Indeed. My girlfriend lives there, last time I was over we went to the big demonstration against mass tourism. I felt a bit sick at the airport listening to all the north European pensioners talking about how they rent a place year round for 800€/month just to spend the odd week now and then there. While many locals working in tourism make minimum wage, around 1300€/month I believe.
Hey that’s exactly what my rent / wage split was in the UK last year. The only reason anything got better is that minimum wage went up while my rent hasn’t yet.
Meaning and Purpose: Religion can offer a framework for understanding the universe and our place in it. It can provide answers to big questions about life, death, and morality.
Community and Belonging: Religious communities can provide social support, a sense of belonging, and shared values. This can be especially important during difficult times.
Comfort and Hope: Religion can offer comfort in times of grief or hardship. It can also provide hope for the afterlife or a better future.
Tradition and Identity: Religion can be a core part of a person’s cultural heritage or family identity. People may feel a connection to their ancestors or cultural background through their faith.
Ethics and Morality: Many religions provide a moral code that guides people’s behavior. This can be helpful in making decisions about right and wrong.
I don’t believe, but I can see why people stick with it and don’t look beyond it. You can get all these things without religion, its just not something that’s taught/passed down in the same way as religion is. Additionally, deconstructing is very difficult. You’re raised to believe something to be real and you’re expected to just drop it and step out of Plato’s cave? You’d look like a madman to any friends/family who aren’t willing and ready to step out and look around.
The one point I can really agree with is the meaning and purpose part. I’m not religious and the whole what happens after death part really fucks me up quite a bit. It’d be really damn nice if I could just go “I’ll go to Heaven” and be done
Part of the identity crises that comes with(out) religion is the ultimate question of purpose: why are we suffering, surely it has a reason? Some of us are content to accept that there is no purpose, and therefore we must define our own; others need a purpose greater than themselves and/or to have one defined for them, and look to religion for that purpose. There is no right answer, and the struggle of identity and purpose are well documented in religion, fiction, history, and philosophy.
Personally I don’t see what the afterlife has to do with your purpose or sense of meaning in this life. For me, I figure my purpose is whatever I find fulfilling in life while hopefully helping others do the same. Anything that comes after that is a bonus.
My partner and I had a difficult conversation recently about how we plan to handle her brother when her mother passes.
Her mother is obviously religious and raised him religiously Christian.
He is a sweet man with a severe developmental disability. Things literally take a very long time for him to learn. He still acts like a teen and he’s pushing 40. That’s not his fault, that’s just life. We love him.
The thing is though…
We don’t believe in religion, but we also think that when his mother finally passes, it would not be wise to try to turn him from Christianity.
He struggled and still struggles years later due to the passing of his father. The idea of being able to see his father in heaven is big to him.
At one point, he panicked because he was playing DOOM 2016 on his game console, and he asked my partner (his sister) if he was going to go to hell for playing it. She reminded him that the Doomslayer kills demons and loves bunnies and reminded him the themes of the game say demons are bad, even if the game itself is violent.
We don’t think it’s worth it to try to break his brain when he’s over 40 and his mom finally passes. Hell, she’s in good health, he could be over 50 when it happens. He has a learning disability and it would literally be unfair to him to try to force a change in belief on him at such a late stage with such a disability.
It’s not worth it to wreck his mental health so we can feel better about being “truthful” with him. We’re focusing on trying to relate healthy interpretations of Christianity to him.
My dream is an “internet archive” for all video games, modded to run offline. If the game becomes unavailable for purchase, the archive opens that game and makes it available for all.
The next step is for this kind of release to become law, and supported by manufacturers.
+1 for Anna’s Archive. It’s an amazing resource for students too, since they keep research papers and textbooks.
And before someone gets up in arms about the research papers, the researchers don’t get paid by the journals for publishing with them. In fact, the researchers need to pay the journal to publish, and then the journal turns around and charges people to read it.
If you ever need to get research for free, you can usually email the researchers directly and they’ll be happy to share it for free; They hate the journals too, (because like I said earlier, they have to pay the journal thousands of dollars,) but feel obligated to use them to publish.
Even worse, that research and journal publishing was often funded by public funds and research grants. So the journal is paywalling research that taxpayers already paid for, and should be free to access.
And before someone gets up in arms about the research papers, the researchers don’t get paid by the journals for publishing with them. In fact, the researchers need to pay the journal to publish, and then the journal turns around and charges people to read it.
What you’re describing here is called predatory publishing and is not the norm. It’s the “fake news” of scientific journals. I’m not “up in arms” about the original topic of making info available to the public whatsoever, just wanted to correct this part.
What you’re describing here is called predatory publishing and is not the norm.
No, predatory publishing “is an exploitative academic publishing business model that involves charging publication fees to authors while only superficially checking articles for quality and legitimacy” without real peer review. For context reviewers aren’t paid by high impact journals either.
That sounds like a great plan for all types of media. We would better document our history and make so much human creativity accessible to those who cannot afford to indulge in what’s currently for sale.
