I want a more efficient public sector, just cutting top line costs with no regard does not make it more efficient.
Banning Microsoft laggardly software would be one thing. They've built a walled garden and they want you to use it, and that's at the expense of better tools that do get the job done faster/easier/better. Eliminating make-work jobs would be good. Dumping seniority rules in the union would be good.
And you know what else: hire a full time per-department dedicated digital service. No, centralized isn't good enough. No, contracts aren't good enough.
Software is not a business. It is a strategy and a requirement. Our government needs to grow up and act like it, but it's infested with tech-illiterate boomers. Stop the endless rounds of dependency gathering to try to get one solution that does it all with one mega contract, and endless red-tape legal barriers that make it impossible for non-US mega-corp contractors to get contracts.
A dedicated digital service would always meet requirements because they would be involved in them. It
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I want a more efficient public sector, just cutting top line costs with no regard does not make it more efficient.
Banning Microsoft laggardly software would be one thing. They've built a walled garden and they want you to use it, and that's at the expense of better tools that do get the job done faster/easier/better. Eliminating make-work jobs would be good. Dumping seniority rules in the union would be good.
And you know what else: hire a full time per-department dedicated digital service. No, centralized isn't good enough. No, contracts aren't good enough.
Software is not a business. It is a strategy and a requirement. Our government needs to grow up and act like it, but it's infested with tech-illiterate boomers. Stop the endless rounds of dependency gathering to try to get one solution that does it all with one mega contract, and endless red-tape legal barriers that make it impossible for non-US mega-corp contractors to get contracts.
A dedicated digital service would always meet requirements because they would be involved in them. It must be embedded inside departments for continuous feedback and iteration, no other model works, ever. It needs to pay competitively, and acknowledge the fact that there are thousands of tech workers like me would never meet the insane public sector hoops, or deal with the low pay scale, or the large amounts of bureaucracy.
Last year I actually looked into how I could help either the government or the armed forces, and basically, I am not "qualified" for any of their listings, despite over a decade of experience and delivering hundreds of projects.
I agree with this comment on unions AND contractors (though not all). I think the problem is when service becomes a game or grift and not actually being efficient.
City of Toronto was one of the worst performing unions in most sectors and stank of corruption and over employment, and then on the other side you have MetroLinx which has been one of the biggest wastes of money a government has ever seen.
Then on the flip side you have Parks Canada and the National Archives doing amazing work with limited budgets.
I know with Toronto the culture came from the top, but these days I think contract farming and middle management bloat is what is really killing efficiency.
I've been using Linux for a over a decade, but haven't used anything Gnomey in a while. I gave PopOS another try the other day because I needed a simple distro to put on a home PC for my partner to use. This is the most usable Gnome distro I have ever found!
I won't be switching myself anytime soon, but I really like the way the tiles on Cosmic expand to always keep the screen full. I know KDE can tile using shortcuts, but have ant of you come across something on KDE that autoresizes the tiles like Pop does?
Oversimplification. COSMIC lacks like 95% of what GNOME has that is important for regular users, like the vast extension ecosystem, GSConnect or remote RDP login as simple examples.
Cosmic runs its own window manager called cosmic-comp, whereas Gnome uses Mutter. The tiling is baked into the Cosmic window manager, whereas you'd need to use an extension to get the same functionality on Gnome.
Glad to hear you're liking it, though! While I currently use Gnome with the PaperWM extension, Mutter is frustratingly behind on some current WM improvements (without good reason, IMO).
If you enjoy the tiling aspects, check out similar projects like Niri, as their window management shares some of the same codebase! Lots of neat projects out there, these days.
Not familiar with PopOS Tiling, but my goto tiling for KDE is Krohnkite It can be installed inside of KDE via Settings / Kwin Scripts / "Get new..." It has lots of keyboard shortcut and of course you can change them.
I've never used it but since it's basically a kwin script I'd bet you can change them in system settings, like in system settings -> keyboard -> keyboard shortcuts -> Window management (or however it is named in english) -> look up for krohnite
E: Or maybe, just maybe, in its entry in the Kwin scripts section - System settings -> Window management (or however it is named in english) -> Kwin scripts -> Krohnite -> Click or tap the cog button -> maybe there should be something related to keyboard shortcuts
It is the first one, yes. Just the normal keyboard shortcut settings. And all the Krohnkite shortcuts are prefixed with "Krohnkite", so you can find them easily.
No, the Krohkite addon doesn't have a configuration window to change shortcuts in the Kwin scripts section. And there is no need for anyway, as all shortcuts are in a central place of KDE shortcuts.
Also available through KDE Settings > Window Management > KWin Scripts > [Get New...] . Installing it through this method should automatically update whenever its updated.
Yeah, and you don't have to know which fork to choose. Only the compatible fork will show up in the search.
(I was going to recommend that, but had something in the back of head, that you needed a manual step to enable the configuration. But I just saw that this is described in the Plasma 5 version, not the Plasma 6 fork, so I guess, it's not necessary anymore...)
Well, PopOS is a distribution, based on Ubuntu, shipping a desktop. That desktop was formerly a customized GNOME, now they have their completely own desktop environment.
The tiling might be similar between both but their GNOME extension is probably deprecated now.
Cosmic has dynamic tiling, while KDE has many manual tiling features which may be less efficient but require nearly no setup.
Used to be that KDE would let you run other window managers than the default kwin. If that capability still exists, you might just be able to borrow Cosmic's WM and implant it in your KDE session.
I believe, that's something which became impossible with Wayland?
But it wasn't very good under X11 either. Even back then, it was much less clunky to use the various KWin scripts, which offer tiling. Well, and by now Plasma has built-in semi-automatic tiling, which those scripts basically just configure, so they do now feel quite smooth.
BTW back in KDE 5 I did that, used an alternative tiling window manager (I think it was i3wm) instead KWin. It worked, but it had its own set of problems. Not sure if it is still possible, but based on my prior experience I wouldn't recommend it anyway. Instead the tiling script / addon Krohkite should be used, as people recommend. I use it myself (and I am a tiling window manager guy) and it works well, as it is well integrated and smooth experience in KDE.
KDE has native tiling built in. Simply press the (default) hotkey Win+T to set up your tiling zones, and then hold shift while moving a window and it'll snap into that area.
Yes, Krohnkite on KDE auto-resizes window tiles and keeps the screen full. It's a default setting (monocular view) but can also be turned off.
To use krohnkite you can add it from within KDE - go to Settings > Window Management > KWin Scripts. Then top right select "Get New..." and type K in the search box and it'll be one of the top options.
It works well but you may need to log out and and back in after enabling it to see some of the changes. Also you will probably want to change other KDE panels and layouts to fit how you want to use the desktop in a tiling set up (and there are plenty of widgets available and window animations to add - like Geometry - if you want to a specific tiling set up and look).
KDE is incredibly customisable, but for tiling it may take a little work to get it exactly where you want it. Also worth backing up your settings folders once you've got it how you want it (Konsave for example, or manually)
Their operations become somewhat declassified after X years (I don't remember the exact number, but there is law for it). You can see many of their documents on the CIA website. For example, the Aerodynamic operation.
I mean basically everything bad ever right? Coups and proxy wars all over the world, spying on everyone, torturing, human trafficking, drug experiments, assassinations, mass murder, etc.
Can you point to relevant documents? I have heard of involvement in coups but I have not heard anything about them being behind so-called color revolutions, which I believe is a dangerous made up word used to justify imperialist repression against dissidents and protesters.
Some on the right are now referring to the current events in Minnesota as a color revolution, and I believe this is a result of our lack of criticism of this very dubious term.
There's simply no evidence any nation has been able to engineer a popular uprising. Such a thing is not possible. People feel how they feel and they hate their government for a reason.
It's just selectively chosen and distorted facts and invectives against the enemies of authoritarian leftists. It's not a serious attempt to document reality.
As an example, I looked at the page on color revolutions the user above recommended. It's just a series of unsupported assertions with no supporting evidence. It literally doesn't contain a single reference.
I do find it useful for evaluating leftists though. I find when prolewiki criticizes them then it's usually because they actually care about facts and have consistent values. So it does have some use.
