Hello megathread comrades. Today I’m in Changsha! Ngl it’s pretty great seeing such a large part of all ads being posters from the CPC (mostly about the 12 core Socialist values). The city itself is rather modern-looking, with most buildings being somewhat new; there is quite a lot of construction going on, especially in the more commercial-feeling centre where what seems like old apartment blocks are being torn down. The skyline is already fairly busy, and the skyscrapers all light up at night in a synchronous display, which you can see from Orange Island (which also has a giant Mao head). There also seems to be more streetfood than in Xi’an, which I have mixed feelings about; but what I did sit down to eat was fantastic! Also I highly recommend the Hunan museum if any of you ever go to Changsha, it has a very large collection of varied artifacts from the province’s entire history.

Yesterday I visited Mao’s hometown of Shaoshan, it’s less than 30 minutes away from Changsha by HSR which is very convenient. A lot of Chinese tourists were (pleasantly) surprised that a 外国人 would visit there lol. I put some flowers at the Mao statue with an older Chinese comrade I met that day, which was more of an experience than I would’ve thought.

Hello from Xi’an!! It’s pretty great here, although I didn’t have the warmest welcome to China (I had to wait around 1h30 at the customs part of the airport because of my student visa to Taiwan province for February; which I guess isn’t too surprising, I guess I would have also been a bit confused if I were in their shoes). I also met a couple people here, so that’s cool. And today I accidentally stumbled on the “Eighth Route Army Xi’an Office Memorial Hall”, which is a free museum about the history about anti-Japanese resistance in the area, and the Shaanxi CPC branch.

LE PEN (father, not daughter) JUST DIED!!!

edit: replaced the source in French with a source in English

Macron uses article 16 of the Constitution to obtain emergency powers

Certified zoomer

This week’s the week!!! I’ll be in China in only a few days!!!

Actually the part about the Barnier government being the shortest-lived is false. It’s the shortest lived since the foundation of the V^th Republic in 1958, by far (only 84 days); but the IV^th Republic had many short-lived governments (the 2nd Ramandier government (29 days), the André Marie government (33 days), the second Schuman government (2 days!)… and all these – and three other longer-lived governments – are only in the two first years of the 4th Republic).

Nevertheless your general point is valid, the current regime is in crisis, especially given how – contrary to the IV^th Republic – it was built from the beginning to favour stable majorities led by the president, yet now the ruling party cannot get a stable majority despite it all, and the president is opposed even in his own liberal bloc. I just wanted to point it out since the comparison with the IV^th Republic is one of the main points of your post; but I think you are right in that ça sent la fin de règne…

And they brought back all of the most clownish clowns that have ever clowned in the past decade of French politics: Darmanin (as minister of justice, which is already hilarious), Panier-Runacher, Borne, Montchalin, Aurore Berger, and even MANUEL VALLS!!! They’re scraping the barrel of the most soulless ghouls and the most corrupt morons, I’m surprised Schiappa isn’t in government this time around; regardless, it still probably is the most hilarious government in history. Anyways at least the memes will be good

I’ve first played The Indigo Parallel these past few days, I’ve now got around 3h in it. It’s a pretty stange game, it feels a bit like it wants to be random for random’s sake but it still somehow has a kind of plot, and regardless of whether of not the randomness feels forced I still enjoy it. Some of the bits are pretty funny.

The rising rate of pro-fit

SLA (save-load abuse) runs especially are very hard to follow, and I’d say the main SLA exploit is rather hard to execute. Runs without SLA but with other glitches allowed are easier to follow since the player stays inbounds and the exploits are less confusing, and they are also easier to perform. I recommend this video if you want to learn the easier techniques for a full inbounds no SLA run of the first Portal game.

I agree with you that Portal 2 is perhaps less focused than the original Portal game. It’s still a great game of course, but it seemed to introduce a bit too much stuff for its own good, which makes most puzzles somewhat trivial since the player is constantly being taught about a new game mechanic. And while Portal 2 is pretty funny, I prefer Portal’s more understated ambiance to Portal 2’s bombastic nature.

Portal speedruns are truly something else, especially with save-load abuse and going out-of-bounds allowed

To be fair I haven’t played many mods for Portal or Portal 2, since I mostly enjoy practising speedrunning the first game (inbounds no SLA, usually; which is weird because I didn’t get speedrunning before seeing Portal speedruns) or just learning about the game (its development, its bugs, the theories people have made about the plot); plus most mods are for Portal 2 which I find a bit less comfortable to play than Portal (is that a weird way to describe it?). However among the mods that I have played for Portal 2 I have enjoyed Portal Stories: Mel as well as Portal Reloaded (though I am yet to finish this one since it kinda breaks my brain lol). Portal: Still Alive is interesting to play in the sense that it was actually initially released by Valve so it is kind of part of the story of the Portal series’ development, though the game/mod itself isn’t too groundbreaking (I say game/mod since the original is a game but the unofficial PC port is a mod), and it’s rather short (even shorter the first game). And while I obviously can’t say it’s a good mod for obvious reasons, I find the existence of Portal: Epic Edition to be really funny.

This month so far was a massive Juan Guaido sweep after he became interim president of occupied Korea and Syria, PM of , president-elect of Romania and CEO of UHC. Guaido truthers rejoice! Trust the plan

issuing correction on a previous post of mine, regarding the terror group Samsung. you do not, under any circumstances, “gotta hand it to them”

Counterpoint: that time US-backed mercenaries were stopped by random fishermen in Venezuela immediately after arriving in the country probably is the true worst coup attempt in recent memory.

I won’t be in Chengdu this time (though I’d love to go there another time), I’ll instead mostly be in Hunan province (though my plane lands in Xi’an, and I also end this leg of the trip in Kunming; so I’ll get many chances to take Chinese trains yay!), but please don’t hesitate to recommend places there to me if you know of interesting spots that I might not have heard of.

I said “this leg of the trip” and I now realise that I left out a pretty important part in my original post: I’m not only visiting one Socialist country, I’ll be visiting two!!! Indeed, I’ve heard that tourists shouldn’t travel in China during the Spring Festival, and since my semester starts in Taiwan Province after the Spring Festival I figured I’d visit the mainland before it, then go to visit Laos where I’ve also wanted to go to for a long time, and only then go to Taiwan.

(no Laos emotes )

I’ve bought my plane ticket to China, I found quite a bargain: around 360 euros for a direct flight, normally this is around the price of flights with layovers (many of which are even above this price). I’ll be visiting a bit of the mainland on the way to Taiwan Province where I have my student exchange, I’m so excited! This will be my first time out of Europe, as well as my first time visiting a Socialist country!