I prefer using higher precision when responding like this. I will often say something like: “137.825%”. Mostly, I do this because it makes the other person feel awkward, and I do it because I constantly feel awkward, and so I just want other people to feel a tiny portion of what it’s like being me.

I mean, everything does happen for a reason. It’s just that most of the time, the reason is “because so-and-so is an asshole”. It makes it essentially a useless platitude, but not an untrue one. I definitely take issue with the implication of it, that there’s some supreme, all-knowing authority in the universe who has this complicated, labyrinthine plan for everyone that involves massive amounts of suffering. That whole “mysterious plan of God” thing is a way for Christians to take credit for all of the good stuff that happens, while downplaying all of the bad stuff that happens as just “part of God’s plan!” It’s insidious.

Vance hates cat ladies because cats are the natural enemies of couches.

Yup. I’m old enough to remember when the selling point of cable TV was that it was ad-free. Then, of course, they started adding ads. And then they sold us premium channels that didn’t have ads. Now those have ads, too. You just can’t get away from them.

I find it fascinating how media companies evolved their usage of ads over time. Used to be that the purpose of showing someone an ad was to get them to buy your product. Now, though, the companies who make the ads are paying to have them put on media networks who use the ads to annoy you into paying for a premium membership so you don’t have to see them. It’s double dipping.

Not sure how I would feel if I made an ad, and YouTube was saying to their users: “Yeah, you like that fucking ad? Super annoying, isn’t it? If you don’t pay me more money, I’m going to cram that annoying bullshit down your throat every time you want to watch a video. I’m going to put ads at the beginning of videos. I’m going to sprinkle them throughout the middle. Hell, I’m even going to make you watch ads after the video ends! You like that, you little bitch??”

Tastes like a campfire.

From Reddit itself, just the large userbase. It meant that even niche interests had lively and active communities.

From Reddit Enhancement Suite (RES): the ability to resize images just by cliking and dragging, the ability to tag users in custom ways so you can tell at a glance if they’re someone who past-you thought was an idiot, and endless scrolling.

What I don’t miss: everything else. Comparing the two userbases, Reddit is far more right-wing on average than Lemmy is. It’s nice not having to deal with so many garbage takes here.

Fuckin’ yikes, man. Real edgy 15-year-old energy here.

As much as I agree with Kyle’s sentiment, I can 100% understand Jack’s position here. In addition to wanting to remain eligible for movie and tv roles, he probably also doesn’t want to get shot. Security for singers is probably more lax than security for ex-presidents, after all (at least most of the time). It’s easy to imagine some troglodytic cultist piece of shit taking the band joking about killing their bloated lord and savior personally, and resolving to do something about it.

Here’s a version with the labels still in it:

Maybe they were just quiet quitting.

You can’t spell manslaughter without laughter.

Is he the fighter of the Day Mayor?

In retrospect, we should have noticed sooner. He was constantly asking kids to tickle him, after all.

I think you’re severely overestimating the average intelligence of the population.

I think you’ve got some very mistaken ideas about who Democrats are if you think that a supermajority of them would be totally up for implementing a slew of progressive policies. They’re way more progressive than the Republican party is, for sure. But that’s such an incredibly low bar that it’s laughable. Democrats will do things like make Cesar Chavez day a holiday, or fly BLM and LGBTQI flags, but expecting them to actually pass legislation that addresses the root inequities in a meaningful way is an uphill battle.

God damn, Nature. You scary.

He didn’t get his black belt for nothing.

I love SIGBOVIK - truly some insane projects are presented there. Like Tom Murphy’s projects of creating a hard drive from pings, or using AI to create uppest and lowest case letters. Or reverse emulating a Nintendo (which is a particular favorite of mine).

One other project that I really love was presented at the 2021 Sigbovik: Fontemon, created by Michael Mulet. It’s a full-blown choose-your-own-adventure game in a font. Truly insane. Here’s a short video showing the basics of how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY1hDQMeU3A