Bad times tend to pass. I find myself forgetting in the moment sometimes and yeah, life is frequently enjoyable in lots of different ways, so I try to remember that.

The band Ripe’s latest album, Bright Blues, but that’s practically every day for a while now

IIRC, that was part of the deal buying this and part of what made it so expensive and unique. News article at the time talked at length about the secrecy aspect. Kinda dumb IMO but I understand a super fan wanting to own something like this. The fact that this A hole bought it instead then immediately broke contract…

I luckily don’t have any major incidents but a couple stick out in my memory.

First time I realized an encounter was racist was my first time at a summer camp in the US around age 12.

I went with a friend to line up for the showers in the morning and it was just us two and another kid. I barely noticed he was there cause I was caught up in conversation. Not long later some other kids walk in and the waiting kid just blurts out in relief “Thank god, I was the only white guy here!” And even in my innocent, privileged little 12 year old brain I knew that was kind of fucked up.

Also had a South African girl break up with me as a teen cause her parents literally cited my nationality as an issue… While they were living in my country…

T

I feel like QAnon keeps upping the ante on the term “unhinged”

Thanks! I’ve heard a bit here and there about this one but somehow never picked it up. After a quick search it sounds much more specific to the internet than the more generalized “Amusing Ourselves to Death” but I think that’s kind of what I’m looking for right now. Will give it a go!

Good. Unfortunately it feels like far too little, far too late, and reading the article maybe only a one off thing for a particular shipment. Wondering if the article is just trying to paint the US as pushing back against the Israeli government without actually doing anything substantive.

Just in brief, ignoring some history and so on, Gaza has been under Israeli occupation for a while now, controlling essentially everything that goes in and out, including people. Hamas gained power there, and legit, the Israeli government has given resources to Hamas to keep them going, supposedly as an excuse to keep their thumb on the Palestinian population.

A lot of people supported the creation of a Jewish state coming out of WWII and the holocaust, but currently, and especially because of just how hard the Israeli military is going now, it’s becoming impossible to not see how much the Israeli government just wants to take control of all the land and wipe out the Palestinian people.

Of course, there’s more going on, and some people might disagree with my simplification, but I think this is as good of a simple explanation of at least my understanding trying to follow what’s been going on in the region since the early aughts.

I see where people might think that if you’re just looking at the immediate context from the October 7th attacks, but I urge you to look into the conditions Palestinian people had been living under for decades, especially in Gaza. Rather than vengeance, when you look into the history, the October 7th attacks feel more like an excuse to go full throttle into carrying out what the Israeli government and hardcore Zionists already been trying to do for a while now.

Took my meme addled brain way too long to remember Chad is also a country

I hate how not surprising this is and how little it will change anyone’s views

I mean, if we go back to the original Haitian term, they’d act like slaves who’ve been drugged up and/or made to really believe that they are “trapped” in their own bodies, mindlessly following orders. Here’s an article with some interesting journalism on zombies in Haiti in relatively recent years: https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2017/10/are-zombies-real

Pop-culture zombies though, I suppose they’d move as much and as well as they could before their muscles and bones can’t physically keep up with whatever is compelling them to move.

I really enjoyed “The Strike” when I discovered them on Spotify, but all of a sudden I noticed all their best songs were gone from my playlists and I found out they made specific albums/songs exclusive to their Bandcamp/physical copies, so I bought them off Band Camp.

I’ve always been kinda mixed on that move like, they clearly know which of their songs people really wanted, and decided to paywall them outside of a service I already pay for, which feels bad in principle. But at the same time, I like their music and I agree with them getting paid what they think they’re worth.

I hove no clear cut thoughts or conclusions, but I can totally imagine different bands/artists trying to find the monetization strategy and platform that works for them and leading to bad experiences for consumers.

Truth. I was genuinely angry seeing how Spotify kept trying to buy up everything podcast related. Felt like I was screaming into the void about how platform exclusive podcasts are antithetical to the free and open nature of podcasts. I hope their billions of dollars invested into podcasts continue to bite them in the butts.

Somehow I think Podcasts will survive enshittification. The basis is just RSS and file hosting, so at its core, it’s possible to create and distribute podcasts without huge capital investment. There’s always gonna be some people trying to get their voices out and Podcasts still seems to be the easiest way to do that so until some better method comes out, podcasts will live on.

If you’re talking about Podcast networks, streaming services, ad networks, then yeah, those might face some kind of enshittification and destruction, but no matter what, I’m pretty confident some good podcasts, and some good ways to listen to them, will stick around.

I used to sail the seas like freakin Luffy, but Netflix and Steam (plus becoming a wage earning adult) got me on the straight and narrow for a good long while. Then when all the different services started to compete I started dipping my toes in the water again with some sense of guilt. But after various struggles getting Netflix running in different locations I frequent and my parents not being able to use my account anymore, I have no shame flying the Jolly Roger.

Finding closure of some kind I think. Keeping in mind why you broke up, why it didn’t work out, why there wasn’t a future in the relationship, etc.

The relationship before my current partner of over ten years was really intense, I thought she was really the one, she was what I had imagined my ideal type was for practically my whole adolescence. But a spot of long distance and her parents disapproval had us in a bit of on again off again, where during one drunk call to me, she admitted to kissing other guys (at the very least), and that was enough for me to just go, “oh, I think our expectations are too different”, and I was able to put a hard end to that. Yeah, I occasionally think of her, but more in the curious way you wonder about an old acquaintance.

I had a friend with a sort of similar situation to yours, he and his girlfriend mutually broke up when we were all graduating high school because her friends convinced her that long distance wouldn’t work out. It really messed both of them up, especially since they kind of stayed in contact. A lot of weird stories there, but not really mine to tell. But he talked a few times about all the “what-ifs” and it feels like that’s the hardest part in letting go of a relationship.

On the other hand, if you can convince yourself that the answer to “what if?” is basically “nothing good”, I think that can help. Though, easier said than done, it’s kinda like brainwashing yourself by focusing on all the negatives about them. Easy for me because of the cheating, but not so easy for my friend.

Some phones still have em, most Xiaomi phones do but then you gotta put up with their software or be comfortable flashing a custom ROM.

I love having an IR blaster in my phone mostly cause my work doesn’t trust us with air conditioning remotes but also I never have to stress about finding the right remote for everything since I’ve got anything I might interact with daily that uses an IR remote programmed into my phone.

So me seeing ads in random languages is not me being clever with identity obfuscation, but big data being big stupid?

And thank you for your work in accessibility 🫡