Started the next route in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, which is the second / hidden route in Black Eagle route. Already have a separate save at the fork point, so continued with that.

It's interesting to see the different point of view of things, and now that I have some experience with game mechanics I am trying out different classes for some of the characters. The fork point is far enough in the game that drastic changes won't be possible, but still, some changes can be done, and it's fun exploring that.

Started Mutant Mudd Collection on Switch, for the times when Age of Calamity becomes too repetitive and want to play something else.

It's a 2D platformer which was originally released on 3DS and the game is tough! You have to complete each level at least twice, one is the main path, and one is the alternate, more difficult path. I am having trouble enough with normal path so not sure if I'll be able to handle the difficult paths.

The difficultly is still within my playable range, even though I die a ton at certain places. Let's see how long I stick with it.

Played a bit of Hyrle Warriors: Age of Calamity and am having trouble with some of the Timed missions, may have to level up some more, will try them again later.

Didn't play much Cozy Grove this week, will get back to slowly chipping away at it from next week.

I haven't started anything on PlayStation cause I wanted to start Dark Souls Remastered and was waiting for a sale (as per dekudeals it regularly does go to sale).

And as it happens, it just went on sale! So just bought the game and have downloaded it. Will probably be playing it over the weekend. Time to see if I can finish it or it will be another game that I'll be dropping halfway through 😀

What about all of you? What have you been playing and/or plan to play?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/45994892

• Taiwan starts handing out copies of new civil defence handbook
• Taiwan faces growing military pressure from China
• Japan PM assures support of Taiwan in case of Chinese military aggression

China is the real regional "troublemaker", a senior Taiwanese security official said on Friday, personally giving out copies of a new civil defence handbook the government is sending to every household on the island as China tensions rise.

The handbook, unveiled in September, includes for the first time instructions on what to do if citizens encounter enemy soldiers and stresses that any claims of Taiwan's surrender should be considered false.

[...]

It marks Taiwan's latest effort to prepare its population for crises ranging from natural disasters to a Chinese invasion, as Beijing steps up military and political pressure to assert its sovereignty claims over the democratically-governed island.

China has this month also been locked in an increasingly bitter dispute with Japan after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told parliament a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Tokyo.

Lin Fei-fan, Deputy Secretary-General of Taiwan's National Security Council who has overseen the handbook initiative, told reporters in a Taipei residential area as he handed out copies to residents that Japan had Taiwan's highest-level support.

"The Chinese communists are the real troublemaker in geopolitics of the entire region," he said.

"What we are doing now is to ensure that peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait can be continued by all means necessary and that the status quo will not be unilaterally destroyed."

[...]

They help ya eacha BEANS

The extent of dependence on the USA in the digital sector is currently being experienced by a French judge. Nicolas Guillou, one of six judges and three prosecutors of the International Criminal Court (ICC), was sanctioned by the USA in August. He described his current situation as a digital time travel back to the 1990s, before the internet age, in a recent interview.

The reason for the US sanctions are the arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. They were indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the context of the destruction of the Gaza Strip. The USA condemned this decision by the court, whereupon the US Treasury Department sanctioned six judges and three prosecutors.

Digitally excluded from almost everything In Guillou's daily life, this means that he is excluded from digital life and much of what is considered standard today, he told the French newspaper Le Monde. All his accounts with US companies such as Amazon, Airbnb, or PayPal were immediately closed by the providers. Online bookings, such as through Expedia, are immediately canceled, even if they concern hotels in France. Participation in e-commerce is also practically no longer possible for him, as US companies always play a role in one way or another, and they are strictly forbidden to enter into any trade relationship with sanctioned individuals.

Russia is likely to test NATO’s collective defense pledge very soon, Sweden’s top military official said, as Moscow escalates its campaign of hybrid attacks against Europe.

“I'm sure and I'm convinced that they would be ready to test Article 5 of NATO at any point in the Baltic states or in some other part of Europe as well,” Swedish Chief of Defense Gen. Michael Claesson told POLITICO, referring to the alliance's common defense provision.

“They are prepared to take enormous strategic risks to gain whatever they see possible to gain,” he added, pointing to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s past military campaigns. “We have seen it since Chechnya, we have seen it in Georgia, we have seen it in Crimea.”

I currently use my laptop next to a monitor with 21" but I am thinking about an upgrade. I casually play some light games, nothing competitive. The rest is a lot of reading, office or coding work and some multimedia.

What is a nice setup in your opinion? One big screen with 27" or two smaller ones with 22" or 24" each?

