It could just be because I’m older or because we have the internet now but when I was growing up, becoming the president of the United States was the most high profile, respected, and rewarding jobs someone could aim for. It was the “gold standard”. Now, I can’t imagine anyone saying to their kid, “you can be anything you want one day, even the president”. The office of the president is a joke.

Even if someone I were to fully support became president, everything is fucked now. The country is so polarized that there’s just a winning team and a losing team. There is no president who can bring everyone together and make things “great again”. No matter what a president does, the media and the citizens of the internet are going to twist reality to make all actions and statements support their narrative. I don’t see a way out of it.

Using an alarm to wake up. Actually, I got rid of all electronics in my bedroom aside from lights.

I had a coffee situation many years ago. I was having heart palpitations (skipping a beat) while sitting at rest and my doctor said the 20 ounces of coffee I drank was way too much. I have never believed him but I did cut back just in case. In recent years, I’ve observed that the more I get some regular amount of exercise in, those palpitations go away. I started going for walks and also noticed my at-rest heart rate drop noticeably. And, while few to begin with, anxiety attacks went away. I usually drink a 10 ounce cup of coffee in the morning - freshly ground, aeropress, black. A bit more on the weekends. Never past 10am.

The next issue I have regarding better sleep is breaking my habit of being enthralled with digital content. I read too much on my iPad at night. Been trying to read physical books and magazines more but the dopamine addiction is rough.

Additionally, I’ve been from trying to be more proactive and get shit done asap to leave more time for being bored. I believe boredom leaves time for creativity and leisure and better sleep. There’s just far too much to distract us from existing as calm and creative human beings today.

Here’s an example of how I perceived something incorrectly based on social media.

All the posts I saw were about how “MS13” was photoshopped on his hand - as if to suggest they were actual tattoos.

Apparently, what I’ve only just now inferred from watching this video, the overlayed text shown in the photo is a label for each of the real tattoos.

So, on one hand (no pun intended), you have a story about Trump believing photoshopped letters are real tattoos and on the other hand you have a story about whether the interpretation of the tattoos is correct to be MS13 related.

This reporter did a shit job. Trump offered to get the picture out and he blew the chance to get the facts straight on this hot topic - do you believe the letters “MS13” are actually tattooed on his hand or are you saying they’re the interpretation of the tattoos below them.

EDIT: rewatching the video and caught the moron saying “he had MS as clear as you can be. Not interpreted.” I mean… ya know, I honestly worry that we will ever come out of this in a good shape. Will we ever again have respect for the office of the presidency? Can we ever again elect someone who represents the best of us?

I’d be interested to hear from the youngest generation (15-20 YO) to hear if they care about this at all.

I’m approaching 50 years old and had been an early adopter most of my adult life. Growing up from the 1980s through 2000s, there was a near-mainstream narrative that we were living in a unique era of emerging technologies. It was exciting and we were anxious for anything new.

It seems to me that nothing is really new and there is nothing exciting, if not interesting, about technology today.

I’ve actually been stripping down the technology from my life as it’s become too distracting to get things done and has prevented personal growth and the formation of memories. For one example, I recently subscribed to a print magazine because I prefer a tangible object that I can associate with in and of itself (and choose to own and collect).

Looking at analog trends like vinyl records and film photography and cassette tapes, it seems like people are at least trying to incorporate tangible objects into a modern lifestyle. Then you have the trend of the dumb phones which indicate people are becoming more aware of the detriments caused by an always connected lifestyle. Thankfully, some car manufacturers are returning buttons to their cars in response to owner feedback about everything being a touch screen.

I mean, I’m not a multi-trillion dollar organization with different departments studying the feasibility of future products but I do wonder if something like AR glasses are already more of our past than our future.

I think there’s a more than reasonable desire for a device to help you through your day - especially in foreign countries. But do you think you want that to be glasses or something else?

Lastly, this reminds me of the prediction from Michio Kaku in Physics of the Future about augmented reality contact lenses. Should we at least accept AR glasses as first step towards contact lenses? Do you think society would accept these 20-40 years in the future?

The only people who should be worried about this conversation are therapists and philosophers.

Our culture is fucking with people’s heads by making them have to question shit like this. Words are made up (you should look up some definitions). Our emotions are not. No one should be judging anyone for whom they find attractive and no one should feel shame or pride for having a preference.

So why would people who are attracted to cis people (of a particular sex) and not trans people (of the opposite sex-assigned-at-birth to the sex they’re attracted to) necessarily be transphobes.

This is not a thing. At all. Just because I prefer red apples over green apples does not instill a phobia or hatred of green apples.

The LGBT movement, as with nearly all movements, is about education. It seems you may have skipped over the prerequisites jumped right to LGBT 201.

