Miscellaneous News

EU (€387,000 metaverse beach party only draws 6 attendees) – media​

An EU attempt to raise awareness of its digital presence among younger, politically disengaged audiences, has proven a disaster. A “24-hour beach party” in the metaverse has reportedly failed to connect, drawing just six attendees.

The European Commission’s Foreign Aid Department reportedly spent a whopping €387,000 to develop its metaverse platform, which was intended to promote the EU’s Global Gateway Initiative, aimed at bringing in €300 billion in investments.

A European Commission spokesperson told the media platform Devex that the party was supposed to “increase awareness of what the EU does on the world stage” among 18-to-35-year-olds who feel “neutral about the EU” and are “not typically exposed to such information,” due to being found “primarily on TikTok and Instagram.”


Devex journalist Vince Chadwick posted a clip of the festivities, which appeared to show a handful of floating screens flashing the same content while attendees questioned each other in chat about whether they had gotten the date wrong. Buzzwords such as ‘Education’ flashed across the screens momentarily.

Some avatars made a half-hearted show of dancing to the canned techno music, while others seemed to paw at the edges of the ‘world’ seeking escape. Chadwick declared himself “alone” after attempting conversation with a handful of similarly disappointed party-hoppers.

The EU has been pushing its metaverse platform since October as “the perfect place to get to know new people and reflect on global issues to make a difference for our shared future.”

The platform is supposed to provide users with the ability to explore its Global Gateway Initiative “through a series of ‘hero’ stories in a virtual environment,” according to the European Commission, but a Devex report citing anonymous interviews with employees claimed that even before the failed launch party, most found it to be little more than “digital garbage” that was “depressing and embarrassing.”

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Are the 6 visitors real people? Or are they staff workers.

ansy1968 said:

The US has unveiled thes stealth B-21 Raider - its newest bomber; - The B-21 Raider may cost over 700 million US dollars per ...

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I disagree with Brian in that both China and Russia are also working on stealth bombers. The H-20 and PAK DA. But I do agree with him that the B-21 Raider claimed price is way too high. At worst it should cost like three times the price of an F-35. Not this ridiculousness.

tonyget said:

Airbus plans to abandon Russian titanium

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Good luck. Who is the alternative supplier China or Kazakhstan?

tonyget said:

Boeing suspended contracts for the supply of Russian titanium in the spring of 2022. Reuters industry sources say it has expanded purchases from the United States and Japan while exploring new sources.​

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Boeing has loads of aircraft in their parking lot because of COVID-19 airline travel reduction led to airlines deferring or canceling orders. And then there is the 737MAX fiasco. 777X is also going nowhere. Airbus is pretty much delivering their airplanes as soon as they build them.

tonyget said:

There are a lot of ore reserves, and processors, in general, are also quite large in the USA, Japan, in Japan the volume of its production is about half that of Avisma.

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Bollocks. Japan has huge production of titanium metal sure, as do China and Kazakhstan. But USA has minimal production of titanium metal. Much less than Japan. The US might work the metal sure and make metal parts out of it but they have pitiful production of the metal.

tonyget said:

Focusing on the aerospace industry ensured guaranteed sales, guaranteed demand, supplies, production all the time in conditions of integration into production chains. There is China, but it also produces a lot, it is one of the competitors. But titanium application is not only this, titanium dioxide is used in the food industry, in the paint and varnish industry, and there the bulk of the mined non-metallic titanium. Avisma has already launched a discussion on such a topic, whether to reorient to a larger volume with a reorientation to the paint and varnish industry. Apparently, now this topic may resurface.

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This is a canard. The paint industry uses TiO2 not Ti metal. Not the same thing. Well, if China, India, Turkey, Brazil, etc do not want the titanium metal I guess that the Russian Navy can go back to making all titanium subs. Maybe they can make the PAK DP all out of titanium too.

tonyget said:

In addition to Boeing and Airbus, the Russian corporation VSMPO-Avisma supplied titanium to such companies as Embraer, Rolls-Royce, Safran Aircraft Engines. Boeing and Rolls-Royce suspended contracts for the supply of Russian titanium.

