I think my view is that I don’t like how oppressive Iran’s regime is, but there are many world governments I don’t like (including that of the US). I also think the US and Israel probably shouldn’t be murdering Iranian civilians with bombs just because Trump and Bibi don’t like Iran’s government.

Why would somebody trust AI with access to their production servers, and why would that person also not have remote database backups

I looked that up, looks interesting. Apparently it’s not available for us in the UK though because they say they don’t have the resources to comply with age verification, which is now a legal requirement for social media in the UK

You wouldn’t be in my Top 8

I chuckled. I miss MySpace. Choosing a song for your profile was great. Facebook should add that feature to their profiles. So should Bluesky and Mastodon.

Quite right. The Trump administration are the ones who decided they don’t need allies. Fine, then there is no obligation for America’s old allies to help America.

Maybe there should be an official alliance between America’s old allies: Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, etc. A big free trade area with Americans excluded.

Obama clarified his comments on Instagram:

I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there. But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!

What’s crazy is that Trump would never say anything even half as intelligent as that.

Add some veg, and some butter for the bread, and it’s a good meal

I was reading an opinion piece about this sort of thing earlier today, “Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam’s clouds and go EU-native”. It opens by saying:

I’m an eighth-generation American, and let me tell you, I wouldn’t trust my data, secrets, or services to a US company these days for love or money.

Well at least you’re not entering “Yes, do as I say!”

America at the moment keeps providing reasons why Europe and Canada should seek to become more independent of the US

I was looking at Democratic polling for 2028. Newsom and Kamala Harris are apparently leading the polls. Pete Buttigieg and AOC are a bit behind in 3rd and 4th place:

I would be interested to see primary debates between Newsom and AOC. But I guess that’s 2 years away.

If the spelling was a little different then maybe he would have become a porn actor

That link comes up with an error. Do you know which software it is that is/was in the universe repo?

Well I can see things that are obviously true and you apparently can’t, so I guess I’m not as daft as you

I didn’t say they had exercised force, I said they’re likely planning the use of force to take over Taiwan, whether the people of Taiwan want that or not. I would regard that as imperialistic. I think it would be more humane to respect the wishes of Taiwan - if they want to join the PRC then okay, but if they don’t then perhaps that should be respected.

I don’t know for how long they may have planned it. But I think it’s likely that they would have created some sort of plans for an invasion of Taiwan, based on their statements where they say they don’t rule out force to take over Taiwan. From this article:

Peng Qing’en, a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, told a regular news conference in Beijing that peaceful “reunification” under the “one country, two systems” model is the fundamental approach to “resolving the Taiwan issue”.

“We are willing to create ample space for peaceful reunification and will spare no effort to pursue this prospect with the utmost sincerity,” he said.

“However, we absolutely will not renounce the use of force and reserve the option to take all necessary measures.”

Yeah I dunno, how does planning an invasion to expand your land make you imperial. I’m stumped. As for locking up Uyghurs, I didn’t say that’s imperialist behaviour, I said it’s behaviour that I don’t think is “left leaning”. I guess you could call it tyrannical behaviour.

Wanting to invade Taiwan, claiming all of the Spratly and Paracel islands. And as I said there is other behaviour which I don’t think is “left leaning”, such as locking up Uyghurs in camps.

I wouldn’t call an imperialist nation “left leaning”. To me it’s like when the Nazis called themselves socialists. But anyway I guess we will have different perspectives on this.

I don’t need to be a fed to have that view