Libb

Acting like if he owns a country and its institutions?
I do wonder for how much longer Trump will tolerate such a diva standing right next to him on scene?

(that’s coming from a non-US citizen. I may not be the most well informed, mind you)

its not a huge issue, but its not a non-issue…

Well, it’s not an issue for me and I also think it’s a non-issue. Hopefully, you will allow me to have my own opinion on a question or should I ask for your permission first?

And btw by ‘obsessing’ I was only reacting to the fact that out of the two discussions/threads we participated in you and I in the last couple days (threads you initiated) both were about your very personal issue with people apparently heavily downvoting you. I could suggest you go back reading my answer in that first thread, but I’m starting to realize you may not want to discuss my suggestion and would rather be told you’re right. Which I think you’re not, if that was not obvious. See? I don’t need to downvote you to share the fact I don’t agree with you.

you don’t have to be so black and white with your dismissives.

Black and white? I’m not and I would even suggest that it would help (you) if you stopped making a personal attack out of any remark that doesn’t fit your narrative. Was I supposed to write a 40 pages essay to make my opinion more acceptable to you? Fine, I will do it after I read your own 40 pages.

But worry not as I won’t bother you with that ever again or with any suggestion that you would gain a lot by focusing your energy and time (think how precious time is) on things you can act upon, and learn to live with the world around you and people not being perfect (that means all of us, you and I included). If you really want to believe that fighting the ‘issue’ of Downvotes will make your life better, by all mean keep on doing it.

And be assured I did not Downvote you, and only tried to suggest you may be adventuring yourself in some kind of a dead-end and, once again, that you may be wasting some real precious time, time you will never be able to get back the day you realize you could have spend it on something worthwhile. Have a nice day.

edit: clarifications.

I think you obsess too much with that non-issue.

Hi, I’m 21/male from Germany and to me it seems like people here are constantly negative

Depends where you look, imho. (50+ male, from France ;))

I mean, if you mostly read negative topics, well, you will read more negative content. I don’t read those (no politics, no drama, no call to hate, no nothing like that) and I don’t have to read that much negativity.

Why do people waste all this time with complaining and being negative if they could use this time to be grateful, enjoy life and make the world a better place?

Let me ask you this: weren’t you just negative by asking that instead of, say, showing us by example how to share/read positive content and… make the world a better place? See, negativity is very easy to fall into ;)

I think I’m noticing this particularly in older people including my parents.

I think you may be noticing wrong but who knows? Once again, I’m well into my 50s and I try to see things in a positive way, no matter what’s going on. I don’t think it’s age (or sex/gender, or politics, or culinary taste)-related. It’s a personal thing.

As far as I know, the current culture around dating/relationships includes meeting your SO’s family

Date someone that doesn’t rely on ready-made recipes/expectations to meet people?

I mean if your family is screwed up (mine was), you should not be bothered to try to explain it to anyone. Not mentioning that most likely it’ll end giving the exact opposite result of what you’re looking for (I mean, anyone hearing someone telling them ‘fear not, my family is nuts but me yeah I’m 100% ok’ won’t feel that confident about you). That’s also useless.

Like I said, my family was… problematic. Did I try to rationalize them? nope. What I did is that as soon as I was able to, I let them behind me where they could live their live like they wanted to, and I started living my own… and meeting people that would not care the reason why ‘mom/dad/family’ was not an essential part of my own live. That works. Ask my spouse ;)

• My fountain pen (and ballpoint too), paper notebook and print books: no login required, no tracking, no sub (and no constant need to upgrade to the newest version: some of my fountain pens are older than I’m (I’m 50+ ;)
• My DVDs and CDs: no login required, no tracking, no sub.

Reading. Writing.

Like everybody around here, I get random downvotes too but I’ve yet to see anyone harassing that poor downvote button against my previous messages (I would not be surprised if this changed right after I publish this comment).

A few times, I 've seen multiple posts of mine get downvoted in a row in some thread. I supposed it was the action of someone disagreeing with me and wanting to ‘punish’ me for our diverging opinions but I could not tell, and I don’t care much either.

Much more than knowing someone may not like what I said, I’m interested in knowing their reasons why they disagree with what I said, or how I said it (even more so that I’m still learning English, so any remark can help me correct mistakes no matter how unpleasant the remark can be).

Alas, many people seem to think downvoting is enough an argument to say out loud they disagree with someone and to demonstrate how wrong they’re. It is not, at least not for me. I don’t know about them but I only write what I think, and what I think doesn’t change with the direction of the wind, or with the amount of + or - votes it receives. It can change when I’m faced with convincing arguments.

But arguments require a tad more work to share than just hitting the downvote button. Work not that many people seem to be willing to do.

What do you call ‘political violence’?

The biggest counterpoint I have is simply that I enjoy camping. Good luck finding a desk lamp when you’re 5 miles into the woods.

Nothing to answer there :P

I carry a jailbroken Kobo with wifi disabled

I used to that with a Kindle. See my answer to the other comment why I decided I did not want to do it anymore.

That’s exactly what external light means. If you need to sit near a lamp to read your book, then you are relying on external light.

