1bluepixel
50% since Russia's gains early in the war, and most of it in late 2022 during the first counter-offensive.
They have NOT been making major gains during the current counter-offensive, unfortunately.
I can place pixels. I just don't give a fuck about Reddit any longer.
Using r/place to signal displeasure with u/spez is as dumb as paying for a pack of Bud Lites so you can pour them down the drain.
The best way to protest is not to engage at all.
I don't think so. I think this stems from the stupid, misguided notion that morality comes from religion, so Judeo-Christian nations are inherently more moral than the heathens.
I've heard Shapiro spew this same BS. That somehow the moral code passed down through Judaism is inherently better and purer and that Western civilization was elevated by it.
Nevermind that it's this exact brand of exceptionalism that has led to colonialism, forced conversions, genocide, and slavery. Let's do the same thing to AI!
There's nothing about Beeper that makes running WhatsApp through it more private. You're still using the Meta platform, but you're adding a new company in the chain. Your messages from the WhatsApp server get decrypted by Beeper then re-encrypted to be sent to you.
I don't think it's that simple. Stuff Harmon works alone on can still be great, but it has a tendency to collapse under its own self-awareness. Whereas Roiland alone is just lulrandom and unhinged without Harmon's storytelling skills pulling it together.
The two together had this amazing mix of self-awareness and chaos energy. Prime example being the Meeseeks episode. Remains to be seen if Harmon can pull it off on his own.
Fuck /r/place.
Sold.
Between this and Ultimate Invasion, it's good to see Hickman is back at his universe-building best.
Calling it "amélioré" (with a grammatical error) is extra salt in the wound.
Looks great, but I'd recommend "poutine recomposée" (reassembled poutine). "Améliorée" implies it's better, which comes across as pretentious given it barely looks like poutine and lacks both the signature curds and the gravy.
What about the genuinely well-crafted big budget films? Are we ready to toss those out as well? Movies like The Dark Knight, Avengers: Infinity War, John Wick 4, and now Barbie and Oppenheimer are as much a product of the Hollywood blockbuster system as the cookie-cutters. I don't think Hollywood and passion are mutually exclusive.
The Western critique of the BRI is that it's debt trap diplomacy, i.e. China loans money for development and hopes the beneficiaries can't repay so they can "own" them in a diplomatic sense, or downright repo some of their critical assets.
That's the criticism that Trump has levied against the BRI, but there are serious objections to this portrayal. Here's one from a reputable Western source:
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/08/debunking-myth-debt-trap-diplomacy