rayusa

the last real maybach. image

in 2025, 23.1 million children were born in india, ranking 1st in the world in terms of birth numbers. in second place is china (8.7 million), nearly 3 times fewer. one out of every 6 children born in the world is from india. this figure, by the way, is the statistics for children born within india's borders; the indian diaspora abroad is quite crowded too, so a high number will be coming from there as well. over in their cousins' pakistan, 6.9 million children were born in a year, ranking 4th in the world by number. this means that 50-60 years from now, people of indian subcontinent origin will dominate the world population, with nigeria's and china's populations being at significant numbers too, of course. those who are white caucasian are generally declining in number, their reproduction rates aren't enough to replace the population.

they are selling a company that lost 5 billion dollars last year at a 1.8 trillion dollar valuation. there's no limit to human stupidity.

we take a group of children away from their families and keep them locked in a place they never wanted to be in. we don't let them go to the bathroom, drink water, or even eat whenever they want. talking is forbidden too. we yell at them constantly. sleeping or crying is also not allowed, and if they do it, we yell even more. once a day, at a time we choose, they're allowed to eat whatever food we decide, but only for a limited amount of time. and on top of all that, we charge their families a lot of money for it.

socrates left behind no writings. he considers himself the wisest person because he knows that he knows nothing.

a site that completely bypasses the whole "download, install, deal with it" part of the old console days and moved everything into the browser. http://gam.onl/

it has a pretty extensive archive ranging from ps1 to nes, sega to arcade. you click, the game opens. it handles the emulator + rom business in the background, and all that's left for you is that nostalgic "just one more round" feeling.

of course, the copyright side of things is a bit of a gray area, and you might run into ads/pop-ups, but as a concept, it's a lazy gamer's dream: no installation, no config, straight to the game.

in short: your childhood, in the form of a chrome tab.

sweden's qualification for the world cup was an absolute farce. i honestly can't remember ever seeing such an undeserved achievement in my life. you finish dead last in your qualifying group with 2 points, and let me emphasize this, just because you beat the likes of slovakia, estonia, and azerbaijan in nations league c, you get to play in the playoffs. i mean, you're playing in the playoffs because, per the rules, you got relegated in the previous nations league cycle. then, because you're not seeded in the playoffs, the match you were supposed to play away at ukraine ends up being played on neutral ground in spain. then, by sheer luck of the draw, you beat ukraine on neutral ground, and again by luck of the draw, you end up playing poland at home in the final. you beat them at home too and book your spot in the finals. having all of this line up back-to-back just wasn't fair in any way.

first and foremost, this whole nations league nonsense needs to go. why are you rewarding failure? if you absolutely insist on having some kind of incentive, then give that extra spot to teams in leagues a and b so that teams actually fight to get promoted to those leagues. why is a team getting special treatment just because it beat azerbaijan and estonia in league c?

the playoff system itself also needs a serious overhaul. just have all the matches played on neutral ground in a single host country, like the european cups did during covid. today, turkey was the only away team to advance, even though on paper the away teams were actually stronger, which goes to show how much home advantage matters.

this is what happens when incompetents are running the show. then again, uefa probably figures, "as long as the big teams make it, who cares about the rest." hopefully they'll move past this mindset and we'll get a fairer qualification process.

cervantes did not grow up dreaming of becoming a writer. his only dream was to become a soldier known for his bravery.

at 24, he achieves that dream. he and his brother join the naval battle of lepanto. the pope declares that all soldiers who fight in the battle will have their sins forgiven. later in life, cervantes will say that using religion for politics is deeply wrong. he will be excommunicated multiple times.

he returns to spain five years later, having lost the use of his left arm in battle. in his pocket he carries a letter praising his courage, written and signed by don john of austria, leader of the holy league.

now his hope is to find work using that letter, even if he only has one functional arm. but as his ship approaches the coast of barcelona, it is captured by algerian pirates.

cervantes is both fortunate and unfortunate. because he is carrying don john’s letter, he is considered a valuable prisoner. a valuable prisoner means a high ransom. but he is also unlucky, because no one back home has the money to pay that ransom.

after several years, just as he is about to be transported to istanbul as a slave (yes, human trafficking is not new), his family manages to gather the ransom by borrowing money from the trinitarian order. after five years as a soldier and five years in captivity, cervantes finally returns to spain.

now his goal is to pay back his family’s debt. he chooses the most promising path: turning the story of his captivity into writing. at the time, theater is the fastest road to fame and income. a playwright with a successful play can make good money. the most successful playwrights even have their scripts printed and sold to growing audiences.

so cervantes’ new dream is to turn the story of his captivity into a dramatic play and make a living. but the theater market is tough. people are tired of heavy dramas, and cervantes cannot succeed there either.

to survive, he takes work as a tax collector. but he’s accused of mismanaging funds, and now he finds himself imprisoned again in his own homeland. prison gives him time to think.

he realizes there is another popular form of entertainment. medieval europe has long adored stories of wandering knights and their adventures: romances.

