What is !steamdeck@lemmy.world doing over with the red dots 🤔

I read that and was prepared to have my mind blown. Not really impressed, though. That article says this:

And you can literally say anything about North Korea, the most absurd thing you could imagine, and people would believe it.

That links to this article, which says:

The country has been in the news of late, as ongoing negotiations between the Trump and Kim Jong-un administrations appear to have soured. The chief casualty of this diplomatic failure, the New York Times (5/31/19) breathlessly reported, was Kim Jong-un’s negotiating team, with the vice chair of the North Korean Workers’ Party, Kim Yong-chol, being sent to a forced labor camp in “the latest example of how a senior North Korean official’s political fortune is made or broken at the whims of Kim Jong-un.”

The linked NYT article says this:

Now, he has suddenly become the latest example of how a senior North Korean official’s political fortune is made or broken at the whims of Kim Jong-un. This week, leading South Korean newspapers reported Kim Yong-chol’s fall from grace. One of them, the conservative daily Chosun Ilbo, went so far as to report that Mr. Kim had been banished to forced labor, with many of his negotiating team members either executed or sent to prison camps.

South Korean officials and analysts cautioned that it was too early to say with precision what was happening inside Kim Jong-un’s opaque regime. South Korean news media offered differing conjectures, including whether Kim Hyok-chol, the North’s special nuclear envoy to the United States, had been executed by firing squad in March, as the Chosun Ilbo reported, or was still under interrogation.

But they all agree on one thing: Kim Yong-chol and his negotiating team, which had driven Kim Jong-un’s diplomatic outreach toward Washington, have been sidelined, as the North Korean leader sought a scapegoat to blame for his disastrous second summit meeting with Mr. Trump, held in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February.

That seems pretty reasonable? It says that the official has found disfavor, says what one other paper reported with language of “went so far as to report”, and also notes that it’s hard to say for sure because North Korea is very opaque.

The FAIR article then says:

There was one problem: Kim Yong-chol appeared only a few days later at a high profile art performance alongside Kim Jong-un.

Yeah, that’s hard evidence he wasn’t executed, but that’s about it. Situations like this can change on a whim in a dictatorship. Maybe Kim Jong-un had a good breakfast and decided that the official’s forced labor could be done.

FAIR also says this in that article:

North Korea is also a favorite location for wacky and easily disprovable stories. The BBC (3/28/14) originally reported that all men were required to wear their hair like Kim Jong-un, with other haircuts banned.

The BBC article has a correction that it’s university students and not all men (which is missing from the FAIR article), so is that true? And it’s weird to say that stuff like that is wacky when stuff like this apparently happens:

A second, and unprecedented, TV series this winter showed hidden-camera style video of “long-haired” men in various locations throughout Pyongyang.

In a break with North Korean TV’s usual approach, the programme gave their names and addresses, and challenged the fashion victims directly over their appearance.

That looks legit, with footage on youtube. Is there any reason to think that’s fake? That certainly confirms my mental model of North Korea as a wacky dictatorship if it’s true.

EDIT: FAIR’s other statements in that article are dunking on the worst possible interpretations of what people say, which just makes FAIR seem like it has a chip on its shoulder about North Korea for some reason. I’d take what they say about North Korea with a grain of salt.

we believe revolution is the solution

Yes, that’s the issue.

smug liberal enlightened centrist argument

That’s on you for assuming that just because you don’t like an argument it must be those smug libs.

tankies of being bootlickers and what not: we

I didn’t call you a tankie, you self-identified as one

Do I see smug pricks like yourself going around calling his ass a cultist? No!

I call out silliness when I see it, but most lib stuff that I come across is of the bland, inoffensive variety. I haven’t been checking this entire thread for everyone that’s wrong, I’ve spent enough time on this already.

The easiness of the solution isn’t how much work is involved. By “neat and easy” I mean, “The root of all evil is capitalism and we solve that with revolution”.

Black and white thinking pops up again. Why do you think I think socialist states are evil? Why do you think I think everything America does is reasonable?

