Whataboutism is typically also an admission of guilt. When the CCP normally use it, they aren’t disagreeing with the accusation, they are justifying their actions.

In this case ByteDance specifically denies the allegations. It doesn’t mean whataboutism can’t be used without a ‘even if’, but the user you are responding to is admitting TikTok is doing things TikTok says they aren’t doing. Doesn’t mean they are a representative of TikTok or the CCP, but definitely not helping their cause.

You listed python.

If you are open to Python, I would recommend: https://textual.textualize.io/

Edit: for clarity, the above is if you want nice TUIs (text gui in terminal). If you want actual windowed applications not in terminal, in regards to Python, I would just say use tkinter.

Here's a list of projects known to use Textual: https://github.com/Textualize/transcendent-textual

There are a lot of cool projects I would suggest browsing to see what it can do, but the following pages have screenshots that do a good job of showing what it's capable of:

https://github.com/ChrisBuilds/moneyterm

https://github.com/bluematt/textual-musicplayer

https://github.com/eliasdorneles/usolitaire (I'd love to see someone do minesweeper for terminal)

Extra: while meant for terminal usage, you can use the mouse to interact, can run programs from ssh sessions, and I believe they’ve added the ability to take your TUI into web browsers.

…. Oh, also not restricted to Linux. It does generally work with Mac and windows (would recommend using windows terminal from windows store, it makes things look right, whereas command prompt does not display correctly.

Yeah, I don't know what his family is doing. He should be under a conservatorship. He is in Florida, if one of his family members doesn't do it, maybe a Florida judge should designate Ron DeSantis or one of his cronies as Trump's conservator /s

Seriously, conservatorship is a major problem in Florida: https://cbs12.com/news/cbs12-news-i-team/florida-lawyer-guardianship-brian-oconnell-catholic-charities-palm-beach-county-center-for-estate-administration-reform-11-3-2023. It's basically the thing Brittany Spears was in.

Anyone can make a complaint and ruin a life in Florida I believe. It won't happen to Trump, because the attorneys and judges would be too scared to take Trump on, but in theory they could do it.

That is clearly whataboutism.

It's not a story about the USA, and there are other countries affected, including all of Europe, some middle eastern countries, and most of Asia (and many countries that do not have an adversarial relationship with China, such as lendees of the BRI).

You're free to criticize the USA. US News outlets are also free to do so, and do it all the time; they also don't, or may honor or not honor a request from the white house to publish or hold back a story. They are publishers and allowed to do that (NPR included).

This story is specifically about an accusation of the Chinese government influencing articles seen (not moderation of ToS breaking, or illegal content) on the U.S. version of TikTok.

NCRI said in its report that “our findings, which, while not definitive proof of state orchestration, present compelling and strong circumstantial evidence of TikTok’s covert content manipulation.”

TikTok has repeatedly said the Chinese government has no influence over its U.S. app, and proving otherwise would be difficult — something that the Department of Justice has acknowledged in discussions over a law that could ban the app.

Meta is another story; they are free to moderate/censor content, but if they start curating content, and not letting an algorithm decide what to show users based on their behavior, then that is another story. It is still legal for them to do, but they may also be determined to be responsible as a publisher.

If Meta advertised themselves to users as a curation of 'conservative news', or 'US propaganda', and that's what their users are signing up for, then that is fine. They advertise themselves as social media, with what people see being based on user behavior and posted content. If Meta was US Government owned, or funded, then they are welcome to do that in other nations as well, as long as they follow that nation's laws regarding the matter, otherwise foreign governments are welcome to act on it in their nation has appropriate. (Meta is not US government owned, they actually have quite a few legal battles and inquiries by the US government, and are a self-interested greedy corporation).

The same applies of TikTok. If they advertised themselves as a Chinese propaganda source and registered as a foreign agent (as is necessary when a foreign government has content control of the medium in question in the US for political purposes), then that would be fine; they explicitly denied that though, and push the value of their algorithm, and that they are social media.

