"The only incurable troubles of the rich are the troubles that money can’t cure, Which is a kind of trouble that is even more troublesome if you are poor. Certainly there are lots of things in life that money won’t buy, but it’s very funny - Have you ever tried to buy them without money?"
People who have what they want are…
And I wish I could afford to gath…
I dont’ mind their having a lot of…
But I do think that they damn wel…
But no, they insist on being steal…
The people that say "money can't buy happiness" always have some stupid hobby that makes them sad instead of happy. People with creative hobbies get happier with more money they have. I have a dozens of things i want to do that i can't because i don't have money.
Elon bought a social media because people made fun of him there.
Mark spends his time stalking millions of people and running psyops with CIA.
Bill Gates is testing how awful a OS can be before people stop using it.
There’s a line that’s a bit harder, but has a bomb proof place for a top rope anchor. The feee solo line has piss all gear at the top, unless you wanna trust a juniper bush.
@:palestine_heart: Pandora I dabble. Dupuytren’s disease means that I can’t climb properly any more, but free solo a juggy limestone cliff? That I can do.
I've put out* or arranged people to put out litter bin fires I think three or four times. Is it just that no-one else does anything about anything, or am I particularly lucky about turning up just at the right time?
*(nothing particularly dramatic, just going into nearby shop and saying "the bin outside is on fire, do you have a container of water I can dump on it")
This entry was edited (Monday, May 13, 2024, 6:37 PM)
A very long time ago I worked at a small gas station. We had a customer who smoked every time he filled up. With the fuel nozzle in his hand. And the boss never wanted to stop him. 🙈
Me, in southern Portugal: you seen that Spain and Morocco are contemplating a rail tunnel?
@Zoë O'Connell, also in southern Portugal: But they won’t build a rail line to here? WHY EVEN IS SPAIN?
Me: That would be HARD, Zoe. They’d have to build a rail line over at least THREE KILOMETRES of line across land nobody lives on and construct a bridge of about TWO HUNDRED METRES.
@João Tiago Rebelo @Zoë O'Connell Also, were a bridge to be constructed, it would face the insurmountable engineering challenge of water that is thousands upon thousands of millimetres deep.
Spanish railways were originally built to six (Castilian) feet. Portuguese ones to five (Portuguese) feet. These are, however, only 8mm different - Portugal being 1664mm, Spain 1672mm.
When the two networks joined up (1880s), they agreed a compromise "Iberian" gauge of 1668mm, and gradually all track was switch to that, which was officially completed in 1955.
So yeah, they already fixed *that* problem 70 years go.
@Andrew Zonenberg @Neil Brown It’s a manual focus lens. I zoomed in to pixel level on the viewfinder and turned the focus ring until the streetlights 50km away were single points of light.
Not easy because the viewfinder image was super noisy.
Autofocus generally has no chance in those kinds of conditions. The other one is a 14mm autofocus lens but that’s only a 1 minute exposure and there was enough contrast left between the sky and the foliage to get an autofocus lock.
@Neil Brown @Andrew Zonenberg I will say that I have ruined attempts before because of the same end-stop problem. It worked better when I turned the focus peaking off in the viewfinder because it was getting in the way.
@zip (happy halloween 2024!) @Neil Brown The dark frame subtraction is an option on the Fuji X cameras. After the shot, it closes the shutter and takes another exposure of the same length, but in pitch black.
It then subtracts the second from the first, eliminating stuck pixels, a certain amount of background noise, etc.
@neil Oh, yeah I didn't even attempt AF because I knew it'd get nowhere.
That's pretty much what I've done, zoom in as far as I can on the EVF and twiddle the focus ring until the stars stop getting smaller. But yeah, noise makes that tricky. I guess I just need to practice more.
Here's a few examples of otherwise-nice shots I lost due to this.
I've mostly been able to take camera/tripod motion out of the equation by setting a ~5 second self timer, pressing the shutter button, then stepping away and letting the vibrations damp out before the exposure starts. So this blur should be all defocus.
