But it is processed food, which means it has indeed lost some nutritional value. Moreover, the way white flour is processed by our body is different from the way wheat or oats is - in very simplistic terms, the reduction of fibre content in white flour means that when it is consumed and processed, glucose / sugar from it is released very quickly into our body. Our body can handle that, once in a while. But repeated sugar spikes (and falls) isn't good for the health. And that is why doctors today (especially in India) advise you to eschew white flour in favour of others (wheat, oats, millets etc.). But yeah, the way you consume it, with other foods, matters too (and from your other comment, it does appear you follow a reasonably good diet, with a healthy outlook - without unduly obsessing over it).
> But it is processed food, which means it has indeed lost some nutritional value.
This seems like a trivially false assumption.
If processing grains into bread represented a loss of nutritional value, why would every civilization have invested their extraordinarily scarce time and resources into milling and baking instead of just eating the raw grains?
For those who like BeOS, please check out V OS - https://v-os.dev/ - it's a Linux distro that is porting Be GUI and SDK to run on the Linux kernel. It's quite light on the resources. With enough support, it could one day be a really great alternate to Gnome and KDE on Linux.
As the Europeans were forced to cut off cheap energy supply from Russia, it has really hurt some of their economies and it has partly contributed to the economic crisis emerging in EU. It is one of the major reasons why EU members are so opposed to ending the Ukraine war, despite their ally US pointing out that that horse (i.e. the proxy war) has been whipped for all its political worth and prolonging it anymore will likely backfire on the west (a defeat of Ukraine strengthens Russia, a defeat of Russia may result in nuclear war or further break up of it resulting in unrest and possibly civil war in that region that China would exploit and benefit hugely from as it moves to capture Russian territories, to protect its own interest, while any new breakaway nation states that form may also possess nuclear weapons from the vast Russian nuclear arsenal presenting other long term headaches). A "mini wartime" economy due to the Ukraine war is the only thing, some EU members feel, is sustaining their economy, away from the breakpoint. And specifically, with respect to France, one of the major issue it has is that it never really gave up its imperialistic stake in its African colonies, which has been increasingly challenged by competition from China and Russia. As Africans increasingly assert their sovereignty, France is slowly being edged out in Africa. Even the Americans are now encroaching in Africa, on French influence, to retain western influence there and protect West's access to African natural resources.
- what Europeans tend to be opposed to is allowing conquest to stand, no?
Maybe. I am sceptical as I don't see that in their political actions. What realistic and practical solution do they actually offer towards that end, except for saying war will not end until they accept our demand (a stand quite similar to Russia)? (That strategy would be appropriate if, with their support, Ukraine could actually reclaim its lost territories - i.e. a military solution was viable. But it is clear that without NATO troops in the battlefield, this is highly unlikely.).
As for the claim of "mini wartime" economy, everyone was worried about the state of EU's economy when the war started and as it progressed, demands for declaring a wartime economy became very public. Some examples:
One is not exclusive of the other. Do you really expect any European politician to tell the public that they are benefiting from the Russia-Ukraine war because of the increased defense spending? The fear-mongering in Europe, due to the war, is the only thing allowing many of them to increase military budgets without much opposition. (Look at the violent protests happening in France because the citizens fear that the government has, and will, cut back on social spending, and divert the money elsewhere).
It's too much effort to write an answer here. (The new protests in Germany, like in France, is another symptom of the economic woes of EU members). But I've given you enough of a gist on the topic to do some research on your own if you are interested in learning more. There are plenty of resources on this topic online.
Same here. Went cold turkey when they blocked old.reddit. Surprisingly, even though I get my once in a while "fix" now from 9gag (warning: right-wing - racist, antisemite etc.) instead, overall, I too now waste less time on such things. I think they did us all a favour with their stupidity ...
The thing about 9gag is that 90% of the people on there are literal 14-year-old boys or have stopped developing mentally since that point. Even if you put aside the stuff that’s just disgusting: the misogyny, the racism, the antisemitism etc., the comments are full of people who are just intellectually or educationally incapable of proper arguments, yet who insist that the one thing they heard on TikTok about a topic is a universal truth.
I find it hard to stay away from a voyeuristic perspective, but I wish someone would take the damn site offline.
Yeah, I guess one of the thing I find interesting about that echo chamber is, "how much can it challenge my belief" (as it is in the opposite political spectrum to Reddit)? Can I really be brainwashed? I found that it indeed can subtly influence your thinking, and that was enlightening. Like you point out, it's a cesspool of things we won't talk about publicly because it is hurtful and violent. That "forbidden" fruit aspect is what makes it attractive to some, but also acts as a restraint for those of us not attracted to such stuff. Apart from that, a lot of popular content from Reddit is copy pasted there too, which Reddit should have anticipated - when an open society increases societal restrictions, many will move naturally try to find alternates, if not for social acceptance than to to practice their social freedom. Maybe if enough people migrate, it may change the the social nature of 9gag?
I also think the site is dumb, but when are we going to end this idea that everything we dislike needs to be removed from the internet? Is that permanent now? Because it wasn’t always like that.
I think Reddit is a cesspool of idiocy and propaganda too, but I don’t think it needs to be “taken offline”.
