mazrodak

[mazrodak]

[mazrodak]

hey sorry if this is disrespectful as a non-jew but ive been reading up on stuff and thinking about i/p and.

War is synonymous with mass death. There has not been a single war in the history of mankind that has not resulted in suffering. Even Sun Tsu, in his 25-century old The Art of War, emphasized the importance of peace and of nonviolent resolutions. so i really do not understand the watermelon-fixated dumbasses who cheered on the oct. 7 massacre then decried Israel's self defense as genocide. this is the "globalized intifada" they've been clamouring for. this is *exactly* what you're asking for when you cheer on hamas and their genocidal buddies. sorry that yank school never taught you that war is bad but this is how reality works. the real pro-palestine stance would be staunchly against hamas.

Hi Nonnie!

I'm not gonna lie, whenever I think about war, the one sentence that gets stuck in my head is, "war is hell." It is death, destruction, mayhem, and cruelty that has no bounds, even when it's not committed on purpose. Even the most justified of wars. I think one of the reasons we all keep going back to WWII is because it was simultaneously maybe the most justified war ever, literally fought to stop a fascist regime and its dictatorial partners from expanding their conquests of more and more land, occupying more and more people, bringing about more and more suffering (including the most extreme case of genocide in human history), and yet at the same time, it was also the single bloodiest conflict ever, and the war itself was cruel and brutal, certainly when we talk about acts committed by the Nazis and their collaborators, but on occasion there were atrocities committed by the allied soldiers, too (not to the same degree, and not as a part of their government's policy, but my point is that even fighters who are in battle for the best of reasons, as the allied soldiers were, have some among them, who commit terrible crimes. In part, because war blurs the lines of normal reality and morality).

And I'm saying all of this, because I truly believe that we, as human beings, should always aspire to avoid war whenever possible. I would have given EVERYTHING I could in order to stop Oct 7 from happening. Because the second that the massacre started, that's when this war began, and so many innocent lives were doomed, along with the terrorists. From the POV of what is internationally accepted as an act of war, Hamas firing 4,000 rockets into Israel in one day qualifies. Hamas breaching Israel's border and invading it with thousands of armed fighters qualifies. And without a doubt, Hamas committing the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, while intentionally targeting civilians, and compounding the horror of so many deaths, with the rape and beheading and torture and abuse and then kidnapping of even more victims, it beyond qualifies as an act of war. In fact, on August 25, 2023 (a month and a half before the massacre), Hamas senior Saleh al-Arouri explicitly said in an Arabic interview that IT IS THEIR GOAL to, that THEY WANT to, start a "total war" with Israel.

Once Hamas made and executed that choice, it doesn't matter how much and how many Israelis may aspire to avoid war. We were already in one. We should always aspire to avoid war, but we also have to recognize that sometimes, the choice simply isn't in our hands. It wasn't in the hands of the British on Sep 1, 1939. And it wasn't in ours on Oct 7, 2023.

And the thing is that war IS hell. Like I said, the massacre of Oct 7 was already war. Which means, it was already hell. Certainly for its victims, but it also was already a hell that every Israeli will carry with them for decades to come. And if we don't want ANOTHER war, if we don't want ANOTHER HELL, then we have to be sure that Hamas, those who chose to start this war, will pay for it in such a way that they can't start another one, and so that others will be deterred from starting one, too (I'm thinking mainly of Hezbollah and Iran, but all Islamists need to see a western democracy not backing down from defending itself in a war it did not choose).

THAT is the meaning behind the ancient Latin phrase, "Si vis pacem, para bellum." If you want peace, prepare for war. It's the understanding that sometimes, for the sake of peace in the long run, you have to be prepared to fight in the near future.

(remember in 2014, as the pope released doves in a symbolic gesture of hoping for peace in Ukraine, and they ended up being attacked?)

I want peace. I have always wanted peace. I was the ridiculous kid, who had a "peace diary" where I wrote every day about how much I wanted peace, and how I hoped it was coming. I'm not writing that diary anymore, but I still want it, and I still believe that one day, we WILL have peace.

