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Acrually jesus canceled the tapdancing performance, they’re suing him too.

Yes, those are all great points that make up a good portion of why they should probably revisit the design.

While noble, that was a tongue in cheek diminutive and I was including myself in that category.

Wildly appropriate username here. Also, 100% correct.

5.6 - 9 - 5.6
hip - waist - bust

If it’s good enough for girls it’s good enough for phones

It slightly does me, given that the Air was (apparently) a huge commercial flop. You’d think they’d revisit the soundly mocked design instead of recycling it, or at least change it? The renders may very well be overstating it, of course, but still it’s an odd feature to carry over.

But it’s not stupid thin, it’s got a giant lump on it?

The marketing about it being an incredibly thin phone was a misstep - it just looked absurd to have such a chunky lump stuck onto it, and it felt very much like they were attempting a have cake / eat cake situation by claiming it had incredible camera stats (which werent very good) to justify the bump on an otherwise amazingly thin phone, and then that giant electronics bump had an external lens on it too.

Had it just been an ugly phone, I doubt it would have met with anywhere near the same criticism, but all the adcopy about how thin it was overtop of photos where you could see it had a giant lump on it felt really dishonest, and if this article is accurate it may count among the biggest apple flops ever.

(The thickness may just need to be accepted at this point. The S25 Ultra is 8.2mm, which is thinner than the Air if you include the bump. It seems like the camera wasnt the issue then, but that they hamstrung their design team with their drive for a thin phone. What elegance might even an extra millimeter of chassis space produced?)

Assuming he’s right (and boy, being sued by apple is a huge boost to his credibility), they’re keeping the stupid camera bump thing from the air???

In case you’re not kidding, it was a real battleship - practically useless due to it’s size and cost, it only fired it’s main guns in one engagement (and it’s only arguable that they did anything) and spent the rest of the war as a command ship or scuttling between ports attempting to hide from enemy aircraft. It was ultimately sunk on it’s way to a suicide mission by allied bombers.

Tell me again how much worse Uyghur language is being treated than Occitan.

I never claimed that? Nor spoke to it? Please don’t try and misrepresent my comment as being at all a statement on the relative conditions of the treatment of the two groups - you’ve established you refuse to accept critical media on that topic so I didn’t even try - because it’s entirely about why the topic does not recieve the same amount of attention online as other contemporary topics.

This is why you can claim my quotes were cherrypicked - since they’re not about the topic you present, they’re obviously not going to be a comprehensive representation of that topic.

(edit: clarity)

In the early 1900s, the French government attempted to restrict the use and teaching of many minority languages, including Occitan, in public schools. While the laws have since changed, with bilingual education returning for regions with unique languages in 1993, the many years of restrictions had already caused serious decline in the number of Occitan speakers. (via wikipedia)

It seems rather dishonest to conflate the attention given to the oppression of current minority groups with that given to the oppression of minority groups that hit it’s peak around a hundred years ago (and arguably started in the 16th centry).

There’s been decades of effort to preserve the culture already, improve the cultural situation for Occitan speakers and there are active efforts to improve the treatment of minority languages and culture in general in France:

Is there anything we can do to slow or stop this decline? Well, some things are already being done: conversation classes such as Café Oc allow locals to immerse themselves in Occitan in Southern France, and in Toulouse, bilingual street signs and metro train announcements are reminders of the area’s linguistic heritage. Though these efforts are certainly to be admired, the stark reality remains that the language is mostly spoken by older populations and is facing a continued decline over the coming years. The only real long-term solution to keep it alive is to encourage its uptake by the next generation, and as such, the existence of Calandretas - schools where Occitan is a medium of instruction alongside French - is a step in the right direction. Unless drastic action is taken to protect this fascinating and historic language, not only do we risk losing the language itself, but also an entire universe of rich cultural and literary beauty which, until only a few centuries ago, was one of the dominant forms of culture and discourse in Western Europe. (article from 2021)

I don’t think a single person isn’t aware that France was staggeringly racist in the early 1900s - for good or ill, nobody is going to argue it wasnt. They’ve made huge strides on this specific topic, however, and while they can do better, the reason people are unaware is that it’s lost in the miasma of horror that was French Colonialism in the era that suppression of Occitan and related minority languages was at its it’s height - it’s rather restrained for that time period, if we’re being honest.

This person isn’t engaging in good faith - they present as though they have engaged with a wide range of sources, but they extremely clearly have not (if the blatant whattaboutism didn’t tip you off already). They don’t source the controversial claims, either.

Amnesty International has never provided evidence that there’s a genocide in Xinjiang, because they have never claimed there is a genocide in Xinjiang.

In fact the only times the word “genocide” even appears in their report is in one footnote, #688, where the word appears twice in the citations themselves and once in a clarifying citation about why the word ‘genocide’ may be inappropriate, included as a reference to the titles of the two cited works.

