A funny thing happened today. I was watching a bunch of videos when my Internet stopped working. The wireless router was blinking red. I went to make cookies, and the router's light was still red whenever I checked it, but around the time I was done, this happened:
misaki@dawn:/dev/shm$ !piIt started working again. But I had neglected to check the router's light before doing this. I don't know if it started working immediately after I tried to ping google.com, or if it was already working at that point and just being slow for some reason.
ping google.com
ping: google.com: Name or service not known
misaki@dawn:/dev/shm$ !pi
ping google.com
^C
misaki@dawn:/dev/shm$ !Pi
bash: !Pi: event not found
misaki@dawn:/dev/shm$ !pi
ping google.com
^C
misaki@dawn:/dev/shm$ tracepath google.com
1?: [LOCALHOST] pmtu 1500
1: _gateway 2.077ms
1: _gateway 1.595ms
2: ^C
misaki@dawn:/dev/shm$ tracepath 1.1.1.1
1?: [LOCALHOST] pmtu 1500
1: _gateway 3.168ms
1: _gateway 99.120ms
2: <redacted> 3.230ms
3: 10.4.20.1 3.614ms
4: no reply
5: 100ge0-35.core1.las1.he.net 14.382ms
6: 206.71.8.11 15.338ms asymm 7
7: no reply
8: no reply
^C
This is like when Sherine sent me an angry message on Chirp Club, but her account was protected, so I didn't see the message until someone reminded her and she unprotected her account. Trying to communicate with someone by making their Internet stop working would be an unreliable form of communication, as it could be a random event from an unrelated cause.
In movies, people almost never have to repeat what they said because someone did not hear, or did not understand someone's meaning, even when the actual audience needs subtitles due to low voice volume or poor (aka natural, or non-trained) enunciation. In real life, it's natural to have communication problems.
Greta said that we need to talk about Cuba.
The first oil tanker that was seized was using a false flag. (via 2026 Cuban crisis, [...]#Summary of seizures of oil tankers) It seems that others were not: they were just "sanctioned". The US will probably release them, since other countries can act like the US isn't doing anything wrong as long as this happens, but in the meantime the vessels are not working, the crew still has to be paid, etc. and if it means taking on Venezuelan crude oil is 20% less profitable than other jobs, it could lead to a 100% reduction of exports from Venezuela to Cuba.
Similarly to the US threatening Mexico with tariffs if it helps Cuba: decrease the profitability of the route and it can be shut down completely.
So this is definitely bullying. I don't really care. This is like the bullet vs sunlight energy analogy: Cuba having to use less oil now is like every other country, in probably less than 100 years. ("estimates suggest that at current consumption rates, conventional oil reserves could last between 27 and 50 years": AI summarizing HowStuffWorks) I would ask what the streets of Cuba look like, whether they are filled with vehicles, but it doesn't really matter: the streets of the US are filled with vehicles. Cities like Los Angeles have a reputation for bad traffic, which by definition is a lot of vehicles. When it's freeways, a lot of it is people driving to work: habitual use of a lot of fuel.
I wrote a thing about this to Giggly aka Madison, like how if no one else has a car then having a car lets you do special things, but if everyone has one, then everything is basically as it was before cars, except that instead of walking for X minutes, you have to drive for X minutes which uses extra energy.
Northern Korea is probably the leader in "getting used to not having fossil fuels", since they actually turn off city lights at night (or maybe just don't have streetlights), something that probably no other country does.
A hashtag or description I've noticed on Douyin: "an old song but danced in a new way". Why can't people do old dances? (An exception, but it's part of a live full performance and most short-form dances don't have a long version.) Because people see that change is necessary. Purposeful changes to improve society, as with China's rise in purchasing power parity GDP per capita from $1k in 1990 to $27k in 2024 (compared to the world, which I clicked on by accident, rising from $5.6k to $26k in the same timeframe), and changes in adaption to influences like global warming, resource depletion, war, or a large decline in literacy due to technology, which people do not wish for but if ignored can be disastrous.
A reporter once asked someone if he created Bitcoin. His reply was that "I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it. It's been turned over to other people," though he later claimed this was a misunderstanding. "It" is Bitcoin being estimated to use 204 TWh per year in 2026 or 23 GW, or the mechanical power output of 122 Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, or enough power to vaporize a cubic km of 10°C water in just 1228 days or raise a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier in 1 Earth gravity at a rate of 24 m/s, about equal to the rate of climb of the most-produced fighter aircraft models in WWII like the P-38 Lightning, Il-2, and Bf 109.
Greta says at 1:30 in her video, "When liberation movements were fighting for independence from colonial rule across Africa".
I don't know much specifics. Search for "cuba involvement in african war" gives the Cuban intervention in Angola on Wikipedia and a featured snippet from Cuba’s Role in Angola Changed the Course of African History.
People might have different opinions about that war. Maybe people in Angola really appreciate Cuba and think positively of it.
But people in Vietnam also think positively of the US, despite the US fighting on the losing side.
I honestly don't know much about Puerto Rico. The line from A Chorus Line's Nothing, that originally refers to San Juan, which Lea Salonga changed to Manila in this performance. But I do know they don't vote in US elections or pay income taxes despite being US citizens, and maybe it's like a colony that the US never lost. In an alternate history, maybe there was a bloody war for the independence of Puerto Rico that resulted in a million dead or injured, just like Angola.
