Oggie

futurebird , 1 day ago to random

The term "starter home" is so strange. Buying a home is so difficult as it is.

Who is thinking about any home you manage to buy without going into horrible debt as just a "start" ? A start of what?

It seems like one of those things where rather than say "homes for poor people" we have this goofy fiction that someday I'm gonna move out of the Bronx and buy a condo in Manhattan. No. Some people just aren't ever going to buy a mansion and that's... fine? Or it should be. Right?

Oggie , 1 day ago

@futurebird @rlstone4dems
I have a friend who just bought a house a year ago who is already talking about when he sells it. It's really something.

I get it if you're miserable there, and honestly maybe he is. It's just...a strange concept to me, in a lot of ways.

mekkaokereke , 2 days ago to random

🤔Everything y'all are panicking about in Project 2025, was known about back in 2015. These exact plans were written down in great detail, by much the same people. Biden knew this. Hillary knew this. A bunch of Black people 🙋🏿‍♂️ knew this, and watched them complete "Phase 1" in Trump's first term.

https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/112468474131649004

And yet... the 1st thing Biden did after he was elected, was threatened to fire any of his staff that weren't polite to the people implementing this plan?

Make it make sense

1/N

Oggie , 2 days ago

@mekkaokereke
It is absolutely baffling to me that there hasn't been more action against voter disenfranchisement.

It's such an easy sell.

Hey, here's a plan to stop people from being removed from voter rolls without a token attempt to contact them. Hey, here's a law to stop shutting down voting locations in random districts. Hey, here's a strategy to scale back the worst of gerrymandering.

These aren't trivial things to get through, but they are incredibly shitty to fight against! use it!

Oggie , 2 days ago

@mloxton @mekkaokereke Thing is, I honestly am not sure that half the country would be firmly against this. Sure, there's an absolutely gobsmacking amount of racism and desire for entrenchment and similar, but a huge portion of those still pride themselves on at least the abstract concept of 'fairness' (even if they don't practice it). Play on that!

Most of the stuff will be attacked, but the people fighting it would look awful. Fighting against 'you should be able to vote' is a hard sell.

vampiress , 7 days ago to random

I despise soft power switches on computers. In fact, not only do I want proper "cut the fucking power to this hunk of junk right now" buttons, I want them to be huge Edwardian knife switches like this.

Throw thew huge lever. An almighty clunk happens. The OS vanishes. The display goes dark.

As the computer gods intended.

Oggie , 6 days ago

@vampiress
First off, I agree, so, so much.

Secondly, I feel like you might not be aware of this and I might be causing a fiscal drain, and for that I'm sorry, but-
https://www.concordaerospace.com/collections/customizable-panels

I feel like the whole concept of 'I lightly brush my computer and then it comes to life' is fine for some stuff, but I want big binary clunks, damnit!

futurebird , 19 days ago to random

Ritchie Torres, you are a congressman and must set a better example. Do not tell Jewish people who is, and isn't being Jewish correctly. Just don't.

That was an ugly thing to say. Everyone noticed.

I'm very tired and do not want to run around trying to find a new congressperson in two years, OK?

@RitchieTorres

Oggie , 19 days ago

@futurebird I am hoping I am just tired and this wasn't, in fact, a no true Scotsman situation.

mekkaokereke , 20 days ago to random

See? This is why I'm a so called "climate doomer."

1. Because fixing the climate requires reducing anti-Black racism, and letting Black folk in the US vote, but the US just does not want to do that. There is no viable path to making progress on climate change without reducing anti-Black racism. None.

2. Because so many people will see headlines like this, and not even recognize the problem with it. China is doing the right thing! But we frame that as a negative.

https://www.dw.com/en/from-solar-to-evs-how-china-is-overproducing-green-tech/a-68782157

Oggie , 20 days ago

@mekkaokereke The framing in the headline is something. 'overproducing' makes it seem like there is a set amount that should be created, and more than that is inherently 'too much', because the concept of more than the minimum is crazy.

It's priming people to certain mindsets right from the get go, via implication that there is an absolute set appropriate amount of 'green stuff's to worry about.

18+ hrefna , 1 month ago to random

Like, seriously now. WHAT DO YOU THINK THE DEFINITION OF HARM REDUCTION IS?

"Harm reduction" is providing clean needles. It's making sure they don't trip while walking through the fire. It's providing a less harmful drug so that they don't self medicate with the more harmful drug.

It is not generally "putting out the fire."