Yes, “It’s obviously a nuanced subject, and human sexuality is complex” and the point is that no one should be casting societal assumptions upon or judging anyone. The point is to mind your own business and support government legislation that protects marginalized groups from the ignorant and those who lack empathy. “Do no harm” shouldn’t be regulated to practicing doctors. We’ve all lost sight of the “treat others as you want to be treated” Golden Rule. So, mind your own business and treat others with the same respect you believe you deserve.

If you are personally struggling with your own sexuality, I would strongly suggest you seek guidance from a professional rather than pondering aloud on the internet and expecting validation. If you are struggling to understand the sexuality of others, I would suggest you stop trying and embrace the uniquenesses found in every corner of this planet.

Gotcha. I probably could have phrased that better.

Not worrying about how others perceive you and having something interesting to share with others is not contradictory.

I don’t have to like you or agree with you to listen to something you feel passionate about to share. Have you heard of YouTube?

If you’re weird and you have nothing interesting to share, if you lack the confidence to speak with others, then I’m not very likely to give you much attention.

Learning something “so others will like you” is exactly what I’m suggest you do not do. You should learn something so that you have personal confidence in something. The more you become proficient in something, the more confident you’ll become overall. Accomplishing goals and overcoming obstacles breeds confidence. It may help your social interactions if that thing is less niche and more universal but not exclusively.

This is why people ask others what they do for a living. They want to hear you speak about something they presume you’re passionate about. There’s a hope to engage in a conversation or to learn something from you. If you have some niche hobby or job and you’re good at it, people will listen to you. You may even find people come up to you at a party to hear more about what you feel so strongly about.

Don’t ever do something solely because you think it will make others like you more. If you’re not doing it for yourself, you’re not able to put all of yourself into it. You’ll never own that thing. You’ll just be renting it for others.

There is no inherent arbiter of good or truth.

If the trust in expertise is tarnished, reshaping reality is left to the uninformed.

Work first on being a good human.
That will make you a good (and attractive) man or woman.

The archaic concept of masculinity or femininity itself is wretched.

People worry far too much about what others think of them and what mold they should fit into. Be yourself. Be a good, caring, empathetic person with convictions and passions and hobbies. Become proficient in one or more things so others find you interesting. Learn how to do things without the aid of technology. Read books. Travel as far as you can. Give a shit about yourself and your community.

If you’re struggling to fit a mold that society is telling you you should fit into, you’re already lost. That doesn’t mean you can’t find yourself. It means that mold probably isn’t right for you. And there is nothing wrong with that. If others have a problem with you not being what they expect, that’s their issue to resolve. The sooner you’re able to let go of societal concepts, the more free you’ll be to be the best version of you.

Don’t confuse being a good man and being a good person. It’s the same thing. There is nothing you can do to become more of a man that won’t make you more of a person.

I hardly ever get spam calls. Today, I got a call from a government robocaller and a call asking for someone else whom I’m pretty sure had my number over five years before me. I thought these were legit but now, reading the comments, I’m not so sure.

People are way too willing to give out their phone numbers. So many apps and websites require a phone before ever signing in. I will not use any service that requires a phone number.

Because so many things rely on phone numbers now, when I got my new number in 2020 I lost access to a number of things.

2FA SMS verification can be spoofed so it’s not a secure method.

The only spam calls or messages I get are from government reps. Apparently “for government use” is not illegal and it’s practically impossible to get taken off the list. If anyone has a tip for this, please let me know.

Excuse me? Are you trying to say that side-loaded apps are more free of ads than those in app stores? What motivates a developer to release an ad-free side loaded app while refusing to submit it to (or failing to get it approved in) an app store?

How is this specifically an iPad issue and not an app developer issue?

I’d like to know, because I don’t have a Google device or account, how the Google Play Store is superior to the Apple App Store when it comes to ad or subscription supported software.

I’ve owned many iPads. To claim you can’t use it without a subscription service is ridiculous. Yes, you need an Apple ID to download apps from the App Store but that doesn’t cost anything (just like a Google account).

You’re comparing two electronic devices that are ten years apart from each other. Of fucking course the new one is going to be better. If you think a Galaxy tablet is great, you should really try a new iPad.

I mean, you’re just coming off sounding like an Apple-hater and someone who hasn’t ever actually owned an iPad. Maybe even a bot.

Because, contrary to what you may think you’ve observed over the past ten+ years, copying and republishing anyone’s content without their permission is a US copyright infringement.

So yeah; if you want to get their permission, ensure all their links and such are migrated over, and do all the work for them to mirror content they’ve created without the benefit of making any money on it, have at it.

I think you bring up a good point about college and high school classmates. I don’t personally care about this but I imagine millions of others do. IMO, these groups should maintain their own social platforms. If you want to keep in touch with your classmates from Harvard, Harvard (or a private student counsel board) should maintain a forum for you.

