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KapteinB's comments
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KapteinB  ·  998 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Dear Hubski, what are you reading this summer?

If you enjoy Chew, you may also like Outer Darkness. The reason I'm reading Chew is that I loved Outer Darkness so much, I wanted to check out what else Layman had written.

It's kind of what Star Trek would be if everyone was an asshole, and there's some very cool world building. Like, how do you make a starship go faster than light? You trap a god and channel its reality-bending powers into the engine. What do you do when a crew member dies? You chase down their soul, capture it, and force it into a cloned body. Good stuff.

Somehow I don't think I've heard that myth before. It's surprisingly (or maybe not that surprisingly) similar to a local legend describing the formation of several mountains in northern Norway:

The Seven Sisters

The Horseman

The Leka Maiden

The Torgar Hat

KapteinB  ·  1532 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Microsoft Pledges To Remove From The Atmosphere All The Carbon It Has Ever Emitted

Microsoft is also a cloud computing company these days. If carbon emissions from electricity consumed by all their servers is included in the pledge, it becomes more meaningful.

KapteinB  ·  1571 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: No to Chrome: Google want to automate us

    Too bad they don’t include Brave.

Maybe they're also worried about the dominance of Google's browser engine.

By the way, do you have any stats to share of what browsers Hubski users use?

KapteinB  ·  1618 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Predictions: Will Trump be removed from office prior to 2020 election?

    the ethical makeup of your average Republican Senator

Lawful evil. Trump is chaotic evil. Part of me is surprised they didn't replace him with Pence in his first year; honestly I think that would have been the best thing for the Republican Party to do. Might be too late for them now that Pence is also implicated.

That was a very interesting read. Thanks for sharing! I've occasionally seen The Epoch Times mentioned, but I had no idea it was the advertisement arm of a Chinese cult.

    Falun Gong (UK: /ˌfɑːlʊn ˈɡɒŋ, ˌfæl-, - ˈɡʊŋ/, US: /- ˈɡɔːŋ/)[1] or Falun Dafa (/ˈdɑːfə/; Standard Mandarin Chinese: [fàlwə̌n tâfà]; literally, "Dharma Wheel Practice" or "Law Wheel Practice") is a Chinese religious spiritual practice that combines meditation and qigong exercises with a moral philosophy centered on the tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance (Chinese: 真、善、忍).

Oh yes; truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance are definitely words I use to describe Trump. I guess the enemy of my enemy and all that.

And I didn't know Shen Yun is connected to Falun Gong. I guess whenever anything gets that heavily advertised there's something shady going on in the background.

edit:

Almost forgot; the most recent episode of Some More News covers what the Qanon "movement" has been up to lately.

KapteinB  ·  1773 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 331st Weekly "Share Some Music You've Been Into Lately" Thread

And with Saturday's grand final out of the way, Eurovision season is officially over.

Netherlands won. I'm not a fan of the lyrics, but otherwise I like the song, and the performance was great.

Sweden won the jury vote. The intro is too long in my opinion, but from the 1 minute mark onwards, I like this. The chorus especially is great.

Norway won the televote. I think it's damn catchy, even if the [joiking] is a bit off key.

Australia won my heart. Best stage show of the year, by a mile.

KapteinB  ·  1806 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Internet Archive: A “Brave” New World

Archive.org also support Flattr, my micropayment service of choice. Might also be worth looking into for Hubski.

There used to be an extension for Firefox and Chrome named BATify that added Brave's micropayment functionality to those browsers, but it looks to have been discontinued. Hopefully someone will build a new one. Not all would be willing to switch browsers for micropayment support.

    Cockroaches were everywhere. And then Steve Bannon showed up.

I'll just leave this here.

KapteinB  ·  1828 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The anticlimactic conclusion of the Mueller saga is unequivocally good for America

    It seems it's indeed possible for a widely-hated, astoundingly aggravating president to be exonerated by agents of "the deep state." That's not something recent right-wing commentary would have led you to expect, and it's further cause for gratitude.

By the way, is that Qanon thing still going on? I haven't heard anything about it in months.

    On the right, many will view this as an opportune moment for scathing indictments of the liberal media and the FBI.

