There was some sort of anime themed dance off in the mall and the participants were all drawing on this massive fabric wall. Was very happy to see this.

The Chinese youth are alright.

I apparently have £400 of Google ad credits. What would be a fun advert to run?

Edit: beanis?

Anyone else have the issue when using jerboa that when they try to change input language (by holding the space button) the selection menu just flashes up and then disappears?

Somewhat annoying.

Regardless, I waltzed into a China mobile shop and not only did they just give me sim card, they even let me pick my phone number. Sadly there were none with 1701 in, which would have been awesome.

The lies I've heard about this country are just stacked one atop another. Next step is to open a Chinese bank account because apparently I'm not allowed to do that either.

I'm seeing some real time, grade-A consent manufacturing regarding this massive crowdstrike outage. Every article I see blames Microsoft. I have no love for Microsoft, but they were not to blame. The people who are too blame are crowdstrike, the software company who deployed the broken update that caused the outage.

\* Puts on immaculately thought out tinfoil hat *

Crowdstrike is more a piece of US surveillance tech than it is an actual security suite. In essence it can take any data from a device it is installed on and can execute any command on those devices (due to the way the software very tightly integrated with the windows operating system, bypassing security on the OS). A powerful tool when you consider that the US government can subpoena any us corporation to hand over the information they hold.

Now, crowdstrike had a huge market share, but you can bet that after this event people are going to be less willing to use it, and this will result in the US losing a huge part of its surveillance network. People don't care what security suite they use, so long as it works, so people are going to switch.

Cue the absolute deluge of articles I've been seeing blaming this on Microsoft. An operating system so ingrained into the business world that no-one is going to switch to an alternative, no matter how much they fuck up. They can take the heat and mitigate the damage to crowdstrike. Thus preserving the US state surveillance appetatus.

\* Tin foil hat removed and placed back into its extremely well thought out box *

What do people think?

Based on the Chinese nursery rhyme Two Tigers. Sung to the tune of Frére Jacque.

两位总统。

两位总统。

非常老。

非常老。

一位没有耳朵。

一位没有好脑。

很奇怪。

很奇怪。

Specifically I'm unable to change my keyboard input language when in the app, emojis don't always work, and there is no way to use hexbear emojis in app.

If there is an app or there that solves these issues I'm all for it

The weather has been even shitter than usual in the UK this spring. Normally we'd have had a few decent days by now, but it's just been cold, windy and overcast after our unsettlingly mild winter.

Anyway, it's amazing how much a bit of sun picks up my mood. The sun is out today and the world seems slightly less shit. The birds are singing and I'm seeing insects flitting about.

The sun is good for mental health.

Feel free to whip this one out if you get any of that "Winnie the pooh is banned" nonsense from a propagandised westerner. Also remind them that it is racist.

I've got another one somewhere if a giant Winnie the Pooh stuffed toy in a tea house, but I'll be damned if I can find it right now

A friend of mine is compiling a list of Islamophobic dog-whistles that the company she works for needs to keep an eye out for on their socials. I said I would throw the net out and see what I can find out.

A bit of a weird request I know, but I would like to think it will do some good.

When browsing on the web I am routinely subjected to the badly cut out hexbear logo on the community bar.

It is vile, it is offensive, and I have had enough.

!

I have decided to fix it. Whoever has the power, can they please replace that dirty image with this slightly trimmed version.

!

Good day.

Edit: it does actually have a few other scaling issues so I might make a newer one at some point

I'm leaning towards yes, because despite their inclusivity and the general feel-good vibes of the stories, the characters themselves flirt with police brutality quite a bit, and who knows exactly what they get up to in their lives outside the novels.

Any more nuanced views from my fellow hexbearians (and lemmings)? I'm slightly less articulate than Detritus on a hot day, and I wonder how much the politics and views of Terry Pratchett comes up in leftist discourse.

Hi all,

I've been learning Mandarin for just over 6 months but I am having trouble with my listening comprehension. Does anyone have any good resources for listening practice? I am looking for HSK 1/2 level stuff. I basically just need to immerse myself in as much content as I possibly can until all this vocab and grammar starts to cement itself in my brain.

I already use Hello Chinese and a few other apps. Ideally I would just be looking for quick fire phrases and conversations that I can listen along to. Youtube has some stuff but the quality is always a bit up and down.

Thanks