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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • It’s about as narrowly targeted a chant as you can get.

    It’s not about jews. It’s not about israelis. It’s specifically the army of israel. If that’s not narrowly targeted enough, what’s acceptable? “Down with the members of the IDF who intentionally target civilians but not those members of the IDF who are willing to risk a court martial to make sure that they only attack valid military targets?” Doesn’t make a very good chant.




  • Yeah, even an established creator is going to have a hard time moving their audience.

    If YouTube weren’t a near monopoly it would be different. Then other companies would be competing for creators.

    Making it worse is section 1201 of the DMCA. It makes it a crime to circumvent access controls. In the past, Facebook was able to grow by providing tools to interface with MySpace. People didn’t have to abandon their MySpace friends, they could communicate with them through Facebook, and Facebook could ensure that messages sent on its platform arrived to people still on MySpace. But, if you tried that today Facebook has access controls in place that make that a crime. The same applies to YouTube. Nobody can build a seamless “migrate away from YouTube” experience because YouTube will use the DMCA to block them.

    The governments of the world need to bring back antitrust with teeth and force interoperability.


  • The best part about this is that Unilever basically just bought the brand name. Ben & Jerry’s is a perfectly good ice cream, but it’s not like there’s some amazing manufacturing knowledge that Ben & Jerry’s has that no other ice cream manufacturer could match. What they are is a popular brand with well known political leanings and, with fun popular flavours.

    If Unilever ever forces them out over too much activism, it would be easy for them to start up a new Ice Cream company and bring all their old customers over. So, Unilever basically has to just accept this activism or lose their customers.



  • English is pretty bad at naming these things. In North-American English they’re often called "Semi"s, which is short for either “Semi-Trailer” or “Semi-Truck”. Why? Who knows, I’m guessing it’s because the trailer part is only half of the whole. The front part with the engine and trailer hitch is sometimes called the Tractor Unit. But, that’s confusing because “Tractor” mostly means the thing you drive around on a farm. The purpose is basically the same, and the name comes from the fact it’s focused on something that pulls, but farming has such a hold of the “tractor” name that that’s what people think of when they hear that.

    18 wheeler makes sense for the whole unit together. It’s also good because it identifies the thing that is instantly visually unique about these kinds of vehicles, all the various wheels. But, I’m sure there are many cases where it’s not 18 total wheels. And, when they’re used as road trains with more than one trailer, I’m sure it’s much more than 18 wheels.

    The Brits like “lorry”, or “articulated lorry” but where does that come from? And sometimes shortened to “Artic” which makes it sound like it’s really cold.

    Other names include “HGV” for “Heavy Goods Vehicle”, but that’s confusing because it’s not clear whether it’s the goods that are heavy or the truck. Presumably they’re also used for light but bulky goods.

    Oh well, dumb language, we should start over with Spanish, I’m sure their name is better.






  • The good news is that the riding he has to run in is incredibly rural. He’s going to hate it.

    Poilievre is a city boy. He grew up in the Calgary suburbs. Then he moved to Ottawa to become an MP. The only job he’s ever had involving physical exertion is when he was a paperboy as a kid. Now he’s going to have to spend some time in his new riding surrounded by farmers. The biggest “city” there has a population under 20k. Everything else is towns, villages and hamlets. Assuming he buys a house in Camrose, if he wants Thai food, he’ll have to drive over an hour to get to Edmonton.

    Maybe because the conservatives have such an overwhelming majority in Battle River - Crowfoot, they won’t care that he’s a carpetbagger and he won’t have to put much effort in there. But, I think eventually he’ll have to spend some time in his riding, and it will be a major culture clash.