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lenses need that extra, post infinity 'reach' to do the autofocusing. Not sure if any of them actually have the infinity properly marked; none of the few ones I have/had had it. My current one has something that doesn't feel very accurate. Looking at manual focus lenses, they implement a similar cursor, but most seem to have the extra info of FoD, which make hyper focusing easier.
I use a similar technique to what @goatsarah explained. I mostly use Jupiter.
whenever Vanuatu is mentioned I always think of IHP and feel grateful to the nation of Vanuatu for helping me through the first months of my transition while the gatekeepers were keeping gate
Just received the following email from the vice chancellor of my alma mater. They seem to be handling things a bit differently to the Americans:
Dear alumni and friends,
As you may be aware from recent media coverage, an encampment has been set up on the lawn in front of King’s College. I wanted to share with you a note that was sent to our staff and students yesterday, and to assure you that the normal business of the University is continuing as usual.
As the message says, the University is fully committed to freedom of speech within the law, and the right to protest. We ask everyone in our community to treat each other with understanding and empathy at this, and all, times, and our priority remains the safety of our staff and students. We will not tolerate antisemitism, Islamophobia, or any other form of racial or religious hatred in our community. The University has set out guidance around expectations to the protesters, and the protestors have issued community guidance which describes a peaceful protest.
Our thoughts remain with all those who
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Just received the following email from the vice chancellor of my alma mater. They seem to be handling things a bit differently to the Americans:
Dear alumni and friends,
As you may be aware from recent media coverage, an encampment has been set up on the lawn in front of King’s College. I wanted to share with you a note that was sent to our staff and students yesterday, and to assure you that the normal business of the University is continuing as usual.
As the message says, the University is fully committed to freedom of speech within the law, and the right to protest. We ask everyone in our community to treat each other with understanding and empathy at this, and all, times, and our priority remains the safety of our staff and students. We will not tolerate antisemitism, Islamophobia, or any other form of racial or religious hatred in our community. The University has set out guidance around expectations to the protesters, and the protestors have issued community guidance which describes a peaceful protest.
Our thoughts remain with all those who are affected by the current conflict, and we continue to work very closely, offering support and empathy, to those in our community who are affected by tragic events in Gaza, Israel and elsewhere. Yours, Debbie Professor Deborah Prentice Vice-Chancellor
@BashStKid @Sarah Brown She has very little control over the colleges as they're all independent institutions. I think there are separate protests directed at Trinity; with my vaguely-associated-with-Maths hat on I gather various Trinity maths open days have been subject to protests.
@BashStKid I think the attitude of individual colleges is most likely to be dictated by their fellowship. I don’t know what King’s fellowship is like and how likely they are to put pressure though.
I remember this topic coming up at my university (mixed) halls of residence, and one of the guys turning to one of the girls and saying “Emma, guys wank.”
One of the most concisely truthful bits of education I’ve ever seen. 😂
This entry was edited (Monday, May 6, 2024, 3:27 PM)
I am delighted and relieved but I daren't hope it'll improve nationally cos Labour is only "less bad" not necessarily any good.
My area did ditch our Tory mayor tho, the one who has been distancing himself from the parliamentary party while also being the life partner of Michael Fabricant which Makes No Sense At All Cos He's A Scary Loon.
So I just had a transphobe try to piggy-back off a recent popular post I made, presumably to gain reach. i have a decent following here on fedi, but am a micro instance. They too were a micro instance. By default, people on micro instances are not easily discoverable other than by interaction, so if you have a following on one, it’s generally because you’ve built it “organically”, as it were.
They presumably thought that by posting transphobic rage bait in response to me, they could get me to reply, and my reply would federate to my followers, and then they’’d be seen.
Instead I just instantly defederated their server with no response.
They are howling into the void, and nobody is there to hear.
