I heard once that it gets so bad in November in large part due to farmers in Punjab and such clearing their fields by burning the dead crops on it, something like that. Is that true?

The stadium was only filled 1/8th of its capacity. Nonetheless, boos and jeers could be heard when the Israeli national anthem was being played.

Alongside the usual hand-wringing about China's economy, it also talks talks about how "younger Chinese consumers are increasingly spending their money on experiences like travel rather than status symbols":

Aspirational Chinese “no longer need brands to define their joy or labels to prove their affluence,” said Jessica Gleeson, CEO of BrighterBeauty, a Shanghai-based retail sector consultancy firm. “Investments in self, health and entertainment experiences are where dollars are moving and I don’t see the trend reversing.”

Zhang Tong used to spend at least 100,000 yuan ($14,000) a year buying Gucci bags, limited-edition Air Jordan sneakers and fancy dresses as she sought to emulate the well-trodden path of China’s successful as a grade A student. “I didn’t have much of my own thinking and judgment back then,” said Zhang, 24, who lives in Shanghai. “I just knew there was a standard way to follow, to wear or act like a cool person, so I was just following.” Now she’s pursuing a PhD program in museology, and her preferred outfit is a plain T-shirt, a free canvas bag from her university and a pair of Crocs. Being cool no longer means showing off the biggest brand names and pursuing a certain career, but having the best story to tell on social media.

“Being expensive is no longer enough,” said BrighterBeauty’s Gleeson. “Chinese consumers have discovered that the ability to buy more does not earn you more happiness or fulfillment.”

Also this was just plain funny:

Coco Li, 46, used to spend about HK$600,000 ($77,000) a year — or roughly 20% of her income — buying luxury items. After losing her job as an executive at a multinational company in Hong Kong, she’s curtailed her habit and put some of her Hermes handbags up for sale on mainland Chinese online platforms. “In the past, I just bought luxury without thinking as long as I liked it,” said Li. “I don't have anything special that I want to buy now because I don’t know where my future income will be.”

RIP bozo

I was going to bring up TWPatch myself, too. @Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net I will warn you that while you can see previews of the different filters, applying one takes a long-ass time, I'm talking multiple minutes, so choose wisely.

The ability to boot a DS game in its native resolution is done by holding START or SELECT while it boots up. It's actually part of the official firmware, not something added by homebrew software:

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Granted, I haven't played it myself yet, but Mega Man Star Force 2 is that for a lot of fans of that series. The first game already got a lukewarm reception because of how it was simultaneously "just more Battle Network" and "not simply more Battle Network", but it has a very heartfelt story and some people are turning around on it when they can judge it on its own merits instead of constant comparisons to Battle Network, which has better gameplay. It still sold a decent number of copies.

The second game basically killed whatever momentum the series had by then. The story got dumbed down significantly which made it feel even more like Battle Network (although it still has its moments), the space theme was lost to "lost civilisations" shenanigans that many fans weren't interested in, the gameplay changes were meh and you frequently had to navigate through a maze-like "Sky Wave" with a too high encounter rate. Sales numbers were well below expectations.

The third game has the best gameplay by far and a story close to or as good as the first game, but the damage was already done. It sold the least of the three games. But at least the series ended on a high note with very few loose ends.

Had to throw a jab at China at the end of the video. Ugh... They wouldn't even have been been lying about the surveillance cameras, but they just HAD to bring up "social credit scores"

Recall requires a computer that is compatible with Microsoft's Copilot chatbot:

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Only a small portion of the most recent laptops are "Copilot+ PCs".

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This means that for everyone else, this information is irrelevant. It will mostly impact business employess and higher-income dupes. Also...

"Total Recall"

"Zionismus über Alles"

• CEO of the right-wing Axel Springer media conglomerate in leaked messages

Apparent magnitude is a logarithmic scale, so 4.0 over 4.7 makes the Qianfan satellites 5x brighter than the 1st-gen Starlink satellites.

The researchers hope that by raising alarm early, they hope things can change for the better, like how SpaceX redesigned their satellites after public scrutiny. One of the mitigations is to just constantly point the shiny surface away from the surface. But it sucks that any legitimate and good-faith criticism gets hijacked by sinophobes.

