Active Member
...have you considered the possibility that there was something wrong with the stick and they sent it to you in such a way that it would break immediately and then say "well it worked when we shipped it"?Originally Posted by Jinsai
I am a very cynical person, you see, that's why I thought of that.
tempus est umbra in mente
It's totally possible, but I'll never know. I just have to eat this... it really did hit the tile floor HARD. I just stood there stunned for about ten seconds or so. There's no way that it could still really work after that. It'd have to have been built like a tank.
...and just now, for the third time, I have bought one of these things off eBay. Third times a charm?
Active Member
also "unhinged" has taken a new meaning this year as it's used to describe everything/everyone.
Just tickles my balls!
Active Member
she/her/hers
today i saw a lesbian (yes, it does matter to the story) freaking out at someone i follow on twitter. i was trying to be calm and reasonable when i engaged with her, and she repeatedly told me that she didn't "give a fuck" about my feelings, that her "rights are being taken away," and various other things. almost everything she said was super transphobic. when she started freaking out, she was complaining about a bisexual woman being homophobic for saying that lesbians are monosexual (which is true) and that it's unfortunate that so many lesbians won't consider sleeping with trans women because they don't consider us "real" women. after a bit of back and forth, she called me homophobic (which is hilarious because i'm pansexual and have dealt with homophobia for 20 years) on her own timeline, and then i blocked her.
it is so ridiculous how many people in the queer community are transphobes. it just makes no fucking sense.
tl;dr i got called homophobic by a lesbian TERF today which is just all kinds of ironic.
tempus est umbra in mente
@eversonpoe the internet can be a terrible, terrible place. Right now especially, when it's the only way a lot of people have available to connect with other humans.
I think we're going through a social experiment, and it's revealing some really bad stuff about us while it drives us crazy. This person you're talking about sounds REALLY pissed off. I can identify with that, and I can promise that being super pissed off and frustrated can make you think/feel/say incredibly stupid things.
I can't claim to understand a woman who identifies as a lesbian attacking the transexual community... that sounds incredibly stupid, counter productive, etc... Then again, I'm a boring straight white guy.
There's a chance that this person just might be going nuts. It might not be that she's as bigoted as she sounds. If anything, her bigotry is seemingly self-confrontational. I don't know this person... maybe she is really just confused right now, and that's something I can completely sympathize with. Either way, yeah, we probably all need to just block people when they say stuff like this. You won't get anywhere trying to reason with someone who has this "stance." Nobody wins, and nobody can help.
she/her/hers
*transgender
transsexual is an outdated (and often inaccurate) term.
anyway, when i looked back through her timeline, it's all classic TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) behavior, so this isn't a new thing for her.
it also doesn't help that JK Rowling, a beloved author with a reach that rivals most celebrities, has become an outspoken TERF, and so many of her fans have internalized her beliefs. her upcoming book is about "a murderous cis man who dresses as a woman to kill his victims." i read an excerpt from it and in two paragraphs, she manages to be racist on two different levels, as well as transphobic! it's honestly impressive.
people have so many misconceptions about the trans community. this woman actually regurgitated the "you're trying to take away our bathrooms" bullshit. she seems to think that by giving trans women rights, hers are being infringed upon. it's the same way that right wingers think that giving rights to people of color somehow takes away their rights (which is just straight up racism). it's fucking ridiculous. it's not a pie; giving some of it to other people doesn't mean you get less. it's such a narrow way of thinking and it harms so many people.
anyway, i'm just getting really fed up with how shitty people are. it's so easy to be kind and people still choose to be horrible. i really don't understand it.
Active Member
something I learned this morning: CO2 buildup can happen when you never open your windows in your house, and we've been unable to open windows for the past week due to the fires here. I at least leave the house to go to work every day but my wife and son are stuck home for school and other things. Both of them have been unreasonably cranky for the past few days so I'm thinking of making them drive around - he's getting his learner's permit - more at night to give them a chance to air themselves out.
edit: I hit submit without remembering I had a point to this comment.anyway, nuts or CO2 poisoning: 2020 bringing the hits.
tempus est umbra in mente
No disrespect or insult was intended.
she/her/hers
i know! i was just letting you know! otherwise i would have gotten mad
Bite me
Yeah, I saw the "unreliable" review for that and many other routers, that's why I stuck with what I had.
