133arc585

So why should the Library of Congress exist? Why should the Internet Archive exist?

“They’re books, who gives a shit. Most things are lost over time.” “They’re web pages, who gives a shit. Most things are lost over time.”

There’s value in record-keeping. People can analyze it on a technical perspective (like a literary analysis). People can enjoy old games (like reading a book from the 1500s). People can analyze trends in the industry. There are endless reasons why record-keeping could be useful, and you can never plan for all of them ahead of time.

Ah I see you mentioned the cuts are only a few seconds long. This wouldn’t catch that very well.

If you have a server outside of your network you could simply hold open a TCP connection and report when it breaks, but I’ll admit at that point it’s outside of what I’ve had to deal with.

Horseshoe “blood” is blue, and it’s not actually blood it’s hemolymph. It is blue crab blood. Blue blood from a crab.

Depends on how much you want to set up. For my purposes, I just check for connectivity every minute, and record true or false as a new row in a sqlite database if there is connectivity.

This is what I use on my raspberry pi,

#!/usr/bin/env python3
from datetime import datetime
import sqlite3
import socket
from pathlib import Path

try:
    host = socket.gethostbyname("one.one.one.one")
    s = socket.create_connection((host, 80), 2)
    s.close()
    connected = True
except:
    connected = False
timestamp = datetime.now().isoformat()

db_file = Path(__file__).resolve().parent / 'Database.sqlite3'
conn = sqlite3.connect(db_file)
curs = conn.cursor()
curs.execute('''CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS checks (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT, timestamp TEXT, connected INTEGER)>
curs.execute('''INSERT INTO checks (timestamp, connected) VALUES (?, ?);''', (timestamp, 1 if connected else 0))
conn.commit()
conn.close()

and I just have a crontab entry * * * * * ~/connectivity_check/check.py >/dev/null 2>&1 to run it every minute.

Then I just check for recent disconnects via:

$ sqlite3 ./connectivity_check/Database.sqlite3 'select count(*) from checks where connected = 0 order by timestamp desc;'

Obviously, it’s not as full-featured as something with configurable options or a web UI etc, but for my purposes, it does exactly what I need with absolutely zero overhead.

Thank you, I’ll look at that. It might be my misunderstanding of a technical term, but I don’t see the logical sequence that makes it apparent that socialist countries can’t engage in imperialism/colonialism.

Every day:

• The Pentagon unveils $1.3 billion for Ukraine, bringing total new U.S. aid this week to $2.3 billion.
• US to provide $345 million in military aid for Taiwan
• US Senate approves $12bn for Ukraine in government funding bill

Every other day:

• student loan relief shot down
• budget accountability shot down
• tax enforcement on top income earners shot down
• funding to medicare slashed
• funding for food assistance programs slashed
• funding for school lunch programs slashed
• funding for public schooling slashed
• union strikes shut down
• tax relief and subsidies increased for most profitable companies
• tax relief for most wealthy individuals
• funding for clean water programs slashed

I try not to view government spending as zero-sum because there’s no saying that not spending money on X means that money automatically gets spent on Y. But the government’s priorities could not be more clear: its citizens (and common citizens of the world) are not of any concern.

China is a socialist state so by definition cannot be

Can you elaborate on that? I agree that China is not imperialist, but I don’t see how socialism by definition precludes that possibility.

I came across this comment today, and it really makes me wonder how people just dismiss intellectual curiosity outright.

yes!!! they’re everywhere and anytime I see someone bring it up someone comments some shit about having an open mind… uhhh no???

Unlike the side many of them seem to blindly and militantly defend, the side they rage against is not asking for blind adherence to beliefs. You have to open yourself up to questioning your beliefs; there is no value in a closed mind.

I don’t think you’re doing a very good job of attempting to answer the very direct confusion I’m having. You’re doing a lot to make sure it’s obvious how capitalism can and does result in imperialism, which frankly I’m mostly in agreement with. My issue is that you’re asserting that socialism can’t lead to imperialism. You’ve still given no reason that this is to be the case except for this attempt:

Socialism’s goal is to provide for its people by moving past a society based on exploitation. This is why it wouldn’t engage in colonialism.

And I agree that, by definition, it’s a society based on the betterment of its people. Stress should be applied there to its people. I’m not justifying imperialism at all, but it’s a pretty obvious argument that by subjugating other nations/peoples and exploiting them, you can make the lives of your people better. Perhaps you’re trying to say that the type of leadership and ideology that creates and maintains socialism would also be ideologically against imperialism, but that seems more pragmatic than theoretic. You’re saying socialism can’t engage in imperialism by definition but the most I’d give is that it doesn’t engage in imperialism in practice.

I don’t see how that follows.

Because you need to get to imperialism via capitalism.

Socialism’s goal is to provide for its people; in theory, why can’t it engage in colonialism to bring in resources to benefit its people?

There is definitely no other way.

Its obvious how capitalism leads to imperialism, but it’s definitely not obvious how that would be the only way to arrive there.

Any elaboration you can provide would be great because you’re acting as if it should be obvious why what you’re saying is true but it absolutely is not.