But it's not going to happen as long as there are extremists on Israel's borders, who still believe they can genocide us a second time, and are willing to start a war to achieve that. When they give up on that "dream," when they finally see that it will always fail, and in the process, they will suffer hell along with us to such a degree that it just won't be worth it, that's when we'll have real peace. That's when both Israelis and Palestinians will finally be safe from the threat of another hell being unleased on us. We'll have real peace, not the kind made to get something from the other side, but because both sides want peace over war for themselves (that's what the crucial mistake of the "land for peace" formula was IMO. It should be "peace for peace." With agreed land concessions, obviously. But it should be clear that the big prize both sides get is peace itself, and not that one side is doing the other a favor, and giving it peace in exchange for something material, because that kind of peace is an abstract concept, that can be withdrawn at any moment when it's not something the "giver" values for themselves. That's what happened with the Oslo accords, the PLO got territories, self rule and international legitimization, then as admitted by Imad Faluji, the Palestinian Communications Minister, Yasser Arafat planned the launch of the violent riots and wave of terrorist attacks known as the second intifada once he concluded he got as many material prizes out of the accords as he could).

On a side note, when the total number of people killed on both sides during the two intifadas was in the thousands, and the injured in the tens of thousands, IDK how anyone can claim that the call to "globalize the intifada" is anything other than a call for violence and death. The fact that this chant is coming from the same crowd that claims to be pro-peace when they demand a ceasefire now is truly deranged, and can only be rightly addressed with memes...

Sorry for the length, I guess it's still hard to process the inability of people to understand that sometimes, we don't want a war, but we do grasp that we have to fight one, even at the cost of possibly our own life or the lives of those dearest to us, even when it's bloody and nasty and hell, and civilian casualties are impossible to avoid thanks to Hamas' choice of using Gazans as human shields. I'm not sure if this helped, but I hope it somehow did! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[mazrodak]

[mazrodak]

[mazrodak]

freezing

[mazrodak]

Very excited to see how they'll do this scene in Rebirth

[mazrodak]

An asexual and pansexual become room-mates and have wacky adventures

The show is called ‘All or Nothing’

[mazrodak]

Hololive Myth Mecha fanart series

[mazrodak]

PKMN Prof Kiara and Torchic

[mazrodak]

Tea time with an Elite 4 member and her Big guest~

[mazrodak]

Amelia Watson is on the case~

[mazrodak]

So this was originally a response to this post:

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Which is about people wanting an AO3 app, but then it became large and way off topic, so here you go.

Nobody under the age of 20 knows how to use a computer or the internet. At all. They only know how to use apps. Their whole lives are in their phones or *maybe* a tablet/iPad if they're an artist. This is becoming a huge concern.

I'm a private tutor for middle- and high-school students, and since 2020 my business has been 100% virtual. Either the student's on a tablet, which comes with its own series of problems for screen-sharing and file access, or they're on mom's or dad's computer, and they have zero understanding of it.

They also don't know what the internet is, or even the absolute basics of how it works. You might not think that's an important thing to know, but stick with me.

Last week I accepted a new student. The first session is always about the tech -- I tell them this in advance, that they'll have to set up a few things, but once we're set up, we'll be good to go. They all say the same thing -- it won't be a problem because they're so "online" that they get technology easily.

I never laugh in their faces, but it's always a close thing. Because they are expecting an app. They are not expecting to be shown how little they actually know about tech.

I must say up front: this story is not an outlier. This is *every* student during their first session with me. Every single one. I go through this with each of them because most of them learn more, and more solidly, via discussion and discovery rather than direct instruction.

Once she logged in, I asked her to click on the icon for screen-sharing. I described the icon, then started with "Okay, move your mouse to the bottom right corner of the screen." She did the thing that those of us who are old enough to remember the beginnings of widespread home computers remember - picked up the mouse and moved it and then put it down. I explained she had to pull the mouse along the surface, and then click on the icon. She found this cumbersome. I asked if she was on a laptop or desktop computer. She didn't know what I meant. I asked if the computer screen was connected to the keyboard as one piece of machinery that you can open and close, or if there was a monitor - like a TV - and the keyboard was connected to another machine either by cord or by Bluetooth. Once we figured it out was a laptop, I asked her if she could use the touchpad, because it's similar (though not equivalent) to a phone screen in terms of touching clicking and dragging.