FWIW: I moved my router to the most central location possible; I’m in a stretch ranch, the modem/router WAS in the basement on the far west end of the house, but I moved it to the middle of the basement. I put the three pods to various areas of the house, but put one pod RIGHT IN MY OFFICE upstairs on the east end of the house; I connected my laptop directly into the pod via Ethernet.
At this very moment (it fluctuates depending on atmosphere), I'm getting 37 Mbps on my laptop in my office on the east side of the house, and 316 Mbps on the west side of the house, upstairs.
Last edited by allegro; 09-19-2020 at 12:33 PM.
Bite me
I agree, having been best friends with a gay man (who was sometimes bisexual but eventually decidedly gay) and having been among his circle of friends from the 1970s through the 1990s when he passed away, it was dismaying that the gay community can be very discriminatory. Not just toward the transgender community, but toward EACH OTHER. For instance, in Detroit, "gay" clubs were nearly 100% frequented by homosexual males and the occasional female (who were deemed "fish flies"). Lesbians had to find their own hangouts. Transgender individuals were poked fun at behind their backs by gay men. It's not all some big giant tent. I've been saddened by this throughout my life.
How a lesbian - who's undoubtedly been to gay bars (unless she's living in a podunk town) where we all share the same bathrooms with ZERO problems - thinks that the trans community is affecting her in ANY way is just, I don't know ... I think it's just more conservative bullshit, really. Just because you're gay or lesbian doesn't mean you're necessarily "liberal." And the word "feminist" is thrown around with no real definition, anymore.
When I was growing up in the 60s/70s "feminist" meant the "Women's Liberation Movement" and women who burned their bras and demanded that they be allowed to sign contracts or have a credit card or own real estate without their husbands.
But in high school, I studied Simone de Beauvoir and I became somewhat obsessed. And so it began.
In college, as an English Literature major, I especially focused on feminist theory. I focused my Captone thesis exploring Eve's role in the Genesis story in Milton's "Paradise Lost" from the feminist perspective. I wrote a research essay exploring Elizabeth's role in Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" from the feminist perspective. I wrote a research essay exploring Portia's role in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" from the feminist perspective. Etc. etc. etc.
You can find, literally, HUNDREDS of scholarly articles, each containing 25-30 pages, making bold, elaborate claims that Eve is the blame for the downfall of mankind in the Genesis story. Or that Portia is a bitch. Or, on the other hand, that Elizabeth is a feminist (she is not; she married money, because that's what women did to survive in the Regency period).
And what perplexes me about so-called "feminists" like Rowling is that she is most-decidedly NOT a "feminist." She's more Phyllis Schlafly than Simone de Beauvoir. Rowling is 100% conservative. She is perpetuating conservative myths that are anti-women's rights. It shouldn't MATTER if you have the "parts" or not. Plenty of cis women have non-working parts, missing parts, it doesn't matter. The sex part isn't what makes a woman that gender.
See de Beauvoir, "One is not born but becomes a woman."
So now, we are again at a point in history where the term "feminist" has become totally toxic; in the 70s, it was commandeered by right-wing conservatives to equal "crazy man-hating lesbians" (feminazis) and now it's including much much more, has become SO toxic that I can, yet again, no longer even associate myself with it.
Back in the 80s, it got so bad that I had to start calling myself an "egalitarian."
You can see, of course, if you think about it, the underlying intention. It's insidious, but it's there: It's intentionally harming women, without women even REALIZING that it's happening. Even idiots like Rowling are contributing to the narrative that women are SO weak, we must be "protected" from the "dangerous predators" who seek to destroy women. For these women, this is always "men" - even if those men are now women. This is not "equality" for women. This is a dangerous narrative that means that women are "feminazis." They're becoming Rush Limbaugh's best friend.
