southsamurai

Hey! A YouTube guy I’ve actually heard of!

Remember please, this is opinion, and was asked for.

I ain’t mad, but I wish he/they wouldn’t. I’m not even a fan of tv based invasive encounters with wildlife. Even Steve Irwin often pushed past what I consider acceptable interference for education, but I’m on the strict end of things with that.

Here’s why.

Cameras. It was extremely rare for Irwin to show us something that couldn’t have been achieved with a good camera from a reasonable distance that not only got good images, but showed more natural behaviors. I still love Irwin, and think his enthusiasm and love of animals balances things out in terms of benefits.

We’re at a point with camera technologies that direct interaction with wildlife is unnecessary. We can use any number of tools to see the glory of nature without putting our thumbs up their butt to see what happens (not that he ever did, but I love that episode of South Park lol, and it fits how I view that kind of thing).

We have zoos, we have education centers, we have captive bred examples, so we don’t need multiple people out there repeating the same thing over and over. I get the desire, I get the interest in such filming, and as long as the wildlife isn’t harmed, I don’t care enough to raise any hell. I just wish we would collectively stop. Film from a distance or use tools to get close, use old footage of invasive interactions instead of new ones.

Peterson is no worse than anyone else, and better than most. I dig his enthusiasm. It just isn’t necessary, and its value for education is lower than it should be, in order to be acceptable to me.

But, again, I ain’t mad. No hate, no call to arms, I just wish he’d stop and do other things instead.

Edit: https://youtu.be/YdmJq4Lhv1Y

An example of the worst kind of thing he does. It’s nothing to be mad at, but totally unnecessary. It interferes with the spider for no good reason. We learn nothing from disturbing the spider that a voiceover couldn’t provide, along with some footage of a captive bred spider being handled to show that we needn’t fear spiders (but shouldn’t mess with them in the wild). This particular video exemplifies what I object to, and why better than any others I could recall.

Thanks :)

You’ve gotten enough good answers that I think it okay to address a tangent.

Things are definitely at the point where christofascists, and other hate driven ideologies are getting louder.

But, and this is vitally important as to why the pushback is making it a matter of public discourse at the level you’re asking about, there’s more allies now than ever.

Be ready for old man talking here, and ignore if not interested. Disclaimer: I have arthritis, and it’s easier to type gay than LGBTQ, so I’ll be using the shorter word for that reason, not as an exclusion.

Back in the seventies and eighties, gay rights was a thing for mostly gay people. Before that it had been gaining minor support, and the eighties were when social restrictions started changing enough that gay people were allowed to have some degree of public awareness in both news and fiction.

I keep bringing it up in various places, but Billy Crystal played the first recurring openly gay character on television. That was in 1977, and ran until 1981. I don’t think it can be said enough how huge that was in bringing awareness of gay people as just people was. That role brought gay into our homes and lives in a way nothing had before.

When something makes a group real to the majority, makes things stop being a dirty secret and just another part of life, you get kids growing up that are more open and accepting. As acceptance grew, so did the amount of people coming out.

As people came out, the straights realized that not only had they always known gay people, but they liked them, and even loved them for years, sometimes a lifetime. When that starts spreading, you have more people that are willing to support gay people and their rights as fellow humans.

Instead of being pariahs, gay people became part of life, part of our hearts. Eventually, more and more people that didn’t have direct relationships with someone gay became allies, supporters.

However, the more gay people became a part of life, the more noise bigots made, in their own homes and in public. So, instead of it being a dirty little secret nobody talked about, that way of thinking got nastier and louder. Before, it wasn’t something everyone would even know about until much later in life, but as the gay rights movement in the seventies started building up steam, you had more hatred being spewed as well. There had been before, but it was more likely to be handled with dismissive or contemptuous remarks rather than outright venom and bile in the open.

Now, us folks that were kids during the late 70s and early 80s didn’t just accept gay folks. We would often defy elders that opposed gay rights or bad talked them. As time passed and we grew up, the segment of that generation that became allies tended to be more and more vocal in our support. By the nineties, my generation was moving into adulthood and willing to vote our conscience. We were willing to put our time and money into the cause. Sometimes, we’d put our bodies on the line when things got ugly.

Move forward to now, and you’ve got two or three generations actively and loudly opposing the bigots, and not just the gay people. The bigots are smaller in number, but have been pandered to by political groups around the world, so have more weight than their numbers should give them.

