Just for the fun of it, let’s grant that Russia has some secret mind-scrambling ray that can pinpoint a single person in a crowded studio, undetected. That premise is ridiculous enough, but let’s just run with it.

Where did they deploy it from? Was there a guy in the studio? Building nearby? Biden has security service protection that is going to be screening all those places, nobody would even be able to use a handheld mind ray.

Or does Russia have mind-melting space lasers now? From which satellite are those being beamed down?

I was listening to a podcast, and the host was talking about how his son (early middle school age) apparently came home from school singing ad jingles just because of how much they were exposed to it. It’s basically the plot of a dystopian novel.

I feel an urge to scream it into the world every single day just how much i despise ads and whoever invented them.

If you are like me and just like reading history for fun, even the history of things like advertising, there is some actual interesting history there. Advertising goods for sale basically goes back as far as recorded history does. We have examples of adverts from the Song dynasty. These tended to be fairly innocous though. Basically just signs advertising a product sold at a shop.

Modern advertising, the more invasive kind that we hate, unsurprisingly got its start in the US. All the advertising execs that basically set out with the goal of exploiting human psychology to sell product are from the early 1900s in the US/UK for the most part. Nielsen and the dedicated advertising agency came a bit later. Thomas Barratt (UK) was one of the worst, he famously bought the rights to a painting and then added a product he was selling to the painting. The artist hated it but couldn’t do anything about it.

Is this a regular event? Does another mod always reinstate you or something? Or do they just realise they lose half their content when you aren’t supplying them with actual news?

I…actually don’t see the problem with this one.

Heavy duty mayonnaise is thicker, it has been emulsified more. It is better for things that use mayo as a binding agent, like an egg salad or even crab cakes. It’s commonly used in restaurants, and this is a restaurant supply vendor. You probably don’t just use heavy duty directly as a condiment on a sandwich or something, but you could if you wanted to.

Yeah it is better to make your own mayo, but this isn’t that crazy. Heavy duty is more annoying to make too anyway.

Gordon Choice is a retail wholesaler, the target demographic are businesses and restaurants. You aren’t using a home fridge and they aren’t really targeting individuals.

That said, I know some USians that would probably go through this individually.

Snakes becoming synonymous with evil/bad things has done so much damage to the poor critters. When I was last living in the west (a long long long time ago) I had two pet snakes there were rescues from people trying to kill them. They’re awesome animals that deserve a much better reputation than they get.

Chronic insomniac here. I struggle immensely falling asleep, though once I am there I can usually stay asleep for at least a few hours. I have gotten used to it and just consume inordinate amounts of coffee now/got used to operating on three hours. I stopped trying to push myself to get to bed earlier, because it makes me less likely to get any sleep at all.

There are a couple horror podcasts that help me semi-doze (I find horror very relaxing, which probably would give a therapist loads of material to work with) when I am on the bus or train. It isn’t a proper sleep but it gives me a bit of rest and can actually give me a few hours extra energy before I feel tired again. I get what sleep or sleep adjacent activities in when I can.

Scare You to Sleep is the one I recommend most often for that, the title alone should hint that it is geared towards exactly that.

In a variety of ways, yes.

Yes, unhealthy food is made to be addictive and convenient.

There are other factors that go into it too though. People work far too long hours with far too long commutes and either don’t have the time or energy to do any cooking and/or grocery shopping. Even if you live in an area where you have good markets to buy food from, you may not always be able to.

I love to cook, it’s one of my main hobbies and I still find I don’t really have much time to cook during the week after work. My office provides lunch that is reasonably well balanced, luckily for me. If I could spend less time going to/from/at the office I would happily go to the market to buy fresh produce every day. But that simply isn’t feasible.

Gaming is a weird one because AAA development is an unsustainable shitshow with goals that can only be achieved with some of the worst exploitation that exists in any industry anywhere, but at the same time it has become easier than ever for a small indy developer/team to make and publish their own stuff and not have to deal with any of the big companies at all. Not that indy development doesn’t have its own host of problems, but for different reasons.

I am thoroughly envious that you have managed to avoid that meme this long. You aren’t missing anything.

Obviously the US invented freedom, it did not exist historically.

Therefore it is an obvious requirement that you be American to be a free-thinker, so only American news outlets can be free. If they say something wrong, then they have obviously been subverted by China/Russia and are no longer free.

Clothes I couldn’t help you much, my entire wardrobe has subsisted on gifts (and the fact my job has a uniform anyway) for like the past 20 years. I am honestly not sure how I would go about buying my own clothes.

Technological product/gadgets. I also like things that last a long time, but I am generally okay with paying a premium for that. So a lot of the brands I use here are on the expensive side, but also they last.

Phones/Tables/Watches. I try to stick to Chinese manufacturers. Generally a decent lifespan and pretty durable at a way more reasonable prices than a lot of the competition. Nothing too shocking here, the major brands like Huawei are solid products that can last a long time if you take care of them.

Chargers/power banks and the like I swear by Anker. They are pretty expensive but they do last a very long time and work very well. I haven’T had an anker device fail on me yet, even if the products I attach to them have.

Vaping devices (it’s how I quit smoking) I tend to buy from the Philippines, VIcious Ant are kind of expensive luxury items but they last close to forever. My friend dropped one five stories at a construction site and it was fine. Coils I make myself.

Framework is cool, I haven’t had a lot of time to play around with them but I would love to tinker with one a bit more.

I will edit some more in when I can think of them.

I appreciate the sentiment, but it is honestly a pretty broad subject.

Maybe narrow it down to a few more specific areas first so people can share ones they know and go from there? Added benefit of making it easier for other coming to this thread to find the kind of information they are looking for too.

This is always what I use. That is one reason, but I also don’t want to group all of the Americas in with the US and it makes that distinction pretty clear.

I think some people do it out of being extremely petty, as a way to “own” China. Like China cares what John Youtube calls their party. There is also the attempts to deligitimatize it from standard Communist Party naming conventions (Communist Part of Country) and to highlight racial elements instead.

I honestly think a lot of people just do it out of ignorance. The first group is so pervasive that I think a lot of people just legitimtately think CCP is the correct term without knowing better.

Yeah I would try to read it in Mandarin but I am pretty sure the technical language is beyond me, at least as of right now. Would love to work into it eventually though.

re: Finkelstein, I think his writing is arguably better than his speeches, you can tell he has devoted his life to that subject. They can be lengthy but honestly they never feel like it.

I used to go to a couple local shops when I lived in the city, but we don’t have great book options where I live right now.

I tend to prefer reading in English rather than my local language, so I mostly get books digitally and read them on my tablet. I only very rarely read fiction, but I am reading through Dark Forest again right now as a rare treat. Just before Dark Forest I read Three Body Problem, obviously, and Finkelstein’s “Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom”.

They didn’t capitulate to western powers, and are in fact still at war with them. Plus it lets them demonize China by proxy, which is always something western powers are looking to do.

Also all that is exacerbated by the fact that they are fairly isolated and not many people go there. People propagandaize about China all the time, but that is always in conflict with the fact that many people can and do go visit and see the reality for themselves. Not nearly as many people visit the DPRK, though if they do they will also find out it isn’t remotely like what they have had.