The article actually spends the latter half talking about interference by Starlink and another American one, BlueBird, including in the radio wavelength. It's really only the headline that's problematic.

I wonder why these constellation satellites are always so bright. I never heard such things sabout other satellites, or is it just their large numbers that suddenly makes it a problem?

Notions like "the best defence is offence" and a preemptive/preventive war have existed for a long time, to be fair. It's just that this isn't the first time Israel or the US have pulled that card and it never worked. Hezbollah was founded the first time Israel invaded Lebanon ffs.

Even if it did work in this case, it would be short-sighted, as the injustice in Palestine would continue and it's just a matter of time before things blow up again. "No justice, no peace" and all that.

Once again, that's not what's being said. She gets reprimanded in those cases.

Sometimes, there doesn’t appear to be any thought involved at all [in her outbursts of "dysregulation"], and when Margo reminds our daughter that it’s not okay to hit like that (“like that” meaning without consent), she looks genuinely startled, as if she has forgotten that we’ve ever talked about any of this. We do our best to respond calmly, to remind her that she has to ask before she hits. She knows that she can always get her boxing gloves and hit her bag if she needs to let off energy. We also model this for her by practicing martial arts in front of her, and demonstrating how we request and receive consent in that context.

That is not what's going on. They teach her that violence is allowed only in rare cases, and not recklessly or disproportionately. Read the article, please.

As a young boy with bullies, being picked on, [Nic, the daughter's father] was taught not to use martial arts until it was absolutely necessary. If an older kid was being physical with other kids and attempted to do so with him, he was able to respond appropriately and not preemptively. “Right time, right action,” Nic says. He saw situations where people around him got into conflict and reacted early with violence, and then they’d just end up fighting. Because even as a child, he knew where those boundaries were—the boundaries between circling and testing conflict, and outright physical aggression—and he was able to verbally deescalate confrontation. Because he wasn’t in a state of fear, he thinks, he was able to maintain a thoughtful process about situations as they unfolded.

With children, consent is a practice—they are literally practicing it, testing the boundaries of what happens when they violate it, checking to make sure it is reciprocal, feeling for all the edges. Sometimes, our kid hits Margo outside the space of permissioned rough play, with all the wild vigor of a still-forming human who cannot always control her urges, who occasionally wants to see what will happen if she just lets her body loose. She screws her face up and swings her arm around to deliver slaps, her tiny body moving so fast that it is difficult to grab hold of her wrists to stop her, like the gentle-parenting gurus Margo favors tend to recommend. This isn’t cruelty or anger, but dysregulation. Sometimes, there doesn’t appear to be any thought involved at all, and when Margo reminds our daughter that it’s not okay to hit like that (“like that” meaning without consent), she looks genuinely startled, as if she has forgotten that we’ve ever talked about any of this. We do our best to respond calmly, to remind her that she has to ask before she hits. She knows that she can always get her boxing gloves and hit her bag if she needs to let off energy. We also model this for her by practicing martial arts in front of her, and demonstrating how we request and receive consent in that context.

She does have boxing gloves, coincidentally, but only for hitting a punching bag "if she needs to let off energy".

In his essay on Stalinism Koba the Dread, Martin Amis proposes that Lolita is an elaborate metaphor for the totalitarianism that destroyed the Russia of Nabokov's childhood (though Nabokov states in his afterword that he "[detests] symbols and allegories").

The paragraph is titled "Sounds Familiar" for crying out loud

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Of course, the obligatory China mention. "Digital totalitarianism".

Hold up, you are the same person that went gushing about thighs beneath a previous comment of mine...

.....

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They're picturing a depressed person as a nihilistic killjoy that doesn't want to do anything and lives without a purpose, I'm assuming.

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Just want an excuse to post this

China built an extensive high-speed rail network. But it consistently loses money.

Literally a week ago (China State Railway Group includes high-speed rail as well):

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Source: https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3276871/chinas-railway-operator-brings-gravy-train-posting-profits-and-lowering-debt-ratios

Also, companies like Amazon and Uber made huge losses for YEARS, so they could increase market share and eventually use their size to incur massive profits later.

I didn't know that. That makes this train a little less absurd, at least.