BananaTrifleViolin

@BananaTrifleViolin@piefed.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is this a medical device?⁩ ⁨⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  A temporary tracheostomy can be a trauma procedure - it’s a way of securing the airway by directly ventilating into the trachea via the tracheostomy tube. When there is an injury or severe swelling in the neck, there is a risk of the airway blocking off and also a risk of debris including blood going into the windpipe from the mouth/throat as they’re joined together. People can suffocate or even effectively drown from stuff going into the airways (aspiration). So a temporary trachestomy bypasses the upper airway and a balloon helps stop stuff going down.

  A temporary tracheostomy can also be used prior to and after surgery for cancer if basic structures of the deep neck are intact. The cancer or swelling from treatment like radiotherapy can compromise the airway temporarily. In that situation once everything is healed, there is still a safe separation between the airway and the food pipe and the tracheostomy can be taken out.

  A permanent tracheostomy is usually after cancer, after a total laryngectomy (the voice box is removed) or a laryngopharyngectomy (the voice box and the food pipe is removed). The food pipe can be reconnected but it’s not safe to reconnect it to the airway so there is a permanent connection to the skin made instead.

  Tracheostomy literally means opening into the trachea. The trachea is the lower airway, and a stoma is an artificially created opening.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Realistically, what do people plan to do on the Moon and Mars that requires a permanent, or long term human presence there?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d separate this into two different things - what is good for humanity and what is good for billionaires like Musk.

  For humanity, venturing out into the solar system will advance science, and also help drive technological advancement which does have benefits for society as a whole. The space race in the 20th century did advance technology, and much of the modern technology we take for granted has routes in the space race.

  But also humanity needs to move away from our current capitalistic system and that is very much driven by scarcity. The resource wealth in the solar system is mind bogglingly vast and if we can tap into even a portion of it, it could allow us to change how we as a species live. It would initially be driven by capitalism for sure, but when you have effectively infinite resources for a civilization, that changes everything we do.

  Also for the long term survival of our species we need to be looking outwards. Earth is vulnerable - one asteroid strike and out species could be wiped out. Even if only a small number of people were to head out into the stars, it would help guarantee a long term future and resilience for our species.

  I think one big mistake people make is that what happens on earth is a zero-sum game: i.e. for some to win, it must be at the cost of others. That is wrong and is a result of our terribly broken economic system. But we can both colonize the moon and mars AND fix the problems on Earth. And it may do good for our species to look up to the stars and have a bigger shared goal than just existing on this rock and acquiring wealth.

  In terms of why the moon & mars. The moon is essential as a staging post for future expansion, as it’s very expensive resource and energy wise to launch from Earths gravity well, but much cheaper to build at the moon and launce from there without the added step & complexity in design for launching off Earths surface. Mars meanwhile is the most viable candidate at present for a self sustaining colony long term (with a couple of moons of Jupiter and Saturn other options, and possibly venus as a long stretch).

  Meanwhile, Musk is a deranged billionaire idiot. He is nothing more than a investor gambler; other people are doing the hard work making things happen while he is a public face of various companies. He really is peripheral to this, even if he does push the topic into the public consciousness. Don’t conflate the idea of expanding into the solar system with that idiot. The idea precedes him and will run long beyond his life and any influence he has. He is just a narcissistic loud mouth with money.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨when doing laundry... while switching it over from washer to dryer...you find a sock on the floor that didn't get washed. If you put it in the dryer with the wet laundry will it come out clean?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  No, the dryer doesn’t do anything for cleaning.

  A washing machine works by using water with detergents to dissolve dirt (particularly fats) in the water, alongside enzymes and other agents to help loosen and break down the dirt. You need all the parts to get the clothes clean, but even just soaking them in water without anything else is a start.

  The dryer purely dries the clothes by moving them in hot dry air, which draws out the water and then with a condenser to cool the air and catch the water. It does nothing at all for cleaning. It does also help soften clothes by the mechanical movement round and round, and you can put in a ball or laundry sheets as part of that.