It's just too bad that we all can't have love and empathy for one another, inclusively, to see each other's thousands of years of struggles, pain, issues, and to help each other with them, under a big, loving tent. Because I still believe it's possible. We've come SO far.
I can only say to you that it's not really worth arguing with these people. I've tried doing this, they're right-wing conservatives, they're in the same category as Trump supporters. Again, just because they're "gay" doesn't make them "liberal." Hugs to you.
Last edited by allegro; 09-17-2020 at 10:37 PM.
Bite me
My gay best friend was living with his gay boyfriend who, seriously, said "if you're bi, there is something REALLY fucking WRONG with you." I never forgot that, it just seemed, like, HUH?
This guy considered the whole prospect "twisted."
And I think the Gold Star issue might be why the lesbian that @eversonpoe mentions, above, wasn't willing to even consider a transgender woman; because if the woman USED TO BE a man, then the Gold Star is removed? I dunno, it's all weird. I guess we shouldn't really question people's attractions. But, blatant hatred, like you mention, crosses lines. It's phobia.
Last edited by allegro; 09-17-2020 at 10:01 PM.
tempus est umbra in mente
@Sesquipedalism , I've only really heard about this sort of thing; not really overheard it or experienced it outside of a couple surprising moments.
Would you say most people talking like this did so when they were drunk? Like, maybe this is the kind of "sloppy locker room talk" that happens in that environment?
Bite me
Nah, it's a thing. See also femmephobia, which is toxic masculinity among gays.
Caveat: Neither of us are saying that all (or even the majority) of gay men are like this. The main point is that LGBTQ isn't a giant kumbaya tent. Neither is "feminism" or women's rights.
Last edited by allegro; 09-17-2020 at 09:56 PM.
she/her/hers
@allegro & @Sesquipedalism fuckin' PREACH
I was nobody. Nothing.
So, high school football is a big deal in my neck of the gloom in the Texas panhandle. It's kind of the ONLY deal. Hundreds of people come from upwards of a hundred miles away, and, of course, half the hometown shows up, pretty much literally.
So, we have this pandemic going on, and you'd THINK they'd like, delay the season. And if they weren't going to do that, maybe do masks and social distancing.
But, oh, hell no. Not here.
Last night for the opening game, there must have been a thousand fucking idiots out there, packed in like sardines, with NO masks. There were also two full high school bands, blowing their fucking horns in the air, cheerleaders doing pyramids and shit, the whole thing.
The field is like, literally right behind our backyard. I HEARD all the people cheering, and was thinking, "dear GOD I hope they're doing this right.
But, I went outside to take some trash out, and could actually SEE the motherfuckers. I couldn't believe it.
What's sad is that, I THINK they feel like they're making some sort of political statement by doing this. This is rural Texas, after all: it's damn sure not the cool part.
So, I guess that what REALLY infuriates me, is that if their Lord and Saviour, Donald Trump, would tell people to wear masks and socially distance and shit, these poor fucks wouldn't be out there.
We've had covid cases, and there were a LOT, just a couple of little towns over: enough to make the national a couple months ago, and THOSE people come to the games here, too.
So like, ten to one, SOMEONE in that crowd was sick, and infected God knows how many people.
tempus est umbra in mente
You've heard it though. I think "locker room talk" is an umbrella term for people saying things amongst people they perceive to be "allies" in some sort of bigotry. It's not exclusively reserved for locker rooms in some literal sense; it can cover drunk/drug talk, or racists looking for people who share their ideas... it's not a good term. It's not a positive thing.
tempus est umbra in mente
The answer to this is simple: it's an appeal to other people who have engaged in that sort of talk. It's a dog whistle.
tempus est umbra in mente
There's conscious and subconscious dog whistles towards bigoted perspectives... whether it's conscious or not probably depends on how intelligent or self-aware the person is.
tempus est umbra in mente
Okayyyyy... I have a “friend” who was a Bernie or Bust person... now he thinks Bernie is a traitor for endorsing Biden, claims he goes door to door informing people that the dems are scum, says he’d rather live under Russian rule than the dems, and that it’s the fault of me and people of my age and race who will be responsible when Biden looses (sic) the election.