Oh to be clear there's no factual information. But who they decide to tar and feather is interesting, since tankies can't abide facts, real history, or true convictions of any kind. All need to be sacrificed before the altar of the great leader, whichever one it is they choose to bow before. If they're falsely calling you an anti-communist, it's a good sign, so thanks for the validation!
References Statista (2022). Catolicismo y evangelismo: las dos religiones más comunes en Latinoamérica – Statista UNDP Human Development Report (2021-22). Human Devlopment Report 2021/22 – UNDP "Chile: The Failed Socialist Revolution" (2019-09-14). Politsturm. Archived from the original on 2021-08-27. Retrieved 2022-06-12. Jeremy Kuzmarov (2022-09-21). "Murder on Embassy Row—46 Years On: Remembering the Assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt" CovertAction Magazine. Archived from the original on 2024-07-23. Vijay Prashad (2008). The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World: 'La Paz' (pp. 147–8). [PDF] The New Press. ISBN 9781595583420 [LG] Notes Spanish: República de Chile
There are also people like Chris Hedges, Greg Palast and multiple others. But I already knew you weren't sincere and wouldn't accept any sources.
What I find fascinating, and I've certainly been guilty in years past, is the louder and more "confident" people are, the more uninformed,
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References Statista (2022). Catolicismo y evangelismo: las dos religiones más comunes en Latinoamérica – Statista UNDP Human Development Report (2021-22). Human Devlopment Report 2021/22 – UNDP "Chile: The Failed Socialist Revolution" (2019-09-14). Politsturm. Archived from the original on 2021-08-27. Retrieved 2022-06-12. Jeremy Kuzmarov (2022-09-21). "Murder on Embassy Row—46 Years On: Remembering the Assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt" CovertAction Magazine. Archived from the original on 2024-07-23. Vijay Prashad (2008). The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World: 'La Paz' (pp. 147–8). [PDF] The New Press. ISBN 9781595583420 [LG] Notes Spanish: República de Chile
There are also people like Chris Hedges, Greg Palast and multiple others. But I already knew you weren't sincere and wouldn't accept any sources.
What I find fascinating, and I've certainly been guilty in years past, is the louder and more "confident" people are, the more uninformed, misinformed, or guilty they turn out to be.
I reacted the way I did because you basically said "lol google it nerd" instead of providing useful information. You get what you give in online discourse.
I'm just asking people to share information and substantiate their claims. If they won't do so then I assume they're full of shit. That's just how this works.
Right. And you read the prolewiki article. Completely unsourced claims.
Except...
Are these supposed to be links or what?
It's the first set of references on the page. I just let you run with it a minute.
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you're describing a different page than the one I have now checked and confirmed like four times that it does not have references. If so, and you're not just straight up lying, this is a problem you created by refusing to provide a simple link.
Anyone can see what this guy is trying to do here. If mods are removing my comment about it for 'bad jacketing' that says a lot about them. I guess 'lefty' here is the embarrassing american Dem/lib "we're not Republicans" and not more.
Well I am using the term as distinct from a coup. A coup is when a small circle of power holders (usually but not always the military) seize power without the involvement of the masses.
When people talk about color revolutions in my experience, it's usually an attempt to smear popular uprisings as being artificially created by some hostile foreign power. To my knowledge, such a thing has never happened. This is because it's far more difficult to motivate the thousands or even millions of people needed to take such actions. You can't simply pay them off or order them the way you can with a handful of generals.
The Shah was put in power in one of many coups supported or orchestrated by the US. But I would not describe it as a color revolution because there was little involvement of the general public. It was a struggle between elite factions.
Roosevelt quickly seized control of the Iranian press by buying them off with bribes and circulating anti-Mossadegh propaganda. He recruited allies among the Islamic clergy
In August 2013, the U.S. government formally acknowledged the U.S. role in the coup by releasing a bulk of previously classified government documents that show it was in charge of both the planning and the execution of the coup. According to American journalist Stephen Kinzer, the operation included false flag attacks, paid protesters, provocations, the bribing of Iranian politicians and high-ranking security and army officials, as well as pro-coup propaganda.
Roosevelt quickly seized control of the Iranian press by buying them off with bribes and circulating anti-Mossadegh propaganda. He recruited allies among the Islamic clergy
In August 2013, the U.S. government formally acknowledged the U.S. role in the coup by releasing a bulk of previously classified government documents that show it was in charge of both the planning and the execution of the coup. According to American journalist Stephen Kinzer, the operation included false flag attacks, paid protesters, provocations, the bribing of Iranian politicians and high-ranking security and army officials, as well as pro-coup propaganda.
So I guess you're saying that a truly popular uprising, like a spontaneous movement of the people orchestrated by the an imperial power has never happened? How narrowly do you need to define your definition, like, what evidence would convince you? I think your "its never happened" is an over correction, out of annoyance with online ML default talking points. And that's understandable, they can be ridiculous. But where an online ML misapplies the label of a color revolution to a popular uprising, the opposite of that is not the truth. And practically, declaring the opposite of an untruth to be the truth is not the best way to combat misinformation.
Idk how practical it is to nitpick this in our current struggles. Like the tea party was kind of an inside job, right? The right wing funded, and continues to fund, a bunch of loonies to attack liberal democracy, directly connected to Koch money, which continues to fund the Heritage foundation and project 2025. Hell, it even appears that Epstein and collaborators had something to do with 4 Chan and Qanon, so the January 6th attack was heavily influenced by private capital with government connections in intelligence in the USA and Israel.
Also its not like Radio Free Asia was just some hobby amongst people interested in liberating their own countries, they are concerted efforts to sway public opinion toward outcomes favorable to the US. Why would they waste the resources if there wasnt a popular component needed to affect real change? Were we just wasting time and resources?
At what point does a corporation capable of affecting public policy, like an oil company (relevant in every example), when they fund protestors, or counter protesters, how do you slice that? Was it like 3 months ago when a bunch of old Mexican business people donned one piece shirts, and protested the social democratic policies of Mexico's president Sheinbaum, using Trumpian talking points like resistance to cartels? If those business leaders or organizers had any connection to US intelligence, how does that figure? Or with the numerous failed coups in Venezuela, where the US declared Juan Guaido president? The US verifiably had connections with Venezuelan businesses and right wing leaders in orchestrating capital strikes and various economic attacks against the people.
If we crush the economy of a country and that causes a popular uprising, how does that figure? Does that ever happen completely absent of mass propaganda? I dont think so.
Like its very messy and amorphous, constantly changing and shifting dynamics, I think you're being too hard and fast with how you want to categorize, or decategorize, a color revolution. And the reason is kinda silly. To me its like youre saying that because (almost) everything is an op, then absolutely nothing is. Not a single tankie gets owned by being a different stripe of wrong, and certainly no one is educated. Campism creates as many enemies of a cause as it creates allies, because truth isnt weighed according to facts but by opposition to the other.
If you want to defeat tankies, or any political sect, you have to out-organize them, not steelman or debate. So it's not even a very practical position.
You can literally read documents that have been declassified. Anyone can. Even if you are being pedantic, they released their own classified documents. If that doesn't count as admission i honestly don't know what would.
I'm not doing research to support your claims. That's your job. The CIA has declassified mountains of documents, most of which are irrelevant to this question. And I can't prove that something is not in there. You can prove it is. Or you can fail to do so.
I have yo. Yet you still disagree. If you won't look at it yourself, then don't act like you have any leg to stand on. You can't say the sky is falling then refuse to look up.
I'm just asking people to share information and substantiate their claims. If they won't do so then I assume they're full of shit. That's just how this works.
Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.
And people will still continue that 'Conspiracy theorists are nutjobs' rhetoric.
Yes, don't get me wrong, believing that there are lizard people or aliens pulling the strings is questionable. But when somebody points at something highly suspicious and says, "hey, look at this, isn't that weird?" if your first response is, "go get your tinfoil hat" then you're being closeminded. So much in the Epstein files was called years and years ago, and even today people are reluctant to believe it.
Don't get me wrong, but you have to live under a rock, or be very hard indoctrinated by USA imperialistic propaganda, to ignore all the facts, movies, stories, unclassified documents.
Everyone knows what CIA did, from black community to left wing and regular people in the USA, and everyone in the rest of the world.
