sh.itjust.works

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21365139

Buny

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3765597

Archived link

[...]

While censorship on economic issues is hardly new, the level of repression has taken a darker turn of late, sending chills through anyone in the country who analyzes the economy as part of their profession.

The most extreme example is the reported disappearance of Zhu Hengpeng, one of China’s most prominent and well-connected economists. Zhu is a director at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a leading think tank that reports directly to the cabinet.

[...]

He is believed to have been forcibly disappeared in April after he made disparaging remarks about the economy in a private chat group on the Chinese social media platform WeChat. The specifics of what Zhu said are unclear, but some reports indicate that he had “improperly discussed central policies” and made a reference to the “mortality” of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping.

[...]

While economic information is perceived as being less politically sensitive than discussions about democracy or human rights in China, [...] research shows that over the past decade, the CCP has repeatedly ratcheted up restrictions whenever the economy appears to be in trouble. This year, the crackdown has increasingly focused on content that addresses income inequality, youth employment, and poverty – in other words, deep-rooted problems that affect large swaths of the population and could undermine a key pillar of the CCP’s political legitimacy.

[...]

Chinese citizens are also prohibited from expressing their feelings about the economy. In February, WeChat removed a popular article that reported on survey findings from the Guangzhou-based Canton Public Opinion Research Center, which revealed a prevailing sense of pessimism about the country’s economic well-being. Around the same time, the CCP’s flagship mouthpiece People’s Daily published an article titled “The Whole Country Is Filled with Optimism,” attempting to project positivity online. Netizens immediately flooded the social media platform Weibo with posts ridiculing the article. Within hours, the hashtag being used to discuss the piece was removed from public view.

[...] information on the economy is a daily concern for almost everyone in China. Tight censorship on this topic can breed mass distrust in approved sources and compel more netizens to circumvent the CCP’s draconian internet censorship, despite the possibility of punishment, in search of more objective news and analysis on China’s economic situation. In other words, censorship on the economy could ultimately backfire on censorship in general, exposing the regime to an even greater crisis of legitimacy.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20847663

Scientists had previously observed sleeping birds making movements that resembled lip-syncing. In earlier work, Mindlin and his colleagues implanted electrodes in two Zebra Finches; for a recent study in Chaos, they did the same for two Great Kiskadees. This let them record and compare neuron and muscle activity in the sleeping birds.

When awake, Zebra Finches sing a well-regulated line of staccato notes. But their sleeping song movements are fragmented, disjointed and sporadic—“rather like a dream,” Mindlin says. A dozing finch seems to silently practice a few “notes” and then add another, producing a pattern of muscle activity that reminds Mindlin “of learning a musical instrument.”

Israel has attacked a prominent survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing over a comparison he made between the blast and the current assault on Gaza.

Toshiyuki Mimaki, a leader of the Nihon Hidankyo organisation that represents survivors of the US attack, compared the two after the group was announced as the recepient of the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

“I thought for sure it would be the people working so hard in Gaza, as we’ve seen," he told reporters in Tokyo after the announcement. In Gaza, bleeding children are being held by their parents. It’s like in Japan 80 years ago.”

In response, Israel's ambassador to Japan attacked the comparison as "outrageous and baseless", and said such comparisons "distort history and dishonor the victims".

My 19yr old immortal kitty Orion was just found, nearly a week after he wandered off. He's old and his vision/hearing isn't the best. While I kept looking and giving all the neighbors flyers I was prepared for the worst. Nothing has ever loved me so unconditionally and I am so grateful for his return.

https://www.webtoons.com/en/creator/w7m5o

“What happened was that we woke up to smoke, flames, fire and burning pieces falling on the tents from every direction. The explosions terrified us in our tents and outside where we live behind Al-Aqsa Hospital,” Om Ahmad Radi, a survivor at the scene, told Al Jazeera.

“The fire trucks couldn’t get here. There were so many burned and charred bodies all over the place. The amount of fire and explosions was enormous. We witnessed one of the most horrible and brutal nights.”

This app has really made my life better so I thought I'd share it. It's a bookmark everything app like raindrop.io or Pocket; except it is self-hosted. It has Firefox & Chrome extensions as well as iOS and Android mobile apps (so it's available pretty much everywhere).

You have the option to use AI for auto-tagging or you can not use the feature if AI bothers you. AI can either be your locally hosted LLM or you can use the ChatGPT API. I use it with a locally hosted LLM.

I'm not the developer, just a happy user.

https://hoarder.app/

We’ve only had 1.3C of global average warming, but it’s enough to popularize the entire category of personal cooling devices. So when people say, “You won’t even notice 1C of global warming,” the market tells us that that’s absolute bullshit.