I did some research and found for a 24" screen 1080p and for a 27" screen 1440p as a minimum. So I figured a 24" 1440p screen would look awesome. Do I miss something about this finding? Is 2K too much for 24" to even notice it?

The problem I have is my desk is only 65cm wide and I frequently have a book or a piece of paper between me and the keyboard+monitor. The monitor uses 22cm and the keyboard another 14cm so there is just enough space for a piece of paper. Many of the modern monitors have huge standing feets and there are not always good measurements given.

I also thought about a monitor arm but I don't know if that would help with my small desk or just create more hassle after all.

Donald Trump's administration is exerting heavy pressure on Ukraine, demanding that it agree to the American-Russian peace plan by Thanksgiving.

Source: Financial Times (FT), citing senior Ukrainian officials and individuals familiar with the negotiations

Details: According to the FT's sources, the White House has set strict deadlines for the negotiation process, insisting that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy agree to the terms of the deal by Thanksgiving, which is celebrated in the United States on 27 November.

• Description: Taking inspiration from classic titles like Contra and Wild Guns, NEON INFERNO splits the action into the foreground and background. It features a variety of enemies and bosses in levels set in a dystopian New York City in 2055.
• Price: $19.99 ($15.99 till 4th December)
• Link: https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/neon-inferno-switch/

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5716657

Archived version

The European Union and representatives of countries in the Indo-Pacific region are meeting in Brussels for the fourth ministerial forum, which brings together around 70 participants from EU institutions and member states, countries in the Indo-Pacific, and regional organisations from the east coast of Africa to the Pacific island states.

This year's meeting focuses on the themes of resilience, prosperity and security. Each participant arrives with their own agenda and priorities.

For Philippine Foreign Secretary Theresa Lazaro the meeting is an opportunity to strengthen maritime cooperation in the face of Beijing's claims in the South China Sea.

Lazaro welcomes European support through its statements, but also through "a lot of support through the visits of EU member countries, frigates passing through the South China Sea and this gives a lot of impetus to relations."

...

Manila and Beijing have accused each other of being responsible for collisions and incidents in the contested waters in recent months. The Chinese authorities claim most of the South China Sea, which is contested by several other countries in the region.

...

The Philippines said it welcomes the participation of EU member states as observers in maritime exercises.

But Manila, which will hold the presidency of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2026, wants to go further at this forum in Brussels.

...

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5716657

Archived version

The European Union and representatives of countries in the Indo-Pacific region are meeting in Brussels for the fourth ministerial forum, which brings together around 70 participants from EU institutions and member states, countries in the Indo-Pacific, and regional organisations from the east coast of Africa to the Pacific island states.

This year's meeting focuses on the themes of resilience, prosperity and security. Each participant arrives with their own agenda and priorities.

For Philippine Foreign Secretary Theresa Lazaro the meeting is an opportunity to strengthen maritime cooperation in the face of Beijing's claims in the South China Sea.

Lazaro welcomes European support through its statements, but also through "a lot of support through the visits of EU member countries, frigates passing through the South China Sea and this gives a lot of impetus to relations."

...

Manila and Beijing have accused each other of being responsible for collisions and incidents in the contested waters in recent months. The Chinese authorities claim most of the South China Sea, which is contested by several other countries in the region.

...

The Philippines said it welcomes the participation of EU member states as observers in maritime exercises.

But Manila, which will hold the presidency of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2026, wants to go further at this forum in Brussels.

...

I asked a genuine question and had replies that ignored the question I asked and insulted me and said my question was stupid. My reply telling them to stop being rude and answer the question if they want to comment was removed by the mods.

Department of Defense “contractors” landed on a Mexican beach and accidentally declared it United States territory in a bizarre incident on Monday.

A group of unidentified men hammered in six signs on Nov. 17, declaring that a beach near Playa Bagdad in Northeast Mexico was “Department of Defense property” and had been classified as a “restricted area” by “the commander.” The area is roughly twelve miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Heavily armed Mexican Navy personnel came to investigate the scene and discovered that the men had landed in Mexico by mistake and intended to plant the signs in South Texas. The situation was resolved without violence, and the Mexican Navy removed the signs. Pictures and videos of the incident circulated on social media over the following days.

Countries enforcing race or gender diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies will now be at risk of the Trump administration deeming them as infringing on human rights.

[...]

The new instructions also deem countries that subsidise abortion or facilitate mass migration as infringing on human rights.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5716339

Op-ed by Ian Bond is deputy director of the Centre for European Reform. It is based on the analysis: China and Europe: Can the EU and the UK find a shared strategy?

Archived version

...