We know, that this type of agencies, no matter is it from USA, China, Russia, Europe, or any other place, will do very shitty things, to gain political or economic power. And it's some sort of normal for this type of organizations. Not normal is thinking that police is here to protect regular people, or the government agencies are here to protect your freedom. Read the history book, most of this type of agencies, was formed to
a) invigilate and ruin workers/revolutionaries/rebel fronts, b) to direct arrest, and remove opponents of whoever is in power.
WHEN DOES A SEPARATIST movement become a threat to Canada’s national security?
This is a question hanging in the air in Alberta. People are asking how it can possibly be that the very same individuals who are leading the separatist movement can also be three meetings deep into a relationship with senior officials of the Donald Trump administration in Washington, with a fourth scheduled for this month.
It is, as we know, entirely legal in Canada to advocate and campaign in support of a province or territory leaving Confederation. This is covered by the Clarity Act but also by the Charter, which protects the rights of citizens to free expression, assembly, and association.
Any organic political movement that is based in a genuine desire to achieve an outcome of their design is free to pursue that through whatever lawful means are available to them. Foreign interference in such movements, however, is where the line between lawful advocacy and dissent crosses into territory that constitutes a threat to Canada’s national security.
The Canadian Securi
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WHEN DOES A SEPARATIST movement become a threat to Canada’s national security?
This is a question hanging in the air in Alberta. People are asking how it can possibly be that the very same individuals who are leading the separatist movement can also be three meetings deep into a relationship with senior officials of the Donald Trump administration in Washington, with a fourth scheduled for this month.
It is, as we know, entirely legal in Canada to advocate and campaign in support of a province or territory leaving Confederation. This is covered by the Clarity Act but also by the Charter, which protects the rights of citizens to free expression, assembly, and association.
Any organic political movement that is based in a genuine desire to achieve an outcome of their design is free to pursue that through whatever lawful means are available to them. Foreign interference in such movements, however, is where the line between lawful advocacy and dissent crosses into territory that constitutes a threat to Canada’s national security.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act is clear on this. CSIS itself does not have a mandate to investigate “lawful advocacy, protest or dissent” unless these forms of activity are carried on in conjunction with the range of activities which the act defines as threats to the security of Canada.
Those threats include espionage or sabotage harmful to Canada’s interests; covert or deceptive foreign-influenced activities that undermine Canada or threaten individuals; support for or direction of serious violence against people or property to achieve political, religious, or ideological goals; and covert, unlawful acts aimed at undermining, overthrowing, or destroying Canada’s constitutionally established system of government through violence. In short, the act draws a clear line between protected democratic activity and conduct that involves foreign interference, secrecy, violence, or efforts to subvert the state itself.
They seem to think they’ll get to give Alberta resources to the grifter. In a way I wish they’d do it so I could laugh in their faces when they get shafted by him as well as everyone else he’s conned.
I have a little trouble understanding people who are interested in joining Trump in anything. Do you honestly think you can come out on top in an alliance with Donald?
gotta think strategically. it's not the time to be leftist right now. we just gotta wait until elections and put kamala hamala in power.
then we rest assured fascism doesn't exist anymore as long as you keep voting for whoever you think is not fascist. but for now just give everything they want so they don't get angry.
Look, if Kamala was in charge this wouldn't be happening, because you wouldn't see it in the media so you wouldn't care, and that's what we mean by going to the left. Also some of the guards in our camps will be queer!
"Oh no by moving left we mean we're going to very strongly condemn ice but then also condemn anyone principled enough to take a real stance" - Average shitlib
including the author would also be wrong, as the original author did have some completely different text.... would not know how to handle without a multi-line disclaimer. still i agree with your critique some how.
If no license is indicated in an artwork/software the implied license (it is not required the indicate a license) is "All rights reserved". This post counts as a derivative work, the author have the right to allow/disallow it.
Outside of legal wording, when making a derivative work it's nice to at least give attribution to the original artist or citing the source of the original work.
The 1930s famine in the USSR was not intentionally inflicted nor directed, and therefore was not a genocide. What happened was a combination of adverse weather conditions with kulaks, bourgeois farmers, burning their crops and killing their livestock to resist collectivization. Collectivization increased agricultural output and ended famine in regions where it was historically common.
As for the Falun Gong, they are a cult, not an ethnicity, and the PRC isn't killing them en masse, just repressing it as an anti-communist and western-funded cult. Same as the idea of Uyghur genocide, atrocity propaganda akin to claiming that there's "white genocide" in South Africa, Christian genocide in Nigeria, or that Hamas sexually assaulted babies in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
In the case of Xinjiang, the area is crucial in the Belt and Road Initiative, so the west backed sepratist groups in order to destabilize the region. China responded with vocational programs and de-radicalization efforts, which the west then twisted into claims of "genocide." Nevermind that the
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The 1930s famine in the USSR was not intentionally inflicted nor directed, and therefore was not a genocide. What happened was a combination of adverse weather conditions with kulaks, bourgeois farmers, burning their crops and killing their livestock to resist collectivization. Collectivization increased agricultural output and ended famine in regions where it was historically common.
As for the Falun Gong, they are a cult, not an ethnicity, and the PRC isn't killing them en masse, just repressing it as an anti-communist and western-funded cult. Same as the idea of Uyghur genocide, atrocity propaganda akin to claiming that there's "white genocide" in South Africa, Christian genocide in Nigeria, or that Hamas sexually assaulted babies in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
In the case of Xinjiang, the area is crucial in the Belt and Road Initiative, so the west backed sepratist groups in order to destabilize the region. China responded with vocational programs and de-radicalization efforts, which the west then twisted into claims of "genocide." Nevermind that the west responds to seperatism with mass violence, and thus re-education programs focused on rehabilitation are far more humane, the tool was used both for outright violence by the west into a useful narrative to feed its own citizens.
The best and most comprehensive resource I have seen so far is Qiao Collective's Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation. Qiao Collective is explicitly pro-PRC, but this is an extremely comprehensive write-up of the entire background of the events, the timeline of reports, and real and fake claims.
Tourists do go to Xinjiang all the time as well. You can watch , though it obviously isn't going to be a comprehensive view of a complex situation like this.
Western governments have levied false allegations of genocide and slavery in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. A closer look makes clear that the politicization of China’s anti-terrorism policies in Xinjiang is another front of the U.S.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomo… Holodomor was a genocide. Ukraine had grain quotas and Stalin exported them instead of feeding the Ukrainians. And collectivization of farmers was not an act against bourgeois but against farmers that are not member of the party. My village too they just give the land of nonparty members to party members creating new bourgeois.
Genocide against Falun gong and muslims is still genocide. Organs are harvested and they do slave labor torture. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecut…
The famine was not preventable, and there's absolutely no evidence that the soviets wanted to replace ethnic minorities, the opposite is true. The soviets tried to preserve Ukrainian culture while establishing a common "soviet identity," in line with being a multinational federation. The kulak system was a bourgeois system of farming, where wealthy farmers employed poor laboring workers to toil the land, and collectivization improved yields while equalizing distribution.
The Politburo was also kept in the dark about how bad the famine was getting:
From: Archive of the President of the Russian Federation. Fond 3, Record Series 40, File 80, Page 58.
Excerpt from the protocol number of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party (Bolsheviks) “Regarding Measures to Prevent Failure to Sow in Ukraine, March 16th, 1932.
The Political Bureau believes that shortage of seed grain in Ukraine is many times worse than what was d
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Incorrect on all counts.
The famine was not preventable, and there's absolutely no evidence that the soviets wanted to replace ethnic minorities, the opposite is true. The soviets tried to preserve Ukrainian culture while establishing a common "soviet identity," in line with being a multinational federation. The kulak system was a bourgeois system of farming, where wealthy farmers employed poor laboring workers to toil the land, and collectivization improved yields while equalizing distribution.
The Politburo was also kept in the dark about how bad the famine was getting:
From: Archive of the President of the Russian Federation. Fond 3, Record Series 40, File 80, Page 58.
Excerpt from the protocol number of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party (Bolsheviks) “Regarding Measures to Prevent Failure to Sow in Ukraine, March 16th, 1932.
The Political Bureau believes that shortage of seed grain in Ukraine is many times worse than what was described in comrade Kosior’s telegram; therefore, the Political Bureau recommends the Central Committee of the Communist party of Ukraine to take all measures within its reach to prevent the threat of failing to sow [field crops] in Ukraine.