It’s another cult-like behavior that is rampant with tankies. “This person thinks this, so I will assign these other views to them as well, so that I may dunk on them”.

So here’s the thing. Hexbear has some smart people on it. @PugJesus@lemmy.world wrote a good comment over here that talks about how it’s good that they can see injustices in the world and get pissed off: https://lemmy.world/comment/12220633

But cults suck in smart people, and they’re very skilled at this. They feed off of righteous anger at the state of the world, and promise neat, easy solutions. And the issue is that you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into, especially people that suffer from black and white thinking. You can’t talk about how the world doesn’t neatly fit into tidy categories, because that’s not as comforting as what the cult offers. The only thing you can really do is reinforce that they’ve fallen into a broken system of thinking, and encourage them to want to reason themselves out of their current position. Once that desire is there, they’ll accomplish it all on their own.

The term is “dialectic”. Are you sure you are familiar with the topic you are being condescending about?

This is a great example of the hyperfocus on irrelevant details that plagues these comments. It was intentional, but even if it wasn’t, so what? “Your argument has a typo, therefore you’re dunked!”?

You’re meant to ask why.

The issue is that the comment is pablum. It doesn’t actual say anything, it’s not informative. It’s hoping you’ll infer something yourself and then waste time assuming what they meant. As mentioned in a previous comment, I realize that one of the things it’s trying to get you to infer is that decadent western media is bad or whatever, but it’s not limited to that. Arguing that there’s only one thing it’s trying to communicate is a great example of the black and white thinking that plagues tankies.

“You’re meant to ask why” is so embarrassingly vapid that I’m surprised you’re defending it. Of course people will focus on big issues like “let’s try to make sure this country continues to exist” over “let’s try to help this country improve itself”. There will hopefully be time for more of that later after Putin’s invasion fails. I mean come on, this is pretty basic stuff. Do you think I’d be arguing in good faith if I said “Yeah, what’s happening in Palestine is bad, but have you seen their LGBTQ record”? It’s also again, not saying something, it’s just JAQing off.

Right so some sarcastic little jokes. The kind of thing all over Lemmy.

I was told there’d be informative comments with sources. There were not. The vast majority of the comments didn’t even try to be substantive, just pigs wallowing in mud.

A sentiment found nowhere in the statement you quoted

I elided some of the comment that makes it more clear:

After getting teased and given the run around for decades he slowly wised up to the game. Putin realized by 2014 they wouldn’t let him be a European but until late 2023 he still didn’t understand that the west could never be trusted.

This is imperialist sympathizing, and the OP should feel ashamed. “Putin just had to invade Ukraine because of those other meanie imperialists that didn’t want him in their club!”

Also “crypto fascists who run NATO will never forgive the Slavic peoples for destroying the third reich” is just straight facepalm material.

The majority of responses are of this ilk:

WHAT ABOUT ISM MUCH!!!111?!?1;1!?;1!1?1!1!11?1?1?!1!1?1?1?1!1!!1!1!1?1?1??1!1!1!11!?1?1!1?1?1

<custom ukraine flag emoji> had no business being nazi fucks murdering their own people and working for <custom us flag emoji> to provoke Russia

Obomba had no business overthrowing the democratically elected Viktor Yakunovich

They’re not detailed, sourced, or coherent, they’re just bandwagoning. They’re pigs wallowing in the mud, enjoying getting others muddy.

One response has images like this and links to news articles:

It is sourced, I’ll give you that. It doesn’t try to actually make any argument though, it’s just hoping you’ll see the headlines that think “ukraine == nazis”, without stating that outright. It’s oddly similar to Young Earth Creationists.

Here’s another response that’s the sort of thing you write when you first learn “omg capitalism is bad you guys!” and view all of the world’s ills through that lens. much dialect wow:

Anyone who had a look at Lenin’s “Imperialism: highest stage of capitalism” and took it seriously, knew that there would be war in Europe as soon as they realized that the means of production of the former USSR were auctioned in a corrupt fashion, and their structure of ownership went not to western hands, but to national interests that collide with those of the US. Since that moment, it was just a matter of time that there would be conflict.

