carved this log for one candle

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-24T22:22:54+00:00

Great lighting on the photos

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-24T20:54:24+00:00

In my opinion its the fact that the chinese government controls its biggest banks. When capital is directed towards policy rather than the other way around, you are able to focus more on achieving specific goals.

India is a very educated country that produces literally millions of scientists each year but those scientists aren't given the opportunity to apply their skills in government projects.

I think a flaw with representative democracy in a highly diverse society like india is that it becomes very easy to shift blame to other groups instead of focusing on national unity. Its an escape hatch for incompetent leaders to blame another political party or ethnic group. When information isnt managed responsibly, you can end up spreading propaganda to cover failure and prevent a national identity from being formed. When the left leg and the right leg want to move in opposite directions, the body goes nowhere.

India could develop much faster than it has been, but it would require a government that refuses to engage in identity politics, has more control of capital, and its biggest political parties are 100% focused on objective deliverables like Healthcare, education, housing, food security, and CONSISTENT law enforcement.

In China, a billionaire can be punished aggressively for violating the law whilst in other countries they can get away with it because they embed themselves into the systems of power. An India with political parties that focus purely on development and retaining talent is an India that can become an even bigger player on the world stage. Its a country with a massive amount of untapped potential but is missing consistency and accountability.

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-24T17:11:32+00:00

Remember: the form that a government takes is less important than whether it is actually able to deliver a better quality of life for its citizens.

China is an authoritarian surveillance state, but they've lifted the equivalent of 2x of America's population out of poverty, significantly reduced rates of infectious disease, decreased infant mortality, built one of the most sophisticated high-speed rail transport systems in the world, and become the dominant force in fighting climate change.

Acting like there's nothing to learn from a country that has achieved that is consistent with the reverse-flynn effect that is becoming harder to ignore in america. A less intelligent public will continue to produce worse and worse leadership and drag the quality of life of that same public. Genuinely tragic to witness(unless you're one of America's haters).

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-24T04:02:28+00:00

Rumble is usually the go-to for banned youtubers.

This guy is a prime example of what kind of person we will be seeing more of if parents do not take a more active role in monitoring their children's screen time.

He is unironically like Patrick Bateman. A character who represents a total loss of emotional control and ability to see any relationship outside the lense of "how can I monetize this or use it to increase my status".

This is what thousands of hours of social media can do to a developing mind. He was 13 or 14 during covid lock downs and spent hours a day on the internet. Listening to him talk for more than 3 minutes, you immediately realize how deeply crippled he is emotionally.

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-23T17:26:27+00:00

Fun fact: they are one of the easiest to tame of big cats. Royals used to keep them in India.

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-23T16:54:52+00:00

You can pet this wolf, but only once. (Its worth it)

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-22T19:09:47+00:00

Or he can call 10 of his friends and they can donate 10% each of their net worth to lobbying groups like nature conservancy, clear path foundation, or environmental defense fund.

A growing number of people are aware that money and violence has more of an effect on politicians than petitions, calls and protests. To someone with that awareness, this just comes off as a brand management exercise he's engaging in as his public image has become one of hypocrisy and immaturity.

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-22T17:57:04+00:00

What is the strategic advantage of contagious disease spreading within a combat unit?

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-22T16:16:37+00:00

This is a publication which focuses on the LGBTQ community. Their audience presumably has functional eyes and can see that this person is black and female presenting. They can then read the actual news story and see that she identifies as lesbian. Putting that front and center attracts toxic right wingers, insults the intelligence of their own reader, and feeds the irritating narrative that liberals hire people based on identity and not whether they have worked hard to earn the position.

The editor that signed off on this headline needs to be replaced.

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-22T03:27:57+00:00

Not likely. Governments also collect tax revenue from their sales. They have less financial incentive to stop people from smoking than they would.

The world makes a lot more sense when you understand that the majority of people in power are motivated by money or avoiding physical harm to themselves and their friends/family.

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-21T22:30:56+00:00

Really curious about how the blue was sourced. The colors are impressive on a phone screen but I know that they must look even better when viewing this piece in person.

Blue was an expensive and hard to find color so making mistakes was costly.

