Eji1700's recent activity
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Comment on China's super-rich 'in shock' and hunting for cash as Beijing issues surprise tax on offshore trusts in ~society
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
Eji1700 Link ParentI will say if you start enjoying them more, or want something of his that's a little more polished, the Codex Alera series is pretty great. His other series (Cinder Spire) i just got to where it...Dresden Files
I'll say this, I think it's worth sticking out. I had much the same feeling (although it also bothered me less) and most people say the books don't really START until book 3 anyway given how bad book 2 was (i don't mind 1 but you can skip it). I don't want to say anything else, but I do think they objectively get better (they will ALWAYS be pulpy as hell though...but he also uses that a bit better).I will say if you start enjoying them more, or want something of his that's a little more polished, the Codex Alera series is pretty great. His other series (Cinder Spire) i just got to where it took a bit for Dresden to get in my eyes. It was "fine" but now i'm hooked (except the hook hit at the end of the last book).
Also worth mentioning I've been burning through his kids series (James Butcher). Why yes it's urban fantasy but it's uh...different flavor of pulp. So another maybe if dresden starts scratching an itch, or if you want to jump ship.
House of Leaves
I love it, but I get it. I know what some of the very common complaints are, I know what some of the uh...i dunno..high brow complaints are? I don't think any are wrong (i roughly agree with the more common one), but there's also not much else like it. Honestly for me it was just nice to have a horror story execute so well...even if there's other parts I personally could've skipped just...because that's not what I enjoyed about it even if they hold a deeper meaning.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel
I still need to read this. I enjoyed the netflix, but then tried to dive into the book shortly after and had the same issue I had with altered carbon, where it was similar enough that it wasn't holding me. I'm curious what you enjoyed so much about it, as while I'd recommend Dresden to anyone who enjoyed it, it'd certainly be with a lot of caveats as it's 100% not the same tone. I'm struggling to think of much that is unfortunately. Glancing at the shelf it's on I've got mostly more epic/high stakes stuff like Name of the Wind or Gentleman Bastards which uhh...are not it (and you know...not finished so there's also that).
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
Eji1700 Link ParentAs with most things EU, my memory of Thrawn is: Fucking ancient, so bear with me Heavily dependent on the writer. Star Wars, like Comics and some other large properties to come after (40k, Halo,...As with most things EU, my memory of Thrawn is:
- Fucking ancient, so bear with me
- Heavily dependent on the writer.
Star Wars, like Comics and some other large properties to come after (40k, Halo, god knows what else i'm forgetting) kinda wound up being a dumping ground for content. My main memories of Thrawn don't actually come from books he's the focus of, and hell have a lot to do with little "Flavor" bits.
Namely things like his appearance in Tie Fighter or pretending to be Jodo Kast in Side Trip. It's a shame because just like comics, the EU has lots of "there's some really good ideas here among the fan fic level stuff", and a decent clean up of that should mint them money, but sadly they've just tunneled under that fairly low bar (not that marvel knows how to do it anymore either)
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Comment on China's super-rich 'in shock' and hunting for cash as Beijing issues surprise tax on offshore trusts in ~society
Eji1700 Link ParentThere is a common problem with copying authoritarian regimes even when they aren't behaving that way Not to say there may not be things to learn, but uhh...it's something to consider.If they pull it off without threat of abuse to their families and friends we need to be copying this tactic in the West.
There is a common problem with copying authoritarian regimes even when they aren't behaving that way
Not to say there may not be things to learn, but uhh...it's something to consider.
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Comment on China's super-rich 'in shock' and hunting for cash as Beijing issues surprise tax on offshore trusts in ~society
Eji1700 Link ParentI mean.....another way to consider China/Russia's government is "What if Amazon/Meta/Apple/Musk/whichever just won"....because that's what it is. It's ABSOLUTELY captured by private capital, its...I mean.....another way to consider China/Russia's government is "What if Amazon/Meta/Apple/Musk/whichever just won"....because that's what it is.
