WaterBowlSlime

I noticed that the Spanish versions of FFXV make several creative decisions that set them apart from English. But I couldn't find mention of this anywhere so I've spent some time compiling a bunch of noteworthy changes to share. Espero que les interese!

El don Lux

The most prominent change in the Spanish versions is that Noctis's hereditary powers are in Latin. It's called "the gift of Lux" and every teleportation-related ability has that title. I checked, and this is unique to the Spanish versions of the game. Not even the original Japanese does this even though the main characters's names are Latin in every language. It's a truly inspired choice that's canon as far as I'm concerned - it adds to the light vs. dark themes, it sounds much cooler, and it's literally Noct's family name (Noctis Lucis Caelum).

Every gift of Lux and its lame English equivalent:

El Coro Espectral

The weapons that Noct robs from the tombs of his ancestors are collectively called "the Spectral Chorus" instead of "the Armiger." And the group attack when you press L1 + R1 twice is called the "Spectral Nova" instead of the "Armiger Chain." The English names are accurate I suppose, but the Spanish names are more poetic.

What's more, each individual weapon is named after the monarch that it belonged to. I don't know where these names come from because they're not mentioned anywhere else in-game, I think? This is also unique to Spanish. Other languages give the weapons wordy names that are more of a description, really.

I don't dream. No nightmares either. I have no problems sleeping and I'm not on drugs so it isn't a health thing - I've been like this all my life.

The only times I've managed to dream are when I nap while already well-rested, but even then I still usually don't. Like I might get 1 or 2 dreams a year in total from when I go back to sleep immediately after waking up, but never from normal sleep.

Anyone else like this?

I fat fingered the options menu and accidentally tapped on block. How do I unblock? It only gives me the option to block even harder hahaha

The Department of Justice recently released their report on the Minneapolis Police Department (the one that murdered George Floyd) and this video goes over their findings.

It's cartoonish how brutally excessive their use of force is and how little these cops are held to account, even now. Some examples are:

• Pursuing a woman for jaywalking then grabbing her arms behind her back and slamming her face into the curb while stating, "You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes."
• Putting a man who was calmly walking in a park in a neck restraint and pinning him to the floor for 13 minutes (later needing intubation).
• Shoving a peaceful protestor to the ground and causing traumatic brain injury, only to later claim that it was a "slight push" and that the protestor "walked towards [him] with her right hand up and clinched." A fellow officer corroborated this version of events despite contradictory body cam footage.

No consequences have been enacted against the MPD yet, only proposed.

Here's the full report.

At the start of the pandemic when libraries were closed during lockdowns, the Internet Archive temporarily allowed users to loan books unrestricted (usually only a few people can check out a book at a time). Some book publishers took issue with this and sued them for mass copyright infringement and won. The Internet Archive is going to appeal the judgement.

Here's the statement from the archive team.

Koalas and other endangered species are being driven to extinction right now by logging publicly owned forests. This video shows the desertification of the logging sites.

A banger conversation where Radhika Desai challenges common narratives regarding world development communistly. She made a lot of interesting arguments and I took some notes that I'm gonna share here:

• imperialism is when nationstates manage capitalism's contradictions at the expense of subordinate territories

• once capitalism develops in one country, other countries are forced to either become subordinate (buy their excess commodities, surrender resources) or develop themselves (protectionist, state-directed industrialization)

• maintaining unevenness is imperialism, resisting this underdevelopment is anti-imperialism

• global development is not the spread of markets, not the rule of successive hegemonies, but the spread of multipolarity

• golden age of capitalism was after WWII and was actually ruined by capitalism, not caused by it

• • it came about from socialist policies that wringed monopolies: regulations, full employment, welfare, universal education, healthcare, price controls
• • neoliberalism is the rolling back of these measures to protect capitalism, prevent further socialist development

Highly recommend you guys listen in! This video made a lot of ideas click for me.

Btw here's a free link to her book

A hilarious overview of all the official and unofficial explanations of who was responsible for the JFK assassination. Very thorough and based.

The IMF can literally conjure any amount of money out of thin air whenever they feel like it wtf how have I never heard about this

And before you ask, yes, almost all money created goes straight into the coffers of western countries instead of to the global south

I know it's a really long video (play it at 2x speed) but I thought it was fantastic and the part from 25:33-27:17 was particularly insightful:

"The impact of sanctions on Iran or Zimbabwe or Venezuela or Syria is something that those who may oppose western governments don't really ever discuss. So imagine if instead there was a NATO attack on Iran, you would have immediate clarity of what's happening. But the impact of sanctions on the Iranian people is not something that generates any sort of political mobilization in the core. Instead, actually, what it enables is a representation of imperialist states as humanitarian states."

"It's not like you're bringing home people in body bags. It's not like people in the US see the outcome of sanctions because it's not like CNN is going to cover the fact that Iranians of dying of rare diseases because they can't access certain pharmaceutical medications that they aren't able to produce in their own country and can't buy because of sanctions. That's all out of sight out of mind ... you'll have almost no public backlash"

They straight up can't locate 61% of their assets, including weapons, planes, ships, and even buildings. In total, this amounts to several TRILLIONS of dollars since 1998 that are completely unaccounted for.

The history of how the USSR got rid of kulaks as told from their own point of view