I'm sorry to hear about your mother's strokes, and I'm inspired to hear about her progress.

What I really want to hear about is what is this diet she is now on?  And I'm curious what the 23 prescription meds were. 

 Righteous 

 I've been eating a lot of rice (brown or basmati), blackbeans, and sardines with olive oil and sriracha sauce.  Kind-of my staple food now.

Also pumpkin seeds, almonds, tea (coffee gives me the shits), sweet potatoes, bananas, apples, dried prunes.

Oh, I'm also making and drinking cabbage juice.

I've recently quit coffee, and most bread but sometimes I have pita bread or macaroni with pasta sauce.

I eat breakfast late and dinner early, but my feeding window is probably closer to 7 hours than 4. 

 Ever since the gout, and given how many purines are in sardines, I'm getting almost all my meat from the sardines.  I'm not strict, I get some elsewhere from time to time.  I still run sheep for the dog, for my friends, for the market, and as a supply of food I can rely on in hard times (a lot more food than what most people store in buckets and cans for emergency situations). 

 How about I eat some osso bucco slow cooked over onions and carrots?  I woudln't want to become feeble. 

 Vegetarians historically did it for ethical reasons. Pythagoras because he believed animals have souls, Plato too, Benedictine monks ate fish because fish don't care for their young so the parents won't be upset if you eat their children (!), etc, etc.  Even Alex Gleason does it for ethical reasons.

YET epidemiological studies show vegetarians living a very long time, and it's pretty obvious when you know a lot of them (I grew up a Seventh Day Adventist, many of my ancestors lived to about 100), and track health gurus and see the vegetarians living past 100 but the meat heavy promoters dying in their 60s.  I've got a huge list of people, it's super obvious, but people just refuse to accept it because IMHO they like to eat meat, so their active brains construct reasons and logic to defend this position... which is the common backwards way most people think.

I'm not saying a little meat is bad.  It isn't.  Pure vegetarianism has problems with iron, B-12, protein quality, and probably other things.  That's why I'm not a vegetarian.

And while I agree with Pythagoras that animals have souls (that is to say, they are conscious aware beings)... they don't after they are dead.  After they are dead, they are meat, which is good as a food. 

 I use https://habla.news/

I also use a tiny program that I edit the source code of.  But that's probably not easier.
 

 My dog also assumes all strangers are friends, and all dogs are enemies!

They didn't do blood work, or even x-rays because her x-rays from 4 years ago were so bad they told me back then that euthenasia wouldn't be unreasonable, and that x-rays now would certainly be at least as bad and there is nothing new to learn from doing them. But she still has mostly good days.  Sure, it is hard for her to squat and poop, but she does it (mostly on one leg now) and she poop-walks before it has all come out.  She can't run, but she walks down the street and back with me... usually very slowly on the way back.  And she eagerly comes out to the sheep when I move the sheep ... she is most alive and happy out near the sheep.  She wants to ride in the truck everywhere I go, and I always bring her so she can enjoy the sights and smells without having to walk.  I have a ramp and I back up to the deck so she walks only a slight incline to get in and out of the truck.  But most of the time she just holds the floor down, sleeping near me in my home office.

If she can't toilet herself, that will be enough for me to take her in. 

 It is legal in NZ.  Parliament voted 61-59 (barely in favor) requiring a referendum, and the people voted 65.1% in favor
https://archive.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2020/referendums-results.html

Most of the organisations against euthnasia were(are) either Christian or hospice businesses (who would lose customers).

48.6% of New Zealanders have "no religion". 

 When it is time to die, move to Canada.  You don't have to live there the whole time. 

 It is another low level language that was developed by mostly one guy Andrew Kelley, and came out a little while after rust, because AFAIK he didn't like the way rust and go were going.    It is closer to rust than go IMHO (no runtime garbage collector, manual memory allocation, borrowing I think, etc). It is a far smaller community.  I've never tried it myself. 

 Wicked. 

 wss://labour.fiatjaf.com/: OK=false id=057161fb6ddcf79ade279f4a490b8f4717314037a896f3bd2549621264d9edf0  message="blocked: event too much in the future"

Hmm, I don't think my clock is off. 

 The only deals that Israel accepts are ones that require Hamas to surrender strategic defensive positions like the Netzarim corridor, and which don't require Israel to stop the war but just to pause for a brief period, just enough to get their hostages, and then having divided Gaza into smaller pieces they will continue the genocide more effecively.  Hamas has rightly rejected this deal.

