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Cake day: August 20th, 2023

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  • The idea of a “whiteness” that Italians are outside of is largely an American one, originating from the invention of “whiteness” as a construct to rationalise racial slavery and the subsequent waves of immigration from (largely southern) Italy. (The Irish were classified as non-white for much the same reason, even though Ireland was not known for its melanin-rich complexions.)

    The Italians did have a different language and traditions than the French, but they also until recently had different language and traditions than other Italians. (Italy was not a country until 1860 or so, and “Italian” as a language came into existence when Garibaldi chose the Tuscan dialect (because Dante had spoken it) and decreed it to be the new national language of the newly united nation.)














  • The economics of consoles made more sense when computer power was expensive, and the choice was an underpowered home computer with so-so graphics and sound or a dedicated game machine optimised for drawing sprites and scrolling the screen responsively, with the extra costs subsidised by the price of (uncopyable) software. When PCs caught up, the consoles started looking internally like x86 PCs with souped-up GPUs (and, of course, draconian amounts of DRM baked in). Now with devices like the Steam Deck (and similar form-factor devices running Windows in game-console mode), there’s no real reason to buy a dedicated game-playing machine.







  • Ireland has been independent for about a century and outside the Gaeltacht, everybody speaks English, and yet Irish (i.e. Gaelic) is still taught to all pupils and used on official documents. In Wales (which, for most administrative purposes, is a part of an entity known as England-and-Wales), signage has to be in both English and Welsh, and official agencies have to provide services in Welsh; there are few monolingual Welsh speakers and anecdotally the popularity of Welsh of said to alternate generationally (i.e., if your parents don’t speak it, it’s cool).

    Representation is important in a pluralist democracy, and the people who want to eliminate minority language support to “better fund schools and hospitals” or whatever generally aren’t in favour of funding public services either (much in the same way that those who want to kick foreigners out to “help our own” overwhelmingly tend to be against actually helping our own), but “let’s get rid of te reo to fund tax cuts for the rich” doesn’t sound as compelling