Mind you, the bigots also include people of every generation too. Don’t imagine that there aren’t kids even that spew the same kind of nastiness that’s been used since before the 70s. But there’s more in direct opposition to them, and plenty of passive dismissal of the bigotry. Bigotry is not a relic of the past, nor is it limited to older generations; some of the loudest and most obnoxious hatred gets spewed by younger adherents. But the seeming percentage of hate is lower in younger generations, and the seeming percentage of outright support is higher.

That puts us in the situation we’re in, where hate has a bigger voice than it should, and love/acceptance has to shout louder to oppose it.

Nope, go for a decent moisturizing lotion designed for facial use.

Eh, I was a pure lurker before the reddit move.

I can’t really say that the slippery quality of discussion has gone down because discussion would be an exaggeration of things before more people jumped over. There just weren’t enough interactions between people to use as a reliable indication of quality.

Now, any forum I’ve ever been on, even back to ICQ days, and old school bbs stuff, there’s a certain degree of “poop in the peanut butter”. You eat enough peanut butter, and your chances of also eating bug poop go up, with it becoming a certainty eventually. You get enough human beings in the same place, you get assholes. The more people, the more assholes.

You can’t really escape it entirely. Even the best possible moderation has delays, and judgement calls. All you can do is drop the numbers until the amount of poop in the peanut butter is low enough to pretend it isn’t there. The only way to entirely get rid of the bad elements is to host your own forum, and make it invite only, while also not letting it get big enough you can’t moderate it.

But, my impression is that the good discussions are still way higher on lemmy as a whole than anywhere else currently. Mbin counts as part of that, though it isn’t the same thing.

Blocking instances helps. You’re right that some instances have a certain proclivity towards personality types and/or beliefs that go hand-in-hand with bad behavior. And the bigger ones (the one I’m on included) have big enough numbers that even without those proclivities, you end up with good bit of poop with your pb&j. Sadly, even blocking an instance isn’t going to fully prevent running across users in comments here and there.

But overall? Way better than reddit was in the five years or so before spez spazzed. Better than 9gag ever was. At least as convivial as one of the forums I moderated back in the late 90s, where the user base was pretty decent overall by virtue of it being homogenous in several ways.

As pissed as I was that reddit went all the way into stupidity, I’m happier on lemmy now than I was on reddit a decade ago. And I’m happier with the average interactions I see on lemmy than I was with lemmy before last year. And that’s including the truly abysmal run ins I’ve had over the last year here.

The headphones, and any other gear, probably make some difference; I’m balling on a budget, with some tin t2s for iem, and beyer 770s (80 ohm) for cans, through a fiio DAC for the cheaper devices (but my main player is an old lg g7). Now and then I’ll break out the portapros, and it’s more prevalent since they tend to be a little muffled in the mids and highs no matter what they’re plugged into.

But just the difference between something like gmmp, phonograph, musicolet, vanilla, etc, it can be a huge difference for me. Gmmp is decent, but there’s static where there shouldn’t be, and using the eq tends to distort on the low end even at low amounts of boost.

Can’t recall if vinyl stood out from the rest of the pack or not, since it’s been a couple of years since I did an extended comparison. All of the ones using the standard android audio processing were prone to some degree or another of mudiness to my ears. Some would get distorted playing through anything other than headphones, particularly with hip-hop and house tracks. That was with multiple aux cables, Bluetooth, and on multiple devices.

But, yeah, I would love it if max ported his eq app to other platforms.

Poweramp

There’s nothing else out there that’s really an equal, foss or not. The closest it gets is neutron, and that’s a hot mess of an app.

It’s the sound quality that’s standout. It doesn’t hurt that it’s a decent player in every other way too, but even apps built for audiophiles don’t match it in real use, in every situation.

None of the foss players are worth a damn sound wise; might as well use whatever comes with the device on that factor alone.

Because the parents owned it, and it can be passed down like any other property.

That’s the whole point of the discussion.

You gotta check torrents, soulseek, and i2p sources. The more obscure something is, the less likely you’ll find it on the one-stop sources.

There’s never any guarantees with any of them, but it you’re patient and willing to check regularly over a few weeks, I find soulseek to be the best bet for the really obscure stuff. The problem is that not everybody that hoards obscure files stays online constantly, so you have to spend the time on finding things before giving up on it.

Bigotry

It isn’t necessarily about intelligence, since stupid is as stupid does.

I tend to call that willful ignorance. It’s knowing that there are other ways of thinking, but refusing to even consider them. Which is stupid, dumber than dammit, and/or moronic. I’ve known some damn intelligent people that are stupid by virtue of not using their brain.