Israel could be at peace if only it treated Palestinians as human beings.  Houthis would cease. Hezbollah would cease. Iran would smile. Hamas might still be troublesome but they could be controlled with international assistance, and the international community would love to help if Israel were not clearly obstanantly acting in bad faith and rejecting the international community time and time again.  So they reap what they sowed.

Jordan Peterson once said that Hitler, when he knew he was losing, put all his remaining time and effort into accelerating the slaughter of the Jews. Now we see that Israel doesn't seem to even care about it's own future, as long as they can keep killing Palestinians, as if their highest and best purpose is the extermination of the Palestinians, and they will go down doing it even as it is clearly strategically the worst possible path for them. It is that same mentality that Hitler had. A fascinating study in human psychology. 

 Anytime you are having a great day and need a buzzkill just send me a holler 

 Ok but... JSON allows "\/" to mean "/".  Dumb that it does, but it does.  If you find a "\\/"  that means "\/".  The "\\" prefix becomes "\" and the suffix remains "/".  The escaping is not recursive so it then remains "\/" in total, it doesn't do another pass to become "/".

But it probably doesn't matter much.  Events that use "\/" escaping are kinda dumb and unnecessary and NIP-01 violations.

As for things like scientific notation, I never expected any relays to support that. Chorus doesn't. The test is just more of a curiousity.  This is why it says "NO" meaning NO we don't support that (perhaps stupid) thing, rather than the more judgemental FAIL. 

 I think cold weather created cloting, and then clothing created hidden areas, and exposure of hidden areas became associated with sexual signalling which started the whole shame thing.  It's not the nakedness that is shamed, it is inappropriate sexual signalling that is.

Just a guess. 

 No, sorry.  Well, you could remove them all and add them back in a different order.  I'm not sure that the order on the screen is preserved, but probably it is. 

 I have a field "lud16" with my lightning address. 

 I believe you are seeing data created by a different client and (IMHO inappropriately) stored into a follow list.  I just deleted those and they haven't come back.  Go to "People Lists" and clean up. 

 I recognized all these flags except Belgium.  And now I recognize them all! 

 Let me just add because I hate to be misunderstood:   The Hamas militants that paraglided into the nova rave and rounded up and killed many of those kids... I think that was a mass murder of innocent people (and also by IDF attack helicopters killing everybody in sight was also mass murder).  I didn't see that as legit at all, either side, and those Hamas militants did Palestine a huge disservice and deserve the death penalty.  And if anybody was raped, they do deserve the death penalty (although there didn't seem to be evidence that it happened). Of course it goes without saying that G'Vir, Gallant and Netanyahu deserve the death penalty.

I'm against the death penalty in practice though because I don't trust governments to correctly administer justice. 

 Yeah, the political labels are package deals that just don't suit. 

 You are right and I should really stop trying to map ideas onto silly labels. 

 Those are good authors. I got deep into Friedman/Hayek/Mises in college. Have quite a few of those books on my bookshelf. 

 Oh yes. I've used that label since I was a child... me and my brother expressing property rights, dividing up the bedroom with lincoln logs "this is my half, that is your half, 10c fine for going onto my half" 

 Yes, the US is using BOTH systems of tax... direct taxes and inflation tax.... the worst possible combination.

So are many other countries....

They will collapse before I do. 

 Yeah I don't think an existing country has a path towards this.  It's an idea for a newly formed country, something that arises after a revolution. 

 Absolutely.  Create strong bonds with family and friends and locals.  You may need them if world trade collapses and normal life becomes quite abnormal. 

 Ah I get your point. Very interesting.

I had (but have lost) a connection to China, to CCP aligned Beijing no less. That was interesting, to get that perspective, and to see how normal good people could be aligned with such a horrible (IMHO) authoritarian political party.  There was lots to learn there that I unfortunately didn't. 

 Yes I worry about people from very different cultures behaving very differently.  It's a sound argument.

I also think the problem probably isn't as big as I was led to believe. 

 It depends on where you are, and what gangs have formed there, and what kind of microculture they happen to have developed.

In Barcelona, it may be Moroccans as you say.

Here in my city the crime is perpetrated mostly by a small number of recidivist Maori and a small number of recidivist NZ Europeans, as well as by youth, and I haven't heard of any crimes from the Syrian immigrants (who all profess to be Muslim) as far as I can recall.  So my point is that being Muslim isn't coorelated with criminal activity in general... even if it might happen to be true in certain parts of Europe for one reason or another.  And therefore arguments against Islam that are based on that culture being incompatible with Western culture don't hold as much weight in my mind as they used to (although it still has some weight) because I see a counterexample right in front of me. 

 That's Australia. 