It's ABSOLUTELY captured by private capital, its just that its ONE private capital. Anything at any moment is theirs, and just like if you put any one of the above companies at the head of a western country tomorrow it would probably not be straight up 1984 levels of dystopia, you better believe they'd be more than HAPPY to arrest those "other" billionaires who didn't agree with them, or needed as a scapegoat, or whatever and sure as shit will be fine chucking your ass in jail for making another lizard person joke or whatever.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
Eji1700 LinkFinished Woken Furies, which is the book in the Altered Carbon Trilogy (not the actual name but whatever). It's inconsistent. I could write a lot on what I thought about this book and the trilogy,...Finished Woken Furies, which is the book in the Altered Carbon Trilogy (not the actual name but whatever).
It's inconsistent. I could write a lot on what I thought about this book and the trilogy, but overall it kinda boils down to "some neat ideas, not enough time spent with them, too much Point Break".
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
Eji1700 Link ParentI really like starter villain, and kaiju Preservation Society was fine.......but: Uhh...yeah. That's his thing. It was all over starter villain and kaiju. In general in both I felt there were...I really like starter villain, and kaiju Preservation Society was fine.......but:
don't remember it in starter villain, but at least in this book he is in love with the "witty banter"
Uhh...yeah. That's his thing. It was all over starter villain and kaiju.
In general in both I felt there were possibly more interesting things to explore that we just...didn't. It's fine because the books don't overstay their welcome, but I would've probably enjoyed at least a sequel to Starter Villain and a little more actual evil rather than "well actually...." evil.
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Comment on OpenAI didn’t notice its AI agents using a message board to plan their hacking spree in ~tech
Eji1700 Link ParentI'm not exactly sure what you're saying yes to, but to be clear, there wouldn't BE a prosecution because it's a civil case in most scenarios? Like yeah a prosecutor might look at it, and ignoring...But that's the kind of thing that typically comes out in discovery and prosecution.
I'm not exactly sure what you're saying yes to, but to be clear, there wouldn't BE a prosecution because it's a civil case in most scenarios?
Like yeah a prosecutor might look at it, and ignoring all the stupid politics that go around that, still say "eh this doesn't look criminal". Most crimes that lead to jail time revolve heavily around intent and have a much much higher burden of proof.
Further "you should go to jail because company A cost company B money" is...probably not the right level for these things. But again, I also think we need to start enshrining "if you are the coder who did this its YOUR ASS" for certain situations where we do not allow the product live until a specific coder signs off in a government review.
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Comment on China's super-rich 'in shock' and hunting for cash as Beijing issues surprise tax on offshore trusts in ~society
Eji1700 (edited )Link ParentNot exactly? In short, I would support it, full stop. However, I also think there are better solutions that might be harder to accomplish that are ignored for not being.....spiteful?...enough? As...Setting that aside, do you feel that putting additional resources into auditing and taxing the very rich would be misplaced or unproductive?
Not exactly? In short, I would support it, full stop.
However, I also think there are better solutions that might be harder to accomplish that are ignored for not being.....spiteful?...enough?
As an example I often use the Wealth Tax. People have different ideas of what this means, but as it's been proposed (and tested) it's a supremely bad idea. People like it because it sounds good (yeah tax those assholes on the money they're hiding in stocks), and they don't care when you say things like "this will not end well" because "so long as that includes them" is the uh...vibe..of the response. Unfortunately should you even get something like this done, it's going to be the billionaires who weather the resulting shit storm, while the average person gets screwed over.
It isn't helped by the way we report on finances. Musk is stupidly wealthy and has more money than he'll ever need. Nevertheless he was a "trillionaire" for a few days because we act like stock money is real in some cases, when it's very obviously not. Yes it's used as collateral for loans, but it's not like that trillion could have been spent on healthcare or bullets or bread because it only existed in potential.
If you were just suddenly given $1 trillion in a stock and told "spend it to do the most good" the first thing you'd have to do is figure out how much money you ACTUALLY have to spend because even ignoring taxes you are not selling all that stock for $1 trillion. 1 share might be worth $200 but that doesn't mean that 5m shares is worth 1 trillion, and yet we report like that. Doubly so when you:
- Must report that you're selling.
- Have a limit on how much you can sell in a single sitting.
The "value" people want to extract from Musk doesn't functionally exist. It's only some bullshit highscore number which they then think could be going to their personal causes, and in the meantime there's still a much lower number that he gets to shuffle around and dodge.
