One place in the lemmyverse that’s been able to buck US-defaultism a bit is the news mega thread on Hexbear. That was done by seeking out and elevating news and voices that are explicitly not in the US (and the Global North, more broadly). But even then, you need both people who are actively seeking non-US perspectives AND people who have those perspectives and are willing to invest their time. I’m not sure how to replicate this more broadly in the lemmyverse, but it’s worth noting where it’s worked and what was done.

A profession where I’m sure it’s beneficial to be very rigid…

That looks pretty great, actually.

I pay for a Proton account already, this is a great suggestion, I’m going to look into this (can’t believe I forgot this)

My videos already sync to iCloud. My concern is if the cops were to get into my phone, they could just go to the Photos app and delete it from the device and my iCloud account.

OP’s photo is my favorite, so I will have to mention my second favorite (though calling it a “favorite” feels off).

This photo was taken in 2003 in Iraq. This man is comforting his son. They are being held in an American camp. IIRC to this day we don’t know what happened to these two.

I think if I had to explain the last 25 years to a time-traveler, this would be the one photo I would choose.

I played that Star Wars a little bit back in the day; I liked it but it seemed fairly complex.

People who are saying to just delete Facebook or don’t use it aren’t wrong of course (I say that myself, to be clear I hate FB); but as someone who tries to buy and sell things secondhand (I see it as being environmentally responsible), this is largely becoming impossible to do locally without Facebook Marketplace. I honestly have some grudging respect for Facebook’s ability to survive just when you think they might start to become irrelevant. Things were headed that way for them, then they bought Instagram. And then the last couple years, it was sort of common knowledge that the only people who use it anymore are old folks and Nazis… and then FB Marketplace kills Craigslist and becomes the only app people use for local buying/selling.

Idk maybe there’s some opportunity here for some local buy/sell federated service?

The entire concept of “salvation” in Christianity is is dynamic, and has changed again and again over the centuries. Jesus was very likely a Jewish Apocalypticist - his message was that the end was near, and God’s justice was close at hand for the unrighteous. And after this was accomplished, God’s kingdom on earth would reign. The “salvation” Jesus refers to here is almost certainly salvation from the upcoming apocalypse - follow him, and you’ll make it through to see the Kingdom.

But then Jesus died. Even though he died, what we know from studying all sorts of religions and cults in history, is that death is often not the end. But the followers of Jesus had to evolve their thinking. So they came up with idea that, even though Jesus had just been killed, he would return again - and soon! To them, of course, soon meant soon. It’s why Paul talks about how marriage is pointless because there isn’t much time left. When this second coming never happened, and the decades rolled on, who Jesus was and what his followers were to be “saved” from changed. At this point the religion is gaining followers all across the Roman Empire. However, as different cultures find Jesus, Christianity itself incorporated ideas from these cultures. One such idea was the concept of an eternal hell of torment - something that was largely unknown in Judaism (outside of sects that had previously been influenced by Hellenism).

Eventually, the Church emerges and certain concepts of salvation become more formalized and standardized. These largely serve the interested of the feudal church - making the masses stay in line. Then you have Protestantism emerge not coincidentally with the emergence of capitalism, and Protestant notions of salvation that serve the interests of capital. Fast forward to today’s White Evangelical Christianity, where salvation only entails a sort of mental assent to a historical event (Jesus’ death). What you actually do - good or bad (like helping the poor) - is largely irrelevant to your eternal status. What matters is being in the “in group” that demands conformity when it comes to various socio-political concepts (abortion, homosexuality, et al).

Christian salvation is “confusing” because after the first couple centuries or so, it’s definition was forged in ways to serve the interests of the powerful.

The old Top Gear with Clarkson, Hammond, and May. I feel weird watching it because Clarkson especially has become such an insufferable reactionary, and old shows really go hard on climate change skepticism. But when it’s at it’s best, I find watch three friends having a fun trip together to be very relaxing.

Thanks - I’ve seen Winboat mentioned several times in the comments, I’m going to try that first.

I haven’t heard of WinBoat before, I will check that out thank you.

It’s been a few years since I tried making my Zune work on Linux, I should give it another try, thanks.

It really is a great little device. I believe there has to be a market out there for a Linux device similar to it, something just for music / radio / podcasts.

The source data shows that while active users are down, the number of posts and comments are near all-time highs. While you need new users to help counteract churn, I think the higher post/comments count points to what I think a lot of people feel here: that quality seems to keep getting better and better.

