XiELEd

I hate how everything has to be monetized nowadays, or how money is to be expected for everything. Eventually people who provide free service or altruism will be seen as competition.

Not a lot of people are lucky to get funded unfortunately :(

It was recently on local news, but that's not the only conflict that involved water cannons and ships. From the article you can see Vietnam— they once saved filipino fishermen from potentially drowning. (from Philippines) https://www.rappler.com/nation/233079-how-filipino-boat-crew-was-saved-west-philippine-sea/ (from Vietnam) https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/all-gestures-no-words-as-vietnamese-fishermen-saved-22-filipinos-3940276.html. If china continues their actions, there are bound to be casualties. And if that happens, I'm not sure any of us will forgive them.

This is literally an act of terrorism

Technically, our standard of living is much much lower. A lot of us don't have water heating, so we just shower (or dunk, if you use a pail, because some of us can't afford showers) with cold water, unless you want to spend precious time and fuel to boil it. I see Americans who glorify cold showers, saying that it develops you as a person. Heating and cooling is a no-brainer for Americans, but many of us are still hesitant to use air conditioning even at 30°C. In my country, we still have regular service (water and electricity) interruptions, even in the cities. Yes, rent can be lower outside of major cities, but development is centralised there, so you'd rather move to those cities anyway. I would hear of families having to seek treatment in a more developed city, because their city doesn't have resources.

China is already bullying the Philippines too out of our own territorial waters, and they have already caused severe injuries to our countrymen. They literally want an entire sea to themselves and leave us with none. Just look at their nine dash line.

Edit: Here's their nine-dash-line, they even want Malaysia's sea, which is a long way away from chinese mainland, while they want seas close to the land territories of so many SEA nations.

Last night I watched the news and some parts of my country will be experiencing a heat index of 50°C...

Decoding Your Cat & How to Read a Book.

Decoding Your Cat is actually written by the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists, and it's about general cat behavior, behavioral issues, the issues cats face in addressing behavioral issues, how to train your cat and debunking cat myths [For example, contrary to popular belief, cats don't actually see us as "clumsy cats". They know we are a different species, but still use cat body language to communicate— though they're still apt to mimic when they can]. Every chapter has anecdotes so that you can get an idea of how conflicts play out between cats and humans. I have already finished this book last month, though I review it every now and then to refresh what I know, but mostly because of the cute cat pictures. Also, I wanted to recommend this book.

I'm only a fourth into "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer J. Adler, and unfortunately I still haven't done pre-reading on it (ironic, given that the book says that it's one of the first kinds of reading that you must do) so I'm just plowing through it, but from my impression it's an interesting read that offers information that you would otherwise not reflect on. Well, besides the tips on how to read, it tells you why, and those parts are the most interesting to me. I'm currently on the part about words vs terms, and it gives me an insight of how words are used as terms in text from different fields. There are many definitions of a word, but in technical books some words are important that they specify one term, though one term can be described by more than one.

Soil Science Simplified by Neal Eash and others, and Landrace Gardening by Joseph Lofthouse.

Soil Science Simplified is a bit textbook-y but it's easy to understand, and it's about soil in the context of, well, anything that could be used on or in the soil, such as in agriculture and building infrastructure. I'm not that far into it but if you remember clay, sand, silt and loam soil from Elementary, then it goes into much more, such as how the soil made out of certain minerals can behave like.

Landrace Gardening is a lighter read for me, and I'm honestly just reading it to feel persuaded to grow healthy plants. It does feel like the author is hammering his points into you, but there are some useful information here and there. Then I'm proceeding to Principles of Cultivar Development by Walter Fehr.

Why am I reading these? I got interested in preserving Siling Labuyo, a local cultivar of hot chili in the Philippines, which is gradually being overshadowed by Thai Bird's Eye... Most people in my country don't know what Labuyo really looks like nowadays, despite being popular in the past... the bird gods have randomly given us labuyo some time ago, and since labuyo has usually been grown wild, it has quite a high genetic diversity. I'm thinking of cultivating it. Maybe make a super labuyo and make it get popular by attaining the title of hottest chili again. But that's obviously a pipe dream, lol. Anyway this is what ADHD does to you /shrug

You're quite picky. Appropriate for a 1st Worlder, I might say.

And here my air conditioner settings are set to 24C°...