The blackouts that had no impact on revenue and would totally blow over in a few days appear to not have blown over and are impacting revenue enough to warrant forcing them open.

Which is it fuck-u-spez?

I run my own file host: kimiga.aishitei.ru. Files get uploaded from clipboard using ShareX. This allows me to have control over my own files, how long they last or if they should last forever, and I'm not dependent on a benevolent developer preventing my links from rotting 8 years from now when they close down their host due to it costing them too much or simply because they got bored of being a sysadmin/dealing with issues (or users) of their site.

I used to donate to pomf.se and used that as the image host because I was a supporter of the sysadmin - but it eventually grew too large and had to shut down. Then a bunch of pomf.se clones popped up and I used one of those - can't remember which one but then that one shut down too after only a year. That's when I decided to set up my own host.

I don't allow other users on the site because I don't feel like having to deal with what users upload, DMCA requests, morally gray areas, etc.

.ru domains are sometimes blocked so my backup is catbox.moe

Drew DeVault wrote a blog post back in 2014 that kind of covers it. Imgur seems to have broke the cycle but that doesn't mean they haven't gone to shit. They've just somehow avoided collapsing underneath themselves as they continue the enshittification of Imgur.

I am fundamentally opposed to nearly all forms of advertising at an ideological level and go to great lengths to avoid it in as many of its insidious forms as possible. So that is where Drew and I differ. The only form of advertising I appreciate are extremely dry infomercials (no not the for-TV kind) and authentic word of mouth (not to be confused with "native" advertising or sponsors). Ads are a net negative on humanity and in too many ways to list but because the effects go through a layer of indirection - similar to how secondhand smoke is harmful for non-smokers. People are more OK with ads. It took making the public aware of secondhand smoke and the harm that smoking causes - even for non-smokers - before people took a privileged stance against smoking. That same level of awareness and condemnation will never happen with ads because people are OK with getting things "for free" that they otherwise would have to pay for. So they'll willingly turn a blind eye to the harmful effects of advertisements and "put up with them".

Fuck ads.

A year and change after that article the OHCHR finally published an assessment.

The report remains largely inconclusive of the issues of Uyghur women through involuntary procedures(d), targeted mistreatment and torture of the Uyghur people (b), and working to abolish both their language and religion which together would help constitute the argument that a genocide is taking place. However it did seem to draw conclusive evidence that mass violations of human rights were taking place.

• (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
• (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

I'd be more apologetic to this argument of "It isn't genocide - but only mass violations of human rights targeted at the Uyghur people!" if that was actually the defense being used by Tankies. But this isn't the defense Tankies use. They claim nothing bad is happening at all in the VETCs and that it is entirely Western propaganda and that no systemic violation of human rights is happening as a result of the State's policies. Which is in contradiction with the UN report in § VIII. Overall assessment and recommendations.

The nature of the violations certainly can follow under "pattern of conduct" and, as mentioned in the article, proving anything in court can be incredibly difficult. Especially when the actual laws and statements put out by The State are intentionally vague and open to interpretation (as the OHCHR report makes mention of). This means The State can openly deny that the policy was intended to be genocide while being complicit in it by turning a blind eye in how officials have implemented the policy.

And again - China would not even be the first country to utilize such a political strategy. Where a policy is ostensibly meant for one purpose but is predominately used for an entirely different purpose that The State is complicit in because the "other purpose" was always the intended purpose. See also: The US Patriot Act.

I've been playing Runescape since grade school. I'm approaching a bit shy of 25,000 hours played (a little under 3 years). As an AFK'able "second monitor game" a good half of that is just "I'm at my computer anyway" but the other half is actual investment/more active playing.

I don't bother playing a game if I'm not going to invest a significant amount of time into it. I aim for 100% completion or reaching the top 0.1% of players if there is a competitive ranking system. It's extremely rare for me to play a game that I don't dump a minimum of 500 hours into.

My play time is less now than it was when I was a teen but it's still skewed towards the higher end due to me being fortunate enough to work from home with a FIFO queue of work. If my work is done - I can game during work hours if I want to. As long as I keep close tabs on my queue and handle anything as it comes in. This gives me 8~ hours of potential game time that I otherwise wouldn't have. Since I need to be near my computer in case any work comes in - I'm pretty limited with activities I can do. I can lift some weights, browse the internet, cook a quick meal, or play video games. But I can't really leave the house, go swim in the pool, etc.

I actually agree. Nobody explains DNS to people trying to understand how mail works. They don't need to understand MX records, SPF records, DMARC, DKIM, or anything. All they need to know is sign up and how to use the To: field to start sending emails. Hell - you don't even need to and probably don't want to explain the purpose of the CC or BCC fields at this point either.

If a user is trying to actually understand the underlying technology then the email analogy can be a first introduction. But if someone is technical enough to be trying to learn it's better to just teach them about ActivityPub.