The content on Reddit has gotten noticeably worse - but less as a result of Lemmy's existence and more of a reaction to killing 3rd Party Apps.
Unfortunately for me, some of my favorite communities haven't migrated over to Lemmy. So I'm still using Old Reddit Desktop to access them.
Whats it say in the employee handbook regarding time off?
It’s not the manager’s job to decide if someone’s personal obligations are necessary or not. It’s their job to assure there is coverage and the work is complete.
If the employee is abusing the shift-change timeoff policy, that is a different story.
If the manager is the owner, it may be a good idea for your wife to freshen her resume.
It depends on the definition of Veganism.
There’s is a popular school of thought that the diet‘s sole purpose to reduce suffering. If a living thing has no central nervous system (or brain), it has no thoughts and cannot experience pain or harm. It’s not much different than a fruit or vegetable. I know vegans that make exceptions for oysters - for example.
Others schools of thought are about avoiding animal products altogether, it doesn’t matter if it suffers or not - there’s no way to know. Therefore, it’s immoral to eat them if you can knowingly choose an alternative.
“Ape alone.. weak. Apes together…. strong”
So no, it’s baked-in the DNA of how we survive. We group to fight threats. Early days, that threat is protection from hostile wildlife like bears.
You scale that to a modern civilization - and you have groups of people fighting for resources, food, money, opportunities, land, etc. Sometimes they’re gangs. Sometimes they’re entire countries. Sometimes they’re groups of allied countries.
And heck, you see it in stupidly small scales too. “Coke v Pepsi”, “N64 v PlayStation”, “Rock Fans v Disco Fans”.
Sunni and Shia believe 98% of the same stuff. But the bit they don’t agree on pushes fringe lunatics to terrorism, war, ethnic cleansing, etc.
Same deal with Protestants and Catholics.
The only thing could make us drop “us versus them” mentality is a giant alien force more violent and sick than anything you can imagine.
Then maybe, humanity will be the “us” finally.
Even if it were true that we came from aliens… every race can reproduce with one another. If we all came to earth for survival, then race mixing creates better outcomes through genetic variation.
What a strange take.
He’s a Putin puppet
A common misconception.
Lukashenko has been around longer the Yeltsin. Putin, Medvedev, and Putin 2: Electric Boogaloo. I would bet money that he'll be around after Putin's demise as well - whenever that will be.
As much of an idiot lackey as he seems - he's always been to squeeze what he wants out of Russia while squeezing from the West as well. Visa relationships, for example - are a good metric for international diplomacy. Americans can travel visa-free through Minsk Airport for up to 30 days. Think about that. And also - he's managed to survive his own coup/revolution attempts. And yes, with Russia's support - but he's still done it.
The war put him in a precarious balancing act where has simultaneously play nice with Moscow without getting Belarusian troops actually involved in battle. It keeps him in power.
I'm not saying Luka is smart or cunning. But he's maintained power for 30+ years. He's experienced in it.
why would Prigozhin cut a deal with him?
Nobody knows.
But I'm speculating Belarus offered him something very special. Maybe Moscow will oust Shoigu, and Belarusian 'diplomacy' will be seen as legitimate.
A distracted Moscow would be a premium opportunity for Belarusian activists and freedom fighters to organize another revolution. Last night, Lukashenko flew his family to Turkey. So... we can speculate as to how confident Luka was feeling.
Was the whole thing a psy-op to give Putin an out?
The "out" would've been for Putin to recall troops to Moscow to 'deal with the Wagner problem'. It would've given him an out and he would've seemed competent to do so.
Afterwards, he can say "its clear need to fix problems in the Russian military before we can help our lost brothers in Ukraine" and call an indefinite ceasefire. Then funnel money into military development indefinitely, like a fascist does.
But that's not what's happening... Wagner might just go back to fighting in Ukraine later today.
The news is happening at lightning speed. Nobody knows what's going on. Absolutely wild times.