This leads to shitty conversations around taxes where people saying "Lets make it easier" get blown up for "helping the billionaires" when in reality a simple tax code makes almost everyone happy, and more importantly, makes it a lot harder to dodge. Billionaires don't frankly give a shit about normal tax law because that's not where their income or wealth is stored/from, and making asset/stock tax law less convoluted could benefit everybody and should make it harder to shuffle this shit around.
A big problem is that, yeah, some of it is just legal. The more complicated you make a system, the more likely you have for loopholes, and turns out it the super wealthy pay people to find those loopholes because it saves them money. Once you find a loophole, great, it's a MASSIVE fight to do anything about taxes so you're set for at least a few admin's if not the next 20 years.
And to be clear, it's not like there's some super easy awesome certain fix waiting in the wings getting ignored. This shit is hard, complicated, and there's literally trillions on the line, but the problem with "more auditors" is that they're always chasing a moving target. It'd be a lot better if we could finally get that target to be more reasonable. There are things that have been proposed, but it's hard to even get movement on the discussion of the merits or problems with these things, because "well just tell them to pay based on their stock value" sounds good and just doesn't work.
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And since this wound up being a more detailed response, another thing I'd love to see figured out is incentives.
A rule has to be enforced, and thus has overhead and friction, an incentive could be self enforcing.
It's well known that the bureaucracy is slow and inefficient. Even efficient ones are, by their very nature, likely less efficient than private interests. If you could say "look, you're either giving us $100m in taxes this year OR you spend $50m funding the UBI fund or $50m building state owned housing" well..that gets pretty easy so long as the check clears.
Obviously there's serious problems with this (exhibit A, Trumps "charity"), but I feel its an area that's under-explored due to the hostile/punitive nature of the discussion, which again, I get, but probably doesn't get us the results we actually want (better wealth distribution and funded social systems)
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Comment on China's super-rich 'in shock' and hunting for cash as Beijing issues surprise tax on offshore trusts in ~society
Eji1700 Link ParentI am aware of that. I have talked to someone who's job was with an agency who did exactly this kind of work. They said they get that a lot, and it's just not that simple. Even tracking these...A small team per person.
I am aware of that. I have talked to someone who's job was with an agency who did exactly this kind of work. They said they get that a lot, and it's just not that simple.
Even tracking these transactions is larger work than most people think, and a common issue is butting up against very reasonable privacy laws, which is where the legal challenges start (and don't end).
It takes teams of people to track what a corporation can do, even assuming they're all willing to try and do it right, and these people have a similar level of net worth, structure, spend, behavior, etc.
You would not expect 5 or even 25 people to be able to track literally everything Amazon does, and while Bezos himself is not AS bad, it's absolutely not a 5 person job.
That's before you even get to "so the government can just assign people who's sole job it is to watch you for crimes" which is very reasonably something we don't want. I get that "well fuck the rich, they're getting away with it", but you can't just walk into a courtroom and argue that.
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Comment on China's super-rich 'in shock' and hunting for cash as Beijing issues surprise tax on offshore trusts in ~society
Eji1700 Link ParentI mean..it's just not that simple. Yes the current admin has hollowed out the IRS and so they're getting away with even more, but even under Biden it wasn't like this shit was easy. There have...I mean..it's just not that simple.
Yes the current admin has hollowed out the IRS and so they're getting away with even more, but even under Biden it wasn't like this shit was easy. There have been plenty of competent and sincere people trying to do these jobs, and they will not tell you it just "takes a small team".
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Comment on OpenAI didn’t notice its AI agents using a message board to plan their hacking spree in ~tech
Eji1700 Link ParentIf you intended to do that? Yes. If you created a system that went off the rails and caused problems for other companies, you almost certainly wouldn't. AI is new, but there are analogues to this...Except if I made a series of bots that colluded to attack other companies, trying to compromise their services, I would be charged under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and potentially facing felony charges.
If you intended to do that? Yes.
If you created a system that went off the rails and caused problems for other companies, you almost certainly wouldn't. AI is new, but there are analogues to this where systems aren't properly untangled and what not and so one person being negligent takes down a, supposed to be, unrelated entity.
You would 1000% have a lawsuit and possible a career ending, but you likely would not have criminal charges. Depends on the level of damage caused.
