Larger orgs probably have their own website, and could put it there and/or make an RSS feed. That’s old tech, and probably not as popular because it can’t be monetized like twitter/facebook/etc.

There’s also email, which is typically free. It’s less fancy, but it’s also very open. You don’t get good discoverability, though. Some bands I like send out newsletters and that’s how I keep up with them.

Lastly, the fediverse exists. It has some of the problems of social media, but at least it’s not owned by a handful of rich assholes.

I don’t use reddit aside from reading search results. I never post and never explicitly seek it out.

I deleted Twitter years ago. I never used Facebook or Instagram or tiktok. That shit’s bad for you.

It’s annoying that some places will make announcements only on shitty platforms. None of my friends are this “hardcore” , so sometimes I find out about stuff like a concert or protest or whatever because one of them sees it on Instagram

Impeach Johnson, too. Throw them all out via the 14th amendment. I’m so tired of the republicans being consistently the worst people on earth.

I was burgled. The cops came and looked around. Looked for finger prints. Didn’t get anything. The guys who came were polite, at least.

They supposedly caught the guy because he left his wallet at another place he broke into.

I didn’t get my stuff back. They didn’t even try to help me get my stuff back.

Overall a 3/10 experience.

CrossCode has such charm. The puzzles are good, but I find myself tired after playing it in a way other games don’t give me. I should finish it.

Shadowrun for Genesis was amazing! Ahead of its time. The way it semi randomly generated jobs for you to do was pretty unique. Like Bethesda radiant quests, but decades earlier and better. I really enjoyed rising up from the weakest street runner to someone with enough reputation to skip the line at the expensive club.

The leveling system was also pretty advanced for Genesis.

Also the cyberspace hacking was wacky and fun.

I haven’t thought through all the scenarios and edge cases, but generally spying on the public seems dicey and ripe for abuse. Especially if it’s just like “the public, all the time, whenever we feel like it,” instead of “ok we got a warrant signed by a judge to investigate Joe Bombguy”.

I don’t think the current government is capable or interested in making sound decisions. I don’t think the public is capable of electing a better government. For profit orgs don’t have the public’s best interest as a priority. So this is bad

Well, every republican idea is a bad one so that follows.

That’s something to work on. You’re not immutable.

If you accept rejection with dignity, it’s not that big a deal. Don’t be a creeper. It’s not that embarrassing. And if your friend group is cruel about it, that’s good to know. They’d be assholes in that case, and you probably want to find out they’re assholes in a low stakes situation.

She could ask you out. But if you just wait you’re giving up your initiative. Use your agency.

…yes? That’s what you have to do. Maybe she says no. Maybe she says yes. Doing nothing definitely won’t get you anywhere.

will humanity ever learn to stop acting like dumb angry monkeys?

Seems unlikely.

As to your broader point about the tools themselves not being bad, the root problem remains capitalism, or “a few people have unaccountable power over many”

I feel like the current AI stuff has been net negative. It prompted layoffs and hiring freezes, but then didn’t produce quality results.

Probably any game with a story. Voiced might be better, but written has advantages, too.

Might not want games with a lot of fictional words or idiosyncrasies. Like Baldur’s Gate 3 is really good and well acted, but you’d pick up a lot of less useful fantasy words.

Just looking at what I’ve played lately.

Guild Wars 2 is a great game. Lots of content. Most of it voiced. There’s also other players you can talk to, and some might speak your native language. It has some fantasy jargon.

Grand Theft Auto 5 would probably teach you swear words and other stuff you shouldn’t casually say. Be careful with that one.

My time at Sandrock was fun. That probably would give you some vocabulary.

I haven’t! Seems similar to Falling Down

You have to jump when you’re doing it, too. if you touch the ground before it finishes, it won’t work and you’ll just get shocked.

If you clear some post-game optional challenges, there’s a special move you can unlock that does it easier, but that’s only useful if you want to do NG+

Hours on the centipede man, you say? Once you get into the deflect rhythm, they’re very satisfying. Fill their posture right up and then finish them. But without the timing, you’re going to take a lot of chip damage or get posture broken yourself :(

Sekiro is one of my favorites. I like that it’s not really about leveling, and it pretty much gets right into it. I could pick it up today and blast through a new game.

Do you know how to do the lightning reversal? There are a handful of bosses that it really counters.

A friend and I were talking about what’s wrong with the world, and one of the things we discussed was there aren’t any consequences for minor infractions. We’re all too polite. Someone does something shitty, like this person in their car, or someone taking up 4 seats on the bus, or throwing their trash on the street, and no one does anything. No one wants to start a fight or make a scene.

Many people operate at a very basic level of moral reasoning: avoid punishment. Some people, some of the time, achieve higher levels of reasoning like “I should follow the rules” or even “I should do what’s good for society.” But many people chill out at the toddler level of “I don’t want to be punished.” So it follows that when these oversized toddlers never get punished, they think they’re doing just fine.

But concurrently, the institution we have to enforce laws and norms, the police, sucks dog shit. Racist, corrupt, no accountability, and lazy. If I see a guy littering, I’m not going to call the cops. They wouldn’t even come, for one thing, but I also don’t want to bring a bunch of armed assholes into the scene.

I don’t know what the best way forward is. My friend suggested local “guardian angel” volunteers that patrol and “Deal with” people who are shitty, but that feels like it could just turn into the police-but-worse. But I really want people who shit up the world to stop, and it feels like they don’t have enough empathy to understand anything more complex than “you took up four seats on the bus and were blasting youtube out of your phone, so we threw you out. Enjoy walking home, asshole.”