Of course it will hurt the migration. Lemmy.world should've halted open registration and directed folks elsewhere until they were able to get their house in order.
Instead, a migrant's experience was as follows:
"I can't create an account, the site won't load".
"Okay, now I have an account, but I browse anything because the site won't load."
"Okay, now I can browse, but I can't make posts or comments because the site won't load".
"The site's been wishy-washy for 5 days, I guess it's always like this".
Most don't understand they should've joined a different instance. But hey, this QoL stuff affects all Lemmings, because the biggest communities are in the affected instances.
So instead of a great Reddit alternative, migrants got a product that didn't work as advertised. And a message board, no less - a technology that's existed since the dawn of the internet.
So, I get it. But I'm not upset because I understand Lemmy is an emerging technology that'll require a little patience. Replacing one of the biggest websites of all time is not going to be easy.
r/Lemmy is going to reflect the layman. We should listen to their feedback, help them out and take criticism seriously. I'm of the camp that Lemmy needs as few barriers to entry as possible - which is why I'm loving the progress of some of these mobile apps. Some (like Memmy) have an onboarding guide for new users. We need more of that.
Keeping track of race is entirely optional.
You’re 100% free to decline including it on any personnel file or application (with the exception of acting/modeling). It’s also self-identifying.
Consider that as a multi-racial pluralistic society - our values will be different than a European country whose major ethnic groups are the indigenous people.
We have an unfortunately long legacy of systematic racism issues. Communities or color experience slower emergency response times, fewer school resources and teacher pay, redlining and gerrymandered districting, food deserts, fewer public transportation options, and often fewer per capita polling stations on Election Day.
Until race stops being an observable factor for community outcomes, we still have a lot of work to do.
Many organizations see and understand this. As part of their sense of corporate social responsibility, companies make a good faith effort to hire from a ethnically diverse pool of candidates. If all your candidates are white - a company needs to ask itself if that’s a reflection of their own hiring biases or if that’s a systemic issue within the talent pool? It’s good to know these things - because industry surveys are constant - which help local leaders, non-profit organizations, colleges and universities, and governments do their jobs.
Meeting diversity goals is good for a variety of reasons. Importantly in capitalism, it’s good to investors because customers tend to prefer supporting diverse companies. Perhaps more importantly than that, different backgrounds offer different modes of thinking when it comes to problem solving. Crowd sourcing from a bigger idea pool is good for productivity.
Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament. In my opinion, these are still two of the greatest games of all time. You don’t get better because your character or weapon is better. You get better because you put in the practice. you improve your reflexes. You learn the arena. Every player starts every match on an even playing field. Every frag feels like an accomplishment.
I appreciate that modern shooters are trying to do something different with every iteration. But stuff like call of duty, overwatch, or destiny never captures that magic. In many ways, they felt more like slot machines.
Halo got close, but I always felt it was too slow. And also, I felt Tribes was the better series for online play that felt similar. 
Excel for Dummies 2023
I have a private parking spot off street in a city. I don’t like backing up towards the main road; since it has pedestrians and stuff. It’s a little harder to see.
So I back into the spot. It’s way easier than backing out - and pulling out is even easier. 
My work parking garage is already really tight. It’s another situation where backing in is easier than backing out - and driving forward our is even easier. So just some planning.
Imagine phone companies. An instance is like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile or any other provider.
If you want to talk to your friends, it doesn't really matter what instance they're on.
A Verizon customer can still call a AT&T customer no problem. A Verizon customer doesn't need to also sign up for AT&T to do that. It all just.. works.
People talking about different instances is like people talking about different phone companies. "Verizon's coverage is better" or "T-Mobile has better support" or that kinda thing.
I recommend downloading Discord to join an English Language Learning server.
The voice chat rooms allow you to speak with real people to improve your listening comprehension. The text chat rooms will improve your reading and writing.
