Notices by 🇳🇴 Thor — backup account (thorthenorseman@octodon.social), page 48

2/2 Today, we force women to make a choice: Career or family. This is the case even in the Nordic countries. The welfare state hasn't been able to fully compensate for gender differences. Men are still the main breadwinners. I think there exists a possible society where people can combine their jobs with their families, as people used to do in pre-industrial societies. @debbie

China buying advice...

1/ Does the job/family dichotomy exist only because of certain assumptions we make? In hunter-gatherer societies, the men would've hunted while the women and older children would've gathered, with the young children either being carried or playing within the earshot of their mothers. In pre-industrial agricultural societies, the women would've run cottage industries and the kids would've been around the house.

@adz I think this strengthening of NATO efforts that's happening right now is an attempt to stick together in a world that is increasingly hostile to us and doesn't seek to emulate us anymore.

@adz Russia is probably acting with more confidence as a result of this shift in the world power balance, at the same time as it's contributing to it. Norway had to kiss China's feet after giving the Nobel Peace Prize to a Chinese dissident. The Chinese weren't pleased and cut off diplomatic relations, and it suddenly became very difficult to export Norwegian salmon to China, so we pretty much had to say sorry.

@adz The emergence of a confident anti-western anti-democratic sentiment as countries discover that there are now other powerful countries to align with independently of us, China being the big one. They will inject money into a country without requiring a change of moral values. Russia is a factor here too, but more in terms of military aid than investments.

@adz I doubt Putin has such ambitions. He seems primarily concerned with having an intimidating presence, especially in Eastern Europe, and to form alliances in the Middle East in order to boost his influence there. However, it seems that NATO perceives an increased threat level from Russia recently. I'm not sure what they are seeing, but they seem more worried than before.

I don't fully grasp what's different about Russia today and Russia 15 years ago, except that the Russia of today is involved in Syria and Ukraine and has been assassinating disloyal Russian nationals abroad. Yes, these are differences, but are they significant enough to make Russia more likely to attack NATO countries with nuclear missiles?

The surprising thing about changing geopolitical winds is how calm they can seem. People weren't worried when Hitler rose to power in Germany either, yet the consequences were huge. The world freaked out about Trump, but the truly pernicious forces are elsewhere and don't announce themselves with a loud fanfare until it's too late to stop them. Any voices that point this out are labeled as hysterical, because that's usually a correct assessment. Sometimes, however, the voices are right.

The surprising thing about changing geopolitical winds is how calm they can seem. People weren't worried when Hitler rose to power in Germany either, yet the consequences were huge. The world freaked out about Trump, but the truly pernicious forces are elsewhere and don't announce themselves with a loud fanfare until it's too late to stop them. Any voices that point this out are labeled as hysterical, because that's usually the right assessment. Sometimes they are right, however.

First the huge Trident Juncture exercise by NATO in Norway, then the urging from the Norwegian government to stock up on rations and iodine pills, and now this opinion piece in Norway's leading tabloid newspaper:

"THE RUSSIANS MUST FEAR US

BRUSSEL (VG) Russian nuclear missiles can reach Norway and Europe without warning - just like under the Cold War. It's time to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation."

@shivvi In my country, at least, making fun of such things isn't merely innocent, but borders on being old hat. The exception would be islamists, who can get a bit scary, and that's unfortunately a bit of a recent development. It used to be completely safe to open your mouth.

@shivvi If we've reached the point where one can't make a joke about Jesus without putting oneself at risk, we are in a miserable place indeed. Such extremists don't really exist in my country. Yes, there are insane loners like Anders Breivik, the terrorist, but he came from the Nazi knights templar side of it, and was by no means a devout Christian, so I'm not sure if that counts. There are also sects that will exclude you for such things, but there aren't any violent elements that I know of.

@shivvi Even in countries where blasphemy is illegal, it's very rare for it to have consequences, at least in secular countries. The government itself usually doesn't give a shit, so someone would have to report it to the police, and the punishment is only a fine anyway, so hardly anyone bothers.

@shivvi I'd have to move to a country where blasphemy is illegal first... Norway repealed the blasphemy section of its Criminal Code on May 29, 2015.

Either, everyone knows entirely different subsets of vim commands, or I'm really bad at vim. The truth is probably somewhere in between.

The extent of my vim knowledge is pretty much this:

- bunch of .vimrc settings
- tiny bit of vim script
- [i]nsert, [v]isual modes
- [ESC]ape mode
- [y]ank, [d]elete, [p]aste
- [w]rite, [r]ead, [q]uit
- / (search)
- %s (regex search/replace)
- < (indent left), > (indent right)

I'm aware of marks, buffers, windows and tabs but haven't explored them.

@karen Some people's grasp of grammar gets perilously close to that of a Markov chain.

Jesus was basically a hippie that turned into a zombie.

*wakes up in tomb* Far out, man!

I think the faceplate PCB design for the 5.1 surround mixer I'm making for my roommate is pretty much complete now. The big opening is for a panel mount power switch with an LED in it. The slot is for the LCD flat-flex cable that connects to the back of the board with a ZIF socket. The board itself will connect to the main board with a 2x8 IDC ribbon cable (think old IDE cable but narrower).