  A dirty sock mixed in with wet laundry in the dryer could even make the other clothes a bit dirtier by making the sock wet and dissolving the dirt and spreading it. The sock would be marginally cleaner in that situation but you’d have a whole load of slightly dirtier laundry.

  You can hand wash items though. So put some warm water in a bowl, soak the sock and (with gloves!) use laundry detergent & rub it in to the soak and rinse. Or without gloves you can use simple bathroom soap, and rub it in and rinse. The rinsing is probably the harest bit as you need to do it a fair bit to get all the soap/detergent out. But it would clean the sock with some effort - thats what they used to do in the days before machines.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Port of Dover delays: Disruption as masked 'stop the boats' protesters block roads⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They stopped the wrong boats because they’re so stupid. Stopped people reaching the legal boats in and out of Dover, and did nothing about the issue they’re protesting about.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are some cool/decent PC games that are not on Steam?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Steams terms of service mean devs/publishers can’t promote a game as being free elsewhere. It’s likely directed at preventing redirecting people to Epic or a sale at another store, but also by effect includes games like this. Either they put it for free on Steam or they sell it on Steam and can’t mention free downloads from their website, and it’s up to users to “shop around”.

  I get what you’re saying, but I think if spending $10 on a game is something that would give someone pause, then the onus really is on them to search around first to see what the best deal is? People act like steam is a monopoly, but there is a lot of choice out there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨wish⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Hold shit that’s dark.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Seen in college dorm. People are really smart there⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Honestly if you’re returning a door stop for a refund after using it for a year, it’s actually tragic and speaks volumes about student debt.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are plug sockets region locked?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It comes down to the cost of changing. All these systems were independently developed as electricity become standard in homes. In the UK for example, the standard was developed in 1947 - electricity was already in the country but there wasn’t national standardisation in infrastructure, so when that happened a standard plug was introduced. And this was also done in other commonwealth countries including Ireland (which is very integrated with the UK grid), Australia, New Zealand and others. They are so embedded in each country that it’s near impossible to change them all - or when it is possible (e.g. the UK & Ireland could change to an EU standard gradually) it’s just not deemed worth the cost - the old standard would need to be maintained for a long time, and at some point people would need to be forced to change to get it done.

  There was never a successful global effort standardise plugs. Globalisation wasn’t really a thing in those days so there wasn’t enough support for pushes for global standards. There was a lot of regional standardisation though - large parts of Europe have the same electricty supply and separately North American between Canada and the USA, due to the pragmatic issue of sharing grids. 8 Plugs when there are over 100 countries isn’t terrible.

  “Region” locking now is basically 3 types. Some devices don’t have transformers, so those devices - like kettles - are designed to directly use the local electricity supply. Those are very much more “region locked”, but not necessarily to 1 plug; for example in Europe while the plugs are different the actual grid is pretty similar.

  Many devices do need transformers - like modern Laptops / TVs / Mobile phones etc - the local supply is converted from high voltage to low voltage. Most of those transformers are external or can even be built into the plug, while others are built into the device. That means items can be sold to multiple areas with just the external power supply being different. When the transformer is built in that does “region lock” the products. An ATX desktop PC for example has a Power Supply Unit which is regional; but all the components are international and inter changable. Meanwhile a small form desktop these days has an external transformer much like a laptop and is much less region locked.

  And now of course, USB has become a defacto standard to the point that many new devices don’t come with their own chargers and rely on whatever the customer has. And increasingly USB outlets are being added to public spaces across the globe, and people can change their own plugs to include a regional socket and USB outlets.

  USB is probably going to be the defacto consumer facing charging for many uses, alongside the regional plugs for devices where USB doesn’t make sense. But the background grid differences between say North America and Europe is unlikely to ever change, due to the massive cost of changing the entire grid.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it even possible to drop 20 lbs in a month? Are there any diets for people who want to go to the extreme? Kind of like celebs do for roles?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It very much depends on starting weight. Is it possible? Theoretically, yes. Is it safe? No, unlikely for most people.

