Situation: Someone makes a post asking a question. I spend time answering it. Then the post is deleted.

I can no longer access the post and therefore can not find the author to block them.

What I do have is a link to an empty page.

How do I find the author?

Univision's portrayal of social class exploitation, racist ideologies, and colorism biases are repetitive for guaranteed TV ratings.[6] Let’s look at old-time Telenovelas such as MariMar, Soñadoras, and Luz Clarita – all consisted of light-skinned Latinos as leading characters. If we google top Telenovela stars it becomes evident that an overwhelming number of them resemble European actors/actresses. For example, Cristina Campuzano from Colombia’s Telenovela “La Niña” looks a lot like Sarah Paulson from “American Horror Story.” [7] These whitewashed media shows perpetuate the message that lighter features are superior, whereas, dark, Black, and indigenous features are inferior or nonexistent. White-passing Latinos exist, but so do other Latinos. The preferred and privileged representation of White Latinos in Telenovelas makes it seem like they are the only Latinos that exist, which erases Afro and indigenous Latinos as a whole. Even when they (Afro and indigenous Latinos) are represented on Telenovelas, they are cast for inferior roles of servants, gardeners, maids, thieves, etc. Thus, darker skin-toned people are continued to be portrayed as ‘bad’ or ‘less.’

Microsoft’s research team studied this extensively. They looked at what actually happens when you enforce complexity requirements. Users don’t create randomly generated passwords. They follow predictable patterns. Capital letter at the start. Numbers at the end. Exclamation point at the very end. The word “Password” appears in about eight percent of “complex” passwords. When you force rotation, users increment numbers. Summer2024 becomes Fall2024. Or they add exclamation points. Or they change a single character and call it done. The false sense of security is dangerous. IT departments see compliance numbers go up. Everyone is following the password policy. The auditors are happy. Meanwhile, actual security hasn’t improved at all.

My understanding of WW1 had always been that its style of trench warfare was stable throughout the entire war. That is to say, the only defense against the new weaponry was to dig trenches, and the only way to capture trenches was to throw a few thousand men at them, at which point, you may have gained a few hundred yards. This continued until Germany ran out of resources.

What ultimately moved us past trench warfare, the story goes, was the improvement of the tank.

But a few years ago, I listened to a podcast (which may as well have been called Testosterone Drenched History, the actual name escapes me) that claimed that tactics had been updated near the end of the war; the war was becoming more mobile, ground was being transferred more quickly. It did not get into details.

I stumbled across this webpage (https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-i/breaking-the-deadlock-machine-gun.html) that credits light machine gun units (with ample supplies of grenades) for breaking the stalemate.

And a piefed user supplied this somewhat cryptic (to someone who doesn´t read German Norweigan) diagram of how to take out a machine gun nest.

\

[translation provided in comments: suppressive fire and toss in a grenade, repeat]

What is the true story of the tactical situation at the end of WW1?

Solved: OpenSnitch, https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch available via Software Manager on Mint as well.

There was a windows firewall (tinywall?) that worked like this:

1. Something wouldn´t work on the internet.
2. I'd query the firewall to see what was just blocked.
3. I'd whitelist that traffic.

Pretty painless and I never was forced to think about the firewall until absolutely necessry, and then only to the least possible amount.

Is there any firewall on Linux that works similarly? Running Mint.

Hey, guys, been recontextualizing every problem in my life in view of possibly having broad autism phenotype and wanted to bounce some things off you for a sanity check.

1. How do I know if am overapplying autism? When I learn something new, I try to use it to explain EVERYTHING. And autism seems to completely explain everything that's gone wrong in my life to such a degree that I think it can't possibly be true.

I'm thinking about how I completely fell apart when I went to college. I used to think that I just "got depressed." But now I'm thinking I was having autistic burnout because I lost my routines, had to get used to a new place, was living in a dorm where I had NO privacy--I shared a room and I remember regularly crashing the Christian Student Union's office (anyone can sign out keys to the student clubs) and sleeping on their couch just so I could be alone.