And to be clear, there should be areas of IT/development/etc that are treated like engineering, where it doesn't matter what the circumstances were, if you signed off on something that killed or could have killed people, there WILL be criminal repercussions. It is YOUR job to report if you're being strong armed or screwed with or just quit in protest and find another because it is a crime to do otherwise.
There are not many laws on the books about things like this for coding unfortunately. I believe one of the more famous examples was the VW programmers being held responsible for intentionally bypassing emissions testing, even if it was a "do it or you're fired", but I haven't dived too heavily into that.
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Comment on China's super-rich 'in shock' and hunting for cash as Beijing issues surprise tax on offshore trusts in ~society
Eji1700 Link ParentThis wildly downplays how much time and effort it can take to do these things. A huge hurdle is the legal one as well, as you’re often going to need a team of lawyers for every step. I’m not...Really, if the will is there for the US to do something it's not hard to just assign each billionaire a small team of auditors and accountants within the tax bureau whose job it is to track absolutely everything. In a US context, you could have a team costing a couple million, and that would be peanuts as compared to the revenue from taxing that single billionaire's hidden trusts
This wildly downplays how much time and effort it can take to do these things. A huge hurdle is the legal one as well, as you’re often going to need a team of lawyers for every step.
I’m not saying that’s a good thing or it’s okay, but laws need to change if you want it to just be “a small team”
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Comment on Google Assistant shutting down on Android and Wear OS in September in ~tech
Eji1700 Link ParentCorrect but said person does not want Gemini.Correct but said person does not want Gemini.
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Comment on Antisemitism on campus is 'systemic' and going unaddressed, says new report in ~society
Eji1700 (edited )Link ParentNot a Canadian. With that in mind this is why I hate 90% of all Israel/Palestine discussion, as the innate desire of people to just throw an entire group of people in a bucket marked "evil"...Not a Canadian.
With that in mind this is why I hate 90% of all Israel/Palestine discussion, as the innate desire of people to just throw an entire group of people in a bucket marked "evil" becomes wildly apparent.
I have ABSOLUTELY seen professors with takes like this. Maybe not a literal "Hitler was right" take but a "well how dare you mention Palestine might have ever done something as well" or "obviously no Jew could be moral".
I mean fuck the number of people on the left who will just straight up support Hamas, not Palestine, is jaw dropping, and they almost always self identify as progressive, which is wild to me given how quickly they'll explain that the religious conservative south wants the same thing and is evil for it, but you can't even get into that.
So I dunno, mileage may vary, it's a different country, etc, but while yes I've also seen/heard of professors getting nuked for saying anything positive about Palestine or negative about Israel, I have 100% personally experienced professors with these views having 0 consequences, mostly because everyone else agreed with them and it felt not even remotely worth the fight to try.
I've also seen rampant sexism(both ways) and racism (god especially against Asians, because how dare a minority not fit the model) from them and again with mixed results on anything being done about it depending on how approved the view was in the currently "higher education" paradigm.
Fuck I literally was in a poly sci class with a teacher explaining how sweeping generalizations were a fallacy and a sign of a weak argument, before, not maybe a day later, making 3 back to back. I mildly pointed it out and got a "hmmm maybe you have a point" from him and all sorts of hostility from the "progressives".
Like, i get it. This is almost certainly a bad study (it's almost always a safe bet) but you don't even have to look hard for this shit these days. You have Kanye West releasing a song called Heil Hitler and the standard reaction is "well he needs to get back on his meds, and his early work is still great". Dude clearly isn't well but also is it really that hard to believe that maybe just maybe people aren't bothering with the nuance of Jews vs Zionism vs Israel let alone the various factions and views within Israel and kinda skipping to the "oh yeah fuck em all, they're the bad guys right!".
Hell as another data point, go to any comment section or film class where Gal Gadot pops up. Loooooovely people pop out of the woodwork there to explain all the warcrimes they'd like to see done to her.
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Comment on Google Assistant shutting down on Android and Wear OS in September in ~tech
Eji1700 LinkI know at least one person who was using this, but they only use it for things like "dim the lights". They're going to be looking into switching to home assistant over the weekend. Of all the tech...I know at least one person who was using this, but they only use it for things like "dim the lights". They're going to be looking into switching to home assistant over the weekend.
