My favorite tidbit about the POW camps for German soldiers in Canada is that the camps generally weren’t fenced. Like, you can escape if you want I guess, but you could walk for weeks and guess what? Still Canada!

Most German POWs were happy to stay because the camps fed them far better than what they’d been getting as German soldiers in the European theater after years of rationing. Some felt guilty about how good they were eating, because they knew their civilian family members back in Germany were getting even less.

That’s how I read it, though clearly others felt the need to ackshually.

They didn’t say TPUSA was founded in 2020, they said one of its founders died of COVID in 2020. Which is true.

Hah, what profits?? Chinese auto makers have been massively subsidized by the Chinese government for the last several years. Any profits on their balance sheets have been propped up by those subsidies. The Chinese government has already indicated that those subsidies will be ending, because they’ve created a supply glut that China cannot absorb domestically and cannot offload internationally. No country on the planet is going to allow the wholesale dumping of heavily subsidized Chinese autos into their domestic market since it would damage or destroy any local auto manufacturing industry.

Carney’s decision to allow a nominal amount of Chinese EVs is smart because it’s a net win for Canada no matter what happens. It gets Canadian soybeans shipping to China again, while the number of EVs being allowed is too small to have an outsized effect on the Canadian auto industry. That’s just the basic first-order stuff, there are huge potential upsides down the road. This acts as a trial balloon to see whether the Canadian market has an appetite for Chinese made autos. I suspect yes at first just based on price, but those prices will rise as Chinese subsidies draw down. If Canadians show a willingness to buy Chinese made autos, Canada can float expanding the import limit in exchange for some percentage of local manufacture.

The US auto industry is pulling back from Canada, so Canada is making deals with South Korean auto makers. We’ve seen what happened when Canada put too many eggs in the proverbial US basket. Replacing those US auto makers with a variety of foreign makers (Germany, South Korea, maybe China down the road) is just pragmatic risk mitigation. It gives us a better local manufacturing base while ensuring we’re not overly beholden to a single foreign trading partner.

It’s an initial proof-of-concept. It’ll be developed into more complex games eventually, that’s not really an issue for it

Except it is an issue, just one being masked by the mountains of cash these companies are burning to provide AI. To increase the depth and complexity and actually store state would require orders of magnitude more energy, compute, memory and storage. The AI bubble is causing very single one of those to become more expensive. At some point the market will call bullshit on these companies (“show us profit, or at least exponential revenue growth, or line go down”), at which point these companies will attempt to download the costs onto their users. When people see the bill and realize what these services actually cost, the whole thing is gonna collapse like a flan in a cupboard.

I’ve got a few! For context, I’m a middle aged guy who grew up in a suburban family where guns weren’t really something we engaged with. I’ve been interested / curious for a long time, but the wife was very opposed so I set the notion aside. With all that’s going on I broached the subject for the first time in a long while (like, 20+ years), with an eye to arguing that it might be a good idea to be able to legally own and safely operate and maintain a firearm. To my surprise she was already on board, having come to similar conclusions on her own. Acquiring and gaining proficiency with a firearm is going to be a couples project for us this year.

I should mention that we’re Canadian. We have strict firearm rules here in Canada, so that puts some hard limits on what sorts of firearms we can acquire. No high capacity magazines, no suppressors, nothing full auto, no pistols (it’s technically still possible to get an RPAL, but handgun sales have been frozen for years). No “assault style weapons” either, meaning no AR15 platforms or a raft of other types of semi-autos. All of which I’ll live with, I’m not looking to fight the system or get myself in any legal trouble.

Here are my questions:

• In broad strokes, our initial plan is to get a .22LR bolt action rifle as a starter. My thinking is that it’s a good option to practice the basics (safety, maintenance, marksmanship, etc.) without breaking the bank (holy hell, larger calibres can get expensive to practice with). Bolt action mainly because it seems like it has the lowest chance of getting snaffled by any future Canadian gun regulations. Does that strike you as a sensible course to start?
• In terms of make, I’m leaning European, probably Tikka or CZ. Both have a reputation for good out of the box accuracy. Not the cheapest, but also not the most expensive. Frankly I don’t know enough at this point to make changes to a firearm, or even know what changes might make the gun shoot better. Out of the box accuracy will reduce the temptation to blame the gun when the issue will almost certainly be the novice shooter! Happy to entertain any alternate suggestions.
• If I get a 22 bolt action, I’ll likely need a scope. Most of the models I’m looking at don’t have iron sights. I’ve done some research, but the variety of options for scopes is incredibly broad. Would be happy to hear any advice on how I might go about narrowing down the field of candidates. For context, I’d likely be shooting the 22 exclusively on a range, almost certainly 100 meters or less.
• Speaking of iron sights, do you think there’s value in learning to shoot with them? I’ve been mostly focused on scoped rifles as I don’t see much value in iron sights for target shooting and hunting. I could see iron sights being of much greater value for home defense, but legally speaking, home defense isn’t really a tenable thing here in Canada. Let me know if you think I’d be missing valuable knowledge / skill by omitting iron sights.
• Longer term, assuming I enjoy shooting as much as I anticipate, I’d want to get something with more oomph. The idea of longer distance marksmanship appeals to me, and I’d also consider hunting. Likely deer, but possibly elk or moose at some point. So that’s got me thinking about caliber for an eventual second rifle. 6.5 Creedmore seems popular (and appropriate for target shooting and deer, I believe), though I’m not sure how much of the popularity is marketing hype. Thoughts on calibers for longer distance shooting and hunting?

