> Desktop Linux has always been kind of a joke. It hasn't gotten better, the problems are all still there.

Desktop Linux mostly works these days. It does everything most regular people would want of it, with zero fuss. Including playing games. In some respects, it's easier to use than Mac or Windows.

When it has trouble with some things, one must remember neither Mac nor Windows is perfect, and they can be extremely frustrating at times.

Time to update those prejudices!

I love pixel art and specifically monochrome pixel art like this.

It's a pity this blog was so short lived, I can only see 7 entries and only 2 Hokusai prints. Oh well, my own blogs usually don't fare much better.

Who knows what's true, but the official US narrative is that they entered his bunker, slaughtered the (mostly Cuban) security guards, and stopped Maduro just before he could hide behind a reinforced door. So the official narrative is indeed that US forces slaughtered a bunch of people and took Maduro.

Whether there was also cooperation from the Venezuelan military, failure to shoot down helicopters, etc, is a different matter.

Arguably the Soviets were on par (or more) than the US in defeating Nazi Germany. (Yes, lend lease, etc, this is not downplaying US contributions).

The Eastern Front was the real battlefield were Nazi Germany was doomed.

Stalingrad, Kursk, Bagration, etc.

"The Communist" were a faction in a civil war, that's not an invasion. And the split in both cases (Vietnam and Korea) was recent and artificial, in the sense of no tradition of there being two countries. It wasn't one country invading another country, but two halves engaged in a civil war.

Where one wants to live is irrelevant. It wasn't about stopping an invasion, which was the initial claim. The US was meddling.

> Vietnam and Korea were technically wars to stop conquest, no?

No.

For example, the US got involved in Vietnam to help the colonizer (France) stop an independence movement. Yes, because they feared the resulting Vietnam may become communist and USSR aligned (something they helped happen, since Ho Chi Minh quite admired the US and expected them to help him at first), but even if this was the case, it's still not about stopping an invasion, because commie Vietnamese are still Vietnamese.

Something along those lines for Korea, too.

That's not true. They could have standardized on a few rugged platforms -- and in fact, some in Nazi Germany advocated for that -- but their industry and engineering were generally self-sabotaging and a mess.

They actually did standardize pretty quickly. Panzer III and Panzer IV were the workhorses in Russia, paired up with the StuG (which used the Pz III chassis). I think that it's arguable that no production strategy could have led to German success. Had they tried to produce T-34 or Sherman type tanks (and the Panther was kind of intended to be that tank), they still would have been overwhelmed by the sheer number of tanks built buy the Allies. The Soviets at their peak year produced over 29K tanks, with the US contributing around 21K. The Germans maxed out at around 8k.

IMHO, the Soviets alone could have eventually defeated Germany, thought at much greater cost (as if over 20m casualties wasn't already incredible).

Agreed that arguably no strategy could have helped them against the Soviet Union, it was a major blunder going to war with them.

But the Nazis self-sabotaged constantly. The Panzer IV and the Stug III (with the outdated Panzer III chassis) were arguably the closest standard for armor, but they were constantly diverting effort to alternative platforms that were too complex to mass produce and maintain. And the same for other weapons.

The thing I don't get about accounts of NDE and what people say about them afterwards is this: if they lived to tell the tale, their near death wasn't actual death. They didn't "peak over to the other side". So whatever they experienced was what the brain experienced well within the realm of the living. And we know it was within the living enough that the person recovered and was able to recount the experience! How can there be any argument about this? How anyone can draw any conclusions about an alleged afterlife from this is beyond me.

Isaac Asimov famously reflected upon this. When he had a close call with death, he didn't see anything. He didn't expect to, and he didn't. It's very likely that our expectations shape what we see, at least partly... that's the brain conjuring imagery and trying to make sense of what it can, I suppose.

Whenever I've been under anesthesia, it was like an on/off switch. I didn't even dream, even though I do remember some of my dreams.

Not all of them pass on to the other side but some are allowed to and come back. Search youtube for "atheist dies and sees Hell", for example.

I do remember dreams. The times where I was anesthesized it was that on/off switch, I completely lost time. No NDE or even dreams.

It's not about capability. It's about who "holds the key". And sure, many currently with deep pockets and pushing for AI will miscalculate and get pushed by the wayside. I think many people who are not in the 0.001% are miscalculating right now in HN.

What's important is that ultimately some small subset owns this, and it doesn't matter how smart they are, only that they own the thing and that it cannot be employed against them (because they hold the key).