• 4 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • An article about where - statistically - USAID funds were going in financial year 2023.

    https://www.statista.com/chart/17610/countries-receiving-us-foreign-aid/

    The biggest receiver of USAID in 2023 was Ukraine, where war is ongoing and very intense. All the top aid-receiving areas were either affected by war, or countries next to war zones where refugees are being accommodated by the million (e.g. Jordan accommodates lots of refugees from the Syrian civil war).

    In short - yes. People will suffer. Preventable deaths will occur in considerable numbers. A small number may even occur in Ukraine (example: kids who miss vaccination and catch some illness) despite its considerably greater medical capability and having other sources of assistance. But most of preventable deaths will occur in remote land-locked places with limited connections and limited local capability - imagine for example South Sudan.


  • A right-wing MAGA influencer called the “direct file” tax program a "far left /…/

    Here in Estonia, the castle of “far left” in Europe (shh, don’t spoil the joke, comrades, we want them to think we’re dark red here ;) )…

    …for something like 15 years already, you file your taxes like this:

    • some day in February, your internet bank reminds you to send a report to the tax office
    • you click “send”
    • some day in February, you read in a newspaper that “you can file your taxes now”
    • you open up emta.ee, log in with your ID card, and see a pre-filled declaration
    • if you’re lucky (99% are), it’s been filled correctly and you click “confirm”, otherwise you click “edit”
    • you get to see if you have returns or need to pay extra
    • if you have returns, you can choose if you want the money (typically if it’s big, you do) or want to donate the small change to a non-profit

    It typically takes about 15 minutes.

    If it’s a bad year and the automatically filled declaration was incorrect, things will differ of course - then you wait until next winter for a court to resolve the dispute. If you can write a complaint in legalese, it costs about 20 €, but if you need a lawyer, you shell out real money. I’ve had a bad year once. Most people never have one.


  • To get the answer to that question, we need to read the Ukrainian constitution, not listen to any administration’s diplomats.

    My limited understanding:

    • in a “situation of war”, elections are suspended
    • a ceasefire may be grounds for ending the situation of war
    • the situation of war is ended by a vote of the Rada (parliament)
    • quite obviously, that’s done if a ceasefire holds and Russia seems to have followed through with promises

    Speculation is a bit fruitless when no agreement has been reached, nothing has been done, and nobody knows if a hypothetical agreement would be respected or not.




  • Maybe I’m misreading because one poster above deleted their comment, but I can’t understand: how exactly has TSMC shown “disrespect”? Or was the poster showing disrespect?

    Putting corporations aside and speaking of states: the US and Taiwan have respectful and friendly relations. They depend on each other.

    Now, a tariff of 25-100% on a partner’s primary export and one’s own vitally important import is more like putting a shotgun to one’s leg out of spite. It would be hurting oneself and hurting the other side - and not a little bit.

    The US is a store that Taiwan frequently shops in - a very big defense equipment store, I should say. Some of the toys cost money, but if you buy enough, you get kickbacks - the US gives Taiwan some security assistance for free. It also says it will assist Taiwan if anyone (we can imagine who that might be) attacks it.

    Meanwhile, Taiwan is a store the world frequently shops in - a very big microprocessor, memory and microcontroller store. Frequent customers can tell TSMC “it would be nice if you brought some of your business here, we have a vacant spot suitable for your plans”. And it works: one factory will be built in the US, one factory in the EU. Maybe elsewhere too. Getting that to happen didn’t need Trump or insane levels of customs tariffs.

    To achieve that, people just negotiated like normal people do. TMSC know they operate in a country prone to violent earthquakes and close to an agressive neighbour, they are quite OK with placing some of their business abroad.








  • perestroika@lemm.eetoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldMmm kale
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    13 days ago

    I came here to say that, but you got here first, so have my upvote. :)

    Recipe:

    • bucket of kale leaves, shredded by hand, rinsed
    • half a lemon’s juice
    • some teaspoons of salt
    • several tablespoons of deactivated / roasted / nutritional yeast
    • some teaspoons of your favourite spices (garlic / onion / paprica / tumeric / anything goes)

    To be mixed in a huge bowl and laid out into 2 food dryers. Sorry, I don’t have exact quantities, I always use both of my food driers. I run them at +70 C.






  • Regarding e-mail: “riseup.net” requires that a long-time user vouch for a new user and invite them. If the new user quickly turns into a complaint magnet (there’s a coming-of-age period after which their actions are considered their own), both the user and the inviter will be held responsible (kicked off the service). I think (hope) they aren’t so strict with VPN, but they have limited people and could not administer a mess made by a big bunch of people.

    Needless to say, none of my (anarchist) comrades have ever been kicked off RiseUp, but they don’t send spam or threats, they just send their cat pictures encrypted with GPG, causing the authorities endless work. :)

    Just like every reasonable service, RiseUp has a few technical mechanisms to ensure they aren’t compromised (disk and inbox encryption, etc) but obviously those can’t help against a dedicated and well-resourced adversary.

    So, whatever e-mail server you use - use PGP / GPG. :) Then the adversary must compromise your device. If you are hardcore, encrypt and sign on an offline device. Then the adversary must breach the air gap.

    (I used to sign releases for some anonymity-related project years ago. Those were the times when I seriously took measures because others depended on me. Currently, not so much.)

    P.S. As for the lack of resources at RiseUp: this can be alleviated by donating to them. Which reminds me, I should set up a small regular donation to their representative organization in the EU.