Today's game is some more Control. I was playing around with Aspect Ratios trying to see if I could get some interesting ones to work with in Photo mode. Unfortunately the highest 4:3 the game supports is 1600x1200 I could use gamescope to jump up to 8K 4:3, but that was lagging my game even if I dropped the resolution majorly. I decided to just have my fun with 1600x1200 and then stick to 16:9.

I also figured out how to get a good balance of Resolution w/ Raytracing. I capped it at 30 FPS. But a stable 30 FPS is more than tolerable for me, so I'm more than happy sticking to that.

My first thought was "Damn, these are some amazing Reflections". My second thought was "Damn, somethings are a little fuzzy". Still, not too bad as far as I'm concerned, especially getting to see those amazing reflections on windows and stuff. It brings it really high up in quality.

The Physics simulation is pretty too with all the shattering glass. I spent a little while trying to get a good shot with the glass and I got this one which I rather like.

Anyways, enough about graphics. Let's talk about Ahti. I love the guy. Genuinely he might be one of my favorite characters to come out of a Remedy game. Something about this Janitor with an air of mystery and power is just so fucking cool. Plus his role in Alan Wake 2 is even cooler. I just hope he doesn't get too tied up in everything to the point it starts being like marvel movies where you need to watch another franchise to understand the other. Granted, for that I think we'd need like a "Ahti the Video Game" or something like that, so maybe I shouldn't be too worried.

I made it to the research department and got sidetracked playing with the camera mode before my time for the day was up. I'm hooked on playing this again so I'll definitely be playing some more tomorrow because I missed this game.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/57660342

French Art historian Nathalie Trouveroy shared footage with Le Monde from her personal archives of the Tiananmen Square protests, shedding new light on how the Chinese regime violently repressed the student protests in June 1989.

Archived

The linked article contains a video (17 min). Here is an invidious link to this video with the comments being in French.

[...]

The analysis of previously unseen images obtained by "Le Monde" and leading testimonies provide a better understanding of how the Chinese regime gradually shifted to the violent repression of the student demonstrations in the spring of 1989.

Spring 1989, Tiananmen Square. At the heart of the student demonstrations, a young expatriate, Nathalie Trouveroy, films the Beijing protesters, their slogans, their enthusiasm and their fear with her Hi8 video camera. These images, which remained in a family setting for a long time, are unpublished archives obtained by Le Monde.

Her husband, Guy Trouveroy, was then a political adviser at the Belgian Embassy in Beijing. For seven weeks, the couple were privileged witnesses to the regime's hesitation, torn between dialogue, obstruction and repression of the demonstrators. When the movement turns in favour of democratic measures, the communist government sends tanks against the population. On the night of 3-4 June 1989, the massacre took place. The repression would spread throughout China.

Since then, the Chinese authorities have been trying to erase Tiananmen from the collective memory. But, thirty-eight years later, Nathalie Trouveroy's never-before-seen video and photo archives have come to light. With these family images, the Trouveroy couple intend to preserve the memory of the victims of the bloody repression of the Tiananmen movement.

It was a little too strong and sweet this time, so I dialed down the hibiscus and sugar for next time

Recipe: https://www.epimel.es/recipes/agua-de-jamaica

Comic Girls

https://aus.social/@jimbob/117102704859592323

My selected quotes:

The Opportunity Party is vowing to "clean up politics" by regulating lobbying and reforming political donations.

It would look to cap political donations and establish an independent anti-corruption body to centralise and coordinate action against corruption.

The underlying principle of the policy was simple, she said.

"New Zealanders should be confident that political decisions are made in their interests, not because somebody has the biggest cheque book or the best access to a minister.

In order to regulate lobbying, the party would introduce a Political Influence and Lobbying Bill that would create a one-year cooling-off period, "closing the revolving door" between ministers, senior staff and officials, and lobbying roles.

It would also create a mandatory, public and searchable lobbying register, with quarterly disclosure of who lobbied which office-holders, as well as a statutory code of conduct for lobbyists and foreign lobbying safeguards.

The party's proposal would introduce a $30,000 cap per donor per party per electoral cycle, limit donations to registered voters, lower the public disclosure threshold to $1000 and apply advertising spending limits across the full three-year electoral cycle for parties and candidates.

The party would also establish an anti-corruption body with "investigative, prevention, and education functions, integrating and co-ordinating existing anti-corruption responsibilities".

When 46-year-old Rajab Ali, a transgender man, spent his life savings to build a mosque for his local community in Okara district of the Punjab province in Pakistan, he hoped it would bring goodwill and allow people to pray there without gender discrimination. Now that it is complete, however, his neighbors are harassing him for praying in it because he is transgender, known in Pakistan as Khawaja Sira (third gender), a community that has come under renewed attack in Pakistan.

Source

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/57660342

French Art historian Nathalie Trouveroy shared footage with Le Monde from her personal archives of the Tiananmen Square protests, shedding new light on how the Chinese regime violently repressed the student protests in June 1989.

Archived

The linked article contains a video (17 min). Here is an invidious link to this video with the comments being in French.

