egerlach

joined 2 years ago
[–] egerlach 7 points 2 months ago

warof1812 has entered the chat.

[–] egerlach 2 points 3 months ago

I think we agree on the overall premise, but disagree on the degree. I also think that's fine. I don't know how hard it would be to arm Canadians broadly as you suggest. I'm suggesting that armament will be most effective built on a foundation of intelligence and logistics.

I think there would be value in something like the Swiss model (though I understand that it isn't as ubiquitous as it once was).

[–] egerlach 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Wars aren't won with weapons. Battles are won with weapons. Wars are won with intelligence and logistics.

Russia tried to make their "special military operation" a battle and take Kyiv in the first few days. They failed, and now they have a war on their hands. If you follow the details of the war, a lot of focus is placed on cities that are well-connected to other cities by road or by water. Your military can be much more agile in where it chooses to deploy resources if you control the supply infrastructure.

Occupations are notoriously even worse. The asymmetry of maintaining resources for an occupation is huge. Relatively small pockets of resistance, well applied, can cripple an occupier's forces, even if the resistance is relatively poorly armed.

The question is what the limit of the American populous's tolerance for soldiers dying to occupy Canada, of all places. I hope we never find out.

[–] egerlach 11 points 3 months ago

There was a good discussion online between Christine Lemmer-Webber, one of the editors of the ActivityPub W3C Standard, and Bryan Newbold, protocol engineer at BlueSky.

These are long reads. But they are worth reading. Christine and Bryan agree that ATProto and ActivityPub have different design goals and so what you get from "federation" with each is different. ATProto makes a centralized index of the entire system possible, at the cost of relying on very few (practically likely one) centralized providers.

As a result, the Lemmy ecosystem, as it exists today, wouldn't be possible with ATProto. It would probably look more like Reddit, but with a "credible exit" possible as a defense against enshittification.

[–] egerlach 4 points 3 months ago

The entire premise of this piece is that it happens consensually within the law. Secretary Krasnov-Trump of the 47th Oblast is not known for respecting consent or the law.

The outcome we have to be wary of is forcible annexation. Trump only respects strength, so the right thing to do is to be strong. Trump's reaction to Ontario's energy surcharge is proof that we're on the right track—it's him whining "no, I'm stronger". We have to keep showing Canadian strength in response. Not aggressive strength, but a forcible "no" with enough oomph to back it up.

He's a bully. He'll give up when we're no longer fun and hand the file over to someone who will be willing to negotiate. Then when a deal is reached that is almost exactly where we were in December, he'll claim victory for bringing Canada to heel.

Peace, Order, and Good Government is the right goal. But right now all three of those aims require paying attention to Trump, not ignoring him.

[–] egerlach 10 points 3 months ago

The fight for justice, democracy, and civility knows no borders. You (singular), and those who fight against oppression will always be our brothers/sisters IMO.

We know you're there, and we know who we are and aren't booing when we boo the Star-Spangled Banner.

I think I can speak for most Canadians if I say we're sorry that standing up for ourselves means hurting you, but we're not sorry for standing up for ourselves.

[–] egerlach 38 points 3 months ago

I've been saying "Canadians are nice by choice, not because of something in the water."

I like this one, too. I intend on stealing it and spreading it. #ElbowsUp

[–] egerlach 38 points 3 months ago (7 children)

I think Trudeau is best when he gets to lead a country, and not have to deal with politics. I mean, he's not the best policy maker, IMO, but we've had worse PMs. Whenever he has to do "politics" stuff though he's... well, bad.

[–] egerlach 2 points 4 months ago

Thanks, consider me a +1 on your internal prioritization. I know that a lot of places offer DNS management for free (because it scales so well) but I'd be willing to pay a nominal fee to have it be Canadian. I'm already paying right now to have it managed on a hacker-run service rather than a large corporate service.

[–] egerlach 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Do you provide managed DNS hosting?

I've got a couple of droplets I would probably move, but I'd like to centralize my NS record provider first.

[–] egerlach 1 points 4 months ago

Didn't have to be real, just scary to the powerful.

(Not commenting on truth of whether it happened or not, just a generalization of my observations of the behaviours of the powerful)

[–] egerlach 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

There isn't just one christian god. Who the christan god is depends on which accounts you consider.

It's easy to read the old testament, read the post-gospel books, listen to the 2000 years of doctrine, and come away with the opinion that the christian god is evil. If you just read the gospels though, and accept that part of the message is: "I'm throwing out the old deal, the new one is Love One Another," it's harder to maintain that argument.

I was raised Lutheran, and am currently a philosophical agnostic. I know people who have an internally consistent belief in a good and loving christian god based on how they interpret the entire body of work (they're well studied). I also believe their definitions of "good" and "loving" would align with yours.

New thought just now:

  • If the christian god is a singular entity and is evil, then it must exist
  • If it doesn't exist as a singular entity, the only thing to criticize is people's conception of it

Sorry for the long reply. You got me to extend my thinking and that came out in the comment.

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