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Good luck with that. It takes over a decade to ramp up production of titanium metal. If not more. And if they are switching suppliers to China, or banking on Kazakhstan as a source, well. I will also add that making titanium metal is highly energy intensive and I do not see Japan's energy costs going down in the medium term. The US does not ramp up production because no one is interested in investing in for over a decade in facilities and laboratories before seeing any revenues.

Oh, the tears of joy!

Schrodinger's China:

Why Europe must break with US on China policy to avert global economic disaster​

• The prospect of the global economy splitting into rival US and China camps is growing more likely, but Europe can help prevent this
• Only an enlarged European community that includes Britain and moves away from US foreign policy can provide the needed counterbalancing force

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Today's fine example of modern Western "values":

Overbom said:

Lmao this dude

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1598629697385992192

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Josef Borell is disgusting piece of garden shit

In4ser said:

While encouraging exercise and fitness is essential, the overemphasis on Sports and Entertainment is part of the Bread & Circus to make the populace distracted and complacent. Yes, we would all like to see China having a better sports team or being "cool," the problem with that is their success creates youth idolization where they choose to spend time and energy seeking careers in unproductive industries rather than focusing on their science and industry. It's like the popular jock versus the brainy nerd in comparing who tends to succeed later in life.

I mean look at African Americans who dominate sports and entertainment in the US and how well they fare socioeconomically as a group. Also, there appears to be an inverse correlation between the rise of Japanese and Korean pop culture and their decline in national competitiveness in economics, industry, and science. Overfocus on soft power can lead to hard power suffering as a consequence as the Song Dynasty found out when barbarians appeared at the gates.

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Black people? We are asking for 11 dudes to qualify for world cup, not asking the entire Han race to genetically(or culturally) become black people to dominate sports...

Also, Chinese people already dominate gold medals in the Olympics, so China has naturally has aptitude in sports.

supercat said:

Oh, the tears of joy!

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1599054807464960001

Schrodinger's China:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1598988089523081216

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Today's fine example of modern Western "values":

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1598407596691652610

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1598743524157132817

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It's interesting how the West's propaganda narrative against China is all about painting how China is out of control of Beijing. They can't make the right intellectual decisions for what's best for the Chinese people. All of Europe's and the US's problems they're suffering that put them on dangerous economics footing today is from horrid decision making from their governments and not from outside events. Outside events only made them make the worst decisions for themselves not being the cause of them. It shows how they can't make the right decisions especially during emergency situations.

Phead128 said:

Black people? We are asking for 11 dudes to qualify for world cup, not asking the entire Han race to genetically become black people to dominate sports...

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It's not genetics that makes black people great at music and entertainment but culture. If Koreans and Japanese can qualify then so can the Chinese at a physical level. Black Americans are pre-deposed to be more focused on athletics making them better than Asians who tend to focus more on studying. Asians tend to be the other way around because the culture is education-focused instead.

As China is not as Westernized as Japan or Korea, it still has a more top-down approach to things making it less nimble and more specific in how planning and execution work. It takes a more long-term approach which takes time to ramp up and if you want that change to be focused on less important things like sports, then the collective advantages of the Chinese system must be less unique and more like the West and have a bottom-up individual approach.

It's called apathy. How many groups are suffering from hate in the US these days? Do we see the same kind of attention given to all other groups that is what's expected when anti-Semitism occurs? Liberals hypocritically told everyone else that helping one helps everyone hence why they only cared about one case at a time and not all who are suffering. It's the hypocritical trickle-down theory they hate that Republicans argue for. That logic doesn't seem to work for them in the reverse. There was a recent news story on religious groups in Asia trying to save what Hitler and the Nazis took from them and turned it into a symbol of hate aka the swastika. Not only do some want stop it's use anywhere in the US but the whole world too. It's more likely to create more anti-Semitism in the world if they push it. Do we hear calls to stop the use of the Christian cross since white supremacists use it for their hate campaign?

Writing this I'll probably be considered anti-Semitic just for not blindly going along daring to ask questions. China was the only country that allowed Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler's Germany into their country. The US turned away Jewish refugees where they ended up being killed at extermination camps and yet a lot of leading US politicians and journalists who are Jewish are openly anti-China. To the least they should expect apathy.

United Ireland soon?