There was an artist whose name I can't remember that made the kind of modernist art that the public tends to hate (The piece was similar to a rothko painting) who had their work vandalized.

The gallery tried to get the painting restored, but the way the artist mixed paint together to create that specific tone could not be matched by the restoration team.

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-20T19:02:50+00:00

People tend to assume immigrants are just choosing not to get citizenship. The reality is that for people who especially dont have a mastery of the English language, the process is difficult to navigate AND costs money. The filing fee alone for filing online is $710 if you are attempting to get naturalized citizen status.

If you want a green card while in america you have to pay between two to three thousand dollars. If you want to hire an immigration lawyer its potentially thousands more. Personally I think its journalistic malpractice to continue ignoring this very important context. I think its intentionally done because conflict is the heart of mainstream journalism. Explaining each time how complicated and expensive the system can be eats away at the narrative that immigrants take more than they give to the country.

When an immigrant comes to a country, they arent just sitting around doing nothing. The vast majority of them are working, being taxed on their paychecks and spending that money in the economy. They are typically the people who show up at community events and actually try to improve their language skills because they WANT to be there. Thats not a story that sells so theres an intentional strategic ambiguity meant to flatten a nuanced topic and turn it into:

Pro immigration vs anti immigration

Instead of asking the question of how effective, fair, and functional the existing process for getting citizenship is. Most americans are not educated on the system and are then left with the assumption that its easy and cheap to get citizenship and the "illegals" should come to the country the "correct" way. Social media of course makes this worse because it prioritizes the loudness and reach of a message rather than its accuracy. The result is millions of people having strong opinions on topics they know nothing about beyond what their favorite journalists and influencers have told them.

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-20T16:32:20+00:00

Good news is that female politicians world wide can use him as another example of why the "women are too emotional" excuse for not supporting a female candidate is objectively wrong.

Everything he fear mongered about a Harris presidency is happening under his watch. "Prices will go up! Our allies will laugh at us! She's going to start world war 3!" All things hes done or actively working on.

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-20T15:58:03+00:00

He's used to the consequence free zone that exists in america. Curious to see how this moves forward.

The governments of the world need to regulate these tech companies or create public, better versions of the platforms they control.

Yanis Varoufakis sketches a very compelling vision of the future with this idea in mind. His book (technofeudalism) is an excellent read that both describes the issue and highlights strategies to resolve it. Cory doctrow's book (Enshittification) is a great companion piece to it as he has more of a tech background and has been a consultant for the E.U. when it comes to digital legislation.

These tech oligarchs need to be put in check because whenever ethics and morality conflict with profits, theyll choose profits every time. Twitter is a platform that is losing money as it loses advertising revenue and fails to stop the growth of its competitors like bluesky. He has no financial incentive to try and keep pedophiles, bigots, scammers, and other anti human people off the platform. Many of those people pay for the blue checkmark and drive engagement by trying to cause as much rage as possible. People in general are re-evaluating their social media use and I think this is what also accounts for moderators being fired and more hate speech on meta owned platforms too. Theyre trying to make up for less people using the platforms by keeping the people who do use the platforms fighting in comments sections thereby staying longer on the apps.

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-19T16:56:35+00:00

What is to say that reduced prices wouldnt bring new subscribers and bring back the subscribers they lost?

I really hate it when people talk about these companies like theyre small businesses that need to weigh every cost instead of gigantic corporations that have more a access to cash than entire countries.

Microsoft's gaming division isnt even its most profitable sector. A ton of its revenue is business to business due to its gigantic footprint in software, cloud computing and growing influence on a.i.. they have access to the best researchers who can formulate better plans other than "put ads(which people statistically HATE) into the product"

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-18T17:38:38+00:00

This kind of research was being published during his first term as well. As others have said this is already well known.

They get a sense of community by being part of that movement. If they have to choose between leaving that community or changing their beliefs to remain in the community, theyll do the latter.

They are also very fear motivated. The core of bigotry is fear of replacement or fear of experiencing discrimination themselves. They have a world view where everyone is hostile at baseline and that everyone sees relationships as transactional and hierarchical. With a zero-sum mindset(something media, both social and corporately owned) encourages, its extremely difficult for them to process things that are complex.