Signed: Secretary of the Central Committee – J. STALIN
Letter to Joseph Stalin from Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine regarding the course and the perspectives of the sowing campaign in Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.
There are also isolated cases of starvation, and even whole villages [starving]; however, this is only the result of bungling on the local level, deviations [from the party line], especially in regard of kolkhozes. All rumours about “famine” in Ukraine must be unconditionally rejected. The crucial help that was provided for Ukraine will give us the opportunity to eradicate all such outbreaks [of starvation].
Letter from Joseph Stalin to Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.
Comrade Kosior!
You must read attached summaries. Judging by this information, it looks like the Soviet authority has ceased to exist in some areas of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Can this be true? Is the situation invillages in Ukraine this bad? Where are the operatives of the OGPU [Joint Main Political Directorate], what are they doing?
Could you verify this information and inform the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party about taken measures.
Sincerely, J. Stalin
The origins of such a story of forced starvation came from the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter in 1933. Völkischer Beobachter reported on it as intentional, and then spread the story around further. All evidence post-opening of the soviet archives points to it not being intentional.
As for Falun Gong, they are persecuted as a subversive cult and terrorist agency. They are not an ethnicity. There is no organ harvesting or torture, these are baseless western allegations, just like "white genocide" in South Africa. Directing you back to my previous comment:
As for the Falun Gong, they are a cult, not an ethnicity, and the PRC isn't killing them en masse, just repressing it as an anti-communist and western-funded cult. Same as the idea of Uyghur genocide, atrocity propaganda akin to claiming that there's "white genocide" in South Africa, Christian genocide in Nigeria, or that Hamas sexually assaulted babies in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
In the case of Xinjiang, the area is crucial in the Belt and Road Initiative, so the west backed sepratist groups in order to destabilize the region. China responded with vocational programs and de-radicalization efforts, which the west then twisted into claims of "genocide." Nevermind that the west responds to seperatism with mass violence, and thus re-education programs focused on rehabilitation are far more humane, the tool was used both for outright violence by the west into a useful narrative to feed its own citizens.
The best and most comprehensive resource I have seen so far is Qiao Collective's Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation. Qiao Collective is explicitly pro-PRC, but this is an extremely comprehensive write-up of the entire background of the events, the timeline of reports, and real and fake claims.
Tourists do go to Xinjiang all the time as well. You can watch , though it obviously isn't going to be a comprehensive view of a complex situation like this.
Repeating western atrocity propaganda entirely uncritically stems from a deep sense of chauvanism and orientalism. Despite lacking any and all credible evidence backing your claims, you repeat them dogmatically. The only credible explanation for such dogmatism on your part is a deliberate choice to ignore truth, so as to lay cover for racist views underneath, whether you realize it or not.
Western governments have levied false allegations of genocide and slavery in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. A closer look makes clear that the politicization of China’s anti-terrorism policies in Xinjiang is another front of the U.S.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populati… He seems to love local cultures so much he transfered ethnic minorities to Siberia and replaced them with Russians to bring Russian culture.
And how would you explain sudden increase of organ transplants in China after 1999 before china had even an organ transplant system. There are many evidence reports about it like 2007 and 2016 the slaughter and bloody harvest and there was 2020 UN tribunal to which China did not even bother attending to present it's evidence
Population transfer is the only actual mistake of the communists that you've brought up. Marxist-Leninists today agree that this was one of the biggest legitimate crimes of the USSR, though it was not done for "Russification." Instead, population transfer happened during a time of constant turmoil and subversion, out of a sense of paranoia. Culture was still protected, and Russian culture did not replace local ethnic cultures, there was a simultaneous push for a "soviet" internationalist culture with preservation of local ethnicities and culture, even with population transfer. Still a crime, but the only actual crime you've brought up thus far.
As for the Falun Gong, again, they are a cult akin to Scientology, not an ethnicity, and the PRC isn't killing them en masse, just repressing it as an anti-communist and western-funded cult. Same as the idea of Uyghur genocide, atrocity propaganda akin to claiming that there's "white genocide" in South Africa, Christian genocide in Nigeria, or that Hamas sexually assaulted babies in Operation
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Population transfer is the only actual mistake of the communists that you've brought up. Marxist-Leninists today agree that this was one of the biggest legitimate crimes of the USSR, though it was not done for "Russification." Instead, population transfer happened during a time of constant turmoil and subversion, out of a sense of paranoia. Culture was still protected, and Russian culture did not replace local ethnic cultures, there was a simultaneous push for a "soviet" internationalist culture with preservation of local ethnicities and culture, even with population transfer. Still a crime, but the only actual crime you've brought up thus far.
As for the Falun Gong, again, they are a cult akin to Scientology, not an ethnicity, and the PRC isn't killing them en masse, just repressing it as an anti-communist and western-funded cult. Same as the idea of Uyghur genocide, atrocity propaganda akin to claiming that there's "white genocide" in South Africa, Christian genocide in Nigeria, or that Hamas sexually assaulted babies in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
You're uncritically believing the equivalent of 5g cell towers causing brainwashing, or Bill Gates trying to microchip everyone with vaccines. You do this not because you're incapable of seeing truth, but because you deliberately believe convenient lies.
well isn't it convenient to label every inconvenient truth as "western propaganda". Probably for you Stalins gulags are also Western propaganda? Priests from Germany were sent to Siberian prison for 10 years same as Nazi soldiers from here. Czech Germans sent on death marches.
Organ harvest happens on scale, you cannot explain the organ tourism in China and that hospitals have sometimes multiple floors of transplant surgery rooms in a culture where organ donation is not even popular.
I quite literally stated that population transfer was a clear mistake, though I corrected you on motive. The presence of soviet prisons isn't propaganda, but very often the worst conditions are exaggerated and further made to seem the norm. The soviet prison system was actually very progressive for the time. Mary Stevenson Callcott documented it quite well in Russian Justice.
When it comes to social progressivism in general, the soviet union was among the best out of their peers, so instead we must look at who was actually repressed outside of the norm. In the USSR, it was the capitalist class, the kulaks, the fascists who were repressed. This is out of necessity for any socialist state. When it comes to working class freedoms, however, the soviet union represented a dramatic expansion. Soviet progressivism was documented quite well in Albert Syzmanski's
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I quite literally stated that population transfer was a clear mistake, though I corrected you on motive. The presence of soviet prisons isn't propaganda, but very often the worst conditions are exaggerated and further made to seem the norm. The soviet prison system was actually very progressive for the time. Mary Stevenson Callcott documented it quite well in Russian Justice.
When it comes to social progressivism in general, the soviet union was among the best out of their peers, so instead we must look at who was actually repressed outside of the norm. In the USSR, it was the capitalist class, the kulaks, the fascists who were repressed. This is out of necessity for any socialist state. When it comes to working class freedoms, however, the soviet union represented a dramatic expansion. Soviet progressivism was documented quite well in Albert Syzmanski's Human Rights in the Soviet Union.
There is no credible evidence of organ harvesting. You are doing the equivalent of looking at rising autism diagnoses and rising vaccine usage and claiming they are connected based on fabricated evidence. There's absolutely no evidence of your fantasies of an organ harvesting operation going on in China, and you justify your views with neo-Nazi conspiracy theories.
To the disappeared persons and thousands of others who have been killed in Latin America since the mid-1960’s for their advocacy of freedom; and for D.R.
there was a UN china tribunal about the organ harvesting in 2020. After many testimonies and china not showing up they concluded with certainty that there is systematic organ harvesting. For you UN is not a credible source anymore?
And what does Falun gong have to do with Neonazi conspiracies???????
The UN is heavily biased, yes, but the fabricated testemonies and lies all coming from the Falun Gong itself and from anti-communist, far-right propagandists means that there is in fact no certainty on "organ harvesting." The Falun Gong are a far-right cult, and dogmatically repeating their conspiracy theories is like claiming vaccines cause autism or 5g cell towers cause cancer. I've shown you multiple examples of how these are fabricated, and you keep pointing to already debunked claims.
Muslims in xinjiang doing "terrorist actions" like wearing head scarf and testifying in 2020 is far right too? And how do you explain only 2 week waiting time for organ tourists coming to China? Where are all these organs coming from if not from systematic harvesting?
