[-] MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 1 day ago

Or perhaps they don't really give a shit about the Russian person at all, because this comes from a racist, settler-brained place and they just want to feel superior.

[-] MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 4 days ago

That makes sense and sounds like how I used to be too, no real TV, just a computer or laptop and I also don't like how they are made the center of living spaces.

I think it became a social thing for me, watching movies or listening to music with others while we sit around. I also exercise on a bike or something while watching a show if it's too cold to actually enjoy going on a ride just for leisure. If I'm alone, I don't end up watching it much, I'd rather read or listen to something while on my computer.

[-] MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 4 days ago

i dont even own a physical TV

Damn, do you not enjoy things like watching a movie in a theater (given all the bullshit was removed besides the movie)?

I wasn't big on watching movies for a long time, but then upgraded my sound system for music and eventually got a decent TV, if a bit outdated. This made it more enjoyable for me to watch at home what I would have seen in a theater before, but I hate the theater experience, so I found myself watching more movies.

I agree with everything else you said sucks about the experience, I'm just curious because I don't meet many people who don't have a TV unless they can't afford one.

[-] MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 4 days ago

As someone who meets your criteria, why would I ever put an antenna on my shit again when I can just pirate things or block the ads? An added benefit is that companies think both hurt them as if they are people and subverting their BS fills me with joy.

Whether the commenters are talking cable or not, both are arguably garbage alternatives to more contemporary methods of streaming media except in special circumstances due to the abundance of cell tower coverage and bandwidth. I wish I could say that radio was not also lumped in with this, but again, 50% of airtime is ads and I find the radio in my car less useful with each passing year.

You're allowed to like something and have people younger than you disagree. Fighting and talking down to them isn't going to change their minds. It's cool that you still get use out of older technology for free, but not everyone gets the same value from it.

If anything, don't blame young people for ruining your technology, blame capitalism for enshittifying it.

[-] MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 4 days ago

The cost to be born and continue existing in the US is also quite steep and if you hope to avoid these costs, dying is also quite expensive and in some cases illegal.

[-] MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 4 days ago

After years of putting up with this shit, I wouldn't be calling a complaint line, I'd be hurling things on top of the vehicles from the building, but libs call me unreasonable.

"Wow, looks like a cinder block fell off the building, guess it's a good thing your stupid car was illegally parked so it didn't hit any pedestrians. Thanks for protecting and serving us, ~~pig~~ officer!"

[-] MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 4 days ago

Not in most jobs.

[-] MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 5 days ago

I've been given some books on writing through the years, but never thought much of them. I didn't read these full articles, but what I saw looked good: Article 1, Article 2 (mostly contains links to other articles on the topic).

There's a lot to consume there in terms of writing theory, but one of my favorite exercises is taking a certain writer's style, identifying some of what is interesting about their style, and applying it to your own writing. The writing needs to be something connected to you and it helps if you can pick a topic that evokes emotion in you, even if it's otherwise not something you consider to be a notable story. The important part is being able to tap into your own vulnerability because it can help what you put on paper to be genuine. This doesn't mean everything you ever write needs to be this way, it's just helpful and a good place to start and learn. It's the whole idea of "putting your heart and soul or a part of yourself in your writing" but that people sometimes talk about. Once you learn to tap into that and break down the barriers, you can channel yourself into other writing much easier. Writing like you naturally talk can help, but it's probably bad grammar for writing (except when writing conversations).

Again, it's not always easy and I have no clue how much harder this is if you live somewhere without native speakers in the language you are writing, but you need others to read your work. That's what most writing is for!

If you end up doing technical writing for science or similar, my best advice is keep the layman in mind. Most science writing is overly clunky and full of jargon and buzzwords that not only drive off the layman, but drive off scientists not in that particular field. It's stupid and bad writing all to stroke the ego of the writer to get a false sense that they sound smarter. To many, it just makes the writing hard to consume. Technical writing should go into sufficient technical detail while aiming to be as easy to consume as possible, even if you make assumptions that the audience understands a topic. Here is an example of good technical writing.

[-] MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 5 days ago

Looks like my colon if I drank all that coffee.

[-] MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml 19 points 6 days ago

Recruit the neighbor to make a tiny library with you, set it up, and then begin filling it with the types of books they should be reading.

[-] MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 6 days ago

~~A potential dockworkers strike could mean product shortages and high prices ahead of the holidays~~

United States Maritime Alliance refusal to bargain with workers in good faith could mean product shortages and high prices ahead of the holidays

[-] MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 6 days ago

The other problem is actual genocide doesn't bother a lot of people.

That's because the entire West is and for centuries was founded upon and sustained itself upon the shoulders of genocide. It is literally baked into western civilization and in particular the US.

