[-] [email protected] 24 points 3 weeks ago

Children are far more likely to be killed by rubber and plastic bullets because of their height. Of the 17 people killed by them in Northern Ireland 8 of them were children, plastic bullets alone seriously wounded 615 people from 1988-98 in NI.

[-] [email protected] 19 points 3 weeks ago

Remmick is a metaphor for assimilation, like the protagonists he is part of a diaspora from an culture obliterated by colonial rule. Unlike the protagonists the Irish and other white settlers were afforded the opportunity to assimilate into white America at the cost of their individual ethnic cultures. This emptiness is what leads to the fetishization and desire to appropriate other cultures which remain distinct due to not being afforded the same opportunity to assimilate. The movie explicitly mentions the Filí, a type of Irish bard that played an equivalent role to Sammie in using music to connect people to their shared cultural history. The reason Remmick is so focused on getting Sammie to join his literal hive mind is that he is so desperate to feel that shared culture and ancestral connection that he doesnt care that it isnt his culture or his ancestors.

Ironically, as an Irish person, the scene that I resonated with the most was Sammie's song. I thought it was the perfect visualisation of how folk music can allow a culture to survive and connect with their ancestral pasts even when they have been long forgotten. Irish trad music and contemporary music that evolves from it is one of the very few unbroken threads to our shared past remaining.

[-] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

This was easy to see coming. I think alot of Kneecap's international audience don't understand that their personas, songs and whole aesthetic are making fun of the post-troubles west Belfast hoods. People who were (like Kneecap) born in or after the 90s and are aping an exaggerated form of surface level republicanism that lingered beyond the ceasefire especially in Nationalist strongholds like West Belfast. When talking about the influence of the Troubles on the post-GFA generations I am often reminded of a quote from Marx; "The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living". These hard lads who run around pretending they're in the IRA because they sell drugs and spray slogans on walls are really just using the aesthetics of resistance to mask the fact that they are actively harming their own communities.

I believe Kneecap's popularity abroad stems from this mask of resistance that they initially put on to mock destructive elements in their own community but that people missing the local context see as genuine and are using to LARP as revolutionaries. I don't personally know them so I wont make judgements but sometimes it seems like the lads in Kneecap have also fallen for this trap themselves.

At the end of the day they are really just like any other successful band, and they will prioritise their income above their empty slogans any day.

[-] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago

Yes, they have already sent bricks made of a volcanic material similar to lunar regolith to Tiangong a few months ago to study their exposure to space. Chang'e 7 will use a unique hopping rover to hopefully scout Shackleton in ways a conventional rover ever could. It almost sounds like one of those stupid venture capital buzzword baits that NASA might fund a feasibility study on and then shelve. But that is just a sign of how much more advanced China's lunar exploration program is, they are doing quite literally what NASA can only dream of.

Of course this will not stop American so-called "Space enthusiasts" from completely ignoring these facts and claiming that because they sent some guys there in the 70s and then completely gave up for 50 years that anything done in space from now unto the heat death of the universe is second place.

[-] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago

Key Rising Storm 2 gameplay - Everyone on the VC can dig a punji trap which is hilarious, the snipers get tripwire grenades which are deadly in the jungle and the sappers get about a billion MD-82 "Toe poppers" to hide in tunnels.

But the real "prank" tool is the lovely Fougasse, a barrel full of explosives buried in the ground. Its funny when it kills enemies, its funny when it kills teammates, it will often do both as its extremely sensitive to bullets and grenades and has a massive radius.

[-] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago

Why are all these guys so weird. This particular guy Braun got fired from UCD for harassment and is now an "independent researcher" who thinks Nordstream was blown up with nukes.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/aoibhinn-ni-shuilleabhain-contacted-by-ucd-president-with-personal-apology-1.4348022

Dr Ní Shúilleabháin related how Braun had regularly shown up in her office at UCD, asked her out on dates, made persistent phone calls and in one incident followed her to a hotel in Cork where she was staying.

Braun (58), who worked in UCD until 2019, was issued with a court order in late 2019 barring him from contacting her for five years after she had reported the matter to gardaí.

His website where he talks about the Nordstream stuff: https://www.geophysical-forensics.ch/nordstream.html

Academia is rife with the most unhinged of conspiracy theorists, there is something about the in-depth knowledge in one specific field combined with the culture that creates the same irrational self-confidence you see like flat earthers (of which there are many in STEM, I've even met a NASA Engineer who is a flat earther) I know top level academics who believe the pyramids are an ancient geomantic power source.

This can also be seen in the works of Christopher Busby, whose work was linked here a few months ago regarding the use of depleted uranium by Israeli forces in Lebanon. He also has several nuke conspiracy theories that devolve into him claiming that several of his fellow researchers where assassinated because of their research into cold fusion and that Kennedy was shot because of the Kennedy Kruschev test ban. This is a man who was appointed to government advisory councils and top scientific boards, then went on to try and grift people with anti-radiation pills after Fukishima.

These particular theories are just believable enough that if you see a guy in a labcoat with a doctorate and some nice graphs you might just believe it if you never google them or meet them in person. Because the other thing about these guys is they are not shy about their theories either. They will gladly get up and talk about these things at conferences if you let them because of that air of self-confidence that arises inside the bubble of academia.

[-] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Whilst countries like Poland and the Baltic States cautioned against getting too close to Moscow – and increased their own defence spending – Berlin under former Chancellor Angela Merkel believed in doing business.

Germany imagined it was delivering democratisation by osmosis. But Russia took the cash and invaded Ukraine anyway.

Yeah I guess all that cash they ran off with must be why the company that managed Nordstream is going bankrupt and is going to be bought by Americans, who blew the damn thing up in the first place. But I guess those damn Russians just hate peace, remind me who ruined the peace talks trying to prevent the war? oh yeah it was the germans.

[-] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago

Enterprise is so unintentionally hilarious because of things like the sex airlock, especially the fact that Dr Phlox is banned from it for not being hot enough, so he gets a little window to do his scenes for it. The funniest moment in the entire show is the bit where Hoshi's shirt gets fully ripped off while crawling around in vents for zero reason, or the reveal in the mirror universe episodes with the womens uniforms just having no torso? It really does it to such a severe degree that it makes a rather forgettable show about Star Trek dealing with 9/11 endlessly rewatchable in "So bad its good" way.

Sidenote I always thought the funniest thing in DS9 was Jake motherfucking Sisko running around in the background being a smooth-talking Dom-Jot hustler poet who immediately goes from getting a Dabo Girl girlfriend at like 16 to hitting on Kira the next episode because of Mrs Rodenberry's psychic pheromones.

[-] [email protected] 26 points 8 months ago

Women love me, Work fears me

[-] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago

Xiaohongshu user Brother Pig, King of Fishing

Women love me, Fish fear me

[-] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago

If they can reverse engineer IRN BRU then I believe they can do anything

[-] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago

Yeah but its not like October 7th would happen in 2024 NI, Loyalist support of Israel is simply a reactionary stance brought on by Nationalist support of Palestine. I think the reason is more that he is, like many people here, incredibly adverse to paramilitary violence. It's easy to see how a person with a Loyalist background with a "civility" mindset could be shocked into returning to their traditional Right Wing Loyalist roots when seeing the Left wing Nationalists support what they see to be a unforgivable act of violence similar to the Troubles.

Then again who the fuck knows maybe he got converted by Facebook or is just being opportunistic, maybe he recently got married or divorced or a million other personal things that lead to these kinds of changes.

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Sam

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