The US famously does have foreign state funding TV networks, and US Citizens are allowed to watch it if they so choose, just that they need to register as such:

The Justice Department announced the registration just hours after RT’s chief editor said the company had complied with the U.S. demand that it register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The move doesn’t restrict the channel’s content, but the network is required to publicly disclose details about its funding and operations as well as mark certain content distributed in the U.S. with labels.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/69e84148c8a44512bdc648b1bcac4f34

China has also had such TV Networks in the US since the 1990s.

Phages are pretty cool, but bacteria do develop phage resistance as well. Phages also can evolve to evade those resistances, in a co-evolutionary battle, but also Phages can still be seen as antigens to our own body.

A recent case-study: https://www.upmc.com/media/news/021424-phage-therapy

To avoid reading the whole article: Antibiotics no-longer worked for a patient in 2020 that developed an infection after needing immunosuppression for treatment of an autoimmune condition, so they tried phage therapy.

quote from the phage treatment section:

Within 24 hours of receiving phage therapy, the patient’s blood infection had resolved and she could go home, where she continued the phage and antibiotic combination. She developed a few short-lived breakthrough infections, which indicated the bacteria was getting around the therapy, so the researchers found an additional phage that targeted her bacteria.

With the addition of the new phage, the patient was blood infection-free for four months and able to travel out of state for a for a family beach vacation.

However, just over six months after starting phage therapy, the blood infection returned, and the phage-antibiotic combination was thought to be no longer effective. The patient died in 2022.

In order to learn why the infections recurred despite the combination being previously effective, laboratory testing revealed that the patient’s immune system had likely activated in a way that blocked the phages from attacking the bacteria.

I'm not disagreeing with the benefits of Phage Therapy, just that it isn't likely a magic solution all on it's own, and can still suffer similar resistance issues as antibiotics have. I'm a fan of multipronged attack vectors, to reduce the chance of developing progressive resistances (ie. wipe out the whole colony), and the more tools we have for that, the better.

Caused me to look back: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States

Before Trump every Supreme Court Justice was approved by over 60% of the senate (except Alito and Thomas). After Trump took office, most are close almost 50/50's. None of them manage to reach 60% anymore. Goes to show how controversial Alito and Thomas were BEFORE things became hyper partisan.

It's more a joke. At this point ISPs really should be designated a telecom.

But, if Chevron Deference is the reason it's on hold, that's not likely to change until either the legislature passes something to say otherwise, or the supreme court swings the other way/toward normalcy. Which, if Harris wins this election and next election, there is a reasonable chance at. Other than their bitterness, some of the oldest and worst on the supreme court are just hanging on until a conservative takes the executive branch again.

Edit: good reason to get out and vote. Not just ensure Trump doesn't win, but also need the Senate to approve supreme court replacements. Otherwise conservatives will just hold up nominations for 4-8 years until they can nominate someone like Alito or Thomas.

Edit Edit: Additional plea to get out and vote for Senators: even if Trump does win, if conservatives don't hold the senate, he can't put another Alito or Thomas on the court. I don't think dems have the backbone to indefinitely block an appointment, but they would approve someone more moderate probably, that can be pursueded on matters such as net neutrality, abortion.

The courts blocked that rule already I think. net neutrality is on hold indefinitely.

I believe I saw a story about a Russia state media person proposing using tactical nukes on their own territory. I don't think they actually would, but Russia may... Let the enemy group up in your own territory, and nuke it... other than humanitarian concerns for their own citizens, other countries ability to complain would be dulled if they were nuking their own internationally recognized territory.

Honestly, probably a great tactic to act as a deterrent in future wars (such as with the US).

I've caved by the end of this message... no sane person would, but I wouldn't call Russia's current government sane.

Good distinction. In my younger days when Anime choices were slimmer, I enjoyed Sailor Moon, and Nanoha. Nowadays, I can't remember the last time I watched a transforming Magical Girl anime, I much prefer the later. Fantasy settings, magic, Isekai (...which are abundant nowadays....bordering on too abundant, but I don't get tired of them because magic).

