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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: November 29th, 2023

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  • You’d think that would be eye opening and somewhat concerning to folks. But I’ve found what tends to happen is ‘record fatigue’.

    We’ve had ‘record high’ temperatures here in the Netherlands frequently the past few years. Meaning, the news will report ‘it’s the hottest july 1st since the start of the measurements’ and that ‘the previously hottest july 1st was in 2017’

    Basically, it’s telling you two things:

    • it’s a record high temperature
    • the time between these records is decreasing.

    Which obviously means things are getting worse. But most people just shrug and go ‘Gee, another record high temperature, how boring, those happen so often’.

    Same thing with other types of problematic weather. At least stuff like record rainfall or flooding is hard to ignore.


  • Shit, in the netherlands we basically live off of that stuff. The per capita consumption is two kilograms, which puts ut at the tol of the list of global consumption.

    Every supermarket pretty much has an aisle dedicated to licorice in all forms. Sweet, salty, spicy, soft, hard, dipped in chocolate… you name it.

    I’m amazed some people don’t like it. Though I’ll concede I’ve obviously grown up eating it since before I could talk.




  • I had so many experiences like that. I was a voracious reader as a kid. I was reading books in English (my second language) about topics such as aeronautics and space exploration. I was reading far, far above the level of any classmates. And that lead persisted all through college.

    Every time a new teacher would give us an essay assignment, I’d get called out to stay after class once they graded it. And they’d casually accuse me of plagiarism.

    My usual response? Quiz me, right the fuck now, on any paragraph you want from that 20 page paper. And ask me the definition of any word you’re unfamiliar with. That shut them up right quick.

    A large vocabulary is its own reward, but not so much when those who’re supposed to teach you are lacking in that department.


  • Exactly. Back in 1995, my dad could never get online. Heck, he couldn’t even remotely figure out a PC. We tried to teach him some basics like ‘click with the left mouse button to open something’, but he was downright scared of the thing. He never, ever touched it.

    But ‘thanks’ to the iPad, he’s e-mailing, on Facebook, on YouTube, TikTok etc. Which also has the unfortunate effect of subjecting him to boomer brainrot. He’s now more actively misinformed than he used to be because of that fucking iPad.

    We’ve made the web accessible to people who shouldn’t be on it. Because it’s hurting them and hurting society as a whole.




  • God yes. I was one of the first people to buy it. Back when you had to send Notch himself five bucks to play it. I was interested in the concept, but frankly didn’t think it would have much appeal beyond people who enjoy completely self-guided experiences with no set goals.

    How wrong I was.

    It’s been wild seeing it rise to the top of the pop culture heap, become popular with 12 year olds and eventually result in me seeing a movie starring Jack Black based on it.

    It’s wild that it started with me and a handful of guys sending Notch a fiver.


  • Goddamnit yes. It’s why I’m very pro-gatekeeping. Because people who are new to a hobby because it got popular tend to ruin every-fucking-thing.

    For example: flight simulator. That used to be an exclusively nerd domain up until the FS2020 version, which was released on Xbox. The result: a massive influx of new garbage payware and a decline in quality of established brands. While also making the sim worse in order to chase broader appeal. It’s gotten a bit better after covid went away and the normies dropped the hobby, thankfully.

    Also: film photography. The popularity of instagram and YouTube ‘influencers’ got a lot of people into our hobby the past decade. It’s lead to increased gear prices, film being more difficult to get and the forums flooding with the dumbest possible questions, since these newcomers are allergic as fuck to reading manuals or watching any tutorial longer than thirty seconds. It’s also lead camera manufacturers to chase this new demographic by making their cameras shittier and more ‘instagram-friendly’. Here’s looking at you, Fujifilm and your shitty X-half.

    Take it from someone who’s been around a bit: if you like a thing, keep newcomers away from it. Gatekeep it like the Berlin Fucking Wall, lest they completely fuck up your hobby.





  • It definitely wasn’t mainstream here in the Netherlands up until the mid 1990’s from my perspective. Any guy who did things with another guy was ‘gay’, irrespective of anything that they might engage in with women.

    I imagine if that guy grew up in say, the 70’s UK, they genuinely might not have been aware that ‘bisexual’ was a thing you could be.


  • For this comment, I want to be absolutely clear that I do not give a shit about AI, and that it in no way factored into my decision to buy this iPhone 16 Pro Max.

    With that disclaimer out of the way:

    I very much look forward to a class action lawsuit. Apple advertised specific features as coming ‘very soon’ and gave short timeframes when asked directly. And they basically did not deliver on those advertising promises. Basically, I think there’s a good case to be made here that Apple knowingly engaged in false advertising in order to sell a phone that otherwise would not have sold as well. Those promised AI features WERE a deciding factor for a lot of people to upgrade to an iPhone 16.

    So, I’ll be looking forward to some form of compensation. It’s the principle of it.




  • Only a fool or a 12 year old would think otherwise. Back in the late ‘90’s, the web had a great sense of community. On forums, IRC, places like Cybertown, etc. You had smaller communities where you could reasonably know most users. They had a human scale; like a friendly neighbourhood.

    Modern social media is definitely terrible. It happened because we were too welcoming. Back in those days, the web was a nerd domain. We all shared the same sort of interests and optimism for the future of the web. You had to BE a nerd to get online. To WANT to be online.

    But now that it’s too easy for everyone to get on, the idiots have taken over. We really should kick everyone off the web who can’t name at least three characters from either Star Wars or Star Trek.



  • I’ve seen interviews with him where he mentioned: ‘I was reading a synopsis of a story that sounded really interesting’ only to discover that it was about a book that he had written. And apparently he has no memory of writing Cujo.

    There’s ‘doing coke’ and ‘doing coke so much I forgot I wrote a fucking best selling novel’.