Just going by population, you should about as much as you think about Canada.

Hmm. Unofficial Kurdish state in the north, typical Middle Eastern country in the south. Lots of Iranian influence. It had a wild ride thanks to warmongering Americans and Saddam, but as far as I can tell it’s settled down since the end of ISIS as a territory-holding entity.

Aside from the politics, it’s home to a lot of the oldest cities and ruins in existence. Like the rest of the region it used to be greener, but millennia of agriculture take a toll.

You think people who are undecided about voting for me check that?

- Poilievre

No. Any rigged hardware dragnet that catches me will catch tons of “friendly” people, and I’m not important enough to personally target.

Probably comparable to rage comics.

All 4 of them, as of posting, compared to the 25 upvotes.

That gives all gif/jif stuff right now.

Oh, Lemmy.

I guess in real life that’s polarising…

On here it’s just preaching to the choir, thus the upvotes.

On the one hand, it’s a victimless crime, at least roughly. On the other, people have been shown incapable of making the obvious correct decision on their own.

Yep. Sadly, I’m not sure there’s another way for most people. On Lemmy we’re mostly nerds, but would most people have learned even basic math if they didn’t have to?

In some ways, the most motivated or talented students are just as ill-fitted to the production line system of education as the disabled ones.

Is there some individual news story this relates to?

A meme that comes quickly, goes quickly.

It’s not an actual organised group, if you didn’t know. Anyone can hack something and then say “Done by Anonymous”.

Yes, computers in their various forms are now so user friendly (and often locked down, because fuck you) that you don’t learn much using them. The golden age for learning tech on the fly seems to have been 1990-2010 or so, because computers were both accessible and still had exposed inner logic.

It’s been a bit over a year for me, otherwise this would be the answer.

Oh my god, that’s amazing. I’m getting on something that can be rooted posthaste, but in the meanwhile…

Well, not by that name. There’s other sorts of legal agreements for shared buildings, though. People complain about condo boards up here too, but it sounds like the American HOA is particularly nasty. I don’t know why.

Yes, this is the unappreciated other end of shitty small-scale power tripping. Normal people don’t want to do jobs like internet moderator or HOA president, because nobody appreciates them and it’s boring. So, people who get a different kind of value out of it take their place, and around we go.

I’ve heard it’s actually more comfortable in really hot conditions. If its metal, the whole thing can be a cold spot I guess.

Anyway, I’d like to flex about all the rough sleeping I’ve done. It’s not usually braggable.

Yes, when bootstrapping, tuck in your bootstraps.

To add a bit of detail, it comes down to circles being nice, simple geometric objects, and an assembly of metal with contact points being capable of way more accuracy than you’d first expect.

Bootstrapping the first lathe is harder; most likely some historical elite master craftsman was able to make one freehand, and future ones derived from it. We still have the one Vaucanson made that way, although it sounds like it was a one-off. David Gingery wrote a book on the topic, but he still assumes you have a power drill and a ready-made threaded rod.

Smelting metal (as opposed to just heating already refined metal) is a non-average skillset, though, and knapping is quite hard to master.