OpenStars

Cool, thanks! None of that really makes sense to me, so I guess I will just have to follow your directions and watch it happen in order to learn. Especially if I can find something where I can enjoy or even halfway stand the taste, that will be great:-).

It was not his fault - he inherited a shit storm and he did manage the enormous set of multiple crises fairly well compared to most past presidents (e.g. how would GWB or Clinton have fared given similar circumstances?) - but Americans will blame him regardless. And somewhat correctly so, bc the buck stops here, and he has not fixed either the inflation nor the housing affordability issues.

Then again, it is now month six of the fiscal year (begins in October) and Congress STILL has not passed a budget yet for 2024. Nor does the Supreme Court look... entirely functional either. So for his presidency to be THIS competent, when nothing else is right now, is nothing short of amazing. And that credit he deserves, even though the for-profit media will not offer it.

Assuming they even care at all, and were not just dicking people around purely bc they could.

But assuming not, it is like that strategy that police use when they want a raise: pay us or else, capiche?

As a wise person said once, "Not all older tech are necessarily worse.":-)

It's just that capitalism wants to sell you what they want you to buy, rather than what you truly want:-(. I mean, capitalism made this too, but I am saying that I think that is why people are constantly pushing for the newest and latest thing: b/c if you already have old thing, then they want you to buy new thing too, even if old thing was perfectly fine for what purpose you were using it for. :-|

OMG I LOVED Flatland! There is also Sphereland, but especially considering when it was written, Flatland was by far more innovative and creative. Sphereland was an homage btw, not written by the same author, and instead much later, slightly updating things to include Einsteinian physics.

Okay in that case, you might be interested to know: C.S. Lews - the author of Chronicles of Narnia, and well-known apologist for both christianity and atheism (hehe, he switched, then switched again:-P he left his childhood religion behind, became atheist, then became a different type of Christian) -has this trilogy starting with "Out of the Silent Planet". I highly recommend it for anyone who wants "imaginative scifi", in the spirt of Flatland. It is less known than his fantasy works, I suspect b/c the details did not hold up well in historical hindsight, e.g. all of those creatures on Mars and Venus that we never did end up finding... but it was nevertheless quite bold in its risk-taking in that regard, having been written prior to that - even though he knew reality was not going to end up anything like that, yet he made this fantasy work anyway:-D. Also I love the neat way he has of making you be skeptical enough to question EVERYTHING that you believe:-).

In that series he puts forth basically exactly what you are describing. These are beings within our universe, but are entities of energy whose only way to interact with our world is... well, imagine how you would interact with a bacterium: you'd have to make a puppet and say "this is me", but lol it really isn't. And yet, from a certain POV, it kinda is? Like the best way to talk to "you" is to walk over to the puppet and engage with it, which your set-up would likely be predicated upon, as in even if their entire universe is observable under a microscope slide, still that is where your camera is pointed and zoomed at.

I also thought it was neat how planets are these dirty little mud-balls, in the eyes of those who literally fly through space - to us they are our entire worlds, but to them they are navigation hazards!!:-P We are the bugs that splatter on their windshields? Or perhaps the mud-balls are dangerous even, like reefs to a boat. Another interesting point was that space is not as "dark" as those pictures from the moon would suggest, b/c of the light streaming outwards from the sun (this one I can never do justice to the explanation, and anyway it may have been just more fantastical world-building material). The first and second are wonderful depictions of what it might be like to travel to Mars and Venus, while the third is more abstract, being on Earth but they do wake up King Arthur, in order to fight against aliens acting as demonic spirts that possess the spirit of a beheaded psychic kept alive with like lasers or something, so... there is that:-).

So many scifi series - like Star Trek - do such a wonderful job of showing us these imaginative concepts. But still there is something to reading them rather in books (or listening via audiobooks I guess), and since these were never made into movies, that is pretty much the only way to experience them. Enjoy!:-)

That reminds me of this FASCINATING deep dive by Innuendo Studies on agency / protagony. Warning: while not technically NSFW... caution is still advised.

Hehe, I can just imagine that in my mind...wrrr.....:-P

Well, I imagine the write-once, re-write-never part also may limit its applicability too:-). Then again, for a purpose where the data doesn't need to be constantly changing, like storing a TV show or movie, possibly even music if someone wants to listen to albums rather than randomized songs, it could offer a lot of practical utility to many people.

as if I could give them the trans

Sorry but I did lolz at this - as if!:-P Part of the funny is that the Bible says "Judge not, lest you be judged", even though it also has a whole list of judgements for leaders, who were supposed to be held to a much higher standard. So to ignore the latter - letting leaders touch little children who would rather not - while also ignoring the former... they aren't even reading their own book.:-(

Though I guess you see that it is not just Christianity. In some parts of the world it is Muslim, in others it is Hindu, in still others it could be Buddhism, or whatever. One day there will even be fundamentalist atheists I believe, despite how it promotes skeptical thought and so that is fairly rare for now, human nature is just that lazy!

Anyway I am proud of you. Stand up for yourself! That is definitely not my situation but who the fuq cares, b/c you need to be (free to) be you. And that's the problem with Authoritarianism (here's a another link to a whole other series on that if you want - this Innuendo Studies should have nothing whatsoever to do with HBO, and therefore you probably have seen it already:-P): they lack empathy and allow - even perform - the judgement onto others (except their leaders, who they conveniently exempt from all proper consequences of their actions), never dreaming that one day it will wrap back around to themselves. "First they came for..." That process demeans us all, and yeah, one day it may be too late to reverse course. How ironic that you are showing compassion to them even while they spit at you (as Jesus would, hehe:-P). Stay strong, my sister in empathy!:-)

Speaking of, I hope you never catch up to us:-). Though as you say, the English speaking part is a bit closer to us in that regard, highly unfortunately:-(. Though, you still having a somewhat functional government does mean that you should be alright:-).

Yeah tape is niche, but still serves its particular purpose well!:-)

Welcome! :-) Things are better here, mostly.

Firefox is far from perfect though, and in fact it is so far that I do not blame people for not using it. I mean, I still do on my phone, but even there I keep wondering when I will get around to trying alternatives someday. When I do switch though, I will probably always keep a copy of Chrome handy, just in case.

As an example, if you use a PIV card (for work or whatever), Firefox has long-standing bugs from YEARS in the past where it will just keep querying it, over and over again, every five seconds, all day, every day. Not to visit websites that might need it mind you but just b/c. You cannot both keep a PIV plugged in and have Firefox open, unless you go in and do complicated stuff to remove the driver inside Firefox - which removes the option to use it when you do need it - and then even you have to keep doing that all over again each time you restart it (unless you tinker around and do even more complicated stuff - at which point why don't I just switch to LibreWolf or some such?).

Anyway, I still somewhat like Firefox - I use it daily and exclusively on my mobile - but again, it is not perfect, so I understand when others may make a different choice.

Edit: Yup, I am downvoted into the negative, without a single explanation as to why, even though I mentioned how I use Firefox literally daily and wholly exclusively on my mobile, where the majority of their development efforts seem to be going lately, but b/c I do not support it "hard enough" this is "bad"? Lemmy is extremely authoritarian when it comes to such matters as this - agree with me or else. Oh well, I don't mind if people choose to think differently than me, I just wish we could discuss it civilly - anyone want to try to explain?