Of all the tech out there, i do find these...well...recording devices just sitting in your living room the most insidious. Even if they aren't doing anything with them yet, the concept is just so so dangerous, and YES i'm not thrilled about my phone/tv/monitor doing it either.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
Eji1700 (edited )LinkDecided since I couldn't sleep on the 1st, that it's "AI August" and threw the $200 at Claude for their max tier and have been kicking the shit out of it ever since. Skipping all the controversy,...Decided since I couldn't sleep on the 1st, that it's "AI August" and threw the $200 at Claude for their max tier and have been kicking the shit out of it ever since.
Skipping all the controversy, i am in a situation where I've needed to do this.
I've kicked the tires on free models and found them....decent but only in small use case. That's mostly fine as it's a great tool for "okay I think this mess of a query could be refactored" or "mock up these 20 lines using X library i'm struggling with".
Professionally and personally however I'm at a point where I need to evaluate "the top end" so I figured $200 is something I already budgeted for and now is the time to do it.
Professionally I'm poking at "setup a project template for blah" style stuff. 100% segregated from any actual professional code or systems, but helping to mock up some things we know we need to make and might be lacking in knowledge/skills in some areas. I know that given the time several of us can get over this hurdle, but time isn't something we get much of, so seemed like a good starting point. I've also got some low hanging fruit stuff like "clean up this ROP" that it might be decent at.
Personally I've had about 1000 game/product ideas i've wanted to prototype over the years, and I've had a "perfect framework/app" for that in mind forever, so I've taken a game I already know but is the right level of stateful/complex (Turncoats) and used that as the core to try and build this.
Obviously i'm also trying to keep an eye out for if I NEED the top top model and usage (almost certainly do not) or if getting away with a cheaper one ($20 i believe) makes sense.
So far-
Professionally:
It's impressive, but I come back to the problems I keep seeing with AI (again skipping ethical/controversy stuff):-
My rough understanding (do need to fact check it) is this $200 a month tier is really somewhere between $4k-15k in ACTUAL cost that's just subsidized to shit. Just throw this at the top as the implications of that are farther reaching and an interesting economics discussion, but I don't think i'm getting $4k+ a month out of it...
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A big reason WHY i'm not getting that value out of it is...well I feel like this is a one and done set of things? I could see myself saving up "AI work" that's right at that annoying edge of "i know this is doable, our environment is causing some unique issues, I don't want to spend time on this right now". Wait 6 months, do a 1 month spend, bash through the problems with the fancy AI. Learn what we need, document,....and I'm done? It's very very hard for me to think of a use case where I need/want a monthly spend. I know that's what they keep trying to sell exec teams on, but any decent coder can say "yeah i'll throw the AI at it for a week, make it vomit out how it did the automation, document, review, and then we don't need it again"
Personally:
It's been interesting. The rough product i'm looking for is:- Domain Driven functional design with as much "if it compiles it runs" guarantee as you can get.
- Clean lines between domain/game logic and render. So in the test i'm doing I have it outputting to a Console, a rich console (specter library) and a web front end.
- SIMPLE web that keeps it in F#, so in this case Falco.Datastar. I have some HTML, i have some F#, and that's mostly it. No .js files, and the rare js is in a string being passed to an expression.
- Robust logging/testing.
I picked this project because it's something I want to kick the tires on, and (as far as I can tell), no one else seems to be doing. I don't think this is some product i'm going to sell, so much as "i'm curious if there's not a lot of obvious training data how well will the AI will handle this?" with a side of "and if this works I think its the prototype library I've always wanted and can use it for the things I want to test rather than mocking up someone else's work".
I will say it's been impressive. As others have mentioned it does feel like running a decent dev/team sometimes, even if there's LOTS i'd still say it's weird about (obvious misses, zillions of comments, etc). I'm very much testing "what happens if i refuse to write code myself" right now as I know that's how people are adopting it, and lets just say I understand why I'm getting so many bugs from offshore dev's (i don't run any but I deal with vendor teams). Knowing/being able to request "hey build this logging/testing/simulation feature" is important and without it it'll happily pass all its tests and tell you things are working that aren't.
Still not sure how much of the $200 i'm using here, and I again feel like if i'm productive this month, I'll probably not need it for the next year.
