Bidet attachment https://www.amazon.com/Bidet-Non-Electric-Mechanical-Attachment-Self-Cleaning/dp/B00P2XZDGG
And I grew up with window unit air conditioners. They kept a couple rooms cool no problem.
I don’t see how I’m talking out my ass.
I actually think life, for all its faults, is a beautiful and amazing opportunity. It’s a special blink of existence where we get to witness the unimaginable beauty in our universe.
Perhaps our lives (in the West, at least) have gotten too easy. Not that I want to go back or live a harder life - I don’t. But for most of human history, there was a pretty solid chance you were going to live a sick, miserable, religion-filled life as a soldier, slave, or peasant. All the while, you’d have pretty much no control over what happened to you. Even the wealthy and powerful were shitting in holes and sweating in the heat. Today, it costs you about two hours of easy labor to get a bidet and maybe 10 hours of labor to get an air conditioner that will keep you cool for many years. People still found meaning and reasons to keep going through the thousands of years of famine, plague, war, and slavery. They kept seeing something that made them want to have babies and love them.
The world isn’t perfect but it’s better than it’s ever been in most ways. Even if we don’t survive climate change and late-stage capitalism, I think the time I’ve already had with my son has been beautiful and meaningful. I only hope he gets to experience love, satisfaction, simple pleasures, etc. Even just a comfortable nap or the feeling of accomplishment after completing a task. It’s all so fragile and temporary. We are the universe experiencing itself and it’s really beautiful despite the miserable parts.
While it would be really nice to have January 6th off of work every year, I unfortunately can’t get behind the creation of this holiday.
Perhaps a compromise? We celebrate the day Trump lost the election. The right can celebrate it the way they celebrate the death and rebirth of Jesus, while the left can celebrate it more like Festivus.
Imagine what their demographics would look like if they also started a war and killed their young people though.
Not saying they won’t do it, and they do currently have an excess of young men specifically, but a country with a population problem isn’t in a great place to start a war imo.
For now.
And don’t forget, humans are also trained on the inputs of others.
Please don’t pity him. His first episode on his new show (Tucker on X), was him interviewing a lunatic who claims to have had a gay, drug-fueled orgy with Obama. Tucker literally interviewed this guy as if it were a serious claim, ignoring the fact that the guy is a convicted felon who is known for lying about crazy shit.
Holy shit.
^sometimes, ^we ^need ^dark ^humor ^to ^make ^it ^through.
I think the issue is that these service providers are more than capable of providing “unlimited” data, but choose not to because they can make a lot more when people inevitably go over their limit. The salt on the wound is the fact that ISPs usually have no competition. They usually have a monopoly on the area in which they operate.
Where I live, we have unlimited data that only gets throttled if you use a truly absurd amount (like if you’re constantly pirating large amounts of 4k movies or something). No caps or unexpected fees. Overall, I always felt like I had it pretty good, and I still think that…mostly.
The funny part is that my ISP had competition move to town recently. I kid you not, the week before the competition officially started up their service, my ISP sent a letter saying they were doubling my Internet speed for no extra charge.
They were trying to show how awesome they were but really it was the biggest slap in the fucking face. You’re telling me you were overcharging me that much for years?
Another issue is that advertising, which you never asked for, makes up part of your monthly data usage, as do routine and unavoidable downloads like security updates, video game patches, etc.
Some pretty appalling lyrics in this song in my opinion.
He complains about the struggles of the working class and then immediately says:
If you’re five-foot-three and you’re 300 pounds Taxes ought not pay for your bags of fudge rounds
He also says:
Lord, we got folks in the street, ain’t got nothin’ to eat And the obese milkin’ welfare
Gotta love a working class hero who takes a giant shit all over the working class. A smarter man would have commented on how the rich men in the food industry have helped to fuel the obesity epidemic, which disproportionately hurts those living in food deserts and/or economically depressed areas. This would include inner-cities and struggling mining towns, but I feel like we can probably infer which area this singer is more sympathetic toward based on other lyrics in this song.
This guy is just pandering to right-wingers who can’t think beyond Reagan-era talking points. Obese people on Welfare aren’t the reason for America’s shrinking middle class. This guy should have done more reading before he tried his hand at writing.
Shame because he’s got a good voice and knows how to make a catchy song.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
I actually like where the Fediverse is now. And I think a long trajectory of slow growth will be very good for it.
Reddit is a great example of the “enshitification” process at work. A community grows way too big, way too fast. People don’t adopt the norms, the norms change. That’s why the front page of Reddit is full of “Am I ugly?” Posts when it used to be (more) high quality discussions with a bunch of nerds. Hacker news is a good example of a slow-growing community which has mostly maintained an environment of intellectual curiosity.
Excellent blog post about this here: https://www.marginalia.nu/log/82_killing_community/
I don’t really want to play adversity Olympics with you but since you insist.
My parents were on food stamps and going to food pantries when I was a kid. Father was an absent alcoholic and drug addict. I myself struggled with heroin addiction in my teens and 20s and ended up ruining my life - or so I thought.
I managed to climb out of that hole (using Obamacare and the support of my family) to find a whole new perspective on my life.
I was angry, bitter, nihilistic, and selfish. I was obsessed with how bad and unfair the world is, and it gave me every excuse to keep buying bundles and nodding into oblivion.
Once I got clear of the horrible opiate withdrawal and paid back the considerable money I owed - once I stopped wanting to overdose and kill myself - I realized how nice it is to be able to take a walk on a warm day and just check out the birds. I realized a cup of coffee and a sandwich is a blissful experience, especially when shared with a friend or loved one.
When I think about the eternity I will spend in non-existence after I die, I know that I have very limited time to enjoy this strange and beautiful trip I’m on. I know this little blip would be the envy of the non-existent. If ghosts were real, I bet every one of them would kill to come back and just feel the sensations of smell, taste, touch, and sound. Or to look at something pretty.
Like dude, I’ve had parts of my life that were fucking miserable. Please don’t tell me it’s so easy. I’ve just decided to enjoy it and practice gratitude. Whatever happens to me, I remind myself that it’s better than going through opiate withdrawal on a plastic cot and wishing I was dead while everyone was disgusted with me.
Life, on average, is much easier now than it’s ever been. The wealthiest men alive didn’t have access to basic over the counter medicine that we have today. If you die of some horrific disease tomorrow, you’ve still had a higher quality of life than most of the richest people who have ever lived.
You know why my ramblings about the beauty of life sound so corny? It’s because a lot of people have realized it before. Because it’s so often said that it sounds cliche. There is a reason so many people have come to these conclusions.
My advice to you is to touch grass. No joke. And if you don’t want to touch grass, go watch a movie that makes you feel awe. Go read a book that moves you. Otherwise you’re going to have your eyes opened on your death bed and wish you had lived differently. Happens all the time man.