Why do we not do this? Oh wait, it’s MONEY? Pfft, it will never happen.
Translations of big text from left to right: “Our country should be most educated and cultural country”, “Study and work! Work and study!”, “To have more you should produce more, to produce more you should know more”.
When I started working on PieFed I was all enthusiastic about the idea of moderation tools. But when it came time to actually code that functionality it was like pulling teeth. Just. Sooo. Boring. It took weeks longer than it should have, for that reason. This was really surprising to me because I'm deeply passionate about moderation and 'gardening' a community.
That's the thing about open source, people just do the fun stuff. There's always some fun stuff to do which distracts from the boring-but-necessary.
Not just that its boring, mod tools also require a huge amount of work because you need to make changes across all parts of the code (database, api, federation and frontend).
There’s people who like building this sort of code. I don’t mind it for example and I’ve already written multiple of them for the lemmy ecosystem (fedi-safety, fediseer, threativore etc), I’m just too busy with my own projects to contribute even more. If you are not having fun doing them, try to find and retain people who do.
😂 I don’t pay that much attention to usernames, but once I saw your comment, I was like “hey, I think I have come across SatansMaggotyCumFart a few times before!”
For a while I stopped bringing cards to situations where a card would be a thing and instead I put a QR code on a widget on my phone's lock screen and told people to just scan that to add my contact info.
Results were... mixed? For a few people it was a cool conversation starter. Others fumbled a bit with what to do.
One guy, though? He was NOT amused. Apparently he made a big point of collecting all of his connections' cards in binders, and cataloguing them, both as bragging rights and a hobby. I may as well have walked into his house and peed on his stamp collection. It was very awkward.
One of the really notable things about war is that it’s so rare (if you aren’t the US military or else actively engaged in some ongoing conflict), and the rate of people dying and having to be replaced with brand new people is so high, that almost all the time it’s being done for real life-or-death stakes by people who are learning on the job as they go and have no real experience in what they are doing.
A lot of things about military decisions and events don’t completely make sense why they happened the way they do, until you imagine a whole airline being run by people most of whom it’s their first week on the job, and then you say oh okay I get it now; that’s why that happened that way.
Perun (youtuber) sums it up- for many militaries there is no organisational experience in actual conflict, outside the pomp and ceremony it’s hard to tell what substance exists
I will be surprised if Spotify won’t announce a new more expensive HIFI subscription with their support for lossless audio. Imo this still makes it less interesting than Tidal/Deezer/Qobuz since it’ll still be impossible to permanently download music from Spotify.
Nonetheless it’s great that Spotify will provide lossless audio for those who want it.
Similar here, but I don’t do google and I hate Spotify lawl. I do download for my collection, but I’ve also subscribed to Apple Music because I don’t wanna fuck around with putting music on my phone, I mostly use my phone for podcasts.
But I just for some headphones that use spatial sound and holy shit is that fantastic. I have like five nice pairs of open-back fancy headphones and now I’m using my probudz all the time because it makes your music sound 4.5D and you can look around if you want and it sounds like you’re at a concert
I’m in the market for fancy headphones. What do you recommend? I mostly listen to flac tracks ripped from CDs and also would use headphones for watching movies from Jellyfin. All done at home.
I love my Grados and other Sennheisers and I’ve tried some others that need amps, but I always come back to my 560s. They’re the best price for performance of all I own. If you’re patient, I got mine for 180USD.
BUDGET? Looove my Grado SR80e. Under a hundred bucks for some REALLY nice sound quality.
These are all open-back, so you’ll get a really good soundstage but they’re not great for loud environments. But damn do they sound good.
Absolutely! I also love my pair of 599, they’re much less expensive retail but I can really feel the difference in the 560s (weirdly named, the 560s are superior). I think I paid 130 for the 599s.
The 560s have slightly better sound quality but they feel much better to wear for long periods of time. That all said, the sound quality difference is very very small for flacs, so if you find a good deal on 599s and you’re not wearing them for 6-10 hours straight (which I sometimes do) then you can totally save the money.
Both pairs don’t rest on your ears, and they both have ONE cord going to the left ear. My biggest complaints about my beloved Grados is they DO rest on your ears and they have cords going to both ears, which get all wound up and touch my chin/cheek which my ADHD ass does not appreciate the tactile…ness of.
As an aside, my partner isn’t an audiophile and I had them listen to my favorite headphone-testing-song (Tipper’s “Cuckoo”) in flac, with my 560s. I started the song and they’re like “I’ve heard this song before” and by the end their eyes were DRIPPING. I never realized sound could be so… extradimensional, and it really hits goodly.
Quick edit: oh and the Sennheisers have removable cords which can lock in, which is amazing because they come with a shorter cord and a LOOOOOONG cord you can switch out as you like.
If you remember me, please let me know how you like them! And listen to cuckoo.flac and feel the little sizzles that tickle your ears and be like mmmmmm that’s some sizzles
Ahhhh I’m confusing when I talk about them because I pluralize them too! My favorite pair is the 560s, or pluralized, the 560s…s. I found the 560s pair on sale back when I was on Reddit at /buildapcsales/ like a month after I bought a pair of 599 (actually 599 SE) and fell in love with them.