This is not Twitter. Just because someone replies to your thread doesn’t mean the rest of the word will see it. This is the achillies heal of bigots here. Most big instances will moderate them into oblivion, so they start micro instances, but unless people actually like what you’re saying, and interact, you simp
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So I just had a transphobe try to piggy-back off a recent popular post I made, presumably to gain reach. i have a decent following here on fedi, but am a micro instance. They too were a micro instance. By default, people on micro instances are not easily discoverable other than by interaction, so if you have a following on one, it’s generally because you’ve built it “organically”, as it were.
They presumably thought that by posting transphobic rage bait in response to me, they could get me to reply, and my reply would federate to my followers, and then they’’d be seen.
Instead I just instantly defederated their server with no response.
They are howling into the void, and nobody is there to hear.
This is not Twitter. Just because someone replies to your thread doesn’t mean the rest of the word will see it. This is the achillies heal of bigots here. Most big instances will moderate them into oblivion, so they start micro instances, but unless people actually like what you’re saying, and interact, you simply won’t federate.
And they won’t even know I made this post now. LMAO! LOL!
Tl;dr: ostracising arseholes works to curtail their influence and ultimately, their behaviour, and the fediverse by its nature serves to promote that ostracism.
that's a nice explanation. Thank you for this, and I'lluse this as an example the next time Ihave to explain what the Fediverse is.
Now, I'm sure there are people who will argue that this is what makes the Fediverse bad, since it's very hard to "go viral". And I'm sure I could hace been seen by more people if I started posting on, I don't know, instagram? But you know what? Quality over quantity.
@clew I think once you understand that outside the big instances, “what I see is not what everyone sees” then it becomes clear. As a small instance mod, you’re like the “readers’ letters” section of an old newspaper. Just because people send you stuff doesn’t mean you have to help the world see their thinky thoughts.
incidentally, this is why many activists (or faketivists) don't like fedi: they need to forcefully push their message and they can't. And one can have opposite opinions depending on whether they consider the message to be good or evil. I, for one, value this property of the fediverse very much.
So that Jurassic Park, a creature-feature starring Tyrannosaurus Rex and Velociraptor, is named after a period that occurred over seventy million years before those animals evolved.
So there’s a thing about these right wing Americanists who want to force women back into “traditional gender roles” that I don’t get: they come from the bit of America where the music is all about women in traditional gender roles, trapped in an abusive marriage, murdering their husbands.
Goodbye, Earl. (Srsly though here in the US this would more typically end with Earl murdering Wanda & probably Maryanne, too, if she lived in easy driving distance.) youtu.be/bqnrXRuebWg
Pharmacies in Portugal (verified) and Spain (unverified) will often sell oestrogen HRT over the counter to tourists without a prescription. If you watch Ryanair prices, you could day trip there for £50 or less.
This will likely be cheaper and potentially safer than using an internet pharmacy.
@Siguza Like, I’m frequently named personally by connected TERFs in the UK as the trans woman they hate the most, and I use FAO/STN like it’s a city bus. I’m at the, “oh, you again, hi! Usual in flight meal?” stage with some of the cabin crew and I can confirm that UK Border Force find me wholly and entirely uninteresting. They are looking for some people. They aren’t looking for us.
(As in on Wednesday, I was in my own kitchen in the UK, making tea, exactly 40 minutes after the Ryanair flight I had been on touched its wheels to the ground and engaged its brakes. Barely broke stride for the border).
@Siguza And as for the usual in flight meal thing, the green chicken curry on Ryanair is surprisingly good, and also gluten free. It’s my meal plan for Sunday, when I will be eating one about 10km above the Bay of Biscay.
The “recommended legal max” was mentioned to me by the Thai doctor I visited because I don't have the energy to fill out all the forms in the UK, let alone wait that many years.
There may have been a misunderstanding I dunno.
It sounds like maybe I'm one of those folk who struggles with estradiol valerate as my level was 60-something I think and they said the 'target level' for a trans woman was 100.