[...]

The analysis of previously unseen images obtained by "Le Monde" and leading testimonies provide a better understanding of how the Chinese regime gradually shifted to the violent repression of the student demonstrations in the spring of 1989.

Spring 1989, Tiananmen Square. At the heart of the student demonstrations, a young expatriate, Nathalie Trouveroy, films the Beijing protesters, their slogans, their enthusiasm and their fear with her Hi8 video camera. These images, which remained in a family setting for a long time, are unpublished archives obtained by Le Monde.

Her husband, Guy Trouveroy, was then a political adviser at the Belgian Embassy in Beijing. For seven weeks, the couple were privileged witnesses to the regime's hesitation, torn between dialogue, obstruction and repression of the demonstrators. When the movement turns in favour of democratic measures, the communist government sends tanks against the population. On the night of 3-4 June 1989, the massacre took place. The repression would spread throughout China.

Since then, the Chinese authorities have been trying to erase Tiananmen from the collective memory. But, thirty-eight years later, Nathalie Trouveroy's never-before-seen video and photo archives have come to light. With these family images, the Trouveroy couple intend to preserve the memory of the victims of the bloody repression of the Tiananmen movement.

You know what this calls for? Another pipeline in missile range!

Petrol prices are displayed at a filling station, as the price of oil and gas has surged amid the conflict in the Middle East, in London, Britain, March 5, 2026 REUTERS/Jack Taylor

[2026-08-14] Asharq Al-Awsat (Riyadh) — Diesel cargoes are costing more than jet fuel in Europe for the first time in more than a year, LSEG data showed, as the continent replaces lower Middle East air fuel shipments with other sources of supply, but struggles to secure more diesel for industry and agriculture.

Europe has been able to pull in jet cargoes from the US and other countries like Nigeria as prices surged after the start of the Iran war, which disrupted crude and fuel supply. Global diesel supply tightened even further when Russia banned exports amid Ukrainian attacks on its refineries.

"We see a higher risk of persistent scarcity pricing in diesel than in crude heading into winter," analysts at Goldman Sachs said in a note.

Europe boosted imports of jet fuel to 750,000 barrels per day in June — the highest since October 2025 — and a similar rate in July from 612,000 bpd in January, according to Kpler.

By contrast, European diesel imports have dropped to 1.56 million bpd in July from 1.97 million bpd in January. Against that backdrop, the price of diesel overtook that of jet fuel this week, LSEG data showed.

Diesel prices have resumed their rally in recent weeks amid an impasse in Iran peace talks and Russian export disruptions, and are now only 14% below their April peaks. Jet fuel prices, which have also risen in recent weeks, are meanwhile 25% below their March records.

"A brief period of cautious optimism for refined product markets has been quickly overtaken by renewed hostilities in the Strait of Hormuz, the collapse of Russian product supply and a diesel exports ban," said Karim Fawaz of S&P Global Energy.

WEAKENING JET DEMAND LIKELY WEIGHS ON PRICES, ANALYST SAYS

In a further sign of jet's relative weakness, it has dropped against the price of gasoil futures - the benchmark against which it is priced in Europe.

The price assessment of a jet cargo coming into Europe stood at a discount of $24 a metric ton to gasoil futures on August 10, according to LSEG.

This is the widest discount since July 2025, according to LSEG and Argus Media. At the height of the Iran war in March, LSEG and Argus assessed jet's premium at more than $500 a barrel. Weakening jet demand after the summer travel seasonal high and the expectation of higher European imports are likely weighing on prices, said Jay Maroo, analyst at Sparta Commodities.

Ich war lange Zeit überzeugt, dass solche Aktionen nicht hilfreich sind, weil sie eventuelle Opfer-Narrative verstärken könnte.

Inzwischen bin ich aber eher der Meinung, dass es eine gute Idee ist, den AfD-Symphatisanten zu zeigen, dass die Meinungen in der realen Welt sich doch noch von denen in ihrer Bubble unterscheiden und das sie nicht für ein Rest-"Volk" sprechen, das still auf ihrer Seite ist.

Da ist so ein Statement in der realen Welt, wie ich es eben entdeckt habe, ein guter Ansatz.

• In an unprecedented participatory ethnobotany approach, Hemerson Dantas dos Santos Pataxó HãHãHãi, a Brazilian Indigenous ethnobotanist, documented alongside his people their traditional medicinal practices: cataloging 175 medicinal plants, many of which had their use reaffirmed in scientific literature.
• Mongabay visited Hemerson and spoke with several Indigenous elders who survived violent land conflicts about their medicinal knowledge and their efforts to protect it in the Caramuru/Paraguassu Indigenous Territory, a land illegally occupied by cattle farmers for decades in Brazil’s Bahia state.
• Samples of plants collected by Hemerson are being kept at an internationally registered herbarium, and he’s finalizing a book in the hope of keeping the knowledge of the species and ancestral healing practices alive for his people’s future generations.
• The work carried out with his people was essential to make “immortal” the knowledge of the elders, Hemerson said, describing them as “living libraries” and “Guardians of Memories.”