I'm further thinking that my struggling with a liberal arts education was related to autism. I probably could have allowed myself to get interested in very many subjects, but all I could think about was, "how do I get a job when I get out of college?" and it was extremely demotivating because a liberal arts degree is a bullshit job qualification, not that it's a bullshit degree, but if you want to be "qualified" for a job with a liberal arts degree, there is probably a good deal of bullshit to shovel in the interview because you actually have no demonstrable job skills to speak of.

I remember very clearly thinking, "How is reading and writing papers on various subjects preparing me for a job? What is the job skill I am learning that I can apply to jobs I find in the classified section?" How am I going to convince anyone to give me a job with a degree in English, or Medieval Studies, or Sociology?

Close to 35 years later, I can´t get a second interview for a job at a grocery store, so I think my fear was well founded.

[As well as, "If I like reading and writing papers about medieval monks, would I like reading and writing papers about legislation impacting work safety requirements in, say, grain elevators? Probably not."]

I've also been getting really extremely radical in the last year, like so radical that I think humanity itself is fundamentally and irrevocably flawed. I worked for a company where I very clearly saw advantage go to people who curried favor the most, and I could smell the bullshit wafting off of people when they'd come visit from the central office. It was extremely clear to me that the only thing that really mattered was politics and that the first job of every institution is to serve itself.

Several months ago, I though, "wow, I've really absorbed Noam Chomsky's systemic critiques and embraced anarchist politics" but, really, maybe all I was doing was allowing myself to see the world through autistic eyes.

I've also had a pattern of working a job for usually a max of a year or two then quitting. Not finding another job, just quitting and moving back in with my parents. Sometimes I'd daisychain a few jobs together for a few years, but I'd always eventually collapse.

And that is exactly where I am now. I've worked steadily for over 7 years and am I just exhausted.

2. If autism truly does explain why I am unemployable, how much does it suck that I can never get a diagnosis for it?

I don't have any sensory issues, I don't have any problem reading emotions, don´t have any serious trouble getting along with people for brief periods. I've been TOLD by plenty of people I'm autistic, but I've been to plenty of psychiatrists and therapists and nobody's really brought it up and I've been deemed NOT autistic by one psychologist who was specifically evaluating me for autism. She even charged me a lot of money and made me wait several months for a pretty drearily uninformative report.

1. I have done a LOT of** therapy** and found most of it entirely pointless, which would track if the bulk of my problems are from being atypical in an NT world (see question 1). I don´t think I have a question here, but it just seems like the default for every problem is "go to therapy" so I feel like I have to say: a) I've been to therapy b) people who do therapy are very likely NTs that can not relate c) therapy is not going to help me get or sustain a job, though I can 100% find a therapist that says they can help me.

I also want to say that I'm simultaneously the HAPPIEST about myself that I have EVER been at the same time I am the most HOPELESS about my future that I have ever been. Before I would pile up all this shame and responsibility on my shoulders, but now I see that there's nothing "wrong" with me, I'm just built differently in a way that puts me at a disadvantage in the social world.

1. What now? I know I think I need to be self employed, but I don´t even think I'd be good at that. I have no real skills, and all the self-employed thing I can think of involve the same social bullshit as regular work. My girlfriend was telling me about interviewing a tree guy to do some work on her yard and she said she spent like an hour or two talking to him about her trees and how they were doing and I thought, "Damn, she'd never hire me, I'd say, 'It'll be $800 for the job, it'll take half-a-day. Here's my phone number, my license, and my insurance. Have a nice day.' "

Since this is a question dump:

1. How do I make friend online? I give up on IRL. I've tried discord, but it is so annoying with everyone always chatting all the time. I don´t play online games. I'm intensely lonely, but I'd rather be alone than make constant small talk and salve people's hurt feelings constantly because I said an inconvenient truth. I literally have no friends but my girlfriend, and had only one non-romantic friend for a few months in the last 20 years.

Thank you for reading this far and also sorry for writing this.

