AVR is one of my favorite chips as a hobbyist. 8-bits, manuals in the less than 500 pages region (very small compared to Cortex-M0+ which are closer to the 1000 or 2000 page long regions if we include instruction sets and other details), etc. etc. So I'm happy to see Microchip continue to support simpler 8-bit chips for those who need them.
For those looking to use this chip exactly: it seems like AVR LA specializes in low-cost, low-power, and capacitive touch. Most components have been stripped out, the ADC is only 10-bits, there's no more dual power supply (like AVR DD, DB, or DA), there's no special features like op-amps (AVR DB), or programmable gain differential ADCs (like AVR EA or EB).
You do get event system, CCLs (AVR's feature of LUTs, functioning as useful "glue logic" that can implement a few simple XOR, AND, OR, NOT gates for those who need simple glue), RTC, and PTC (aka: Peripheral Touch Controller, Microchip's system of building capacitive touch).
At 1.62V minimum (and up to 5.5V maximum), this is seemingly the lowest voltage I've seen from AVR lines. For anyone with a buck or boost converter in their designs, this should lower power usage a fair bit over the 1.8V previous minimums.
Finally, the 5k unit pricing is around 50-cents or so. This is the cheapest AVR 8-bit you can buy, if anyone were doing a large scale mass manufacturing line. But for most hobbyistss, I don't believe we can sufficiently tell the difference between 50c chips and $2.00 chips.
So its very barebones outside of capacitive touch. Still, this shows a commitment from Microchip to continue to support AVR chips and their ecosystem. I would recommend beginners use the AVR DB instead (which come with 3x OpAmps and far more features), unless you really want a barebones capacitive touch controller.
There's so much beginner advice out there, and I'm hesitant to add yet one more beginner-based rant to the mix. But hopefully this content is useful to someone out there.
Despite 6 months of daily effort, it is clear that my overall language journey has only begun. I'm comfortable to call myself around an A2 these days ("advanced beginner"), but its extremely clear how limited my German is. Nonetheless, I'm surprised at how "useful" A2 seems to be in browsing the internet and consuming German media.
I can truly watch news reports in native German and get the gist of what is going on. I can watch comedians tell jokes, that I don't fully understand but can feel the puns and rhyming schemes. I can enjoy music and understand the majority of pop-song chorus (at least, with a few minutes of study and maybe a 2nd or 3rd listen). Its not much, but its a solid foundation for continuing my language learning.
How did I get here? My month-by-month breakdown is as follows:
October 2025: I learn of a trade show in Germany scheduled in May that's relevant to my professional career. This is my inspiration moment. I want to learn German so that I can comfortably visit Germany. But ... am I even truly interested? I immediately download "Learn German in your Car", and "test" myself. If I'm able to continue studying German for a full month, I'll know for certain that I'm doing this seriously.
In hindsight, the "Learn German in your Car" lessons weren't very useful, but they proved that I had long term interest in this subject. It was quick and easy to try, and because of my daily drive to-and-from work, it wasn't hard for me to stick with the schedule of daily practice.
November 2025: I've researched extensively on the Internet different learning schemes. I begin Nicos Weg. I purchase grammar textbooks. I begin 20-cards/day on Anki. I realize that the A1 German deck on Ankiweb is full of mistakes and am forced to start over. I buy flashcards on Amazon.com. I try everything to learn German.
December 2025: I start posting on Learning German Discord. My sentence structure sucks, I'm told to study the basics and review the beginner grammar. People don't understand me at all in voice chat. In response... I read through all of my Basic German grammar book (Its only 200 pages and I skipped the exercises. I just wanted an overview). I'm over 500 words into Anki. Anki begins to feel oppressive, I drop down to 10 words/day.
I purchase "Cafe in Berlin", and read it through entirely. (A1/A2 graded reader). After completing it, I purchase "Short Stories in German" by Olly Richards. (A2/B1 graded reader) Despite my failures in speaking on Discord, its clear my reading skills are pushing into the A2 level. Its clear that my reading skills are pushing into A2, but how do I improve my speech??
January 2026: I enroll into a local private tutor program that's close to work and home. I sign up for 10 weeks, 1.5 hours twice a week (30 hours scheduled, 40 total lessons each 45 minutes long). It turns out that I tested into A2.2 (!!!!), despite my somewhat depressive first jump into the Learning German Discord, its clear I was making progress. However, I know that as a self-learner my study habits are full of holes. I instead choose to drop down to A2.1 instead and meet with my teacher.
My speech is awful. Despite working hard on learning "German R" as self-learning, I'm messing up ei, ie, z, ö, d, sp, st, and many combinations of letters. My tutor says I should read every section of the work to him throughout the tutoring session. I'm unable to do any of the roleplay sections, despite dropping down a level.