There are many native speakers there that enjoy helping, myself included. It’s not “gamelike”, but nothing is better than talking to real people - I’m sure you’ll find value in it.
I’m not particularly into anime either, but I thought that “The Devil Is A Part-Timer” and “One Punch Man” were really funny and clever.
Experts are saying that’s unlikely, though. Why ruin the credibility of the Ministry of Defense if they needed a strong leader? Especially one that’s openly criticized the war to begin with. Pretty bad for morale.
If anything, we’ve learned Putin has a lot less orchestral than expected.
Paramilitary private armies are expensive and unpredictable. And technically illegal under Russian law.
At a time when resources are tight and public trust in government is flaky, it’s makes sense for Putin to consolidate Wagner into the Russian army.
Prigozhin isn’t a brilliant military strategist (to be fair, neither is Shoigu). He’s a businessman who earned $2B through Wagner milking State money. The dissolution of Wagner is the end of that revenue stream, and possibly his own life.
IMO, it seems to me like the mutiny is a last ditch negotiating tactic or emotional outburst as a response to losing his livelihood.
Or.. we’ll learn in the coming months and years that there’s a lot more to this story.
There’s definitely a market for mobile PC gaming which is why the Steam Deck sells so well, as well as the new market of competitor products (Asus Rog Ally, for example).
That said, the vent location is a bit bizarre. Perhaps the manufacturer intended the laptop to be mounted or something… ?
Perhaps if it’s not too late, you can return the laptop when you get back from traveling.
I don’t mind my fellow liberals being critical of one another. I mind when we eat our own.
Liberals often lose because we fight a two front war. Conservatives just have to fight liberals. Liberals fight both - conservatives and other liberals.
There’s a lot of “purity testing” we do that I don’t see on the other side. If liberals did a better job of accepting imperfect allies, we certainly would’ve won 2016. Maybe even won 2004.
When it comes to rogue nuclear states, having spies is a generally a good thing. Helps us plan for contingencies.
Announcing the intention to spy is probably not a good idea though.
It’s a day off from work.
So do what you’d normally do on a day off. Sleep in, read a book, go for a hike, play some games, paint a picture, do some home improvement, cook something special, grab a drink, volunteer at a shelter…
Whatever you want. I don’t really care about fireworks, personally. But nothing preventing Brits from joining in the celebration. We love you guys!
It’s very bad for Putin.
Even a lot of warhawks in Moscow started to question what was going when the city was getting c-tier armored personnel trucks around the city, roads dug up, work cancelled and warnings on TV.
For the first time, the war started knocking on the doors of pro-government pensioners who were happy to throw their children’s lives into the meat grinder.
And for a lot of “hands off” Russians, seeing a maniac face zero resistance on his way to Moscow with an army - this answered the old question, “who else, if not Putin?”
Literally anyone.
Doesn’t matter if he’s some unhinged hot dog seller with a criminal rap sheet longer than Putin’s table. Nobody inside Russia stopped him when he downed Russian helicopters. He might’ve even gained a few soldiers on the way. And weirdest of all is that all is forgiven, less than 24 hours after charged with treason.
If anyone watched 1420 on YouTube, you’ll see that the most common answer to any question is, “I’m non-political. I just try to live the best I can and not worry about things I can’t change”.
Which works well for Putin to an extent. Folks are placated. But now it’s exposed his greatest weakness. The people of Russia are so disenfranchised and apathetic, they wont stop a coup.
And hell, Wagner were treated as heroes in Rostov just the other day. Super popular.
Luka is always underestimated as some puppet lackey. And in a way, he plays that part well. But he’s been in power since Yeltsin was around - and survived revolution attempts of his own. He knows how to cling to power - even in the face of incredible opposition. And only he was in a strong enough position to call in Prigozhin when he was least predictable.
My conspiracy brain sees a world where he and Wagner team up to coup Moscow - and using the Union-State, takes over the Kremlin.