I bought 6 months' worth of E before I left Thailand though so I'll stick with that for now.
Do you know if estradiol hemihydrate is available in Thailand? If my levels aren't great in November, maybe I can ask to go on those.
@StuffByBez the 8mg limit tends to be what the NHS and UK private providers stick with. There are patches/gel you could try. Different people react differently.
@StuffByBez @jen To my understanding this is mostly if you use overly high doses, which is sadly kinda common because medical professionals are idiots and often don’t take into account that E is an anti-androgen and prescribe full 50mg pills.
The linked document is being circulated amongst NHS service providers for young trans people. It advises cessation of ALL medical intervention for transition but goes further. It suggests that if the patient or parents continue to access trans healthcare outside their system, they should be reported to social services with the implicit threat that the children will be taken from their parents.
IF YOU ARE A YOUNG TRANS PERSON OR A PARENT OF ONE, IT IS LIKELY UNSAFE TO ENGAGE WITH NHS MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES.
@MidgePhoto “mundane”. Jesus fucking Christ! Talk about the banality of evil.
The fuck is wrong with these people that not only do they want us casually exterminated? They want to get up in our face on social media and gloat about it.
@ian I think they do what they can, within limits, to meet bare minimum standard … if they get 6 months to respond to something, they’ll take 6 months, which is why they process with them could be 5 years before anything significant happens.
Yes, those fortunate enough can take the easier route and pay to go private, but I genuinely fear for those that don’t have that luxury, it’s heartbreaking
@grayface_ghost @StrangeNoises @cstross You're giving the British public more credit than they deserve,don't forget these are the people that gave the albino orang utan and 80 odd seat majority to do with as he wished to which he started wrecking the country. Mags happened on both sides of the Atlantic ocean we've gotta make sure it doesn't happen on this side again.
Like, there’s this person who I barely knew existed until I heard that they are now on a multi year deep dive obsession with me making a post saying that getting rid of TERFs was akin to getting rid of bedbugs.
I didn’t name this person; I had no fucking idea that they existed, until I started hearing on the grapevine that they are habitually walking around showing screenshots from this server and complaining that “Sarah said I am like bedbugs and pubic lice”. Bit self-important, but whatever.
Apparently recently they presented it as justification for their revolting behaviour towards trans women. “Sarah, who doesn’t know me, said mean things about a group of people which I took to include me, based on my own evaluation of my own behaviour, and I am now VERY OFFENDED”.
Ok, so here’s the thing:
I know you’re almost certainly reading this because you’re obsessed with m
Like, there’s this person who I barely knew existed until I heard that they are now on a multi year deep dive obsession with me making a post saying that getting rid of TERFs was akin to getting rid of bedbugs.
I didn’t name this person; I had no fucking idea that they existed, until I started hearing on the grapevine that they are habitually walking around showing screenshots from this server and complaining that “Sarah said I am like bedbugs and pubic lice”. Bit self-important, but whatever.
Apparently recently they presented it as justification for their revolting behaviour towards trans women. “Sarah, who doesn’t know me, said mean things about a group of people which I took to include me, based on my own evaluation of my own behaviour, and I am now VERY OFFENDED”.
Ok, so here’s the thing:
I know you’re almost certainly reading this because you’re obsessed with me. I fled the country to avoid people like you, so yeah, I don’t like you much. I think you’re objectively terrible human beings. You’re worse than my mother in law, and she steals tips off of restaurant tables.
And the fact that you’re still letting this live rent free in your head months and months, going into years later, and that people you think are your friends are laughing at you for it and then telling me about it, is clearly something that’s bothering you.
So I’m going to try and offer you a bit of insight, and maybe you might find it helpful. I dunno.
Anyway, were some random TERF to liken me to pubic lice or bedbugs, even if they specifically named me (and I sure as fuck didn’t do that; I’m not stupid), I know exactly what I’d feel:
NOTHING
Absolutely nothing. The fuck should I care what some random arsehole I don’t respect thinks about me? It’s not like I’m relying on their opinion for anything.