Now. Again. Harm reduction is not sufficient, but it's not meant to be sufficient. It is a way of reducing harm in the meantime.
https://hachyderm.io/@hrefna/112526283353648297

18+ Oggie , 1 month ago

@hrefna
They weren't even saying (originally) 'I don't want to do that', they were saying 'that's not harm reduction'.

I know it's not incredibly apt, but the concept of 'We can't offer STI treatments, birth control, or any assistance to pregnancy, because people shouldn't have sex' came racing into my mind.

We can't feed the homeless, because then people might not break their souls to not become homeless.

Just...baffling.

futurebird , 1 month ago to random

It was always exciting and important when as a child I’d pepper some adult with questions and (at last) they would say “you know what? I don’t know. Let’s ask this other person or let’s look it up!”

LLMs are like the kind of adult who just makes up some plausible BS rather than say “I don’t know” those kinds of adults didn’t really think my questions mattered they didn’t think I’d remember or notice they’d lied to me. I always noticed. I think these systems trigger me because of it LMAO.

Oggie , 1 month ago

@futurebird
I actually wonder how much this is going to normalize, on a social level, 'just giving an answer' instead of 'Huh, I don't know'.

Look, I'm not particularly young, and more and more as I get older the thing that strikes me about really smart people is they are the ones who say 'I don't know that term/phrase/meaning, can you explain it?' and then listen attentively.

It seems impressive to contextually glean, sure...when you're young. But everyone should admit gaps, and ask more.

randahl , 1 month ago to random

"Dear Mr. Biden

We have been leveling cities, torturing, raping, killing, plundering and abducting children for so long, my army seriously needs a break, before all those western weapons arrive, and we lose the war.

Therefore, I think western countries should give us a breather, so I can replenish my troops and get back to full blown genocide in about 6-12 months.

From Russia with love ♥️

Vladimir Putin"

Oggie , 1 month ago

@randahl
Trump would let me take a break! Aren't you a better president than him?

pluralistic , 2 months ago to random

Pining for the fjords

Oggie , 2 months ago

@pluralistic As long as you are not overly stunned.

Orewoet , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to random Danish

Nice to see that my new bird house has been accepted.

Oggie , 2 months ago

@Orewoet And now I have that song running through my head (I'm a little glowing friend...)

Glad they're accepting it, even if they declined to use your interior decorator!

ElleGray , 2 months ago (edited 28 days ago) to random

in my mind every one of these cows is a muppet. and they sing

Oggie , 2 months ago

@ElleGray You have no idea how much I want this to be a regular show I can watch.

rbreich , 2 months ago to random

I still hear people arguing that prosecuting a former president sets a “dangerous precedent.”

The truly dangerous precedent would be to establish that presidents are above the law.

Oggie , 2 months ago

@rbreich The interesting thing to me about this, is that was the exact argument to not do anything to Nixon. Because that would set a dangerous precedent and then all our presidents would be constantly in legal battles.

That didn't really happen, and in fact, if we'd actually done more that direction we probably wouldn't be in so much trouble now with Trump. So let's try that version for a bit!

futurebird , 2 months ago to random

Trump is upset he may miss his son's graduation because he's on trial.

Yeah, we do treat people in the criminal justice system harshly. People you have never thought about, people who have kids, and graduations, and moments missed forever.

But it's different now. He cries. It's happening to ME. To Me!

Nothing, no one, exists beyond the tip of some people's noses. They cannot see pain unless they feel it. Cannot recognize suffering unless it's their own.

What a stunted perspective.

Oggie , 2 months ago

@futurebird This might be bad/petty of me, but I feel like he would not even be going to that graduation if it wasn't a political upside for whatever reason.

futurebird , 2 months ago to random

OK. This is obvious but it just clicked for me. The reason you accuse the other side of doing what you are really doing is because in the end someone did it and you are hoping some people will forget who.

*someone stole an election
*someone mishandled classified documents
*someone nearly got impeached
*someone abused campaign funds cover up adultery

Last one is harder... but they'll get there.

(You know they are looking for ANYTHING. Maybe Joe has one of those 50s pinups in the garage.)

Oggie , 2 months ago

@futurebird
I've always felt it was because if you accuse someone else of doing something, and they immedately accuse you back of the same thing, it's inherently weakened, and looks childish.

But they're really overplayed that, and it feels like that particular 'defense' has run it's course, so now it's let's try to weaken the arguments and throw up a lot of chaff.