Suffering is a broad definition. One would argue that prematurely ending sentient life without their consent would fit that definition.
Often, it’s not suffering on an individual level - but the suffering of a species. Cows live in bondage and we benefit from their labor and chose to end their lives for our benefit.
Sometimes Vegans extend this philosophy to pets and service animals - even if they’re treated exceptionally well.
The point is that Veganism is less monolithic than folks tend to believe. A person’s diet can be deeply personal and it’s up to them to draw lines.
I’m a meat eater. I don’t have an issue eating cows. I don’t have an issue eating rabbits, which I know people also keep as pets. I don’t have an issue eating lobster - whereas they’re boiled alive. But I know I couldn’t eat a cat or dog. Realistically, I have trouble with veal. So ya know, where I draw the line might not be the same for other people. My diet is informed by my culture, health, experiences and personal feelings - as is everyone’s.
I used to work for an organization that provided legal, educational, medical and social services to inner-city children and their families. These families were mostly Black and Latino.
If we were hiring for a job that had an equally qualified black and white candidates, the choice is clear. In order to be successful, you need to have good professional relationships with clients. It is far more effective if the client can relate to one's lived cultural experience. It's also very important for at-risk children to see relatable adults succeed in a world that has been systemically unfair to them.
In Austria, this hiring process may be considered racist. But here, we recognize that there are a lot of fringe benefits when hiring for diversity.
In fairness, race is not something that's discussed unless it's directly related to the role. As stated above, you are free to check "Prefer Not To Say" if an application asks about race. Most of the time, that information is used for census and surveys.
Having done a lot of HR in my life, you'd be surprised how many hiring managers are passively racist.
I've seen applications rejected simply because the hiring manager doesn't want to embarrass themselves mispronouncing a name. Or they assume communication language skills without ever talking to someone. Or they not-so-sublte, "I can just feel this one won't be a good fit".
Like, "Really, Bob? What's on Fatima's resume gives you that impression? She's clearly qualified."
I wonder how much worse the racial wealth gap would be if 'equal opportunity employment' wasn't a thing.
New Game Plus starts you in the same place, same face and family - but you now have dwarfism. Every aspect of life will be that much more challenging. Everything from dating, transportation, even securing an accessible living space.
Politically, we agree on 90%+ on things. Like - it would be really odd if I married a woman who didn’t believe my friends deserved basic human rights. 
But I will say we handle conflict very differently, loss very differently, anxiety very differently, fear very differently. We’re different people.  The important thing is that were able to communicate with one another. We’re supposed to understand each other’s motives, behaviors, needs. And try to anticipate them.
Ideally, we’re strong in areas the other is weak in.
As far as interests, there’s a lot of crossover. But I have specific hobbies (music production mostly), that she has no interest in. She’ll give feedback from time to time. And also, she plays piano. But we don’t play together.
I like goofy nerd shit, she likes The Bachelor. I like some gaming, she thinks it’s lame and reads in her free time. I mean, no great relationship has ever thrived based on a shared love of Star Trek or something.
So most importantly, we match well in two areas. One, we can make each other laugh. Two, we like the same foods and are adventurous eaters.
For what it’s worth, half of every live-in relationship is trying to decide what to eat next.
In some cases, they never went away. In New England - especially northern parts of Maine and New Hampshire, there are communities that are plurality Francophone, and have been Americans for generations. 
I think one thing that people often don’t understand is that American English is highly influenced by the French language - accounting for 30% of all words. Words like Lieutenant are pronounced differently in British and American because of the French influence. Or the word “herb” - Americans don’t pronounce the H just like the French.
As far as cultural things, of course the US is known for its wine. Napa Valley is one of the best wine regions in the world. Those wines consistently beat French and Italian wines in international competitions. Finger Lakes, as well. American cheeses like cheddar are very popular. There are entire states known for this, like Vermont and Wisconsin. I think in terms of bread, you see more influence from Italian and German breadbakers then French.
