General Discussion

FUCK!

JESUS CHRIST!

WHAT THE FUCK?!

ENOUGH! ENOUGH!

ENOUGH!

Police in New York said a man has died from severe burns near the United Nations headquarters, and activists ⁠and a media outlet ⁠of exiled Tibetans identified ​him as a Tibetan who set himself on fire in an appeal for independence.

A New York City police department spokesperson said police found the man badly burned after responding to an emergency call ⁠made at about 6.30pm ET .

He was taken to Bellevue hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said, adding they were still investigating the death. ⁠Police did not name the man and did not provide any potential motive for his action.

Voice of Tibet, a ​media outlet of exiled Tibetans, said Tibetan activist Lobga ‌Rangzen “self-immolated outside the UN headquarters in ‌New York after a live appeal for Tibetan independence and unity”.

I'm betting at some point around late August personally. Maybe September latest.

A Tank is a tool, a Gun is a tool, that doesn't tell you anything about the nature of the thing being described. A casino Machine is a tool, a Knife is a tool, a hair brush is a tool, still doesn't tell you anything about what the thing being described, except for that it is an object that a person can use to make an impact somehow.

It drives me crazy that when people are talking about the problems with modern technology, someone will always reply with "Its just a tool"

"AI slop is plaguing the internet"
"Its just a Tool"

"Google search results are becoming unusable" "Its just a Tool"

"Phone are negatively impacting peoples health " "Its just a Tool"

No questions about the design behind those tools, who owns them, who has access to them, should they be regulated, what impact they are making, or how people are using them

It reminds me alot of discussions around equality,(gender, race, Disability etc )

"Women should have Equal Rights " So you think they are no biological differences between Men and Women?

A fact is stated(regardless of whether it related to what's being discussed), such that any arguments that come after it automatically Collapses, Shutting down the discussion.

Or, arguments about Cultural Appropriation

"Black hip-hop culture and music is being exploited by a largely white industry"

"So you think that a white boy can't sing to his favorite Rap song"

Its such an individualist view of the world. No-one talks about phone at that scale, otherwise what you have is just a Dumb Phone. No-one talks about TV in terms of just the hardware in your house. You have a device that is actively and in real-time being shaped by Corporations that are more powerful than entire countries. You access to medical health, your access to Information, your Job prospects, your Data, Your access to education, all are shaped and modeled by forces beyond your power and anyone else in your Community. isn't it worth considering the impact of that.

Those devices and networks, in my opinion, are more complex than any Bureaucratic Government System, operating on a scale, larger than any country. They are not "Just a tool", not a Screwdriver, or a Microwave, or a Jar. Just because you can abstract away the industries behind the app you use, doesn't diminish their size

Those companies have real incentives to keep you on their platforms, regardless of how that effects you. Your interests and their, aren't just misaligned but are at odds with one another

Sam Bankman-Fried on Friday lost his bid to overturn his fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence over the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange he founded.

The decision was handed down by a three-judge panel of the New York-based second US circuit court of appeals.

Bankman-Fried, who had been one of the cryptocurrency sector’s most influential figures and a multibillionaire before FTX’s spectacular collapse in 2022, was found guilty on seven felony charges by a federal jury in Manhattan in 2023.

Prosecutors with the Manhattan US attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case, said he stole $8bn from FTX customers in what they termed a “fraud of epic proportions”.

Bankman-Fried had pleaded not guilty to the two counts of fraud and five counts of conspiracy that he faced. At his trial, he admitted to making mistakes running FTX, but testified that he never stole funds.

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. (AP) — On a drizzly Saturday morning late last month, the basement of the New Paltz United Methodist Church filled with old lamps, blunt knives, malfunctioning sound mixers and balky zippers.

About a dozen volunteers welcomed the broken goods and their owners to a worldwide movement that’s evangelizing new relationships between people and their things.

