ZDL

joined 2 years ago
[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 2 points 8 minutes ago (1 children)

The world's largest digital souq. A huge B2C and C2C conglomerate in which, basically, if it can be sold at all it's available. I have seen for sale on Taobao the usual things like clothing, toys, food and drink, etc. But here are some other things I have seen sold:

  • real estate
  • cars
  • buses
  • a decommissioned jet liner
  • Asian giant hornet nests (hornets still living)
  • rent-a-boy/girlfriend
  • sex dolls (almost RealDoll™ levels of realism) for pets
  • soap dispensers shaped like Jackie Chan's (or other celebrities') nose
  • breast milk soap
  • bowls with integrated phone holders so you can use your phone while eating
  • bottled flatulence (no, really!)

It's a wild, wacky, weird, woolly place that has some embarrassing issues related to its recommendation system. (Ask me about "airplane cups"...) And it's simply the best place to buy anything. Even jet liners.

[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 2 points 31 minutes ago (3 children)

Taobao. Definitely Taobao. I buy about 85% of my stuff through it and its paired TMall app.

[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 2 points 18 hours ago

I'm with you here. No idea what the joke is even supposed to be, not to mention if it's funny or not.

[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 1 points 19 hours ago

I occasionally use WeChat, I guess? Not very often for texting, though. Usually for the video phone calls.

[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network -1 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

I don't know anybody who uses SMS anymore except companies shoving ads at me. I only ever go in my messages app to select all and delete.

[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That would be an interesting question. If I had a Xhitter account I'd do the test myself.

[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 1 points 3 days ago

There is a whole lot more to a healthy democracy than "I voted".

[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 2 points 3 days ago

China doesn't need to retaliate. Chinese cinema goers are overwhelmingly choosing domestic product over import in recent years. For 2024, for example, 80% of the Chinese box office went to Chinese productions.

[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 1 points 3 days ago

The problem is he brought a deck of poker cards to a chess game.

[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 3 points 3 days ago

The movies normalized The American Way™ as the default way of doing things. The billionaires then financed the people pitching The American Way™. Without the first, the second wouldn't work.

[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 1 points 3 days ago

The Chinese market is huge, yes, but increasingly turning away from Hollywood productions to homegrown ones. In 2025 for example 哪吒2 (Nézhā 2) broke scored over $2 billion at the box office, with a record-smashing $1.96 billion of that coming domestically. By way of comparison Captain America 4 only managed $14.4 million so far, a dramatic drop from 2016's Captain America 3 returns of $180 million in 2016.

For reference, even CA3's $180 million is an order of magnitude smaller than Nezha 2. CA4's is two orders of magnitude smaller.

Now this is still true: China's theatre-going audience, estimated at over half a billion people, is larger than the entire population of the USA. It's still a hugely important market. But, for example, in 2024 the Chinese box office was estimated at ~6 billion dollars total: and 80% of that went to domestic films. The best-performing foreign film of 2024 (Dune 2) only made $48 million, ranking it about 8th. 7th was 维和防暴队 (Wéihé Fángbàoduì/Formed Police Unit) and it made over $120 million.

I'm pretty sure that the Chinese market for Hollywood films is vanishing.

 

Uhh...

This "mini-course" offered by Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario is not a joke. It's a legit course being given to grade 11 and 12 students.

Thoughts?

 
Help me, I am trapped
In a haiku factory.
Save me, before they...
 

When he struggles to reach across the board to move his chariot, I lose the plot.

 

 

… that everybody who confuses correlation with causation winds up dying.

 

 

I'm not joking …

… but he is.

 

…but we can do better!

 

So when they return to port they can just Scandinavian.

explanation if needed"scan the navy in"

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