That said, French influence is just one of many patches on the rich tapestry that is America. It was impactful, but the influence was definitely overshadowed by groups like Irish, Italian, Polish, Chinese, and African Slaves - whose descendants have created our greatest modern cultural exports.
You have some options.
Firstly, remember that learning music is basically learning a new language. So be patient.
Piano/keyboards are great because of low-cost of entry. You can find second-hand instruments in all sizes (25 key up to 88 keys) on Craigslist or Reverb for as low as $50. If it has MIDI or USB, you can hook it up to your computer and control endless downloadable virtual instruments - and/or record it easily to write songs.
It’s an ideal instrument to learn theory. I recommend getting a roll of masking tape and labeling all the keys until you memorize them.
Guitars are more fun, IMO. They’re portable. You don’t have to learn as much theory to get started and it’s certainly less formal. Some of the best guitarists around don’t really know what they’re doing - they’re just feeling. You don’t get a much of that with piano.
Guitar is all about awkward hand positions and building muscular memory around that. I never know what note I’m playing half the time when I play guitar - I just know the positioning.
The downsides is maintenance. Guitars require tuning before playing, changing strings periodically, etc. There is a higher cost of entry. A lot of new players buy terrible quality cheap guitars with unchanged strings and get discouraged by the poor sound and feel.
Ukeleles are generally cheaper and it’s easier to get a good sound. They work similar to guitar and you can figure out the basics fairly quickly.
You should react, at least lol. But you need to consider that most folks aren’t looking for advice. Rather, they need a validation of their experience.
Better to say “Wow, that really sucks” or “That’s crazy!”.
Maybe ask a followup question the to show that you’re listening, “well, what happened after?” or “what are going to do next?” End with “Thanks for sharing that with me, I know it’s not easy”.
Do not say, “you should try X or Y” unless they explicitly ask.
It’s a weird concept for me, cause when my wife vents - I hear a problem and I want to offer solutions. But I gotta fight that instinct.
Same reason there are multiple phone companies. Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Google Fi, Cricket Wireless, Mint Mobile, etc.
They all allow you to communicate with your friends no matter what provider they use. But the companies are all slightly different. You might choose one due to better coverage, or customer support, or corporate ethics, or simply cause a friend recommended it.
Phones are redundant. So if Verizon fails, you can always sign up for another provider and still talk to your friends. Or if you have a bad experience, you’re not stuck using something you hate.
Plus, if one company ruled all of phones, it would be a bad thing. Monopolies aren’t good.
Lemmy isn’t the only thing out there with ‘multiple websites’ online. Email - there is more than just gmail, outlook, yahoo, proton, etc.
It’s not confusing to you that there are multiple email companies, that all work together, right? You don’t need a gmail account to send a message to a gmail user.
So don’t think it Lemmy like a website owned by one company. It’s not. Just like nobody owns “email”. Think of it like a protocol.
But I get it. Lemmy is an emerging technology. People are expecting it to be new Reddit. And it is on the front end. But it’s closer to new email.
Accountant here.
Nobody needs to balance a checkbook. We have live access to our banking 24/7 with apps. And who even uses personal checks anymore? Maybe just for rent - if you have an old landlord. Even then, it’s one check a month.
But yes - having basic financial literacy is really important and should be part of any High School curriculum. It’s a little discouraging when we hire folks, tell them a 401k is part of their benefits and hear “what’s that mean?”
When the quality and cost of labgrown meat matches the real thing - we’ll see the tables turn. Especially if they’re able to produce various *cuts^ and styles.
Eddie Redmayne somehow managed to act well through the terrible script. Only redeeming part of the movie.
https://ground.news/ is a pretty good resource. It’s a news aggregate that also reveals the source’s/writer’s political biases as a percentage of left or right. Also it’s factuality versus editorialization, and who owns the outlet.
Definitely one of the better ones out there.