At this point, I post my 3-months of German through song topic (https://lemmy.world/post/41037513). I know I have a long way to go, but testing into A2.2 gives me a major confidence boost, I'm actually further along than I thought, even if I feel the need to drop down a level. I'm able to browse a large chunk of German-Wikipedia introduction paragraphs.
February / March 2026: I trust the language course and my teacher, and mostly just do the assigned work / homework. I memorize 600+ new words from the class. I manually input these into my custom Anki deck for daily practice. We practice those words every class, I have homework involving listening exercises and speech practice. My speech improves, I'm slowly building up the ability to roleplay effectively. I end the course with an 85% on the final and a certificate for A2.1 (remember, I dropped down a level on purpose). I wouldn't say it was "hard", but its clear I learned a lot from the class.
Anki continues to feel oppressive, I drop down to 80% FSRS retention.
I start Pokemon. Somewhat a bad idea, its more like a B2 level read rather than A2. Still, I enjoy the exercise and look forward to returning to Pokemon later.
Around this time, I'm noticing that its no longer necessary for me to listen to children songs. Regular German pop-songs (and even German rap) have the same level of understanding as the Kinderlieder. (Notice: I still don't understand Kinderlieder or Pop songs in their entirety. I just notice they're the "same difficulty" now). Seriously, some of those children-songs are very difficult, while the easiest of pop-songs use such common language that its surprisingly easy to pickup the main chorus (albeit I'm missing most of the verses).
April 2026: With my class over, I return to self-study. Now with a solid foundation of pronunciation, and an idea of what it takes to learn vocabulary (in context, speaking in different circumstances, etc. etc.).
Despite my speech improvements, my grammar became the weakpoint in the class. I can speak clearly, but with improper conjugation, using "das" far too often and am unable to use "ein" or other articles.
I purchase "Grammatik aktiv", and complete 1 lesson daily. I purchase additional A2 readers: "Carsten Tsara blickt nicht durch", with printout + .mp3 file. I review my tutor material weekly in the car (~40 minutes of recordings covering my coursework), I still got it, I'm still able to listen and understand.
I know I have so much self-study to do (more reading, more grammar exercises, more listening, and now I need to find a new source of speaking practice somewhere). But its a start.
As a self-study student, my "knowledge" is eclectic. I'm able to understand B1 concepts like relative clauses, passive voice, da-words, wo-words and more. But this is because "Pokemon" forced me to study so much B1 level grammar to understand it.
On the other hand, eclectic knowledge means that I'm missing basic A1 stuff like "eine" vs "keine". Even after taking my A2.1 level course, I never got to practice that. Only after purchasing Grammatik aktiv and systematically reviewing all grammar from A1 through B1 am I realizing how much A1-level stuff I missed.
Its the nature of learning. All these concepts are theoretically organized int courses... but that's not how people learn. You'll pick things up here and there. Your brain has a biorhythm, on "good days" you'll learn material but on "bad days" all your efforts will be wasted. This always leads to holes even if you end up systematically tackling each subject.
I'm at the level where I must start forming sentences. The best exercise I've found for this is roleplay. So let's make a forum game out of this!!
In character roleplay will be done in German only. Meta-discussion (rules questions, edits, takebacks...) will be done in English only.
Rules:
No AI, make sentences of your own accord. Correct other people's mistakes with your own effort.
Set the topic to sort-by-new. Try to work off the most recent post.
Reply in a thread if you think someone else made a grammar mistake, explain the mistake in English so that we know it is 'out of character's. If making a correction post, please include your rough level (A0, A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2, or native).
Wait for either 24 hours before replying to yourself (as the other character), or wait for some human to respond. IE: if two people are logged in at the same time, feel free to keep roleplaying with each other in German.
You may play both roles, as long as you aren't repeatably responding to yourself. (24 hour delay before responding to yourself as per rule #4).
Try to keep the roleplay words to the level of the topic. If A1 is too easy, make a new topic aiming for a higher level.
Start every roleplay with a character name, making it clear 'who is talking'.
Roleplay situation: Alice has just called Hanz, and Hanz has picked up the phone. Alice wants to invite Hanz and hang out over the weekend. Try to figure out the time and schedule of each other in German.
A1+ German learner here. A huge part of my studies over the last 3 months have been songs, specifically Kinderlieder (aka: Children Songs). I'll list off my recommended songs for beginners and my overall opinions of them here.
I'll order songs roughly by difficulty. Beginners should start at the top of the list and work their way down. From zero, it took me months of listening to these songs before I could track them and eventually understand them. And only after going through their lyrics and translating word-by-word.
There's so many german songs out there, just keep translating them as daily exercise. Get the words and put them in your Anki deck.
Overall plan:
Listen to the song a few times -- If you like the song, keep working at it! If you don't like it, move on to the next song.
Try singing along!! Don't try to get all the words right. Just get the words you can get.