Regarding how to bring more people in, I personally like how different lemmy servers have slightly different characteristics but each seems to appeal to larger groups. I see a future where there’s probably a small-ish number of large servers that cover broad groups of people.

“We need to get beyond the arguments of slop vs sophistication,” Nadella wrote in a rambling post flagged by Windows Central, arguing that humanity needs to learn to accept AI as the “new equilibrium” of human nature.

I’m starting to notice a recent trend in tech CEOs. They seem to be saying “yes, we know you hate it but too bad get used to it”.

The fraud is the cover, racism is the real angle.

There was similar fraud uncovered in New York state I believe earlier this year, which was significantly larger in scope, and that story hasn’t even cracked the news. Pointing out the racism here, while correct, isn’t at the core of the issue IMO.

To actual Stormfront-posting capital W capital N White Nationalists, years ago they made the “issue” of Somali immigration into Minnesota and other places across the northern US stretching from the Cascades to the Great Lakes one of the causes they got the most worked up over. I have yet to see a White Nationalist envision a takeover of the entire USA. What they do advocate for, amongst themselves, is creating a white ethnostate in the Pacific Northwest, possibly reaching eastward across Minnesota and Wisconsin. The reason for this is, take a look at a map of counties in the US with >95% white concentration. If you do you will notice just how white that part of the country is (and how conservative it is, if you overlap it with a voting map). They see that area as “theirs” and the home of a future white homeland.

White Nationalists perceive the immigration of Somalis into Minnesota as the tip of the spear of their great replacement theory. They think Soros et al specifically target the whitest areas of the US and mark them for “replacement”. While this is all obviously ridiculous and gross, these people see it in terms of a life-or-death struggle.

Just like other issues that were only in the realm of furthest edges of the right have been mainstreamed into the GOP and conservative media ecosystem before, this topic and broken containment. It’s a deeply racist idea that no doubt has a ardent champion in Stephen Miller (who I am 100% is a White Nationalist based on pretty much every word out of his weasel mouth) and likely others in conservative leadership. That’s the real story behind this.

I genuinely hate the aesthetics of it. I can’t stand Christmas music or Christmas movies. The “Christmas episodes” TV shows run are so incredibly corny. I find the decorations to be tacky and ugly. I feel like I’m suffocated by so much cheap plastic crap that will be thrown away after the holidays.

I suppose that all wouldn’t be so bad if the “Christmas season” didn’t stretch out for so long. It’s now well underway before Thanksgiving, and I’m being conservative with that. That means at least 10% of the year - so 10% of my life, too - is spent under the Christmas regime.

But on a deeper level, I think it points to a real sickness in society. Capitalism has so thoroughly destroyed our real social connections to each other. It breaks those human bonds and creates atomized individuals who are only supposed to care about themselves. But that’s not who we are as a species - we are social creatures who have a couple hundred thousand years of cooperation with each other in order to survive.

On some level, capital “knows” ripping us away from our social being is not only unnatural, but atomizing us so thoroughly harms social reproduction. Christmas has become a way of resolving this problem. BUT, it’s capitalism… so the solution can’t be something like “give workers the month of December off so people can spend real quality time with each other”.

So capitalism has created this artificial holiday structure where “family”, “giving back”, and “what really matters” is centered, but it’s all done in the most superficial way possible. It’s all kabuki. Capital creates an imitation of social connection and still manages to make it about accumulating more capital. Spend money on presents. Don’t like the commercialism around presents? That’s ok, spend money on airfare or gas to see your family. Use up your meager PTO at the end of the year when it’s slow and costs your boss less. But I think getting workers to spend money is still just the secondary objective of Christmas. It’s much more about getting people to forget how deeply separated we are from each other. To pretend for at least 10% of the year that everything is normal, capitalism is normal and being disconnected from each other is normal so long as you watch a couple movies once a year that are supposed to remind you that “what really matters is family” - the feeling though, not the reality.

That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

Communism killed 100 million billion trillion people.

Also that ethnostates are bad.

It’s remarkable how 5 years ago, I would not have been able to do my job just with web apps. Just recently I used my personal Linux laptop for 3 weeks while away from home. It worked perfectly for the job with two minor exceptions:

‘1. There’s a proprietary web app that requires you to upload a specifically-formatted .xlsx file, couldn’t get that to work.

‘2. MS Teams - unless you have the web page pulled up and are looking at it, it will show you as Away instead of Available. Workaround was to just leave Teams open on my phone and have the screen always on.