Then he said I’m a neo liberal and so I probably have never heard of Guantanamo bay... seriously.
I’m too old for this shit. Follow your bliss you sparkle pony fuckhead
Bite me
He may get his wish. Putin just poisoned his opponent, so there won’t be any more elections here, either. That will make it so much simpler for your friend. No more pesky politics to worry about. Just running from tear gas.
Throbbing Member
Little things that piss you off... term "sausage fest".
Active Member
I know, that was a terrible movie.
Active Member
This weekend we had to drive a long-ish distance to do an outdoor activity. The I5 bridge is under construction and they closed an entire span and all traffic that direction is an utter shit-show. But Google kept telling us "oh, it's only a 6 minute delay" so we said sure, let's do it. We sat at a red light for about twenty minutes, watching one car make it through at a time because of the timing issues between that light, the next one, and then a third before you could get onto I5. We watched the ETA on the directions slowly creep up but the time to get there never changed. I looked at my phone for directions and it gradually increased the delay on the route but it never changed the route on my wife's phone. wtf?
And then it turns out that my wife had the event on her phone on the wrong day so it was Sunday instead of Saturday. And we found out by texting the people we were supposed to meet "we're running a little late!" and they responded with "actually you're a full day early, please don't come!" which was funny (a little) but also ugh, you know?
So then Sunday we try again, but this time we completely skipped the Google directions via the bridge - which it still said "hey I5 no probs! only a 10 minute delay!" - and took the other bridge. On the way out, we passed a Shilo Inn HQ (of a sort?) that had a large flagpole on it. You can see it there but if you go to street view you can see it better. Anyway, the flags on display were a little anemic because of a lack of wind but I could definitely see two of them: the one on top was a Trump flag and one of the two below it was the US flag. The third could be any number of things but the fact Trump was on top got my blood up. Before you take me for some foaming-at-the-mouth Anti Trumper - I don't foam, thank you - I was more upset at the placement. You can love God-Emperor Trump as much as anyone, I don't care, but there's one thing you can't do: put any flag over the US flag. And I can't even be like "hey Shilo wtf" because on a separate page it says they are no longer at that address. And a separate Google search for that address says it's for lease so no one owns it? I guess then no one could complain if someone were to, I dunno, cut the rope holding the flags up?
tempus est umbra in mente
It's... I'm sorry, he might be playing around here. It just seems IMPOSSIBLE. People don't like to admit hearing this stuff, especially when they don't do anything in response. I've heard it all the time. I've even grinned at bad jokes to alleviate tension. I've felt like shit and ashamed afterwards, but I can't pretend I haven't at least overheard this stuff.
I'm not calling anyone a liar, but COME ON. You have to have at least heard guys being shitty! If we really get picky about it, we can at least point to popular movies that demonstrate it
Throbbing Member
Cookies. I mean, internet browser cookies :-), namely Google which have become worse recently. For example open incognito window for some youtube video which I don't want google to know about and use in recommendations, first delay - want to login? (no, button on left side), then 2nd delay - accept cookies? (right side button). Grrr. (and I do use uBlock) Repeat for each incognito session.
Active Member
on top of that, incognito mode doesn't work that well when Google already knows your IP and thus knows you're the one watching the videos anyway.
https://www.wired.com/story/incognito-mode-explainer/
I started noticing this when browsing YouTube and the recommended video section would be videos I've watched in incognito mode.Even if you don't sign in anywhere, the websites that you visit can use various clues—your IP address, your device type, your browser—to figure out who you might be, and to tie this to other information that might already be associated with you.
edit: I should also mention this is in a different browser even. so there are times when my wife will watch a video - she uses Chrome - and the recommended videos will reflect that in my Firefox and vice versa.
Last edited by allegate; 09-23-2020 at 01:24 PM.
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