Kind of a hard question to word, but is there anything in your life you have recommended to other people but no one’s ever gotten into?
I love podcasts and have friends who still thank me for getting them into this one or that one. But I’ve never gotten anyone to listen to My Brother, My Brother and Me. I don’t know if the name is unappealing or the concept but people seem to bounce off immediately.
So what can’t you get people into and why should we check it out?
Linux
The uniform used to be knee-high socks, cargo pants, scraggly beard and bald spot. It’s still evolving.
Esperanto. A made up language that is really easy to learn and spoken to some degree by about 2 million people all over the world. I got into it when I heard that if you speak it you can stay with Esperanto speakers that just want to practice with strangers, for free. I traveled all over the world for free and met so many awesome people.
When I try to get anyone to learn it, they just won’t. They hear about that criticism of the language or another, or plain get bored. You can just start the Esperanto course on Duolingo for free, but nobody I know goes through, despite the benefits.
The moment I got interested in Esperanto, I wanted better so I jumped down a rabbit hole of ever more obscure languages until I realized what I had gotten into and stopped.
Also, and this probably applied to others, if I’m language learning, there’s two other languages I really 'should* be learning, but am not, so that makes me feel guilty.
Fun fact, William Shatner of Star Trek fame once starred in a movie filmed entirely in Esperanto.
i find it cool in the sense of how it’s a portrayal of all languages being somewhat synthetic. how other conlangs have tried to play with language features is how i landed on Jan Misali’s YT channel (here’s his Esperanto episode).
esperanto per-se i haven’t learnt because… maybe because I wouldn’t have anyone to practice with, and the point of languages is communication? idk.
Duolingo maybe be a good start for the theory, how did you start getting practice? and more importantly, what’s this about rent-free Esperanto hostels? 👀👀
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
check out the Magic 2.0 book series by Scott Meyer it will be a treat for you.
Discworld by Terry Pratchett. It’s got something for just about everyone and I have a few avid readers in my family but they keep putting it off.
I’ve had similar problems. I think party of the issue is that, IMHO, the first two are amongst the weakest in the whole series and are less inspiring. I keep trying to tell my daughter to start with #3, but she hasn’t done it yet.
Start with Guards! Guards! And the Vimes cycle and then move on from there.
I read the Colour of Magic (Book 1) and started the second one, but I wasn’t very hooked by it? I mean it was funny, but maybe I just didn’t like all the fourth wall breaks.
You can watch the 2 colour of magic movies instead.
They are pretty good and feature Sir Terry Pratchett himself.
I’m currently reading the Color of Magic right now and it is…painful. I know, I was warned, but I ignored the pleas. Now I’m kind of stuck reading this book that feels like it was written by a snarky 8th grader on a bus ride home after school. I truly hope the books get better.
I really just can’t get into fiction books but I definitely wish I was every time this series comes up. It sounds pretty cool
I’m the opposite. I only read fiction, both scifi and fantasy and everything in between, because why read something else? I love imagination possibilities of authors that can put something crazy in, something you simply can’t get in non-fiction literature. Why read “boring” stuff that can (have/did) happen to everyone in normal life?
I know I’m exaggerating, but I hope you know what I mean. And I highly recommend Discworld.
PS: I believe Discworld is not for everyone because it’s British with their style of humour baked in. If you don’t like Monty Python, Red Dwarf, IT Crowd or other British shows, you probably won’t enjoy Discworld either.
Because there are very worthwhile texts to read that improve ones knowledge about oneself and humanity and the universe, which in turn allows oneself to make better decisions and have a better mindset.
Reading fiction still helps a little with that, but is mostly “just” entertainment, which of course is also worthwhile.
Aside from the accurate list you posted, I felt similarities as well with hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy.
When I was young I only read fiction, but as I got older I realized reality is incredibly complex and disturbing and found non-fiction far more interesting. So much of the past remains relevant today and there are no shortage of times real people have not only imagined but also implemented ways to exploit each other and their environments, for good and for bad, often in ways that do come across as utterly crazy, so it is hardly a boring category. These days I would rather make sense of the world I am in than some fictional universe. I do like British humor though.
I finally took the dive in audiobook form about 2 weeks ago
Yesterday I finished The Light Fantastic in one day at work while listening
On equal rites rn and I now see that all of my favorite inline creators for the last 18 years have just been repackaging Pratchet
And I love it
Does Privacy count? I always I try to encourage people to treat themselves to better privacy, to step away from big corpo platforms and use more Foss services. Doesn’t stick with a lot of em. 😔
If you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. /s
They’ll try and make it sound like it was a reasoned decision to give in, but if there was a little eyeball looking over their shoulder they’d 100% be freaked out.
What is the practical, measurable impact on my life of big corpo knowing my info? Seems like a lot of ass ache for without any measurable benefits beyond some principles stand big corpo doesn’t care about. It’s not like Big Corpo isn’t getting your info. Using Chrome and a VPN on the Google spy drone in your pocket isn’t hiding anything from Google. If Big Corpo wants your data, they will get it. They are better at getting it than we are at hiding it. The only solution is legislative, not individual nerds putting up knee high fences and feeling morally superior about it.
What is the practical, measurable impact on my life of big corpo knowing my info?
Just off the top of my head: spam, scam calls, phishing emails, credit agency hacks, every data aggregator in the world having a psychological profile on you, malicious actors who want your money having access to enough information to have a chance at getting access to your bank account. But at least advertisements will more likely be things you want.
Oh and don’t forget it’s not just big corpo, it’s also several nations spying on you. Sure you might not be doing anything wrong now, but take it from a political refugee: if they ever want to control you, all they need to do is criminalize something you did in the past and then they already have all the evidence they need. Isn’t “justice” fun?
If Big Corpo wants your data, they will get it.
That’s a very silly assumption to make. Just because they have better data aggregation abilities than your average person doesn’t mean they’re omnipotent.
They are better at getting it than we are at hiding it.
This really sounds luke you’re devolving into an All Or Nothing stance. Just because my online presence necessarily leaves a data footprint doesn’t mean I should just give up and let them have everything they want.
The only solution is legislative, not individual nerds putting up knee high fences and feeling morally superior about it.
Excuse you, mine’s a chest high wall.
Ignoring the assumption that legislation would ever act against the will of capital… As we’ve seen with the Right to Repair movement: societal change stems from the sustained pressure applied by groups of dedicated individuals. Legislation doesn’t just pop into congress because one of the representatives was visited the night before by the three ghosts of privacy past, present and future in the middle of the night; it comes from representatives that either belonged to the movements or were successfully lobbied by them.
Also if someone suggesting you should care about your own privacy and/or well-being feels like an attack against your morals, you should start asking why and who taught you to feel that way about it. I don’t feel like a better person than you, I feel a lot less paranoid and stressed all the time and I would wish that for everyone
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Lemmy