May 22, 2014: Urumqi Attack, 39 killed, 94 injured as 2 attackers drove cars into crowds and threw explosives at buildings.
And many more. Since the de-radicalization efforts, these attacks have gone down to effectively 0.
As for why China has low wait times on organ transplants, they have an extremely effective medical system and a very high population, meaning it's far easier to match organs for compatability than in smaller countries with worse medical systems. Again, you're doing the thing where you look at increased vaccinations and increased autism diagnoses and assuming they are connected, a common far-right strategy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecut… People are persecuted just for doing Muslim things. Or are you suggesting that there are 1 million potential killers locked up in Xinjiang and somehow Uyghurs are more criminal (which would be a racist implication I think).
Your medical system can be as efficient as it wants to be and still not produce compatible organ donars if no one takes part of the organ donation system. 2 week waiting time for organs is insane. Normally people die before getting an organ.
No, people are not persecuted "for doing Muslim things." There are not 1 million people locked up in Xinjiang either. These are common lies propogated by professional propagandist and christian nationalist Adrian Zenz. Linking Wikipedia over and over again is not a source, I have linked you direct sources over and over again debunking this. No, there are not 1 million "potential killers," the idea that 1 million people are locked up is fabricated. Per @yogthos@lemmy.ml effort post:
The whole conspiracy theory started with a claim of millions of Uyghurs being supposedly imprisoned story is based on two highly dubious “studies.”. However, this claim is completely absurd when you stop and think about it even for a minute. That figure 1 million is repeated again and again. Let's just look at how much space would you actually ne
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No, people are not persecuted "for doing Muslim things." There are not 1 million people locked up in Xinjiang either. These are common lies propogated by professional propagandist and christian nationalist Adrian Zenz. Linking Wikipedia over and over again is not a source, I have linked you direct sources over and over again debunking this. No, there are not 1 million "potential killers," the idea that 1 million people are locked up is fabricated. Per @yogthos@lemmy.ml effort post:
The whole conspiracy theory started with a claim of millions of Uyghurs being supposedly imprisoned story is based on two highly dubious “studies.”. However, this claim is completely absurd when you stop and think about it even for a minute. That figure 1 million is repeated again and again. Let's just look at how much space would you actually need to intern one million people.
This is a photo of Rikers Island, New York City's biggest prison. The actual size of a facility interning ten thousand people.
According to Wikipedia, "The average daily inmate population on the island is about 10,000, although it can hold a maximum of 15,000." Let's assume this is a Xinjiang detention camp, holding ten to fifteen thousand people. How many of these would it take to hold one million people?
Let's do some math:
Rikers Size
Rikers Prisoners
One Million Uyghurs Size
413.2 acres (0.645 square miles)
10,000 to 15,000
43 to 64 square miles
In reality, one million people would probably take more space; all the supposed detention camps we see are much less dense than Rikers.
For comparison, San Francisco is 47 square miles. Amsterdam is 64 square miles. You'd literally need detention camps that total the size of San Francisco or Amsterdam to intern one million Uyghurs. It'd be like looking at a map of California. There's Los Angeles. There's San Diego. And look, there's San Francisco Concentration City with its one million Uyghurs.
Practically all the stories we see about China trace back to Adrian Zenz is a far right fundamentalist nutcase and not a reliable source for any sort of information. The fact that he's the primary source for practically every article in western media demonstrates precisely what I'm talking about when I say that coverage is divorced from reality.
Along with his “mission” against China, heavenly guidance has apparently prompted Zenz to denounce homosexuality, gender equality, and the banning of physical punishment against children as threats to Christianity.
The fact that this nutcase is being paraded as a credible researcher on the subject is absolutely surreal, and it's clear that the methodology of his "research" doesn't pass any kind of muster when examined closely.
It's also worth noting that there is a political angle around the narrative around Xinjiang. For example, here's George Bush's chief of staff openly saying that US wants to destabilize the region, and NED admitting to funding Uyghur separatism for the past 16 years on their own official Twitter page. An ex-CIA operative details US operations radicalizing and training terrorists in the region in this book. Here's an excerpt:
US has been stoking terrorism in the region while they've been running a propaganda campaign against China in the west. In fact, US even classified Uyghur separatists as a terrorist group at one point mintpressnews.com/us-was-at-wa…
Here's an account from a Pakistani journalist who has been all over Xinjiang (which borders Pakistan) claims that western media reports on "atrocities" are lies. dailytimes.com.pk/723317/expos…
It's also worth noting that the accusations originate entirely from the west while Muslim majority countries support China, and their leaders have visited Xinjiang many times.
Also notable that whenever western media actually deigns to visit Xinjiang, which is not often, they're unable to produce support for any of their claims of mass imprisonment and oppression, so they opt for insinuations instead apnews.com/article/coronavirus…
The whole thing is very clearly a propaganda blitz that US is cynically using to manipulate impressionable people in the west.
As for the medical system, again, your line of logic is akin to saying there's no way we can diagnose autism at better degrees of accuracy without artificially inflating it. This is absurd, and the fact that you lack any and all credible evidence further points to this blatant orientalism on your part.
the estimation of Uyghur prisoners was I remember made from satalite images and number of prison camps. Satalite images are Infos that are public and can be easily verified.
And you still have not come up with the source of organs for transplantation. You see organ tourists mostly from south korea coming to get organs in China with only 2 week waiting time despite organ donation not being popular. Organ transplant boom just conveniently started after 1999 and was low before.
As already explained to you, the satellite estimates are bullshit, based on comparison to Rikers. There's no actual evidence of infrastructure even capable of holding 1 million prisoners in Xinjiang, let alone evidence that these buildings are for imprisoning Uyghur peoples.
And I did give an explanation for organ transplants. The PRC has 1.4 billion people, many of which are organ donors and die or otherwise can donate organs. You're looking at a simple phenomenon and resorting to far-right conspiracy theory to explain it.
Thank you so much, comrade! I try to foster an environment where this kind of discussion is the norm for communists, so we can advance the general level of education and help each other learn more! 🫡
I really enjoy your comments. You're even handed, considerate, and informative so I think you'll take this push back well.
The word cult is a slippery term that is generally a perjorative morphing to the intentions of both writer and reader. A more neutral term would be the preferred academic term of "new religious movement" while highlight specific harmful behaviors that might make it either immoral, illegal, or culturally distasteful.
I hope that you see the value in being more specific with the term.
For me, it's more than just the dangers of their ideas. Its mechanisms of control. Can members come and go freely? Do the members have a livelihood separate from the religious community? Do they have access to other perspective or is their information limited and curated? Do they use their doctrines to create obedience to the leadership? Is their financial obligation to the movement more onerous than other religious groups? Can a member leave tomorrow without being stalked or harassed?
As far as I’ve seen, Falun Gong practitioners generally live normal, secular lives and aren't financially 'captured' by the organization. They might have strange or even 'subversive' views, but if the mechanism of total control isn't there, 'NRM' remains the more precise academic fit.
This is not a defense of their views. If our net is just fringe ideas, the net would be cast too wide and catch otherwise socially accepted groups.
No? Communism is a movement towards abolishing class society, via collectivizing production and distribution. Fascism is a violent reaction to capitalist decay, employed to retain bourgeois property ownership and break up labor organizing. They are diametric opposites, which is why they have historically bitterly hated each other.
The bird has the hammer and sickle, the symbol of the joint partnership of the industrial proletariat and the agrarian peasantry, the symbol of Marxism-Leninism. The hammer and sickle was created in the RSFSR, the first socialist state in history. Using any one person as symbol for the working class movement, and not symbols of the working classes themselves, is akin to liberal Great Man Theory.
The hammer and sickle is the sign of the communist movement. I assume you mean to insinuate that the USSR was somehow fascist, but I must be misunderstanding you, nobody would be that ridiculously wrong on the internet. The USSR saved the world from fascism despite the best efforts from the capitalists in the west.
Much like what @Cowbee said, Fascism and Communism work on completely different sets of logic. Fascism views the State as a organism that must be kept homogeneous through a strictly defined hierarchy. Communism views the socialist state as a tool to bring down hierarchies in favor of an egalitarian society where the means of production (resources) are collectively owned.
