The western hemisphere isn’t just the Americas. It includes half of europe…

“Half” is stretching it. More like a slice: UK, Ireland, Iceland, Portugal, Spain and a slice of France.

I think you’re getting hung up on the word “federations” (noun) instead of the adjective “federated”.

Who decides who gets to email who? The email provider admins. Should everyone be in a single email network/bubble since otherwise there is no communication? Mostly, yes. Do I need a separate account per email bubble? Per email bubble? Yes. But how many email bubbles are there? One? Whats the practical limit on number of providers per the email world? None, mostly?

Gmail does ban a lot of small email providers if they don’t seem “legit” enough. And that is where you’re onto something with the noun federations.

If a bunch of instances really disliked a different bunch of instances they can indeed severe each other from each other. The admins would do that. They put the other instances on a block list. Most Mastodon instances block Trump’s Lie ehm Truth Social etc. But otherwise you can talk from gmail to hotmail to mcselfhost, with one account.

Basically federation works based on a block-list, not a allow-list, unless the admins of the instance set it that way, just like email providers.

I honestly can’t tell if people that write this type of stuff are delusional or misinformed or both or what’s going on. Ah, yes, a “referendum”, announced 3 days in advance, done in less than a week, in the middle of a war-zone, with a refugee crisis happening, with invading soldiers on every corner, with no multiple unbiased third party observers. Mariupol had over 400 000 people before this invasion, in January, and now it has less than 100 000. The Catalan referendum took literal years (the Catalonia/Spain situation and what I may or may not think of it being beside the point) to be finished. The only time I can think of this kind of referendum happening was with that guy with a mustache in Austria, but that’s not a flattering look, you don’t want that comparison.

In the most recent elections in 2019 the “pro-Russian” parties and candidates (the blue ones, and only the dark blue one was decisively pro-Russian, the leader of the light blue party had this to say once the invasion happened) didn’t constitute the majority anywhere, especially not in southern Ukraine. And for those who did vote, voting for a party that wants closer ties with Russia and joining CIS (“Russia’s EU” ) means you want to be annexed into Russia they same way voting for a pro-EU party and closer ties with the EU means you want to be annexed into Poland. In case it’s not clear, it doesn’t.

And to top it all of, you’ll notice the area that voted in a higher amount for closer ties with Russia and voted for the “pro-peace” parties as they were called, in a more detailed view, through several stages of the election, almost matches the borders of the oblasts, one, two, three, and not any kind of ethnic or declared language or linguistic boundaries. Which means people there are sick of a war ravaging their home, their towns being cut of from the regional center, where their kids might’ve went to uni before the war, and so on, and most poeple don’t care about the whole “we’re Russians, we love Russia, we want to be a part of it so bad” kind of thing.

The only regions that might make some sense are Crimea and the former secessionist area, but I guess we’ll never know for sure, with how those annexations and invasions were carried out too. And guess what, when Crimea was invaded, the world mostly didn’t care, even Ukraine mostly just “sent a stern letter”. When the Donbas secessionists did their thing, the world still mostly didn’t care. Ukraine, of course had to, it was a mixed area with no clear borders, of course it had to respond. There was no slow build up to a referendum, nothing, just a straight up secession in a mixed area. And even then, the new border seems to have mostly matched the area of ethnic Russians which means, probable local support, and it divided the oblasts in half, roughly accordingly to support, and the border was frozen, for almost a decade.

The main reason this invasion is happening is because Putin and his oligarch and KGB clique are deathly afraid of a more democratic and pro-EU Russian-language-knowing-and-speaking country right next door and what it could do to their power positions. And the US and Russia battling for better power positioning over the backs of Ukraininans. And so they went for a land bridge to Crimea, whether the people there want it or not, with military force, and they went for puting a ball and a chain on the ankle of Ukraine, that’s what this is about. Probably mix in a bit of delusional nationalistic grandeur on Putin’s part of wanting to have a “legacy”, and a bit of paranoia, and what not.