Download the lyrics, and perform a word-by-word translation. As we are trying to learn German, it becomes important to know every single word and its meaning. Do NOT use ChatGPT, Google Translate or DeepL. This is "too much", because you MUST learn how to "think in German grammar" yourself. (These translation programs translates the grammar for you, and that's counter-productive to learning).
Reword the words/lines into your own English understanding. This is a crutch, but at the A1 / A2 levels its a useful crutch. This is your "check". In the long-term, you want to be able to "think in German", but by rewording it in English you are now figuring out and memorizing these lines on your own terms. If you are unable to reword it into English, perhaps your understanding of German grammar is off. Go seek some help (maybe post here for some help!)
Absolute Beginner Songs (A1-)
This is as easy as I can find, so this is where we begin. Don't be intimidated!! Pre-schoolers do NOT understand these songs on their first listen. Just try to get used to the rhythm and slowly your brain will pick it up as you practice.
Nominally, this song is harder than everything else in this category... But its a "Rosetta Stone" for us Americans. Frere Jacques is a very well known song in USA, and hearing it in German is a great way to begin your German studies! If you aren't familiar with this song though, skip to the next song as it'd be easier. Its not quite the same lyrics in all three languages. But its close enough.
Mostly nonsense words for the rhythm. A basic dance for children that helps you learn anatomy. (Hände, Faust, Daumen, Kopf...). Its obvious if you watch the video / dance. Excellent preposition practice!!
We now have the first song with proper grammar. "sind" is among the first verbs you learn ("are" in English). "My hands are gone (as the singer hides their hands behind their body). Oh, my hands are back again!". A simple song, especially with the cartoon, to help learn various body parts, while also teaching complete (though simple) sentences). Keep an eye on "sind" ("are") vs "es" (is), as some body parts are plural (ex: Hände, plural for "hands") or singular (ex: Nase, singular for "nose").
A repetitive/looping "colors" song. The "template" changes with color vs profession. The singer says her clothes and even everything she has are grün / rot / weiße / (etc. etc.). Then in the final line, she explains that's because her "Schatz" ("Treasure", or slang for sweetheart) is a Jäger (grün / Green for Hunter), Reiter (rot / Red for Rider), etc. etc.
Repetitive/Looping bath song about washing the hands, foot, or head. Harder than earlier songs.
Middle A1 Songs
As you get into your A1 studies, your vocabulary will grow into hundreds of words. You'll also be able to follow more complex grammar and subject matters.
More complex grammar. A call-and-response between the Crocodile and the various Humans. (Crocodile tells the human to get into its mouth. Human says no). Focus on "Krokodil, lass das sein" in the Imperative (aka: Command) grammar. Also note how the song talks about how various characters interact and talk/command each other.
Good song!! If you've mastered Augen Ohren Nase (Eyes, Ears and Nose), this song ties the body-parts to Der Sinne (the senses). A fun way to expand your vocabulary from all that body-part practice from earlier. You're reaching some B1-level grammar concepts here (dazu), so don't try to reach full understanding of everything. But you should be able to listen and hear how the "Sehen Sehen Sehen dazu sind die Augen da!!"
A counting-backwards song. I find this grammatically complex for A1 and is probably an A2++ song for understanding. But with the Youtube video you probably can figure out what's going on!
I'm calling bullshit on this "song". This is just vocabulary practice, isn't it? More seriously though: its a lot of adjectives/adverbs listed in terms of opposites. Gerade means straight, while schief is crooked. Its rather impressive how they made it all rhyme, and honestly keeping the opposites next to each other helps connect these words together.
A break for St. Martin's Day!!
Apparently Germans have this... St. Martins Day thing? And its big?? A huge number of children-songs are about the lantern walks, or St. Martin, or other such events of the German November Holiday.
I've been told that the young German children learn these songs and often sing them for school recitals. If the young Germans can learn them, so can you even at A1 level!
The general pattern is about Laterne (Lanterns), gehen / geh / gehe (going), scheinen (shining), die Sonne (sun), der Mond (moon), der Stern (stars), kalt (cold), schön (beautiful), "durch die Nacht" (through the night)... oben (over), unter (under), etc. etc.
Its kind of a nifty little "sub-vocabulary". Because these songs all share the same theme, you can learn lots of vocabulary by focusing on these songs in general just for this one holiday.
Children songs are catchy and all, but they do get boring if you only listen to them. The following songs are still children songs, but change the rhythm to something more complex (as well as increasing the vocabulary/grammar to A2+ or even B1- levels).
Nominally about the days of the week, but closer to A2+ or even B1- level to comprehend. Focus on only the days of the week and you should be good as a beginner, don't try to understand the whole song.
This is the German version of "Bump on a log in a hole on the bottom of the sea". A bunch of random crap this mouse needs to pack into his suitcase, leading to a rather complex set of vocabulary to memorize. Simple grammar but vocabulary practice.