The idea was that I do not need an extra light because, well, there are plenty all around but, you’re right, that’s what an extra light means. They’re just already there ;)

About half of those issues are solved by drm-free ebooks

My iPhone or Kindle will still track my reading habits when I read a drm-free or pirated book (which I tend to avoid as I want to support authors and publishers and I can afford to). For years, I have been using a Kindle that I disconnected from the Web after activation, it was working fine but then I realized we should not have to fight that situation to begin with: our privacy should be respected out of the box. Since I decided to not compromise anymore on that, well, I quit using those device. Like I said, it’s just a personal choice in favor of my privacy (not an allergy to tech itself, just to the way it has been hijacked to become a spying tool)

I do need to look up words a lot (usually in other languages)

So do I (be it in my native French and in the few others I pretend to speak). But like I said, I also never need to get instant access to a dictionary either. So it can wait I get back home.

and a bus stop after dark will never have enough light for reading. If you read at home I guess these aren’t issues, but pocket books are meant to be read on the road.

I would say (pocket) books are meant to be read and would not have any expectation on where and when people are supposed to be reading them. Then, I don’t read when I’m moving (I get sick). I will read at a bus stop or waiting in a line anywhere if there is enough light. If there is not enough, I will either write stuff in my notebook (even dim light is enough to jot down quick notes), or I will think about stuff.

About the formatting there are some books which should absolutely not be read as ebooks cause you’ll miss out on things. But most books are a block of text split in chapters and paragraphs. A phone can absolutely support that.

Typography and page layout was once a thing. It was considered kind of an art form even. I feel a bit sad to see it boiled down to some ‘block of text split in chapters’ but it could also just be a sign that I’m getting old and out of touch. Which is to be expected too ;)

Thx for the discussion, it was interesting.

I’d argue phones are actually better pocket books.

It’s obviously a matter of personal preferences, which is absolutely fine.

As far as I’m concerned, I prefer print for these reasons, and for context I have been reading ebooks since I have owned a Palm Pilot PDA in the early 00s, so not reading them is a decision and a choice, it is not an allergy to them or to the tech:

• Print fully respect my privacy.
  There is no tracking and no spying on my reading habits. That’s also why I read print newspapers and magazines as much as I can.
• No remote deleting of ebooks after purchase.
  Like Amazon and Microsoft already did. They refunded customers but that’s not how private property is supposed to work: I pay for a good, I own it its previous owner taht sold it to me can’t decide to enter my home to take it back, even if they were to leave some cash on the table.
• No remote editing possible.
  No matter if one book or one word in it suddenly becomes unpopular or offensive to anyone.
• No notifications, social media, games, email, whatever, to distract me.
• Does not need external light either.
  Try to beat day light and at night, or when the sun plays hide 'n seek, well, I have access to this revolutionary piece of high-tech called ‘lamps’ that are lying around absolutely everywhere in our home and, as far as I can tell, are also everywhere I may find myself wanting to read a book.
• Does not need batteries, and no recharging.
  The same with my watch, btw: no battery, just a spring I rewind every morning after I shower and when I put it to my wrist. It has been working wonder for years and its manufacturer has yet to send my a message telling my watch is tool old and I need to purchase a new model to get updates… because there are none ;)
• Does not need app and system updates.
• Does not need Internet.
• Unlike a smartphone, a book itself does not need to be replaced every few years by a new one (aka creating always more e-waste). Talking about phones, here, not e-readers that may last many, many years.

BTW, I seldom need to quickly look up a word either. When I don’t know a word and if I can’t figure out its meaning by using the context it is used in, aka surrounding sentences, I write it down in my pocket notebook (which also requires no battery, no upgrade, doesn’t track me either, etc.) and look it back at home in one of my… paper dictionaries (which don’t push ads into my face, don’t track me, and so on)

you can adjust font, text size and brightness (some font choices in printed books are just terrible)

This is the one advantage I find to ebooks in general (the reader is in charge of the display… depending the app used) but getting that freedom you also instantly lose access to the excellent page layout many publishers work hard on. Sure there are a few dickheads in the field but a majority are not at least those whose catalog I enjoy reading.

And, most ebook page layout is, well, what word did you use? Terrible? You would be right.

I’ve never actually seen a pocket book that can fit in a pocket.

There are (I would say I can fit most poetry books and many plays in my jeans back pocket but I don’t really), the idea is that those small books are easy to carry and are cheap (at least back in then they were supposed to be). It also depends a lot what one reads.

Edit:

it’s much more compact, can be held in one hand and you can carry multiple 800 page books.

I don’t need to carry that. On my desk I have dozens of books and references volumes opened at once (that would be expensive to do the same with multiple phones, right? ;) but I only carry with me a single pocket book so I can read on the go. I do not need my entire library, not even a couple 800, or even 1600 pages books ;)

Edit: if you’re willing to read more of my reasoning to stop using ebooks (I should say ebooks sold by Gafam, as I will still by self-published ebooks when there are DRM-free and there is no print available) and refocus my reading on print instead, I’ve published a couple blog post. Link in my profile.