  20lbs or 9kg is a month is extreme weight loss. To lose 1kg of fat, you need a deficit of 7700kcals. For 9 kg that’s 69,300 kcals deficit needed over the month. Lets say thats over 28 days / 4 weeks: that’d be an average deficit of 2,475 kcals every day.

  An average 30 year old man, who weighs say 80kg and average height.

  • Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) - 1750 kcal a day
  • Total Daily Energy Expenditure (BMR x activity factor, lets say 1.2 assuming they are sedentary) - 2,100 kcal a day.

  So they need 2100kcal a day just to stay as they are. If they did nothing else, the maximum possible deficit they could have is to eat nothing - but they’d only achieve 2100kcal deficit a day, and they’d not last very long.

  For that person to lose 9kg in a month, they would realistically need to massively increase their exercise. Even if they increased their daily energy expenditure to 3,323 kcal a day (1.9 x BMR for a very active person), they’d then need to calorie restrict their diet to only 848 kcal a day to achieve the deficit. Even then a 848kcal intake is dangerously low intake and would require very careful management. And somehow that person would also need to have enough intake to feel able to do all that extra exercise.

  It would put the body under extreme stress and be very difficult to maintain.

  Now if the person was very severely obese - lets say 200kg - the BMR would be 2949kcal (it takes energy just to maintain the fat), and the TDEE would be about 3540kcal if sedentary (even doing nothing, they use more energy). In that situation, if they suddenly became very active, they could boost their TDEE to say 4000-4500 kcal, and would be able to eat 1690-2190kcal a day, and still have a 2475kcal a day deficit. They could lose the 9kg weight in a month. However it is not very realistic for a severely obese person to go from sedentary to extreme activity in such a short period, and maintain it, and while calorie restricting too.

  So it could be done by an obese person, but it’s not realistic then and certainly not for anyone who is only overweight.

  A big mistake people make when they try to lose weight is to try and fix the problem as fast as possible. But fast dieting leads to over exertion, over strenuous food restriction, failure and then despair. Even 1kg a week lose is a very high rate and difficult to sustain. Instead of trying to lose as much as possible in a month, it’s better to aim for a sustainable amount every week for a long time - such as 0.5kg. 6 months of sustained slow lose is generally much more successful and achievable than crash/fast/extreme diets that just fail over and over for 6 months. And generally when people do slow diets, they change habits and have a better chance of maintaining it.

  If someone is actually considering a diet then the real key is: don’t make it a speed race, make it a marathon. Slightly reduce intake, slightly increase activity every day, and aim for a slow but steady loss. A 550kcal deficit every day is much much easier than trying to rush with 1100kcal deficit, and allows a sustainable lifestyle. For example the 80kg 30 year old person could do moderate exercise (e.g. 10,000 steps a day just walking), they could realistically consume 1900-2000kcal a day, maintain a 550kcal deficit each day and lose 0.5kg every week. In a month they’d lose 2kg, and in 4.5 months they’d lose 9kg.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks for sharing. I like the concept of this - being able rate games on multiple elements rather than a single rating on Steam or single 5 star rating, and also a recommendation engine driven by my ratings is promising idea.

  But couple of minor issues out the gate: when I created my account, I get to a “rate a few games” page and the bottom half of the text is cut off. It all moves down when I scroll down. Once I managed to get past that with some messing (had to open up the dev console on Firefox!), couple of things missing: I can’t say “not interested” on the games offered to rate; so I had to select either dislike (which it ignored) or “plan to play” which I don’t. May want some way of rerolling or dismissing the games? (For me it was Half Life 2 - not something I intend to play). Otherwise I’d have to click “skip for now” for the whole thing.

  Next, when it asks you how much of the game you’ve completed, a slider to go all the way to 100% is annoying. Maybe add a button for 100% and the slider for when it’s not?

