Trump supporters feel insecure about the world. By bullying someone, they feel better.

That’s why they never turn against Trump when the policies inevitably backfire. It just makes them feel more insecure, and therefore even better about bullying someone. And there are plenty of us to bully.

Today many of you will learn a new word.

A kynodesmē (Greek: κυνοδέσμη, English translation: “dog tie”) was a cord or string[1] or sometimes a leather strip that was worn primarily by athletes in Ancient Greece and Etruria to prevent the exposure of the glans penis in public (considered to be ill-mannered) and to restrict untethered movement of the penis during sporting competition. It was tied tightly around the akroposthion, the most distal, tubular portion of the foreskin that extends beyond the glans. As depicted in Ancient Greek art the kynodesme was worn by some athletes, actors, poets, symposiasts and komasts. It was worn temporarily while in public and could be taken off and put back on at will. The remaining length of cord could either be attached to a waist band to pull the penis upward and expose the scrotum, or tied around the base of the penis and scrotum so that the penis appeared to curl upwards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kynodesme (includes photographs)

In the context of the OP joke that would be a: jynodesmē.

Loss eunt domus!

whatever was between Digg and usenet

for me, it was a mix of Slashdot and a bunch of discussion boards.

but still struggle to socialize. I often find it hard to keep conversations going, and honestly, I sometimes feel bored even when I’m talking to people.

I suspect there’s something there. It may be nothing, or it may be just a lack of maturity (nothing wrong with that, you’re still young), or it may be a defense mechanism, or it may be a lack of empathy of some kind. There’s a bit of a skill to really finding interest in other people. If you talk with someone long enough, you can usually find something interesting about them. But it can be a skill to build rapport and to have genuine empathy – if you force it, you can sound “fake” or like you’re interviewing them. I’ve had some friends who were great at this, they could hold a conversation with basically anyone, I’m not a natural but I just watched them often enough that I try to do what they did. You may want to look around for some kind of social skills training or counseling if that’s available.

I’ve also faced rejection from women about 4-5 times in a row, which I know is mostly my fault because I come off as desperate or just don’t know what I’m doing.

There is so much benefit to having a platonic girfriend. Someone socially competent who you have zero interest in hooking up with but you’re good friends with. Then you can say: I have no idea what I’m doing wrong, I went up to (whoever) and said (whatever) and I think I just came off as desperate! And then your platonic girlfriend will tell you what you’re doing wrong.

Well there are two issues there.

• First, where’s the right place to organize? This community has decided to not focus on politics, and instead direct people to [email protected] and [email protected] which is fair enough.
• Second, what can we do that is more than just a big protest/rally? There are plenty of organizations that do important work but a lot of progress isn’t big and flashy enough to make the news. The 50501 demonstrations came about in part because people felt not enough was being done and wanted something bigger and flashier, and several organizations went to the 50501 demonstrations to offer “next steps.” But to answer the question “what can we do?”: find an organization that does more than just demonstrate, i.e. maybe they pressure congressional reps., maybe they focus on state- or city-level policy, maybe they support legal challenges, maybe they help protect vulnerable communities, etc.

Your post will probably get removed. You may want to go look at [email protected] instead. There’s a sticky post there with useful links too. Personally I favor https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/ because they’re organized locally and perform targeted demonstrations e.g. to get a specific congressional rep to act a certain way.

many white families also couldn’t afford to move to the suburbs, but that was a downside the rich white racists were willing to accept

I think this was a feature, not a downside. (I agree with the rest of your post tho)

[email protected]

iirc the most incarcerated population on the planet by rate is actually El Salvador, due to the recent gang crackdown which involves having masked military units surround a community, perform door-to-door searches, and throw suspects into enormous new prisons. (to be fair, the gang tattoos often make this obvious.) I mention this because some US Republicans think this is a great idea.

If cats gave Nobel Prizes you’d surely get one.

[email protected]

Wait really? I wanted to be tied to a young tree and have my skeleton be merged with it:

The Moriori people of the Chatham Islands placed their dead in a sitting position … strapped to young trees in the forest. In time, the tree grew into and through the bones, making them one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excarnation

I was kind of hoping my descendents would be able to find the tree and see my skull staring out at them from halfway inside a tree. Are you saying this won’t work?

The text mostly just obstructs the image. You can ignore it.

Really? I interpreted the text in this meme as a rich commentary on the nature of textual interpretation.

• Consider: “is the glass half full or half empty?” In this image the answer is unclear, obscured by the text.
• In the same way, language interposes itself between us as thinking beings and the objective world.
• Together, these point to the nature of subjectivity in interpretation: is the jug half empty or half full? We cannot even reach the empty/full dichotomy (which is so necessary for the expression of our subjective interpretations) because of the obscuring nature of language.

New challenge: put the last text you wrote on the last picture you downloaded.

Oh yeah? Well back in MY day the Dead Kennedys put out this cassette tape and all the music was on one side and the other side was blank and there was a note that said something like… oh what was it now… “Home taping is killing record industry profits! We left this side blank so you can help.” Yep that was really something.

Was this a rootkit they came up with bc they were trying to… something? I vaguely remember that…

I have this kid relative. Whenever they visited, I’d take out a portable whiteboard and draw mazes for them. Then I’d have them draw mazes for me. Ofc we’d play lots of tic tac toe. Sometimes I’d write word puzzles, or math puzzles. (i.e. simple addition problems) Then I’d have them write some math problems for me. ofc they’d write huge numbers for me to add and I’d pretend I was confused and bewildered and I’d count on my fingers to solve them. It was just to have fun. It didn’t involve a computer but it got them thinking, and now that they’re older they like math. It’s important that you emphasize the fun parts.

I’d open up a computer with them and we’d look at stuff together. I’d say: “that’s like the part that thinks. that’s like the part that remembers. that’s like the part that remembers a LONG TIME” etc. Then we’d look at the patterns on the circuit boards, etc. For Science Fair they did a project called “Will it Boot?” We took a computer, they opened it up, and removed the hard drive. Then we asked “will it boot?” and turned it on. Then we replaced the hard drive and removed the RAM and asked “will it boot?” and turned it on again. Etc. I took pictures of them opening the case, we made a table of what the PC could boot without, printed a diagram that I downloaded of the part names, put it all on a posterboard and that was the Science Fair project.

This is your kid, right? Severely limit “tablet time” but don’t worry about it being in their life – back in the day we had TV which was not much better, and it’s important that the kid have some knowledge of mass media to talk about with their future classmates. But tell them they can take it apart and put it together again whenever they want. And if it accidentally breaks when they’re doing that, then sincerely congratulate them (“your first unsuccessful experiment!”) and immediately head out to buy them a new one. Just get an inexpensive box that you can put Linux on. Easily. Like, let them put the USB stick in and boot it, and tell them what to press. (ahead of time, try to make sure it’ll work!) (tell them “it’s just a toy now, but we’ll turn it into a REAL computer!”) Then point Firefox to youtube and look up a video or something. Make sure the PC is somewhere public where you can see it too. Hang out and watch what they’re doing, watch what they’re watching. Talk back to the show. Make jokes about the show and tell the show when you don’t like it. Come up with fanfic ideas. Me and my fam came up with this awesome alternate-reality Pokemon world and role-played it, resolving battles with “rock paper scissors” oops gotta go.