 Where is the bulletproof armor?  Don't half-ass your family's protection. 

 You are probably right. Your theory makes more sense. 

 Glad it is helping.  I discovered a handful of chorus bugs with it myself.

I replied on github. NO in this case confusingly means that it does not do the probably-wrong thing. 

 Every man knows this is not appropriate. Every woman I know pretends it isnt.

I don't even talk to my neighbors wives unless the husband is there, to be sure there is no misunderstanding. 

 Or in short.... deception is NOT more important than communication. 

 Just noting here that I didn't say retaliation was the opposite of defense.

Whether somehing is or isn't a just use of force is orthogonal to whether or not it is defensive. 

 We (the US) hate Iran because Israel hates Iran, and Israel controls us.  I'm pretty sure that's all.

The Iranian theocracy is oppressive to human rights. But that doesn't mean military action against Iran is gonna fix that... in fact it will probably make it worse.  There are oppressive governments everywhere that we don't hate... so I don't believe for a second it has anything to do with their oppressive theocracy.

in 1906 or so, D'Arcy from Britain bought an oil prospecting concession from a corrupt Iranian government, struck oil, then the UK government nationalized the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) and changed over all their military ships to oil (from coal) making Iranian oil a strategic asset.  But the Iranians became bitter that England got so wealthy from their resource, and they were tied down to a contract that was a really bad deal for them.  Anyhow, that got much worse after Russia and England went to war with Iran in the 1930s.  Many Iranians felt they had forefit their property rights by going to war with Iran, and so in 1950 when Mosaddegh became P.M. and he nationalized the oil refinery and kicked out the Brits, the people of Iran loved him.  He was on the cover of Time Magazine.  The Brits were furious and wanted military action, but Truman wouldn't help them.  In 1953 when Eisenhower became US president, he was willing to help the Brits and they overthrew the only democratic government Iran ever had (the Brits lied to the Americans, telling them they needed to do this to protect against Socialism).

From 1953 to 1979, the US and Iran were allies, under the Authoritarian rule of the Shaw.  The US started their nuclear program.  The US used Iran as a base from which to project power. Almost a million Americans moved to or visited Iran during that period, and Iranians moved to and studied in America.

But there was a lot of hatred of America for their coup, and of the Shaw for his human rights abuses, and how their democracy was crushed and the people had no power anymore and were stuck under this authoritarian dictator propped up by America.  And people became fearful and paranoid about America and the CIA and they eventually overthrew the government (this is called the Islamic Revolution of 1979) and put in an Islamic regime which IMHO they felt was strong enough to fight off America.  They were very anti-free-speech, for example, because free speech was how the CIA tricked everybody during the coup.  Anybody who might be a secret agent of America was arrested, organisations with non-standard opinions were supressed in fear that America was going to coup them again.  And Iran became very repressive and authoritarian as an over-reaction to having been coup-ed.

Iranians loved the United States until 1953.  Then they hated it.  They all remember why.


Iran sees itself as a regional hegemon. They feel it is their responsibility to maintain peace and security in the surrounding area. They see Israel as the cause of all the violence in the area, and so they have worked to defeat Israel through indirect means (Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis).  Russia and China both affirm Iran's position as a regional hegemon working to establish peace and security for the area.  Israel works to establish war, constantly provoking it's neighbors, assassinating in Lebanon, in Iran, committing a slow-motion genocide against Palestinians.  And Israel paints Iran as the aggressor rather than the state that responds to Israeli aggression.

Israel has claimed it will retaliate if Iran retaliates, and even has suggested it may preemtively retaliate.  Even a child can see that is unjust.  You don't get to justifiably retaliate against a retaliation, which is the punishment, which is the thing that should settle matters.  And you certainly can't pre-emptively retaliate against a retaliation to your attack because that is just: Israel attacks + Isreal attacks again.... no justice in that.

So Iran has a real serious challenge here. They have been trying to avoid war, but Israel is flat out not going to let them.

Commentators have been saying Iran has to calibrate their attack, to make it strong enough to deter Israeli aggression, but not so strong as to cause a full scale war. But that presumes the impossible, because even a tiny attack will cause a full scale war, and even a huge attack will not deter Israel.  So whether there is a massive war in the middle east is not up to Iran.  They are forced into it.

And Russia and afterwards China will participate in it... making it a good candidate for that label we keep tossing around:  World War 3 

 BTW, I think Japan is in the same situation that Iran was from 1953 - 1979.... cucked by America and behaving as an Ally because they must, but  secretly hating America. 