Repair Cafes — free events where volunteers with technical know-how help neighbors fix myriad household items — are part of a new brand of anticonsumerism that’s trying to offer an alternative to the mass-produced disposable goods that have dominated the global economy for the last half-century. Helping fuel that move to repairing, not buying, are U.S. consumer prices, which climbed sharply again last month as the war with Iran delivered higher gasoline prices and more pain for Americans.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/47165348

I noticed many people believe, that Western countries ranking low on corruption indexes, shows they aren't corrupt as hell.

To me this just means it's at a higher, much harder to prove level.

Instead of starting at the cop level (which is still possible with connections), it starts at the points where multi-millions can be made without anyone really noticing.

E.g. farm land > residential use, construction projects, sale of government properties, favors for corps etc.

So back when I worked in Huntsville I had a friend named Ron and a coworker whose name escapes me. Let's call him Bob. Even though it annoys me not to be able to remember bob's real name.

So bob was a hunter, and had a deer stand across the river somewhere near Laceys Spring. When you cross the river and head south, you hear banjo's really quickly. I've seen entire valleys covered in nothing but kudzu over there. It was like an alien horror movie. Really weird vibe.

But that was where the deer were, so that is where Bob hunted.

One day Bob confessed to Ron that he'd seen some really weird stuff out there. He refused to really elaborate, but we got the impression it was really hair and made weird vocalizations. Maybe a black bear walking on it's hind legs?

Now you have to realize, this isn't that far from Arab Alabama. One of the most racist, hairy and vocal populations in a state full of rednecks. They like to ride around waving the confederate battle flag and doing the rebel yell. So hearing weird noises echoing off the hills not that surprising.

But Ron did some internet digging, and found some web pages that handle weird shit and printed them out and handed them to Bob.

Bob really freaked, and started babbling about things that walked like a man but were all hairy and definitely not human.

He got really really upset and never went back.

I don't blame him, even driving my ford explorer through all those back roads gave me the creeps. Deserted homesteads, shacks with confederate flags. You couldn't pay me enough to get out of the SUV and walk into those woods.

Ron's dead now, cancer, and I think so is Bob. But I thought I'd share their story. If I remember more I'll post them.

I was reading by a greentext involving Blåhaj in c/4chan and my brother asked me what was one.

"Why is the shark named that?"

Instances can go down, disappear or be unresponsive due to many reasons.

Go to your account settings now and export your account settings!

This file contains your subscriptions, follows, profile settings etc. It's very easy to start over on a new instance when you have your export file.

Back it up, export it, save it, repeat occasionally.

I don't remember seeing any character call "World" this name or himself saying "I'm World!". Why does the wiki list him with this name?

Is there such a scene that escaped my memory?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/46788659

Looking at how much conflict natural resource-rich countries (oil, gold, diamonds..) seem to attract, I wonder whether such wealth is more a curse than a blessing.

Many regions with scarce natural resources, adapted & perform very well. Some of the richest are examples (Switzerland, Luxembourg, Singapore..)

Looks to me like the greed for them attracts conflicts: civil wars, invasions etc. Cultural, ethnic, religious reasons often just seem to be used to cover it.

Plus all the environmental destruction / pollution that come with the extraction & processing.

The dog loved them!

I want to watch the series, but my country's dub is lost media, and my English listening skills are terrible.

The subtitles can be Spanish, English or Portuguese.

I could swear I had favorited it, but... well, I didn't.

The title had (I think) something related to "starter pack". The items listed were:

• WataMote Girl

• Lucky Star Girl

• "i want a failure boy/girlfriend"

• Sanrio

• (Something pink I don't remember)

• "but I don't wanna hurt you!"

• roblox

• discord

"Prob 500 in 1. I was like 8 when I had it, I always remembered it as a 50 game thing. It had TLOZ: Phantom Hourglass, Harvest Moon DS, Mario Party and some other stuff but I don't remember what was on it and what I had cards for."

She said there was a girl, a monkey and a family that lived at a trailer.

With Mitchell Hashimoto leaving Github it got me wondering, does anyone use it anymore?