#and people are mad about that

[beardedmrbean]

Taiwan said on Monday it had closed an investigation into the September pager attack on Lebanon's Hezbollah militia without finding evidence of any involvement of Taiwanese firms or individuals.

Security sources had previously said the pagers bore the name of Gold Apollo, a Taiwan-based company.

More than 40 people, including at least 12 civilians, were killed and more than 3,000 wounded in the incident, in which pagers used by Hezbollah instead of cell phones for security reasons exploded in an Israeli attack.

What did prosecutors say?

The Taiwanese prosecutors said in a statement that the AR-924 pager model that exploded in Lebanon was manufactured, traded and shipped by a firm called Frontier Group Entity, and made outside of Taiwan.

Gold Apollo had, however, authorized the company to use its trademark, they said.

"There is no evidence indicating that any domestic manufacturers or individuals were accomplices in the relevant explosions, violating the Counter-Terrorism Financing Act, or engaging in other illegal activities," the statement said.

"No concrete evidence of criminal activity has been discovered in this case, nor have any specific individuals been implicated in any criminal activity, following a comprehensive investigation," it added.

Gold Apollo has always denied producing the devices.

Controversial attack method

Using pagers as a method of attack has been criticized by rights groups as being too indiscriminate to comply with international conventions on legitimate warfare, as the possible victims could not be identified in advance as militants or civilians.

Several children were among those injured in the incident on September 17, which was followed by walkie-talkie explosions on September 18.

The explosions came shortly before Israel began a ground offensive in Lebanon against Hezbollah, which has been carrying out strikes against Israel in support of its ally, Hamas, over the past year.

Israel has been fighting against Hamas in the Gaza Strip since the militant Palestinian group raided southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, and taking more than 250 people hostage.

[femmeofhearts]

i hope (know) this is how everyone who has ever fumbled me feels

[cumaeansibyl]

I was just browsing around here at random and I think the current generation of social media users need to re-learn a certain truth:

the Secret Service will investigate all perceived threats to the president or top government officials, even if they are clearly unserious.

Now, they aren't going to arrest you for joking about it. They are going to show up at your house with printouts of your tumblr and other social media and ask you some very pointed questions and it's going to be extremely uncomfortable. They want you to know that they know what you said, and that if you were planning to do more than talk, you should stop that, because now they have their eye on you.

And yeah, in the back of their minds they're thinking "what if this seemingly harmless poster actually turns out to have a gun and a plan, and we dismiss them because we think they couldn't possibly be serious?" But mainly the first thing.

Let me make one thing clear: I am expressing neither approval or disapproval of this practice. I am stating the fact that they've done this for decades -- it's not a particular feature of the new administration. And given that their one and only job is keeping some very unpopular people alive, it makes sense that they're being damn sure no one slips through the cracks. Because it only takes one.

Oh, and just for the record, if you use common censorship techniques to talk about "unaliving" or "k*lling" someone you shouldn't, they can still find you. Some of these people have been on the social media beat for years by now, you know they speak fluent TikTok.

Be safe out there, okay? Don't get put on a list for a dumb joke.

[vandijkwrites]

Please do things to strengthen your attention span. It stresses me out so much when people just accept their small attention spans and cater to them without any acknowledgment that they are making it worse by doing that.

There is a reason attention spans are worse now and it didn’t just happen by chance. Media and the internet designed it that way and we went with it because it was easier.

Some of us with ADHD and brain fog need to meet ourselves where we’re at and exercise our attention span by watching a two minute video instead of a one minute video. Some of us need to sit down and read a novel with our phones turned off.

Wherever you’re at, just realize that not doing things that feel hard will keep making your attention span worse.

[idolomantises]

man i dont want to get all "fandom elder" on people because i think its cringe when people talk about the "good old days" of shipping culture and then ignore the rampant misogyny, queerphobia and racism in those communities but i gotta say: why are people so weird about shipping now?

Like there's really bizarre things i keep seeing younger/newer people in fandoms get upset over. like the obsession with only shipping canon couples. getting upset over crackships. viewing two characters as siblings (who arent considered siblings in the narrative) and getting mad when people ship them. If you get a relationship slightly off people will right a massive thesis statement about it flat out harass you over it. people have to put "not a ship" under platonic art because shippers will blow a fuse if they read it as slightly romantic. pick me queer people getting pissed off when people ship two characters of the same gender and accusing them of "not appreciating platonic relationships" (which by the way, funny to me that this is only thrown at m/m ships and never f/f ships).

