Been seeing a lot about how the government passes shitty laws, lot of mass shootings and expensive asf health care. I come from a developing nation and we were always told how America is great and whatnot. Are all states is America bad ?
As an overall answer: humans are incredibly adaptable, so as a person living in the US, it almost never subjectively feels bad. For goodness' sake, I knew people who lived in Chicago's Hyde Park (one of the most dangerous neighborhoods) and happily biked to work. I personally lived in what people would describe as a "hood" and a "third-world country" for a good year and a half, and honestly felt really safe over there. Because of this, I honestly don't think anyone can give an objective answer solely from their living experiences.
Objectively, the US is a developed country and is not terrible, but regarding your specific points:
Yes, the government passed shitty laws, and chose to not pass a lot of not-shitty laws.
Yes, there are more mass shootings than the country should have. I'm not going to say why.
Insured healthcare isn't expensive (correction: some stuff are still too expensive even after insurance). However, uninsured healthcare is incredibly expensive, and unfortunately people without employment/self-employed have to purchase their own insurance... which is also stupidly expensive. Also, a lot of things that should be insured aren't.
The different states are certainly different. US politics is very polarized, so heavy-blue and heavy-red states are quite different in their approaches to... many things in life. Whether they are good or bad is up to you.
I mean, people living in Switzerland complain about their countries all the time, even though almost everyone else in the world envy the way they live... so it is possible that some might be a bit overblown.
Hey OP, I am similar to you in most aspects but I'm a lot younger, so please take it with a grain of salt...
I also live in Texas, and honestly I thought a lot of less privileged folks or ppl with family ties would love to be in your situation and just leave? It's not just about politics. Even if tomorrow Texas becomes a liberal stronghold, it will still take possibly at least a decade to fix ERCOT, the climate issue, and flooding issues (if you live in Houston)... This clusterfrick alone was enough to prompt me to never live in Texas again once I'm done with grad school
Besides, my understanding is that there are a few left-leaning metro areas which have suburbs (or live in the city!) that don't cost that much more to live in compared to mid-/upper-mid-class TX suburbs, so there's probably no financial disincentive to move either
Ah... so you're specifically mentioning about the news article in question?
If you repay the loan, [your NFT token] comes back home. If not, [the token] gets a new owner. Simple as that!
I guess this explains everything... Probably just ppl hustling each other lol. And I assume given what types of shady characters are into NFTs, there are probably a lot of them who want to hustle another person out of some cash
there's osm, but that doesn't have the convenience of being able to just chuck in a place and have it tell me how to drive there, which I need if I'm at a red light and need to know how to get somewhere. ty :)
I daily-drive Organic Maps, works very well, uses pre-downloaded maps, & allows OSM contribution. Ofc it's reliant on OSM so may not work perfectly depending on the location
Great article... Pharmaceuticals is interesting since the needs of corporations functioning under capitalism and their customers disconnect a lot
Making effective drugs is mad expensive (billions of USD), so companies are strongly incentivized to squeeze as much profit as possible everywhere on top of the already bad enough corporate greed levels
Thanks to patents, new drugs are almost always monopolies, so the pharma who makes the drug can charge (almost) as much as they want and make a lot
Whereas making drugs without patents is not profitable as the article suggested... so these are done mostly by factories based in India and other not fully developed countries
Funnily enough most ppl need cheaper generic drugs, not the ones most pharma companies are innovating and will make mad profits from
And for the people mentioned above, pharmaceuticals are basically a need not a luxury, but somehow it's dependent on the ebbs and flows of free market capitalism
My unhinged opinion is... Most of the pharmaceuticals research are done by (mostly) publicly-funded research labs anyways... so might as well just let the government do something about this? I wouldn't be surprised if some folks in academia wouldn't mind moonlighting as CEO at a nonprofit drug manufacturer or sth
I hope so too! I'm self-hosting Calckey via docker right now, and having one ready-to-go docker was something I found quite nice with Calckey. I hope this continues to be the case with Firefish
Climate is fucked, animals continue to go extinct even more, our money will be worth nothing the coming years… What motivation do I even have to care to keep going? The world is ran and basically owned by corrupt rich people, there’s poverty, war, etc. It makes me sick to my stomach the way to world is. So I ask, why bother...
Jokes aside... This is my personal philosophy & probably won't align with everyone's. As someone who started science quite young, I realized quite early that beyond societal issues, literally nothing is "meaningful"... If Earth itself will be gone in a few billion years, might as well practice some optimistic nihilism and do some stuff with whatever life I have. There's still stuff to do even if society doesn't prioritize ppl like me
I’d like to settle on a distro, but none of them seem to click for me. I want stability more than anything, but I also value having the latest updates (I know, kind of incompatible)....
