xNIBx

Youtube has better quality and rewind but twitch has more interesting chat, even if it is just spamming emojis. Twitch chat has a vibe, feels like you are in a stadium. Also for gaming streams, twitch is a must. Also you need a browser extension like 7tv to appreciate the chat.

NATO’s is not going to be part of Turkey’s geopolitical schemes. Nukes are needed in order to be on an even footing with the other regional powers(which will also have nukes). Even if Saudi Arabia/Iran never intend to nuke Turkey, they will be at an advantage.

Hard power translates to soft power. And if your regional opponents have nukes and you dont have nukes, you will be at a significant soft power disadvantage.

Btw Turkey is building its first nuclear power plant, with help from Russia. Saudi Arabia also intends to build nuclear power plants soon. Thats the first step to creating a nuclear weapon.

Pretty sure there are NATO nukes sitting in Turkey already

Those are US controlled nukes. And the US doesnt have the best relation with Turkey atm. They are there now, gone tomorrow. Turkey cant rely on american nukes. If other regional powers have nukes, they need to have nukes. And if Turkey has nukes, then Greece needs to have nukes for selfprotection.

Turkey gets to wave their dicks around and make demands at the big boy table despite being a complete joke of a country.

They have the 2nd biggest military in NATO, after the US, an immensely important geographical location and they are a regional power(along with Iran and Saudi Arabia).

And if Iran and Saudi Arabia get nukes, then Turkey will get nukes. And if Turkey gets nukes, then unless there is an EU army, Greece will want to get nukes.

Maybe Volvo? Do note that Polestar cars are made in China, but Volvo ones should be made in Europe or US. I dont know how good the conditions in the american Volvo factory are but in Sweden, Volvo is considered a good employer. Volvo/Polestar are owned by Geely, which is a chinese company but Volvo is pretty independent.

They withdrew from Kherson pretty successfully. They dont have to withdraw all the way to Russia. They just need to prepare new defenses and fall back where they can hold with fewer losses.

They can withdraw, delay, mobilize more people, wait for the West to get tired, Trump to get elected, etc.

Ukraine needs constant supply of money and equipment from the West in order to survive. Their economy is fucked and they cant really produce the military equipment needed to fight Russia. What will happen if Trump gets elected? Or Le Pen? Or if opposition parties in the West, start using the cost of the war for propaganda?

It’s only bad in some places, like Santorini.

The demand is there, the supply hasnt caught. As i mentioned, in Gothenburg(which is Volvo’s HQ), there are tons of electric trucks and cargo bikes. Basically every day i see at least one truck like this one

https://www.volvotrucks.com/en-en/news-stories/press-releases/2022/may/dhl-and-volvo-trucks-kick-off-new-zero-emission-cooperation-with-order-for-up-to-44-electric-trucks.html

Postnord, the swedish/danish mail provider, has tons of these electric “golf carts”

https://news.cision.com/postnord/i/electric-car-parcels,c2905777

Basically by 2030, most companies will have or purchase only electric vehicles. Scania is also making electric trucks like this

https://www.scania.com/group/en/home/products-and-services/trucks/battery-electric-truck.html

Postnord intents to replace its conventional trucks with these by 2030.

Just because the US is behind times, doesnt mean that the entire world is also like that. And if Volvo and Scania, 2 of the biggest truck manufacturers(and they are both swedish) have available electric trucks, then there are electric trucks. The only bottleneck is production. The demand is there but it takes time to scale up production of basically an entirely new vehicle. China is also going wild with electric vehicles, though i am not familiar with that market.

Honestly, i think we might start seeing bans on non electric vehicles for cities, at least in Europe. The noise and pollution reduction is significant and very perceivable.

Tesla can do whatever they want, who cares. Just like the tesla truck, they get all the hype but there are already tons of available electric trucks, available and selling, like the f150 electric. To say that they are still on development because tesla hasnt released theirs is silly.

Of course they are still on development, everything is always on development. But they are also available for purchase and they are being purchased. Not to the numbers that their conventional fuel counterparts, the production rate hasnt reached those levels yet, but still.

The bottleneck is the production, not the demand or viability. For last mile, at least here in Gothenburg, there are plenty of electric cargo bikes like this

https://www.velove.se/news/city-containers-new-pilot-dhl-express-frankfurt-utrecht

I am pretty sure that by 2030, the majority of trucks will be electric(and almost all sales will be electric).

Dhl in Sweden(and elsewhere) also uses these electric bikes

https://www.velove.se/news/city-containers-new-pilot-dhl-express-frankfurt-utrecht

EV trucks and vans are in development but battery technology isn’t quite there yet.

