George jetson house, what they thought the future would look like in 1960:

They were being sarcastic I think.

USA.jpeg right there. That image is for everyone who lives there except for like three cities. And the bike route is actually crossing several major roads.

I just had a convo with someone about how the most dangerous job at their factory, which involves repeatedly getting near a 1700 degree furnace, was always mandated to be the highest hourly rate, even if other jobs were skilled labor, and no one thought this was unfair in the slightest due to the dangers involved.

Nice, those are some good bird pics. I like the coloration and little red flourishes on the woodpeckers.

Around me we get a lot of nut hatches, and titmouses which are my fav. They have little mohawks, and are quirky, but brave, as I’ve seen them do david and goliath standoffs with much bigger birds like crows. Not my pic but here’s one

I’d really love to get into that, especially bird photography as it’s been fun to try to learn bird calls and try to spot them. Nature really recharges the brain in a way nothing else can. Esp for those of us who are goal oriented or always feeling the need to be accomplishing something, being out in nature helps us drop all the expectations and distractions.

Doing any nature related activities away from screens, whether it be daily walks, gardening, hiking, kayaking, mountain climbing, swimming, camping is really good for both mental and physical health.

In that blue zones documentary, it’s said that daily walks and daily gardening help your mind and longevity more than any other activity.

Learning a musical instrument is always good, and is something you can show off. Knitting, crocheting, or any kind of ravelry works your mind, and you can also listen to audiobooks while doing it. Woodworking (you can start small, even doing spoons and things).

I wouldn’t be too focused on doing mentally challenging activities. Screens wear out our brains enough, and what we really need is time away from them to recharge.

Outside of that I’d just recommend reading a lot of non-fiction, audiobooks where available.

Pretty impressive that a smartphone company, that’s kinda like the Apple of China, decided to just make a car, and within a decade came out with one of the best cars ever made. If anyone hasn’t, I highly recommend watching some reviews of the SU-7.

Neat to see that Ford’s CEO sees the writing on the wall and is sounding the alarm, but he has no power to change the company’s overall direction, and it will go the way of the dodo. Ford has the reputation of a company that sells oversized trucks to obnoxious overbearing US patriots who are more likely to be drunk driving and kill an innocent person than any other vehicle on the road.

Or eastern promises. Viggo has a good range.

Christian Bale, Patrick Bateman.

Oil industry tycoons in the 1800s had their pinkertons, where’s the modern day ones.

This is a really good article going over class basis of pacifism, and touching on its historical failure to undo injustice:

What about Pacifism / pacifist socialism? Is violence necessary to acheive socialism? What about Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi? audiobook

Some quotes:

Will the peaceful abolition of private property be possible?

It would be desirable if this could happen, and the communists would certainly be the last to oppose it. Communists know only too well that all conspiracies are not only useless, but even harmful. They know all too well that revolutions are not made intentionally and arbitrarily, but that, everywhere and always, they have been the necessary consequence of conditions which were wholly independent of the will and direction of individual parties and entire classes.

But they also see that the development of the proletariat in nearly all civilized countries has been violently suppressed, and that in this way the opponents of communism have been working toward a revolution with all their strength. If the oppressed proletariat is finally driven to revolution, then we communists will defend the interests of the proletarians with deeds as we now defend them with words.

• Engels - Principles of Communism

On the question of whether the armed struggle is the only path to liberation, I would answer that at least in the case of our country, we have no other path. And we think that in the immense majority of latin american countries, there is no other path than the armed struggle. It seems to be the same case for countries in Asia and Africa. In general imperialism counts on, in every way, joining forces with the oligarchy, of every country, to impede the democratic revolution in every country. And its hanging people with a rope that can only be cut by armed struggle.

Revolutionaries didn’t choose armed struggle as the best path. Its the path the oppressors imposed on the people. So people only have two choices: To suffer, or to fight.

• Interview with Fidel Castro on the question of violence

Most of us have no idea what that is, might be good to link something.

Definitely. It’d be way too dangerous for them to hand the destroy the world keys over to a nation even Reagan had to tell to chill out.

I’m sure there’s less than 30 people who know this, but I wonder if Israel is actually in control of their own nukes, or if the US is maintaining control.

I know the US tried to use Israel as an intermediary to give nuclear weapons to apartheid south Africa, and that probably came with restrictions of final US control also.

Can anyone verify if Kyrgyztan is indeed, full of gamers?

The colors are great there, it works surprisingly well.

I can’t find it, but there’s a cool infographic / image that has all of them. I could only find one for the hammer and sickle variations:

Vietnam:

Angola:

Nepal for originality: