#whack-a-mole

[aunti-christ-ine]

[contentment-of-cats]

Four more days.

Surgery on Monday. Average of three days in the hospital, but they're hedging on how long I will be there. I could be there overnight if everything's good, or as long as a week if things screw up. Two 2cm incisions under my armpit, one small golf-ball sized resection at the top of my left lung, between five and seven local lymph nodes get to come out, too. I'll have a tube for drainage - luckily I got used to sleeping on my back two years ago.

Every doc I have is telling me how great the surgeon is, and even nurses sing his praises.

I'm still scared.

[bystander3]

How it feels battling the spam-bot army:

"In the beginning, the spam-bot attacks were spaced by twenty-four weeks. Then twelve, then six, then every two weeks. The last one, in Sydney, …was a week. In four days, we could be seeing a spam-bot every eight hours until they are coming every four minutes. @staff, we should witness a double event within seven days."

"There WILL be a double event. And then shortly thereafter: three. And then four."

Keep Up the Fight:

Block & Report!

[bobauthorman]

This image should not be used for the saddest chapter in the series

[skrowbear]

moles rise up 😤

Credits for sound effects: 🔈 Coin insert or collecting item: ProjectsU012 🔈 Laser gun: soundslikewillem 🔈 Cushion pat: DJ Burnham

[Image description: Moles pop up from a colourful arcade cabinet and a mallet smacks them. Eventually, a mole with a cool eyepatch pops up and incinerates the mallet with a laser beam.]

[calculated-chaos]

The satisfaction of getting a follow notification, checking it, finding a bot, and hitting it with the report/block mallet all in under 10 seconds. Take THAT, miscreant

[defiledthirst]

I slip the willy in

She screams yummy

So sexy

She holds onto my bummy

[rolandrockover]

Do You Love Goodbyes?

Oh, another one of those songs that uses and recycles the end of another one.

You can't even turn around without them reappearing behind your back. It's starting to remind me of that game you usually encounter at fairgrounds where you're handed a padded striking tool. And in front of you on a predetermined playing surface are half a dozen to a dozen holes, from which mechanically automated cylinders painted like small animals appear and disappear again in a highly irregular manner, which you then have to hit on the head as quickly as possible. Whack-a-Mole, yes, that's exactly what it's called! To be honest, it's a pretty cruel game that I've never once felt the need to play in my entire life, but it always offers a suitable comparison. It's also far too exciting for me and I'd rather play camel rally anyway, but even that I've never played. Well, what else can I say?

I'd better get back to the music, because this time, fortunately and for once, it's not just the rattling off of a drastic high-octane ending that hits the brakes, but rather the expansion of the sonically colorful finale of the last track on Destroyer. We're talking of course about the brilliantly culminating bell harmonies on Do You Love Me (1).

And since these are so beautiful in and of themselves, what could possibly and hopefully be created out of them that are just as beautiful? Maybe a song from one of the solo albums? Paul's has always been good for more or less pleasant surprises, so why not this time? I'll tell you something, we're lucky today, and please say hello to Goodbye.

Side Note:

(1) Or should it be a well-accented piano? Half the fan world always talks about bells when they talk about Do You Love Me, I hope you can see how this can get confused, even though I love those harmonies at the end.

If you want to hear Paul give himself the world's most beautiful send-off after his own question for love, then, you've probably already guessed it, please press the play button. Do You Love Me is highlighted, and Goodbye just starts:

Do You Love me (1976)

Goodbye (1978)

[isqueedmyself]

Does Tumblr staff never get tired of cleaning up my freshly whacked moles? No, I don't plan to stop whacking. I just feel for them.

[xtruss]

Washington Will Grow Increasingly Agitated As Its ‘Whack-A-Mole’ Containment Policy Exhausts

— Ding Gang | August 02 2023

Illustration: Chen Xia/Global Times

Many people enjoy playing the arcade game Whack-A-Mole. This game is characterized by the fact that, although you will get a high score in the allotted time, there will never be a complete victory, and the game seems to come to its end once the player is exhausted.

Washington's "Whack-A-Mole" containment policy is similar to a race against time, but time is clearly not on its side. The US is increasingly agitated by the exhaustion of such a policy.

China's manufacturing breakthroughs in various aspects are snowballing. The US is now facing not just one or a few major competitors, but rather a multitude of middleweight players that have quickly upgraded to heavyweight status.

Breakthroughs have occurred, from low-end toys and small electric appliances to high-end medical and mechanical equipment. Some of these breakthroughs are chip-related, but many more are chip-unrelated or use chips that China can manufacture independently.

I doubt whether the US has the "stamina" to continue to deal with the new battlefields popping up in all directions and engage in the no-end "war of science and technology."

According to the Biden administration's containment policy, there should be three phases: Firstly, deal a heavy blow to China's chip manufacturing, then restrain China's high-tech breakthroughs and development for a considerable period; and finally, enable the US to buy enough time to consolidate its global high-tech dominance and dominate the global market.

But time was not under Washington's control, and this containment policy has soon become exhausting.

Let's look at these new Chinese manufacturers that have emerged.

Firstly, China's production of new energy vehicles has had a significant impact on the global market. Some individuals in the US have expressed concerns that if not regulated, Chinese-made cars will dominate the streets of America. This is due to China's superior technology, such as advanced batteries, and their competitive pricing, which makes it challenging for the US to keep up.

Another area where China has shown technological superiority is the Chinese-made BeiDou system. The US National Space-based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Advisory Board has warned that "GPS's capabilities are now substantially inferior to those of China's BeiDou."

Chips are what the US has stuck with and what it has a lot of. Still, Americans now fear China's massive investment in low- and mid-range chip manufacturing will eventually monopolize the entire market.

They believe that China would eventually isolate the high-end and make a breakthrough by encircling the low and mid-range. China is expected to soon be able to mass-produce 28nm chips, one of the most widely used worldwide and the most needed by the global manufacturing industry, including the US.

Of course, the US' biggest worry is whether China can independently develop and produce 5G chips. Will Huawei's upcoming phones be loaded with 5G chips? It's not confirmed yet, but speculation is already flying around, making Washington anxious. Some in the US Congress have chanted for stepping up comprehensive sanctions against Huawei.

More anxiety ensues.

China's breakthroughs in aircraft manufacturing, shipbuilding, high-speed rail, robotics, electronics, medical device manufacturing, agricultural technology, and many others will continue to grow, and the supply chains will expand in the coming years.

China's manufacturing breakthroughs to the high-end are inevitable at this stage. The US' containment has stimulated China to focus more on the high-end of the market and pay more attention to the low-end, mid-range innovation path.

The US has already experienced a period of explosive development, similar to what China is currently going through. Thanks to the information technology revolution, Washington has taken the lead in chip technology, computer usage, search engines, social media, big data and cloud computing. This wave of innovation has now reached China.

If the US attempts to hinder every innovation in Chinese manufacturing or any product that creates a dominant impact in the market and restricts those supply channels, Washington would need to excel in all manufacturing sectors.

However, achieving this objective is impractical. The politicians in Washington are relentlessly pursuing this unreachable aim. Let's see how things will develop.

— The Author is a Senior Editor with People's Daily, and currently a senior fellow with the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China.

[laurelwen]

They changed the report function within the last hour or two. It's now Spam AND/OR Bot. Stay strong, my friends.

[hyunpic]

HYUNJIN for ELLE KOREA & CARTIER

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

New Fear

I have been on tumblr a long time. A looooong time. Far longer than I should have been, really.

And I've been arguing with schmucks about birds being dinosaurs... pretty much that whole time. Folks tend to get angry when a dinosaur blog posts birds, after all. It happens.

And while the game of whack a mole is ancient, it's not unpredictable. Usually, it ends in one of two ways:

the person admits they were wrong, and they back down

the person stops arguing with me and blocks me

I'm okay with either one, really. the former is ideal, the latter at least brings me peace.

Never before this past weekend has someone insisted they were right no matter what I say

And this isn't a coincidence.

Over the past few decades, anti-science sentiment has risen worldwide. I mean you just have to look at the COVID19 pandemic, or general reactions to the problems of climate change.

While of course people who think their opinion matters more than evidence have always existed, they have never been quite this bold before.

The idea that the colloquial definition of dinosaur matters, at all, is a completely new idea and one that has no basis in reality.

And yet, multiple people this past weekend argued exactly that.

And it sounds exceptionally similar to the idea that people could pick and choose things about COVID19 to believe, or the general republican position on science (only things that back up their bigotry are true).

It really seems to reflect a general increase in anti science sentiment and public anti-intellectualism.

Reality isn't actually up for debate. Reality isn't actually subjective. And science is the measure of reality

This isn't the same as the biases of society impacting science and making it worse. Saying "what people think is more important than science" is not the same as saying "science forgot a very important variable / factor / to consider data gained by different cultures / to have a wide variety of perspectives/ etc."

And allowing people to continue to perpetuate and believe in delusions leads directly to the spread of misinformation, leading to more people not understanding reality, and so on

This matters because reality matters. Because the reality of our world is not something we can change or escape. And, in fact, us ignoring the reality of the world - like thinking we can have infinite growth on a finite planet - is directly leading to the destruction of that world (climate change).

I am terrified of the rise of anti-science sentiment. I am terrified of the rise of cherry picking, deciding reality is what you want it to be, ignoring evidence. We see this from purely scientific topics all the way to social justice (how much of racism is ignoring the evidence of a) race being a social construct and b) how much racism impacts people's lives? Almost all of it).

This is bigger than birds being dinosaurs or evolution or climate change. This is about our society going on a deeply disturbing and self-destructive path.

And I really don't know what to do about it.

[kyonshi-8610]

they flood my heart like how a typhoon flooded my city 😍

[pierogish]

happy birthday, you lovely old hag!!

One of Reigen's special moves is to show em assholes the Power of Former Japanese Whack-a-Mole Championship Competitor

[shithowdy]

one of my posts got reblogged by a radfem with hogwarts house in bio god help me there are so many shit blogs in my activity feed