Futurology Today

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/gaza-ceasefire-israel-hamas-war-live-updates-rcna187823

no time to celebrate though :( this just marks the beginning of the immense work of impossible healing and repair that must be done

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/steamdeck by /u/TheHawkMan0001 on 2025-01-17 02:03:21+00:00.

With U.S. president-elect Donald Trump's inauguration just days away, the federal government announced it is sending a slew of drones and two Black Hawk helicopters to the shared border to begin beefed-up patrols — along with 11th-hour hope it will be enough to placate the incoming administration.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/worldnews by /u/Deedogg11 on 2025-01-16 18:00:22+00:00.

https://subium.com/profile/kristinmreid.bsky.social/post/3lft5qteeac2n

Bio

PA Harris for President Digi Team

I had to google the quote. It's from "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin,

Up till now I've been using only OpenVPN connections.
Which can be integrated nicely in NetworkManager to connect + disconnect from them, through NetworkManager's UI.

However since recently I also need to use Netbird for some connections.

Is it possible to add Netbird as an entry in NetworkManager, for easy connection + disconnection?
If so, how would one go about setting that up?

Or is adding Netbird in NetworkManager not possible,
and is the Netbird CLI/GUI really the only option?

Edit:
It's not possible yet.
First Netbird needs to add Wireguard config support,
see: https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird/issues/2504

Good news, it was only Power Word Pain so. That was nice.

Summary

Special Counsel Jack Smith's report concluded that Donald Trump avoided prosecution for January 6-related charges due to his reelection.

The DOJ determined that prosecuting a sitting president violated constitutional protections, despite evidence strong enough to secure a conviction.

Smith noted that Trump's return to office directly halted legal action and criticized existing DOJ policies and judicial interpretations, which shielded presidents from accountability.

The report underscores how voters, by reinstating Trump, indirectly prevented his criminal prosecution for actions threatening democratic institutions.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18015158

Archived link

Chinese game 'Marvel' has been accused of censorship after players of its new video game were unable to chat about topics that are banned in China.

Marvel Rivals is a new release featuring battles between heroic characters such as Captain America and Iron Man and the villains Loki and Venom. The plot revolves around Doctor Doom and his future counterpart Doom 2099.

The game was developed by Marvel in conjunction with the Chinese developer NetEase and released in December. However, players have been blocked from typing in words such as “Tiananmen Square” and “Wuhan virus” in the chat function. They are met with the warning: “text contains inappropriate content”.

Marvel Rivals game artwork featuring Iron Man, Spider-Man, and other characters.

Other restricted phrases include “free Taiwan”, “free Hong Kong”, “free Tibet”, “Taiwan is a country”, “Taiwan No 1” and even “1989”, the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Chatting about Mao Zedong or the Dalai Lama is also banned.

Winnie-the-Pooh, a name associated with President Xi, is blocked. Xi was compared to the character after appearing in a photograph with Barack Obama in 2017.

Popular gamers have posted videos of themselves trying to type in the words. Asmongold, the YouTuber, is allowed to type in the words “Taiwan sucks” and “Taiwan is bad” only to be blocked when trying “free Taiwan”. At the end of the video he added sarcastically: “Marvel Rivals is a very interesting game that has no censorship at all and lets people think whatever they want and that’s just the way it is guys.”

[...]

China has a long history of censoring the content of video games and films for the domestic market. The Second World War strategy game Hearts of Iron was banned for depicting Tibet, Manchuria and Xinjiang as independent nations. Command & Conquer: Generals, a game depicting a hypothetical Third World War, was said to “smear the image of China and the Chinese army”.

Marvel has also been accused of altering films so they would be accepted in the Chinese market. In the 2016 film Doctor Strange the main character is trained by a Celtic woman played by Tilda Swinton rather than a Tibetan monk who appeared in the original comics. A screenwriter claimed it was to appease the Chinese authorities and Marvel later admitted the move was a mistake.

[...]

In a post a couple days ago in this comm where I asked for book suggestions, Eon was one of the most often recommended ones. As a result, I went into it with pretty high expectations. To my surprise, I didn't like it all that much. I'm bad at putting my feelings down on ~~paper~~ electrons(?), but I'll try to kickstart the discussion.

Please remember, this is my personal opinion and is no more valid than how you feel about the book. If you loved it, more power to you! I'm not here to bash it, rather I'd like to find out what others liked about the book that I might have missed.

What I loved:

• The scale and setting of it. BDOs have had a soft spot in my heart since the days of Ringworld. Imagining an O'Neill cylinder that stretched forever, with links to worlds every several hundred km, was a treat to my imagination.

What missed the mark for me:

• Characterisation. I never really felt connected to any of the characters. None of them were really memorable to me. Considering how much of the story was focused on political happenings and human drama, that was a bit of a turn off.
• Exploration of the technologies / artifacts. Almost everything was introduced with little to no investigation. The exploration of Thistledown (both the city and the asteroid) was done offscreen, and all we see is one character's reaction to being carefully introduced to it all. A lot of stuff was told, not shown.
• Mysticism. The weird sudden focus at the end on ~~souls~~ Mystery, magical divining rods that only obey their master to open portals to new worlds, etc.
• Visualisation. This is probably a 'me' problem, but I just found it impossible to visualise / understand Greg's descriptions of most of the structures.
• Little to no exploration of the future civ (other than some pretty incomprehensible political exchanges) or any of the numerous other alien civs humanity has partnered with.
• Contrived situations. Why did humans have to evacuate Thistledown to move into the Way? Why, after centuries (millenia?) is there only a single city of humans? There's no shortage of resources or space. There's no reason Thistledown and the entire length between it and Axis city couldn't have been occupied, especially given travel speeds. Why is it this very moment where the Jart finally decide to get off their asses and nuke the Way? Why haven't the Naderites already colonised a thousand planets in alternate universes, given their religious beliefs?

Anyway, I'm interested in hearing other viewpoints about the book, now that you don't have to hold back about spoilers. What did you love or hate about it?

Shot at 1500fps, playback at 30fps.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/steamdeck by /u/BormahTiid on 2025-01-16 21:15:54+00:00.

I know this is a long shot since I’m not sure if the user/owner uses Reddit but we found your Steam Deck at a local grocery store in Texas. It’s currently put away and I was told it has a lock on it so if you’re able to come get it I’m going to have them ask you to unlock it before handing it over. If by the end of the night the owner hasn’t been able to come grab it I’ll get the information I need to send Valve so they can contact the owner and let them know where it is.