It must rule being a liberal. Just being able to say whatever, talk out your ass like you're an expert on a subject you don't even understand, be completely submerged in the capitalist cultural ooze and somehow think people who disagree with you don't know shit. I long for a world where I can be as blissfully ignorant as a communist as you can be currently as a liberal.
Liberal democracies use actual slave labour, not to mention the colonial horrors still being carried out - and I'm not going to waste my time trying to explain imperialism to you, because I know there's a whole other thing we'd have to educate you on first. The USSR had a lower recidivism rate, lower death rate and higher QoL for inmates in the gulag system from 1952 onwards than the US has in its current system to this day. We are infinitely more surveilled than any communist scare-story. You only don't notice political repression because you stay within what is acceptable. We coup, cheat elections, kidnap and kill to our hearts desire in the west - and not just brown people! We have black sites whe
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It must rule being a liberal. Just being able to say whatever, talk out your ass like you're an expert on a subject you don't even understand, be completely submerged in the capitalist cultural ooze and somehow think people who disagree with you don't know shit. I long for a world where I can be as blissfully ignorant as a communist as you can be currently as a liberal.
Liberal democracies use actual slave labour, not to mention the colonial horrors still being carried out - and I'm not going to waste my time trying to explain imperialism to you, because I know there's a whole other thing we'd have to educate you on first. The USSR had a lower recidivism rate, lower death rate and higher QoL for inmates in the gulag system from 1952 onwards than the US has in its current system to this day. We are infinitely more surveilled than any communist scare-story. You only don't notice political repression because you stay within what is acceptable. We coup, cheat elections, kidnap and kill to our hearts desire in the west - and not just brown people! We have black sites where police can take you, we have bullshit charges and violent cops.
But despite liberal democracy creating a violent all-surveilleing repressive police state dedicated to extracting wealth from the poor and giving it to the rich, it is somehow communism that is fascism. I assume this is because of "authoritarianism"? The idea that a state exerting power is bad in and of itself, no matter on behalf of whom and to what end said power is used, is fucking ridiculous. Cooked up by Hannah Arendt - an actual antisemite - in order to make Hitler an equal to Stalin. The concept is meaningless, any definition is either so broad as to encompass all states or so narrow as to just mean "enemy of the US"
I also realized if OOP is a man, that sometimes women will judge men on their financial status because the traditional path assumes "the woman" will need to depend on "the man" financially as a stay-at-home mom, and so a desirable man to a traditional, straight woman is usually a wealthy man.
Since I'm a gay woman and I accidentally assumed OOP was also a gay woman, I found it really confusing why she was worried the girl she is going out on a date would judge her for her old but reliable car.
The whole meme makes more sense to me with OOP being a straight man 😅
My ex and I were joking about that. I asked her what kind of car would instantly cause her to nope out if someone came to pick her up... "PT Cruiser." No hesitation.
I am inclined to agree.
As for the "assumed OOP" thing - we all do that, I think. I know I do constantly and have to check myself, even though I think it's pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. That is, of course, as long as we can all agree about PT Cruisers. ;)
I think a Hummer would give me the ick faster; I feel like a PT Cruiser is ugly and poor taste, but I would at least find out if like they inherited the car or someone gifted them the car before nopeing out, whereas a Hummer wouldn't probably get that level of benefit of the doubt, I would be looking for the quickest opportunity to nope.
I think I would also feel that way about Corvettes and certain other luxury cars. BMW is also a red flag. Lexus is borderline.
But yeah, I'm also not a typical person who actually went on dates or participated in much courting. At some point it was my goal to never have a romantic partner, and I see it as a fluke (even a failure) that someone found me anyway.
Why its just a car? The only red flag with a car I could think of is like a super expensive or impractical choice. Why would you judge a pt cruiser? Very reasonable car.
Whats impractical? Like a giant pickup or '60 mg mga or similar era italian sports car you need to carry special order parts in the trunk in case it breaks down? 20 year old sports bike?
Like it? Did it myself, keeps the bike on the ground, since it goes so fast now I straight-piped the cat, removed the mirrors, and the license plate holder.
💬 31 🔁 10497 ❤️ 13181 · Tech Enthusiasts: Everything in my house is wired to the Internet of Things! I control it all from my smartphone! My smart-house is bluetooth enabled and I can give it voi…
My '10 Versa's having the same humidity problems from so many rear end collisions. The cabin smells so moldy and nothing seems to work. It's a shame really because that thing can drive for another 100k miles easily.
Get some of these and it should take care of the moisture issues. One should last at least 3-4 months. Replace as needed. Then just find some kind of fabric cleaner and air freshener and you should be good to go.
Never been in one but they definitely seem nice. driving any 90s/2000s sedan would definitely make me like a date better, especially given how many people I know drive horrible modern SUVs
Definitely. I miss driving sedans and small hatchbacks, up until a few years ago they’re all I’d ever driven.
I currently have a Kia Sportage only because I moved to a rural area and needed something that could deal with country roads and off-road. Otherwise I’d still be driving my old ‘07 Accent, that thing gave me zero problems in well over 100k miles.
I dunno. My mom was in a wreck with one and bit off her bottom lip when she hit the steering wheel because the air bags didn’t go off. We later found out that was a surprisingly common problem for that model year.
They did reattach it, but the nerves were never the same so it felt numb and cold to her from then on, leading to her chewing on it because she couldn’t feel it normally anymore.
Decades of propaganda by the auto industry, especially through cinema and TV, has programmed people to think that if you don't have a nice car you won't get laid.
Yes and it cuts both ways. Prior to transition when I was driving an Infiniti I got female attention but driving beat up Hyundais and Fords the only attention I got was from the police, like driving around with a sign that says, "pull me over".
Post transition my life circumstances are much better but the cars affect my dating prospects totally differently. Driving a brand new performance model EV in 2022 I had at least two dates where the guy would lose all interest in me once they saw I was driving a car that costed several times their annual income.
You could literally see all interest melt off their face, "my car is the white sedan, can you drop me off there?"
Immediate flip from being warm and engaged to this cold, "gtfo out of my Nissan" vibe
You can't have a shitty car as a man and you can't have a nicer car as a trans woman
Driving a brand new performance model EV in 2022 I had at least two dates where the guy would lose all interest in me once they saw I was driving a car that costed several times their annual income.
Sounds like you dodged at least 2 bullets.
Wait "performance model EV" wasn't a Tesla, was it? They may have been in fear for their lives.
It’s a class war thing more than anything. Cops will pick on you more if you drive certain models of cars or a car that’s a total clunker with a busted window that’s taped up. Most people here don’t really care what you drive in the dating world unless you come from a wealthier background and are a snooty dick about it.
No, but the fact that a car is seen as an indication of socio-economic class is.
Plenty of people who drive really nice cars who are broke as fuck and plenty of people who could easily afford a luxury car who drive a 20 year old piece of junk.
MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum announced Sunday she plans to send humanitarian aid to Cuba this week, including food and other humanitarian aid.
Sheinbaum's comments came after U.S. President Donald Trump said he asked the Mexican leader to suspend oil shipments to the Caribbean island.
Sheinbaum said at a public event in the northern state of Sonora that she did not discuss Cuban affairs in a phone conversation with Trump on Thursday. She added that her government seeks to “ diplomatically solve everything related to the oil shipments (to Cuba) for humanitarian reasons.”
Earlier, Trump told reporters that he told the Mexican president not to send oil to Cuba.
I have a few old automations that are designed to unlock my front door, or open my garage door, depending on how I leave. If I ride my bike or car, it opens my garage, if I leave via front door, it opens the front door. Pretty simple. Except!!! I did this in pieces, so it's 2 separate automations. One detects my phone entering the "home zone", the other detects an event firing (iOS triggered the event via 'shortcuts')
There is now "zone based" automations, and there is also my "person entity". So the way I see it, I have 3 different ways to tell when I come home:
My phone's gps enters the 'home zone'
My HA 'person' state changes from 'away' to 'home'
My phone's shortcut app fires an event that is detected.
I feel like #1 and #2 are the same, no? I only have one device linked to my person entity, and it's my phone. Is there any difference in this case? Is there a preferred choice?
Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advanced American farmers and equipment owners’ lawful right to repair their farm and other nonroad diesel equipment.
