Okay? How is that relevant. I was making a point that there are many people who don’t speak English.

While what you say is objectively true what I say is also true. Further, the number of people who do not speak English (roughly 6.5 billion) dwarf the number who do. America and the English language do not define the entire world.

Further, the local English speaker is not always proficient enough to articulate the meaning of what is being said into the local tongue. Even for someone who is a fantastic translator interpreting someone like trump, who constantly utilizes colloquial speech and idioms, is a goddamn nightmare.

Remember not a lot of the world speaks English. When I talked to some of my Japanese friends and language exchange partners prior to this election they weren’t sure about trump but typically described him as someone who was a powerful leader

Also keep in mind that they generally are super polite and in that “if you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all” space. Except for a small handful I’m very close with even now they won’t say much bad, will just ask “how are things in America”, “what’s the perception of him in America”, etc and will artfully dodge the question of “what’s the perception of him in Japan. Except for my one friend who’s more outspoken and we are a bit closer, who is like “end the trade alliance and force all the military bases to close!”

But to my original point much of his crass and idiotic behavior doesn’t necessarily translate well and usually doesn’t make the news on NHK. It’s kind of similar to how American news headlines do him so many favors. If you only know trump through Washington post, NYT, etc headlines he sounds so much more competent than he is. But if watch him speak you realize he is just so goddamn stupid

No shit it was. He wants to run for president and he knows that stunt will make headlines but this will be buried in comments where the headline is “16 democrats vote for trump nominee” (aka exactly what is happening here)

Booker is classic neoliberal, no ethics or morals, guided by money and power. 10-15 years ago he was deeply in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry because they are huge in NJ. Then his aspirations went higher and he realized that association was harmful, at that point he had connections that made him no longer reliant on their cash, so he shed them. It’s not growth, it’s a calculated move

I have an outdoor wok burner for this reason. It was about $130, runs on a propane tank, and works amazingly well. The price has gone up a bit since and probably will go up considerably more with tariff bullshit but highly recommend

It’s also called a powerflamer, which I find quite comical. I just looked it up and the base model is $150 now, so not that much more. The website looks sketch but the guy is legit. Outdoorstirfry.com. Takes awhile to ship because I’m pretty sure it’s literally just one guy running the whole thing.

The legs are sketchy as fuck. I got an old aluminum prep table off Craigslist and cut a hole in it with a dremel. Much sturdier, can put the tank and stuff on the bottom, and I put a charcoal grill and a flat top on it too. Now I can do robata too. I cook outside more than inside.

I figured it was something like this, wok burner is about BTU to a degree but also about flame spread. If you have a very high BTU burner with the wrong flame spread it wound work as well as a decently lower BTU burner with a flame spread like what’s pictured. It’s why using a wok on a traditional western gas burner sucks

come to my house, i look like shit

Suppress

I was considering purchase a Japanese switch 2 because my Japanese is decent enough for most gaming but then I saw it was region locked pretty hard so I can’t use any of my us e shop purchases. Plus fuck Nintendo, even without the tariffs the price on this thing is a bit much and their behavior is garbage

If I ever do get one it’ll be because someone broke theirs and I got it cheap as fuck and fixed it. That’s how I got my switch, had a busted battery management IC and a fucked usb C port. I think in total I paid like $90 for it with parts. It would also help if the console was exploited for piracy

Right? I miss fun logos. I get everyone wants to shit on ai but minimalist logos are booooooring

with every paper you are working towards building something bigger than yourself

Some of my stuff is consumer level (the netgear modem, which tbf I’m genuinely surprised has lasted this long). some is in that weird “prosumer” space like the synology stuff; they are a bit pricier but have, in my experience, more resilient hardware. They also had much better support but in recent years they’ve kind of scaled back on this, bummer

My best advice is to not overlook the potential of e waste. The best and most resilient networking gear I have also happened to be the cheapest. The brocade switch? $45, 48 gigabit ports and 8 10 gigabit sfp+ ports. The hp POE switch? 24 gigabit poe ports and 2 port 10g sfp+. The server for pfsense was $50. These were good deals from local sellers, ebay prices are higher, sometimes quite a lot (especially with shipping). They also use much more power than just a consumer router which is worth mentioning. I’m transitioning to solar so I’m less concerned about it

My network stack has been running for many years now.

netgear cm1000 cable modem - since 2018 pfsense running on an old 1u supermicro server as router - since 2020 brocade icx switch - since 2016 hp procurve poe switch - since 2022 synology rt2600ac - since 2018, was router 2018-2020 and is AP since pfsense took over routing synology mr2200ac - secondary AP since 2020 cyberpower 1500va ups to run them - mentioning because power conditioning is maybe a factor in longevity Plus zwave and HA shit

Some of the stuff is way older too. The switches were bought from computer recyclers for real cheap and had definitely been in service for some time. The brocade is probably 10-15 years old at this point and the hp is probably 8 or so years old. The server running pfsense is from like 2009, maybe older.

house is running gigabit internet, 10g intranet, poe cameras, iot devices, etc with no issues. Probably over 100 devices on the network.

That doesn’t even make sense?

You are talking maybe about capitalism informing psychotherapy away from solution oriented therapies because they are too costly and impractical and that is fucked up but that has nothing to do with cbt?