Like shipping culture is supposed to be fun, what are we doing here.

[whompthatsucker1981]

i think that gay sex cats is the new duchamp's fountain

[creme-meme]

Lil Nas X is someone who tragically had to have a wildly successful music career in order to support his true passion, being a top quality internet troll

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

"doesn't this charater under insane stress going through extremely traumatic events realize how inconvenient their irrational emotional reactions are to the people around them?" well, see, you're not gonna believe this, but the thing is,

[spitblaze]

>looking into the official English release of Japanese media

>fandom says the translation is horrible

>ask them if the translation is actually bad or if it was just localized

>they don't understand

>pull out illustrated diagram showing what is a bad translation and what is localization

>they laugh and say 'it's a bad translation'

>check it out anyway

>it's localized

[strangebiology]

Success is Dependent on Secret Information

A lot of career success depends on you and the work you put into it, as well as luck beyond your control, but sadly, it also depends on secret information, magic words, and stupid little tricks.

That's not fair. I don't like it, but we can help by sharing that secret information--which is the antidote to gate-keeping. That's why I recently wrote this in my Authors of Nonfiction Books in Progress substack:

It can be really disheartening to realize that, when you thought you failed at something because you didn't do well enough, other people had the magic words. For instance, some injustices I've witnessed (that may or may not always be the case, or maybe not anymore!) include:

A good athletic score doesn't get you into a college sport--having a coach or parent talk to the college coach is mandatory

Many school-sponsored scholarships are often not tightly linked to grades, test scores, or financial need, but whether the student said the right words ("I can't afford that") to the right person (presumably some financial office person.)

Apparently, some aspects of some degrees are cheated on by most students (if that's the case, we should tell all students that it's ok to cheat on that so they don't waste their time on something that apparently wasn't important anyway, or worse, fail out just for being ethical.)

Especially related to books: Few people will mention that you can get grants! Not my agent, not my publisher, not the 1 zillion "pros and cons of trad publishing" articles out there mentioned grants (Grant eligibility is a HUGE benefit of trad publishing.) I got more money from grants than my entire book advance!

Let me know what magic words/secret knowledge you've learned, that you wish you knew sooner. Or: the widespread understanding of what information would make a field more fair?

And please share ANBIP with anyone writing, publishing, or seriously about to start writing, a nonfiction non-memoir book, especially if they're interested in the more practical side (I share more about resources and strategy than craft.)

[lazylittledragon]

what if i broke all the bones in your legs actually

[mini-minish]

regarding that recent discourse on tw*ter of if andrew would like aaron's kids or not: im not listening to any of you. neil josten literally sent me these pictures himself 🧡

[bandzboy]

the korean embassy in isnotreal is organizing kpop world festival there and is basically a competition people can participate with the support of kbs so yeah... this is quite bad

[goodluckdetective]

If you’re reaction to this Neil Gaiman stuff is to crow how “I always hated his work” or “I knew he had bad vibes” I want you to stop, and understand what I hear, which is “they deserved it”

“But no” you say! That wasn’t what you meant. You just wanted to-

What? Talk about how you always knew better? That you were above falling for the act? That you always knew something was off? You are good enough to know evil when you see it?

Cool. So they were too stupid to know better? That they fell for the act? That they should have known something was off like you? That they weren’t good enough to spot this coming?

“That’s not what I meant! I meant his fans!”

Some of his fans were his victims. So only they deserved it?

“Not his fans who were his victims but his annoying fans-“

That’s what you’re getting from this? That you can finally brag to those annoying fans about how stupid they were for liking his work because…. a monstrous level of abuse happened. Glad you’re enjoying putting those fans in their place with….a bunch of horrific sex crimes.

Anyway, people who are making this about Gaiman’s work or his characters have lost the plot, I agree there. But people making this about how smart they were, how they knew better?

Think about what you’re actually saying and maybe shut the fuck up.

[adam-scott]

Tom Burke as Praetorian Jack & Anya Taylor-Joy as Furiosa FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA (2024)