Hypolite Petovan

Tonight I went to see a “Lion King Jr.” musical performance produced by the middle-schoolers of my kid’s public school, and it was impressive. Original costumes, scenery, lights, music, choreography, everything was well above my expectations.
It did reinforce my belief that American education prioritizes performing arts which leads to better outcomes when it comes to theater and cinema.

2024-05-11 22:15:49

It’s often hard to get a sense of how well you are protecting your privacy online, but today in the mail my partner received two home loan spams from different banks that she could link to her recent browsing of Zillow to help a friend move. 😒
#privacy

2024-05-04 23:47:56

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@npub1ezu…26v8 Even closer
https://friendica.mrpetovan.com/photo/14616853206636ad034c47d600567301-0.png

2024-04-21 04:32:00

I would be more chatty on here if it weren’t for these two facts:
- I come up with social media posts when I can’t write them, and I instantly forget them. Sometimes, they come back to me at the right time. You’re getting only those.
- I share many terrible jokes with my partner first, and it's often enough for me not to want to post them online. You’re welcome.

2024-04-20 14:56:03

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@npub15xt…rneh Browser: Make up your mind!

2024-03-12 09:38:40

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@npub1ezu…26v8 Yes! That was definitely our number 1 priority coming around here.

2024-03-11 22:45:24

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@npub1ezu…26v8 After 3 days driving through Scotland, I’ve still yet to see sunshine 👀

2024-03-02 23:40:47

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@npub15xt…rneh @npub1g6h…khlr Thanks, I made it as part of a theme overhaul to give light, dark and black options with 5 different color accents. 😊

2024-02-15 14:53:38

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@npub1ezu…26v8 Sent this post to my partner and she responded "You rock my world" 🥰

2024-02-14 14:00:40

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@npub1w48…t9kl @npub15xt…rneh I know it's not new, but there is Thom
York(e)

2024-02-04 00:03:40

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@npub1ezu…26v8 We were trying straight for Nessie 👀

2024-02-03 20:10:42

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@npub1ezu…26v8 One of our goals for our upcoming Scotland jaunt is to catch a glimpse of a Highland cow!

2024-01-31 19:53:13

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@npub1ezu…26v8 @npub1vxt…53n3 I support the formal complaint route. Replying through social media won't change a thing, they already singled out "a minority" so they fully expect a minority pushback on Internet.

2024-01-28 15:07:26

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@npub15xt…rneh Indeed, that’s why I resorted to use KeePass on desktop with the TOTP extension to store the seeds. It generates codes and the QR code to add it to any app.

2024-01-19 15:30:53

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@npub1l0l…tpey I'm more familiar with Western Russia so I do count them in the West. I know things get different the further East you go culturally, but they also spent a great deal of effort to uniformize culture across the whole territory.

2024-01-19 15:26:55

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@npub1l0l…tpey I'm careful about not speaking to cultures I know less about. I should have been even more specific about Christian religions/cults as neither Judaism or Islam, significantly present in the West, seem to match my hunch.

2024-01-19 15:13:20

Yesterday it dawned on me that in the West, the only meaningful difference between grift cults and religions is that rulers are in on it with the latter.

2024-01-18 06:26:29

My experience with #USPS has been abysmal since the turn of the year. I don't mind longer delivery times than usual, it's customary around Christmas, but I have had a few packages just vanish from the tracking system in just a couple weeks, when it had only happened once in the previous 3 years I've extensively used their shipping services both inbound and outbound for my LEGO hobby.
I don't know what to do about it, i could switch to UPS for outbound shipping but it would be more expensive and I wouldn't have any guarantee it would be more reliable anyway, on top of lining the pockets of another private behemoth.

2024-01-11 01:32:45

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@npub1agu…j0sk I'm surprised too, but then I remember that I just was young when SNES games where released. Then as I grew older I kept buying video games so adults owning video games isn't foreign to me, but adults owning video games in the 1990s definitely is unfamiliar.