Be aware though, not everyone can control their volume. I don’t doubt you were aware of that, but it’s not so rare a thing as to not be worth mentioning. There’s also others that have trouble controlling volume.

Again, I don’t doubt you meant the folks that can control their volume, and do so without difficulty, just adding to things.

How do you spell phlegm?

No.

It’s a skill that has to be learned. To be learned, one has to have the opportunity to learn it.

That takes time, usually transportation, energy (of the person), and knowing what the quality of instruction is in the area they’re trying to learn in.

Picking things up irregularly isn’t the same as knowing first aid, though it’s here than nothing, and some things are just as good learned that way as formally. Don’t need much in the way of lessons to apply pressure to a wound, and that’s enough to keep someone alive long enough for someone with more training to get in place. But doing CPR does take a bare minimum of training to be certain of it being effective.

So, nah, I’m not going to think less of someone for not knowing something. Nor for not being well trained at it.

Now, I have insisted that anyone I live with have at least CPR, Heimlich, and stop the bleed under their belt. I can handle anything else, and my crippled ass is the least likely to be out of the house, so it’s all about the bare minimum for when I’m injured, or they’re out and get hurt so they have time for ems to arrive.

My wife already knew basics from a new parent first aid class she got when her (now our) kid was still in utero. Infant and toddler focussed, but still. My dad still remembers his training from his army days, though some is a little outdated. Our kid has the bare minimum, but plans on taking a more comprehensive course next summer.

Eh, depends on where I am. At a hotel, probably not until things seemed to be moving into threats. In your situation, I would have called the desk first after a few minutes of sustained noise, and only gone for cops if that failed.

At home, I know most of the neighbors well enough to be able to tell > what’s going on and why, so I’m slower to call when I’m sure nothing is going to happen. If it’s someone not from the neighborhood, or is unfamiliar, I’ll call when things get loud enough to hear it over fans and such. Then again, I know the local cops too, so I’m confident in their unwillingness to jump to violence themselves. Smallish town, smallish department, and the people in charge aren’t batshit about the whole “warrior” bullshit.

When I’m pet sitting for a friend over in the city, idgaf, I’ll call as soon as it gets loud enough to notice, and doesn’t stop in a minute or so. Don’t know the people, don’t know the cops, but I’ve got an obligation to my friends to keep things as safe as possible.

But yeah, if there’s a kid involved, you call sooner rather than later, same once things start getting broken.

You know, this is actually a really engaging question, though I think the limited scope and parameters hinders things. And that title is accidental rage bait (which I think the down votes are a symptom of).

So, I’m going to ignore the “would you rather” aspect of things and just engage with the post in a way that interests me. If that’s not interesting to you, cool beans, read no further :)

First, I’m right with you. Trans rights are human rights, period. Secondarily, screw anyone that doesn’t like it, because trans rights cost nobody anything.

Now, the question that’s here leads fundamental questions about politics as a whole. Does a bloc need to campaign on all of its goals? If so, how active does that campaigning have to be to satisfy the members of that bloc and/or others that might align with it? Then, how are voters supposed to tell what the bloc’s real intent is? Finally, is it smart to campaign on a hot button issue when a race is close? There’s some side questions to those, but I think that’s the core set of issues here.

Now, I’m a practical motherfucker. I’m perfectly fine with campaigning smart, and playing off of opposing fractions’ issues. But I’m only going to support that bloc/party/faction if I can trust them to be playing smart instead of just ignoring the issue.

Take that to the current US election run. The lead candidate has historically been an ally in at least minor ways (and in some major ones) to trans people. The veep candidate is relatively well known for it too. So I would weigh the odds of them at least maintaining their overall stance on the subject being good. So, if they choose to soft peddle, or outright avoid letting the topic become an attack vector, I think that’s smart politics, and I’m okay with that.

Barring revolution, all changes are incremental and require work as well as time to make happen. I would wish for people as a whole to live up to the golden rule and be decent across the board, but I know that if you wish in one hand and shit in the other, one will fill up faster. So it’s a matter of steady pressure on each front as manpower, resources, and alliances allow. Voting for the least bad, or partially allied bloc is rankling, but a political reality since there aren’t enough people willing to have a revolution, and even those that are willing can’t really agree on what the new paradigm should be.

All of that is ignoring the fact that the U.S. is stuck with a two party system that is constantly leveraged for more control, more power, and more money for a very limited range of people. Those people, the ones actually running the parties, do not give a fuck about the people of the U.S. They’ll pick up or abandon any cause as needed for their real goals. Every politician is part of that, whether they want to be or not.

