Zoraptor

Even AI thinks Trump is a bad guy. James Weeks confirmed as most successful politician of all time?

The second anglophone election since Trump's 2nd inauguration has gone much the same as the first- previously unexpected swing towards the incumbent left (well, 'left'). Though Australia's Albanese never had the horrific polling of Canada's Trudeau he managed to increase Labor's vote share and it looks like a 2:1 landslide, with the opposition leader losing his seat same as Canada. Extremely funny given how many people on the right thought Trump winning would usher in similar governments elsewhere.

Colour sizes mean 2/3 of sweet fanny adams. It's not an intensity map. For that you want something like this. Though even that only has four levels. It's always easy to say something and paint it onto a nice raster image for people to Just Believe. Did you know New Zealand has the highest deposits of unobtainium in the known world and so much gold we use it for toilet paper? Would you believe it if I put it into a graphic? Back in the land of reality though from the USGS, 2024. ctrl f ukraine, no results. This is utterly unsurprising as that graphic is based on 'Ukraine claims'. No wonder the reserve amounts are, heh, 'classified'. Much like the Rare Earths claimed by Ukraine there's only slightly more evidence they exist than the tooth fairy or Prince Idris Kaore, the temporarily embarrassed Nigerian millionaire who just needs a few hundred to unlock his account.

Make a note of the date, I agree pretty much wholeheartedly with Gromnir. The concept of what inflation is is easy enough to understand. If politicians genuinely didn't get the concept they should have nothing at all to do with economics. But fundamentally the classic politician inference that if inflation goes down prices will go back to how they were- which is obviously a load of bollocks- exists because that will get them votes and allow them to do things they want more easily while the truthful observation that prices won't go back down but will just increase more slowly, won't. You can pretty much guarantee the party that goes for approach A will be the one voters think is more economically literate because it's what they want to be true. eg it's brilliant rhetoric for depressing wages. Inflation is 5% but going down, and when prices 'return to normal' you'll still have that 1.5% pay increase! So you aren't really 3.5% worse off year on year, indeed you'll be 1.5% better off after the prices stabilise! Again, obvious rubbish if you know what inflation actually means. But it's what a lot of people- including many getting that 3.5% effective pay cut- want to hear.

I know a man ain't supposed to cry, but these tears I can't hold inside. Watching WoT would end my sanity, because it's just that, uh hmmm, plain crappy? etc etc and with copious apologies to Marvin Gaye. Not that he's likely to take offence any more. I certainly put in more effort than the show's writers anyway. Except when it comes to finding extra screen time for their boyfriend. (Wheel of Time has the most obvious astroturfing campaign I've ever seen. Starts one week before release, ends one week after the finale. 98% of the 'people' who loved it seem to have completely forgotten about how awesome it was, outside that window)

My weighting is certainly conjectural to a large part, but so is Russia not having the resources to go for more. It seems far more likely that Ukraine will hit its limit first, and once that happens things will go downhill fast. The balance/ compromise for Russia is getting less now against what they'd get when (if) Ukraine collapses and what that would cost them. Sure, if you believe that Ukraine has only had, what, 41k dead while Russia has had 800k then Russia doesn't have the resources to outlast Ukraine. That is not likely to reflect reality though, and anything even approaching 1:1 favours Russia massively- and for this matter most importantly that gets more so as time goes by.

Not much actual evidence that Russian forces need rebuilding (or at least as compared to Ukrainian forces)- except the enormous ex soviet stockpiles which aren't ever going to be replaced by either side. Even if they did, we've been told multiple times that Russia has the GDP of Italy, and surely the collective west could out produce Italy when it comes to munitions. Saying that Russia can rearm while Ukraine cannot only happens if the west abandons Ukraine or if western aid is significantly less than Russia's output. Eh, the compromise Russia makes is ultimately the same one any winner in a war makes- not going for more. Which will greatly upset those who see it in moral terms since it's the bad guy winning, but this isn't a fairy tale.

I really don't know if it's the lack of experience or a deliberate strategy of some kind. It's been too consistent. Foreign policy is always a distant second to domestic politics/ policy and it seems that Zelensky thinks the... unique approach taken plays well at home or he'd try something different, surely. And he's been repeatedly advised how to best handle Trump but seems to have consistently ignored the advice. That ain't on Kubela or Podoliak. You don't need to be the reincarnation of Metternich or Talleyrand to get along with Trump- you just need to be able to fake a smile and mouth platitudes- or for a non Zelensky issue, realise that being described as 'low intellectual potential' is going to annoy Indians and Chinese completely pointlessly. Why pick a fight with Poland over Bandera? You know that's going to be a loser in every respect, except domestically, with a very vocal group. In the end I'm not sure that the constant acritical hero worship and feting from other western leaders is doing Zelensky (and Ukraine) any favours either.

