Maybe I’m just old, but I read that last line in Popeye’s laugh instead of Mr. Crabs.

I also use Voyager. I browse by “All” and subscribe to communities that look interesting. I figured I’d whittle down my interests over time until I have a nice custom feed to browse, but because Lemmy is so much smaller than Reddit, I still continue to just browse by “All,” even after being here for about 2 years now.

I’ve only blocked a few communities, but they were just some foreign-language communities that were dominating my feed for a while. Whomever owns those instances didn’t mark a language for them, so they’re showing up with everything else uncategorized.

So… Skynet.

I think one of the big concerns is that Trump is looking for any excuse to deploy the military against our own citizens. If he can start something violent in the streets, it justifies declaring martial law and taking over Democrat-run states. But in this digital age, everyone has cameras on their phones, so he needs the citizens to start shit first. He’s not brave enough yet to directly contradict video evidence of crimes (although he’s getting there).

That’s one of the big reasons Americans are trying to keep their protests civil. If we turn it violent, Trump gets his way and we get don’t stand a chance against a military invasion on our own land. Like in California, when Trump sent the National Guard to quell protests against ICE in LA, nothing came of it because no one wanted to start a fight. Protestors showed up, but none of them directly engaged with the military. Eventually the whole military campaign fizzled and the National Guard was recalled home.

We’re dealing with that again in Washington D.C. right now. Trump created some fake crime emergency to deploy the National Guard in D.C., despite an all-time low crime rate right now. Protestors are showing up in force, but nothing’s happening because they’re not directly confronting the National Guard. Just standing their ground and peacefully protesting.

I’m all for revolution; I think the only way we’ll fix our broken system is to tear it all down and rebuild from scratch; there are too many corrupt officials, on both sides of the fence, to repair it as is. And too many corrupt laws and regulations in place to function effectively. But you can’t just go in with violence. It’s a delicate situation right now and violence should be the absolute last resort. Trump has no problem sending millions to their deaths for his ideals and he’ll gladly invade our own nation to cement his dictatorship. We can’t give him the excuse to do it.

I was serving in the US military when Trump got elected the first time, and that was a scary time for us. He spoke very favorably about various dictators and wanting to reshape America like their countries. But he had a majority Democrat government that kept slapping down every BS thing he tried, so his first term was mostly uneventful.

This time around, though, he has a majority Republican government and enough supporters in high level positions that he’s surrounded by yes men. He’s been a lot more bold. I’m really glad I retired when I did because there’s no way I could follow his unlawful orders.

I think that’s the biggest difference between the US and Europe. Europe isn’t going to deploy the military to break up violent protests and then use it to enact martial law and overthrow that nation. Trump will, if given the chance.

I refuse to use TikTok, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. I only have Facebook because 90% of my friends and family are there and it’s the primary way I stay in touch with them, but I’d like to get rid of that too.

Regarding TikTok, I was serving in the US military as an IT sysadmin when it became popular. But we discovered that the app embedded itself deep in your phone’s hardware, granted itself full administrative access to your phone, then started trickling all your data to servers in China. And you couldn’t fully uninstall it once you’d installed it once. Your phone was completely compromised if you ever installed that app.

It became a huge security risk and we were told to never use it. It was a horrifyingly effective spy tool China could use to easily collect data on us. That’s why President Biden pushed to ban TikTok in the US.

But of course, TikTok became super popular among our civilian population and they refused to give it up, which led to a lot of pushback against the ban. It never held, and now people are still using it and sharing all their private information with China.

Meta does something similar with Facebook/Instagram/Whatsapp, but we at least can keep tabs on what they’re doing with your private data, since they’re an American company. They mostly use your information to build advertising profiles on you, to better catch your attention with ads. But that information could easily be used against you if federal organizations wanted to. ICE could use it to identify non-white Americans and their daily habits and easily intercept them.

Still, if you don’t want your private information being potentially stolen by these companies, it’s best to dump these programs. I don’t install them on my phone or tablet and I keep Facebook’s website isolated on my computer, since it likes to read other open windows and use those sites to fine-tune advertising data for you.

Google has turned into one of these companies that collects data on everything you do, so I’m in the middle of de-Googling my life right now. But it’s really hard because they’re embedded everywhere.

We’re living in a dark time where the only way to prevent corporations and governments from collecting information on you is to stay offline. Which is nearly impossible nowadays. We don’t get privacy in this modern Information Age. Not while Capitalism is still a thing.

Yup, because of his comic about it, paleontologists have officially named it the Thagomizer.

I’m 41 and I still make this mistake all the time.

No matter how old and broken my body gets, I’ll always be a teenager at heart.

I still don’t understand why anyone would ever pay for access to news articles. There are plenty of free and legitimate articles on the Internet, and public access TV still broadcasts news. You never need to pay anyone.

Honestly, putting a price on access to news just makes me not trust that organization. It feels like a scam, like paying for bottled water when water is one of the most abundant resources in the world.

