#fz_currentaffairs

[ferdifz]

On the left: Alexey Navalny making a 'Heart' sign with his hands in court in 2nd February 2021. On the right: Me making a 'Heart' sign at the voting station in Jakarta on 14th February 2024.

Just a coincidence. But kinda nice, I think.

[ferdifz]

US senate UFO hearings, July 2023

The US Senate UAP/UFO hearings featuring 'whistleblower' David Gursh-whatsisname this morning kinda made me wanna paint my own original digital drawing, commenting how the hearings themselves hurt my brain cells.

…But unfortunately I have shirts to design for friends (read: more important things to do) so I'm settling for some quick n' dirty meme image macros.

To quote one of the replies under one of the article shares on Twitter/Threads/Mastodon:

I'm surprised the Flat-Earth Hearing didn't immediately follow this one.

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I mean like, if you've got new concrete evidence and some actually valid new avenues of investigation then sure, present them and please make your case.

But if you're just going to rehash decades old theories and claim 2nd-hand witness from unwilling sources then the burden of proof is on you. (And the burden of proof, as far as I'm concerned in this particular moment in time, has not been satisfied.)

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An explainer roundup-article I personally trust from The Guardian:

UFO congressional hearing: what to know and how we got here

David Grusch, a whistleblower former intelligence official, is among the witnesses slated to appear at hearing

Grusch has not seen the alien craft himself, but said in an interview with the Debrief that his claims are based on “extensive interviews with high-level intelligence officials”.

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Instead of "chaos grifters" I had thought of instead labeling that second one "cryptofascists". But I didn't go that route because I'm thinking the crypto/blockchain/NFT/generative art crowd would take away the wrong message, and it would lead to unnecessary & distracting debate.

When I say "cryptofascists" I'm thinking of all the cryptically dogpiling culture-war grifters like Milos Yiannopoulos, Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, whomever Q really was, all the trolls at 4chan/b/ and 4chan/pol, and all those who spout cryptic messages for the purpose of gaslighting society into believing that everything is meaningless and there is no truth. Cryptofascism is a societally toxic international ideology and I firmly stand against it.

Cryptofascism includes those who peddle flat-earth, climate change denial, anti-vaxx, protocols of the elders of zion and all such similar brain-melting conspiracy theories for the purposes of sowing chaos or just for t3h lulz.

Many of them, if not all of them, driven by personal vendetta for a world that they feel have "wronged" them or "cheated" them.

Their fuel is attention & "engagement", many of them grifting from supplement-pill hustles and oils and such to swindle billions of dollars from the depressed and lonely. I curse every keyboard & screen these cryptofasicsts touch.

[/rant]

Sorry for that firebrand just now I got myself a bit too worked up thinking about all this. 🙏🙏🙏

[ferdifz]

Thoughts on the missing OceanGate Titan submersible

So much "eat the rich" energy surrounding the social media comments around this story...

Meanwhile explorer Paul Henry Nargeolet is not a billionaire.

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IwriteOK on Twitter:

folks complaining that the government or whoever isn't doing enough to rescue the deathsub may not realize that rescuing human beings submerged anywhere near the depth this thing was supposed to be at would be harder than putting a man on the moon

Not quite harder than putting a man on the moon, but hard enough still.

...as in: Each single trip to the moon requires months — if not a whole year or more — of preparation. This rescue needs to be done within the next like 48 hour or so, or not at all.

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And how goes the Ukrainian counter-offensive? How goes the Myanmar coup-detat? How goes the Iranian women's-rights rebellion?

All things that continue to cost very real human lives.

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Hope this one Tumblr post will be enough to sate my hunger to commentate. And then I can let go of commenting on this issue anymore going forward.

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Update, about an hour after original post: US Coast Guard says 'underwater noises' have been detected in search for missing Titanic-tour submarine.

🐦 [Spectator Index] [AFP News-Agency] [the Associated Press]

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Update, a few more hours later: Although yeah to be fair (via Eric Feigl-Ding on Twitter) :

My god—Oceangate, operator of missing submarine exploring the Titanic wreckage, had a viewport (window) certified only to 1300 meters, as whistleblower complained in a lawsuit, but was fired. So what’s the Titanic wreckage depth? ➡️4000 meters. 🔥

Missing Titanic Sub Once Faced Massive Lawsuit Over Depths It Could Safely Travel To (The New Republic, June 20, 2023)

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Update, June 23rd:  "Tail cone of Titan sub found" - US Coast Guard press conference - via BBC News live update web-page

June 24th: Canadian and US officials have indicated there will be investigations into the Titan deaths. Other government agencies are may join in, but it is unclear at this stage which agency will lead the investigation.

June 28th: Pieces of derbris confirmed to be former OceanGate Titan submersible recovered; suspected human remains among the wreckage. (the Guardian)

[ferdifz]

Was the TikTok Ban part of the bill designed to hide the fact that the US just approved sending some long-range ballistic missiles to Ukraine?

Anyways I continue hoping Putin & his Kremlin gets decommisioned as quickly as possible.

.

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[ferdifz]

The Hard Fork podcast talk with listeners in response to last week's guest speaker proposing we "take away social media from teens & youths" for their/our collective mental health:

Hard Fork podcast: Listeners respond to Johnathan Haight (March 2024) (33 minutes)

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"Boeing Whistleblower Found Dead" (conceptual sarcastic illustration) — March 13th, 2024

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Context: John Barnett, a former Boeing employee who had reportedly raised concerns about the company's production issues, was found dead of an 'apparent suicide' with a 'self-inflicted' gun-shot wound, according to authorities in South Carolina on March 13, 2024.

Barnett at the time was testifying in court against his former employer on various safety issues and catastrophic failures that has been playing the jet plane manufacturing company for the past few years. The circumstances surrounding the death have been unavoidably controversial and suspicious.

Boeing whistleblower found dead of apparent suicide

John Barnett, a former Boeing employee who had reportedly raised concerns about the company's production issues, was found dead of an appare

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A previous version of the drawing:

Also:

"Whistle" — March 13th, 2024

[ferdifz]

H-min-1 menuju Pemilu 2024. Semoga semua lancar dan jangan rusuh-rusuh, amin… 🙏🙏

Mohon cinta jangan terlalu cinta, benci jangan terlalu benci. Gunakan hak pilih sewajarnya dan jangan malah jadi memusuhi tetangga apalagi keluarga. Nggak worth-it, lah….

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Update, 17 Februari: Cukup lancar sih. Tapi lagi ada beberapa yang baper gara-gara quick count hehe...

[ferdifz]

Canon Nanoimprint Lithography

Update, 2 days later: And of course Asianometry had already made an hour-long deep-dive video into the microchip-fabricating technology, which will in short quite possibly challenge TSMC's global near-monopoly on the industry.