I can’t remember what this is called but there’s a name for it, where you subtly change the meaning of what I said so you can argue with it better.
“I wish someone would” is not the same as “it needs to be”. Racism, misogyny and antisemitism are not “idiocy and propaganda”. The fact you don’t think Reddit “needs to be ‘taken offline’” has no bearing on 9gag.
Reddit still has plenty of those things as well. As does HN! It may not be as concentrated as places like 4chan, but it’s there. (9gag is weak sauce compared to 4chan, as well.)
But anyway, I don’t really much of a difference between idle wishes and advocacy. Both empower the people who want to “sanitize” the internet.
And unfortunately also a smart move - it is so difficult to find a good domain name now because domain reselling has become such a huge business now. I wouldn't be surprised to find every word in the english dictionary is now a parked domain with ads, and a link to buy or bid for the domain.
> These kinds of attempts at labelling global labor arbitrage as "colonialism" always seem naive.
Naive from what perspective? I mean, look at the rise of the right- in the west that is also demanding that jobs be not shipped abroad, or "passed on to immigrants", so that "white people" don't face increasing unemployment. Note that this is becoming a dilemma for right- leaning politicians too because the right- also identifies with capitalism as part of its core ideology. I won't be surprised if a subsection of both the right- and the left- cite this paper, in the future, to bolster their own political arguments.
I haven't seen it yet. Serious question - Does it have any Jedis or Siths? (If there are no Jedis / Siths, it isn't "Star Wars" for me and I will not watch it).
Andor does not prominently feature any Jedi, Sith, or other Force-users as main characters. The show does feature at least one unambiguous use of on-screen Force powers, but it's not the focus.
The setting of the show is influenced by their actions, but during the time period the show is set, the two most visibly active Sith - Palpatine and Vader - are high-ranking members of the government, and are entirely off-screen, and all Jedi are assumed dead or in hiding. The main character considers The Force to be superstition.
For my own taste, at least, I thought the show was very good, and it felt more "Star Wars" to me than most of the other spinoffs, sequels, prequels, and extended universe of the past decades. It really nails an overall sense of "how the universe works", in the setting. The aesthetics, the capabilities and limitations of technology, the social organization, and the sense of a wide and exotic universe, all match what seems "Star Wars" to me.
> Calling it a deficiency in service, the Hyderabad consumer commission ordered an OTT platform to refund Rs 1,499 and pay compensation to a subscriber after it introduced advertisements midway into his paid ad-free subscription.
Well, if you want the root cause: this is what happens when your society is predicated on perpetual growth. Everything would collapse if we just left good things alone, so instead we’re stuck either innovating and creating new good things or squeezing the juice out of what already exists.
This has nothing with perpetual growth and everything with training your population to defend these practices with "oh, they're just companies, don't use it if you don't like it!" instead of fighting back.
Vigilante justice, you say? Now you are talking!! We certainly are not going to see things get better on their own, and the government definitely isn’t going to take the side of consumers.
What's the confusion? The company was ordered to refund the Rs. 1499 that he had paid for the subscription plus pay an additional fine of Rs. 8000 (as compensation and litigation costs), all totalling to Rs. 9500.
I'm not sure consumer rights protections would deliver better experiences.
Government is predictably slow, inefficient, and does just about everything at a service level that is only accepted because there is no other choice.
We are seeing an increasingly exaggerated cycle that goes like this:
1. Innovation takes huge investment to launch
2. Early adopters enjoy amazing new product(s) while companies bear losses
3. Companies eventually must face debt so quality of products decrease and price increases
OpenAI and Anthropic have perhaps set the record for going from 1 to 2 in the biggest (financially) and fastest manner ever, and we are all hurtling towards step 3 with a possible too-big-to-fail scenario.
Back to Disney Plus: I don't have a sagely answer. Free markets do sometimes need government to curb monopoly power, and Disney is certainly has a sort of monopolistic power due to their huge portfolio of franchises and content.
Government is predictably slow, inefficient, and does just about everything at a service level that is only accepted because there is no other choice.
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Generally true but there have been a lot of examples demonstrating the opposite.
The NPS (and Reacreation.gov) does an amazing job considering their resource level, NASA arguably delivered innovation at an unprecedented scale for decades, and up until it was purposefully fucked with the US Postal Service offered a fantastic dependable, affordable and pretty innovative product. The Hold Mail is simple and elegant as just one minor example.
Given how ridiculously inefficient (i.e. extractive) private companies are in areas which were previously government run... yea I think at this point there might be stronger evidence that private companies are MUCH slower and less efficient. They can move faster at times, but they often do so with outrageously clear malicious intent, so that isn't exactly something to congratulate them for.
But it is processed food, which means it has indeed lost some nutritional value. Moreover, the way white flour is processed by our body is different from the way wheat or oats is - in very simplistic terms, the reduction of fibre content in white flour means that when it is consumed and processed, glucose / sugar from it is released very quickly into our body. Our body can handle that, once in a while. But repeated sugar spikes (and falls) isn't good for the health. And that is why doctors today (especially in India) advise you to eschew white flour in favour of others (wheat, oats, millets etc.). But yeah, the way you consume it, with other foods, matters too (and from your other comment, it does appear you follow a reasonably good diet, with a healthy outlook - without unduly obsessing over it).
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