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FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 23h

SMDH, do I really need to educate you as to what Hoth *REALLY* was about? Two words: oil pipelines.

Vader lied, people died.

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FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 1d

They did it to the Duke of Buckingham in 1521, but no sign they did it since then?

www.stgeorges-windsor.org/degradation-...

Degradation of a Garter Knight - College of St George

During the Tudor era members of the Order of the Garter found guilty of heresy or treason were degraded from the Order. A vivid description of the degradation in 1521 of Edward Stafford, Duke of Bucki...

www.stgeorges-windsor.org

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Reposted by FOARP

Will - Absolute Shower 🇺🇦 @showerabsolute.bsky.social · 1d

Can I say "I'm Italian I've been to literal Rome" is my favourite way that I've ever seen someone write "I'm American"

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FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 1d

This.

I’ve also got to say that I fundamentally object to analysis that treats journeys as essentially having no value at all. Fewer injuries and deaths are a good thing, but they cannot be the only objective or we would not go anywhere.

FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 1d

But for the reals, I think ~60% of the HK people I used to follow either no longer post or are no longer in HK, and that’s just “Diet Authoritarianism”.

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FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 1d

Why wouldn’t we posting on WeSky about how great everything is under the glorious new regime? Signed, a little girl.

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FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 1d

It's £1m. In a country where the national government budget is in the region of £1,300bn.

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Reposted by FOARP

Christina Holland @mortalwombat.info · 2d

Oh my god. The scale models kept imploding so he's like "don't worry I have a new manufacturing method that will stop these implosions" and they're like "should we test a scale model built with this new method" and he's like "no no just try it on the real sub I'm sure it'll work"

vessel. OceanGate determined that wrinkles in the cylinder had likely caused the sub-scale models' failure and identified the co-bonding process as a way to potentially mitigate wrinkle-related failures. However, OceanGate did not build or test any new sub-scale models using the co-bonding process; the only article produced using the co-bonding process was the v2 full-scale cylinder ultimately used in the casualty dive.

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FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 1d

This is the ultimate paradox of AI search:
1) Rather than looking at the source, you look at an AI summary based on the source.
2) Visitor-traffic to the source reduces.
3) The source disappears.
Website operators need to consider how to block AI.

Emanuel Maiberg @emanuelmaiberg.bsky.social · 2d

wikipedia's data shows that AI is siphoning traffic away from the site, which is a danger to its sustainability. ironically Wikipedia is more important than ever to users who want reliable information instead of slop, and to AI companies that need it for training data www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...

Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors

“With fewer visits to Wikipedia, fewer volunteers may grow and enrich the content, and fewer individual donors may support this work.”

www.404media.co

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FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 2d

I still don't understand why, for a government that is so timid in other areas, this is worth the public money and political capital they plan to throw at it.

I know the Bluesky consensus is in favour of ID cards but I don't see the point.
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Labour begins charm offensive to win over MPs sceptical of digital ID plans

Party tries to reassure its MPs about proposed scheme and gather ideas on how it could improve public services

www.theguardian.com

FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 2d

Dear Graun, "19% less"=/="almost as much"

Source: your response if I cut your pay by 19%.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

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FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 3d

Meanwhile you’re discussing someone who hasn’t even been prime minister since 2022 as if they matter one iota right now.

I honestly don’t understand what it is you’re trying to prove here anyway. That Russian dirty money impacted politics across Europe? No-one doubts that.

FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 3d

OK. And then explain British-supplied NLAWs turning Russian tanks into flaming dustbins outside Kyiv before any other European country supplied anything? Or the UK supplying the first modern main battle tanks to Ukraine? Or the UK supplying Storm Shadow, AS-90s, Brimstone etc. to Ukraine?

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FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 3d

It would be a massive political project the benefits of which might not be seen for some time, the cost of which would be eaten immediately, at constant risk of collapse due to a number of reasons. In that context, yeah, easy to see why they're not doing it.

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FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 3d

Definitely. Theoretically, if a government had the balls to, SM could even be done without a referendum.

The problems are overwhelmingly political, not legal/technical.

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FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 3d

Why would the Euro "from day one" be a requirement when it hasn't been for any other country joining under the present rules?

Poland joined under the present rules in 2004, and still uses the Zloty with no plan at all to change that (nor any pressure to change).

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FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 3d

Every country joining the EU negotiates. That's not demanding special treatment.

As for weakening the EU, well, obviously I opposed leaving. But Brexit didn't elect Orban or Fico. Brexit didn't make Minsk I and Minsk II. Brexit didn't build Nordstream 1 and 2 or make Angela Merkel embrace Putin.

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FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 3d

Thanks for giving a perfect example of the "punishment-rejoin" that some people think the EU should have as a policy.

And yes, the rules presently in place do not actually require countries joining the EU to join the Euro except in theory, at some point in the future.

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FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 3d

My issue with this is it is basically just more bureaucracy in an area where there is already far too much, and essentially money-for-old-rope for the companies that do the certification.

It is not to the concept of people on certain visas having to speak English.

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FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 3d

That and this thing, also never got.

On the flip side we had a ZX Spectrum which was awesome.

FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 3d

Wanted one of these as a kid, circling it in the Argos catalogue at Christmas (did other people do that to tell their folks what they wanted as a present?), never got it.

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FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 3d

That motor-bike/side-car looks like it's got a cammo net on it until you realise that, yes, that's mud.

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FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 3d

The people saying otherwise either:
1) Don't actually understand what the present rules require.
2) Understand them, but think that the EU would or should introduce special punishment rules just for the UK, and that the UK would (unlike Swedes, Czechs etc.) have no bargaining power at all on this.

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FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 3d

Getting in to an argument about the Euro is just basing yourself on losing ground.
The statement "we will never have to adopt the Euro if we didn't want to and the people saying we would are basically lying" is perfectly sound, and much more honest than anything said by the Brexit campaign in 2016.

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FOARP @foarp.bsky.social · 3d

I'd say that the Euro can totally be off the table and that is a concession we would never have to actually make to join the EU.

Poland, theoretically committed to joining the Euro, has been an EU member since 2004. The Zloty is still in circulation with no plans at all to change that.

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