2024-01-08 16:58:10

If commercial cyberware became available, what organ/limb would you be willing to replace by a synthetic counterpart first?
#Cyberpunk

2023-12-26 16:55:29

I’ve been playing Cyberpunk 2077 (2020) for a little while, and I will likely have more words about it later, but at the moment I’m mainly amused that the similar universes of Cyberpunk (1988), Shadowrun (1989) and Blade Runner (1982) all wrongly picked Japanese culture as prominent in the not-so-far future when Chinese culture is shaping to be more dominant in real life.
I was wondering if it was because these universes were all created at a time where Japanese culture just made it big in the Western market? There’s of course a hefty dose of exoticism in all these universes but also at the time China wasn’t as big on the world stage as it is now.
#cyberpunk

2023-12-21 13:43:27

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@npub15xt…rneh @npub15et…mxpp When I scrolled past this post I read it as "welcome to the resistance" 😅

2023-12-20 03:25:00

The fleet of city taxis which still is a big part of New York City’s historical aesthetics has now been decimated. Uber and its competitors are obviously to blame, but I believe it’s COVID that struck the fatal blow.
The regulation yellow vehicles have mostly been replaced by black cars driven by people in I assume more precarious situations than the medallion drivers were.
It feels like yet another tragedy of the commons.

2023-12-19 00:14:25

These days I'm running with the belief that when conservatives criticize something, they are actually doing it themselves. Kid grooming, brainwashing, censorship, orgies, all are fair game for them but obviously not for liberals.
So I was wondering what form would it take when they started criticizing liberals for allegedly forcing kids to transition. I knew they were resisting the transition of their own kids or trying to reverse it with cruel conversion therapies, but forcing the transition in the first place? Nothing came to me.
I must have poor imagination, because today I've been made aware of such a case in the limited context of the True Flames Universe Christian cult. Promising their members to reveal who their Christ-blessed soul mate is, it faced a number problem when most of its flock ended up comprised of women.
Undeterred, the couple who runs this cult came up with the Divine Masculine/Feminine concepts that they bestowed at will on select female members in order to force them to transition to male in order to pair up members more easily.
Belief confirmed.
Trans People Aren't Forcing Anyone Else to Transition—But This Heteronormative Cult Is

2023-12-18 19:19:48

In general, values are only meaningful if concessions are made for them. This means that pointing out to someone that the concessions they're making for their personal values are somehow unwarranted or inconsistent will only get you a cold shoulder.

2023-12-14 01:32:00

Seeing the changes in personality incurred by Hormone Replacement Therapy made me realize we’re just three hormones in a trench-coat and should defeat any misconception about One True Self.

2023-12-12 02:40:20

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@npub1sat…8vnx Thank you for your reply, you're probably right, I assume a rollout could start with the people who already are receiving social security benefits.
As for the social services spendings, I'd be curious to see how it's spread, do you have a web page handy?

2023-12-11 15:10:31

Maybe naïve questions: How does #UBI sits in the #MMT framework? Public spending would far exceed production in the first months/years of the policy being enacted, since it can’t replace all social benefits?
#UniversalBasicIncome #ModernMonetaryTheory

2023-12-08 23:12:32

So before anyone makes fun of the ark encounter, remind them of these two facts.
So that they can laugh even harder?
Warning: The rest of the website might incur mental damage.
Factcheck: "Ark Encounter" Suffers Major Water Damage?

2023-12-04 19:34:31

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@npub15xt…rneh I see. I personally recognize Zionism as a terrorist movement and yet I don't think we should or even can take back the creation of the current state of Israel. I believe we can work out a solution for both Israelis and Palestinians that doesn't include the destruction of the State of Israel. This solution wouldn't be popular with the major political actors in the region so I don't have much hope for it.
In this personal context I didn't see this bill as groundbreaking but I do take issue with the retcon it exhibits. At the time of the creation of Israel in 1948, the Holocaust wasn't widely known and it certainly wasn't the main factor of its creation which process started years before, influenced by the Zionist bombings of British properties.
In this context I don't think the current State of Israel should have been created this way, but now that it has, I believe it would do more harm than good to somehow destroy it. I'm not sure if it would make me an anti-Semite but the very fact that I'm now wondering makes this bill pretty bad.

2023-12-04 17:38:22

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@npub15xt…rneh I find this text pretty lukewarm, what's your issue with it?

