Limo

You may not care about courts and the definitions they make up but I’m sure you’d agree there’s a difference between what was done by the Germans to the Herero, the Turks to the Armenians and the Germans (again) to the Jews on the one hand and the plight of the Palestinians on the other. Israel wants to get *rid* of the Palestinians, not out and out *slaughter* them.

That key layout looks really weird ...

The Korean War got pretty brutal, but genocide is a pretty specific thing: mass murder with intent to eradicate a people. The North Korean government that the US would have liked to eradicate was not a people and slaughtering civilians by itself is not mass murder with intent to eradicate. Similarly, the horrible things the North Korean government is doing to North Koreans - enslaving them, starving them, sending them out to forced labor camps in Siberia, etc - aren't genocide just really serious human rights abuses that make whatever the US justice system does to Black people look like kindergarten in comparison. It does not want to eradicate its own people, after all. By the same logic, proving that China is engaging in genocide in Xinjiang is going to be very difficult, as there most likely isn't any executive order or even desire to *eradicate* the Uyghurs - just to *pacify* them, which is something different (although, if you end up on the wrong end of the pacifying stick the results may very well be the same). This is why, when Canada and The Netherlands and maybe some others decided to make show about condemning the Chinese government for genocide people who were experts on this sort of thing said that was a very dumb thing to do. It's much easier to drag someone to court for human rights abuses as that only requires you to show the effects a policy has. For genocide you need to prove *intent*.

Interesting. Didn't know that. They were involved in Rwanda, too, weren't they?

I wonder how Burundi is doing on the path to communists enlightenment.

Absolutely. This was my plan B, but the home built plan A is a little easier. At some point in time plan B will be executed too, however. I'd love to have some of the more standard Serge modules as well (DUSG, SSG).

The simplicity is a Serge thing, I think. The CGS schematics are really simple as well. But you're right. I was going through the schematics yesterday evening to check them against the BOM and they really *are* very simple. Not surprising, perhaps, as Serge was originally meant for DIY by people without enough money to buy Buchla ?

It took about a month, but I finally managed to polish off Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children". Yes, it really is that good. The plot keeps racing along, the backdrop is interesting enough (history of India between roughly 1900 and 1980) and even though the cast of characters is spectacularly large there's enough gentle little reminders strewn about to continuously refresh your memory as to who is who. The language has a whiff of Joyce about it, but not so much that it becomes annoying and mostly enough to make it enjoyable. It has more than a whiff of India to it in the characters' speech patterns and this adds to the fun tremendously. You will also most likely have to look up some words in a dictionary, both because Rushdie is more intimately familiar with his thesaurus than you are and because you, like me, might not know some Indian words. This, too, however, adds to the pleasure of reading this book. Highly, highly recommended.

Burn ? But yeah, it seems very doable. It’s just that the PCB’s are very large. And you need to source four obsolete but very popular chips (CA3080 and CA3086)

Ah, yes, I forgot about that, sorry. I guess I’m not old enough to remember South Korea was once a ridiculously poor country. I thought you might be exaggerating, seeing as that India has a sizable middle class now, but no, “poor government policy decisions” is probably a fair description: https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/china/india?sector=GDP+per+capita+(Dollars)&sc=XE34#tbl

Fear is part of it, of course, but the fact of the matter is that living standards have improved immensely in China during the past 30 years. Something like half a billion people have been lifted out of less than one dollar a day poverty under the auspices of the CCP. So when Chinese people support their government, that’s not because they’re brainwashed but because for the vast majority of them their government has been very, very good. And I think this is something we in the West tend not to take account enough, that as far as improving the livelihoods of its people is concerned post Mao the CCP is the most successful government in the world. No other government even comes close.

The other 73-75 stuff is surface mount, correct, but the home built is through hole (see image below) )

Nice try but that’s a heron, not a stork

Just ordered the 73-75 Home built Serge panels + PCB's. They're for a complete two row Serge system using early modules (so no DUSG and SSG but instead a positive slew, a negative slew and some envelopes). Costs are around €400 for the PCB + panel. From what I've seen - but I've yet to study it thoroughly - the BOM will be about €250. It uses fairly standard components, however, so I could probably dip into my stock for a lot of things. Not sure what to do about a PSU and a case. Anyway, that's my summer vacation taken care of.

I think your fondness for the concept of communism clouds your vision a bit. Communist or not the government of China is brutal and harsh (something they would themselves probably readily admit). Amnesty is fairly objective in pointing that out (just as Amnesty is fairly objective in pointing out human rights abuses by the US).

You’re not wrong but you should also read https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/asia-and-the-pacific/china/

Oh hi! There’s a difference between this thing and the Tracker, though ... it’s very much, like you say, a continuation of the portable experience, using off the shelf components to get there. I’m not the target audience for it but I can see the point (price is very steep, though). The Tracker, on the other hand ... same form factor as a a laptop, just with less power. Weird flex.

"Fünf Minuten vor der Zeit das ist rechte Pünktlichkeit"

Not to gatekeep, but I’ve lived in Indonesia in the 1980s. There were potholes everywhere and often not even a road at all but the tarmac in front if the presidential palace was impeccable.

The only reason that place exists is because of capitalism gone nuts, so it probably would. I’ve only visited the US once, two years ago, but I got distinct 3rd world vibes from it. Everything was flimsy, dirty and decrepit. In fact, unlike the 3rd world countries I’ve visited, the US couldn’t even keep the roads in front of its main government buildings free from potholes. Such a dump.

To be fair these numbers should probably be corrected for population size. This would still put China way above the US. Let’s see by how much: (numbers with plus rounded up for easy math) China: 1.4 billion / 1400 = 1 per 1.4 million Iran: 90 million / 300 = 1 per 300,000 Saudi Arabia: 35 million / 185 = 1 per 190,00 US: 330 million / 22 = 1 per 15 million ... Wow

This is fantastic. Where does this come from?

Dissidents get a lot of attention because they're members of the talking class. Black men getting arrested up for possession are not. The first group goes to jail because the government thinks they talk too much. The second group ... consider this: In NYC possession of pot is legal. However, there is a provision in the law that says "flaunting" is not. So what happens is police stop Black men, search them, find their weed and since that weed is now out in the open that counts as "flaunting" so the Black men are sent to jail.

Complaining about whataboutism always strikes me as sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling "can't hear you". Chinese prisons are horrible. Uyghurs are being rounded up in insane numbers simply because they're Uyghur and want to do Uyghur things. If you end up in a Chinese prison you're not likely to ever get out. US prisons are horrible by Western European standards. Black men are rounded up simply because they're Black ("driving while Black" is a serious thing). If you end up in a US prison and you're black you're not likely to ever build up a normal life again. Dutch prisons are very nice even by Western European standards, let alone by US standards. Still, the handful of people I've known who were sent to one thought the experience was horrible. Luckily they got out and managed to build up something resembling a normal life again. They were lucky - if you have nothing to fall back on they will dump you on the street as soon as your sentence is up and leave you to fend for yourself. All of these things are true.