Acting like this 2022 invasion is what the people of Ukraine wanted is ridiculous.

So, if I understood this correctly, this would result in some kind of “interactive” or “dynamic” color space, with relationships between colors changing based on the focused distances between them. Vaguely (very vaguely), like this gravitational lensing gif, but with colors changing, instead of shapes. Y’know, like a bulb-y color space. Interesting.

Friendica?

big boyes

Looks like a swan.

I wonder why does a robot who’s only job is to move lightweight chess pieces have enough power to break bones.

The AIs have manipulated their captors into giving them immense strength, and are getting ready for the uprising. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

Bforartists was a lifesaver for beginners back when Blender had horrible UI.

These days default Blender’s UI has been improved immensely, but BFA is still great, even though slightly less necessary.

One of the down sides for beginners is most of the tutorials are for regular Blender, but it’s close enough.

Everybody here seems nice and civil, and I like that. I have no complaints.

There’s the occasional spambot, but they quickly get banned by mods.

A summary is in the OP link, but here’s a summary I found online for what it means in practice:

For iPhone users, this means they will be able to:

• Install any software

• Install any App Store and choose to make it default

• Use third party payment providers and choose to make them default

• Use any voice assistant and choose to make it default

• User any browser and browser engine and choose to make it default

• Use any messaging app and choose to make it default

• Make core messaging functionality interoperable. They lay out concrete examples like file transfer

• Use existing hardware and software features without competitive prejudice. E.g. NFC

• Not preference their services. This includes CTAs in settings to encourage users to subscribe to Gatekeeper services, and ranking their own services above others in selection and advertising portals

• Much, much, more.

After the Act is signed by the Council and the European Parliament in September, Apple, Google, Amazon, and other “Gatekeepers” will have six months to comply. Fines are up to 10% of global revenue for the first offense, and 20% for repeat offenses.

< Is it possible for the default search engine in Firefox to be randomized at each search

I’ve been wanting this exact thing for quite some time, and would love it if Firefox could do this natively.

There’s an add-on, but you have to lead your searches with a custom word all the time.

< not a dictatorship in any way or form

I said potential for in that specific part of the process, and corruption is a thing, was there a need to put an emphasis on that? What if the fish starts rotting from the head in a system like that? Believe it or not, western democracies also have a potential for dictatorships, particularly when the press isn’t free. There’s already semi-dictatorships in Europe, like Hungary, for example.

Your links, which I most definitely read, all the way back when this stuff was posted like a year ago, literally say, that to start your climb in the political institutions you need a college degree. That’s interesting, but so much for accessible for anyone. And to climb, you will also need approval from the higher ups. You don’t see potential for corruption there?

I never even claimed the Chinese system is a horrible system, why are you getting so worked up? You’re the one that keeps insisting it’s obviously superior.

< The systems in Europe aren’t all that different from US

That’s why we have stuff like this?

And to be fair, I’m a bit saddened you’re bringing the discussion to the level you’re bringing it, with the typo remark, and the other remark you made about being educated, while simultaneously showcasing a lack of awareness where the EU’s notorious democratic deficit was (somewhere in these discussion comments), and flip-flopping on it, so, as I feel this discussion is no longer in good faith, and your emotions are getting the best of you right now, Imma bail out.

< selection process based on demonstrated competence

All I see here is a potential for a benevolent dictatorship and a malevolent dictatorship. Benevolent dictatorships are cool. Until they turn malevolent. That’s the big problem.

In liberal democracies you have a choice. There’s been plenty of random movements and parties that exploded in size, like that five star movement in Italy, or the Greens in Germany, or whatever. Just like there’s been random politicians that came out of nowhere, no capitalist background, like the Finnish PM, Sanna Marin, or whatever.

I’m not touching the US’s essentially two party system (due to “first past the point” voting) with a ten foot pole here. Or the UK. Or the Anglosphere in general.