  Next, it seemed to fail when trying to link my Steam account at the ggdb.pro end once handed back from Steam. And then for genres it’s missing some obvious ones like City Builder. Presumably this is still alpha stage so gaps like this to be expected?

  But it’s very responsive and a really like the modern interface. Once I am able to link my Steam profile I’ll have a proper play, but I like it a lot so far. Game recommendations is something that is really hit and miss at the moment. I use movielens for movies; so having something like that for gaming is very appealing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My Local Public Tennis Court Requires Online Registration⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m in the UK, we have a registration system for Tennis courts in my local park. It’s to ensure it’s only accessed by people who are supposed to be using it, not kids damaging the net for example. It is also to prevent people arguing or overstaying for ages when other people want to play or prevent private tennis coaches/business abusing it. It’s particularly useful in busy times like the summer.

  Check the privacy policy of the 3rd party company. They may need to match you up to local records to ensure you’re entitled to use the tennis court as it’s publicly funded? Or to ensure you’re a real person and not someone wanting access to steal the net or something random for example. Collecting data is not an issue in itself unless their privacy policy means they can use your data for anything else or store it. If so then complain to your city.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come Nurses are not bound by the same rule is a lawyer is to a defendant or a wife to a husband or a priest? If someone says something on their death bed why are we suppose to report?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I live in the UK. Patient confidentiality is protected by law - medical personnel cannot share personal information unless the patient gives explicit consent (with some latitude when someone is incapacitated and has a spouse/next of kin)

  However there are some explicit limits. Medical professionals also have legal duties under Safeguarding laws; there is a professional and legal requirement to divulge information if it is necessary to protect the patient or other people from harm. If someone confesses to a crime it can be shared if there is a risk to other people (e.g. child or domestic abuse being sadly common examples). It’s on a case by case basis; it would be a breach of patient confidentiality to share a confession if no one is at risk of harm. But where you draw the line is difficult - there is established case law that confidentiality can be breached “in the public interest” which is very subjective.

  But it’s obviously very subjective territory - if someone confesses to a murder 20 years ago, should you share it? You could argue that there is a risk that someone who has murdered may murder again, but you could also argue that there is no actual reason to suspect they would commit further crime especially if they’re dying. It’s also “in the public interest” to investigate murder and convict someone, especially if it prevents someone else from being falsely accused etc.

  One key part of all this is that a breach of patient confidentiality is a legal issue and the person &/or organisation (e.g hospital) can be pursued legally for the breach, including for compensation, and also via professional bodies for sanctions. So breaches can be pursued legally.

  It’s very complex and difficult to blanket say all information is 100% confidential. A lawyer is retained specifically to represent someone under the law, so a 100% confidentiality makes sense. A doctor or nurse is there to look after someones health, but also has responsibilities to the population at large, so confidentiality comes with caveats as you’re balancing the safety of the one patient against other unknown people.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the fundamental difference between sudo and doas ?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, Sudo has been around for ages and is in pretty much every distro. So Doas just hasn’t really taken off due to inertia. You can install it yourself in many distros, but people tend to default to what they know. I’m not sure if any distros default to it. Also tutorials all over the internet use “sudo” so it kinda embeds it more as THE tool.

  It’s similar with a lot of the core GNU utilities. For example “ls” lists directories and it’s everywhere, but there are actually better written newer alternatives. They just aren’t as widespread because people tend to use the GNU utilities together. I personally like eza for example.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the fundamental difference between sudo and doas ?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  • Su = Switch User / Substitute User; it allows you to run a full shell as another user. It can be any user, but if you don’t specify then it’ll open a shell as the root user with the elevated privileges has. It allows you to do everything the root user can while that shell is still open, until you exit.

  • Sudo = SuperUser Do; it allows you to run one command with elevated privileges as the root user. Once it’s done the command it usually then ends, but there are some QOL where you can run sudo again and may not need to reenter the root password again for a certain time.

