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Bulletins and News Discussion from June 24th to June 30th, 2024 - Waiting for War - COTW: Lebanon
  • Nukes are still lurking quietly in the background, of course, but the Resistance is perfectly aware of that and still seems confident to go ahead with operations, so I can't really do anything but shrug and say that I trust them to do what's right.

    In my more conspiracy-minded moments I wonder if there's a secret agreement among the counter-zionist groups and countries that the only sustained attacks against Israel come from geographic areas that it would be radioactive-fallout-suicide for Israel to nuke.

  • Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a vocal Israel critic and 'squad' member, loses primary
  • The zionists are high on their own supply of Six-Day War nostalgia. In 1967 the Israeli government wasn't fighting against forces with cheap high-precision ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones in mass quantities.

  • Imagine being stuck in orbit because Boeing isn't sure if their pod will kill you or not
  • The funny thing is that he kinda-sorta already has in "Apollo 13". The Apollo CSM was built by North American Aviation, later named North American Rockwell after a merger. They changed their name to Rockwell International in 1973, then sold their space division to Boeing in 1996.

    Rockwell also built the space shuttle. So Rockwell also has the dubious distinction of having built every American crew vehicle that killed its crew.

  • where to start with 3D printing?
  • A good starter printer is the Ender-3 V3 SE. It's reasonably fast and reliable for the price. It comes pre-assembled unlike some earlier Ender-3 models which are more DIY. I've had one for about 6 months and I'm very happy with it.

    In addition to a printer, you'll want good slicer software. It's hard to go wrong with Cura. It's free software under the LGPL v3, source code available here. It supports a ridiculous number of printers, and it incredibly customizable. It's also very fast. I regularly run it on a budget years-old laptop with onboard Intel graphics and 8GB RAM and it still works perfectly. A lot of the slicer software that comes direct from printer manufacturers is either some weird homegrown thing with poor performance and poor customization, or it's just Cura with proprietary bits on top. Ignore it all and go straight to original Cura.

    To get started in 3D modelling, get a free account at Tinkercad. It's a proprietary web thing from the bloodsuckers at Autodesk, but it's actually legitimately good. It's easy to export the right kind of file that Cura needs.

  • What are your most hated sci-fi/fantasy tropes?
  • Other lifeforms in the universe being basically humans with a bright shade of paint thrown on them.

    This is one of the reasons I love Farscape. Sure, there were lots of funny-paint funny-nose-ridges humanoids. And lots of Leatherclad Fascist Space Australians. But the production team genuinely tried to make alien-looking aliens right from the start despite their budget and technology limitations. And as their budget improved they seemed to put all the extra money right into the puppets and prosthetics.

    Of course Farscape did do the "a white human man is most important entity in the universe" thing. But I also forgive Farscape for that because John Crichton sure as hell didn't want any of that attention, he wasn't aiming to be a hero, he just wanted to fly under the radar and go home.

  • Boeing does it again.
  • There's actually an open question on that. China's Shenzhou spacecraft was heavily based on Soyuz. But there's never been clear communication from the CNSA that the Shenzhou uses a standard Soyuz-style APAS docking system or if they modified it. It may not even be possible to dock Shenzhou to the ISS at all.

    This lack of public information is pretty common unfortunately for those of us interested in spaceflight. It's not sinophobic to state that the CNSA is incredibly tight-lipped on specifications. They're very public with scientific research results relating to spaceflight, but almost never give the technical details on how they accomplish that research.

    My bet is on NASA making a change to the Crew-9 flight in august, either to add physical seats or only send two astronauts up instead of the planned four. Adding new seats is theoretically possible as the Crew Dragon structure was originally designed to accommodate 7. But it may require modifications that might not be possible to complete before the flight. I think it more likely that NASA only sends up two astronauts. NASA doesn't like emergency design changes.

    I will eat my hat before Bill Nelson would request a Soyuz from Russia. That is going to be his absolute last resort. Nelson is going to be under extreme pressure from the White House to make NASA's response a "made in the USA" solution.

  • Teamsters president will speak at the Republican National Convention
  • My attitude towards American presidential politics, being both a non-American who can't vote and as someone who sees both parties as capital's servants, is that the only value of an American presidential election is entertainment. I want to see an election play out like a good episode of Archer - just all kinds of crazy shit that makes people lose their minds and do even crazier shit. I want an election like a John Waters movie. I want an election like a Joseph Heller novel. I want an election that wallows in the depths of sleaze that would make Charles Bukowski say "hey, let's tone it down!" I want an election so lurid that it makes a Traci Lords biopic look like A Charlie Brown Christmas. I want an election so depraved that Kevin Spacey pops his head up to say in sincere horror "jesus christ, what the fuck?"

    And having the fucking Teamsters president doing a speech to Trump's base is definitely in that category. I totally approve.

  • Build-a-Bear After Dark

    Build-a-bear - yes the actual company and not a generic competitor - has a section for 18+ they call "After Dark".

    Now this is all actually pretty tame stuff. They don't sell little accessory dildos. But they have some interesting choices.

    Would you like your bear to have some exciting underwear?

    Or a cute little crop top expressing a specific inner feeling?

    Maybe your bear is a hot stylish mature bear.

    And of course to help everyone relax into the evening, you could provide martinis, or maybe something for special occassions.

    Also... I have questions.

    But at least we can all engage in that greatest of nerd arguments, weighing in on a debate of leader versus leader.

    12
    Education Dept. announces highest federal student loan interest rate in more than a decade

    The U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday the interest rates on federal student loans for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    The interest rate on federal direct undergraduate loans will be 6.53%. That’s the highest rate in at least a decade, according to higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz. The undergraduate rate for the 2023-2024 year is 5.5%.

    For graduate students, loans will come with an 8.08% interest rate, compared with the current 7.05%. Plus loans for graduate students and parents will have a 9.08% interest rate, an increase from 8.05% now. Both of those rates haven’t been as high in more than 20 years, Kantrowitz said.

    The rise in interest rates could complicate the Biden administration’s efforts to get the student loan crisis under control and relieve borrowers of the pain of interest accrual, experts say. Even as millions of people have benefited from recent debt relief measures, new students will be saddled with more expensive loans for decades to come.

    53
    I watched The People's Joker and decided to revive a dead meme format.

    Amazing movie, I highly recommend watching it if it comes to a theatre near you. It's worth the effort.

    0
    What would be a good baseball team name for a bunch of pansexuals/bisexuals?

    This actually has a real-world purpose. I'm going to get a custom baseball jersey made with the player name "KINSEY" and player number "03" to wear during pride events this coming june. I just need a good team name for it.

    12
    Fed up with high prices, people want to boycott Loblaws. But will it accomplish anything?

    Let's play "Guess which national Canadian news outlet posted this as their front page top story?"

    Post your guess before clicking the link! The answer may horrify you!

    7
    A question for professional actors, always been curious

    When you're watching a movie or TV show or stage play, and one of the actors is someone you know in real life, is it hard to keep a suspension of disbelief and just enjoy that movie or TV episode or play? Or are you always thinking in the back of your mind of times when you've socialized with them?

    4
    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)SO
    someone [comrade/them, they/them] @hexbear.net
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