An easier-end song. Slower rhythm than other songs, still faster than any children's song. But maybe the slowest you'll get for a "real" song these days.
Anki is an open-source flashcard app for Windows, Linux, Mac OSX with versions also available for Android and iOS. Unfortunately, iOS version costs $25, but all other versions are free.
Anki is a self-graded flashcard program / app. This makes it a combination quiz-app + timer system. Unlike Duolingo or other programs, Anki entirely relies upon self-grading, but this is more than sufficient for study.
Anki grabs the top cards from a deck (defaulting to 20 new cards per day. Feel free to customize this to whatever fits your needs best). Then each day, it grabs "scheduled review" cards + shuffles in the new cards, and shows you them one at a time. Once a card is shown to you, you the user click a button to reveal the other side.
After the flip, Anki asks you to self-grade yourself on your performance. "Again" means you grade yourself as "incorrect", and Anki will remember this mistake. Because you were "incorrect" on this card, Anki will show you the card again very soon.
If you choose one of the three "correct" scores (labeled "Hard", "Good" and "Easy"), Anki remembers that you've answered correctly, and will schedule the card some time in the future. I'll get to the difference of the three scores later, but consider all three to just be "correct" for now.
The precise time is calculated based on how well Anki thinks you know the card. If you know the card well, "Good" might schedule the card to be reviewed 1 month from now, but if you've made a lot of mistakes with a particular card, then that card will likely be reviewed 1 or 2 days from now. Its all data collected on a per-card basis.
Above is an example screenshot of Anki's memory: every single self-graded score is remembered on every single card, as well as the date and time of each score.
As such, Anki is a system of spaced repetition. The "better" you are with some cards, the less you see them. The "worse" you are with other cards, the more Anki shows you those particular cards you keep making mistakes with. Timer + self-grading == you only see the cards you're doing bad with, while Anki hides the cards you are doing good with.
The Algorithm
FSRS is a new experimental algorithm Anki is using. There's been 6 versions (FSRS-1, -2, -3,... and of course FSRS 6 today). Fortunately, the overall gist has been the same for all 6 versions. Alas, its a lot of blogposts and technical math that's far too nerdy for most people https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs4anki/wiki/The-Algorithm. For the math nerds who want to learn the algorithm, study away. But I'll attempt to do a simpler "translation".
Before we get started, click on your deck's preferences and scroll down to the FSRS button. Ensure it is on.
FSRS is simply three pieces of memory being applied to each and every "card" in your Anki decks. Every single card will try to figure out "R", "S" and "D". R is the probability that you've forgotten a card each day. The longer a card goes without being shown, the worse-and-worse "R" gets (this is the value Anki uses to determine when to repeat a card to you, it wants to show you a card before you've forgotten, but after enough time that you had a chance to forget, defaulting to 10% chance of forgetting).
Every single card tracked by Anki has this "forgetting" curve, primarily defined by the "R" aka Retention variable.
The theory is: if you show a card too often, you never really test your long-term memory. Furthermore, its too much extra work to review so many cards. By waiting days, weeks, or months before showing you a card again, Anki saves you time by not overly-reviewing cards you already know the information of. Furthermore, studies have shown that showing you information "right as you are forgetting about it" is the best way to remember (!!!). Any sooner, and you really aren't learning too well, but instead just temporarily holding things in your short-term or medium-term memory.
"S" stands for Stability. The more "stable" a card is, the longer Anki-FSRS thinks it can stay in your memory memory without review. Most "new" cards are assumed to be forgotten about within a day by default. However, as you get the card "correct" over-and-over again, Anki-FSRS will increase stability, thereby causing the longer review intervals. (Maybe showing you a card once every 3 days, then 7 days, then 1.5 months, then 3 months....).
"D" stands for Difficulty. The more times you get a card wrong (ie: when you click the "Again" button), the worse Difficulty gets. Anki-FSRS remembers that some cards are harder for you to remember... in particular the ones you keep getting wrong.
Even if you get a high-difficulty card correct multiple times, Anki "remembers" that you have been forgetting this card, and will show it to you again sooner. Ex: by default Anki will mature a card within 7x correct answers in a row. However, if a card is "difficult", Anki will keep showing you that card 10x, 15x or more, knowing that you need the extra practice.
Or in more math-nerd terms, "Difficulty" is the derivative of stability. The change-of-stability is determined by the "Difficulty" of a card.
Hard / Good / Easy
Hard / Good / Easy all count as correct (ie: increases the stability of Anki-FSRS), but will do different things to your Difficulty score.
"Good" is the default, and Anki recommends that users hit the "Good" button 80%+ of the time. Lets pretend that a particular "Good" answer will result in 1-month timer for a particular card...
"Easy" basically is telling Anki that you don't want to practice with this card anymore (ie: low-difficulty card). After clicking "Easy", instead of taking a 1-month timer... Anki will likely choose a 1.5-month or 2-month timer on the card.