  • Doas = Dedicated Openbsd Application Subexecutor (seriously). It’s an alternative to Sudo that originated in Openbsd that also allows users to run a command with elevated privilages as the root user. Its code is smaller and tighter, and is seen as more secure than Sudo. It also has much more straight forward configuration. It’s newer than Sudo, so although Doas is in theory better, Sudo is the default widely used tool across the vast majority of Linux.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are we so afraid of cockroaches?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Some excellent answers here.

  I would add that it’s not fear necessarily but also disgust. Cockroaches are associated with filth, so the presence of a cockroach makes people feel disgusted and uncomfortable. For me, if I see a cockroach it means the place I am in is dirty and unhygienic, and that is enough to cause revulsion.

  A lot of the examples you give bar spiders are not things you’d find in your own home. Cockroaches are somewhere you’d find in a dwelling where you’d naturally feel safe and separated from nature. Seeing a cockroach in your home or a place you’re staying / eating is different because it’s an invasion of your space, and by a creature we associate with filth.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Over-Sensitive HP⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The printer wasn’t worth $10; they should have paid you to take that junk away. Now you’re going to have to dispose of that rubbish and it’ll probably cost you more.

  Maybe you can do what the last person did and donate it to a thrift store?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why Games Now Take 6+ Years To Make⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah this seems a fair summary, although I think the question more accurately should be “Why do AAA now take 6+ years to make?”

  There are plenty of smaller and indie games that don’t take 6 years. There are also plenty of smaller and indie games that do take 6+ years but for somewhat different reasons.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Truly the smartest person of our time⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, his videos are interesting but I must admit I do find the somewhat fake “lecture” style off putting. It made as if he’s lecturing to a class of people and there are even fake western “students” asking questions at the end. But the guy is in China, and these are clearly produced for a new audience but dressed up as if it is educational. I can see why he does it - it lends an air of authority to the videos, and it is engaging, but the conceit of it being a real lecture undermines it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do.contires that use commas for decimals read such numbers aloud?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I wonder if the world will ever standardise to one or the other?

  The . for decimal separator is used in English, as well as China and India but apparently that is only 35-40% of the global population. The , is used for 60-65%. Although the figures may not be accurate as a lot of countries seem to use both, with . used for international business.

  Probably never be standardised as it’s pretty obvious which is which? 1,000,000.00 and 1.000.000,00 are clear because of the use of three 0s for thousands etc, and two 0s for decimals. But 1.001 and 1,001 are much more ambiguous and would definitely need context as to which system is being used - is it 1 thousand and 1 or 1 and one thousandth?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨why does almost nobody live here?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  A few reasons. One is there isn’t much flat land; most of it is hilly and even mountainous and covered in thick forests. The flat areas are occupied with farms and towns but the space is small and not enough for big cities to grow. The hills and mountains are heavily forested and there has never been a big enough population to need to encroach on them. It’s also not great for building and farming, unless grazing animals.

  The other big reason is there are no natural deep sea ports in that region. It’s either marshy or the estuary of the river Colombia. Small fishing towns would be fine, but not big industrial ports that drive city growth (or did in the past). Meanwhile, Portland sits further back up the river with plenty of flat land and access to the water, so makes a natural port. And Seattle sits on the bay further north and is coastal, and a good port.

  The dynamic got set up of big cities further back, and those areas never really grew. Once the land became part of state forests, then that restricts growth even more.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨English has too many words for animals⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Tortoises are Turtles, but not all Turtles are Tortoises.

  This isn’t an English thing, this is a taxonomy thing. It should be the same in any language, just with different words used.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨We thought it would be free forever⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  And we were right.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Meanwhile in California⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  For comparison, prices near me in the UK are £1.55 a litre which is about $7.45 a gallon.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It hurts.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Sim City 4 is the best version of the Sim City games, and is 75% off on GOG right now, $5 / £4.

