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61
DnD Central / Re: Maps-Maps-Maps! ?
Last post by ersi -
This particularly applies to the Russian minority, which is relatively much larger in Estonia and Latvia than in Lithuania.
This is the correct answer. (Everything else is rather irrelevant.)

Estonia and Latvia have to deal with a sizeable bunch of actual Russians inside our own borders. This particular issue is sharply dividing the country along ethnic lines.

I find polling in the EU, by the EU, pretty atrocious. Now, this Ukraine issue is of course appropriate material for polling, but the other day a report about the livability of cities was published. The obvious problems:
- It's based on polling, asking what people think. Isn't livability objectively measurable, such as number of kindergartens/schools per parents etc?
- It is a weird selection of cities. From Nothern Europe nd Baltics they take just the bare ridiculous minimum, i.e. the capitals, while there are many cities from Central and Southern Europe, and also cities from countries outside the EU, from countries that will never become the EU (Turkey).
- The results are very off. Number ten in overall ranking is Cluj-Napoca. I have been there. I know what kind of city it is. Number one is Zürich. I have been there. I know what kind of city it is. There are subjectively (since this report is subjective) easily better, nicer, prettier, cleaner, better-managed cities with denser amenities in both countries. There must have been a weird slice of population who got polled, such as EU interns' own kitchen pals or such.

When making an objective report, it should be possible to measure all cities (of the EU), or all cities starting with a certain size. In this case apparently the goal was not to get an objective report out, to learn something from the data, but just to conjure up some nonsense regardless of the damage it causes in those who stumble on the nonsense that has an official stamp on it.

When you do a report, stupid EU, do it thoroughly and properly, fairly and objectively. But clearly you are not able to do it, so get replaced by ChatGPT.
63
DnD Central / Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2024 Presidential Elections
Last post by jax -
Trump was a self-inflicted wound. But now it is like "it felt so good when we shot ourselves in the foot, so it must feel so much better if we shoot ourselves in the head".  It's beyond parody. Because of the consequences even if he isn't elected, this leans much further into tragedy than farce, but there is plenty of both.

USA is broken, hopefully not beyond repair.
64
DnD Central / Re: Maps-Maps-Maps! ?
Last post by jax -
They are slightly above European average (60%), though lower than their neighbours. Likewise Netherlands and Portugal are higher (must be their tea shipping tradition). I didn't expect non-NATO neutral Ireland to be this high on a "military equipment" question.

You cannot really tell on a single poll question. These are agree/disagree questions, and people could disagree for a number of reasons. EU gives too little, EU gives too much, EU gives the wrong things, it shouldn't be the EU doing the giving, they might be against EU itself etc. It could simply be "I don't care".

Put together with other information, "don't care" does not seem to be the major issue (though many think military assistance is wrong on principle, thus this score lowest).

Generally it seems to correlate with pro-Russian sentiments in a sizeable minority, offset by a pro-Ukrainian majority. This minority could be political, regional, ethnic or all of the above.

Germany has gotten over its long-ingrained pacifism, but the far left and far right are significantly more pro-Russian, and these parties and pro-Russian sentiments in general are strongest in the former East Germany. Older Germans often feel some gratitude to Russia for not causing trouble during reunification, or an allegiance to Ostpolitik. Younger Germans are more likely to see today's Russia as a threat to Europe.

In the Baltic States there are large differences between majority and minority attitudes to Russia. This particularly applies to the Russian minority, which is relatively much larger in Estonia and Latvia than in Lithuania.

In former Warsaw Pact countries there is a correlation of pro-Russian/anti-Ukrainian sentiments and nationalism, and with old age.
65
DnD Central / Re: The Awesomesauce of Fox News
Last post by ersi -
One upon a time Fox News went all-in on Trump. Then on 2020 they called the elections correctly and the warm relationship became endangered even after Fox News fired the elections reporters who had called the elections correctly. Fox News tried to save the relationship by spreading the elections lie more faithfully than William Barr, but it was to no avail. Fox News had to settle with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 m, fire their biggest magnet Tucker Carlson and Trump stopped appearing at Fox News.

Until two days ago or so, when Trump agreed with Fox News to arrange a "town hall", a televised meeting between a candidate and voters. Trump was in his normal mode:
- lying about elections
- lying about his lawsuits
- promising to become a dictator
- accusing media
- ridiculing and threatening his political opponents

And the Fox News hosts just giggled.

Evidently, Trump is like a drug. Even though relationship with him is extremely damaging and unhealthy, Fox News cannot help itself and desperately wants more. Until death do them part.
67
Browsers & Technology / Re: Software of Potential Interest
Last post by ersi -
Floorp is a Firefox fork implementing some notable features of Vivaldi browser, such as tab tiling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxRsikiu_E8

I think the name is actually passable. It has the minimum requirement for a project name: Be distinct, different from other projects. The name of Vivaldi browser does not pass this minimum requirement. Neither did Opera.