The problem for the EU and European states is that their strategies for dealing with China are vague about ends and even vaguer about means. Europeans want to maintain as good relations as possible with China, while mitigating the risks that it poses. There is too much focus among European policy-makers on developing co-operation with China – often more theoretical than real – on issues such as climate change or global health; and too little on competition, still less rivalry. They do not want to discuss how to defend European models of governance against China’s alternatives, or what it will take to challenge China successfully in advanced technologies.

...

Apart from the economic consequences for Europe of China’s technological advances, Beijing is also focussed on applying civilian technology in the military sphere – a policy known as ‘military-civil fusion’. Some of its new technology is purely indigenous; some (for example, for air defence or submarines) is acquired as part of China’s close relationship with Russia; and some is developed with European help, by Chinese students and researchers from universities and research institutes with close ties to the military studying at European institutions, occasionally even with EU funding.

...

China is dramatically increasing its military capability. In 2005 the Chinese navy had 221 ships; by 2030, based on current rates of ship-building, it is forecast to have 435 ships. Its nuclear warhead stockpile has more than doubled since 2019. Its air force has grown and modernised. These developments are making European partners in the Indo-Pacific region, such as Australia and Japan, extremely nervous. Although European governments, including the UK’s, are very reluctant to label China a potential adversary, they are stepping up defence and security co-operation with democratic governments in the region.

...

What can Europe do?

• First, it needs to ensure that it understands what China is doing. Networks of China watchers in Europe need more support, and there needs to be more funding for the study of Chinese language, the Chinese economy and Chinese foreign policy, both inside governments and in academia. Europeans also need to strengthen their ties to democratic countries in the Indo-Pacific region, both to benefit from their insights into the regional hegemon, and to be able to co-ordinate policy where possible.

• Second, Europe needs to intensify work to reduce its dependencies on China. European countries and the EU will have to accept that China is not playing by the rules of free trade and the free market, and protect their own economies accordingly. The EU and European countries have a variety of tools for this, in terms of ensuring Europe’s economic security, protecting intellectual property and diversifying supply chains. They are often not used in a co-ordinated way, however, even when there are obvious advantages in acting at the EU level rather than nationally, for example to secure access to critical raw materials. The EU has critical minerals partnerships with more than a dozen countries or territories, but the bulk of the raw materials it can obtain still have to be processed in China; changing that situation, including by working with countries that already have processing and/or manufacturing capabilities, should be a high priority.

• Third, it needs to step up both its own research and development spending (a longstanding EU goal) and protect its intellectual property better – including by paying much closer attention to the possible military or defence industry connections of Chinese researchers seeking to study sensitive technologies in Europe.

• Finally, it must compete more effectively with Chinese soft power, both within Europe and in the global south. Shrinking aid budgets, the retreat of Western broadcasters like the BBC World Service, tough European visa policies and unwelcoming attitudes to students and researchers from many parts of the global south have given China an opening to promote itself as a better partner. In reality, Europe’s political and economic system still has much more to offer than Chinese state capitalism and the rule of the Chinese Communist Party. Europe needs to invest more in getting that message across.

...

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5716280

Archived version

...

Today, Chinese companies control more than 220 gigawatts of Europe’s installed solar capacity via inverters—the digital brains that convert direct current into grid-usable alternating current. These (usually) remotely programmable computers generate data, receive software and firmware updates, adjust voltage and frequency, and can be switched on and off as needed—or tampered with. Huawei (deemed “high risk” for many European telecoms networks) has become Europe’s largest supplier of inverters.

In normal times, inverters maintain grid stability and facilitate the integration of renewable energy. In a world where technology can be weaponised, they also offer a handful of operators potential levers inside Europe’s critical infrastructure. The irony is that clean technologies disperse energy generation across countless sites, but the digital centralisation of their data and control on cloud platforms makes them more vulnerable to attack.

In effect, while European dependence on solar panels from China may not be the most risky of dependencies, the EU’s energy grid backbone increasingly runs on Chinese hardware, software and data access. European countries need to spend hundreds of billions of euros over the coming years to upgrade their ageing grid, and China is well-placed to extend this dominant inverter supplier position into other power equipment, including transmission lines, distribution transformers and software for managing grid integration. Beijing has already shown that it will use dependencies as geoeconomic weapons, from rare earths to automotive chips. Europe’s grid could be next.

...

There’s no shortage of ways inverters can be turned into weapons. State-linked actors could deploy malware that cripples the power system and knocks out critical services. Espionage teams might map the grid to help pinpoint the best places to disconnect for maximum impact. Cyber attacks on operating systems could plunge wide areas into darkness for weeks.