Dr. Michael Antil moved from North Carolina to Toronto in July 2023, seeking a more diverse and broad-minded environment for his family and a universal health-care system in which to practice. But three years later, despite Canada's well-documented doctor shortage and so many theoretical routes to citizenship for skilled workers like himself, he still doesn't have permanent residency.
Antil came to Canada with over two decades' experience in the States — and he is now adeptly managing an above-average load of over 2,000 patients at a Toronto clinic. Yet he and his wife (an ESL teacher) are still living by dint of temporary work permits, their children are facing international student fees for post-secondary education, and he had to cough up an additional 25 per cent foreign buyers' tax on his house.
Rifling through an inches-tall stack of paperwork, the 50-year-old told White Coat, Black Art host Dr. Brian Goldman about all the hoops, hurdles and red tape he’s come up against since first applying for permanent residency in 2023.
He has been rejected t
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Dr. Michael Antil moved from North Carolina to Toronto in July 2023, seeking a more diverse and broad-minded environment for his family and a universal health-care system in which to practice. But three years later, despite Canada's well-documented doctor shortage and so many theoretical routes to citizenship for skilled workers like himself, he still doesn't have permanent residency.
Antil came to Canada with over two decades' experience in the States — and he is now adeptly managing an above-average load of over 2,000 patients at a Toronto clinic. Yet he and his wife (an ESL teacher) are still living by dint of temporary work permits, their children are facing international student fees for post-secondary education, and he had to cough up an additional 25 per cent foreign buyers' tax on his house.
Rifling through an inches-tall stack of paperwork, the 50-year-old told White Coat, Black Art host Dr. Brian Goldman about all the hoops, hurdles and red tape he’s come up against since first applying for permanent residency in 2023.
He has been rejected three times on various technicalities even though, he says with a rueful laugh, "Ontario needs doctors.”
Over 2.5 million Ontarians are without a family doctor, according to the Ontario Medical Association. Across Canada that number sits at around 5.9 million.
It's ALL in the article. You should read it because it's very good.
Antil’s immigration journey began in 2023, when, with a five-year contract at the Albany clinic in hand, he settled in Toronto with a licence from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) and an Ontario work permit.
Getting the former was a four-month back-and-forth process that Antil meticulously completed step by step, which he likens to building an intricate Lego set.
Getting the latter meant making a 13-hour drive from North Carolina to Buffalo, N.Y. — on the advice of an immigration lawyer after his application, filed that February, had still not been answered by June.
Things got harder after that. Antil also applied to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s (IRCC) express entry under the Federal Skilled Worker program — a competitive permanent residency stream that assigns applicants a points-based score, and then invites those with a high enough score to apply for the accelerated process; shorter than the usual six months.
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It's ALL in the article. You should read it because it's very good.
Antil’s immigration journey began in 2023, when, with a five-year contract at the Albany clinic in hand, he settled in Toronto with a licence from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) and an Ontario work permit.
Getting the former was a four-month back-and-forth process that Antil meticulously completed step by step, which he likens to building an intricate Lego set.
Getting the latter meant making a 13-hour drive from North Carolina to Buffalo, N.Y. — on the advice of an immigration lawyer after his application, filed that February, had still not been answered by June.
Things got harder after that. Antil also applied to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s (IRCC) express entry under the Federal Skilled Worker program — a competitive permanent residency stream that assigns applicants a points-based score, and then invites those with a high enough score to apply for the accelerated process; shorter than the usual six months.
But upon arriving, Antil didn’t meet that points threshold — though fluent in Spanish, he didn’t speak French, and his age (then 47) was considered high.
So he applied through the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP), which awards bonus IRCC points to people with valuable skills. But it also required more forms, including additional certification of his U.S. medical school diploma — odd, he says, since he already has a medical licence in Ontario.
A months-long comedy of errors ensued — including a two-month delay because his notary signed Antil’s photo over, not under, his seal. So Antil missed the OINP deadline and they closed his application. He got the certification two weeks later so he filed an appeal, but still hasn't heard back.
So Antil applied, again, through IRCC but made two errors — ticking the box that said "doctoral degree" instead of "professional degree" and submitting an educational transcript for his wife that didn't have the official IRCC approval stamp. Those errors proved fatal to his application.
Antil is now working with immigration lawyer Ilene Solomon, who wasn’t surprised to learn about those rejections on what some may see as technicalities.
It's a "rigid" system, she said, "and one mistake is fatal."
Interesting read but that's just another one in a myriad of cases. This is the norm.
100% of my acquaintances that did not get professional services to prepare the application forms and documents (because that help is very expensive) had at least one rejection due to a form mistake or weird edge case.
Even with professional help I had trouble getting my wife's fingerprints validated because her digitals are so dim that ink-on-paper fingerprinting just doesn't work, it's a black blob every time, and during our year-long process the government changed the rule so that digital submissions were no longer valid so it had to be ink-on-paper.
Sucks it sounds like typical red tape for any gov't process. This is why immigration lawyers are well worth the money unfortunately, especially when he can afford it if they can drop a 25% foreign buyers fee on a house in the Toronto market and still afford to buy... just hire a lawyer?
I agree we seriously need to streamline the process for doctors as we're desperate. Maybe if he'd come to BC he'd have had a better time? I keep seeing new programs for US doctors to move to BC coming into effect but since he already has a medical license in Canada now maybe he's past that stage idk.
In response to user feedback on AI integration, Mozilla announced today that the next Firefox release will let users disable AI features entirely or manage them individually.
With the launch of optical media in game consoles such as the Sony PlayStation 1. The console could be hacked with a use of a simple modchip - an unauthorized hardware modification that was soldered directly onto the motherboard. This was done to circumvent security features. While the original goal was for piracy and backups, as modchips evolved, so did their use cases. Everything from Region Free, homebrew, emulators, makeshift development kits and more were soon possible. In today's video we look at the earliest modchips and how they shaped the video game landscape.
Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.
Hehe same, I powered on a stock system to play a few years ago and I'm like sitting there wondering if it's broken or if this really all there was to the stock system LMAO
Meet new people in your area, absolutely privately using open-source technologies. You're only a few clicks away to find new friends, dating and sexual partners.
I can only guess but I think it's a combination of a lack of effective anti-bot protections and it being a sort of dead platform (so the only users that remain are largely bots which never leave)
Then I guess isn't worthy trying to use it. It's sad cause sounded like an alternative for Tinder and the rest of meeting apps from the Play Store that have the Google infestation on them.
Unfortunately I think projects like this have extra challenges over even regular social media platforms. There's also retromeet which seems even more dead (it may have not even made it to a stable release).
The idea is great but for a dating app to work, it needs to quickly get past two network effects: the global network effect (there must be enough people globally, or in a larger region, to get other people interested in trying out the platform) and the local network effect (there must be enough people to match with in most users' local areas to keep enough people interested). With corporate backing that's easy enough to do with a dedicated team to market and develop, but FOSS rarely has that sort of manpower. Slow growth is hard too, since users tend to leave dating apps quite often.
There's also the funny problem if the dev gets a partner usually the partner doesn't appreciate them staying on dating apps. Developing a dating app could be even worse for the relationship... actually now that I think of it, maybe I should make start a similar project since I don't like dating...
needs to quickly get past two network effects: the global network effect [..] and the local network effect
Sounds like a job for Fedi-date! If you could somehow hook a dating app into the fediverse, then maybe it could survive long enough to get sufficient users. If it also offers more general IRL meet-ups (like meetup.com but without the corpo rent-seeking), then it could perhaps begin to get popular that way too.
Though I do agree that having a broader scope than just the hot-or-not swipe thing would really help to attract enough people to join. Retromeet doesn't seem to do that, though I haven't used it so I could be wrong.
Local network effect is enough, even when it’s restricted to a specific demographic or subculture. Once a dating platform grabs a hold in a location and demographic, it can extend from there.
Of course to keep a project like this running, you need a way to pay for hosting and development.
Maybe we can agree to disagree because I don't think a specific demographic is enough to overcome the negative network effect at the start. The problem, imo, is that the attrition rate of dating apps is really high and dating apps are only good if a lot of people are located geographically nearby. You either need broad appeal to avoid running out of people early on or a demographic that is unusually geographically concentrated and usurps the attrition rate (ENM comes to mind for the latter).