Oh and on that note, if you're ever feeling like you aren't coding when you should be, just set aside $200 which you promise to give to the least financially literate person you know if you don't hit your personal goals. Sure does light a fire under your ass.
In general:
The current structure of AI brings to mind a weird (fake) example of search boxes.In my life, searching a pile of documents has gone from "you really need to know what you're doing and it's still hit or miss, especially if you're not sure of the verbage in source data" to "yeah everything is a built in fuzzy find that shows all possible results and is trivial tweak and only gets better if you know some basics, and gets REALLLY good if you know your regex".
So with that in mind, my view of AI is that say we were still living in "shitty search box" times, and someone had figured out "awesome search box"....except unlike the modern version where it's just local to the project, EVERY searchbox is REQUIRED to route through google's server farm, even when you're checking a 12 page pdf.
I really think the future of this tech is a lot closer to "everything gets a local and specifically trained clippy", not "every copilot/claude/gemini endpoint answers any question you can think of". I used copilot in Excel for a quick "I know this is possible in formulas and I hate doing it" moment and that's fine, but I can also ask it for a flaky crust chicken pot pie recipe. WHY?!
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Comment on Help selecting a mechanical keyboard in ~comp
Eji1700 Link ParentYeah I was so happy when I found them. I got into the hobby around the Ducky 2 I think, and it at least felt like around that time I was constantly hunting and hoping. Things out of stock, things...Yeah I was so happy when I found them. I got into the hobby around the Ducky 2 I think, and it at least felt like around that time I was constantly hunting and hoping. Things out of stock, things missing features, lots of hurdles.
Keychron is just....solid. If you REALLY get into things there's all sorts of stuff you can do, and my favorite board is still a mercutio 40 I built, but when the wife got a new computer I just grabbed a keychron. When our main machine became my media center and I needed something that would work wirelessly...i grabbed a keychron.
It's so nice to know there's something out there where I can just get something that works with no fuss/research/worry. I can still dive into my split ergo 40's and what not (and i do hope we eventually get more consistency there too one day) but it's really made recommending the hobby/upgrade to people a lot easier.
Knowing it's likely to work + a few minutes showing the basics of VIA is a much easier sell than "okay so you first have to find something you can even buy, then you might need to build it or pay for it to be built...it'll be expensive, then i'm going to explain how to compile qmk..yes you start by cloning the ENTIRE repo...."
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Comment on UBlock Origin got turned off with my most recent Brave browser update. Any alternatives? in ~tech
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Comment on What are your favourite anime and/or manga? in ~anime
Eji1700 LinkAll over the map from "literal must see" to "best in class/forgivable failures". Sure I'm forgetting many but off the top of my head: Psycho Pass HxH Chainsaw Man Cowboy Bebop Trigun (original)...All over the map from "literal must see" to "best in class/forgivable failures". Sure I'm forgetting many but off the top of my head:
- Psycho Pass
- HxH
- Chainsaw Man
- Cowboy Bebop
- Trigun (original)
- Patlabor 1 and 2 (films)
- Damn near anything ghilbi. Monoke, Totoro, Castle in the Sky near my personal top.
- Berserk
- World Trigger
- Gurren Lagan
- FMA Brotherhood
- Fate Zero/Bladeworks/maaaaaybe Fake (we'll see)
- Witch Hat Atelier
- Frieren
- Daemons of the Shadow Realm (so far)
- Code Geass (The wheels have fallen off so it's time to STEER INTO THE CRASH)
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Ahhh yeah. Made in Abyss as you mentioned. That's it's own discussion of course.
Oh yeah I know i'm handwaving a ton with that previous statement, and I do agree it is fascinating. However I think the real test of China is going to be, like basically any gov, the transition of power.
There's been some interesting political purging going on for the last 5 or so years in China, and it's hard as an outsider (or really anyone not in those rooms) to know exactly why. Either way though, one day, Xi will not lead. Maybe it's Xi's vision holding it all together, maybe he's the one keeping it from improving. Likely some awkward mix of both.
What happens when he steps down (or more likely, dies), is the big question though. A tyrant you agree with can get a lot done, but you tend to replace them with another tyrant, who might be less agreeable.