Who Am I

And those who have relapsed back into their addiction, or struggle to leave it, you’re not lesser because you cannot easily leave your addiction just yet. It’s an addiction for a reason. It’s not wrong to need more time in escaping such a situation. Acknowledging your addiction and wanting to improve is the first positive step forward.

This post is mainly focused on those with a chat bot addiction. But if you suffer from an addiction of any form, this also applies to you. You all have the ability to improve, even if it takes a long time.

The simple act of holding a camera in my homeland of Western Sahara can be a crime. When Sahrawi film-makers and journalists attempt to document everyday life under Moroccan occupation, they can often end up in prison cells. For the Moroccan regime, a camera in the hands of a Sahrawi threatens its official narrative that Western Sahara is part of Morocco. In contrast, when celebrated international names in the film industry wish to capture an ideal picture for an epic journey, and decide that our land is exotic enough to shoot the desired scenes, they are welcomed, escorted and granted access by the same authorities that usually deny us that right. [...] Nolan’s choice to film in an occupied territory highlights the extractivist practices embedded in the western film industry. Western cinema has often been complicit in mining stories and immaterial culture from the global south at a scale no smaller than the material resources mined by the western colonial industrial complex. International film crews parachute in, shoot our faces, clothing, dunes and material culture, then fly off. For them, it seems we are simply decorative elements for their sets and back in New York, London or Paris, they gain prestige, box-office returns and awards. For Nolan’s Dakhla shoot, he appears to have neither sought our consent nor considered the ethics of in effect helping to prop up and legitimise Morocco’s occupation, thus making the space even more unsafe for Sahrawis living under it. He is actively participating in a state-sponsored PR campaign designed to legitimise an illegal occupation.

I might translate this article later today. This one was the most complete one, even in Italian news it's not talked about that much.

Use a comma...

to separate three or more words, phrases, or clauses being listed (→ I need to get bread, cheese, apples, and bananas.)

to separate two or more coordinative adjectives that modify the same noun, but no comma between the last adjective and the noun (→ His hands-on, direct approach earned him a lot of respect.)

to set off direct speech (→ He said, “I know.” / “I know,” he said.) Do not use a comma if the speech tag is after a question or exclamation (→ “Why not?” she asked.) More on punctuation in dialogue here.

to separate independent clauses, when they are joined by and, but, for, or, nor, so, yet. (→ I don't like the rain, but I have to walk my dog.)

to put a dependent clause before an independent one (→ When I went to sleep, the sun was already rising.) Do not use a comma if the dependent clause comes after the independent one (→ The sun was already rising when I went to sleep.)

after introductory clauses, phrases, or words that come before the main clause. (→ Yesterday, I got a new book. To all of you, good morning.)

before and after a clause that is not essential to the meaning of the sentence (→ My teacher, an old and cranky woman, yelled at me.) Do not use a comma when a clause is essential to the meaning of the sentence (→ This is not the type of sentence that requires a comma.)

"The hat is customizable," he said, struggling with the velcro patch on the front. "If I need it, I have an ICE one too. I pick based off the business i walk into."

"Customizable is an important hat descriptor," I said. "what can I get you?"

"You wouldn't believe how offended people get these days," he said. "And I'm supposed to do something about it if you're offended? You chose to be offended!"

"We all have hundreds of thousands of decisions everyday," I said. I thickened my accent. "That's what my stepdad always said. But I can make one easier - we have a delicious Ethiopian roast available."

"Like if I told you you have a bull ring," he said, "because bulls have rings in their noses. Is that offensive?"

I laughed. "I've heard that before."

"It's a joke, but people get offended. Maybe you're offended."

I looked at him. I smiled. "You aren't trying to offend me though, right?"

Of course he was. I was being friendly and the friendlier I was, the faster he switched topics. He was saying anything inflammatory he could think of to see if I'd take the bait. After about 20 minutes of my redirecting and deescalating, he settled into a more normal interaction. He took up too much of my time showing me a product I'd feigned mild interest in to get him to stop talking about getting accused of inappropriate behavior at work. When we finally disengaged, he spent 10 minutes trying to catch my eye again. When he failed, he left.

There's this new breed of customer who insists on trying to incite political conversation through their clothing and, when that doesnt work, their snide little comments. If I owned my own business, maybe I would have given the guy the fight he wanted. But I work for a corporation and I love paying my bills so I deescalated.

Scientists in China have developed a more efficient form of solar desalination that uses 47.4% less energy than alternatives. After the first year of testing, the scientists believe that at scale it would be able to desalinate water more cheaply than producing bottled water.