Maybe if I thought they had a point, I might be upset, and dwell on it tho.
as a young trans woman (under minimum age for medically prescribed HRT) living in the UK. Things have never been worse for me. I have tried self harming within the past few months because of my severe gender dysphoria yet I cannot do anything about it. I live in a single working class parent household without enough money for DIY. So I've pretty much given up on a medical transition until I can move to another country or get enough money for a good supply of DIY hrt.
i wanna talk to it but it is on DND mode for the last couple of days meaning that i'm not sure if i should reach to her or if to give it space (said friend uses it/she pronouns)
This entry was edited (Wednesday, May 1, 2024, 12:55 PM)
@Isabel Ruffell Which kind of makes the next election a no-op. If I thought any party likely to win significant support would moderate him I’d pin meagre hope on that but I can’t see even our “allies” making trans rights a condition of doing business.
it's been hard. I've got friends who are definitely struggling right now. Things seem very uncertain is probably the nicest way to say "it's probably going to be more of the same after the election"
@Alisdair Calder McGregor aaaaasanyway, must dash. Got a subtropical sunset to watch over my citrus trees, safe in the knowledge that I have no pubic lice.
Michael O’Leary is a real life shitposter who plays the press like a fiddle, and here he is doing it again.
We live in a time where anyone could do a quick check to see if a 737-8200 could reach Rwanda from the UK (ok, fuelling stops are possible but it seems unlikely that would be favoured), and confirm that, no, it cannot.
But “journalists” don’t apparently bother to actually investigate … anything.
Ryanair Holdings Plc Chief Executive Officer Michael O’Leary weighed into the UK’s controversial plan to deport refugees to Rwanda, saying he would “happily” do the flights if he had the available aircraft.
But it’s basically Silo, if Silo didn’t take itself seriously, and also there’s no nuclear war in Silo, and everybody outside is dead in Silo (humans anyway, the rest of the ecosystem is fine as long as it stays away from Fulton County, Georgia).
And Silo is set in our future, not some 1950s retro future.
But other than that, same idea. I guess Silo was influenced by the game. It’s very much “what if Fallout, but hard sci-fi?”
@FoolishOwl Also, the reasoning for doing the bad thing was different: Fallout, capitalist excess; Silo, Thurman passionately believes that he needs to murder 7 billion people to save humanity.
They both probably draw from similar sources in many ways. I’d be surprised if there aren’t some Twilight Zone episode or similar around.
And while sharing a lot, they also are by all means distinct. Does feel like a copy, just shared inspiration. Which is good.
That said, Fallout was the spiritual successor to Wasteland, which isn’t a vault thing but more generic post apocalyptic. I still have my C64 original 😀
“Woke” is used as en epithet by those whose entire existence is trying to make reality conform to their simplistic prejudices, against those who live in the real, but more complex, world.
after lettuce-head said the other day that their constituency “has no woke hostelries”, and there being no desire on their part to define “woke”, I’ve decided to take that task on myself. From now on, “woke” means “great beer”.
Don’t quite know what to make of this. Either it’s Cass trying to gaslight us, or maybe she’s realised that beyond the shores of Normal Island and the US, having her name on this bag of crap basically destroys her career? thekitetrust.org.uk/wp-content…
@christineburns I suspect she’s just so lacking in empathy that she thought she was doing a good job. Her main focus seems to have been on NHS admin, completely failing to appreciate what it must be like for folk trapped in a hostile system with a clock ticking.
@Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 @Christine Burns MBE 🏳️⚧️📚⧖ none of these people even consider us human, if they consider us at all. To them, we are a failed outcome, to be avoided at all costs. It doesn’t even occur to them that we lead rich, fulfilling lives.
So first they feed the transphobes a bunch of crap they'll be running wild with for YEARS, then they're trying to feed everybody else the idea that they didn't mean it that way-- as if that's going to help. What a steaming pile of twisted crap.