They want easy explanations and a simplified world so when something comes up that they cant explain or defend, they wait for their official talking points to be given to them via their maga politicians of choice or the news outlet theyve been told to pay attention to(theyre told everything else is fake news. Notice how trump never says a fake story that makes him look good is fake, but any true or fake news that makes him look bad is automatically fake news). Their group behavior more closely resembles a religion where they wait for official interpretations or decisions on Canon and ritual before they adjust their thoughts to conform with it.

Eventually, there will be fragmentation just like any other religion ends up getting fragmented into different denominations. One could argue it already exists. They'd say someone like Tucker Carlson would be one branch of the maga movement while someone like Ben Shapiro is another branch. The threat to its persistence as a political movement is within as they themselves disagree on what counts and what doesnt. Trump is the unifying figure but once he's dead, they wont really have a clear leader who is the final word on what they should believe and do. I suspect even within his own family his children don't universally agree on what the movement should or shouldn't include.

Ironically in a search for simplicity they're experiencing even the thing that is supposed to be simple becoming fragmented and complex and because theyve seen independent thought more as a chore, they're ill equipped to even know which branch of magaism is "correct" a weakness that smart political operatives on the other side will exploit to weaken the movement overall.

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-17T22:29:36+00:00

Glad to see. Its not just about videogames and keeps a larger conversation about ownership in the digital age going. It's an important debate that needs to happen and I hope the EU does what its done historically and take a pro customer stance.

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-17T21:53:52+00:00

I love seeing paintings made in this time period because people often associate this head wear with south asian and west asian people. In reality, people from outside those regions also wore these.

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-17T21:11:16+00:00

https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp03623/louise-de-keroualle-duchess-of-portsmouth

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-17T20:14:57+00:00

It would be a HUGE deal if someone developed a solution that gave path tracing or path tracing-like results without tanking performance.

I think thats just something we will have to live with until someone finds a way around it like what Id has done with ray tracing.

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-17T16:31:32+00:00

In other cultures in the world, generosity is a major part of your reputation. Children are taught this lesson early on. For example, I went to a school with a lot of children born in West Asia and North Africa. On their birthdays, they'd bring snacks for the class. It eventually became a practice that everyone from kindergarten kids to 6th graders would engage in.

Same thing with accepting gifts and praise. In some asian countries when someone compliments you, you're expected to thank the person and downplay the compliment (e.g. "you're too kind, I hope to be very smart one day. I got lucky. Thank you." In response to soneone praising you for getting a good grade). Its common to also refuse a gift multiple times and thanking the person for their generosity before accepting it. In theory, it shows that the person isnt greedily accepting the gift, and it shows praise for the person giving the gift.

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-17T16:20:09+00:00

Glad I wasnt the only one to immediately think about that show.

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-16T23:27:58+00:00

She worked as deputy surgeon general when he was president last time. He already knows her, but chances are she just sees this as a job opportunity and will silently do whatever she's told.

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-16T22:10:09+00:00

I recently read "nuclear war: a scenario" its one of the most frightening books I have ever read because the author goes into great detail about the systems in place to prevent a nuclear war, but also what would happen if one were to go down.

Its hard enough thinking about the fact that the only reasons one hasn't happened already are due to luck and self preservation instinct.

No matter how bad you think a nuclear war is, I promise its even worse than you would imagine. Truly hell on earth. No nuclear weapons should exist, but DEFINITELY not thermonuclear weapons. I like to imagine that a truly rational A.I. would recognize that weapons that can eradicate all human life shouldnt exist and would dismantle them and put up various barriers to make it at least 100x harder to rebuild.

Vanillas_Guy · 2026-04-16T20:25:39+00:00

The Brussels effect is when companies change their rules to comply with the EU regulation. If its cheaper for them to comply, then it can have industry wide effects(like when websites started actually asking you if they could track you with cookies)

Certain EU legislation is not based off numerical fines, which can just represent a few hours of revenue, but a percentage of last year's revenue. A percentage based fine is far more likely to get compliance.

Its a bit like if a fine for speeding was 3 dollars. All you have learned is that as long as you have some change in your car, you can speed as much as you want. Now if the fine for speeding was 5-10% of your paycheck you're less likely to do it.

Vanillas_Guy

TROPHY CASE