Daily drive Gnentoo, not sure if I could ever wholeheartedly recommend it since it's not really accessible for beginners...
If I need a VM I'd probably spin up an Arch or Alpine since they are relatively minimal & are not that difficult to set up once you're familiar with stuff (well Arch is one-command setup now). For servers... pretty much Debian always since that's what everyone supports
Stability-wise... I guess it depends on what type of "stability" I want? If I meant stability by having stable programming environments then it's not compatible with having new updates, Debian probably would be best for that. If I meant stability by the system not breaking too often, then most rolling release distros are probably fine? Arch/Gentoo have a lot more room for user error which is probably where most of the instability comes from, but otherwise they typically don't have too many issues I believe. Fedora is great but there's been some issue with RHEL going close-source, so I guess some ppl won't want to support that endeavor
Definitely. I just found the whole thing odd tbh... First of all, Nature is extremely rigorous with their review (because they only publish highly novel/interesting findings and is very thus susceptible to fraudulent stuff). Yet this paper passed for a Nature-branded journal (albeit a newer one, I think Nature Aging is only like 1yr old or sth) with doing only one experiment (a monkey trial), and they don't even know what this "klotho" thing is... My suspicion is that the aging field is just too small so Nature Aging is lowering their standards? They've accepted less than stellar works before too.
The results seem fine to me & I really hope this is something real since I'm also studying aging, but as someone with some medicinal chemistry training... Nothing is confirmed until you get a positive phase 2 clinical trial result, otherwise we'd have cured all cancer and Alzheimer's a long time ago lol... I'm not putting my eggs in this basket just yet
... no, but that could just be me being weird and broke (literally not having enough to buy something dissuades a lot of purchasing behvior). Also... mentally if there is a salesperson involved (who does not have my best interest, obviously) I'd automatically mark the thing as inferior unless proven otherwise
I dunno... if I am too easily swindled maybe grab a nerdy, logical friend to help out or sth? Seems like everyone else on the thread already mentioned how to do proper research on different subject matters so
Second this, as of right now Nebula is the only service I know which is even remotely comparable to Ytb's scale... unfortunately is behind a paywall and is mostly only for infotainment content. Peertube is getting there but not yet. And ofc we don't talk about the O site.
I’m fairly new and don’t 100% understand it yet, but instances are run on servers that require money. Are we heading towards seeing ads or subscriptions to raise funds instead of relying on donations to cover overhead?...
Surprised no one else mentioned this... the answer is negative many months (or years?), most are Mastodon instances and probably not many people are familiar with most of those instances tho.
There was a fairly serious controversy months back when mastodon.cloud was purchased (if I remember correctly) by the same company that owns pawoo.net and another large Japanese Mastodon instance, the company is for-profit. Several right-wing shithole instances obviously have ads and are for-profit. Also there are a few instances owned/operated by for-profit companies, Medium immediately comes to the top of my mind.
Problem is a fairly significant portion of Mastodon admins I know were so staunchly against anything touching for-profit companies within a 12-ft stick that they immediately defederated from all of the said for-profit company affiliated instances...
To answer the second question... I don't know. Again, the larger Mastodon instances (over 10,000 users each) I'm aware of seem to do just fine on user donations now, but the concept of profit comes every now and then. Paid moderators/admins was also something to keep in mind for this topic.
I am still working full-time remote. There are definitely some social aspects of going to the office I miss, but I really don't miss the commute or the shitty office politics. Overall I feel I am still more productive from home and happier overall.
I'm in an interesting position on this... I do research as a grad student, my work can be done anywhere with internet but... I have been working in-person for the last year or two, and have been almost doing 80-100% in-person the last few months.
Partly because I feel more productive when being in an office. Partly because I use public transit & don't have to worry about traffic/parking. Partly because I get to communicate with my boss in-person about project ideas & stuff. Partly at the strong urge of my psychologist to have some human interactions & don't depress myself at home the whole day
There are a good number of research labs I know who are still doing 100% remote and it worked out fairly well for them too, so to each their own?
So YouTube has a lot of problems, there's no denying that. Frivolous and selective (not to mention automated) copyright enforcement, bureaucratic termination appeal system, COPPA idiocy, the whole clusterfuck that is monetization, etc?...