Right - you want to post a picture of your kid for family, classmates, friends, coworkers to see all at once. Well, that’s (supposedly) where the fediverse comes in.

The fediverse, of what I know of it, is still lacking a lot of these tools that would be useful to people. People are pushing it really hard but it is not ready for the masses.

Personally, as someone who hasn’t had a FB account for well over five years, it’s super weird to me that you need it to “keep up with family and friends”. You’re using a data harvesting, advertising, and propaganda platform to conduct personal communications. There was a time when this was done using nothing more than the United States Post Office and the telephone. So, we probably have the technology to keep in touch today while excluding Facebook.

In response to your concern with privacy controls: it’s not federated and I can only assume they’re being honest about privacy, you might consider looking at Vero. It has up-front tools to control who sees what.

Still, I would encourage people to minimize their reliance on any platform owned by someone else to maintain relationships. At someone point, something will break, will be hacked, will go out of business. Do you think Facebook will exist for 25 to 50 years from now? When it goes, all your photos and videos and conversations go with it. When someone dies, all the memories they’ve captured are gone. Hashtag: bring back photo albums.

I’ll admit, the buzz around FB Marketplace has tempted me to sign up again. Mostly because ebay fees are insane. I’ve resorted to either putting things out for free pickup or using hobby-specific websites with buy/sell forums. Plus the occasional sidewalk sale. Life existed before Facebook. It was a slower life. So, just have to be more patient sometimes.

There’s absolutely a need for a public space for friends, businesses, venues, city halls, journalists, et al to congregate. It used to be a literal town hall, radio, newspapers, and weekly periodicals. And then AOL, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. All of these need some sort of funding to operate efficiently - either by tax payers, subscriptions, or advertising. This need for funding is what screws everything up.

There also used to be a time when Instagram was relevant. Then they introduced the algorithmic timeline, which meant I wouldn’t see event announcements for days after they occurred. Advertisers want results so engagement is more important than informing the public. If someone finds what they want at the top of their feed and clicks out of the app, that’s less opportunity to show ads.

Twitter used to be the best way to find out what was happening in real time in my immediate vicinity. Places stopped posting on there, the algorithm took over, then you know who took over. I’m hopeful about Bluesky but I’m not sure how they’re paying the bills.

This might not cover all the venues but you might be able to find booking agents with newsletters you can subscribe to. Promoting concerts should be one of those things where venues are desperate to use all sorts of platforms to get people in the door. Local radio stations are usually pretty good at promoting smaller shows on their websites too. My local newspaper is actually one of my best resources for discovering new venues and pop ups.

One of my local breweries was publishing an rss calendar feed for their weekly events. This was awesome until their “subscription” expired at the end of the year (not sure why they don’t just have a google calendar). I should speak with the owner to see what her reasoning was. My suspicion is that they want to track engagement on Instagram and the newsletters.

On the other hand, we have the essentially donation-funded fediverse. I’ve been wanting to see servers pop up to host certain things. For example, something like montreal-gov.social and montreal-shows.social where there’s dedicated federated instances for public congregation. I’m not sure if there’s a calendar function in the fediverse but it would seem reasonable to invest effort in. I’m really hoping this is the direction we’re going in. It just makes a lot of sense.

The problem is that Facebook isn’t just about keeping up with your friends and family. It’s an engagement platform designed to keep your attention by showing you memes and “news” and videos and ads that it knows you like. Most people have become addicted to this slow and steady stream of dopamine. You’re not going to get people off their crack addiction by substituting it with marijuana.

As these social platforms become more powerful, it’s up to each of us to personally find the strength to wean ourselves away from these platforms that once promised socialization but have quickly become little more than propaganda and influencing and ad-serving machines.

It’s great we’re seeing some alternatives but, aside from a small cohort, most people are not going to find the likes of Bluesky, Mastodon, or Lemmy engaging enough to give them that hit that they’re used to.

All hail the algorithm.

Personally, I used to be the early adopter who was on all these platforms well before most of the public heard about them. In recent years, I’ve either deleted or stopped using my social accounts (or have chosen to use less engaging ones, like Lemmy). This has given me more time to live a life.

Boredom is something I embrace. Rather than turning to a screen to occupy me; I’ll take a nap, make some tea, journal, go for a walk, do some cleaning, build something, practice something, read a book or comic. It’s not as dynamic, for sure, but I get to experience and learn more about myself instead of needlessly observing the lives of others. Boredom offers a renewed sense of self and humanity. Frankly, I’m afraid younger generations won’t know what benefits and beauty boredom has to offer.

I haven’t really been using it but I wanted to throw a shoutout to https://spacehey.com/

Wouldn’t be too bad if they did the model of showing you a persistent banner ad with the option to pay $35 a year to get rid of it. I’d be down with that.