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I desperately wanted to be on Figure It Out (With your host, Summer Sanders)

I reference the secret slime action fairly frequently, and it seems that maybe I’m the only person in my area who watched/enjoyed the show, because most people have no idea what I am talking about.

Don’t even get me started on Figure It Out Wild Style.

It can fall under the same umbrella. Unrealistic beauty standards being set by the “rich”, who some people look up to as role models. If there were something that you could do that you might be able to afford, like botox or lip fillers, that you believe would make you more beautiful, closer to your role model… If that sort of thing matters to you, then yeah, you might go for it. I can even take the same analogy of watches above, because there are definitely cheap imitation versions of the gaudy diamond-encrusted ones.

I was sort of thinking more like this though with respect to extreme alterations…

It’s definitely a status thing, but I think the extreme it’s been taken to has more to do with an erosion and warping of reasonable beauty standards than anything. More of an act of “because I can” than anything. I think a lot of the people who you look at and think “what the fuck” actually think they are making themselves more beautiful and attractive. I don’t think someone who has everything and can get whatever they want would purposely make themselves look grotesque, but I’m neither rich, nor a psychologist, so maybe I’m totally wrong…

It’s kind of like how there’s a gaudy stupid looking hyper-expensive version of everything, like those giant hideous watches with diamonds encrusted on every surface… Someone think’s it’s beautiful or shows status, but most of us probably just think it looks stupid.

The Bogdanoffification has been happening for a while…

Pub cheese would like a word.

Also, I think you might be hard-pressed to find anyone who would consider sugary cake sponge to be “bread”. (Something something Ireland’s supreme court ruled that Subway’s bread isn’t legally bread for tax purposes due to its high sugar content)

It’d be like layering up some sourdough slices with sweet sugary icing slathered between them, most people probably wouldn’t call that a cake.

Ah the good ol’ corner-of-a-building shot. I know it well.

I interact with nostalgia by using the actual tools that are the focus of said nostalgia., so like kind of a more difficult round-about way of achieving a similar extreme result… (All of those are SOOC, no editing, from various mid-to-early 90’s cameras)

(I also really like your shot of the stick “levitating” over the lake.)

I think it was just an odd way of making him seem more human and normal. Also the fact that he doesn’t mention anything about it also happening in his previous lives leaves an interesting open question that could either lend credence or hinder his whole backstory… At least that’s how I interpreted it.

All in all, though… one of the less awkward and more impactful sex scenes in a science-y book, which is much better than the usual ones I remember because they’re terrible and awkward and don’t fit in with the surrounding plot lol

It’s ironic that I have an anecdote that I recently read that feels very fitting here.

Permutation City by Greg Egan. Post-human digital consciousness via uploaded brain-scan becomes possible, and there are interesting questions about how the “sense of self” is derived, and how much someone can change themselves before they are no longer the same person. There are many different characters that deal with a newfound immortality in different ways, and either embrace, or shun, the ability to change themselves at a whim to fit their needs or wants. It’s a very prominent part of the overall plot and is prevalent right up until the last sentence.

Also, separate from that, I have the exact opposite feeling as OP. When I’m reading a book, I feel like my world is expanded in new directions. I tend to see certain things from slightly different perspectives in the context of what I’m reading. I’ve been reading Greg Egan’s entire body of work (after reading Diaspora and absolutely fucking loving it), and some insight and thoughts I had about the book Quarantine actually pushed me to make positive changes in my life that have been really hugely impactful, and I don’t think I would have had the courage or drive to make them had I not been thinking about my life in such an abstract manner.

While I haven’t seen him the most times, I am unequivocally a massive Dev-head. I’ve seen Devin Townsend 3 times (4 if you count the virtual concert during lockdown in 2020), but one of them was to travel from the USA to the Netherlands this March to see the one-time live performance of The Moth (I was right in the second row, I get a lot of peripheral screen-time in the live-stream). It was such an amazing experience, I’m going to count that as 10 or 20 normal concerts. I probably also haven’t cried that many happy tears in at least a decade or two. It was also my first time ever leaving the USA, and I really REALLY didn’t want to go home. I’d have happily lived the rest of my life on the Dutch train network.

I’ve been meaning to get to one of their shows, but just never had the chance, or always learned about it right after it happened.

I really wish Грай (Grai) would tour somewhere in North America…

I had never heard of Thank You Scientist before, but they were opening for one of the bands that I really like to go see live (Rivers of Nihil, seen them 5 times so far). HOLY SHIT they are so good. I have no idea how they ended up as the opener for that show, they’re so different from the other bands on the setlist, but I am very glad I got to see them.

I saw Tesseract recently when I went to see Devin Townsend, that was an amazing show.

You’re not going to get an argument out of me lol. I had a Reddit account for over a decade. I was addicted to the karma system of Reddit, it was seriously negatively impacting my life. I finally deleted my account and moved here recently, it’s been one of the better changes I’ve made in my life. You can completely hide post scores here, and the communities are smaller and less active which drives a more genuine engagement vs the hot-take one-liners, memes, and low-effort post replies.

Reddit can burn to the ground and cease to exist for all I care. It’s become so big and full of hate and misinformation.

My legitimate advice is just… don’t go back and save yourself the headache.

The karma itself is the gamification that increases engagement.

The gated subs, karma limits, etc. are there to cut down on spam, low-effort content, brigading, etc. in large communities to keep the engaged users more engaged so hopefully they spend a few more dollars on silly updoot awards.

It’s all supply and demand, profit-driven decisions. If a feature like karma limits alienates a small number of users, it is still worth it if it retains and engages with more high-value users who invest money in the platform with their ad viewership and direct purchases.

My original choice was between the BRZ and an MX-5… I don’t have another car, so I needed just the tiny bit more practicality of the trunk and back-seat space. I HAVE in fact taken 4 people in it, though it’s only a last resort kind of thing… It was really tough, because I fucking love convertibles. If I had a more reasonable car, or even the space to park a more reasonable car when I was looking into it originally (I live in an apartment in a downtown metro with only 1 parking space), I’d have 100% gotten a convertible miat.

And I’m only 5’10", but I think I just have a long torso. My seat is all the way down, and there isn’t enough head clearance for me to wear a helmet, which just saves me from the temptation to beat on it at autocross or something, so honestly a positive.

Not very. Still working on getting a VPN set up and learning the ropes of self-hosting in general. Most of the research I’ve been doing has mentioned that Piefed seems to take less resources than Lemmy for some reason. We’ll see how it goes once I actually figure all this out. I just learned that my choice of home internet might make it difficult since I apparently can’t get a static IP. (T mobile 5G)

I drive a BRZ, lowered an inch and a half, and I’m tall enough that the seat needs to be as low as it will go so I don’t bump my head on the roof. Stopped at lights, I can look over at regular non-lifted pickup trucks and think “Huh, that guy’s asscheeks are at the same level as my eyeballs”.

I’ve gotten over the feeling of being small while driving amongst traffic, but the stark differences while stopped close to other vehicles is hard to ignore.

I really wish I could buy the new Suzuki Jimny. I saw one in person for the first time on a trip a few months back, and it’s so perfect.

I’ll also comment to say that the “cancel” part of this is stupid and should be reconsidered. (There seems to be a pretty thorough consensus on that). Isn’t the whole point of this to have options, to spread the resources out to as many points as possible to prevent a single point of failure, corruption, or censorship?

I ended up at Piefed, because I’m interested in self-hosting, and I understand Python more than any of the other languages represented. That’s really the full depth of my choice, and I’m not sure there should be much more thought behind it other than “How does this particular software package perform and meet my needs?”