Ukraine is never going to agree anyway, so it's irrelevant. Zelensky would be lined up against a wall and shot by the red and black flag waving Lion Rampant badged pagan iconography enthusiasts for signing over Crimea, and he knows it. Russia is fine with Ukraine joining the EU for the same general reason- no real chance of it actually happening. You only have to look at the reaction of farmers to the very limited amounts of Ukrainian agriculture that was let in, during an actual factual crisis as well, to see why. Joining the EU was never a red line, certainly not in the same way joining NATO was. Zelensky's attitude to Trump certainly isn't helping either. Been a bit of a pattern for Ukraine in general (the completely avoidable diplomatic faux pas have been... not insignificant) but he doesn't seem to know how to handle someone who doesn't fawn over him. Just massage Trump's ego ffs, it might be embarrassing but it's in your country's best interests and yours too really.

No comment on the unexpected occurrence and its merits storywise, but the 'moral' of the overall story ought to work better on TV. Indeed, in some ways it always felt like the game story was adapted from something more 'traditional'. Spoilered for a surfeit of safety.

Oh yeah Donnie, get those interest rates cut. Pump up the bubble because it looks good short term and on paper and makes you look less incompetent. People may like to compare Trump to Putin but the correct comparison is to Recep Tayyip Erdogan- funny money policies and lurching from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis because it gives your supporters an endorphin hit. Then have fun with your 40% annual inflation while trying to keep your currency as world reserve. If there's one thing that'll get it dropped like a rock it's it being worth 60c instead of a dollar after a year.

Hegseth could at least have given the traditional bastion of top secret military leaks, the WarThunder forums, a heads up instead of keeping it to select officials/ family/ friends/ the mailman and a journalist.

Neville Longbottom's greatest fear is now... a black man, hiding in his closet! If you really do want to do colour blind casting it's absolutely fine. If you want to avoid all 'negative stereotypes' there aren't that many options when it comes to the main characters in Harry Potter except, maybe, Harry himself. Or McGonagal, if you count her as a mc. Not sure I'd like anything else about the series but I'm certainly going to have fun mentally replacing Dumbledore with Richard Solomon or The Trinity Killer in every scene.

Trump (supporters) would definitely take no minerals deal but also no more 'free' weapons/ money as a win. He can always say he's going to get the 300bn 'repaid' by other means like, haha, tariffs. At this point the threat is likely false, but pushing for a ceasefire when neither side really wants one is a losing strategy in the medium term and gets more so the longer it goes on. Throwing up your hands and saying that it simply can't be done (now) then becomes a valid bail out option.

I think you can die even earlier than that if you pick the right (wrong) options in the first dialogue. (Not the earliest death in a game in any case, if you play Kingdom Come in hardcore mode you have a 90% chance of dying from measles/ childbirth/ smallpox/ typhoid/ cholera/ whooping cough/ plague/ misadventure/ non specific infection immediately after leaving the main menu. You even get an achievement for it)

No kidding about that being an annoying article. Somebody putting their creative design degree to too much use. 'Ukraine/ western sources say' doing an awful lot of heavy lifting in it too. (Not much doubt about the supply; but the number of Korean troops is completely unsupported. Indeed, the Ukrainians trumpeted capturing 2 out of 150 Chinese nationals, yet only managed 2/15000 Koreans despite the 'thousands' of casualties? That's some Ghost of Kursk like numbers. In the end the absolute lack of any sort of actual critical thinking makes them just another Nigerien Yellowcake type intelligence laundering) Might as well declare war on Narnia to get theirs, it would cost less and they have nearly the same amount of rare earth deposits.

Socrates actually got a jury trial, he wasn't tried in the Assembly and so not by popular vote. They even had balloted jury members rather than self selected. At 501 (most likely) it was certainly a big jury by modern standards, but nowhere near the (iirc) 6000 self selected needed for quorum in an Assembly trial. That's kind of well known because of the odd fact that more jurists voted for Socrates' punishment to be execution than voted to find him guilty, which lead to the popular theory that at some point he decided to commit judicial suicide and deliberately antagonise jurors.