2023-12-04 17:20:56

I'm not sure what to make of people who are more excited about finding extra-terrestrial societies than about finding underwater societies. The latter is incomparably cheaper than the former, and few people would claim we figured out all the marine life yet.
Does it have to do with the sheer scale of space breaking our limited brains, or just with a narrow anthropocentric definition of "society", or both?

2023-12-03 03:11:49

I finally did it, I confused two shipping labels and shipped the wrong #LEGO order to two of my buyers. 😰
I contacted them both, issued partial refunds and they agreed to ship each other’s package using new shipping labels I paid for, and now I’m waiting for them to do the actual shipping.
I don’t do well sitting on my hands, having done everything I could, relying on strangers to right my wrong. 😣

2023-11-30 17:26:11

I'm on the market for a new gaming laptop, I put money down for a listing on Newegg sold by a third-party company, but it ended being not available (even though the listing is still up).
Here are my requirements:
- 4K display, 16"-17"
- 32+ GB memory
- 2+ TB SSD
- Keypad included in keyboard
- Budget: $2,800 - $3,200
- No Amazon
- Sold from the US
Can you #help me find a suitable offer? I've tried Newegg, B&H and Best Buy websites with disappointing results. Am I missing an obscure American electronics seller?

2023-11-28 13:20:46

My morning social media gripe: People using "here" to refer to a country/region without providing any clue as to where it could be in their public profile.

2023-11-26 01:53:20

I put a @npub1yaq…qxf9 cheese sticker on the back of my phone case and I wanted to take a picture, but I only have my phone for that. 🤷‍♂️

2023-11-25 21:14:58

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@npub15xt…rneh Love everything about these pictures, the colors (clothes, truck, houses) and the smile!

2023-11-23 13:16:37

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@npub1ezu…26v8 Oh yeah, a profit-driven jet pack would definitely fare better. 😅

2023-11-23 03:21:48

Who named them Iron-man when Fe-male was right there?

2023-11-18 03:09:05

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@npub1sat…8vnx Of course, but at this point I'm not confident you have a good representation of my opinion, as evidenced by the tangents we went on without really closing the loops. So I'd rather be clear so that I'm sure you disagree with the right opinion:
- White supremacy isn't inherently religious, but is linked to Christianism, at least in cultural heritage.
- White supremacy is resisting attempts at removing Christian symbols from both public and community life. Again, not for religious reasons, but because they are included in whiteness and white culture.
- White supremacy will exclude Jewish people any chance it gets, it isn't entirely about skin tone (although it also plays a role), but also about a Christian-centric culture.
Is it clearer?

2023-11-18 02:54:40

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@npub1sat…8vnx Would like me to summarize this discussion so that it's clear to you what I believe about white supremacy?

2023-11-18 01:41:11

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@npub1sat…8vnx The private YouTuber has every right to cite Bible verses and you’re free to ignore them. On the other hand public places are tied to local governments. A nativity scene in a mall is harmless, as it is a private place, but a nativity scene on town hall grounds is contentious.

2023-11-18 01:27:00

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@npub1sat…8vnx I don’t consider that specific example white supremacy, unless the “someone” is a public official for example, as it would be an obvious defiance to the separation between Church and State inscribed in the Constitution.

2023-11-18 00:16:38

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@npub1sat…8vnx Not exactly, but both:
- white people protesting nativity scenes not being reconducted in public places (it's happened in France)
- white people shoehorning Christmas-related activities in non-denominational events
are evidence of white supremacy. White supremacy is inextricably linked with Christianism even if it isn't a purely religious ideology. White supremacy will often refer to "Christian roots" for people, culture, morals, etc...

2023-11-18 00:01:42

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@npub1sat…8vnx From the little I know, most Ashkenazi Jewish people are white passing, but in a context where there's no other minority, they will be antagonized by Christian-rooted white people. My partner grew up in a mostly Italian-American town upstate New York, and she constantly felt excluded by the overwhelmingly Christian culture that was on display absolutely everywhere she went.

2023-11-17 23:41:30

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@npub1sat…8vnx Oh boy have I got bad news for you. My surprise is the opposite, at which point did you separate white supremacy from antisemitism?
And the answer to your other question, of course, is white supremacy. Not the loud, bombastic, provocative white supremacy the US has been made very familiar with over the past presidency, of course, but the quiet, insidious and unchallenged one in volunteer circles where white culture must be represented no matter what.

