Let’s hope this is the end of Netanyahu’s coalition.

This isn’t about internet. This is about landline telephone service and being able to call 911. For those that don’t remember, landline phones work even when the power is out. No big deal if you have a cell phone and service. Very big deal if you live in a mountainous region where you rely on WiFi at home due to bad phone signal and would have to get in a car to drive somewhere with service to get emergency help or, say, report a forest fire caused by power lines snapping.

In the landline era, AT&T agreed to be the provider of last resort and they didn’t do it out of the goodness of their hearts. They got something in return. And even if “superior” technology exists, it’s not superior for “last resort” situations. One day, maybe we’ll all have satellite internet as a fallback on our mobile devices and landlines really will be obsolete. But that day isn’t today.

That isn’t the definition of terrorism. There isn’t one globally agreed upon definition but national and international law and even attempts by the UN to make a definition generally exclude state militaries. (The UN attempts at a definition always broke down over the status of organized militias in the context of national liberation and self-determination struggles.)

The main exception is undercover agents. Like if a CIA agent pretends to be a civilian and does a terrorist attack, that’s considered terrorism.

Militaries can be awful and violent and commit war crimes and even do the exact same things as terrorists. But it isn’t considered terrorism; it’s considered war. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_terrorism

Because the library won’t stop e-mailing my wife.

For a technological civilization like ours, I think it’s just that Earth/humans are weird and we’re past the main ones (like going from single-cell to multi-cellular organisms).

Having to overcome the physical obstacles on other planets rules out the type of spacefaring technological civilizations like ours. No matter how intelligent a civilization on a water world is, it’s not starting fires, much less building rockets. Just getting out of the water would be their space program. Even a totally Earth-like planet that’s a bit bigger and has an intelligent species wouldn’t be able to get to space with chemical rockets.

And also, humans are weird. It could be as basic as “we have hands for building complex tools.” We have a seemingly insatiable need to compete and explore, even beyond all logic—maybe no other intelligent species wants to strap someone to a rocket and send them to space because it sucks up there. We’re violent: without WWII and the Cold War, do we even have a space program?

So many things had to come together to create an intelligent, tool-building species with hands that lives on a planet with the right balance of land and water. As far as we know, it never even happened on Earth before and even then, we had thousands of years of civilizations before anyone was dumb enough to strap themselves to a rocket just to see what would happen.

I do think he believes he’s the best shot against Trump. He’s a politician. Basically every elected official in DC or a governor’s mansion thinks they’d be the best presidential candidate ever. Plus, he already beat Trump once and (according to 538’s polling average) is slightly ahead nationally.

I didn’t support Biden in the 2020 primary and I’m not thrilled with a replay of 2020 but with everyone even older. But at this stage, Biden might be the best candidate. If he did step aside, the convention could easily divide the party and be a total disaster. Do they go with Kamala? A popular governor like Gavin Newsome or Gretchen Whitmer? Could the candidate even put together a campaign staff and raise the necessary cash in time to be a good candidate? They’re already booking TV ad time for September.

I mean, I don’t have an answer to those questions. Maybe voters would be like, “Thank god, someone under 75.” and it’d be a landslide. But it could just as easily be total chaos.

Biden isn’t the “official nominee” yet but under DNC rules, the pledged delegates are essentially required to vote for the candidate their state selected in the first round. Only if no one has the required 1,968 pledged delegates in the first round does it go to a second round. At that point, 739 Superdelegates — party officials, basically — are allowed to vote and pledged delegates can switch to another candidate.

Biden currently has 3,894 pledged delegates. Second is Dean Phillips with 4. So, you’d basically have to convince thousands of Biden loyalists to change the party rules so they could vote for another candidate. And then, in the potential second round, convince the Superdelegates to also reject Biden.

That won’t happen unless he’s literally dead or incapacitated. Both primaries are over and the nominating conventions are a formality. It’d probably be easier to convince the electoral college to vote against the candidate that specifically chose them for their loyalty.

Edit: here’s a link that explains it in detail https://ballotpedia.org/Democratic_delegate_rules,_2024

You can go back as far as you want but I think the current situation is because they got routed in the 2008 election and decided that openly courting the worst people in society was their only option. There’s always been racists and conspiracy theorists in America — see The John Birch Society, for one of many examples — but parties didn’t openly court them, at least without plausible deniability. Maybe a wink and a nod but not open courtship.

So, after 2008, Republicans started saying the quiet parts out loud because they were desperate. They — especially Mitch McConnell, in my opinion — thought they could control the beast they unleashed but, it turns out, that isn’t how unleashing beasts works. It started with the Tea Party and pretty quickly escalated into a situation where “moderate Republican” became an oxymoron. And then Trump came along yelling the formerly quiet parts and that was that.

This is set to change in the next iOS version. (In developer beta now; to be released in early September, typically, when the next iPhones drop). So, if you’re otherwise happy with the keyboard, I’d say just use Text Replacement rules (Settings → General → Keyboard → Text Replacement) for a few months.

