on hexbear, go chime in on the code of conduct thread as I saw this subject raised there. In the meantime, express your disagreement in civil terms.
I have never before seen grown-ass adults demanding to see the corpses of dead children before
I remember this during the discovery of unmarked children's graves in Kamloops several years ago. A fair amount of my job involves Indigenous issues and it's wild how much people turn into treatlerites when seeing the mildest pushback. even land acknowledgements, among the least meaningful efforts towards reconciliation that can be made, are contentious to some. when there is potential attack against the bedrock of canadian society, residential property values, then yes there will be more frothing and seething.
her attitude towards partners seems like she's assuming your partner isn't very well aligned with you. no kidding that would suck, but that's a skill issue - pick a better partner. having a partner that is somewhat misaligned with you is good though, they can teach you things, share new perspectives, encourage you to grow, and generally help you be better. I am definitely a better person because of my partner's presence in my life and I think they would say the same.
kids are different. they're a lot of work and cost a lot of time, money, resources, and emotional labour. being a responsible parent means you're signing up to put a child first for a long time. that necessarily means making sacrifices, buying diapers, having less sleep because you're up doing feedings, accounting for child's needs when planning activities, etc etc. all this is an investment in the future of both yourself, your family and your society, but the hardest work is front loaded. Pregnancy/adoption/infancy are all particularly hard. It wasn't until my child hit about 5 that they were consistently sleeping through the night, not needing diapers, not having inexplicable meltdowns, not constantly on the verge of hurting themselves because of poor balance/recklessness. Yes there were truly wonderful moments during those first years, but by and large it was a sacrifice. Some of that sacrifice can be covered with money and absence of money makes those sacrifices harder.
all that said, my child is older now and we get to do a lot more fun and satisfying activities. the nature of emotional labour has changed and there are still parenting costs of time/$$, but I love that I get to teach, learn from and share hobbies with my child.
I listened to a professional seminar about battery materials earlier. The speaker was legit but for dox reasons I won't name them. Here is a roundup of their points:
While there are lots of battery formula and also lots of niche applications, lithium iron/manganese phosphate is the main battery technology to beat for either stationary batteries or EVs. android robots like that Unitree one will probably be higher density formula with lots of nickel.
No one outside of China is doing commercially useful work on batteries. Companies/researchers in the west are either too silo'd and aren't integrated with the big picture, or their value proposition is predicated on LFMP batteries being more expensive than they have proven to be
They expressed general concern about the ability of the US power grid to keep up with projections of datacenter build out, discussed renewables+batteries as the only power generation technology that could potentially meet demand. To them, nuclear is a waste of time owing to long permitting times/very high costs.
Western EPCM firms get an 'F-' grade from him for project delivery, often having price tags 5-7x more than advertised. This applies to Western implementation of Chinese technology too, so just importing Chinese technology/talent is a fix for this issue.
Recent total installed cost (not just cells) of a grid scale stationary storage battery by a Chinese firm operating in Saudi Arabia was ~$75/kWh. Even a year ago I saw estimates more like 2-4x that.
There are no rare earths/critical minerals in batteries, but lithium supply can be a bottleneck and should be considered a strategic mineral. There are plenty of rare earths used in other car parts, just not the batteries.
China EVs are great quality, with 1000+km range batteries that charge in minutes in nice cars widely available. If exposed to Chinese EVs via free trade, vehicle manufacturers in the rest of the world would be 'decimated'
Some definite malding from the crowd about China being so obviously good and ahead of the pack compared to anywhere in the West, so that was fun too.