"Hard" is telling Anki that you want extra practice with this card. It increases difficulty, despite increasing stability. You'll see this card again more-and-more in the future. Instead of 1-month timer, Anki might show you the card again within 2-weeks.
Where Anki fits in language learning
Anki was originally developed to help its original programmer learn Japanese. Its not an end-all be-all app however. Anki is only a piece of any language-learner. You must also buy grammar / theory books, as well as write regularly in the new language... speaking and listening and more.
Nonetheless, "Anki" is your cudgel. A brute-force method to try to force vocabulary words into your brain through raw force. You'll likely never gain mastery of the words through Anki... but you can at least become a beginner and learn how to start reading. There's literally thousands, if not tens-of-thousands of words you must learn to become proficient in a language. And that's spelling, grammar usage (gender / der/das/die in German, or maybe conjugation rules and pluralization rules), definitions and more!!
In all cases, Anki can be used as a way to force this information into your brain, getting it ready so that those words can "begin to be learned" when you watch TV, listen to a foreign language podcast or hear those words in a song.
Yes, Anki isn't enough. But Anki is a great tool to get you started. And getting started is sometimes the hardest step for many people.
Remember: 1000 words is beginner level (near 1st grade level understanding), while 10,000 words is roughly high school level. If you wish to be seen as a competent adult in a new language, you must figure out a system to reach those 10,000+ words known. 10,000 words sounds like a lot in isolation... especially because true mastery of 10,000 words includes spelling, grammar (pluralization/conjugation/gender), meaning, and pronunciation. But think about it: 10,000 words is merely 14 words per day for 2-years. Plenty of people have used Anki to jumpstart that kind of long-term forced-learning of words.
My Anki routine
My current Anki deck is the 4000 German words/phrases by frequency (https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/653061995). Anki decks vary in quality but this is one of the better German decks.
Despite that, this deck starts out-of-order. I had to reorder the first 200 words into the correct order (for some reason, words #1 through #200 were actually the least frequent words). After reordering, I hit the "FSRS" button, signed up to AnkiWeb.com and synchronized my Desktop + Phone to this deck through the web-account.
I currently keep the defaults of Anki-FSRS at 90% retention and 20 words per day. I roughly have 80 review words per day + 20 new words, or 100 flashcards to review (front and back). I hit "good" or "again" most often, though some very easy words (ex: "Ich") I do hit the "easy" button on. I rarely hit "hard" at all.
When a card feels poorly made, I always go into "Edit" and improve the card. In most cases, the "English side" of this deck is lacking (ex: "because" either turns into weil or denn). In these cases, I add a German sentence to the English side with the German-word missing, so that the card can become "more fair" as study material. Anki Decks should always be customized to become your own notes.
If Anki gives me a new word, I also check Wiktionary for the proper pronounciation, as well as additional "example sentences" of that word. Anki is NOT a dictionary, its simply a notecard system, and you should rely upon good and proper dictionaries. In some rare cases, I go to German Language Discord and ask the community to help me understand a concept, but in most cases I do try to figure out the word myself.
I also use many songs, kids songs, Anime songs, pop songs and more as my primary source of "Practical German". (Ideally songs harder than Ramstein's "Du Hast", lol). I'm building an Anki deck out of these songs (ex: Backe Backe Kuchen, or "Bake Bake a Cake", a traditional German kid's song, has a list of common ingredients like sugar, salt, milk. Its good vocabulary practice... and also is a good source of practical words for an Anki deck). I also have a beginner German book ("Cafe in Berlin"), with a huge vocabulary list. Fortunately, the author for this book already made an Anki deck and I can just go to to the listed website and download the pre-made Anki.
Dungeons4 is a fun RTS/Tower-Defense that took up a few of the last months of entertainment. Its a very "dad-joke" level of low-hanging fruit and pop-culture references, but comedy is often the right way to handle "Evil" plots.
The overall game is to build up an army, head out to the "Overworld" and collect "Evil" by killing Heroes, slaughtering villagers, destroying villages and towns. As your "Evil" gets collected, you can spend "Evil" on the Tech Tree to get more powerful units, upgrades, new buildings, new economic options and... eventually win the map's objectives.
Typical maps take me ~1 hour, though a speedrunner probably can complete maps within 20 minutes, while slower defensive players might take longer. With ~20 maps, you should have well over 20+ hours of gameplay, and then 10 "Skirmish" maps, and multiple (paid) DLC, its a well fleshed out game.
The one downside is a weak set of tutorial levels, and poor documentation/help. There's also very little discussion / guides. So I figure publishing this Steam guide will help any would-be players enter this game.
My guide is rather detailed strategy focused on the hardest of difficulty levels. But this advice likely will help any player on normal mode (which is plenty hard enough your first time through!).