One piece of advice I can offer (as someone with a similar wide range of interests) is that you should sometimes treat life like a field trip. If you meet an expert in something, ask questions and show enthusiasm. Experts (usually) love talking about their favorite topic. I know a gearhead who restores old cars who doesn’t talk much. But if I ask about any car, he will put his beer down and talk about different cars until the sun comes up. Chefs love talking about food. Most people like telling people about their life’s work (as long as you aren’t the type of asshole who tries to tell a Ph D they’re wrong because someone on the internet said something else).

Also, people say life is short. It’s actually simultaneously too short and too long. You won’t have time to be a Ph D level expert in all your interests but you’ll (hopefully) have decades to learn about whatever floats your boat. Life can get in the way but if you find hobbies you like, it’s restorative. Work and family responsibilities exist, to be sure, and lots of people feel too drained for hobbies but doing something fun isn’t draining.

Nah, Zelda games don’t typically save once you beat them. You get a little star on your save file, I think, but otherwise, it drops you back to the save right before you fought Ganon so you can do all the side quests if you want. (If you’re a completionist, good luck finding all 1000 Korok seeds.)

I found the first half of master mode to be really fun too. Eventually, you level up enough that it’s not that much harder but at first, you have to basically play in stealth mode and avoid fights or use trickery. (Eventually, you level up enough that it’s almost easier because the monsters are all stronger and it’s easier to get good weapons/shields.)

Honestly, the point of BoTW isn’t the ending. It’s much more about the adventure and exploration. I turned off all the HUD stuff and just enjoyed exploring the world. By the time I fought Gannon, it was trivial because of how powerful Link had become.

But it was worth beating it because

I don’t know anything about New Brunswick but according to Wikipedia, “A powerful corporate concentration of large companies in New Brunswick is owned by the Irving Group of Companies.”

They own all types of companies, most of them heavy industry with lots of pollution, but also lots of media outlets. And also:

“In 2016, the National Observer released an eight-part investigation on the family called House of Irving. It looked at many parts of the businesses including the expansion into Maine, its media monopoly, how they intimidate their critics and issues within the family.“

I’m no Scooby Doo but I think that’s where I’d start my investigation.

I think if they do a full-blown invasion, they’ll find out that Hezbollah (and quite possibly the regular Lebanese military) is a much bigger, experienced, and sophisticated enemy than Hamas. Also, an invasion of Lebanon could easily attract third parties (like Syria-based militias or even other countries).

If it’s a limited, restrained operation to create a buffer zone, it might not lead to escalation. There’s apparently a peace deal on the table that would accomplish just that but Hezbollah wants Israel to agree to the “ceasefire for hostages” deal in Gaza first.

But let’s not forget that Netanyahu is going to jail on corruption charges as soon as he isn’t prime minister. He’s alienated everyone except the extremist parties on the right so, ultimately, they’ll be able to control policy just by threatening to leave the fragile coalition government. So, I don’t know if I’d bet on a limited, restrained operation.

Black’s conviction has presented another challenge for U.S. authorities already working to gain the release of several Americans in Russian jails on what the White House says are spurious charges.

Does it? He isn’t a political prisoner. It sounds like he’s a horny, apparently violent dumbass who secretly went to Russia against military rules (and common sense) and then did crimes.

If this is what they discover, I may never stop giggling.

It was also the day after the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. That seems like it’d be more relevant to the parties involved, especially

I doubt Germany (or anywhere in Western Europe) needs knowledge transfer on technology but if China set up a factory in the EU, it’d probably be in an Eastern European country that could probably use a little.

As absurd as it seems sometimes, the One China policy has kept the peace for decades. I wouldn’t toss it out without a very, very good reason.

I mean, to people under 50ish, Taiwan is a stable, functioning democracy with an advanced economy but that didn’t really happen until 1987. It was basically a fascistic military dictatorship prior to that. It’s a much more complicated history than we sometimes acknowledge. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Taiwan_(1945–present)

I’m an elder millennial, I guess, and I was alive but too young to remember Taiwan’s first real elections. I get that the One China policy might feel like a relic of a bygone era since I know it from history books too. But most world leaders are old enough to remember when Taiwan was a dysfunctional, fascistic military dictatorship. It might require another few generations of peace before it’s fully consolidated.

I mean, to put it in perspective, Robocop, Lethal Weapon, and Predator came out in 1987. People old enough to see those movies in theaters remember a different era and likely have a fundamentally different understanding of Taiwan/Mainland relations. Xi, Biden, and Trump are all over 70.

News Corp. and The Daily Mail and General Trust seem pretty evil. (In fact, let’s just say every company that owns a UK tabloid is at least 80% evil.)

Sinclair Broadcasting in the U.S. is scum too. They own a bunch of local TV channels and also their corresponding web sites. A lot of places in the U.S. have seen their local newspaper disappear (or shrink to where it might as well have) and Sinclair filled the void and pushes right wing tabloid crap.

Local TV news in the U.S. is low key one of the worst offenders at creating false narratives. I live in a city and half my older relatives think I live in a war zone because of how local news is now structured: violent crime, a story about the moral panic du jour (like “Is your teen eating Tide Pods?”) followed by sports, traffic, and weather. I’m probably a million times more likely to be killed by a car than murdered but they only cover car accidents if it’s like, “Prom queen dies in accident.”