Curious Canid

I’m not sure if this helps, but my PayPal account has two sources configured. One is direct withdrawal from my checking account. The other is a debit card tied to my checking account. I have never had a merchant refuse it.

My city plows the bike paths at the same time it plows the emergency routes. We’re in Wisconsin, but a startling number of people still commute by bike all year long.

I try very hard to buy everything on physical media. I subscribe to a few streaming services, but I never buy non-physical media. You don’t really own anything that can suddenly disappear because a company changes policies, get bought, or goes out of business.

Everything I buy is then ripped and stored on my local media server. That makes them more convenient and allows me to store the physical media out of the way. If something goes wrong, I can always re-rip.

It is worth noting that optical discs age and can become unreadable over time. If that happens, I can always go in the opposite direction and burn a new disc from my digital copy.

Recorder is one of the easiest to learn. If you want something you can use to accompany yourself, guitar is the obvious choice, but it does require some cramped hand positions. If your joints are still recovering you may want to look into keyboards instead.

For what it’s worth, I’ve found leaving to read music for a particular instrument is easier than learning to read it more generally.

Best of luck!

Taking an absolute stand may be comforting, but it has not and will not actually accomplish anything.

Our existing system is broken. Our current choice is between continuing with it, and trying to influence, or exchanging it for an authoritarian government run by a vindictive child. In the long run there may be other options, but right now you aren’t going to get a third choice. One or the other of those outcomes is going to happen.

Trump has said, at various times, that he would enact violence against protesters, have them arrested and held without due process, or have them deported. How effective do you think your efforts to push for more progressive government policies are going to go under those conditions?

Burning it all down sounds good in theory, but nothing happens in a vacuum. If we allow the current system to fail it is not going to be replaced with an idealized new system. It is going to be replaced by whatever existing movement is in a position to assert itself. Right now, that is will be the right-wing authoritarians.

You’re seeing only ideals and not reality. I’m all in favor of applying pressure toward better goals to both parties. That does not change the fact that a candidate of one of those two parties is going to win the election and run the country.

False equivalence is another problem with ignoring practical results in favor of pure ideology. There is a vast difference between Biden and Trump. It’s obvious from looking at what they’ve done already. It become even more stark if you pay attention to what Trump is saying he intends to do if re-elected. Trump genuinely wants to destroy our system of government, eliminate democracy, and rule as a dictator. He badly wants to persecute those who have offended him or who disagree with him. And he now has detailed plans for how to go about those things. When someone tells you who they are you should believe them.

Biden will run things the way he has been, which does not make me happy, but provides an opportunity for change within the system. How do you expect to enact progressive changes under a right-wing autocracy?

Even if your only concern is the Gaza genocide, Biden and Trump have significantly different positions. Biden has making a weak and unsuccessful attempts to rein in Israel. There is reasonable hope that he does have a limit for how far he’s willing to go in that direction, as evidenced by his temporary halting arms shipments. Trump has said that he supports what Israel is doing, but thinks they aren’t going far enough. He has, in the past, suggested using nuclear weapons to resolve situations like this.

It all comes back to false equivalence. We are not talking about two of the typical business-as-usual candidates. We are on the verge of becoming Nazi Germany. If you aren’t doing everything you can to prevent that, whatever efforts you make toward other goals are going become irrelevant.

Do you honestly think that Trump would be better? Have you read what he has to say about this subject?

I’m disgusted with Biden too, but sometimes choosing between the lesser of two evils is the responsible thing to do. Ethical choices are often the most difficult. One-topic voting is almost never ethical. The ultimate results do matter.

I’m sorry, but I don’t see how anything can beat “Put down that chainsaw and listen to me”. It may be the best opening line ever sung.

We need a similar bill that would send anyone convicted of unlawful activity in the US Capital since January 5th of 2021 to Siberia.

Translation: Elon Musk desperately searches for buzzwords that will boost the stock of his failing company.

One of the worst things about depression is all the sneaky ways in which it reinforces itself. You can’t function at full capacity, which is a direct problem, but also makes you feel lazy. You sometimes don’t have the energy to deal with people, which isolates you and makes you feel like you’re offending them. You just plain feel awful and feel guilty about inflicting it on the people around you. It seems like everything hits you twice.

Therapy can help with both aspects, but I think it is particularly useful in helping you recognize and deal with the secondary parts of the problem.

Republican Legislators: We are strongly opposed to child labor.

Public: Finally.

Republican Legislators: So we are going to severely punish any children found doing it.

Public: Wait a minute…

Post Grape Nuts: USA

I am yet another fledditor. I think I looked at nearly all the alternatives and I liked the Fediverse the best.

I do miss the sheer volume of participation on reddit, but I that has been steadily improving. And the quality and tone of the conversations is generally much better.

Any forums with large numbers of participants is going to have certain problems. The difference is that reddit turned most of those problems into institutions while Lemmy provides better ways to deal with them and easier ways to avoid them.

Having worked in high tech for almost four decades, I have come to appreciate the advantages of not having everything controlled by a central authority. Sooner or later the leadership, however benevolent, will change into something repressive and exploitive. Once that happens, it will remain that way forever, because there is no financial or political incentive to move in that direction. Replacement has been the only thing that works, at least so far. The Fediverse provides an alternative to that cycle that seems viable.

It works quite well as a standalone. It was a prequel to the main Vorkosigan series, which is centered around the son of the main characters in Barrayar. The rest of the series is also well worth reading.

Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold.

It has just about everything. There is action, romance, drama, humor, and tragedy. A whole cast of characters undergo personal growth. Relationships develop and change. Large-scale high stakes issues are covered along with a lot of smaller individual stories. Every character has a different voice and the dialog sparkles.

We really enjoyed the Milwaukee Public Museum. It was comparable to the natural history museums in Chicago and DC, but it was a little more current and extremely well maintained. We’ve been back and expect to visit again.

That seems like a good idea to me.

Knowing about that has enriched my life!

Just because you’re outnumbered doesn’t mean you aren’t right.