61

Her teachers are having the kids read (at least a portion of) "An Indigenous People's History of the United States."

I was dumbfounded when she told me this because I've heard all the disappointing things my kids have been taught through the years. This is an eighth grade middle school US history class being taught in the US and this book isn't in the official state curriculum. When my oldest went through this grade, she was never given this assignment, so it also seems to be a new change.

After my 8th grader and I had talked about her being disappointed in her class so far and wanting to know more about the interesting parts of US history, I'd planned to get this book and Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" for her to read.

Seems like the teachers were ahead of me this time. What a pleasant change of pace! I'll have to thank the two teachers responsible for this curriculum.

1

Can a similar feature as was added for articles where edits can be suggested or typos flagged for review and approval be added to library entries as well?

I understand that these are published texts, not wiki articles that should not typically be edited, but I've occasionally run across typos that I assume aren't from the original text. Things such as "the the."

I'm not familiar with how these texts are uploaded, so it's possible they exist in the source text as well and should be left unaltered.

44

I loved the old-style forums that were around before digg and Reddit largely took over their role. Today, Lemmy is the closest thing I've found to the same type of culture and tighter-knit community I felt on the older forums. Finding Lemmy has completely stripped any desire for me to want to use Reddit again as the culture there feels like it is constantly working to suck my soul out through my eyeballs.

While I understand everyone has different preferences than me, I also wonder why Lemmy users continue to frequent anything but the smaller, niche subreddits. Reddit feels as if it has been decaying for a long time and there is little substance left on the wider site, while Lemmy doesn't feel this way.

So what keeps you going back?

Is it hate-scrolling? Is it niche subs? Do you feel differently about the cultures of Reddit and Lemmy?

Please help me understand.

114

This is purely a rant because I don't want to end up writing an effort post about this topic.

Every year, we see Westerners posting about the "Tiananmen Square Massacre" across social media. Their devotion to "fighting the oppressive Chinese government" is like fucking clockwork. It's so reliable that if you wanted to, you can prepare posts and comments to counter their narratives months before each June 4th. The western narrative has been debunked thoroughly even by Western sources.

But the point of this post isn't to complain about the twisting of events, but the glaring contradiction that is their relative (or absolute) lack of posts about events outside of China that were equally or even more brutal than they claim June 4th was.

Why is that?

Why aren't they posting as regularly about the genocide of indigenous people in their own countries? Why aren't they posting so frequently about the massacres in Jakarta? Why aren't they posting as regularly about the bombing of Nagasaki or Hiroshima or Nagasaki or Dresden or Yemen or Iraq of Afghanistan or Syria? Why aren't they posting each year about the famines Britain engineered in India and other countries? Why don't I see yearly posts about the Nanjing Massacre? That also occurred in China. Why don't I see the same reminders about the transatlantic slave trade?

The governments that perpetrated (and in some cases, continue) many of these atrocities still exist and are still oppressing the people who were targeted during these events. This is why they say they target China, right?

Hell, the Holocaust and the subsequent resurgence of facism sees less attention from Westerners than the June 4th incident these days.

The reason for this disparity is that these people don't actually give a shit whether the Chinese people are oppressed. When they say "I hate the Chinese government, but I don't hate the Chinese people," they don't give a shit whether the Chinese people support and continue to build their current government. It's not about supporting others, it's about asserting the dominance and righteousness of the Western world. Not only can they not empathize with those outside the West, they put immense effort into doing the opposite.

It's about convincing themselves that they live in a just society and that, despite how badly they are oppressed, they could always be worse off. It's racist, but that racism serves a purpose: it is the copium that keeps them convinced that it's ok to be oppressed by their own governments.

I don't rant because I expect the sinophobic propaganda to disappear. I rant because I'm tired of the racism. I rant because I'm tired of the ignorance. I rant because all I want is to see people show others a bit of empathy, to show a little skepticism when they are told others are evil, a little curiosity about the other's point of view, but I'm constantly disappointed.

Rant over. Thanks for listening.

14
LoFi Marxist Speeches (www.youtube.com)

I don't know anything about the channel, but have been enjoying this playlist. LoFi tubes over famous lefty speeches/media.

Hope you enjoy them too!

20

I regularly make vector-based images as a part of my job and would like to upload files I make so they are available for public use.

Aside from Wikipedia Commons, I'm not familiar with any other well-known image databases that provide files to their users for free. Can anyone provide recommendations for places I can submit images I've made so others have free access to use them?

Image types are SVGs and PNGs that I have licensed under CC0, usually with a focus on scientific topics, similar to what is found in Biorender or similar products. I have already checked that I have the rights within my employment contract to release images I make at work to the public domain without any fear of reprisal.

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MeowZedong

joined 1 year ago