but cervantes also sees something new happening: printed books are spreading everywhere, and the number of people who look at the world through literature is rising. the world is filling with stories, and in such a world, how people read becomes just as important as what they read.

so he writes don quixote using a completely new literary approach. it is experimental. it does not fit existing genres. it needs a new name. the spanish word novela captures its essence: something new. (this is where the english word novel gets its meaning as both “new” and “a long narrative story.”)

when don quixote becomes successful, cervantes runs into a new enemy: literary pirates. the book is translated into many languages and sent across the ocean to the americas. (it has been about 120 years since europeans began colonizing the continent.) people start dressing like don quixote and sancho panza in the streets. an anonymous writer even publishes a fake sequel, claiming cervantes has no exclusive right to the characters.

cervantes can’t accept this. so he writes his own sequel. the public wants a continuation, and they don’t care who writes it. cervantes makes a clever move: in his sequel, he deliberately contradicts the events of the pirate sequel and even includes a scene where don quixote challenges the “false don quixote.” the fraudulent version fades into obscurity.

but cervantes knows the real enemy is not the pirate writer. the real enemy is the new world created by the printing press. a writer can depend on printers to spread their work, but printers can also reprint a profitable book without the author’s permission and never lose sleep over it. in this new mechanical age, authors are at a disadvantage.

even though cervantes creates a new literary form that surpasses the popularity of romances, he dies poor about ten years after don quixote is published.

today, literature is losing ground to video games and short-form videos. the question is no longer “which book is suitable for children?” but “which websites are safe for children?”

cervantes was the one who began this struggle. don quixote fought windmills; modern writers fight screens.

stoicism is more than an ancient philosophy. it is a toolkit for modern life. it began in athens around 300 bce with zeno of citium and later grew in rome through the words of seneca, epictetus, and marcus aurelius. the central idea is simple: we cannot control the world, but we can always control how we respond to it. that is where true strength and freedom live.

“we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” seneca
“it is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” epictetus
“you have power over your mind, not outside events. realize this, and you will find strength.” marcus aurelius

the miranda warning is a statement police must say to someone when they arrest them, to tell them their rights.

“you have the right to remain silent. anything you say can be used against you in court. you have the right to a lawyer. if you can’t afford one, one will be provided for you.”

we're caught in a trap
i can't walk out
because i love you too much baby

why can't you see
what you're doing to me
when you don't believe a word i say?

we can't go on together
with suspicious minds (suspicious minds)
and we can't build our dreams
on suspicious minds

so, if an old friend i know
stops by to say hello
would i still see suspicion in your eyes?

here we go again
asking where i've been
you can't see these tears are real
i'm crying (yes i'm crying)

we can't go on together
with suspicious minds (suspicious minds)
and be can't build our dreams
on suspicious minds

oh let our love survive
or dry the tears from your eyes
let's don't let a good thing die
when honey, you know
i've never lied to you
mmm yeah, yeah

we're caught in a trap
i can't walk out
because i love you too much baby

why can't you see
what you're doing to me
when you don't believe a word i say?

don't you know i'm caught in a trap
i can't walk out
because i love you too much baby

don't you know i'm caught in a trap
i can't walk out
because i love you too much baby

don't you know i'm caught in a trap
i can't walk out
because i love you too much baby

don't you know i'm caught in a trap
i can't walk out
because i love you too much baby

don't you know i'm caught in a trap
i can't walk out
because i love you too much baby

don't you know i'm caught in a trap
i can't walk out
because i love you too much baby

don't you know i'm caught in a trap

the moon is the earth's only natural satellite and has long been an object of fascination for humans. here are a few interesting facts about the moon:

– the moon is about 238,855 miles from earth and has a diameter of about 2,159 miles.
– the moon has no atmosphere and no water, and its surface is covered in craters and other geological features.
– the moon's gravity is about one-sixth that of earth, which means that objects on the moon's surface weigh much less than they would on earth.
– the moon's appearance changes over the course of a month, going from a full moon to a new moon and back again.
– the moon's surface temperature can range from a high of about 260 degrees fahrenheit during the day to a low of about -280 degrees fahrenheit at night.
– the moon was formed about 4.5 billion years ago, and its formation is thought to have been the result of a massive impact between earth and another celestial body.
– humans first landed on the moon in 1969, when the apollo 11 mission successfully touched down on the lunar surface. since then, six more manned missions have been launched to the moon.

there is the anecdote of thales the milesian and his financial scheme, which involves a principle of universal application, but is attributed to him on account of his reputation for wisdom. he was reproached for his poverty, which was supposed to show that philosophy was of no use. according to the story, he knew by his skill in the stars while it was yet winter that there would be a great harvest of olives in the coming year; so, having a little money, he gave deposits for the use of all the olive-presses in chios and miletus, which he hired at a low price because no one bid against him. when the harvest-time came, and many were wanted all at once and of a sudden, he let them out at any rate which he pleased, and made a quantity of money. thus he showed the world that philosophers can easily be rich if they like, but that their ambition is of another sort. he is supposed to have given a striking proof of his wisdom, but as i was saying, his scheme for getting wealth is of universal application, and is nothing but the creation of a monopoly. it is an art often practiced by cities when they are in want of money; they make a monopoly of provisions.