Might be a hot take but... I don't think Odysee is a failure by any means? They did establish themselves somewhat. A very good number of FOSS creators already synced their content over or even made Odysee their primary platform, Mental Outlaw was probably the most famous one. They also got their weird LBRY nonsense sorted out so there was at least some type of monetization.
The thing was... Odysee seems to be catering very much towards the right-end of the political spectrum, so that might end up deterring a lot of ppl. Wouldn't assume some people who just want to watch cat memes to like getting a bunch of conspiracy theory and stuff thrown at their face... PSA The Linux Experiment (TLE) is very much aware of Odysee and explicitly avoided the platform because of that reason
There's also Peertube as an alternative, but if Odysee suffers from bad marketing/bad monetization then... lol. Not to name names here but there is a prominent content creator (who is also on Nebula and on Mastodon) who mentioned that they don't want to deal with Peertube with all the extra hassles for potentially just some freeloaders to watch their content for free.
If fingerprint protection is what I want, LibreWolf comes with a very sensible default as compared to stock Firefox. If I am familiar enough with about.config and stuff then hardened Firefox can reach bonkers levels of privacy as well
If a Chromium-based browser is required that has Brave's level of privacy protection but none of the crypto nonsense... Yeah I'm not aware of any as of right now. Maybe once the Duckduckgo Browser becomes available?
Data on search engine market share is available, but I wonder what that looks like for Lemmy users in particular, who I would assume lean more technical than the average user, so probably use DuckDuckGo and alternates more than Google....
New evidence strongly suggests that OceanGate’s submersible, which imploded and killed all passengers on its way to the Titanic wreck, was unfit for the journey. The CEO, Stockton Rush, bought discounted carbon fiber past its shelf life from Boeing, which experts say is a terrible choice for a deep-sea vessel. This likely...
I had a good bit of thought about this too... This kind of mindset should never be allowed in customer-facing fields in the first place (cough cough all the social media privacy hellhole we are in today...), let alone ones that risk human lives tbh.
A very detailed article about the whole Meta (Instagram/Threads) vs. Fediverse discussions. It's a long read, but well-worth it if you're interested in the subject.
From my paltry observations it seems like opinions about federating with Meta spread into the following:
1: All for-profit corporations bad, so no federation
2: Meta bad, so no federation
3: Meta bad, but wait & observe first
4: Growing the influence of fediverse is usually preferred
5: Free speech for all
Honestly the article resonates with me a lot. I assume many old-guards of Mastodon are ppl who are fully aware of how federation works & are somewhat left-leaning and anti-capitalist, so they have a tendency to not want to federate with Meta.
So it certainly doesn't help that a few very influential people signed the NDA to join the Meta meeting, which would almost signal that they are more right-leaning (which is not what most people are like on fedi). Regarding the NDA part: people sign NDAs for too many things in pharma (my undergrad field) so I didn't realize it was such a big deal... I think it probably rubbed too many people in the wrong way.
Also, for large general instances, I wouldn't be surprised if many people have ideological differences with their admin or their neighbors, which probably resulted in some "fun" discussions.
Finally, PSA: I know some people hate their admins now but please do not ever send death threats to people, seriously
Ah so there are some people on the fediverse who believe that any restriction is bad... Like the ppl who think domain blocks are too strict and stuff like that.
Pretty much everyone I've seen on Mastodon knows that Meta is bad. However, I've seen quite a few people echoing the sentiment that "hey I know Meta is bad but blocking is wrong & they haven't done anything wrong on the fediverse". The thought comes across as a bit naive to me but... to each their own.
I've joined several immigration-related subreddits because of my own life-situation nonsense. With how unpredictable Reddit is behaving, I'm having doubts whether the future of such subreddits are bright for people who need legal help or need to flee war-zones or stuff like that......
I don't think I have the mental fortitude to mod a magazine, especially one having to deal with sensitive topics that could affect someone's life... We'll see how this goes tho
I haven't been on here as much as normal as I've had a busy week(for me). How is everyone? Anything cool happen?Anything to get off your chest? Or Just shoot the breeze
Was not feeling well for most of the week, and my city is experiencing historical heat waves (feels like temp is over 110 degrees F / 43 degrees C), the two may or may not be correlated... Not the worst I suppose?
LibreOffice is preinstalled in Pop OS, and as someone who loves the idea of FOSS I want to use it, but inevitably I just use Google docs or Office Online. Is it really worth learning? Has anyone successfully incorporated it into your workflow?
Is America Really That Bad?