2023-11-17 23:02:18

My partner offered to provide supplies for making bookmarks during my kid’s school non-denominational “Winter fest”. Another mom suggested a Christmas tree ornament making activity, to which my partner replied she didn’t have much to contribute to this activity, being Jewish. This detail was completely ignored as the same mom continued on the Christmas ornament plan.
White supremacy doesn’t only express itself in red states’ school boards, but also in less newsworthy ways on the fest committees of diverse schools in Brooklyn, NY.

2023-11-16 17:24:35

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@npub1sat…8vnx As the end paragraph suggests, this wouldn't help with the various Google accounts bestowed to my kid by various organizations with over-restrictive policies. I understand that legally "under-13" is a sensitive category of people to give online service access to, but some policies verge on the absurd.

2023-11-16 17:01:53

I'm done with Chromebooks. Years ago I thought the small size laptop with a simplified OS was a good idea. And then I had to interact with one during the pandemic. The New York City Department of Education contracted with Google to provide accounts for all students and enable remote schooling.
So I bought one refurbished in 2020 and signed in with my kid's DOE account credentials. The strong password was auto-generated and impossible to remember, but it's used each time the computer starts or unlocked, so I set out to change it to something maybe less secure, but that would be usable.
This proved absolutely byzantine as I figured out I had to change the password in two separate places, in Google itself despite its insistance that the account was managed by the NYC DOE and in the NYC DOE despite its insistance that it's a Google account.
This worked great until the next school year when the account password was automatically reset to another strong one. I couldn't remember the exact process so I made a label with the password and stuck it to the screen frame.
Equally frustrating were the organization-set limits on the Google account. It wasn't possible for my kid to mail their work to me, GMail would refuse to send the email to my personal address "per organization policy".
Then my kid attended a writing workshop where they were given yet another Google account to write their stories on Google Docs and lo and behold, when I tried to sign in with this new account in the Chromebook, it was refused "per organization policy".
Fed up with the NYC DOE "policies", I reset the Chromebook and signed in with the writing workshop account. This went well, and my kid was able to access her work on the computer. But then when I tried to share her document with my personal Google account so that I could provide feedback as a commenter, it was refused "per organization policy".
We ended up having to create a document on my personal Google account and give authorship to my kid's account for this to work.

2023-11-16 16:24:38

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@npub1hyx…04xm What language is this? DeepL throws its hands in the air.

2023-11-16 15:06:25

How do people on social media dare to write in their native language and not in any of the two I read fluently?

2023-11-16 13:14:28

1. Install a game via Steam.
2. Play the game until ragequit.
3. Uninstall the game.
4. Years pass.
5. "Oh I'd play that game again".
6. Install the game.
7. Find old save, resume the game at the exact point I initially quit it.
8. Uninstall the game.
9. Go to 4.
#VideoGames

2023-11-15 20:17:02

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@npub1sat…8vnx But it barely appears in selfies/videos! You can just see the interior trim, which is invariably grey. 🤷‍♂️

2023-11-15 18:56:37

In the United States, what is the deal with car selfie/videos? Is this a status symbol? The place these people spend the most of their day? Something else?

2023-11-10 20:35:07

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@npub1h2x…uym5 Thank, I remember night fights being missfests, but I have two Night Ops specialist in my team currently, so maybe I'd have an edge?

2023-11-10 19:38:20

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@npub1h2x…uym5 Nope, it's actually a $4.99 DLC for Wildfire! store.steampowered.com/app/545…
Beyond that technicality, are there other tactics to minimize merc wounds I could have overlooked with my one-size-fit-all turtle tactic?

2023-11-10 18:35:10

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@npub1h2x…uym5 Thanks for the suggestion! I remember I tried this patch once with the specialized inventory slots, but it still didn't fix the cruelly short sight lines that inevitably make all skirmishes short-ranged firefights between two lines of people ten squares away from each other. I tried messing around with the game files, but I ended up getting weird results where mercs could see further, but nothing close.
I don't have access to a copy of Jagged Alliance 2 at the moment, so I won't be able to try it again.