At this stage I personally am done browser-hopping, certainly when it comes to graphical browsers. Apart from interface configuration, what I want from a browser is
- Control over cookies (suppress all by default)
- Control over popups/popins (suppress all by default)
- Control over fonts and colours (the imposed styles and scripts should be completely unnecessary)

The modern web is bad and getting worse. In late 90's and 00's, popups proliferated. When popup blockers became common, popups were replaced by popins, which are a far more evil feature.

In good old times, control over cookies used to be in the browser, that is in the user's hands. Ever since the EU's completely unwarranted inane incompetent idiotic counterproductive cookie directive, there is no longer any control whatsoever over cookies. Instead we have cookie popups/popins which give the false impression to people that they are managing their cookie preferences, whereas in reality of course they are not. The cookie popups do not care what settings the user has set in the browser (in the only place where the settings have an actual under-the-hood effect), the popups pop up regardless, and also regardless what settings you set in the website popup earlier. Every time you visit a website, you get the popups no matter what your settings are or were.

None of the graphical browsers over the last ten years or so is able to control popups, despite some browsers having a setting for it. There is literally no single decent graphical browser currently in existence out of the box. Maybe Brave browser or the like can be made to suppress all popups with careful extra tinkering.

Text mode or terminal browsers handle both cookies and popups properly out of the box. They also handle fonts and colours properly out of the box and usually interface configuration is fine too. Unfortunately they do not handle webscript features, such as delayed loading, properly. For delayed loading and other heavily scripted features, graphical browsers are still necessary.

The user interface feature that I expect from graphical browsers is the ability to toggle off all toolbars and menus. Vivaldi used to have it for a while, but in recent updates they ruined it and they brought back an empty bar that you cannot get rid of. No reason for the bar and no way to get rid of it. I won't ask why.

On Linux I can still achieve the toolbar-less and menu-less effect in all apps by going fullscreen and then taking control over the fullscreen window by resizing it with the window manager as if it were any other window. Funny that Windows is called Windows, but has no window manager. Anyway, it should be possible to toggle off all toolbars and menus in all web browsers. Browsers are giving their users less and less, so give at least that.

68
DnD Central / Re: What's Your Favorite U.S. Supreme Court decision?
Last post by ersi -
Human rights? Another symptom of your self-righteousness: You believe everyone in the world has the right to residence and citizenship anywhere they choose... Why? It's certainly not enlightenment. It's Soros-style agitprop.
How do you determine that residence and citizenship are inalienable? Hand-waving?
No. You just want to keep the argument going, and this red herring is just a means to that end. It doesn't matter that it's nonsensical!
Oh dear, you have not learned your fallacies properly. Your reading comprehension is F as usual.

My point was that DeSantis and Abbott are engaged in human trafficking. Human trafficking is a crime. Crimes should be prosecuted in a law-and-order country. Also, human rights reads straight in the Declaration of Independence of USA.

Your attempt to sidetrack from this by attributing the concept of human rights to Soros instead is a red herring. You are using logical fallacies to compensate for your lack of facts, but this is not going to work. Just keep on cheering crimes and criminals - when they are of your own party, you hyperpartisan hypocrite.
69
DnD Central / Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2024 Presidential Elections
Last post by OakdaleFTL -
Americans with their stupid non-system where the president has the freedom to be a treasonous nepotist election-denying incompetent buffoon and run again without any repercussions to himself while all his law[y]ers and more eager supporters are being jailed left and right.
Can't even manage to put your frothing-at-the-mouth anger into sentence form! :) But look on the bright side: Michelle Obama might be "drafted" to run...
70
DnD Central / Re: What's Your Favorite U.S. Supreme Court decision?
Last post by OakdaleFTL -
The following are notes for myself. You are completely unqualified for this discussion, Oakdale.

Quote from: OakdaleFTL
First, the U.S. is not subject to the so-called World Court. So, your "serious charge" amounts to nothing more than impotent moralizing.
Second, immigrant status is not conferred by mere aspiration.
This is exactly my point, knowing that "conservatives" and "literalists" in USA do not acknowledge the concept of human rights, even though Declaration of Independence of USA takes it "to be self-evident that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." It's an enlightenment concept, not a World Court concept.

A country that is in denial of this concept is not an enlightened country. It is in plain evidence now that what Declaration of Independence proclaims does not obtain in the legal and moral sense of the inhabitants of the country at all.
Human rights? Another symptom of your self-righteousness: You believe everyone in the world has the right to residence and citizenship anywhere they choose... Why? It's certainly not enlightenment. It's Soros-style agitprop.
How do you determine that residence and citizenship are inalienable? Hand-waving?
No. You just want to keep the argument going, and this red herring is just a means to that end. It doesn't matter that it's nonsensical!