There was a meme going around a few years ago about Pedro Pascal "being in everything." It also seemed the internet had a hate hardon for the guy, I could never figure out why, but "overexposed" was the dominant "neutral" take.

Since we have analytics for things, has anyone done the numbers to see if Pedro Pascal was objectively more exposed than other actors?

Ryan Gosling, who also seems to similarly be in everything (especially in similar genres to Pascal) but without eliciting any complaints, would be a good point of comparison..

I failed out of Latin because I thought all I had to was be able to recite all the declensions and conjugations from memory--easy enough to accomplish, but not very helpful.

What happens is you learn the table as a sequential blob, you know this follows that, and you have to go through the whole table until you find what you're looking for. Not very efficient and extremely distracting.

What you REALLY want to do is be able to pick the form you need from it's USE, not from it's position out of the table.

The way to do that is to drill on picking out the exact form you need. Your magic tool for this is: flash cards (anki or physical), or a website like Conjuguemos or Linguno.

My experiment this week is to learn portuguese conjugations just from drilling the individual forms, without ever learning the table. Being able to recite the table should be the result of learning the conjugation.

Sorry if this is all horribly obvious to you, but it took me fucking forever to figure this out.

Any little tips you've learned?

I want to re-watch Trek, but am looking for organize my watch-throughs thematically. I just can´t handle 24-episode seasons. ^1^

I'm interested to see how TNG handles societal conflict within the framework of externally-mediated diplomacy (a Trek staple), aka negotiations. I'm not looking for EVERY episode with diplomacy in it, just the ones where two or more parties are being mediated by a third party. Episodes with only two parties (First contact stories if it is only Star Fleet and the other civ) do not belong on the list.

The episodes don´t necessarily have to be "formal negotiations," either. I remember an episode where Ryker negotiated for the rights of males on a planet rather capably using only his winning smile, hairy chest, an ever-abiding curiosity about foreign cultures. Since there were three parties (males, females, and Ryker)², it would go on the list.

Legal disputes handled authoritatively by a court of law (Measure of a Man) would also not be on this list.

Thank you so much!

Footnotes:

1. If anyone has a central clearing house for Trek playlists (or their favorite selective playlist) please let me know what it is.
2. Actually four parties, if you include the shipwrecked alpha chads.

Edit: My own solution: when it happens, get off the computer and pet the dog.

So let's say I make a point on a post. I put forward my argument and I support it with evidence.

Now let's say the first comment is from someone who disagrees with me, but seems to fundamentally misunderstand what I am saying, probably because they read the title of the post and immediately posted the first thing that came to mind.

But my fear, acquired from Reddit, is that people are going to read this guy's totally inaccurate presentation of my argument and then every comment in the rest of the discussion will proceed as if that's what I said.

And since, as we all know, fear leads to hate, my first instinct is just to berate this person for being a stupid moron.

This is a bad strategy. Not only is probably against Lemmy rules, it automatically makes me the bad guy.

So: question: how do I handle this person without tediously restating my position again, which is extremely irritating because I already wrote it once and they didn't read it the first time. What I want is to say something that quickly quarantines the misreading comment in people's minds so the misreading doesn't infect the entire thread.

Would young men be rioting in the streets if they didn't have video games to pacify them?

Hear me out.

We are seeing record levels of young men unemployed and living with their parents: The future for them is bleak. Saddled with college debt, they can barely get a job that pays miimum wage, while living independently is forever out of reach.

I feel like at other points of history, there would be more social unrest, but things are exceedingly calm given the economics.

I was watching a video by Healthy Gamer, a gamer bro-turned psychiatrist. He points out that video games are very addictive and seductive because they MIMIC accomplishment. You can grind to get to the next level, you can gain new skills, you are continually put on a treadmill of constant progress. It's very satisfying in a hollow way, satisfying in a way that might make you forget that society has nothing to offer you but debt and homelessness after you followed all the rules.