“love is merely the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.” aristophanes

the date of aristophanes’ birth is actually not known, however evidence suggest he had been born in cydathenaeus, a deme in athens in the year c.447 bc. he wrote 40 plays, eleven are extant and these have remained a part of western literature. until his death in c.388 bc, aristophanes remained the leading comic poet of greece.

aristophanes gave a speech at plato’s symposium. a symposium was just a dinner party in ancient greece the learned gave speeches, ate and drank, and in the book the symposium where all the speeches were complicated theoretical and philosophical musings about love aristophanes more or less said love is not so difficult and delivers his speech in the form of a myth.

aristophanes gives us a myth that is wildly imaginative and very entertaining. the story is pleasant enough and has an uplifting conclusion, with the suggestion thatlovehelps us to find our "other half" and that one day we might be fully reunited. aristophanes' myth is so overtly delightful, we might ask why he insists that he be taken seriously. aristophanes does not mean his myth to be taken as the literal truth. perhaps in taking his myth seriously, he does not so much want us to take it literally as he wants us to take the comic perspective seriously. that is, we should not laugh off his myth as nonsense, but rather ask what it can teach us. like all good comedy, aristophanes' myth is not entertainment purely for the sake of entertainment. in producing an uplifting response in his listeners, aristophanes also hopes to lead them to a certain perspective on love.

one interesting point to note is that aristophanes' myth suggests that we are attracted not to certain qualities ina person so much as we are attracted to the person him or herself. a certain person is right for us not because that person has certain qualities we find appealing, but because that person's character is similar to ours and resembles our "other half." we find that person's particular qualities attractive because they belong to someone whose nature we find sympathetic, and not the other way around. when we have found someone with a similar nature to ours, we want to bond with them and live a shared life with them. the idea of sharing one's life with another is a common greek theme regarding interpersonal relationships. a similar thought is expressed by aristotle in his writings on friendship, for instance. as drawn out by aristophanes' myth, this attraction to our "other half" is one of the noblest pursuits of all. it makes us whole again, and can ease any feelings of incompleteness we may experience in our everyday life.

aristophanes' myth on the origin of love

long ago, aristophanes explains, there were three genders: male, female, and androgynous, and each person was twice what they are now. that is, they had four hands, four legs, two heads, two sets of genitals, and so on. they could move both forward and backward and would run by spinning themselves around cartwheel-like on all eight limbs. males were descended from the sun, females from the earth, and those who were androgynous were descended from the moon.

they were very powerful and vigorous and made threatening attacks on the gods. the gods did not want to destroy them because they would then forfeit the sacrifices humans made to them, so zeus decided to cut each person in two. he also suggested that if this didn't settle humans down, he would cut them in two once again and they would have to hop about on one leg.

apollo (the god of light) then turned their heads to make them face towards their wound, pulled their skin around to cover up the wound, and tied it together at the navel like a purse. he made sure to leave a few wrinkles on what became known as the abdomen so that they might be reminded of their punishment because they longed for their original nature, people kept trying to find their other half and reunite with it. when they found their other half, they would embrace and stay together, not wanting anything else.

eventually, people started dying of hunger or general inactivity. zeus took pity on them, and moved their genitals around so that they would be facing frontward. this way, when they embraced, they could have sexual intercourse, and those who were formerly androgynous could reproduce, and even two men who came together could at least have sexual satisfaction and then move on to other things.

this is the origin of our instinctive desire for other human beings. those who are interested in members of the opposite sex are halves of formerly androgynous people, while men who like men and women who like women are halves of what were formerly whole males and females. aristophanes applauds male-male relationships between men and boys since such couples value boldness, braveness, and masculinity, both in themselves and in others.

when we find our other half, we are overwhelmed with affection, concern, and love for that person. this great amount of care cannot result simply from a desire for sex, but we have difficulty articulating precisely what it is that makes us care so much. if hephaestus, the blacksmith god, were to offer to weld a couple together so that they would become one and never be parted, even in death, they would leap at this opportunity.

"love"is the name that we give to our desire for wholeness, to be restored to our original nature.

aristophanes observes that if we are disobedient or disorderly toward the gods, zeus might split us in two once more, so we must strive ourselves, and encourage others, to behave well toward the gods. in this respect, love is our leader, and if we work against love we will find ourselves on the wrong side of the gods. aristophanes urges eryximachus and the others not to take his speech as a simple comedy, or a joke directed at such life-partners as pausanias and agathon. given that we are all separate, love does what he can for us given the circumstances: he guides us toward those who are close in nature to us and who best fit our character. perhaps if we continue to show reverence to the gods, he may one day restore us to our formerly whole selves.

the word protein comes from the greek word proteos, meaning primary, or taking first place – which is apropos because protein intake is the first thing we set.