I'm doing some Galois Field / Cyclic Redundancy Check research for fun and I've come across an intriguing pattern that I need a data structure for.
Across the 64-bit (or even 128-bit or larger) spaces, I've discovered an interesting pattern relating to hamming distances that I'd like a data structure to represent.
I'm going to need something on the order of ~billions of intervals each having somewhere between 1 item to ~1 billion per interval. And I'd like to quickly (O(1) or O(lg(n))) determine if other intervals intersect.
For 32-bit space I can simply make a 512MB Bitmask lol and then AND/OR the two Bitmask. Easy
But for 64-bit space I'm stuck and a bit ignorant to various data structures. I'm wondering if someone out there has a good data structure for me to use?
I've read over Interval Trees on Wikipedia. I'm also considering binary decision diagram over the 64-bits actually. Finally I'm thinking of some kind of 1-dimension octtree like datastructure (is that just a binary tree?? Lol. But BVH trees in 3d space seems similar to my problem it's just I need it optimized down to 1 dimension rather than 3.) Anyone else have any other ideas or cool data structures that might work?
I can't be the only one who is seeing this fucking pattern on damn loop every few years. First, leftists managed to clobber together a movement. Lets say Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter. Or we can go more recent and talk about 50501 or TeslaTakedown.
Look, I get it. Its a lot of work and coordination to build up these movements. But time-and-time again, the movement rises up. Then the right attacks it.
Then mysteriously a few very violent actors show up (maybe its far-left. Or maybe its right-wing false flaggers). I dunno, but the violence ALWAYS shows up. BLM had groups trying to take over parts of town. I know Trump agitated the protesters with unwarranted acts of force (see the Laffeyette clearout).
But it doesn't matter "how" the violence begins. The point is some level of damage starts to occur. Its inevitable and we need to not only accept it, but plan for it.
Now what? The violence gets amplified by right-wing media and then... the movement is defeated. I shit you not. Its the death of every leftist movement for the past 15 years. The movements become a symbol of violence in the mainstream's eyes and loses all power.
We're entering the same period right now with 50501 and TeslaTakedown. The violence has begun: lots of Tesla vehicles have been smashed and arsons have started to spread.
What we need is a spokesman, who can navigate and sell the situation to the public. Martin Luther King Jr. was the spokesman of the Civil Rights era, and his "branding" was the most important element of all. If you want a violent movement, that's fine. But create a spokesman. Malcom X, to counter-act and differentiate between philosophies.
Without spokesmen (like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X), we conflate the violence and the messages. And ultimately, that destroys our movements.
Please, for the love of whatever diety you worship. Get a fucking spokesman. Now. Sooner is better. Maybe its too late for TeslaTakedown and 50501, but we need movements that truly are rallied behind a singular face who can serve as the ideological leader to the general public.
I'm interested in hearing the community's thoughts on this. Consolidation is the name-of-the-game right now in Lemmy, we just aren't big enough to have critical mass especially as tons of different communities are split off like this.
/r/RealTesla from Reddit was necessary in the 2010s where Elon Musk was running popular and it was impossible to get a critical word in about bad Tesla service, the lies from Tesla's sales about their fuel gauges or even have awareness of how explosive Li-ion batteries are.
Today, its becoming clear that Tesla Lies (led by Elon Musk) is the norm. And we can see that today a "general Lemmy" community about Tesla that its possible to be critical about Tesla even on a Tesla-focused community.
That being said: I'm not for closing down /c/RealTesla. We need a "signpost" for the /r/RealTesla Redditors who are beginning to branch off to Lemmy.
But I'm considering leaving a signpost to [email protected], especially since they're more active at the moment about Tesla news. I'll try to keep this community here active as a lifeboat for lost Redditors however.
/c/technology was the most active by far (more so than /c/cars), so I'll post here again first.
Stats
The following stats are winter tests (10F to 30F. Or -10C to 0C).
L1 Charger from Home is 2.05 mi/kwhr (12.0 mi/electric-$$. 17.1c per kwhr home costs) in this deep cold.
L2 Charger from Work is 2.8mi/kwhr (14.0 mi/electric-$$. 20c per kwhr work-charging costs).
43 Miles per Gallon gasoline (13.9 mi/gasoline-$. $3.10 gasoline during test).
L1 Charger is closer to 2.8 mi/kwhr during 60F (15C+ temperatures).
L2 Charger is closer to 3.5 mi/kwhr during 60F (15C+ temperatures).
Conclusion: The cold (10F to 30F) has made the Li-ion batteries of this car SIGNIFICANTLY less efficient. We're at the point where L1 chargers are more expensive than gasoline, while L2 chargers are roughly on part with gasoline.
I recommend anyone who gets an EV to get an L2 charger. Not only for the convenience of far faster charges, but also because of the incredible improvements to cold-weather charging efficiency.