Are video games weapons of mass distraction, the metaphysical equivalent of a million Christians being fed to a million lions every day?

Super interesting piece on the weird ideology that took over conservatism.

I created an account on another instance. When I go to makertube my options are to log in or request an account. If I request an account with the same email, it says it already exists.

I don't have any info on the original instance, so there's no data (videos, subs) i need to transfer; i just want to use that same e-mail address for makertube.

suggestions?

I was just watching a youtube on Jungian personas and masks. The problem, Jung said, is that people put on masks to gain love and acceptance but hide their true authentic selves. Over time, they forget who they really are and become their mask.

The video was about how to remove the mask and discover your true self, but all I kept thinking was "love and acceptance? just for putting on a mask? how can I learn this skill?"

I can't consistently connect my android phone to my Linux Mint box consistently with any of the apps I've tried, because frankly, they are all janky as fuck. Sometimes they work instantly, then they disconnect and then they refuse to work. I feel like a lab rat in a random reinforcement maze because I think I've memorized the precise magical steps to get these services working, but it is just random.

Things I know about: How to turn off the firewall, how to turn on the firewall, how to open ports, how to close ports, how to keep a wifi network connected on android even if it has no internet connection, how to connect to the same wifi network, how to see if a device is visible on the network, how to find ip addresses, etc.

So here are the ones I've tried: KDEConnect (most reliable but I've spent 30 minutes on it today) LocalSend (tried it today, can see each other but "no route to host" when I try to send) Warpinator

I'm thinking of ditching WiFi and exploring Bluetooth at this point, even if it would take all night to transfer files, if it were reliable, it would be worth it.

Background: I run internet only through my phone, including downloads. To transfer files onto my computer, I need to connect my phone to my computer unless I want to burn through my hotspot data and download it directly to my computer. My USB-C port is unfortunately broken, so I have to do this.

Music has been a huge part of me getting better mentally the past few years, but I've found pretty much nobody is that interested in hearing me play, and I've further noticed that nobody is interested in hearing anyone play anything outside of music they've already heard a gajillion times the exact way they've heard it a gajillion times, and that does not interest me at all.

Doesn't hurt that I play mostly French and Spanish songs in the United States (guitar, naturally).

I've been to a few open mics. The "best" one was just really cliquey. Another one was really isolated was just heartbreakingly isolated--that is, people would sit at their tables, go up and play, and then sit down again alone at the tables, and maybe someone might come up and say, "nice set." Why bother?

I also haven't run into much possibility for collaboration. Everyone once in a while, I might run into sax player, but basically everyone is playing guitar or maybe keyboard and just wants to play and sing solo, unless they're dating someone that wants to sing. I keep dabbling in clarinet and lap steel just so I can eventually have something else to offer musically, but don´t know who would take me up on it.

Music used to be a social pursuit, I understand, but I'm kinda coming to grips with it being an almost absolutely solitary pursuit at this point. Like, I don't think about performing anymore, I just play for myself, and it just makes me a little bit sad.

Any ideas or suggestions?

So the Messiah in Star Wars is supposed "to bring balance to The Force," but I never understood what it meant.

Star Wars is extremely dualistic--there is a good side and an evil side, a light side and a dark side, the Jedi and the Sith. Every plotline is based around a manichean struggle where only one side can win by annihilating the other.

The "good side", the Jedi, are explicitly looking a savior to provide "balance" while at the same time imposing all sorts of restrictions on which force powers are allowed and which aren't. For an order whose messiah is based on Taoist equilibrium, they are positively Christian in their obsession with purity.

I think there is an implicit subtextual critique of the Jedi Order in the prequels that they incompetent, as you might expect from the leaders of a theocracy, but that's about as far as it goes.

I think the closest we get to ANY real discussion of balance is Luke's vision on Degobah, where he must see himself as potentially Darth Vader, which can be interpreted as an attempt towards wholeness OR as a warning to not stray into evil.

Can anyone square this circle?

Edit: It's funny to me that there are more comments than upvotes. People want to share. I love it.