On Tuesday afternoon, researchers’ fears were confirmed. The pod of almost 100 long-finned pilot whales rushed to the shore, stranding themselves on Cheynes Beach near Albany, in southern Western Australia.

By Wednesday, 52 of the whales had died, the authorities said. A team of local volunteer and conservation officials managed to move the remaining 45 back into the water and attempted to herd them back out to sea, using boats and kayaks to guide them. However, that afternoon, the whales re-stranded themselves further along the beach, the authorities said. The Australia Broadcasting Corporation reported that the whales had again formed a huddle before drifting back to shore.

Lord of War is a fantastic Nicolas Cage movie!

Wildfires driven by an extreme heatwave have encircled Palermo after temperatures in the Sicilian city climbed to 47C (117F) on Monday.

But while the heat stifles the south, northern regions continued to bear the brunt of bad weather caused by the arrival of cooler air from northern Europe, with more torrential rain and gales forecast in Lombardy, Trentino Alto Adige, Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia.

Giuseppe Sala, the mayor of Milan, said residents endured a sleepless night as winds exceeded 63 mph (100 km/h).

Sala said: “What we are seeing is not normal. We can no longer deny that climate change is changing our lives. We can no longer turn a blind eye, and above all, we can’t not do anything.”

The civil protection minister, Nello Musumeci, said: “Climate change is not just a contingency and Italy must realise that it now has a tropical climate. On one hand, we are paying the price of climate change, for which we should have paid more attention several years ago, and, on the other, of infrastructure that does not seem to be totally adequate for the new context.

The COP28 will certainly be interesting.

1. Code in Emacs or Jetbrains (depends on language and laptop cpu)
2. Run make to build, run, debug, or clean (I like makefiles for documenting basic tasks)
3. Commit with git when chunk of work is done

I tend to do everything locally on bare metal. I never liked putting stuff in containers or running a vm.

VS Code is a great editor, though. It actually feels a bit like Emacs.

This rhymes with Lusitania

Who’s saying “nuh uh”? It could go both ways.

I’m saying (in winey child voice), “nuh uh! I’m not a communist! I’m an anarcho-blahblahblah, and there are nuanced distinctions between blah blah blah! Nyah!”

Marsupial is saying, “nuh uh! China doesn’t blame Western capitalism for the opium trade! They only blame the Brits!”

I have no disagreement that typical “tankies” would call the Five Eyes an empire and Western hegemony, but calling the idea “tankie” is just using a thought-stopper to avoid talking about the idea that empires serve those with power and not the other way around.

And I just fucking disdain fervent communists, so Marsupial struck a nerve. I’d rather be dismissed for what I actually think.

lmao, just to be clear, I think tankies are little CCP dick-sucking bitches, but anyone who throws around a thought-stopper like “tankie” really doesn’t deserve respect. C’mon, you can engage with the merits and flaws of an argument, right?

If you want to get into a whole ad hominem thing: I’m suspicious of communism (free markets are great for almost everything), and communist revolutions are a joke. I haven’t finished reading Das Kapital, but I’ve heard that the capitalism will inevitably create communism out of the consequences of its own actions, so any revolution is just trying to force the wheel of time forward. I also think it is plain to see that you can’t have a communist government without democracy (preferable direct democracy), because how can everyone be equal otherwise? China’s communism is just capitalism in a trench coat, which is why you see the same effects on its populace as elsewhere. Fundamentally, I’m an Anarcho-syndicalist or Anarcho-socialist. No hierarchies, free association, worker solidarity, and mutual aid.

This seems like a major blunder. The US needs Turkiye on its side to expand NATO, besides the whole risk of “in for a penny, in for a pound.” Obama lost a lot of face with his red line, but at least he avoided getting the US entrenched in another Middle East conflict, which they’ll just make worse by their mere presence.

Thanks for pointing that bit out!

So if this quote is to be believed:

“This represents a blow to (the cartel’s) financial operations and illicit activities, since the company receives chemical shipments from China,” Salazar said in a statement.

It looks like China is struggling to enforce their controls. I’m trying to think of a reason that doesn’t boil down to a lack of political will. I don’t blame them, though. They certainly have a bunch of more pressing, complex domestic problems (balancing environment, business, and social welfare). I would certainly shrug as well when Uncle Sam comes whining when those he trampled on are dying from poisons you’ve made illegal and are being produced somewhere else. It’s not like any other nation can perfectly control their imports and exports. They probably are just denying it altogether to save face with their people.

I’m always surprised at just how capitalist Chinese businesses are.