Been seeing a lot about how the government passes shitty laws, lot of mass shootings and expensive asf health care. I come from a developing nation and we were always told how America is great and whatnot. Are all states is America bad ?
Would it make sense for a person in a "privileged class" to move from a red state?
Trying to gauge if I’m going crazy or a little too much “online.”...
Does anyone actually make money from stuff like this? (nftandgamefi.com)
This has to be a scam of some sort, but i don’t even see how the people at the top are making money.
google maps alt?
there's osm, but that doesn't have the convenience of being able to just chuck in a place and have it tell me how to drive there, which I need if I'm at a red light and need to know how to get somewhere. ty :)
[The Conversation] - Blame capitalism? Why hundreds of decades-old yet vital drugs are nearly impossible to find (theconversation.com)
Calckey rebranded as Firefish, versions 1.0.0 and 1.0.1 released
Calckey has been one of the more popular Fediverse apps for a while now, and just of today they did a major rebranding....
With the way the world's going, is there even a point to anything anymore?
Climate is fucked, animals continue to go extinct even more, our money will be worth nothing the coming years… What motivation do I even have to care to keep going? The world is ran and basically owned by corrupt rich people, there’s poverty, war, etc. It makes me sick to my stomach the way to world is. So I ask, why bother...
What is your go-to Linux distro and why?
I’d like to settle on a distro, but none of them seem to click for me. I want stability more than anything, but I also value having the latest updates (I know, kind of incompatible)....
Anti-ageing protein injection boosts monkeys’ memories (news article & attached research article) (www.nature.com)
TL;DR...
Hello fellow adults! Anybody else feel like almost every time you have to talk to someone to buy a thing, you're being swindled? If so how do you keep yourself from being taken advantage of?
See title....
what is the alternative to youtube?
Hi! sorry for the random topic 😅...
So how long until the Fediverse is monetized?
I’m fairly new and don’t 100% understand it yet, but instances are run on servers that require money. Are we heading towards seeing ads or subscriptions to raise funds instead of relying on donations to cover overhead?...
How many of you are still working full-time remote and how is it going? If not, why not? Was the decision made by you to go back to the office or did your employer decide for you?
I am still working full-time remote. There are definitely some social aspects of going to the office I miss, but I really don't miss the commute or the shitty office politics. Overall I feel I am still more productive from home and happier overall.
Anyone else dismayed by the limited success and adoption of Odysee (YT alternative) when it comes to Reddit alternatives?
So YouTube has a lot of problems, there's no denying that. Frivolous and selective (not to mention automated) copyright enforcement, bureaucratic termination appeal system, COPPA idiocy, the whole clusterfuck that is monetization, etc?...
Brave fork without crypto crap?
I have been thinking about switching to brave for better fingerprinting protection
What search engine do you use?
Data on search engine market share is available, but I wonder what that looks like for Lemmy users in particular, who I would assume lean more technical than the average user, so probably use DuckDuckGo and alternates more than Google....
OceanGate CEO Bragged About Using Expired Carbon Fiber to Build Doomed Sub (futurism.com)
New evidence strongly suggests that OceanGate’s submersible, which imploded and killed all passengers on its way to the Titanic wreck, was unfit for the journey. The CEO, Stockton Rush, bought discounted carbon fiber past its shelf life from Boeing, which experts say is a terrible choice for a deep-sea vessel. This likely...
OotL: What is this poop thing all of a sudden?
I am very confused and disturbed 😳
Meta and Mastodon: What’s really on people’s minds? (ianbetteridge.com)
A very detailed article about the whole Meta (Instagram/Threads) vs. Fediverse discussions. It's a long read, but well-worth it if you're interested in the subject.
People who frequent(ed) "support group" subreddits: what do you think about the future of those places?
I've joined several immigration-related subreddits because of my own life-situation nonsense. With how unpredictable Reddit is behaving, I'm having doubts whether the future of such subreddits are bright for people who need legal help or need to flee war-zones or stuff like that......
how was everyone's week?
I haven't been on here as much as normal as I've had a busy week(for me). How is everyone? Anything cool happen?Anything to get off your chest? Or Just shoot the breeze
Does anyone actually use LibreOffice?
LibreOffice is preinstalled in Pop OS, and as someone who loves the idea of FOSS I want to use it, but inevitably I just use Google docs or Office Online. Is it really worth learning? Has anyone successfully incorporated it into your workflow?
Describe a game in 5 words or less, and see if anyone can guess it.
I'll go first. Deranged Spiderman with guns