What they do provide exhaustive evidence for (including as you describe it material evidence - photographs, data and internal reporting) is that china has engaged in a program of human rights violations that they believe may qualify as crimes against humanity. This is extremely evident in any reporting done on this topic by AI - this isn’t a gotcha, it’s the subject of the most prominent western criticism of amnesty international and has been a central point of debate within the UN and most AI-aligned groups (including HRW, another extremely reputable organization that agrees with AI on this topic). Even the most prominent source of the pro-genocide arguments, The Uyghur Tribunal, agrees and provided independent verification justifying AI’s reservations with calling it a genocide - their claims of genocide are based on reports of forced sterilization and organ harvesting, topics AI has not engaged with.

You used the lack of evidence provided for claims made by an organization you regard as the most reputable source for this topic as supporting your position, but you used that to dismiss claims which that organization has never even made. An organization which actually agrees with you that (on the basis of their own investigation) there is no genocide of Muslims in Xinjiang.

I’m sorry, I just dont think I can believe you when you say you’ve personally engaged with this topic to the extent you claim. If that were true, you should have known this. It is at the very heart of this discussion.

Is this “taking Chinese propaganda at face value”?

Well… no, not exactly.

Your approach to helping to see truth through the miasma of the narrative is, as you present it, reasonable if unavoidably inherently biased - independent journalists are largely going to be presenting the western Ukranian perspective, just by dint of volume (nobody puts them in prison just for being critical of the Ukrainan commanders (the nuances of that are a different discussion that is also important).

(I am also (and I want to be clear not in a dismissive way I am just genuinely unclear what you are referring to) very curious as to what you mean by material evidence - things like photographs or 1st party accounts?)

I have done a similar thing, where I have based my opinion on careful research of my own interactions with Ukranians and the work of academics familiar with the situation as well as:

• the documentation from both state and independent news reporting groups inside Ukraine (and to the extent we have them Russia
• the patterns of behavior Russia has historically used to justify their imperialism that are reflected in their current actions
• the truly overwhelming number of reports and analyses from long-established dedicated & well respected international groups who report on this

And that’s I suspect what you have done too.

But… when I do the same thing for the claims of genocide in China, I arrive at the conclusion it’s very much occurring. There’s overwhelming documentation from many many sources on the topic, and much as with the Ukranian conflict, the majority are going to be western aligned simply because (despite the fascist push for control of western media) independent and critical media is not suppressed in the west, but it very much is in china (to any comparable degree) (the list of independent Chinese journalists is longer than in Russia, which tracks it’s a much larger country, but their lives are often no less fraught). In different ways than in Russia, but nontheless the narrative is extremely strictly controlled.

Why then do you treat the mountain of inherently biased evidence for Russia being wrong as acceptable and reasonable, but when many of the same organizations you will have used to dismiss Russia’s claims say there is a genocide in china, they are dismissable?

Setting aside that a genocide does not have to look like whats happening in palestine (ask me about native american genocides I can go on for a while), it’s internally inconsistent reasoning.

In terms of the actual characters used to write it, .nl is very close to .ml

Sometimes people lie about stuff to make money?? Good god, I hope corporate grocery chains don’t learn about this ancient and secret power! Imagine what they might do!

Seriously, that article kinda buries the point about how few people doing it they were able to find - yeah it was happening, but it’s absolutely not some common behavior you can expect at a farmer’s market.

(Edit:) Other great quotes from that article:

In California, for example, each stand is inspected and vendors are required to display a certificate that outlines the produce they grow. No reselling of wholesale or out-of-state produce is permitted and markets are inspected by the state on a quarterly basis. Vendors who are caught breaking the rules can face suspensions, fines or even jail time.

Ed Williams, the man in charge of inspecting markets in Los Angeles County, says the system is important to prevent fraud and ensure “the consumer is not getting ripped off.”

Seems like the conclusion of the article is “we (canada) need to get our shit together, look even the US has this figured out”

What? They’ve been talking about features that are now being called the “kill switch” for the better part of a year. Literally all they did that’s new was give it a dumb name.

Thank you! I very much appreciate the kind words. I hope you have a very good day!

You aren’t debating. You have nothing to add.

Yes, correct. I am glad you are willing to admit you understand.

baseless observation

It is not baseless - you confirmed it was an entirely accurate assertion of your behavior.

But if you insist on just rehashing your own opinion as some infallible fact

It’s not just my opinion, it’s yours as well.

If you want to actually have a discussion

We are having a discussion. Not the one you want to have on this topic, but a discussion nonetheless.

or debate the topic - I’m still happy to engage on that.

Yes that is evident - but there’s nothing about the topic to debate, something you appear to be aware of, so I must once again conclude this is probably a dishonest attempt to engage in a debate and, once again, politely decline your offer.

I continue to have nothing I need to add, and I am grateful you appear to be understanding that now. Unfortunately I was correct about the value of your subsequent comments, so hopefully this can be resolved soon with the minimum of additional embarrassment for you.