Just a regular Joe.

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 7th, 2023

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  • You see, peace in Europe is only maintained through the ability (or illusion thereof) of russia being able to invade and otherwise exert influence over former soviet and warsaw pact states at any point in time with little resistance.

    The moment there is the credible threat of resistance, it is a clear provocation and justifies a response, possibly an invasion.

    I trust I cleared that up for you.

    edit: The sad part is, this is similar to US and Chinese policy. World and regional power politics is closer to schoolyard bully behaviour than we’d like. Vote for your favourite bully today!


  • Sure, ok. It’s just odd to suggest that nazi germany was the first or has a claim to the word.

    Fascism has a very long history, with many recognised variations. National Socialism (ie. Nazi state) is just one instance, and far from the first. Most people think of Mussolini’s Italy when they think of fascism - also not the first though.

    The word itself derives from the latin “fasces” (a bundle [of sticks]), and had political connotations back then.




  • A new Trump presidency will plunge the world into something between WW3 and nuclear annihilation.

    Europe will have to dust off its own nukes as a serious deterrent to moscow and majorly increase its security spending and preparations, and Ukraine will have to develop its own (which it is perfectly capable of doing), with unpredictable results. If russia tries its luck outside Ukraine, there will be western troops clashing with russians directly.

    China will smell weakness and go full throttle on its regional domination plans, and the US will do squat.

    Expect a few assassination attempts/successes and unexplained deaths along the way, on almost every continent.

    edit: I don’t even want to think about the middle east. Without the US acting as a “moderating force”, hell will probably break loose there too.



  • Sure, their accountants will have a little more paperwork, on top of their current workload. There is a cost to that. But if the total is well under the wealth tax threshold, there’s no tax and little risk of an audit that re-evaluates it’s worth. And if they are above it, then a small % of the excess will incur a tax.

    If it is ever discovered that they failed to declare wealth (owned or controlled), THAT is when a penalty tax comes in, and they might find themselves obliged to pay $2mil in the US for that painting in Switzerland.

    There is of course much more complexity to implementing this well. International treaties would need to be changed, to align reporting requirements and to limit loopholes that enable foreigners to avoid reporting and tax obligations (eg. an automatic wealth tax on foreign held assets in the absence of a tax treaty). There’s cost there too.

    This kind of thing gets discussed occasionally, but so far hasn’t gained traction. Realistically, I don’t expect it to.


  • NFSv3 (udp, stateless) was always as reliable as the network infra under Linux, I found. NFSv4 made things a bit more complicated.

    You don’t want any NAT / stateful connection tracking in the network path (anything that could hiccup and forget), and wired connections only for permanent storage mounts, of course.






  • Hah. I hadn’t seen that article / heard of the theory, but as far as crackpot theories/hypotheses go, it’s one of the more likely (edit: to come about). I doubt it’s anywhere near the majority yet, personally.

    It was already obvious that propaganda news articles (on obscure websites) had orchestrated releases and promotion on social media, in a massive circle jerk, and I assumed machine generated/assisted content was involved. Then ChatGPT hit the headlines and we all had the power.


  • Whose deepfake influencers do you “trust” more? US, China, russia and a few lesser players are already working to control the information space / spread propaganda (note: not necessarily/always lies, but there is typically a focus or spin) far and wide.

    We know people are highly influenced by propaganda (some more than others, but all of us are) and that quantity and repetition plays a role. Since this is now an established battlefield, I’d like our (western) defences to be strong.

    It has potential for abuse, certainly. That’s par for the course. There is also the potential for it to be used to debunk fake news, shock people out of false beliefs, and help reconnect people to reality. Let’s see how this plays out. popcorn time



  • The big Q: Is this to the detriment or benefit of the russian war machine?

    If the end result is a more self-sufficient russia and profits going to the war effort … would it have been the right move? Is the symbolism worth it?

    It sounds like it was a very orderly process to ensure the ongoing viability of the business.

    I’d rather see russian factories dismantled, thousands of jobs lost in russia, and significant supply chain issues. I guess that option never factored into the discussion as it would cost investors more.