Ok that was more than few… If you read all that, thanks for taking the time!

“I never thought the leopard would eat my face!”

On a related note, the short combatant wins in a headbutt fight. In a clinch, short can easily smash some sensitive part of tall’s face (mouth, nose). If the tall tries to headbutt back then short can just tuck their chin so tall ends up smashing their own face into short’s forehead.

This, and also maybe oil.

So the developers of PC games like Claire Obscure: Expedition 33, which doesn’t have a Switch version of any kinda, spent time, effort and money to optimize specifically for the Steam Deck… because of the Switch’s market share? Cmon now bud, that’s a straight up ridiculous take.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IwLSrNu1ppI

Or the 10 hour version, for true gnomecore madness: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iDNQYJUdxks

There aren’t really prosecutorial appeals for grand jury “no true bill” decisions, so this won’t be going to the supremes at this stage. However, there’s also nothing to prevent the prosecutors from trying again in front of a new grand jury. In practice this is pretty uncommon, likely because the judges presiding over grand juries take a dim view of lawyers who waste the court’s time (much like any other judge).

A common reason to seek a new indictment would be if new evidence has come to light, and thus there are new facts for a new grand jury to weigh. I wouldn’t be surprised if these prosecutors try again, even though it’s a stupid move. Motiviations like “maintain credibility with my peers” and “don’t be an incompetent nincompoop” are clearly foreign to Trump’s DoJ.

On a related note, double jeopard prevents someone from being tried twice for the same crime, but an indictment isn’t a trial. A trial does not start until after a grand jury returns an indictment, so double jeopardy doesn’t apply here.

There is an option to pay for Extended Security Update (ESU) support for Windows 10. It’ll give you access to critical security and Windows Defender antivirus updates, but no fixes or updates to features. There are three ways to pay:

• “Free” if you’re syncing data to their cloud (pay by letting them datamine your data and settings)
• With Microsoft Reward points, which I believe are primarily earned by using Bing (pay by letting them datamine your searches)
• For $30 a year, at least for the first year, though I’ve read the price goes up each year as they want to drive everyone to Win11.

The program would conceivably allow you to kick the can down the road, possibly as far as Oct. 2028. Personally, I opted instead to switch to Linux months ago instead, and don’t regret my choice.

Personhood for some, tiny American flags for others!

It’s too early to lay blame. Every commercial aircraft has very clear maintenance schedules, including procedures that would have included a through inspection of the part that appears to have failed on this plane (aft lug to which the engine pylon was attached). The NTSB prelim report does not call out any failure to adhere to the maintenance schedule.

The NTSB investigation has found signs of metal fatigue in the part that failed, but the defect was located such that it wouldn’t have been visible on an external inspection. The next inspection procedure that could have caught the issue wasn’t due to be performed until another 8000 or so cycles (takeoffs and landings) on that particular airframe. This looks like it’s shaping up to be an engineering failure, where the manufacturer of the aircraft has significantly overestimated the durability of this particular part.

Well, today I learned!

DVD

I know Dick predates the media format by several decades, but seeing these initials was jarring. My brain kept insisting this sentence was trying to say something about an interview with Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen on Digital Video Disc…

Once again, louder for everyone in the back, the cruelty is the point! The linked article was written seven years ago. Anyone “dumbfounded” by Trump cruelty at this point is terminally clueless.

The vast majority of this increase is from people playing on Steam Decks

I believe this is incorrect. The Steam survey break down GPUs by description and the Deck’s GPU appears in the results as “AMD Vangogh”, which only accounts for 0.39% of respondents. That implies that the vast majority of survey respondents using Linux are actually on PC, not the Deck.

I’d lean toward the Vancouver game since both teams are in the Pacific division, and Vancouver is one point behind LA in the standings currently. It’s not hugely consequential at this point in the season, but there’s slightly more on the line when playing another team in your division.