PrimeMinisterKeyes

First they came for the nudes, and I did not speak out. Because I was not nude.

Because topless != nude in most of Europe. Hell, you can see topless women at pretty much any seashore when it's warm enough.

Means... of production.

Russia's hot engagements in Burkina Faso, Central Africa, Mali and Syria, the various degrees of meddling in e.g. Armenia, Moldova and Yemen, and the 20 years of general political "influencing" all across Africa and the Arab countries are often neglected. This is why parts of the Western public don't understand the need to contain Russia. It's a wannabe worldwide player, and it's corrupt as hell. Allowed to have its way, it'll turn every country into a vassal autocracy, Soviet-union style.

Life is better down where it's wetter.

I noticed AMP links started popping up all over Reddit. Before Google started injecting money, posting those was discouraged. Surely it's a total coincidence.

Yeah, it feels quite petulant and deconstructive at times.
But a lot of what you wrote is just a feature of any small online community. Then you end up with these bitter types who, if you rubbed them slightly the wrong way, get up at 6 a.m., downvote everything you ever wrote and report as many of your contributions as they can get away with.
I mean, downvotes and upvotes could be capped at -1 and +5, respectively, like on /. which has been going strong for more than 20 years with this concept, or there could be enforcement of some sort of netiquette, but that would put additional strain on the mods.

At Google HQ:
Boss: "So... this Reddit integration you've been working on?"
Developer: "Yeah, I think the first milestone could be ready in about six months."
Boss: "Sorry, that's been decided, go-live is in 1.5 days."

Try 15 years. There was this cute girl who'd always kind of hang around in the background, but never said a word. She made a big mistake by repeatedly sending her solid-10 friend to talk to me about her, and we fell in love instead.
Years later, another girl tried the genius tactic of inviting me and about a dozen gorgeous female friends of hers to a bar, then sitting straight across the table from me and just glaring at me intensely. I started thinking "gee, she must really hate me" and made my move on the girl sitting next to me. Who was the only one I could actually talk to, because it was just too noisy in that bar.
There were other times when I immediately picked up hints from girls because they made it abundantly clear what they want from me, but they simply weren't my type, so I basically ignored them, which only made them try harder. I realize now that to them, genuine disinterest and blissful ignorance must be indistinguishable.

In my last company, everybody could easily obtain "manager" status... because that was just the title for everyone who was salaried. Which didn't necessarily mean more money. In fact, usually not. It certainly meant more overtime... a lot more.

You know I've started to get the impression that the impoverished part of the right-wing electorate has long given up on looking for a solution that could really improve their lives. Instead, they want the government to create a new underclass of people made up of immigrants, leftists and criminals that they can look down on.

And let's not forget politics. When you're golf buddies with the right politicians, winning those extremely lucrative public tenders will become a cakewalk.

"In the corporate world, nobody has any compassion, ever." - A friend told me as I was about to take my first real job. Brutal and maybe exaggerated, but exactly what I needed to manage my own expectations.

I feel you...

🎶 I can't seem to face up to the facts
I'm tense and nervous and I can't relax
I can't sleep 'cause my bed's on fire
Don't touch me, I'm a real live wire 🎶

See also: System justification

I've been lurking for months before joining and honestly, the voting appears quite random. If you post a comment early in any thread, it'll probably get upvoted even when it's totally silly and inane, as long if it can be construed as being in good faith. Write that same shit a few hours later, it'll go into the abyss.
I'd say it's still better than on That Other Site where you can get a good idea from the headline alone what the hackneyed 'top' comments will be like.

Disinfotainment at its best.

I use the wage filter on Stepstone because I don't want to sift through more than 20 pages of job ads each week. Also, I'm seeing more and more companies asking for your expected salary when applying on their web page anyway. If they don't, I just put in the number at the end of my cover letter. Cuts through the bullshit.
Sure, I'm getting an order of magnitude fewer interviews this way, but on the other hand, I'm not wasting hours on dressing up and preparing myself, potentially even taking a day off and travelling out to the fucking company because they insist on meeting me in person, only to stare into blank faces after having answered the final interview question about my salary expectations.
Rather recently, when I was in sudden dire need of a job, I could not pull that shit off, obviously, but I still managed to get more than in my previous job. Then again, it turned out to be the fucking worst job I ever had, by far, so there's that, too.

I was once offered a job peddling prescription drugs to GPs on behalf of several manufacturers. These marketing companies are mass-interviewing, you know. And so, there's never a shortage of these hawkers.
Ever wondered why you have to sit in the waiting room for a full hour when your appointment is scheduled at 8? Your doctor is talking to salespeople.

It's all just scare tactics, they'll say.
Also, that feeling of power.
Ah, the entire collection of S. Harris' Global Warming cartoons, though lumped together with other environmental topics, is worth linking.

Midnight Oil made a song about it, "Power and the Passion."

Yeeah

Thank you so much for this. The Wikipedia rabbit hole it opened up led me to the fact that "vintage" originally meant "wine harvest".

I kind of understood it, until the ship scene near the end, when there were two Debickis going FORWARD in time, slightly offset from each other. If they can do THAT, why not do it all the time? Why make people go backwards in time, breathe inverted air, and none of the protagonists have a grasp on what's going on anyway?

Isn't the works committee just that part of management that's been elected by the employees?

Few people realize that a) burn-out has a high probability of recidivism; b) it changes the body, too. You develop a plethora of new nerve endings that fire discomfort and pain and that take years to diminish once you've made it through the acute phase.
You totally, literally become crippled by the system, and some people set themselves up for it willingly, kamikaze-style, thereby raising the bar for all others as well.

♫ I'm a walking nightmare, an arsenal of doom
I can kill conversation as I walk into the room
I'm a three line whip, I'm the sort of thing they ban
I'm a walking disaster, I'm a demolition man ♫

Could you please post a link to "real life"? Thank you. I just hope it's not invitation-only.

"Stu you loved it, you were crying saying how special it was. I had to slow down so I didn't drop my load too quick."

A lot of men wear anklets

To the top with you!

Strange, just for the last few days, I've been thinking just what a big cultural turning point 2005 seemed to be. From then on, everything started to circle the drain, and I put the blame on globalization and the advent of large-scale social media. Which might have left an imprint on product design and fashion.
And, as I wrote earlier in a different thread, the shift from 1994 to 1995 was the biggest one I've witnessed, and it was very visible in public spaces. Audible as well: It went from Metallica and ZZ Top as supermarket background music (imagine this!) to "Easy Listening" or whatever.

A sixpack a day keeps the anal away.

That, and internet in the late 90s started to get really fast. Some blokes sat in their rooms for days on end, downloading music or movies, as there were no laws against it yet. Or at least they were not enforced. In other words, those were the days when average Joe could still be one step ahead of The Man. You know, before he turned against us with a vengeance, everywhere, 24/7.

Blame it on the rain.