The index of content available online, which they built and updated themselves. A policy of constantly tweaking the algorithm to make it understand what us monkeys want. No ads on the first search page. And then absolutely dominating the online ads market, which kept financing the continuous improvement to the service. Until they realised this was to their own detriment and made it ask Jeeves level competent again. They won the initial war but lost the peace.

I just wanted to point that out because a lot of praise heaped upon them comes from the more zealoty side.

Did your identical post in asklemmy get taken down or did you delete it?

Most of these countries have local news organisations offering news in English. I would also suggest next time you group some of these questions in separate posts. You'll get more people reading a few shorter threads than one loooong one.

If the UK had proportional voting and not first past the post for parliament seats, they'd have a greater problem with far right politics. Burnham just started and is the first PM to point out very publicly that Brexit was a mistake. That won't solve any of the most pressing problems the people are feeling right now because rejoining would, like leaving did, take bloody ages. But it would probably be a net plus for the UK economy. I have a suspicion that the guilty verdict of criminal financial shenanigans for Manchester City Football Club, the city where he used to be mayor, and the ensuing scandal will spill some shit on him as well. So there is every chance the revolving door at Downing Street will keep spinning. Too early to tell.

The AfD in Germany has already risen. They are the party with the second most seats in this Bundestag. In the state of Saxony-Anhalt we now may get the first AfD minister-president (governor). While his election isn't guaranteed at this point, he's a handful of votes short of a majority, the election, on whose result this state parliament will constitute itself, has already happened. The damage a single Trumpian minister-president can cause is significant but not irreversible. The other parties don't have a clue how to stem the tide. However, there are still enough people who would stand up for German democracy right now so we aren't quite back in Weimar yet. The situation is shit but not hopeless.

I appreciate their thinking to the point that it means there is an office suite of software available that doesn't currently contain any "American Intelligence" features.

LibreOffice said that there is currently “no integration” that meets all of its requirements, such as ensuring that the users’ data stays on their device and that there is no reliance on a single AI provider, among other considerations.

As soon as there is a version of it that can be run entirely locally, they are not averse to adding it though. They're not on team never-AI.

It's designed to be an Instagram alternative as it was when all you did there was look at pretty pictures. They've added stories (so the snapchattisation feature, which you can just turn off) but did the tiktokisation separately. I'm glad they did it this way because I liked Instagram around the time Facebook bought it. Instagram today is a bloated, algorithmic mess that doesn't know what it wants to be. And I don't need more short form videos in my life.

Japanese kids learn the alphabet in primary school to do Romanisation of their own language and then for English class. There are no problems with the former because they can see and read those everywhere. English is a particularly difficult alphabet language to read so that's hard. But on a certain level there is relief that there aren't an additional 2000 Kanji characters to learn to be able to read it. It's a radically different language so it's hard either way.

Mandarin learners must pick up Pinyin, at least in the mainland, fairly early. I'm guessing primary school as well.

Both Pinyin and Romaji use the alphabet to make sounds that don't exist in English. Like rya in Japanese or the distinction between q, ch, and zh in Mandarin. Both mainly use qwerty keyboards for typing their own language.

Gendered languages flummox even learners from the country next door. The biggest obstacle to learning English in Asia isn't the different writing system or even the insane spelling conventions of English or French. It's mastering indefinite and definite articles, when to use either or none, that makes them pull their hair out. It doesn't matter which European language you pick, it makes no sense, it's vibe based more than anything, and it isn't the same between French and German or English and Spanish. So knowing one language already is only of limited use.

I'm going to theorise that a writing system with spaces between words helps learners to grasp what is an equivalent unit in their own language. To a point because you get words like antiestablishmentarianism in English or Verwaltungsfachangestellte (an administrative assistant in the public service sector) in German and all bets are off.

I have a feeling that the people who could judge that best probably aren't present in an English language forum.

I think if we look at the spectrum of popular international animation with South Park America on the low end and Miyazaki output at the top, the care put in to make the spoken word match lip movements often correlates to where you are on that spectrum. And there is a lot of stuff trending towards the low end. They probably don't do 20 retakes on a line read during voice recording. No matter what language they are doing.

Granted, the word stereotype might be wrong. I just wanted to point out that the majority of Caucasian men may be able to grow thick beards but not all of them. As far as Asian men are concerned, most cannot but once again not all of them. That's the generic genetic lottery part. (edited)

As far as testosterone is concerned:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beard

The beard develops in human males during puberty. Beard growth is linked to stimulation of hair follicles in the area by dihydrotestosterone, which continues to affect beard growth after puberty. Dihydrotestosterone also promotes balding. Dihydrotestosterone is produced from testosterone, the levels of which vary with season. Beard growth rate is also genetic.

So beard growth depends on the person's genetic makeup. And on testosterone. This has nothing to do with American bro culture thinking. Female athletes who were given testosterone as doping post WW2 could start growing facial hair if their genes happened to be right. You need the genes and the hormones.

Edit 2: I have a feeling some of this disagreement we are having may be due to my repeat typo generic -> genetic. Written on my phone and didn't notice the one letter difference.

Shit like that can't be planned. It either catches on or it doesn't.

Why do you want to make it cooler? Why polish this turd?

You mean illegally?