Things are so tiny nowadays, you could probably cram a tiny processor w/ ram, and 5g modem into something the size of one of those cylindrical capacitors. Of course getting by the scrutiny of US engineers receiving a product with that would be a little harder.

DA Bears!

What is this place? How do I get back to my AOL?

Its really sad because rural America is a beautiful place where you can still find tight knit community, find ways to be self sufficient to work on your own land. But I’m not white and worry about running into the wrong crowd…

Yep! There’s a surplus of educated women, who are too educated / accomplished in their careers to want to marry uneducated rural men. And many of them also deferred marriage for their education and career and thus became a bit too old to bear children. All of this just exacerbates the male to female ratio problem in China, which is also a huge problem for China’s demographics.

China is going to shrink in population, Japan, Korea, Taiwan also have these problems.

Pretty amazing that Iguazu Falls and Victoria Falls ended up in roughly the same place!

I’ve always thought that trying to address DEI from the top-down is never the right way to do it. This include college admissions. All it actually does is promote unfairness and a non-meritocracy. It takes many years of training to learn the skills needed for certain jobs. Hiring someone because of their skin color instead of their qualifications can actually hurt the bottom line (and top line) and just leads to more resentment. And it also really cheapens and damages the reputation of the minorities who actually worked and earned their way to their spot. Had a super smart Nigerian friend who is a medical doctor who finished very high up in rankings in medical school. But because of DEI policies, people will always wonder if he got to his place because of “quotas”.

State university tuition in the 90’s was about $1500 a semester. I worked a summer job for $6.50/hr and was able to earn about $1000 (before taxes) in a month. I didn’t work for the rest of the summer because I still wanted a bit of a summer break :) But it is absolutely possible back then to work a little part time, then full time in the summer to pay for college. Then you can bootstrap yourself into a career.

Right now, jobs don’t really pay any much more, but tuition is 10X or more. Unless parents pitch in, Its impossible for young people to get higher education w/o going into massive debt. I say go into trades and self-employment, it may be a better option nowadays!

I’m Chinese and I am also extremely weary of hiring someone from China. Pretty scared of CCP spies TBH.

Damn, Modi can redeem himself by just doing it again, but this time, stick a dagger in Putin’s back!

Maybe the title of this post or the article needs to be updated if solitary confinement itself wasn’t the real issue, but rather that it was a transgender woman being transferred from a women’s prison to a men’s prison?

Removed by mod

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCRlgxoTsQs

Just came back from Tokyo. Tokyo’s public transportation is awesome. You do also need to walk a lot at times and the first few days our legs were quite sore. But towards the end of the trip I can feel my leg strength again, felt healthier, and did not miss my car at all. To go to certain places, you do have to plan a little bit ahead, for example, a day trip out to Mt. Fuji area requires booking tickets because right now there’s a ton of tourists. But within the city, the subways are so convenient.

The CCP doesn’t exist 400 years ago. The CCP is not China. That’s what they want you to think. It is really just a political faction that has taken the rest of the country hostage. For all I know the CCP members could be lizard people based on their inhumanity.

The ROC (originally KMT since it was also a one party state) has just as much rights to claim Taiwan as the CCP, and probably more, because they’ve actually ruled it.

China should just replicate Taiwan somewhere like they replicate Paris, Venice, etc. and call it a day.

I seriously doubt chips is the most important thing. Its more about Taiwan’s geographic location, being a part of the first island chain / line of defense. And just the fact that CCP has been claiming it for a while and don’t want to lose face (internally) by giving it up.

Also as a Taiwanese, fuck the scorched earth strategy. I rather the island be preserved for generations to come. The longest Chinese dynasty was Zhou Dynasty for ~800 years, but that was 1046 to 256 B.C.E., then Han Dynasty for ~400 years. It would totally suck ass and I rather not have that happen. But I believe the CCP will eventually come to pass anyway. None of us will be here if it was for 400 years, but I would hope Taiwan will still be around and just as beautiful and great in the far future. I’m hoping the CCP will disband yesterday.

Such a weird hill to die on for Apple. How much does it really cost to just add 8GB more RAM? $5?

Its good and bad. I’m conflicted about it, because I think everyone should pay a fair share of the property tax. The person that moved in 20 years ago and the person that moved in yesterday should shoulder the same amount of burden if their properties are equivalent.

But I also think its stupid that my property tax goes up just because some idiot decided to overpay for the house a few houses down the street.

I simply don’t like the idea that the property tax is tied directly to the appraised value of my house. It should really be tied to the size of the land that I am occupying and the total cost of running the city/county that I am in. If I build a fancy shed (insert any structure here) in my backyard, that shouldn’t really cause my taxes to go up even if it increases the value of my property. The only exception is if I change the dwelling type. If it goes from a single family home to a multifamily unit, then definitely the tax rate should be reevaluated, if it is using the infrastructure more.

“Chinese Nationalism” is not even what you think. Very few people would even want to be a part of PRC.

There’s no denial that Taiwan is a predominantly ethnically-Chinese nation. There used to be some prestige in being Chinese and “中華”. The PRC and the CCP and its goons and tools has been quickly eroding that on the world stage with embarrassing acts one after another. When the PRC was closed, all of that shit was enclosed and isolated from the rest of the world. It should have remained that way.

When “Chinese Nationalism” is being discussed in Taiwan, it is more about retaining the ethnic Chinese identity and culture. (In fact, Taiwan has done a way better job in preserving the real Chinese culture than the PRC.) It is definitely not about re-unification and definitely not re-unification under the PRC.

Not all politics in Taiwan is about national politics. Even though the DPP won the presidency several times, they have narrowly won the legislative seats and didn’t get the majority this round. That means there are definitely people who voted DPP for president and KMT for local seats. There are many reasons for that. Local politics come into play, economics is also an important issue (low wage jobs is an issue for young people), compulsory military service is definitely not popular, and also the KMT, being the incumbent (and only party) for decades prior, has a much strong political machinery and financial backing (all that old corrupt KMT money) than the DPP. Not to say there’s no corruption in DPP.

Personally I don’t understand how any benshenren would vote for the KMT, the party that has massacred and disappeared many of our older generation relatives. Maybe there are some politicians who joined KMT because the DPP side of the ticket was already occupied and they want to still try to run for the office. When my dad gets together with his brother, they still recount which neighbors on the street they used to live on has suffered a loss during those years. There’s a lot of silent suffering and sadness. The younger generations don’t even know because people were afraid to talk about it for a long time. Many has sacrificed to wrestle a free and democratic country out from the authoritarian KMT. For me and my family, we’re allergic to the KMT brand.