Poor oppressed Putin!

Putin tried really had to be taken into the fold imperialism. He assisted the west in its looting of Russia. He tried to join NATO but the crypto fascists who run NATO will never forgive the Slavic peoples for destroying the third reich

I’ve waded through the responses now to make sure I’m not missing something worthwhile, and it was a waste of my time. The one thing of value any of these responses has is hopefully one day making the posters feel self cringe when they’ve matured.

“Ukraine isn’t a utopia, therefore it’s a dystopia”.

That collection of news headlines are trying to imply “Ukraine isn’t perfect, therefore Putin’s invasion is justified because Ukraine is full Nazi and also the western media is trying to cover it up!”. It’s an immature view of the world, where something being imperfect means it’s literally hitler. It’s something you get past as you grow up, for the most part. I know some adult tankies IRL so it’s not a given that people grow out of it, but each and every single one of them suffers from black and white thinking that negatively impacts their life in many ways.

Let’s agree that Putin wanting to bring back the USSR is silly. I’m not really defending OP, but calling the responses in that thread “detailed replies” is… oof. They’re detailed in the same way Time Cube is detailed. OP wandered into the pig sty and got muddy, but at least he’s not one of the pigs wallowing in the mud.

Those replies are terrible. The one with all the news headlines is peak hexbear. “Ukraine isn’t a utopia, therefore it’s a dystopia”. It’s a classic example of black and white thinking, while they conveniently ignore all of the Zwastikas on the side they’re cheering for.

Those aren’t good responses. The narrative of “poor Putin just had to invade Ukraine, don’t you see?” is bollocks.

Their weird insistence that anyone that doesn’t agree with them is a “lib” that needs “dunking on” is tiring. If you don’t show full-throated support for authoritarian regimes that they happen to like, then you clearly support Israel and genocide. They need to mature a bit, and realize that the world isn’t black and white, and it doesn’t neatly fall into convenient categories that can be nicely labelled.

It’s not just you. Like many people that get sucked into cults, you don’t want to directly engage with them. Just nicely encourage them to deprogram themselves, and focus on maturing and becoming an adult. They really don’t like get called out like that, based on my interactions with them.

https://www.supermegacomics.com/

There’s some good ones in there, and also a lot where the author was way too high

This is interesting, but the post is very inaccurate. The first picture is Portrait of a Moor by Jan Mostaert, and there’s no indication that it’s a portrait of Reasonable Blackman:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_an_African_Man

The second picture was drawn by a modern person, and isn’t even supposed to be Blackman, that’s what the artist thinks Edward Swarthye might’ve looked like:

https://www.historyextra.com/membership/black-faces-of-tudor-england/

All that aside, here’s what the book Black Tudors has to say about him:

A surname alone cannot confirm a person’s ethnicity. Although Reasonable’s surname would seem to indicate the colour of his skin, it is in fact an old English surname, derived from the Old English Blaec mann, as are ‘Black’, ‘Blackmore’, ‘Moor/More’ and ‘Morris’. It could also be spelt Blakeman, Blakman, Blackmon or Blackmun. A John Blakman was living in England in 1206 and the name was fairly common until the thirteenth century. By the Tudor period, the name was found in Eynsham, Oxfordshire, Fowey, Cornwall, and Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire. Henry VI had a chaplain named John Blacman, a fellow of Merton College, Oxford. A different John Blackeman was buried at Grey Friars Church, London, in July 1511. A third man of the same name was a benefactor of St John’s Hospital, Coventry. None of these men was African.