 I'm going to add (even though nobody called me on it) that the perspective that Iran is trying to maintain peace and security for the region is clearly not the common Western view.  But if you listen to U.N. security council statements made by Iran, Russia, China and other non-Western aligned countries you can start to get a feel of how the other half of the world sees Iran very differently than the West does.

There are very smart people in the West who believe Iranian leadership is trying to destroy Israel as punishment for it's past actions and would nuke it if it thought it could get away with it.  And they might be right.  I can't tell from where I'm sitting.

But the idea that Israel is just defending itself is loony-tunes.

And lesser intelligences that believe Islamists hate and want to kill all the Jews are just gullible suckers for hasbara propaganda (there are about 25k Jews living peacefullly in Iran). 

 Wow. 

 I didn't go into it but there are a lot of ways that expression hatred helps the situation:
1) Hatred bottled up eventually comes out either as violence or speech. I'd rather it be expressed via speech.
2) When people express their real feelings, that can serve as a warning to the rest of us. If I know you hate white men, I'll know to steer clear.
3) When people express feelings that are illogical, we become aware of their misconception and are given the chance to help them get a more nuanced and accurate understanding of a situation.
4) Sometimes we are wrong and they are right, which is ia general argument in favor of speech that is classified as disinformation.  In these cases which we absolutely cannot determine apriori, the ONLY way we can be corrected is if we allow people to correct us by allowing them to speak.

I'm just scratching the surface here. John Stewart Mill does a pretty good job explaining all the ins and outs in "On Liberty" 

 I shouldn't just take one side of the issue here.  The argument against hate speech is that it propogates the hateful ideas.  And this is true psychologically.  Most people, the more they hear something, the more they adopt that view (it is not true among skeptics, but skeptics are a small proportion of society).  And so this is a valid argument in favor of supressing hate speech.

But it has to be considered in balance with the other arguments.  How much does one person's hateful racist view impact listeners to adopt that view?  How much does it depower their anger?  How much pushback against the idea is there?  In some situations, usually echo chambers, hateful ideas just tend to grow stronger.

But I'm still mssively in favor of drawing legal distinctions at 'actions', not words, because it is far too oppressive and dangerous to start legislating words where there are no clear cut boundaries that prevent the government from going too far, and where interpretation and context matters immensely. 

 Yeah you have to start from scratch.  You don't want to be doxxing yourself. 

 Yes I'm aware, and of course I'm against this. 

 Daryl Davis is a hero 

 I agree.

In 1953 when the CIA and SIS used propaganda to help bolster the coup against Mosaddegh, Prime Minister of Iran under their first and only democratic government ever, Mossadegh refused to clamp down on the propaganda because he believed strongly in free speech. 

 I don't think direct incitement to violence is useful, and most legal scholars don't consider it protected under the 1st amendment.

There are a lot of other kinds of speech that most free speech advocates recognize as not helpful and potentially illegal such as fraud, disclosing secrets when under an NDA, perverting the course of justice (although that is debated, e.g. Tommy Robinson), disclosing troop movements during wartime, etc. 

 Absolutely, determining what counts as hate is easily abusable to target a political enemy.....  kind of like setting a ridiculously low speed limit, but only ticketing the black people that you pull over. 

 I don't think my examples are justified.  I wince when people express hatred of any group of people, even if there are many people among the group that hold evil ideas and desires.  And to be honest, I don't think there are any innocent people.  The line between good and evil runs down every man's heart. 

 That is reasonable jurisprudence.  No victim, no crime. 

 I take this back. I don't think it is useful for me to talk this way.  There are contextually innocent people, there are children, etc. 

 There are a few of us around. 

 I dunno, but it's a good reminder of who you can't trust. 

 It makes no sense to me.  I think it is safe to ignore this idiot. 

 Write a NIP for it. 

 Your tone indicates you disagree with me somehow.  But we aren't disagreeing on anything.  We already have delete that doesn't work.  You want delete that doesn't work.  Why aren't you happy? 

 Trump can setup his own relay.  Then he can choose to not ban himself.  He could probably easily afford a large network of relays worldwide.

Unlike mastodump, his relay network can't be "cut off" because clients contact relays directly. 

 Small relays don't need to accumulate spam.  I run a small chorus relay and only accept posts that tag me, and I moderate them for spam (which I haven't seen yet).

Nostr is no more or less censorable than the world-wide web.  Anybody can stand up a website.  Anybody can stand up a nostr relay.

If by "client relay owners" you are talking about clients that only talk to a relay managed by the client developer, then yes this is what many of us have been concerned about for a long time. Nostr doesn't require that model, and many of us have been pushing for a different model (the outbox model).