I'm not sure it even needs the equivocation of 'could' in this case- difficult to think of any circumstance in which it won't, and in some ways it already has with the share volatility and drop in confidence etc. And it's only been ten weeks(?) since he was inaugurated. Trump clearly has some sort of bullet point/ white board type plan of what he wants to do, but a lot of it is mutually exclusive if you take the obvious consequences into account- the equally obvious problem being, as below, he isn't taking those obvious consequences into account. And is picking fights with everyone, simultaneously. Do that and you better be absolutely sure you really are the Big Dog who no one can live without, for sure. While not directly tariff related, Trump's made Denmark look utterly moronic for buying F-35s rather than a Euro alternative. The biggest threat to Denmark's territorial integrity can now turn off their biggest defensive asset, whenever they want. Can't really get bigger motivation for Europe to pull finger on a Eurofighter 2030 type project, so at the same time as Trump is demanding greater defence spending he's giving very good reason for avoiding doing so on US equipment and motivation to create competitors to near US monopolies (see also Mastercard/ VISA etc). It's basically an enhanced Madman Doctrine, and the trouble with that is that if you give enough people enough motivation you don't end up with people paying you to go and bother someone else for a bit, you end up in a room with mattresses for walls.

Trump making comparisons to medicine would be a lot more effective if he hadn't made those 'interesting' recommendations during covid. Tariffs are to international trade as horse dewormer bleach was to covid.

Handsome Squidward is the wrong colour, and has hair. That is either the greatest or worst looking game ever.

Israel caught killing 15 medical workers. Well, it's a pretty obvious planned ambush/ execution really rather than a killing; vehicle left in middle of the road like it's an emergency, waiting until everyone has got out to open fire and coordinated firing. Not a single circumstance as the Israelis repeatedly claimed as they sped ran the Narcissist's Prayer. Actually no, the last is unfair. The Israeli Foreign Minister wasn't technically lying at least when he said "the IDF did not randomly attack an ambulance" since they deliberately attacked multiple. Kind of telling that even with that sort of evidence it only "appears" to contradict Israel's evidence, according to the BBC- Israeli evidence was absolutely explicitly that the ambulances were not properly identified and had no lights on. Ho hum. (At least one eerie- well, not really- similarity to the new Syrian government led by indicted war criminal and terrorist Al Jolani Al Sharaa (note, they are the same person. You probably wouldn't know from the press coverage though) sending sanctioned ethnic cleansers into ethnic minority areas and being astounded at their actions- the Israeli unit involved has been repeatedly accused of extra judicial killings etc by Israeli rights groups. At least this time they weren't dumb enough to post it to tiktok. Shame all the disciplining went into telling them not to publicise their war crimes rather than not to commit them though. By the way, noted orthopaedic surgeon Adnan al Bursh's body still hasn't been released by Israel despite him definitely not dying under torture)

It would take a while for the effects to be felt, if they are felt. But in theory at least elsewhere prices should drop as US prices rise and demand drops there. Though of course there are many outside the US who would like to keep the high prices even with greater supply, not least AMD/ nVidia/ Intel. Retailers would also love massive margins on greater sales numbers, hence the April 1st reference. (It's a bit of an open question how much computer stuff is going to be subject to these tariffs, though they most likely will. "Semiconductors" are specifically excluded. But, previous policy suggest that that is for the base chips only, not packaged GPUs- and presumably CPUs too. Finished GPUs were subjected to tariffs in 2024 under Biden, bringing back those imposed under Trump1, to try and force them to be assembled in the US)

I was wondering how NZ had the 20% tariffs on US goods claimed and, of course, it turns out we don't. The highest Import Duty charged is a princely 5 (five) %*, and that only on selected goods. Turns out that they count 15% GST (VAT/ sales tax) as a tariff to get to the 20%. Of course everyone here pays GST, including on stuff made here so apparently we've been accidentally tariffing ourselves for 40 years. *would have been zero on everything under the TPPA too. I will never be sad the US pulled out since all the crappy provisions that were going to be foisted on us undemocratically went with them; but still.

And one of the really obvious responses is to start properly taxing Facebook/ Google/ Apple etc instead of letting them get away with massive tax evasion, charge them for use of IP in AI training, force them to actually comply with regulations and the like. Might be a bit of bad news for Ireland if the taxes get fixed, but limited sympathy given their economy is built on filching tax revenue off everyone else. Less demand for video cards for the US due to increased prices there --> more for the rest of us --> more demand satisfied --> drop in prices elsewhere. Only 48 hours too late.

I rather liked this article from TechPowerup. Just the right amount of vaguely plausible. All those missing ROPs from the 5000 series must have gone somewhere, surely, so why not onto other cards? (Obviously in the real world Jensen would have flogged them off as 5090Ti and at a premium, so not all that plausible)