Interesting. Your quote says China controlled fentanyl, but states the precursors were restricted in the Hong Kong SAR, and they may go through the SAR.

Does China itself restrict the precursors? Or could they be making their way out through other routes?

China certainly helped get the ball rolling for the 4 years between 2015-2019, and then divested itself to some extent, which is driving the demand for other sources. I doubt India is going to stop exporting precursors anytime soon. Their pharmaceutical industry is insanely unethical.

Mexico is mostly owned by the narcos, so they’ll “cooperate,” but the fentanyl will continue to flow as long as they can get precursors. It seems the US has quite a pickle on its hands.

Hopefully, the crisis will die out over time? (oof, that’s a lot of bodies) Unless the US pharmaceutical companies have a new, “non-addictive” pain killer they’re promoting these days.

Eh. It’s one empire these days. Just a big ol’ Western hegemony.

EDIT: This video might provide some clarity on where I’m coming from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOF56wYTl1w

The powers that went to war with China over the opium trade are the same; they’ve just moved into a bigger house across the pond.

The fentanyl crisis is just revenge for the opium trade.

EDIT: My mind has been changed by the incredibly patient Carcosa. It’s certainly not top down, but I still think that the CCP remembers the opium trade when thinking about this issue, which contributes to how much they’re willing to disrupt their own pharmaceutical production to enforce their controls absolutely.

Perhaps you didn’t understand my comment or the article. The 60C number is, in fact, a meaningless, joke of a number, because they’re talking about how hot the ground is. Duh, the ground gets really hot. Be careful walking your dogs, though. Their paws can get severely burned quite quickly.

The heatwave has not hit its peak yet in Spain. That’ll be Monday through Wednesday next week. Highs will be around 43C (109F). 40C isn’t a big deal to me, but anything higher gets savage fast. The forecasts for Sardinia and Sicily actually aren’t as bad as the article predicts (not even hitting 38C/100F), but wunderground could just be inaccurate.

The bottom line for reasonable people is: if you’re forecast to get temps above 40C, take it seriously.

Or, like, don’t. I don’t know you, and I won’t be affected by your death, so get fucked or don’t. That’s on you. You’re just some human. You’re the lowest form of life on this planet in my eyes, and there are far too many humans already.

The temperature of the ground in some areas of Spain has hit more than 60C [140F] during the deadly heatwave sweeping Europe, satellite recordings have shown.

Temperature records have been broken on most of the continent, including France, Switzerland, Germany and Italy, where highs of 40C [104F] were recorded again on Wednesday.

Sicily and Sardinia were forecast to be as high as 48C [118.4F].

These temperatures are no joke. For reference, it was about 48C (119F) in west Texas where the 2 Floridians died a couple weeks back.

Anyone experiencing this kind of heat needs to make it their #1 priority. Stay cool. Stay hydrated. Pay attention to yourself and your loved ones for signs of heat exhaustion or heat stroke.

It’s not any battery. They just didn’t do the original manufacturing, so you can find compatible replacements elsewhere.

I bought the System76 Kudu laptop back in 2016, but it is actually a W670RZ model laptop manufactured by Clevo Co. in China (unlike my previous laptop which was a MacBook Pro manufactured by Apple in China). System76 wasn’t the only company selling the W670RZ, so they’re not the only ones you can go to for replacement parts.

The main thing I like is the hardware support. I knew before purchasing that everything would work, and that helped me feel okay dropping a pretty penny on a new laptop. Besides that, I’d say they’re fine. They aren’t designing and manufacturing their own hardware (at least not back when I bought one); the laptops are pretty standard off-the-shelf stuff. System76 just promises that it’ll all work out-of-the-box. I’ve never used Pop!_OS, so I can’t speak to that. Arch and Debian work great, though.

The only negative I can think of is: once the battery started to go after several years, they didn’t have a replacement in their store, but because it’s a generic laptop, there were new ones available on Amazon. It just would’ve been nice to get it from System76.

All-in-all, I’m a happy customer. I’m keeping my eye on Framework, though. The MNT Reform is also interesting. I don’t like how thick it is, but that’s because it uses 18650s for the battery, which would solve the problem of buying a new battery just to find that all the batteries were manufactured at the same time, so there are no working replacements.

Yeah, I have a couple T420 ThinkPads, and for $100 they’re pretty sweet, but they show their age.

I’m relatively happy with my System76, but based on your needs you could get a lot of value from a $500 used ThinkPad on Ebay.

I fully support this. You do you. It’s your computer; you can do what you want with it. Whether you’re using it for work or play, if it’s the way you like it, then it’s not wrong.