The trans bit is key here. First that, then anything “promoting homosexuality”. It’s in Project 2025 that the porn bans are about criminalising LGBTQ people and allies.

Can you quote me calling anybody a Nazi or a cunt? Can you explain how anything to do with Trump is of my own making, given that I’ve never once so much as set foot in the United States?

You seem to want to rant at a general “you”. That’s valid, but the format you’ve chosen is directly addressing a specific human being. And now you’re doubling down as if I’m being dishonest by not being the imaginary version of me that only ever existed in your head?

You can pretend you know me better than I know myself if you choose to, despite seemingly not even knowing basics like what my nationality is, but I’m not really sure what you think either of us are going to gain by that.

I wasn’t kidding about going through your definition of fascism one aspect at a time and talking about how the current US administration fits it completely. That’s if you’re interested in actual conversation rather than just aimlessly shouting at the world.

You profess to think that talking to people is better than name-calling. Is that true, or is it just something you say in order to have a stick to beat people with?

To be clear: Trump’s opponents are saying no kings. Trump & those around him are tweeting pictures and videos of him as a king. Stephen miller said Trump had “pleniary power”. His followers want him to be king.

You’re a relatively large mammal. Your body is not designed to be productive all the time. It’s designed to have frequent periods of doing absolutely nothing. You’re also a pack animal whose survival depends on being social with other members of your pack.

So, wasting productive time by conversing nonsense? That’s how we evolved. It’s good for us.

The Beatles thing is a myth. Nobody connected to the Beatles has sued anybody over Paul’s Boutique. Most of the samples on Pauls’ Boutique were cleared, especially the most obvious ones.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/pop-hiss/story/2012-05-10/beastie-boys-sampling-in-pauls-boutique-again-in-spotlight

He adds that there are two myths about the samples and licensing on the Beastie Boys’ classic. One is that when the record was first released, neither the group nor its label, Capitol, had cleared any of the rights to the snippets of recordings that they and producers the Dust Brothers used. ‘They and their label were really cautious. They cleared tons of songs,’ McLeod says, citing the ballpark $250,000 figure that’s often reported, and the fact that the Jimmy Castor Bunch had sued the group soon after ‘Licensed to Ill’ was released.

Or, let’s say that it is a utopia and you somehow get in. Congratulations, you now have to spend an eternity with Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg.

Does it?

Yes. We can go through your list, if you want?

Did it also tick all those boxes in 2016, when you were all calling everyone a nazi and cunt? You know, why you could actually have talked to them and convinced them of your argument before you made this all so much worse?

I’m not really sure who you’re addressing here.

I was specifically talking about how you defined fascism in your post. That’s why I quoted it directly.

You posted criteria for what constitutes fascism. And the current US administration ticks all of your boxes.

Fascism used to mean something specific, dictatorship, violent nationalism, suppression of dissent, and the merging of state and corporate power.

…you are paying attention to current events in the US, right?

Was GamerGate really only 11 years ago? That’s spun my head a little, TBH. I mean, it’s the root of QAnon, from there Trump, and just so much about the current US. I could have sworn it was 10 years before Trump got elected, not 2.

I blame google. Seriously.

I almost exclusively use Perplexity to search for things now. When it gives me reliable information and actually answers the question I ask it, it’s fantastic. But that’s still only around 80-90% of the time. That’s actually not very reliable at all by any metric which is worth paying attention to.

But once upon a time you could search google and it’d look for the words that you searched for. But for years now it’s used “natural language” searches, which means that if you’re searching for a specific word it might not even look for that word at all. It might even take a definition of that word that you didn’t intend and search instead for a synonym to fit that definition.

Add SEO, ads, and paid search boosting, and you end up with results that are far less useful than they used to be. Add to that the fact that a lot of the actual sites being searched are now AI-generated themselves, and google is now a bad way to try to find something. And every other search engine has followed suit.

So I use Perplexity because even with an objectively bad hit rate - and the fact that it basically returns one answer from multiple sources, rather than multiple sources some of which might not be related to what I’m looking for, and therefore when it misunderstands is perhaps worse than google - it’s better than a traditional search engine for almost all text-based searches.

It’s clearly unsustainable, though, and for many different reasons. It’s certainly an iteresting time to be observing all of this. I can’t help but wonder what the landscape will look like in 10 years.

Remember when the excuse for allowing subs dedicated to jerking off to pictures of children was “free speech”? What a difference a few years makes.

I love how the photo of the inside of the place looks like it’s ai generated

One of the Tomb Raider games was some ridiculous discount on Steam, so i bought it. Cue interminable cutscenes and being given very brief control in order to walk a couple of paces forward before another cutscene. Or, even worse, the game taking over control of Lara for you.

I’d been playing 15-20 minutes - maybe even a little bit longer - when i decided “fuck this”, turned it off and never booted it again. Call me weird but i play games to play them. If it’s been that long and I’ve not experienced any gameplay then I’m not interested.

UBI doesn’t prevent you from earning money. It’s just that, no matter what, you get x amount of money every week/month.

Ireland is not part of the UK

For a metal waltz, try Cheval by Igorrr

For jazzy pop with an upfront floor tom, try Humanised by Sola Rosa

For messy disjointed verses and flowing choruses, try Giant by Bear Hands

For a shuffle-y groove with some slightly unusual snare patterns, try Home Away From Home by Cut Chemist - nothing too wild here, but it sounds like it’d be fun to play

For setting up random stuff like dustbin lids as percussion, try Sick Kids by Fjorka

For being kept on your toes by something with several distinct sections, including an unusual shuffle, tru Walking Headz by STUFF. The full stop is part of the band name

For rhythmic patterns not common in Western music, try Gnawa Beat by Bab L’ Bluz

For noisy punk with lots of fills, try Bakuro Book by Otoboke Beaver

For laid-back funk with some unusual percussion, try 3 On E by Vulfpeck

For if you’ve ever wondered what it would sound like if bossa nova and drum & bass had a baby, try Drum ‘N’ Bossa by Carbuncle

For fun swing-y jazz try Forgotten Places by Alif Tree

And, just for funsies, why not pit yourself against the most sampled song in history? Amen Brother by The Winstons - you know the drum sample (1.26, for anybody who wants to skip to it to see if they’ve heard it - spoiler: you have), but the tune itself is also a banger with a fun drum part

Frankenstein was the doctor’s surname. The creature refers to the doctor as his ”father“. Since it’s common for offspring to have the same surname as their fathers, i put it to you that the creature’s name is Mr. Frankenstein. And, just like the doctor, you can just call him Frankenstein for short.

You know, here. The internet.

It also reduces available accommodation for people who need it. You can complain about what landlords have done to private ownership, but at least that’s a home someone can live in.

With Airbnb you can charge a week’s rent per night but it’s not a home and nobody can live there.