• A pocket notebook and a ballpoint pen, for quick note taking. Edit: add to that a pocket watercolor set and a brush, for quick sketching
• A pocket book, for on the go reading
• My (mechanical) wrist watch

I don’t care if the smartphone can be used to take notes, to read and has an extra precise clock. I much prefer my analog tools. They don’t require upgrade, they don’t need recharging, no one will ever try to stole them (my watch is not fancy at all, it’s just mechanical ;) and, well, I prefer using those.

Anyway, you seem to be focused on arguing without having any real argument to defend your opinion.

You seem pretty sure about that, I would not want to contradict you the slightest. I will get back to reading my (sometimes) pay-walled but billionaire-free articles. Thx for sharing your opinion, have a nice day.

I don’t know what are you digging into.

Digging into?

I just say that reading news may be more enriching or, if you prefer, more useful when it’s not practiced like if it was a sausage eating contest.

You seem to enjoy eating a lot of news, that’s ok if that’s your thing, I’m only suggesting that eating less and more selectively could help you realize that all pay-walled content is not created for ‘enriching billionaires’, like you said earlier. Don’t get me wrong though, this is just a suggestion and you’re more than welcome to keep stuffing yourself with as much news as you fancy.

I read by hour, due to my free time(usually it does fetch 50 articles per hour, much less on holidays and I only read the interesting ones to me.)

50 articles per hour? That’s not reading, that’s scrolling. Which is perfectly fine, here again don’t get me wrong, but scrolling a list of titles does not equal reading them (aka, getting a clear idea of what the author wrote and then be able to summarize their argument reliably).

50 articles per hour means spending at most 1 minute and somewhere between 10 or 20 seconds to read each article (with enough attention to be able to understand what is read) and that’s only if one is using every single minute of that hour, not doing anything else like scratching one’s nose not even yawning out of exhaustion.
I’m impressed this is perfect for you, and glad you found a system that works wonders. It certainly would not be perfect for me. Even though I consider myself an intensive reader I’m also not much into stuffing myself like you may have understood already. Also, I do not worry much about people sharing links to pay-walled content since it rarely worries me when I can’t read one specific article.

I follow more than 300 news sources by RSS (all without paywalls), how wide you want me to go?

I did not mean ‘widen’ in that sense—reading and being informed is not about the quantity of news one can swallow in a day, you know—but with the idea of reading different sources.

Also, may I ask how can you be reading three fucking hundred news sources regularly (not daily, obviously) with any sort of attention?

Paywalls literally exist to support billionaires and their media empires.

Seriously? You may want to consider widening your news source, maybe.

Which bring me to this: Why does no one thought about blocking hard paywalled articles for the sake of quality of discussion?

Why block (aka, censor) a link?

1. People are free to subscribe if they want to, they at least get a link to the source.
2. People can often find workarounds if they can’t/refuse to pay but they would still need the link to know what exact ref they should search for.

Any advice for getting started with journalling? It’s been recommended to me but it’s not something I’ve ever really done before.

It’s excellent advice (that’s coming from a 50+ years old dude, so you know) as a journal can help you a lot in many various ways (memories of events, putting some order in your thoughts, facing personal difficulties,…).

How to do it depends a lot of things like what are your existing habits (do yo write already, or not much? There is no right or wrong answer but a need for shorter than longer wirting sessions for example), what you want to do with your journal (memories, pretty pages, thinking self-reflecting assistant,…) and even who you are as a person but as a general rule:

1. Keep it as simple as you can,
2. Be fine with your journal not being perfect, and with you not looking perfect in it either.
3. Be ok with making breaks. I’ve been journaling for almost 50 years and I’ve been not journaling some times for a few years. That’s OK. A journal is a tool, like a hammer is and would be surprised if I told you and I don’t carry my hammer everywhere I go and don’t use it all day long? ;)

All you need to start is a decent pen (aka something you find pleasant to write with and that will not tire your hand too fast), a cheap but decent notebook or an easy to use app, if you’re more interested in digital (an app you can quickly open and start writing in), some calm spot where you can wit and write and some time (not much). I shared some advice here, but there are other tidbits spread in the other discussions too. The idea is simply to remove as much friction as possible between you and actually writing in your journal. Be it analog or digital. It doesn’t matter how and with what tool you want to journal.

Also, be fine with making mistakes and with writing some real stupid shit. We all do. I constantly do. That’s legit part of a journal… it’s not a novel, or an essay. It’s not a work of art. It’s notes to your (future) self.

Related to making mistakes: not worrying about being judged helps a lot.
It’s ok do do mistakes. In fact, it’s even an essential part of learning anything (that is worth learning, I mean). We all learn through trial and error, by experimenting. So, be happy to experiment freely (aka as stupidly or as daringly as you want) in you journal, because it is yours and no one else. What anyone else may think of it should not matter the slightest.

If you want to discuss more about starting and keeping at it, you’re welcome to join. We’ve gotten quite a few new members those last weeks but we’re still real short on people sharing content which, in my opinion, includes beginner questions and doubts about starting a journal, and how to journal. The invitation is open to anyone else, obviously: [email protected]