Of course, you could always make something for dating without the geo proximity, but I think most people won't want to use something like that at all.
The beauty of new FOSS projects is that they're quite often hosted and developed for free, so I don't think that's much of a limiting factor as long as the community is there. That's also why I think it's important to make it big quickly, because that's the way to get a big enough community before the creator loses interest.
I was specifically thinking about men who have sex with men. Grindr and similar platforms are very successful. Most of it is about casual sex between promiscuous men. They are also a great target group otherwise. Travel between gay metropolises is common as. Pride tourism is big.
The mainstream apps (at least the ones that have been around a while) have bot ratios which are much better. They also have active moderation teams which remove profiles that make it through the automated protections. I'd guess they have ratios closer to 20:1 than 1:20 (people:bots)
I think a lot of engineers underestimate the amount of non-technical effort that goes into running platforms with users.
It's a shame I think there are some really interesting problems that a less profit driven dating app but currently anything without a big marketing budget isn't going to have the userbase to support it.
This kinda app would need at least an attempt at a technical solution to the bot problem. An open source app can't just pay people to kick bots out. And even the paid apps that can are drowning in bots.
Something cryptographic maybe. Tor is kinda magical, makes anonymity possible while the each machine knows who they are talking to. Maybe something where you can show that you are "a verified user" without showing exactly which one.
Other apps do have some good anti-bot measures which could be adopted for a FOSS project. The problem with a lot of cryptographic solutions for this is that often cryptography is usually more about proving your identity more than proving something about your identity. Tor is also focused on privacy from middle-men, which doesn't really make sense for a dating app.
I think the challenge boils down to how to prove you're human without biometrics or other PII. And I think the sad reality is that you can't prove it. Though you may be able to prove you have unique PII with some sort of zero-knowledge proof...
Maybe it would need to draw on experiences of moderating chat rooms and forums - these are very often done by volunteers who put a lot of time and energy into it because they believe in it.
There is also the "Web Of Trust" concept, where, given that everyone can prove their identity, people can then vouch for each other.
no need. this kind of individualistic approach to solve this problem isn't being effective so far. we'd need to find a better solution to the network effect.
M with Arch and Long Socks looking for that special self hosted someone with BPM>0, let's meet at the abandoned factory and compare notes about brutalist architecture.
I used it to chat with people and someone suggested what ended up being one my favorite albums. You won't meet the love if your life, but IMO still worth to spend some time there, you can find very interesting stuff.
I checked it out for fun some time ago. I really appreciated how unmonetized and not emotionally manipulative it was. There's like no people on there though.
you know these cats? because the site is joke; like, check out the faq. and says "we" a lot, who's that? who's moderating spam and scams and abuse and such? how are they financing the infra? the name, dios mio...
Orion — a web browser designed from the ground-up. Native WebKit speed, full extension compatibility, and absolute privacy is finally together in one browser that respects you.
Speakers - Line OUT detected but can't test Left/Right audio channels, options missing. No AUDIO from speakers unless I select them as default in Pavucontrol or manually assign outputs via Helvum.
Fedora 43 GNOME
How do I get my GNOME audio settings to work again?
This is so random and funny at the same time... yet frustrating because it makes no god damn sense :D
Save yourself the time and boot into a live distro with gnome, like the latest Ubuntu or something. Sanity test. Make sure it works there before trying to fix your own install.
I'm currently learning about it, so I can't offer much expertise, but if all else fails, look into Wireplumber; it sounds like it's failing to make the proper node connections automatically.
Hmmm. Random guess: does your machine have another audio output, possibly via HDMI, that you're not using? This could be ALSA selecting the wrong device as a default, which would then propagate up through the stack.
I have a stupid question: Are you sure you're not confusing "line out" and "headphone out"? They're different, and pretty much every desktop supports both these days. But standard PC speakers usually connect to the "headphone" socket.
I am seeing the exact same issue on a PC I just put together and loaded Fedora 43 Workstation on. If I hook the 3.5mm jack for the speakers (older Creative Pebbles) to the green port on the back panel it shows up just like OP's when I try to test; however, if I plug the jack into the headphones port on the case (which is connected to the motherboard audio pins) it detects and works properly. I was also seeing some Dummy Output options with the line out connection in use, and not knowing what it meant, I selected one and this kicked me back to the login screen and gave me an unhelpful kernel alert.
In contrast, the speakers on my other PC, which is also running Fedora 43 Workstation, works fine off of the back panel. Both motherboards are using Realtek audio chips but it may not be the same version since one board is a B650 and one is a B550.
Curious to see what the solution ends up being but I also recently installed pavucontrol on the newer PC so I will try and set the speakers up using the line-out that way. If that doesn't work I will migrate to bluetooth spea
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I am seeing the exact same issue on a PC I just put together and loaded Fedora 43 Workstation on. If I hook the 3.5mm jack for the speakers (older Creative Pebbles) to the green port on the back panel it shows up just like OP's when I try to test; however, if I plug the jack into the headphones port on the case (which is connected to the motherboard audio pins) it detects and works properly. I was also seeing some Dummy Output options with the line out connection in use, and not knowing what it meant, I selected one and this kicked me back to the login screen and gave me an unhelpful kernel alert.
In contrast, the speakers on my other PC, which is also running Fedora 43 Workstation, works fine off of the back panel. Both motherboards are using Realtek audio chips but it may not be the same version since one board is a B650 and one is a B550.
Curious to see what the solution ends up being but I also recently installed pavucontrol on the newer PC so I will try and set the speakers up using the line-out that way. If that doesn't work I will migrate to bluetooth speakers or just leave things as is.
panda_abyss
in reply to BrikoX • • •I want a more efficient public sector, just cutting top line costs with no regard does not make it more efficient.
Banning Microsoft laggardly software would be one thing. They've built a walled garden and they want you to use it, and that's at the expense of better tools that do get the job done faster/easier/better. Eliminating make-work jobs would be good. Dumping seniority rules in the union would be good.
And you know what else: hire a full time per-department dedicated digital service. No, centralized isn't good enough. No, contracts aren't good enough.
Software is not a business. It is a strategy and a requirement. Our government needs to grow up and act like it, but it's infested with tech-illiterate boomers. Stop the endless rounds of dependency gathering to try to get one solution that does it all with one mega contract, and endless red-tape legal barriers that make it impossible for non-US mega-corp contractors to get contracts.
A dedicated digital service would always meet requirements because they would be involved in them. It
... show moreI want a more efficient public sector, just cutting top line costs with no regard does not make it more efficient.
Banning Microsoft laggardly software would be one thing. They've built a walled garden and they want you to use it, and that's at the expense of better tools that do get the job done faster/easier/better. Eliminating make-work jobs would be good. Dumping seniority rules in the union would be good.
And you know what else: hire a full time per-department dedicated digital service. No, centralized isn't good enough. No, contracts aren't good enough.
Software is not a business. It is a strategy and a requirement. Our government needs to grow up and act like it, but it's infested with tech-illiterate boomers. Stop the endless rounds of dependency gathering to try to get one solution that does it all with one mega contract, and endless red-tape legal barriers that make it impossible for non-US mega-corp contractors to get contracts.
A dedicated digital service would always meet requirements because they would be involved in them. It must be embedded inside departments for continuous feedback and iteration, no other model works, ever. It needs to pay competitively, and acknowledge the fact that there are thousands of tech workers like me would never meet the insane public sector hoops, or deal with the low pay scale, or the large amounts of bureaucracy.
Last year I actually looked into how I could help either the government or the armed forces, and basically, I am not "qualified" for any of their listings, despite over a decade of experience and delivering hundreds of projects.
It's asinine.
budakai
in reply to BrikoX • • •I agree with this comment on unions AND contractors (though not all). I think the problem is when service becomes a game or grift and not actually being efficient.
City of Toronto was one of the worst performing unions in most sectors and stank of corruption and over employment, and then on the other side you have MetroLinx which has been one of the biggest wastes of money a government has ever seen.
Then on the flip side you have Parks Canada and the National Archives doing amazing work with limited budgets.
I know with Toronto the culture came from the top, but these days I think contract farming and middle management bloat is what is really killing efficiency.
Also let the damn people work from home.