That means, for us, the ones not steering the ship of the US, that we have to pick our battles carefully, and carry along anyone we can at each stage of the fight. If that means voting democrat currently to achieve a long term goal, that’s the mess we’re in. And we work with that party over time, pushing them in way we want, expanding human rights as the easiest way to ensure profits and power.

It’s why LGB turned into LGBT, then LGBTQ, and whatever the next iteration is. Different, but related interests aligning to give smaller groups more power as a voting bloc. Power by numbers. If 2% of the population is bi (number chosen for the example, not accuracy), that’s ignorable. But you add 2% that’s gay men, 2% lesbians, 2% trans, and you start having enough numbers to be a factor in all elections, so long as they stay fair and legally operated. Even with gerrymandering, you can’t completely ignore a big enough bloc.

Right now, there’s zero point in campaigning hard on trans issues. Democrats are the only viable party, and they’ve shown willing to be allies overall. They pander enough to their base as it is, and anything else is a waste of resources. They push for swing voters and a handful of states because that’s the political reality. So that’s their focus, and it should be.

The smartest play is to shrug off objections to trans rights. Just ignore them as not being worthy of discussion. Let Republicans and other opposed people burn their fuel up on a mission they’ve already got a base built for. Republicans can’t radicalize any more than they doorway already have. But you can let them run their mouths with hate, and fire up their opposition to vote for the lesser evil.

There’s multiple strategies to employ to passively make it known the campaign is allied, and they’re doing that. Check out The Advocate, and some of their reporting about Harris. When you can get the press to do the work for you, why waste resources? They know that Harris/Walz has enough history of supporting LGBTQ issues that the press and organizations that focus on those issues are going to back them.

By simply not saying those articles and editorials aren’t true, they say that they are, or at least that’s the impression they want to give (and it’s pretty true from the stuff I’ve seen).

Harris’ campaign loses nothing by staying passive, but would also gain nothing by going active.

Now, I am not a Democrat, and haven’t been for decades. I’m way further left than Bernie Sanders, and he’s as far left as anyone that’s run democrat gets. But I’m also not a vote abstainer. Not so much because of presidential races, though I cast my vote there anyway. It’s the senatorial and house races, plus state and local races that matter more to me. There’s races at those levels where campaigning for trans rights makes sense, but others where it doesn’t.

That’s very important because during presidential years, people bloody well forget that once you get past voters that only vote for one of the two parties, votes count more. There’s more reason to carefully decide what to campaign on, and try to draw in anyone that’s likely to swing your way that isn’t a base voter.

Harris winning is not a guaranteed democrat win. If the Senate shifts, even if the house shifts, the national stage can mean the dems lose overall.

Plenty of people care, just not enough

Yeah, but the response to that first part is “and?”

Open source, they’ve been audited, and there’s no sign of anything hinky.

Also, thanks for the teleguard info. Any opinion about features and function for those of us that haven’t run across it before?

Honestly? For that limited use, there’s really no need to switch.

However, if you’re willing to do a little extra effort, Join, by joao apps can do what you’re wanting. The notes is easy as pie. Sending files to your own devices is easy. Then you just need a different file sharing method for others.

It’s not a 1:1 replacement, obviously, but sending files via email, or other methods, when it’s only occasional isn’t something that needs to be part of a messenger service that you aren’t primarily using for messages in the first place. Keeping all your eggs in one basket isn’t always as good.

Yup, that’s how I do it tbh. I’m on mullvad and unwilling to switch at this point. Kinda sucks, but that’s how it is

This person has been running around spreading FUD in every post about this

Nicotine, and I really think I’ve totally kicked it this time.

I made the mistake the first time I quit of thinking that cigars and pipes wouldn’t be addictive because there’s no inhaling. Yeah, I was a moron.

But I know that it’s a zero use thing now, and while I miss the ritual of smoking, neither tobacco or more modern nicotine delivery tempt me at all.

I’m sure as hell not paying for some herbal cigarette crap, because those were never worth a damn to begin with. And I can’t smoke weed because it fucks with me. So, I won’t be dragged back to it that way, even if I wanted to find alternative rituals to do.

It also helps that I can’t handle the smell of cigarettes now. It hits my nose, and I’m sneezing for an hour.

I quit right as covid was hitting the news, and after six months, I didn’t even have the urge to engage in the ritual after meals or sex.

Also, no smoking = better sex. Kinda difficult to do it right when you can’t breathe right and get winded fast.