Wait, what did the FBI suppsoedly do now?

KapteinB  ·  1830 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A very good writeup of the possible solutions in the Israel/Palestine conflict

Outline link.

That was very educational. thanks for sharing!

The only solution that gets any attention here in Norway is the Two States solution. There's a certain national pride attached to it because of the Oslo Accords.

    The conventional wisdom these days is that the much-awaited Trump peace plan – the “ultimate deal,” as he once called it – will be unveiled after Israel’s election on April 9 – but not too long after. According to recent reports, the administration is working on the assumption that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party will form the next government in Israel. Considering all the support that Netanyahu has received from Trump, he will certainly be hard-pressed to outright reject the peace plan, which is widely expected to be some variation of the two-state model. The Americans are betting that if the plan is presented directly following the election, the Israeli premier will be more inclined to form a coalition with parties amenable to a deal rather than the hardliners who were partners in his outgoing government.

Exciting! Do we know anything at all about this plan? Are we even certain it exists?

KapteinB  ·  1844 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 321st Weekly "Share Some Music You've Been Into Lately" Thread

All 41 songs for Eurovision 2019 have now been revealed! I'm not going to post all 41. I'm not even going to post all that were revealed last week, because even that feels like too many for this thread. Instead I'll post the current top 6 bookmaker favourites to win.

Netherlands is the current favourite, with an estimated 20% chance of winning. Is arcade gaming a good metaphor for love? Do Europe even care about lyrics at all? I quite like the song though.

Russia was the odds favourite since they revealed their song would be performed by Sergey Lazarev (whom you'll probably remember from 2016's dramatic Russia/Ukraine showdown). They got swiftly bumped down to 2nd place after the song was revealed.

Sweden is currently in 3rd. Anyone else feel like Sweden has played it too safe since 2015?

Switzerland is 4th. I dunno, I'm not feeling it.

Italy is apparently the favourite over at /r/Eurovision. For some reason. I don't like it.

Cyprus has the 6th best odds, with their catchy pop tune. It's been pointed out that Replay is an especially fitting title for the song, given its similarity to their own 2018 song; Fuego. There are several mash-ups of the two floating around, which I find amusing.

KapteinB  ·  1850 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Game of Thrones first look: Inside the brutal battle to make season 8

Welcome to Hubski!

I'll definitely miss Game of Thrones, but I'm glad they're giving it a proper ending, instead of pumping out season after season until viewers lose interest, like has happened to so many other shows.

KapteinB  ·  1850 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 320th Weekly "Share Some Music You've Been Into Lately" Thread

I'll keep the updates coming. :-)

Yeah, there's definitely similarities between Hatari and Nitzer Ebb!

KapteinB  ·  1863 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Research Shows Forests Undervalued in Fight Against Climate Change

I saw an interesting video a while back about a hypothetical mega-project to turn Sahara into a forest.

The conclusion in that particular video is that it would actually make global warming worse for two reasons. One is that forests reflect less light than desert, and second is the enormous amount of energy required in producing and distributing water in the enormous desert.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that growing forests in more suitable places is a bad idea. Humans may not be very good at planting forests though. The "Green Great Wall" of China suffers from biodiversity problems, as do the forest planting projects of my native Norway.

Land owners have for decades been encouraged to plant pine trees, because they have economic value. The problem with that is that pine forests suffer from very low biodiversity. Simultaneously forests are growing all over the country because of depopulation of rural areas (and, ironically, because global warming lets trees grow in areas that were previously too cold).

I guess what I'm saying is that the whole issue is a bit more complex than The Independent explains it.

KapteinB  ·  1869 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Forgotten Story of the American Troops Who Got Caught Up in the Russian Civil War

That was a very interesting read. Thanks for sharing.

    In 1929, some former soldiers of the 339th regiment returned to North Russia to recover the remains of 86 comrades. Forty-five of them are now buried in White Chapel Cemetery near Detroit, surrounding a white statue of a fierce polar bear.

KapteinB  ·  1882 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: January 30, 2019

Northern Norway, just south of the Arctic Circle. It's a comfortable -2 Celsius here.

KapteinB  ·  1884 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: "5000 Troops to Columbia"

This has to be intentional, right? John Bolton's idea of a subtle threat, knowing someone would spot it and hoping it would scare Maduro into stepping down on his own accord.