  Cities Skylines 1 is the best modern city builder, 3D and a lot of fun plus well designed. But only really worth it when it’s on sale; lots of DLC and overpriced as a package when not on sale. Avoid Cities Skylines 2 - it’s just not fun and hasn’t been fixed - maybe they will one day fix but I doubt it 2.5 years in..

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Native English, very basic German from school.

  I want to learn another language but can’t decide which.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Tech seems to often seems to follow the Pareto Principal of 80:20 split; where one company dominates and gets at least 80% of the market share. In tech its often more extreme and 90% domination often occurs, and is even expected by investors.

  It’s debatable where this is cause or effect - e.g. whether tech would naturally move to such dominant splits or whether this is actually the effects of bad regulation allowing monopolies to form. I personally favour the latter but thats irrelevant.

  So in the space of “forums” Reddit has taken a dominant position. In some ways it gets away with this because it’s regarded as “social media” and as such is no where near dominant, with Meta dominant (Facebook, Instagram) and big players like TikTok etc. But in terms of the forum style discussion platform it really is dominant. It’s so dominant that people who host communities on there seem to unquestioningly believe Reddit when it says it owns them and all it’s content.

  Lemmy, MBin, and PieFed show that actually anyone can host their own instances of Reddit like forums, but Reddit does still dominate as a single location hosting and controlling lots of other peoples content.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Valve says 5,863 titles earned over $100,000 on Steam in 2025⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So 113k released between 2016 and 2025 is about 12600 a year. We have only been told that 5863 games made more than 100k last year, not what their total lifetime revenues are. Bearing in mind games generally make the most money in the first year of release (of course there there is big variation and there is a tail but mostly), then very crudely as much as 46% of new games could be making at least 100K in the first year. That’s an overestimate for many reasons but 5% is also a huge underestimate as the figure is using at all games released across 9 years and diluting the the 1 year figure we have. Also we need to bare in mind how much of the Steam library is slop and not an actual fully formed game, or is place holder entries for things like demos and even DLC.

  The real figure will sit between those two extreme limits, it’s not going to be as low as 5% but also not as high as 46%.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is the USA attacking Iran?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So this is one where actually it really makes no sense for the US to attack Iran - this comes down to a bad president making impulsive decisions. It certainly benefits Israel. Trump seems to think he is untouchable after attacking Iran last year and kidnapping Venezuela’s president. This war seems to be him shooting from the hip and not being restrained by those around him from making very bad decisions.

  From a US strategic point of view, it can’t achieve regime change in Iran by bombing the country (it’d need troops on the ground) and it has low supplies of air defence munitions thanks to selling stocks to Ukraine and also using up some supplies in it’s 2 day war against Iran in 2025. Going to war now is foolhardy - Iran just needs to prolong this war beyond a few weeks and the US will be in trouble. It will need to pivot to a defensive posture to protect its allies in the region as defenses run out, which will be tough and cost US servicemen and women’s lives. It will also cost a fortune to prosecute this war without any real benefit.

  US allies in the middle east have been drawn into a conflict they certainly didn’t want, global trade will be disrupted by closing the Strait of Hormuz (a very major shipping route), oil prices will spike and could stay high if oil infrastructure is damaged in the war, air traffic will remain disrupted and the gulf states economic hub plans (building up Dubai as an Economic centre etc) will be damaged. It’s possible this could even tilt the global economy to recession, or even precipitate an earlier end to the AI stock-market bubble.

  This war is looking like a major strategic blunder by the US; more stupid than the Vietnam war (which was at least thought-out by strategists). Its likely the Pentagon was against this war, but sadly Trump and his clown-car cabinet are pulling the shots. It’s a war that’s goals cannot be achieved, yet will costly the longer it runs.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It is 2003, I am playing a new expansion for Diablo 2 as the US starts a war in the Middle East. It is 2026, I am playing a new expansion for Diablo 2 (!) as the US starts a war in the Middle East.⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Ah! So it’s your fault! Get him!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tune a fish⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  tuna steak is fish, so why isn’t it tuna fish steak?