2023-11-10 18:22:39

I played Jagged Alliance 2 (1999) about 20 years ago and while I remember it being somewhat of a tactical slog with sometimes indecisive firefights, I was able to get through about 75% of the game. This week I tried Jagged Alliance 2: Wildfire (2005), a mod turned standalone expansion, and I ragequit during the second campaign mission (the airfield) because all 7 of my mercs were wounded by the time I eliminated just three guards.
I remember there was a fair bit of turtling, progressing slowly by crawling to the enemy positions, peppering them on the way, but this hasn't seemed to be effective in my new game, where my team regularly miss all of their shots while the enemies get a much better hit ratio despite carrying handguns and SMGs which have poor optimal range.
Of course, if my mercs get closer any faster than by crawling, they either get more chances to be successfully hit or uncover more enemies with more bullets coming their way.
Is there something I'm missing to be practically stuck at the second campaign mission?
#VideoGames #help

2023-11-09 16:35:09

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@npub1l0l…tpey Nope, in American English "polygamy" is specifically about marrying more than one spouse. It's a polar opposite of solo polyamory and illegal in most Western countries.

2023-11-09 16:29:59

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@npub1l0l…tpey The fact that "solo polyamory" is a term that exists separately makes me think it isn't. I feel like there's a fine line between "solo polyamory" and "dating multiple people at the same time" which is way more common a behavior because it still tends towards monogamy at some point.
In the same way, I feel like polyamory often starts from a monogamous situation. I don't have numbers, of course, but it's been the most prevalent experience described in the little I read about it.

2023-11-09 16:23:14

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@npub1l0l…tpey From what I learned, usually it's going to be the partner you're living together with for example.

2023-11-09 16:11:02

Recently I learned about "solo polyamory", polyamory without a primary partner, and to me it sounds like all the drawbacks of romantic relationships without the advantages.

2023-11-09 13:31:09

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@npub1sat…8vnx Ha, as much as I would love to blame AI for this, I still believe it was a human who wrote it. I didn't check out the comments for fear of what I would find.

2023-11-09 03:33:07

Seen on #NextDoor :
“Please don’t make this a political debate because it won’t take us anywhere”
This is a curious closing paragraph after vaguely despairing about the results on Election Day evening and asking what can be done to prevent a local drunk driving incident described in great details.
I really don’t understand what this person is expecting with a post like this.

2023-11-08 19:11:35

Listening to Wintergatan - Paradis I’m reminded how finicky it is to tune a Theremin for a live show because of how everything can affect the magnetic field it’s using.
#music #np #NowPlaying
Paradis - Wintergatan LIVE

2023-11-07 05:01:52

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@npub1sat…8vnx I see what you did there, but I use a printer regularly to print LEGO invoices and the related shipping labels.

2023-11-07 04:52:33

Today for the first time I printed a Wikipedia page to give it to read to my kid, I feel a million years old.

2023-10-28 22:59:13

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@npub1agu…j0sk I agree the line is thin between pro-Palestinian/anti-Israeli and antisemitism, but because of this it’s hard to deem any phrase used by Palestinians as definitely antisemitic. I learned that it was used by Hamas so it recognize it can be ambiguous, but they didn’t coin this phrase which means it has legitimate uses as well that you can’t rule out.
On the other hand, the Confederate flag case has absolutely no ambiguity. It was created to defend slavery and has always been used by the same kind of people, no matter what they have publicly claimed about it.

2023-10-28 22:39:28

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@npub1agu…j0sk Thank you for clarifying!

2023-10-28 22:10:05

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@npub1agu…j0sk The vague “they” you’re using seems to imply to me that you have chose to write off all Palestinians as antisemitic, which I simply cannot condone.
I believe the Jewish people deserves a sovereign land and self-determination, but I believe the Palestinian people also deserves it. Israel received the support of Western countries for various reasons (including guilt over Holocaust and strategic locations for military outposts), and after the 6 Days War, I feel like Palestinians ended up paying for the rest of Arabic nations that indeed wanted Israel wiped out. I assume the latter have been supporting Hamas ever since, for equally dubious reasons.
So it definitely isn’t only about Hamas and antisemitism, unfortunately it is a largest conflict than this and making sweeping statements about what something means is likely to be wrong.