There were some pro-EV fans asking me to more carefully test the gasoline usage in the winter. And now you have the stats. I can solidly say that gasoline is worse during the Winter (down from EPA estimated 48), but not dramatically worse like the electric engine gets.
The above gasoline test was done over an entire week of driving to reach the 200+ miles I thought was needed for a solid test. I performed it by running out of electricity (all the way down to 0%), then driving to a gasoline station and filling up. I memorized the exact pump I filled up at.
Then, after 200 miles across a week, I came back to the same pump and filled up exactly the same. I then counted the gallons that came out of the pump and divided out based on my trip odometer. I was 203.5 miles of driving total with 4.734 gallons reported from the pump.
/c/technology was the most active by far (more so than /c/cars), so I'll post here again first.
Stats
The following stats are winter tests (10F to 30F. Or -10C to 0C).
L1 Charger from Home is 2.05 mi/kwhr (12.0 mi/electric-$$. 17.1c per kwhr home costs) in this deep cold.
L2 Charger from Work is 2.8mi/kwhr (14.0 mi/electric-$$. 20c per kwhr work-charging costs).
43 Miles per Gallon gasoline (13.9 mi/gasoline-$. $3.10 gasoline during test).
L1 Charger is closer to 2.8 mi/kwhr during 60F (15C+ temperatures).
L2 Charger is closer to 3.5 mi/kwhr during 60F (15C+ temperatures).
Conclusion: The cold (10F to 30F) has made the Li-ion batteries of this car SIGNIFICANTLY less efficient. We're at the point where L1 chargers are more expensive than gasoline, while L2 chargers are roughly on part with gasoline.
I recommend anyone who gets an EV to get an L2 charger. Not only for the convenience of far faster charges, but also because of the incredible improvements to cold-weather charging efficiency.
There were some pro-EV fans asking me to more carefully test the gasoline usage in the winter. And now you have the stats. I can solidly say that gasoline is worse during the Winter (down from EPA estimated 48), but not dramatically worse like the electric engine gets.
The above gasoline test was done over an entire week of driving to reach the 200+ miles I thought was needed for a solid test. I performed it by running out of electricity (all the way down to 0%), then driving to a gasoline station and filling up. I memorized the exact pump I filled up at.
Then, after 200 miles across a week, I came back to the same pump and filled up exactly the same. I then counted the gallons that came out of the pump and divided out based on my trip odometer. I was 203.5 miles of driving total with 4.734 gallons reported from the pump.
In the other topic, I've brought up the importance to prepare the meme-army to spread word about the Coffee Tariffs / Covfefe Tariffs to make sure we rub the price hikes into Trump supporter's faces.
But we need to seriously consider our strategy of memes and outreach. This is the year 2025, not the year 2015.
Threads / Facebook / Instagram is suspect as Zuckerberg is bending the knee. Expect memes to be suppressed by Zuckerberg and his minions.
Twitter / X is also suspect. We likely don't have a fair chance.
Mainstream media: WashPo has been captured by Jeff Bezos. LA Times was captured by Patrick Soon-Shiong. Gannett (USA Today, and thousands of local papers) also are our political enemy as these papers cut off endorsements days before the election in support of Donald Trump. CNN has been on a rightward shift. We are now the minority and the rebellious underground, we will not get any beneficial press from these papers or media anymore.
Reddit is suspect. Reddit is a techbro owner. Maybe not as tech-bro as Elon Musk but there's only a matter of time before things get worse.
TikTok's recent actions have proven them to be pro-Trump as well. We cannot trust their algorithm to help us.
Get it? We're stuck and now the rebellious underground. The few allies we've got are ignorant and terrible at their jobs (I'm looking at you MSNBC). But whatever, it just means its our own damn job to change the politics of the USA for the better.
And how to do that? The power of memes.
Why meme?
Ultimately, memes are fun. Short image macros that should be easy for us to make, and easy for us to copy once made and spread around. While a large number of internet sites are busted, we need
Don't Argue
The opposition did not reach their current viewpoints through thoughtful discussion or arguments. They memed their way and mind-controlled each other into their current predicament. Don't fall into the trap of trying to convince others (or yourself) of facts.
Preach to the Choir
Normally a bad argument, but at this juncture its necessary. The left as a whole is angry, demoralized and beginning to shut off politics. Memes could provide us a way to make our painful politics more pleasant through the power of jokes.
I would argue that memes should be uplifting. Yes, preaching to the choir but is that really a bad thing right now? We need all the encouragement we can get right now. I'm sure you've noticed the chill in the room.
We have literally years to reinvigorate and revitalize our political side. However, you'll find that 2 short years are... much shorter in practice than you'd expect.
Friendly to the Neutrals
The neutrals could be former Trump supporters who are now growing disgust at Trump's actions. Who is, or isn't, neutral will largely be politically chaotic for the near future.
