I found it at the end of that big red arrow. Turns out it wasn’t a useless red arrow after all.

I think for me it was the disconnected world. I never got a sense of place or where I was going. I couldn’t spot landmarks, it was all just following roads that I had been told would lead somewhere I was supposed to be.

Reminds me of my partner’s childhood pastor warning them not to spend too much time questioning their faith, because in their experience it had led a lot of people away from the church. Gee, maybe think about how that sounds. Like, you basically just told them that your beliefs couldn’t withstand interrogation.

“Ran” in this context is part of a dialect of English in certain parts of the US. It is spoken that way, on purpose, by native speakers, and is thus perfectly correct.

Saying that it “makes people think you share teeth” shows that you are in fact aware of this cultural distinction and your problem with the usage is not about grammar but about classism, which is also clearly on show with your bigoted description of poor southern US people.

My only current issue is that I have a Pimax VR headset, and nobody to my knowledge has ever got their proprietary software working in wine. I could try it in a VM but I don’t love the idea of wrestling with the likely performance hit. I guess I could always keep windows 10 as a second OS.

Who are you talking to? There’s nothing there.

Unfortunately you’re basically highlighting the reason that propaganda like this works: immediacy bias.

This story, and the idea of the video, of the woman being raped is immediately visible.

The historical context surrounding this story, and the political context of its dissemination, is not visible. All the stories that were neglected by the media that is cynically using this current story are not immediately in front of us.

It’s hard for people to step out of that immediate reaction because it feels like the story they just heard is happening in front of them. We’re not mentally built for a global news environment where news stories can be cherry picked for their desired impact.

It’s ironic that something called “immediacy bias” is being exploited by the media, when immediate literally means “without media”. Maybe in this case it should be called the immediacy illusion.

Like for instance every conservative Christian politician who was piously sworn in on the Bible, despite Jesus himself saying not to swear by anything and calling the practice demonic. By their own stated belief system they are inaugurating their public office with a satanic ritual.

This isn’t some obscure passage either, it’s in the Sermon on the Mount, one of the most famous scenes in the entire Bible. Anyone who swears on the Bible in any capacity clearly doesn’t take it seriously enough to know anything about what it says.

And the alternative given to swearing oaths is just like… idk, maybe be honest in general, guys?

Fascism isn’t some genius-brained thing, it’s just how authoritarians operate, and Putin didn’t invent it.

US politics has always been deeply corrupt, and now it is losing even more of its veneer of legitimacy, which means it’s crumbled that much more.

The Russians aren’t the cause of your woes. Actually if you look at what happened with the neoliberal shock doctrine and the fall of the USSR, the US is way more responsible for Putin than the other way around.

It’s called the 100-year rule.

All the common names we grew up with were retro to our parents, and names we think are just so boomer are probably going to be our grandkids’ names.

I honestly don’t know why anyone is strategising as if they’re on the same side as dems or any politician. I’m not even convinced we have a common enemy in Trump, because they don’t seem serious about beating him.

The question you should ask when voting is “Who is my preferred enemy?” Biden won’t abuse the carte blanche immunity from criminal prosecution? Great, sounds like he’s the weaker enemy, so vote for him. Force him to keep the position he clearly doesn’t want. Force him to disappoint his base for another four years.

While he’s doing that, get to work building alternatives that meet people’s needs from the bottom up and wean them off of this criminal system, to undermine it and prepare people to thrive as it crumbles.

The great thing about this political theory of change is that it’s the same regardless of who’s in power. It decouples you from the capricious, disempowering shifts of electoral politics.

Honestly calling someone a “direct report” sounds even more dehumanising. At least calling someone a “subordinate” acknowledges that you’re belittling their existence. A “direct report” sounds like a piece of paper.

Also if you want some interesting soundscapes, I can recommend exploring mynoise.net. They have a huge variety of natural and artificial soundscapes, including a bunch of musical ones that are all tuned to be compatible with one another, so you can mix & match them. They also have a phone app, but you can only use one sound at a time with it. Also not everything is available if you don’t make a donation. I gave them 5 bucks a couple of years ago and it’s one of the best 5 bucks I’ve ever spent. It wasn’t hard to then spend a few more dollars on the app.

I use them for focus when I’m working, but lately I’ve also used them for sleeping. It works really well for me.

The only thing I will say for “blue no matter who” is that the alternative - threatening to withold your vote - only works if the campaign is aftaid of losing. They aren’t. They clearly don’t care. They don’t want to govern, they want to present only a token resistance to encroaching fascism and corporate domination.

The benefit of voting the nominally-left-of-extreme-right party in is that it forces them to disappoint their base and that radicalises those people against US empire. Letting Trump win won’t accelerate that process, it will just force people to radicalise in an atmosphere of extreme oppression.

After checking out more options, I think forgejo looks like a good place to start.

Thanks, yes, I’d far rather stick with a familiar and ubiquitous system unless I see a reason to switch. Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll keep it in mind.

After looking at that list, I think forgejo or gitea are what I’m looking for. I would prefer to stick with software as open as possible, so forgejo looks like where I’ll start. I love that they’re involved in federation and have a collective governance structure.

Oh, yeah, I meant open-core, not closed-core, but I’m still leery of software where they close off portions to make you want to pay. It gives them an incentive to make the open part of it worse.

MOOSEN

Yeah it’s like listening to your mobster neighbours fighting. It’s their business but anyone can catch a stray.