Egypt’s Sisi rejects transfer of Gazans, discusses aid with Biden

This is a completely false account of what happened, and is emblematic of why I’m completely done with the Democratic Party.

Trying to change leadership away from evil policy is “literally nothing.” Yup, this is why I’m totally done with the Democratic Party.

That’s funny, I seem to recall an Uncommitted movement…

“Good” isn’t a natural phenomenon that just needs a little space to establish a foothold. It takes deliberate action, effort, and sacrifice. And society doesn’t magically reach a stable state. That’s ridiculous.

Each election may have a bad and a worse outcome, but it’s relative. Voting for the less-bad is a strategy that works even when both parties push toward evil. It works even when the choices are a party that supports genocide quietly and one that supports genocide loudly. If the “practical left” is just voting for the less-bad, while shitting on and shunning the people trying to do the hard work because the magical Fairy of Good hasn’t yet shown up to establish that foothold with a wave of the wand, then I question how practical and how left that faction actually is.

I’ve been thinking about sharing my rule for making Lemmy a better place by having more discussions, and keeping even the arguments respectful:

Never tell another person what they are/think/believe/want.

The rule of thumb is just like in intimate relationships: Use “I” statements instead of “you” statements. Don’t tell people “you obviously think…” or “you support…” or “you are…” Yes, that applies even to racists, transphobes, tankies, everybody. At best, it will never change the other person’s opinion, because everybody is the hero of their own story. At worst, other people judge you to be the asshole. If somebody is truly vile (like Neo-Nazis), disengage. It’s up to the community moderator or instance admin to remove them.

In my experience learning Windows 10 for my job, the results of searching for how to do something are: ‘click-this’ tutorials that don’t work because Microsoft changed something in the next edition, editing the registry, or PowerShell commands. The registry editing sometimes doesn’t work because Microsoft changed something. The PowerShell method is the way to go, because Microsoft has embraced the command line.

Enough farmland? I suggest reading up on the Ogallala Aquifer. Also, where the best climate zones for agriculture will be 50 years from now.

Oil lamps. They have the same appeal that’s behind the resurgent popularity of vinyl records. They’re hefty, kinesthetic items that feel good in the hand. There’s a little ritual that goes into using them. There’s the sensory appeal. I bought a Thomas & Williams miner’s lamp that was said to have been a prize that the original owner won in a regatta in the 1920’s. It’s all shiny brass, with a heavy, solid feel, and the parts fit together with such a satisfying precision. There’s feeling the heat of the flame, and the slight scent of kerosene that it emits.

(Although, I’m not sure that they’re outdated, since they’re still manufactured and sold as yacht lamps, and you can still get parts. Last month, I ordered a brand new glass chimney for it.)

Okay.

Slackware is the oldest distribution which is still active. I remember Yggdrasil came before it, and I’m looking it up, I see that Slackware was based on the earlier SLS.

Franky, I read all of your comments here, and the main message that comes through is a lot of vague specifics with the subtext of, “I am very smart.”

Yes, we know there’s a bigger picture, but bigger pictures are easier to focus on when the details don’t include bombs falling.

Borrowing is not an option?

Dunno if you’ve noticed, but the POTUS has crested the lift hill on the roller coaster of dementia and is gaining kinetic energy into the first turn. Months ago, he lost the ability to process metaphorical language (like my first sentence), which we saw when he promised to build an actual, literal dome over the United States like the one Israel has over it; or when he described in concrete terms the actual operation of the giant faucet in British Columbia that Canada uses to control water to the U.S. West Coast. The thing about dementia, having seen it first-hand in a family member, is that there will be good days and bad days, so even if we see him appearing to have it together (and it’s not just from a teleprompter), there are days on which a complex issue by itself will totally escape him— much less a complex web of such issues. And those days will be coming much more often as time goes on and he continues to deteriorate.

That is to say, if your gut feeling was developed during his first term, don’t trust it. He doesn’t have the capacity for that kind of nuanced cunning any longer. If he’s talking about annexation now, take it at face value. Take everything he says as literal now.

No, no, that’s iteration. Loops are how I get my daily servings of froot.

Add scurvy to that list, since primates lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C endogenously, while other animals kept it.

Honestly, I think it is disingenuous, and the argument is loaded. Namely, if a believer does effectively communicate the notion that God has some universal, eternally-true standard of morality, then the person making the argument can spring the trap:

If that standard of morality exists, we don’t know it. God hasn’t told us. The Bible is very definitely, historically the word of mankind. The standards it espouses have been relentlessly fought over by different religious factions with their own interpretations, and what’s more, they’re internally self-contradictory.

The idea that religious people need the threat of hellfire to behave just doesn’t stand to scrutiny, since so many of them have no problems professing an interpretation of God’s morality to justify whatever behavior they want.

Eh, continents are entirely a socially-constructed category. I mean, how can Mexican America and South America be one continent when there’s no land route between them, yet Europe and Asia can be two continents? The Americas are on different techtonic plates, which similarly is enough to earn India the designation of subcontinent. And where’s the cut-off between big island and continent? Bigger than Greenland, and smaller than Australia is all we can say.

Anyway, what I’m saying is that with just a quick redefinition of the continents, which already don’t make sense, Canada can be in Europe.

Honestly, I think that we the people need to assert our own right to name things more often. I don’t recall the latest name of the Brewers stadium in Milwaukee, for example. Whatever company that paid to have them put its name on the front didn’t pay me. It’s “the new County Stadium” as far as I’m concerned.

(I have no philosophical objection to the name, by the way. Reps of the new company can DM me, we can work out a deal.)

Hell if you aren’t able to save anything you will definitely be heading for bum status when you get old enough that you can’t work. Holding on to being able to own something is an investment in not descending into desperate poverty later.

I picked this out because it illustrates how utterly fucked up our system is, because we need housing to be:

1. Expensive, because it’s the default retirement investment vehicle for the working classes.

2. Cheap, so that young people just starting out can buy it.

See a problem?