EV trucks are not in development, they are on sale and deployed. Especially last mile ones.

https://www.volvotrucks.com/en-en/trucks/renewable-fuels/electric-trucks.html

https://www.dhl.com/se-en/home/press/press-archive/2021/dhl-freight-and-volvo-trucks-join-forces-to-speed-up-transition-to-fossil-free-road-transport-on-longer-distances.html

In Gothenburg, there are plenty of all electric trucks. Tbf, Gothenburg is Volvo’s HQ but still. Volvo has sold more than 4300 electric trucks

https://www.volvogroup.com/en/news-and-media/news/2023/feb/news-4474482.html

Electric vehicles make the city much more livable. Less noise and pollution.

Yeah, it was both. The european brands avoided electric cars for a long time, while the chinese pushed hard for them. And because electric motors and car batteries were a new technology, this was a great opportunity for the chinese to pull ahead(everyone started from 0).

And the chinese also used their cooperations and acquisitions(Volvo and Lotus are owned by the chinese brand Geely), in order to improve the conventional car making part production(everything other than the electric engine and batteries). Tesla followed a similar arc. Their motors/batteries are great, the other parts started as bad but they are improving all the time.

As it stands I find it hard to believe that less than 45 million people in the EU use the service monthly

I believe it. Iphone has pretty low market share in EU and most people use third party apps like whatsup. So even iphone users are forced to use those third party apps.

I think a demographic analysis would be more important. If imessage only has 20% share in total but 60% among teens, then that should be enough to be to be considered gatekeeper. Especially considering that those teens will eventually grow up and probably carry that market share into adulthood.

I was travelling within EU(from EU country, to another EU country) and in the layover airport, i was forced to go through facial recognition/passport check. This has happened only once and i think it was in France(CDG) or maybe Germany. And if i werent an EU citizen, i would literally have to go through a manual passport check, with long lines.

To be fair, i rarely go through CDG and i never have any issues with german layover airports(which i have used dozens of times), which is why i think it was CDG.

The Acropolis of Athens is extremely small. EPCOT is 40x larger(123 hectares vs 3 hectares).

I use babbel.com which is a paid only app though(i think). It has a more traditional approach to teaching, explaining tenses and even cultural stuff but it is still somewhat gamified with short sessions. It is using a separate “review” part for repetition that focuses more on newly learnt words or words that you got wrong.

By default, it is weaving 1 normal lesson+reviewing sessions which can last as long as you want(or till you exhaust the available words for review, maybe around 30 examples per day).

It uses real recordings of people and for the most part, the audio quality/pronunciation is good. It uses a lot of realistic scenarios and dialogues. It has some minigames that help with vocabulary but i dont use them.

I have been using it for 5 months and i am pretty satisfied with it. It isnt perfect and it kinda lacks the refinement of duolingo but it is very good for learning stuff.

PS Depending on the language you are interested, there might even be podcasts that help new learners.

Neither Europe nor the US can make chips like this, thats why they are trying so hard to convince TSMC to make a chip fab in their territories. Does this mean that white people are too stupid to make chips? No, they just cant atm and they arent willing to invest the infinite time and money it would take to reach that level, especially since their ally Taiwan(TSMC) is already making the most advanced chips in the world.

China on the other hand needs to become more self reliant, especially with the new Cold War escalating. So they have to do it. And they are doing it. But it will still take a lot of time and money to be able to manufacturer modern high end chips.

TSMC is taiwanese, which is “yellow” people. Why are you trying to spin this as a racist thing? Literally the best people in the world manufacturing chips are taiwanese(han). Why would anyone think that the chinese, who are basically the same ethnicity(han), wont be able to make advanced chips because of racial reasons?

It’s not sinophobia. Neither the EU nor the US can manufacture high tech chips, which is why they are sucking TSMC’s dick in order to make some chip fabs in their territory. It’s extremely hard and expensive to develop(or start developing) this. It’s literally the most technologically advanced thing humans make.

And even TSMC relies on western companies all over their world for the manufacturing of their tools and tech. But since China does not have that luxury, they have to make everything from scratch and that is extremely hard. I am still not convinced China can make 7nm but remains to be seen.

Because manufacturing super high tech chips is extremely hard and complicated and basically only a couple companies in the world can do it and they also depend on parts and technology from other companies all over the “western” world. China didnt have anything near this capability. It requires advanced research and knowhow on a million different technologies. So unless China does extensive industrial espionage(which they are trying to do), it’s gonna take them like 10+ years to start producing anything relatively modern without needing any external parts/help.

In any case, it remains to be seen if it is actually 7nm. With a new cold war ramping up, China is trying to become self-reliant as much as possible.