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moistly

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HSBC exists because of Opium. It has always been the bank of the drug cartels.

HSBC was founded after the second of the Opium Wars, by which time the trade was already well established. The founders included several opium traders who recognised the profitable banking opportunities presented by the new market.

https://taxjustice.net/2015/02/27/hsbc-and-the-worlds-oldest...

They’ve been in the thick of it since forever, unrelentingly.

https://www.cadtm.org/HSBC-the-bank-with-a-shameful-past

https://unpublishedarticles.com/hsbc-hong-kong-shanghai-bank...

ChatGpT does not know anything. It vomits words that are statistically likely to convey meaning, but there is no guarantee that it is truthful: it is always a probability, not a certainty.

[dead] 3 years ago

Why would the school need anything more than, if so concerned about a student’s health, a doctor’s note? “This girl is healthy and can participate in whatever.”

A subculture is generally hidden from the mainstream culture. Few are those who display their BDSM subculture in obvious public fashion.

A counterculture is in the face of the mainstream culture, trying to change the cult. It is countering the mainstream. It is activist or, at the least, unabashed with the intention of normalization.

The Signal: You do not carry a Phone.

You definitely do not carry a smartphone. You might be excused a flip phone, if only because you’re not likely to b super-connected with it, but honestly that’s pushing it; even the most primitive cellphone has sms.

All. The. Frickin. Time.

iPad Pro, circa 9” model, vertical orientation. The prose text is very small. The grey name, time, “buttons” headers are very, very small. I suppose I could use custom css or increase the font size, but I have good eyesight and like the information density. It’s always a crapshoot as to whether I can hit the teeny tiny touch target.

Computational Philosophy: “the use of mechanized computational techniques to instantiate, extend, and amplify philosophical research. Computational philosophy is not philosophy of computers or computational techniques; it is rather philosophy using computers and computational techniques. The idea is simply to apply advances in computer technology and techniques to advance discovery, exploration and argument within any philosophical area.”

The word “simply” is doing a lot of work in that last sentence, I’m sure!

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computational-philosophy/

(BTW, I just posted same to front page, if the subject interests you & we’re lucky, it’ll generate some discussion)

The hype around this is bizarre and, IMO, inauthentic/inorganic.

Nobody in their right mind wants to go back to the bad old days when carrying an Apple product was an open invitation to being mugged; to when you couldn’t let you phone or laptop out of sight because it would be nicked in the blink of an eye; when losing your corporate phone or laptop was a major security disaster.

And besides which, AFAIK, Apple will gladly take back your device, disassemble it into its component parts, and recycle everything it can, as parts for repairs or melting down all the valuable metals.

I don’t think you see Samsung, Lenovo, Dell, or even Microsoft offering the same facility.

These previous discussions have links to papers and videos that are convincing. The sound reduction is astounding. The power graphs are impressive. The price of the boat propellers is gobsmacking… but if the efficiency claim holds true, will easily pay the upgrade, and the dolphins & whales will be ever thankful.

A trip to “Citizens of Walmart” (or whatever it’s called) provides a much more solid argument for dress standards. Pyjamas are pretty crass, but they don’t hold a candle to the vulgar, bizarre, and even pornographic stuff that you’ll see on that website.

Here are almost 13 million examples for you.

https://www.nrdc.org/resources/lead-pipes-are-widespread-and...

“Lead service lines—the pipes that carry water from the water main under the street to residences—have long been recognized as the primary contributor of lead in drinking water (we’ll call them lead pipes for simplicity’s sake). After conducting a survey of these lead pipes in the United States, NRDC estimates that there is a range of 9.7 million to 12.8 million pipes that are, or may be, lead, spread across all 50 states, including those that claim to have none.”

This affects some 22 million people.

Maintaining (let alone replacing) buried infrastructure is expensive and few people are in favour of paying higher taxes. Politicians get elected by claiming that government services are full of waste, then demand a ten percent reduction in the workforce. Goodbye water quality test protocols! Things have been proven good so far, so obviously it’s not needed! Oh, hey, this other water source is cheaper, let’s use it. Phosphate balance? Can’t test that, the water quality tester was fired.

And that is how you get lead poisoning in Flint.