Has any newspapers done a proper analysis of this? Like; does Bolton usually carry around a notebook like that? Does that match his style of taking notes? Is that even his handwriting?

KapteinB  ·  1886 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 315th Weekly "Share Some Music You've Been Into Lately" Thread

It's finally Eurovision season again! So far three national selections are finished:

Albania is sending this gem:

France is mixing a bit of English into their song this year, hoping for a wider appeal:

Spain's song is kinda fun, even if he doesn't quite hit all the notes:

The Norwegian national selection isn't until March, but the competing songs have been released. I think my favourite is Spirit in the Sky:

KapteinB  ·  1919 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Merry Christmas

God jul, as we say here. :-)

KapteinB  ·  1930 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Ars Technica’s ultimate board game gift guide, 2018 edition

Ah, I wouldn't know. I saw it in a book store here in Norway.

KapteinB  ·  1933 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Ars Technica’s ultimate board game gift guide, 2018 edition

That looks pretty good for something made by a group of happy amateurs!

I'm not very familiar with 4chan and its like, so I have what is probably s dumb question:

Since the whole point of these message boards are the anonymity of users, how can we know that all of these Q posts are in fact made by the same person?

KapteinB  ·  2078 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Does anyone still play the Old Dos games?

I don't play the same games now I did when I was a kid. A few times I've tried (usually in emulators), but they're never as good as I remember them. Instead I play a lot of retro games; the kind with pixel art graphics, chip-tunes soundtracks, and usually some old-school game mechanics. They remind me of the old classics I played as a kid, but without the limitations and annoyances caused by the limited technology of those days. And they usually lack the annoyances and excesses of modern games.

KapteinB  ·  2083 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: German Syntax & Serenity

That's interesting. I learned German in high school, but I don't recall this. Can't tell if I never learned it, or if I've since forgotten about it.

In Norwegian we say "jeg kjeder meg"; "I bore myself". There's a few other feelings we treat the same way; anticipation and dread comes to mind.

KapteinB  ·  2092 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Aum Shinrikyo: Japan executes cult leader Shoko Asahara

I was around 11 at the time of the subway attack, so I very vaguely remember it being an important event in the news back then.

    asking what I thought was the problem with the youngsters of this generation

Interesting recruitment strategy. What reply did you give them?

KapteinB  ·  2115 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Aski Hubski: Botox

Not yet, but at age 30-something I haven't really started getting serious wrinkles yet. I'm pretty sure I'll never consider Botox. When I started balding I didn't go for a comb-over or anything like that, I did a buzz-cut instead. People change though, myself included, so who knows what I might do in 10 or 20 years. Or maybe Botox will be a thing of the past by then, replaced by some kind of miraculous new anti-ageing technology.

KapteinB  ·  2124 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 281st Weekly "Share Some Music You've Been Into Lately" Thread

I've been on a Major Parkinson binge for months now. Last week:

Meat Me in the Disco

It's a Job

https://majorparkinson.bandcamp.com/track/it-s-a-job

KapteinB  ·  2127 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: PSA: The hubwheel is not a "like" button.

I feel sharing makes more sense for posts than for comments, since comments usually need context to be valuable. There are very few comments I find that I feel deserve to show up context-less in the chatter feed of those following me. So maybe two buttons isn't a bad idea; one for sharing the comment with your followers, and one just for affecting the order of comments in the comment section.

KapteinB  ·  2136 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: F-35 stealth fighter sees first combat, in Israeli operation

Ah yes, our good friend and ally Turkey. Sometimes I wonder if they really should be our ally.

As far as I know there is no mechanism in place to remove a member of NATO. Even if there was, I'm not sure it would be a good idea to boot Turkey from the alliance. I bet Russia and Saudi Arabia would be eager to cosy up with them, not to mention how valuable a member they would be if NATO ever happens to be attacked by a major power.

I think the biggest advantage of kicking them out would be as a warning to other member nations. "Here is what happens if you turn autocratic." Looking at you Hungary and Poland.

    So just make it impossible to reverse engineer..?

Are you worried about them selling the designs to non-allies?