2023-10-28 20:24:56

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@npub1agu…j0sk Today I stumbled upon an alternative explanation of “From the River to the Sea” from a source I don’t expect to be anti-semitic: jewishcurrents.org/what-does-f…

2023-10-26 20:26:58

So, I flew 6 hours (1,200 miles, 1,931km) and I’m still in the same country. I was wondering in what other countries you can also do that, but my Internet search for “countries by biggest length” so far yielded more results about penises that I was ready to bargain for.
So far I have:
- Russia
- China
- Chile
- Argentina
- Australia
Kazakhstan looks like a good candidate but I was not able to find definite information on its dimensions aside from its area which of no use to me.
#Travel #Geography

2023-10-04 22:17:35

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@npub15xt…rneh All the names are incredibly colonialist in the Americas, themselves named after a European navigator.

2023-10-04 21:51:37

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@npub15xt…rneh Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French and Romanian are derived from Latin, which would mean "Latin-speaking" American as opposed to "Anglo-Saxon-speaking" America with the US and Canada.

2023-10-04 20:00:13

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@npub15xt…rneh Sorry to hear that, friend, hope it gets better for you!

2023-09-15 03:14:20

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@npub15xt…rneh The latest Fedi drama is the rage.love/mastodon.art/The Bad Place blocklist/FediFence affair. If you didn’t read about it, an account was wrongly moderated by r.l and m.art for bearing the same name as someone accused of anti-indigenous racism, then retracted their statements/decision when the misunderstanding was cleared.

2023-08-10 23:03:59

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@npub15xt…rneh @npub1ngc…kwcg I legit thought OP was a Brands.town post before I saw your reply.

2023-07-06 01:30:47

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@npub1h4y…4srl When you have a kid, your music tastes better expand fast, because you aren't in control of the playlist anymore.

2023-07-06 01:05:01

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@npub1h4y…4srl Oh no, I used the Ed Sheeran version to wash my ears afterwards.

2023-07-06 00:50:31

9yo: Can you play the song “Celestial”?
Me: The one by Ed Sheeran?
9yo: No, it has a female voice.
Me: *meekly* The Kidz Bop Kids* version?
9yo: Yes!
Every. Single. Goddamn. Time. 😩
*Kidz Bop Kids is a production covering popular songs with young voices/choirs, including explicit ones by sanitizing the lyrics beyond any meaningfulness.

2023-07-05 19:10:56

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@npub1uvq…g9gj @npub1a2l…s0vx If “reply all” is the default action like I believe it is on the Gmail client, they might not even know they’re doing it.

2023-07-03 14:12:31

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@npub1h4y…4srl Please don’t worry about the deferred queue, there’s an increased delay for each failure which means you can have days/months old stuff that should have a minimal impact on performances.

2023-06-09 15:10:44

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@npub15xt…rneh People who have wanted to make contact (Tumblr, WordPress) have successfully done so. As a result I’m working on the assumption that Meta doesn’t want to make contact.

2023-05-28 21:04:45

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@npub15xt…rneh Why would your server “pick up” replies from people you aren’t following?

2023-05-19 19:50:14

An interesting write-up from @npub1uvq…g9gj who recently made the jump from #Mastodon to #Friendica, highlighting the features that won him over.
Once again, #RSS for the win!
Trying Friendica

2023-05-05 23:15:19

How do “social norms” emerge and do they need to be enforced?
This is a sub-post to avoid being a reply guy but I still need to get it out of my system. Maybe I’m wrong after after all.

2023-04-23 22:07:55

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#[0] #[1] Hi, I’d like to report an instance of e-begging, here’s the quote from their profile:
If you wish to support Cupoftea.social feel free to donate over on our Ko-Fi Page:
ko-fi.com/cupofteasocial…

2023-04-20 05:48:49

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#[0] #[1] uses nodeinfo to provide a Fediverse statistics snapshot from each node.
https://friendica.mrpetovan.com/photo/26608124816440b60c49612524314185-0.png

2023-03-26 20:29:24

entitity, noun: A being with exactly two breasts.