Or maybe something else, clarify?

Just pirate them. Once you bought a license it’s okay to do it, I give you permission

No, it’s information compilation. Advertising is offensive because it is obtrusive and unwanted

Again, because apparently you can’t handle reading unless it’s really spelled out for you:

Information compiling is when I seek out a need and find the answer to said need, then compile a database of the various answers for reference. I look up the mechanics and get a list of them and can sort them by distance, review, alphabetically, etc. without having to wade through ones being placed in artificially because they spent money to up their rank regardless of sort

Advertising is when I search “mechanic” and the first page doesn’t necessarily show me the best reviewed (which is flawed because it can be gamed but that’s another issue) or nearest mechanic, but the one who simply gave google adsense the most money. Advertising is when I’m watching a really good show and it suddenly has to break to show 2.5 minutes of garbage, or has a character pick up an obviously branded product (logo facing camera!). Advertising is when I get a flyer in my mailbox labeled “to occupant”.

Advertising is offensive and uninvited. Advertising constantly has people battling to banish it from the internet, streaming services, television, radio, mail, and society basically. The only people who don’t are those who are apathetic, shamelessly consumerist, and the ones who actively profit from the advertising machine

Thus, there is no extension to block the directory of businesses you get when you search for a query on google maps. People want that. There are plenty of extensions to block the sponsored bullshit they throw in those directories though

A directory of businesses that is free of gaming the system by paying to play was once the goal of google. If that if functional it is excellent and all it needs to be. It also prevents more established businesses from having even more of an unfair advantage. They already have word of mouth and reviews; why should they be able to simply buy a space that places them on top of popular queries and drown out anyone who enters the market?

Like back in 1999-2002 or so google was constantly adjusting their algorithm to stop people who gamed SEO. Their goal then was that when you searched “custom garfield cum blanket” you got stores that sold exactly that, and ideally the original one if there were knockoffs. That’s what made them a household name and the “king of search” and why you don’t hear about altavista or ask Jeeves anymore

Then they started to realize there was a market emerging for people that could master SEO and slowly but surely they just gave into the advertising side of things. It started with allowing SEO bullshit to go unchecked and eventually turned into now where you can literally buy the first 1 or 2 results of a search query, the first page is useless, and the second page is gone to direct you to a new search that can generate more ad revenue. They’ve utterly destroyed their product

Okay, how do those small businesses handle their advertising?

Facebook, google, shitty firms that use local direct mailing campaigns, etc. Sure, your local mechanic isn’t scheming to topple democracy and ruin every product, but they are enabling those who do and skewing results to give themselves an unfair advantage over newer businesses that enter the market because they have the privilege of having the capital to do an adsense buy and maybe hire someone who can fuck with SEO bullshit

Advertising does not need to exist. There simply needs to be a directory of businesses. If I search for mechanics I can find the ones around me. Boom, done. The yellow pages worked for years. I don’t need google to skew results to show me a specific mechanic that happened to spend more money on advertising. I don’t need a random flyer in my mail that reminds me that the concept of a mechanic is still a thing that exists and they happen to be in my area, shocker.

Advertising is an inherently bad thing. You have been indoctrinated by a culture dominated by ad men for the past 70 years

Advertising does the above image the overwhelming majority of the time: it funds a product or service and then uses that role as a funder to insidiously destroy the service. Advertising has recognized that customers realize it’s toxic impact so it now quickly entrenches itself in every single industry and product that has eyes on it whenever possible at all costs so it can continue its sociopathic process of destroying functionality and ignoring ethics in favor of “what’s the right product? The one I am selling, of course”

What do you possibly think advertising is good for? Telling you about medicine so you can second guess the doctor that has had decades of experience and insist upon something you heard about on hulu? Destroying everything that was good about the Internet? Plastering every space with so much visual clutter and vibrant color because it drives sales that people now covet muted color palettes at home to escape the constant stimulation?

Destroy the advertising industry

Listen, brown, light green, red, and pink paid for advertising and that matters much more than your search query

Maybe I’m bad at colors

Destroy the advertising industry. Burn it alllll down

This isn’t what cbt is

Cbt is an extension of equanimity, learning ways to control your emotional response to things. You don’t deny your emotional response, but you moderate it

This is advantageous because what’s more effective? Dwelling in rumination and suffering? Or acknowledging that we are angry and frustrated and moving forward to something actionable when that is possible and moving on with our lives when it is not? This is where we get into more DBT skills and stuff like radical acceptance but it’s similar

This is what happens with these things in the modern context though. They get displayed at surface value with pop psychology social media bullshit and perverted. Then stoicism becomes “just deny your feelings” by right wing dipshits who have never read meditations when it is also about allowing yourself to feel and express feelings but not letting them control you through a practice of reflection.

CBT is essentially just an update of philosophy like this and Buddhism for the modern context with more explicit guidance and some neurology thrown in.

“You can’t affect other people” is incorrect as you say. While we do have to concede that other people’s willingness to change their behavior and perspective is ultimately up to them we can still advocate and influence. At the same time we can recognize that this process can be draining and harmful to ourselves and at a certain point maybe we need to take a step back. You can’t save fix a house with a rotting foundation.

Bad implementation doesn’t make CBT bad.