I’m going to use today’s submarine incident as a crude metaphor.
For the sake of all those trapped inside, I hope the implosion is extremely fast and humane. No need to prolong suffering. It could and should be a hard lesson for CEO’s trying to cut corners to get rich, avoiding the advice of experts.
Though, unlike the submarine, I believe Spez can actually still sink lower.
What’s the reference?
Obviously - we get u/chooter from Reddit to join the Federation and do it. Beloved by all, rivaled by none.
AMAs can be posted to a different instance each round based in a lottery system. That way, nobody gets all the traffic with each celebrity.
However, I would start with Lemmy.ml or Kbin.social since those are flagships.
Indeed. People forget that that satellites exist and it’s not very easy to hide traveling military equipment and troops.
Months before the war, every news outlet was warning about a buildup on the Russian border.
Lemmy has a long way to go in terms of user experience before it can effectively compete with Reddit. The majority of new accounts in the last weeks have been spite users. That is, they're here not because they love Lemmy - but because they hate Reddit.
That's not a bad thing, per say. It doesn't matter how people get here. It's more important that they have a good reason to stay.
And the average user doesn't care if something is federated or centralized. They just want a product that works and is simple to grasp. In my opinion, app developers are going to be the gamechanger Lemmy needs Stuff like Memmy (on the iOS app store today!), Mlem, Liftoff, Thunder are pretty much better than the official Reddit app. And that's how most people consume content these days. When there's no enshitification ads or microtransactions - there's clearly going to be a winning experience.
It'll take time, but as more Federation communities build - the less Reddit is necessary. As well, it usually takes a long time before people start catching on that the tools they once loved have turned to into bots and spam.
Mastodon is in it's 7th year, and has like 8 million active users. Twitter had 200 million users by it's 7th year. On one hand, Mastodon is the biggest Federation app. On the other, Twitter was 25x as large. Of course, Twitter is no longer the relevant "town hall" it once was - and is hemorrhaging users and respect. So who knows. It only takes a few celebrity endorsements to get countless folks switching. Who knows
All kinds, but mostly working in hard rock, industrial, electronic music.
I make a small income from commercial music for videogames, web series, advertisements, as well as ghostwriting and production. Here is an example of a more recent gaming project.
I have a few albums on Spotify of my personal music - collaborating with a singer friend.
Been writing music for… close to 20 years. I use Bitwig as my DAW of choice but used to be on trackers (Renoise) for a good chunk of it. Also a lot of experience in Logic, Pro Tools, Sony Acid (when that was a thing).
I have an older brother by 4-5 years.
We didn’t really get along when we were young. Fought over things - games, TV remote, CD player, etc.
But when he left for college, we grew closer. He still lived nearby, and my folks encouraged us hanging out. It was sort of an escape. Home life wasn’t great, and he and his friends were fun. He was around for a lot of my pivotal life moments. When I finally got to college, I moved in with him as roommates. Worked well.
We’re friends, basically. We have very different personalities - but we understand each other very well.
Now we live in different cities, hours apart. He’s married with a kid. I’m married and childfree. We see each other a few times a year. We text and call regularly.
I guess in this sense, I’m quite lucky.
When you look at someone else’s life, you only see the Highlights Reel. You don’t hear about all the boring in between moments, their struggles with imposter syndrome and insecurities, their relational arguments or troubles with their family, all the BS.
Life isn’t about keeping up.
It’s a parlor trick, magically coming into existence for a fraction of a moment in this infiniteness of time and space. The best thing we can do is cherish the miracle and squeeze the most happiness for the time we have. It’s respecting life.
For some, that means service to others. For others, it’s patenting science projects. And then there’s those that find it in an honest job, being good to people they love, and exploring hobbies from time to time.
Happiness is definitely not a contest. Especially one that you put yourself through fully knowing you won’t win.
But if you feel like you need more value in your life, it’s never too late to do something new.