‘Blackman’ may have originated in reference to a dark complexion, but by the sixteenth century it cannot be assumed to signify African ethnicity. As William Camden noted in 1586, ‘surnames began to be taken up … in England about the time of the Conquest, or else a very little before’. Theoretically, a man called More in 1566 could have had a Moorish ancestor from five hundred years before, but it is a rather remote possibility. We cannot even assume that ‘Blackman’, or names like ‘Moor’ or ‘Niger’, were originally assigned to men of African origin. Wilfred Niger was nicknamed Niger or ‘the Black’ in around 1080, after he painted his face with charcoal to go unrecognised amongst his enemies at night. The names could also refer to dark hair (Black), or to someone who came from a place called Moore (in Cheshire), More (in Shropshire), Blackmore (Essex), Blackmoor (Hampshire, Somerset) or Blakemere (Herefordshire), or even to someone who lived on or near a moor. In Scotland, the surnames ‘Muir, Mure, Moor, Moore, More’ referred to ancient ‘residence beside a moor or heath’.

It is only because Reasonable Blackman was also described as ‘blackmor’ and ‘a blackmore’ that we know he was African. ‘Blackamoor’ or its variants was the most popular term Englishmen used to describe Africans, appearing in some 40% of references to individuals in the archives, and in literature from at least 1525.

Related

https://pbfcomics.com/comics/sisyphus-myth/

I liked the ascii art program. It had Betty Boop in there, which reminded me of this… thing (nsfw-ish):

https://mrboop.net/

I just had a POS machine recommend 20%, 25%, or 30% for percentages. It seems like it’s increasing

There’s at least one example you can look at, the Jenkins CI project had code like that (if (name.startsWith("windows 9")) {):

https://issues.jenkins.io/secure/attachment/18777/PlatformDetail

Microsoft, for all their faults, do (or at least did) take backwards compatibility very seriously, and the option of “just make devs fix it” would never fly. Here’s a story about how they added special code to Windows 95 to make SimCity’s broken code work on it:

Windows 95? No problem. Nice new 32 bit API, but it still ran old 16 bit software perfectly. Microsoft obsessed about this, spending a big chunk of change testing every old program they could find with Windows 95. Jon Ross, who wrote the original version of SimCity for Windows 3.x, told me that he accidentally left a bug in SimCity where he read memory that he had just freed. Yep. It worked fine on Windows 3.x, because the memory never went anywhere. Here’s the amazing part: On beta versions of Windows 95, SimCity wasn’t working in testing. Microsoft tracked down the bug and added specific code to Windows 95 that looks for SimCity. If it finds SimCity running, it runs the memory allocator in a special mode that doesn’t free memory right away. That’s the kind of obsession with backward compatibility that made people willing to upgrade to Windows 95.

In case anyone hasn’t seen it yet:

https://neal.fun/infinite-craft/

It’s pretty fun. Similar to OP, I was able to get all the way to crafting specific Mario Kart DS courses.

The collect’s in the middle aren’t necessary, neither is splitting by ": ". Here’s a simpler version

fn main() {
    let text = "seeds: 79 14 55 13\nwhatever";
    let seeds: Vec<_> = text
        .lines()
        .next()
        .unwrap()
        .split_whitespace()
        .skip(1)
        .map(|x| x.parse::().unwrap())
        .collect();
    println!("seeds: {:?}", seeds);
}

It is simpler to bang out a [int(num) for num in text.splitlines()[0].split(' ')[1:]] in Python, but that just shows the happy path with no error handling, and does a bunch of allocations that the Rust version doesn’t. You can also get slightly fancier in the Rust version by collecting into a Result for more succinct error handling if you’d like.

EDIT: Here’s also a version using anyhow for error handling, and the aforementioned Result collecting:

use anyhow::{anyhow, Result};

fn main() -> Result<()> {
    let text = "seeds: 79 14 55 13\nwhatever";
    let seeds: Vec = text
        .lines()
        .next()
        .ok_or(anyhow!("No first line!"))?
        .split_whitespace()
        .skip(1)
        .map(str::parse)
        .collect::>()?;
    println!("seeds: {:?}", seeds);
    Ok(())
}

I find it pretty amazing how someone figured out how to make cassava edible. It’s got enough cyanide to kill you unless it goes through some complex process of mashing and boiling. Who thought to themselves “this killed Greg, but maybe it’ll be delicious if I boil it for a little longer”?