You know the quote from Machiavelli, which I hope to prove wrong, but it begins,
It was the verdict of ancient writers that men afflict themselves in evil and weary themselves in the good, and that the same effects result from both of these passions. For whenever men are not obliged to fight from necessity, they fight from ambition; which is so powerful in human breasts, that it never leaves them no matter to what rank they rise.
I mention this also because of Greta reposting a video about the Balochistan conflict, which is also driven by a desire for independence.
Maybe I even created a survey about this, near the start of the Ukraine conflict. Basically, countries don't start out with everyone who wants to be in a new, different country all situated in the same area. There's at least some degree of mixing. In Iraq, the sectarian conflict led to people moving to different neighborhoods, I think; there was never any plan to actually make two countries (or three, with the Kurds) out of Iraq, but the conflict did create or exaggerate physical differences in clustering that weren't there before the invasion.
So, if Balochistan did become a new country, like South Sudan did through a referendum (one difference being that support for independence is much lower in Balochistan than it was in South Sudan, lower even than Quebec), what about all the people who currently live in that area who don't want to be a part of that country? At some point, people just have to get along with each other. This is why Russia avoided fighting with Ukraine for eight long years.
Greta ended by saying, "The people in power do not act unless we compel them to."
The poll that Greta did not make:
Poll: You, as one human, are X% of the population who has Y% of the income or wealth. How responsible are you for the problems you see in the world and society?
Less than X% and Y%
Between X% and Y%
More than X% and Y%
"unrelated to Greta posting on Instagram, the video "How Your Parents Ruined Driving" which I didn't watch made me think up a poll. If Reddit polls were working I think I would have posted it myself. Instead, I am trying to get someone else to make it as a poll, and I think Pokimane would not post it, but I don't want to make another weblog post. So I am suggesting that Greta make this poll, which came from thinking about how people don't want to acknowledge their responsibility for shared problems like the vehicle size arms race, and would tend to just blame rich people for all problems"
Another, unrelated poll:
Hypothetical situation or poll:
You wake up in a room with two doors. If you leave through the left door, everyone of your gender except you, age 10~50, becomes 20% uglier. Right door, they become 20% more attractive. The genie also gives you $1m because it heard that you're poor.
And more polls which I may or may not have posted here before:
Poll: Does a neutron star make mistakes?
(Being human = dealing with mistakes and trying to mitigate them)Poll: "Is it bad for law enforcement to engage in law enforcement?"
Poll: Which of these statements is more accurate?
The Earth is huge
The Earth is tinyPoll: Which would you rather live in? A world in which falling in love with someone increases the chance you will hurt them; a world in which falling in love with someone decreases the chance you will hurt them
Poll: Is there a widely-known method that developing countries can use to prevent wealth from accumulating to a small number of people, without heavy taxes on capitalists or making capitalism illegal?
Poll: "Would it be bad if everyone who can only do tasks that 3 billion other people can also do made enough money to support themselves and another person?"
Poll: "Is there proof that bad people go unpunished?"
Topic: https://old.reddit.com/r/SeriousConversation/comments/1j41a4e/how_do_atheists_accept_the_idea_that_bad_people/
"Why does it matter if bad people go unpunished if I am not one of those bad people and I don't know anyone who is?" Reasoning: "if bad people weren't punished, I would be bad." Basis for reasoning: lack of awareness of the knowledge or performance penalties for being bad, aka 'conscience'. Reason for lack of awareness: maybe never done something bad, and suffered the consequence of remembering the bad thing.
Example: forcefully taking my older sister's tricyle, and not feeling happy for having taken it and used it, when I was like 5 years old or something.
Secondary reasoning: "it is important not to be stupid, or not to make stupid choices. If being bad is rewarded, then being good is stupid. It is important for the choice of being good to be a smart choice, even if it relies on belief and it can't be proven to be the smart choice." What I said to my oldest sister in 2012, that religion allows people to think that they are being selfish.
Poll: "Do you think a typical person in your country benefits more from thinking that committing a crime is likely to lead to punishment, or thinking that it won't lead to punishment?"
Poll: "Do you think a typical person in your country benefits more from thinking that committing a serious crime is likely to lead to punishment, or thinking it won't?"
Poll: "How many people per year being scammed out of $30k would it take for scams to become a national conversation?" 1000, 20k, 100k, 500k, 2m, 10m, 50m
I had sort of also wanted to link this video, comparing the actions of these lions to the US's bullying of Venezuela and Cuba: [9.3m views, 10 Mar 2026, ending with cubs lined up]Older lion cubs teach "kids" not to bite Dad - YouTube
I like how all three of the young cubs line up, one behind the other, at one point in the video. For some reason, it was where the 2nd and 3rd cubs wanted to position themselves.
Greta's video is about an unimportant problem. It may seem like leaders like the US's president, or the leaders of the nuclear weapons states of western Europe which are friendly with the US, are doing a harmful thing, but it is not that harmful for people to be reminded of their unhealthy addiction to fossil fuels. On other important issues, leaders are neither being harmful nor helpful, because they don't know what to do. The responses to these polls would make that clear. Greta herself is a leader, and she is not doing anything to fix important problems, either.
At 00:00 GMT (coincidentally, as I didn't check the time before doing so), I did a Google search for, "Without criticizing the story Greta posted or reposted about Cuba, if Greta posts any Stories on Instagram in the next 72 hours, it means Imane doesn't like me". This was before my Internet stopped working for a while. I have, quite clearly, criticized the video that Greta made (which had not yet showed up on Picuki even though the 1-minute Story of the first minute of the video was visible), but this was sort of just as something to say along with the fact that I didn't check the status light on my router.
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