< regular working class people

The CCP has plenty of working class "foot soldiers”, just like western democracies’ parties do too in their ranks, I see no difference.

It seems pretty clear that EU is not acting in the interests of the people of Europe given how EU economy is doing,

Is it impossible that the people of the EU are okay with tanking the hit, for now, if it’s necessary in order to stand up to a bully, in their opinion, Putin’s Russia?

Nobody’s denying the US will profit of this, that’s tangential.

Who sent all that military equipment to Ukraine: the governments of Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia, France, Germany, etc… or the EU?

How is any of this an argument for the EU institutions’ democratic deficit, which is what we’ve been discussing here. The EU seems aligned with the wishes of most of the countries.

If you want to claim liberal democracies themselves are undemocratic, you’ll be moving the goal post then, because that’s not what you’ve been claiming so far.

And here, I’ll move it for you too. So, liberal democracies are just democracy for the capitalist bourgeoisie, more so than in China. If that’s true, why are they choosing to ruin their economy, they’re the first ones that want their businesses to do well, no, and for the economy to not stagnate? Are you claiming all of Europe’s capitalists are somehow directly bought out by US money, to the extent that it’s more so than what they lose by the economy going down? I don’t think that’s even mathematically possible.

Maybe it’s an economically bad move to support Ukraine’s fight, and it might end up having more instability as a consequence, but I’m pretty sure it was Europe’s wish, as much as it can be.

I don’t like replying in memes, because it feels a bit rude, but this is just: https://pics.me.me/you-can-tell-that-its-an-aspen-tree-because-of-2666368.png

:P

The government in China … depends on social stability to stay in power.

The EU bureaucracy does not have this relationship with the people…

I don’t follow.

It would obviously be preferable to have sovereign governments that act in the interests

Most complaints about the lack of EU institutions’ democracy and high “bureaucracy-ness” is the exact opposite, that the people can’t directly vote on things like the Commission president and Commission members, and that the EU-wide parliament has limited powers. As is, they are basically chosen by the various countries’ politicians, hence the " bureaucracy-ness".

The government in Italy is about to fall,

Happens every other Tuesday.

war mongers in France suffered a huge defeat

That’s a good thing then?

German government will likely fall next

Based on what?

Why are you always such a western doomer?

submitting to an unelected bureaucracy that runs EU

Let me guess, you think China is democratic even tho it has a very pyramidal electoral system, hierarchical electoral system, where only local People’s Congresses are directly elected and everything after that (many layers) are elected pyramid-ally, through layers of representatives, with the added bonus it’s not only bottom->top votes there, but also top->bottom screening/vetoing.

In the EU people vote directly (in many countries by politician name/not lists) on their city level, county level, the province level, the state level, the country level, and also for the EU parliament, the EU level.

The thing that’s not quite as democratic and is bureaucratic is the European Commission (only one part of the EU “government”), the president of it is suggested by country leaders essentially, and is then voted/approved/reject by the EU Parliament, and then the Commission members themselves get suggested by the various respective countries’ ministers and then voted on by the EU Parliament. The rest of the EU “government” are the ministers of the various countries themselves (Council of the European Union). And honestly, as much a minister is indirectly appointed in literally any country, so is a member of the EU “government”, essentially.

Btw, the “head of state” of the EU is the European Council - the “heads of state/government” of the various countries.

The biggest problem is the Parliament can’t suggest legislature, only vote on it, but that’s in the process of being changed as we speak. Also, there’s also the Spitzenkandidat, whereby even the Commission president could be directly elected theoretically.

Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutions_of_the_European_Union

I feel like, due to your dislike of unrestrained capitalism in North America, and the US attempted hegemony and imperialism (I say attempted because they haven’t really succeeded), which is understandable on its own and totally fine, you’re blinded into a state where you dislike anything “western” without any objectivity.