Once we got her using the touchpad, we tried screen-sharing again. We got it working, to an extent, but she was having trouble with... lots of things. I asked if she could email me a download or a photo of her homework instead, and we could both have a copy, and talk through it rather than put it on the screen, and we'd worry about learning more tech another day. She said she tried, but her email blocked her from sending anything to me.

This is because the only email address she has is for school, and she never uses email for any other purpose. I asked if her mom or dad could email it to me. They weren't home.

(Re: school email that blocks any emails not whitelisted by the school: that's great for kids as are all parental controls for young ones, but 16-year-olds really should be getting used to using an email that belongs to them, not an institution.)

I asked if the homework was on a paper handout, or in a book, or on the computer. She said it was on the computer. Great! I asked her where it was saved. She didn't know. I asked her to search for the name of the file. She said she already did that and now it was on her screen. Then, she said to me: "You can just search for it yourself - it's Chapter 5, page 11."

This is because homework is on the school's website, in her math class's homework section, which is where she searched. For her, that was "searching the internet."

Her concepts of "on my computer" "on the internet" or "on my school's website" are all the same thing. If something is displayed on the monitor, it's "on the internet" and "on my phone/tablet/computer" and "on the school's website."

She doesn't understand "upload" or "download," because she does her homework on the school's website and hits a "submit" button when she's done. I asked her how she shares photos and stuff with friends; she said she posts to Snapchat or TikTok, or she AirDrops. (She said she sometimes uses Insta, though she said Insta is more "for old people"). So in her world, there's a button for "post" or "share," and that's how you put things on "the internet".

She doesn't know how it works. None of it. And she doesn't know how to use it, either.

Also, none of them can type. Not a one. They don't want to learn how, because "everything is on my phone."

And you know, maybe that's where we're headed. Maybe one day, everything will be on "my phone" and computers as we know them will be a thing of the past. But for the time being, they're not. Students need to learn how to use computers. They need to learn how to type. No one is telling them this, because people think teenagers are "digital natives." And to an extent, they are, but the definition of that has changed radically in the last 20-30 years. Today it means "everything is on my phone."

[mazrodak]

[mazrodak]

🚚 mew under the truck real

[mazrodak]

Original blog post

Le important day in meme history has arrived

[mazrodak]

More reasons why Zuko being the Firelord is objectively the funniest thing on earth:

HES SEVENTEEN

He hasn’t been civilised in 4 years, his entire teenage experience consists of living on a boat and sleeping rough. The most stable bed he has was probably in Ba Sing Se he probably will just nap anywhere.

He has customer service experience which means he probably uses his customer service voice on his minsters.

Additionally he probably just wanders into to kitchen to get his own snacks and tea because he forgets what servants do.

He probably has no idea why he can’t just chase after an assassin he used to hunt the avatar for Agnis sake why is the captain of the guard demanding he stay in his room he’ll find the guy first (he’s probably right)

Katara probably has a free pass on Eco terrorism because what’s he going to do challenge her, she’ll beat his ass.

If he saw a minster doing something shady he will either invite lady Beifong to detect their BS or commit B&E and look for evidence himself.

He somehow found a baby dragon and raises it.

He will be far to willing to give Kyoshi island anything they want cause he feels bad and Suki scares him.

He randomly insisted on giving some earth kingdom village 100 ostrich horses.

The Avatar will just show up call him Hotman and demand the go on adventures and the Firelord will just dip because he’s been confined to long and has the Zoomies.

He takes far to much advice from Sokka and will genuinely believe if someone doesn’t get Sokkas plans they must be an idiot because Sokka is 16.

Sokka and Zuko also get into a lot of teenage rebellion phases by accident.

Toph just walks in breaks a wall of his palace and demands a field trip that always involves the Firelord having to explain himself to the cops.

He somehow knows every dangerous teen in the world and they all come for tea uninvited.

He has broken into both the NWT and Ba Sing Se.

He has a really well documented facial scar and official portraits but still disappears to be Lee the tea guy like no one knows.

HES SEVENTEEN.

[mazrodak]

Larian patch notes are always the weirdest thing because there's always some shit in there like "if you marry auntie ethel after becoming a lycanthrope, your loyal companion ketheric thorm will no longer dab uncontrollably at the wedding"

and it's like ??????????????????????????? that was a thing you could do???????