I looked it up and actually got the 560s for a STEAL at 160USD, so I think anything below 200 is a good deal.
Minutes 1-2: Grab a hoodie, my most comfortable walking shoes, my passports, and any extra cash. Turn on my shower, grab my cordless trimmer, set my phone on the sink, lock the bathroom door behind me. Lock the doors, leave through the garage. Grab my small adjustable wrench on the way out.
Minutes 3-5: my neighborhood lies along a set of railroad tracks that are heavily obscured by brush. Start walking. By the time they arrive at my house, I’m a good ways down the tracks and leaving my neighborhood.
Minutes 6-10: the agents have entered and found that I’m not in the shower. I’m further down the tracks and out of my neighborhood.
Minutes 11-30: I make my way to a friend’s house, mainly following the tracks. When I get there, tell them I have an emergency and can I borrow their car. The agents are searching.
Minutes 31-60: I start driving. I stop in a parking lot at a factory near my office. I look for a car that was backed into its spot and use my wrench to steal the license plate–shift change was two hours ago, so I have 6 hours before they notice. I put the other plate on my vehicle. The agents are interrogating my friend, but the border is only 1.5 hours away. I have family there.
Minutes 61-150: As I drive, I use my cordless trimmer to shave my hair and beard. About half way, I stop at a Walmart and pick up a burner phone. I dial my family as I drive. We make a plan.
Minutes 151-180: I park at Sam’s Club. My parents are already on their way back to the car with some groceries. I meet them at their car and get in the back seat. As we pull away, I crouch down and climb into the trunk. We head for the border.
Minutes 181-200: we arrive at customs, but my parents have a fast pass. They cross the border casually all the time. They don’t check the trunk. We’re waved through.
Minutes 200-525600: I contact my home country’s law enforcement. They put me in the witness protection program. I have a new identity and life. The agents search in vain.
Minutes 525601-20000000: I’m content in my new life. I work, I pursue simple hobbies, I avoid social media. Eventually age catches up with me and I decide to move into an assisted living facility. My mind isn’t as sharp as it once was. One of the workers in the cafeteria asks my name, and I give a name I haven’t heard in 40 years. The cafeteria worker raises their serving spoon. It’s not a spoon, it’s a gun. They’re the agent.
We don’t deserve our open source heroes, so grateful for the incredible free software ecosystem
Gimp, 7zip, blender, vlc, open office, the kernel, thousands of others, I feel like our lives have been universally improved by these inverted charity projects. The few taking care of the undeserving many.
Commenting to bring awareness to the ‘arrs. Radarr sonarr and lidarr will get you all the media you need organized perfectly. It runs on any device but take a few days to figure out. Once setup it’s a set it and forget it thing. Uses torrents and or usent so use a vpn. Mine runs on a 10 year old raspberry pi 2 and a few usb hdds. Been going strong with very little maintenance for 6 years at this point.
Agreed. Combined with a jellyfin instance and you will never want to come back. As said before, it takes a while to setup at first (especially if you download animes which aren’t exactly handled the same way), but when it’s done you’ll see you weekly episodes magically appear with nothing to do on your side, and that’s just great
Jellfyfin is the reason why I do this. I went from spending 30 minutes dumpster diving through terrible movies in one of the streaming platforms to now spending 30 minutes trying to choose from a selection of movies that I actually want to watch.
Which is 5TB of movies I think I should watch, 1.5TB of stuff I already watched and think I would watch again and the rest of stuff I actually want to watch.
Have you seen a good method/guide to prioritise release groups for anime? I looked into it but it was super confusing to me and didn’t beat just grabbing a nyaa rss feed.
Actually yeah I do. I followed this guide which is really nice. I did need to add a few more sources manually depending on how popular a given anime is, but it’s really useful anyway
I’m super old school and just started finding my way back to torrenting. Would you have a recommendation on how to read up on these arrs? So far I still manually pull my torrents from a search engine and run it through my vpn hardened Pi in the cellar. It works, but I do wonder if there’s a more streamlined approach.
Check this wiki, specially the torrebt and Usenet pages… Then you can wither follow the practical installation pages or ignore and find some docker only guides.
Something like this is a good start! I use transmission as the torrent client instead of deluge. Also added a service for my vpn and use that as the network for the tranmission service so all traffic is routed through the vpn. ochoaprojects.github.io/posts/PlexAutomation/
Or anything related. I filled a gap between careers doing tech support for a local (Canadian) software company that made a database for collectors (primarily in the USA). Never again, the industry or ancillary to it.
I once took a job where we essentially repossessed trap houses from the inhabitants - even if they had once been legal tenants. I soon started feeling much better when neighbours cheered us on and brought cups of tea. I later discovered my boss was notorious in the industry for going after scum rather than debtors. That job might have been the closest I’ve ever got to public service. But as for everything else you say, I couldn’t agree more. Debt collection against individuals is a disgusting, exploitative and inherently corrupt business.
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