Sweet! I only learned about real-world Sabacc after how much enjoyment I got out of the Kessel Sabacc minigame in Outlaws. Looks like there are a few cantina tables in my area, might check them out.

This kind of direct home visit has been happening for years in Muslim regions of China, for different reasons. At least these pregnancy visits (ugh feels gross to even talk about) don’t involve home stays, but any time the state shows up at your door to surveil your family, your human rights have been violated. It’s incredibly invasive and dystopian.

“Muslim families across Xinjiang are now literally eating and sleeping under the watchful eye of the state in their own homes,” said Maya Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch.

In early 2018, Xinjiang authorities extended this “home stay” program. Cadres spend at least five days every two months in the families’ homes. There is no evidence to suggest that families can refuse such visits.

Source

In general I think you’re right about the tech just being shitty, but a slight correction: LiDAR was not developed for self-driving, it’s just a relevant application of the technology. LiDAR has been around for quite a while, and was initially best known as a remote sensing technology. It is effective at remote sensing because it can penetrate certain solid materials, most importantly foliage. So when an aerial LiDAR dataset is collected for a forested area, since the light can penetrate through most of the foliage, one can essentially ‘delete’ the vegetation from the resulting point cloud, leaving a bare earth model, which is a very close approximation of the landscape’s actual topography if there had been no trees. This can be especially valuable for archaeological research, as foliage is often a significant obstacle for accurately mapping large sites, or even finding them in the first place.

All of that to say, yeah, self-driving buzz made LiDAR well known as tech, but it wasn’t developed for that purpose.

Donziger’s story is heartbreaking and infuriating, and I’m continually disappointed that so few people are familiar with his story and what the courts did to him. It’s one of the clearest examples of judicial corruption and the power and benefits that are afforded to corporations and almost never extended to the people fighting for what’s right and just.

The AI-generated thumbnail really undermines the seriousness of the issue.

Blinken has 0 credibility in my book.

Ah okay, it does look like it’s a common salute in Mexico. Still weird to me, but thanks for the links!

Is the nazi salute Mexico’s equivalent of ‘raise your right hand’ to take the oath of office? That first picture is really throwing me.

Great question, I’m curious about this too. There was a set of triplets in my high school class, and I’m curious what they’re up to these days. They were pretty awesome, got along with all the different cliques, and were super friendly to everyone. They were fiercely protective of each other and really close.

Similar situation going on in Israeli prisons. In case anyone wants to know how detainees are treated, it’s war crimes everywhere you look. This CNN investigation is incredibly upsetting, but very detailed and well-sourced.

Yeah I see what you mean. She does call out comments made by Lindsey Graham, John Fetterman, and Kamala Harris though, implying that she expected at least two of those people to be better. To be clear, I don’t think you’re the bad guy, I appreciate your perspective. But you’re right that tensions are very high…

Holy shit that’s wild. Just when I think I can’t be surprised by Donald anymore, boom! Woodward does his thing.

As talented as Woodward is, I really dislike that we only find out about these travesties years after the fact, when it’s all but too late to do anything about it. I understand that that’s how he is able to get access to these stories in the first place, but it feels really icky to me.

I think I get your point, but I’m not sure we read the same article. She did get pretty personal without naming names (we can’t expect anyone in her position to name names safely.)

Imagine feeling this every day of your life, it’s horrific:

…simply by paying my taxes, I am complicit in the slaughter and starvation of my own people.

And

…in 1967, my father had to flee again. He became a refugee, unable to ever return to live in the country where he was born. He has, however, taken me back to visit. I went back to his village when I had just turned six and had a brief taste of what a Palestinian childhood is like – by which I mean Israeli soldiers shot teargas at me and raided our village to burn the Palestinian flag.

Make sure you check out that Imgur link, it’s pictures of the journal she wrote when she was a kid visiting the West Bank. Doesn’t get much more personal than that.

I’m curious, to the people downvoting: why? Are you unable to see her humanity? What specifically in her deeply personal op ed made you so feel so strongly that you had to downvote this post? I’m genuinely curious. Or did you just see the word Palestinian and downvote it by force of habit, thus proving her point in the process?

This was a powerful op ed written by someone who knows what she’s talking about, exposing some uncomfortable truths about the US and what it valves.

I appreciate the clarification on how these laws work. I think you’re right that their popularity doesn’t necessarily imply effectiveness, it probably has more to do with the impulse to join in the virtue-signaling. But their popularity does send a strong message that how people and companies spend their money is important, and I’d argue that means they must be at least a little bit effective.

And the laws are wildly unpopular with the American people, but were still passed in the majority of states, which also tells me they must be doing something:

a majority of Americans oppose anti-BDS laws; 72% opposed laws penalizing people who boycott Israel and 22% supported such laws. Source

To echo some other comments, it seems like this article proves that boycotting is in fact one of the only ways to hold companies accountable. That’s why so many states in the US have passed laws making BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) illegal when it comes to Israel.

Because it does its job terribly. It provides inaccurate information when it would be faster for any one of us to just do a search for ourselves. And when it can’t figure out a source, it still spams the post, instead of just staying out of it. There has been widespread opposition to the bot existing at all, from day one, and the mods seem to have ignored all of us who say the bot sucks and only gets in the way.

It also has links to ground.news baked into it, despite that site being pretty useless from what I can tell. I get strong sponsorship vibes, and we don’t need that crap on Lemmy.

I didn’t like the bots on Reddit, and I don’t like the bots on Lemmy.

Only by the litter. The whole litter.

I was thinking, don’t I remember something about UN workers sexually assaulting a bunch of Haitians during their last peacekeeping mission? Yup, it’s right there in the article. Appalling.

The UN mission in Haiti was criticized for its role in perpetuating the political and economic structures that favored the Haitian elite and foreign investors while neglecting to tackle the underlying causes of poverty and inequality in the country. The UN’s 2004-2017 failed peacekeeping mission was also marred by allegations of sexual assault by its troops and staffers. Furthermore, peacekeepers from Nepal were blamed for introducing cholera into Haiti’s largest river in October 2010, resulting in the death of over 10,000 Haitian people. Although the UN has acknowledged its role in the epidemic and the lack of sufficient effort to combat it, it has not explicitly admitted to introducing the disease.

I’m so glad this guy is sticking with the bit. Patrick Gathara for those wondering. This framing does a spectacular job of exposing the absurdity of American politics and ‘American Exceptionalism’ on the world stage.

He did one for the Democratic Convention too, which was excellent.