This entry was edited (Friday, April 19, 2024, 6:26 PM)
UK new builds: the builders will tell you that the toilet flushes are “European style” to save water.
This is a lie. I live in two new build flats. One in Portugal and one in England. The toilets they put in in UK new builds are just shit at flushing. The ones in Portugal flush properly.
the UK blaming Europe (a continent of which it is a part no matter how much it insists it’s a continent of its own) for things it does to itself is a tradition going back to at least the early 80s but probably medieval times
I think I’ve put my finger on what coming back to the UK feels like. If an actual nation state could be suffering from clinical depression, this is what it would look like: Everything is slowly going to shit; the country seems to see no future for itself; it’s making decision after decision that is self neglect bordering on self harm; quite possibly the most unpopular government to be removed by democratic vote rather than bloodshed is about to lose an election by a cataclysmic margin, and when the opposition, who are set to clean up, are asked what they’re going to do differently, the answer is a shrug followed by, “nothing”.
And people here more or less accept it, because boiling frogs and suchlike, but then you go elsewhere (no, America, not you, sit back down), and it’s like the colour returns to the world and you didn’t even realise it was missing.
@S . G . A . @Ian Turton they’re not in any hurry to do any of that. It would involve the entire state changing its mind and there is a lot of inertia involved in that.
@danieldurrans Honestly I accept it because it’s that and move away from almost every human I know. If I had no family or local friends I’d be in Germany already.
you're 100% right. I felt the same way after recently returning to the UK from a trip to the Netherlands, only I couldn't have articulated it nearly as well.
I can't speak for the other UK nations, but in England it just feels like we've given up. I hate it.
@quantumjump I was in London for a mere 24 hours recently and it lived up to every stereotype I had in my head of it being the physical personification of a vague feeling of looming oppression. most other places Are Not Like That
@s31bz It's a total clown car of a country nowadays. Nothing works and no one cares. @goatsarah is completely right about boiling frogs - most people here have never lived abroad to know any better.
The acquisition of a PICADE has me playing OUTRUN. This is a game that I remember from my youth with spectacular graphics. The graphics are, in fact, shit. It also has HGVs doing in excess of 180kph. I am questioning SEGA’s commitment to realism.
@Sarah Brown I remember it in arcades with the big cabinet you could sit in. It didn’t matter that the palm trees looked like stacks of cardboard boxes somehow.
@Alexandra Lanes Stereo speakers behind your head. Cabinet looked a bit like a Ferrari. It cost 50p a play when most games were 10p, but my god, it was such a sight to behold!
Chris Petrilli
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Iwillyeah
Unknown parent • • •Iwillyeah
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •AidanK 🇵🇸🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
in reply to Iwillyeah • • •@Iwillyeah
From "The Terrible People" by Ogden Nash:
poeticous.com/ogden-nash/the-t…
"The only incurable troubles of the rich are the troubles that money can’t cure,
Which is a kind of trouble that is even more troublesome if you are poor.
Certainly there are lots of things in life that money won’t buy, but it’s very funny -
Have you ever tried to buy them without money?"
The Terrible People, par Ogden Nash
PoeticousIwillyeah
in reply to AidanK 🇵🇸🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ • • •Buy nothing new
Unknown parent • • •Smoljaguar
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •sabik
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Money can buy happiness, Musk doesn't know how to shop
"He chose... unwisely"
like this
Sarah Brown and Alexandra Lanes like this.
void
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •The people that say "money can't buy happiness" always have some stupid hobby that makes them sad instead of happy.
People with creative hobbies get happier with more money they have.
I have a dozens of things i want to do that i can't because i don't have money.
Elon bought a social media because people made fun of him there.
Mark spends his time stalking millions of people and running psyops with CIA.
Bill Gates is testing how awful a OS can be before people stop using it.
Sarah Brown
in reply to void • •