I expect MAGAs to become frustrated at some tariff structures, maybe not racist enough for them or something. I expect TechBros to be harmed by foreign policy and grow disgust. I expect Hawks to fear USA's declining position and reputation in the world. I expect Doves to grow angry at Trumps outbursts and hateful rhetoric.
We need memes that make Trump look dumb or otherwise foolish. But without necessarily attacking the identity of these subgroups. A pro-Muskite will be pro-EV and anti-Climate Change. They're compromising on their values right now because they trust and believe in Musk. But when Trump inevitably cuts Musk out in a few months, we shouldn't push the Muskites back to Trump, we should instead drive them apart from each other. That would mean memes that mostly attack Trump (the big guy), without necessarily attacking subgroups (that may be split off later).
Keep the target in mind and stay focused. I'm not saying "be friends" with the Muskites, I'm saying be a little forward thinking.
Ease off in public
Its not just the left who is tired of Trump, but most people in the USA are tired of politics.
If you have a meme that needs to be made public (ex: I 100% believe we need to start a campaign to distribute coffee tariff notices out and tie the rise in coffee prices to Trump), we need to have simpler language that resonates with people who don't want to hear about politics.
Ex: "Trump's Tariffs" might cause people to stop listening to our signs.
"Tariffs" might be better. Its already a politically charged word.
"Tariffs have caused our coffee prices to go up. We apologize" at least sounds neutral to the less-politically active. And that's the kind of language we want in public to keep people listening to us.
EDIT: Trump and Columbia seems to have come to an agreement where the Tariffs have now been canceled.
I'm leaving this post up for posterity's sake. We just need to wait for the next opportunity to push. I'm still confident that Trump and co will dramatically misstep soon and leave an obvious opening. But for now, we should get our meme-skills up and ready. I'm still supportive of large-scale real-world messages, be they stickers or chalk messages or even simple notifications that point out Trump's political missteps.
First off: condolences to any Colombian who is harmed by these events. We have a Colombian in our family and I certainly fear for her safety and her way of life. She's the nanny to my nephew, and there's a solid chance this shit won't be fixed in time for her Visa renewals, so she'll be effectively deported due to these events. I understand that Trump's latest actions today are frightening, but we need to focus on the political messaging needed to swing the tides back into our favor.
As Donald J. Trump tariffs the USA's #2 trade partner in Coffee (remember, Coffee CANNOT grow in the USA outside of like Hawaii), we can all expect coffee prices to shoot up by 25% in the near future. This is the inflation event we need to begin rubbing shitty marketplace inflation into the MAGAT's faces.
Coffee is one of the most essential of luxury goods consumed in the USA. Everyone drinks it, and we need to be ready to pin the coffee price hikes on Trump's shitty policy.
So, what's the plan people? What's the best meme we can make a sticker and print en masse. Coffee Shops seem like a liberal safe-haven, it shouldn't be too hard to ask Baristas to post up signs (or little protests) indicating that coffee shops are against the Columbian Tariffs.
Like I really think this has real action available. Even a sign that says "Due to recent Tariffs, we have been forced to increase the price of our coffee by 25%", and that's it. We don't need to make it incredibly related to Trump, its implicit in Trump's actions. We need the public to know how Trump is affecting them, but without necessarily rubbing it into their faces.
As Trump signs in his deportation plan, it is becoming evident that Trump is targeting blue states and so called sanctuaries (not just sanctuary cities but the traditional sanctuary of Church, School and Hospitals).
So now it’s time to think and plan the next move and how to protect those in our community. ICE isn’t very big and has no hope of any mass deportations scheme yet. But the deportations they do accomplish will traumatize families and even citizens (as they will obviously target any brown person, even US Citizens like Puerto Ricans).
The plan IMO is for us to make sure that our local schools and Churches collect as little information as possible. ICE will be looking for missing social security numbers for example and may target school and church databases with warrants. Now is the time to consider destroying or deleting that data if you haven’t already.
We don’t necessarily have to directly confront ICE officials to hamper their work. Indirect changes like this might be best especially given how small ICE is.
EDIT: I don't believe there's any good reason for schools to be keeping proofs of citizenship or building up such databases. Nonetheless, teachers and principals may have made that mistake 10 years ago before Trump was a threat or back in the era where ICE was literally not allowed into schools or Churches. Those days are behind us. If you know your school principal is trustworthy, you should campaign on getting unnecessary records deleted ASAP and start building defenses immediately.
Catholics know what I mean: our records on students and parishioners are kept for long periods of time. (Any Catholic knows and expects this, especially because we prioritize Baptism records and other such Church level Sacraments and such). I don't know how all the other Churches do it but if your local church is anywhere on the level of organization of Catholics (I know 7th Day Adventists and Mormons are also "record-keepers"), you will want to check in with your church's offices and maybe ask them to review records in the face of Trump's new executive orders.