Edit: BTW, not a knock on Nahoha. As I recall, great series, though only gave it a once through. ... Now that I'm thinking about Magical Girl anime, also remember Figure 17 I think it was called... still have music from it's OST on my playlist; had some good battle music, and calming/relaxing music.

Careful /s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CMuLWzL2iY

For those that don't want to click YouTube: It's just Trump's classic rant:

"I'm going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. We're going to open up those libel laws. So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they're totally protected"

I know little about Russia, but a quote from earlier this year from a Russian:

Boris Vishnevsky, a member of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, responded to Beglov's remarks, saying in a Telegram post that "a quarter of Russians do not have centralized sewerage," citing data from Rosstat, Russia's state statistics service.

"And basically, it is hard to imagine something more gender-neutral than a backyard 'latrine'-style toilet," he added.

For context: In response to criticizing gender neutral toilets in Ukraine (I don't know if they mean individual/private unisex bathrooms, or actual group restrooms they think are trans bathrooms, it's not the point of this discussion anyways).

All I want to know is:

1. Can I watch Twitch streams on it?
2. Does it have a built in browser, I can watch videos from non-app services on?

I've been using roku for what feels like 15 to 20 years. I'm finally ready to buy an Apple TV just to be able to watch Twitch on it. If Google TV Streamer either has an official Twitch app, or can install normal android apps, like the Twitch app from the play store, and has a web browser that can play videos from standard websites, I am sold.

If someone has, or buys a streamer, please let me know with a reply.

knowing anything about women’s health because it’s “yucky”

Can we just rename Tampons for them, to "Jesus Sticks", and when they have to have an uncomfortable conversation, they can just pull one out and say "You need Jesus"? Or when asking someone for one, someone can proudly proclaim "I need Jesus" to their friends.

I've gotten the seriousness out in other comments; I just had the thought, and had to share it somehow, somewhere.

They've done a good job making menstruation 'yucky'; the majority of women I know have at some point apologized to me after periods come up in group or private conversations. It's just a period, nothing to be ashamed of.

I've seen the news story since, but my first thought when I heard about it yesterday from someone was 'what is with conservatives weird obsession with little girls'.

Now I know they are freaking out about the law being for all bathrooms, not just girls bathrooms. Trans panic aside, I can easily see a girl telling her boyfriend "the bathroom is out of tampons/pads, can you get me one from the boys bathroom?".

For others, I set up uBlock at minimum.

For myself uBlock + uMatrix.

If on a computer need more security uBlock + uMatrix + NoScript.

uBlock and uMatrix can block scripts, but I find NoScript's fine grain control to be user friendly. Makes it a pain to browse the web though, until you setup each of your normal sites.

Glad to hear it. I wasn't super particular, but I wanted someone with a military background as her VP.

I specifically found their lifetime plan reasonable to park a more professional sounding email address long-term to attach to resumes and the like, but not enough storage on that plan as my primary email.

I honestly don't have much experience with it, I just set it up to have to use with my domains, without having to pay a monthly fee.

Unfortunately, I have no input on their other plans

I didn't know about the tuta IMAP thing. Makes sense, unless they open it up for development from third party providers, but that is unlikely to ever happen. I can definitely see that as being a deal-breaker, and why I'll probably stick with fastmail

I only learned about quarantine the other day. Specifically I think it was me sending short messages that make sense when emailing yourself, like a photo with no body text, or just "test".

Going through there, found my Gmail, my personal domain, and my @fastmail domain all going there until I approved one of them.

I had my personal domain on a lifetime mxroute account before this, but wasn't using it. Made the move to fastmail to seriously move away from Google. I have my purchase ebooks backed up there, and they could close my account someday because of it, even if it's a personal backup of purchased items and not sharing with others.

Also making a wasabi account and using rclone to sync my library, so can move away on that front too. though Wasabi has a perfectly usable web interface. i have my reasons for choosing them over backblaze.