There are also geoeconomic threats. Imagine China restricted the sale of components and maintenance services to its grid technologies. European countries would not be able to simply switch to a different supplier, because switching often requires replacing large parts of the network, leaving operators unable to patch known flaws and thereby inviting more cyber attacks or extortion.

...

How to secure the European grid

• Exclude high-risk vendors from the EU, e.g., the Cybersecurity Act, as well as the Cyber Resilience Act, could therefore offer the Commission another pathway to enforce Union-wide bans on risky products and services
• Condition funding on exclusions, e.g., conditioning EU funding for renewable energy projects and auctions on the exclusion of hardware and software from high-risk suppliers
• Tighten economic security measures, e.g., protecting domestic manufacturers by launching trade defence investigations (anti-dumping) into imported inverters and other power grid equipment
• Prevent circumvention and strengthen oversight, e.g., making sure that member states EU regulations by outsourcing operational control functions of inverters to (shell) companies in high-risk countries
• Promote trust standards among allies, e.g., encouraging its member states to adopt similar trust standards for their energy grid

...

The same could be said for non-American media, but American media in particular always hops between different topics and only one at a time.

Take, for example, news surrounding the mustard orange man with a red hat. At first, the news was swirling about how he was elected for a second term despite being a felon, but eventually the media pretty much forgot about that and went to his stance on climate change (that is, he believes it doesn't exist and thinks that oil and gas are the most amazing thing in the world, ever), then to the huge budget cuts (e.g. medicine, foreign aid, NASA), then to the ICE raids and military deployments in cities as "police", and now to "the files".

He is still a felon, still pushing for fossil fuels, still cutting funding for critical services (while increasing budget for his own benefit, like the rebuilding of the east wing of the white house to be glittery gold, military spending, fossil fuels industry...), still using ICE to raid the communities and families of both legal (including U.S. citizens, what the hell!) and "illegal" immigrants (nearly all of which don't have a criminal record, don't think 3 years olds are gang members...), and still using the military in various different cities as "police".

Questioning orange man's relation with bald egg man should be rightfully done, but why is the media practically ignoring everything else (esp. given that he was already convicted for doing similar acts as well as a bunch of other naughty stuff to do with money and government documents)

The American media can only latch onto one "hot" topic at a time and it's infuriating. You go to any of the news about orange man right now and it's all about non-Sonic billionaire eggman. The public is not as "one brain cell" as the media, but still, most people in the U.S. usually latch on to one thing only (whether it's ICE, the budget cuts, or the files, ESPECIALLY the files, it may as well be a copypasta at this point)

Similar could be said for big non-orange topics too, like on Israel (their invasion and genocide in Gaza, settlement of the West Bank, bombings of Lebanon, Syria, and now the "scary" proposal that - gasps - mentions a Palestinian state, etc.), Russian invasion of Ukraine, etc.

Why is the American media like this? Same could be said for all media, but American media in particular seem to always be tunnel visioned to one issue at a time. The American public also seem pretty tunnel visioned to a single issue, though not to the extent of the media companies

Note: I am not an American and do not, have never, and probably will never (due to the anti-immigrant administration) live in the US. I am not saying "haha Americans are dumb", that wouldn't be very nice. I just read a lot of news, some of which is American, and this has been a weird pattern I've been noticing and it drives me crazy.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5716161

Archived version

On November 18, Russia’s State Duma passed the 2026 draft budget in its second reading. The plan includes raising the value-added tax (VAT) from 20 to 22 percent and increasing taxes on small and medium-sized businesses. During the same session, lawmakers also approved a “technology fee” that will be charged to importers and manufacturers of household appliances and electronics.

The Putin administration for state-run and pro-government media, designed to help them present the new policies in a way that suits the Kremlin.

TL;DR:

• The West is to blame for the tax hikes.
• Media outlets are strongly advised to avoid mentioning Putin's name in stories about rising taxes to make sure clear that the public does not associate any of these unpopular decisions with Putin personally
• The Putin administration recommends citing European countries that are supposedly “slashing social programs to fund weapons.”
• Fears that tax increases drive up prices should be eased by saying that the tax changes will have only a “minimal” impact on inflation.
• In addition, the Putin administration urges loyal media to shift attention toward a separate tax increase on bookmakers, portraying it as a “fair” measure.

...

Meanwhile, Russia starts selling off its gold reserves to fund the war budget, breaking a long-held taboo, as the country’s Central Bank confirmed to Russian media outlet Interfax.

The move marks a significant shift in how Moscow is tapping its financial buffers to sustain government spending during the war against Ukraine.

...