Paid subscriptions are only a thing because people bought into it and normalized it instead of boycotting it. That’s why everything is a subscription nowadays and no one can just buy and own a product now. We have to spend our lives paying a regular fee for access to something we never own.

If you watch the 1970 M*A*S*H movie that the TV show is based on, they play the full song with vocals. It’s actually a really dark song called “Suicide is Painless” and the lyrics are depressing and sad.

37 was the year I started planning my retirement. At 38, I officially retired. I started growing a beard and was surprised to find a white patch to one side on my chin.

Now at 41, my entire chin has turned white and I have salt-and-pepper hair throughout my beard and head hair.

37 truly is a magical age.

I posted a review here earlier this year, but A Way Out was an excellent 2-player co-op game! I really enjoyed it. Story rich puzzles with some action interspersed. And it’s split-screen even if you’re playing online, so you can see what your partner is up to and coordinate with them. The ending was heart-wrenching too! Such an emotionally impacting story. Check out my review for a spoiler-free intro to that game.

Diablo 3

My wife, two friends, and I all played Diablo IV online together. We beat the main campaign together and had a lot of fun with it. We’re trying to beat the expansion campaign too, but my wife and one friend dropped out, so it’s just been me and a buddy powering through it.

That’s a game where you can just have fun dicking around in the world, even if there isn’t an objective. And it has plenty of endgame content to keep you entertained after you beat the campaign.

hunter2

I got my glasses in 9th grade (~15 years old). I just went to school one day and realized I couldn’t read the chalkboard at the front of the class anymore. Within a week, I had an eye exam and my first set of glasses.

Personally, it took me a couple years to adjust to them. I had 20/10 vision all throughout my childhood (I can see at 20 ft what most people see at 10 ft). My vision was better than perfect. So it was very distressing to all-of-a-sudden not be able to see clearly and it took me a long time to get used to it.

Also, glasses limited my range of view. Whereas I had a wide view normally, glasses put a smaller focused frame around my field of view, so I could only focus on details mostly straight ahead. Everything that moved in the corners of my vision spooked me because I couldn’t focus on it without turning my head toward it. I was very jumpy for a long time.

My vision isn’t terrible. Even at 41 years old now, my prescription is pretty weak. I’m nearsighted, so I don’t even need my glasses for things up close, just long-distance viewing.

And thankfully, it’s been stable for a long time. It’s hardly changed in the last decade and a half. As of last year, my optometrist has been telling me my eyesight could potentially get much worse, now that I’m over 40. So I’ve been told to report back if I notice another sudden change in my vision. But I’ve been good so far.

I wanted to get PRK surgery for a while and I could’ve opted for a free surgery through the US military while I was serving. But things kept getting in the way of my request, and I finally decided to just leave it be. Especially as I got older; I was afraid I’d only be able to enjoy being glasses-free for a few years before I’d start needing reading glasses or something.

Also, my mother spent over 40 years working for the State Services for the Blind, so I grew up around a lot of blind people and always feared losing my vision. So I was a little terrified of getting eye surgery and potentially getting a botched job.

I literally just saw this movie for the first time last night. Long overdue. It was an excellent film!

Before anyone asks, it’s from Highlander (1986)

If you want to read the books, it’s 4 novels: Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, and Hannibal Rising.

You can skip that fourth book if you want. It’s a prequel story that shows how Hannibal grew up and what turned him to cannibalism. The author (Thomas Harris) wanted to keep him a mysterious character, but Hannibal was so popular, people kept demanding to know his backstory and Harris knew that if he didn’t tell the story, someone else would. So he begrudgingly wrote an origin story.

You can tell he didn’t want to write it. The writing style is completely different than his other books. It’s very direct, like he’s just dictating information instead of weaving a tale.

Red Dragon follows Hannibal in prison and the detective who caught him, using Hannibal’s intellect to help catch a psychotic killer on the loose.

Silence of the Lambs is basically the same story as Red Dragon, except replace the brilliant veteran detective with an amateur FBI trainee, whom Hannibal takes an interest in.

Hannibal is a direct sequel to Silence of the Lambs, showing the FBI trainee’s exceptional career and eventual downfall, thanks to the patriarchy.

The Hannibal quadrilogy is one of my favorite book series. I’m sad that the movie version of Hannibal didn’t understand the point the books were telling. And the Hannibal Rising movie was a terrible B-movie plot about a young psychotic kid getting a taste for murder. Didn’t really feel like a Hannibal movie at all.

I haven’t seen the Hannibal TV series, although I hear it’s pretty good. But it’s an original story, so may not be very loyal to the book series.

Personally, I’m still irritated at the end of Hannibal (the 2001 movie). Spoilers for the end of the film and book ahead:

In the book, Clarice Starling has gone as far as she can in her FBI career. She became famous for solving big cases, moved up the corporate ladder, but that glass ceiling kept her from advancing. Too many misogynistic “good ol’ boys” at the top, who not only prevent her from excelling in her career, but take every tiny mistake and blow it up into a potentially career-ending scenario.

Enter Hannibal Lecter; the suave and highly intelligent cannibal serial killer. He’s outraged that Clarice’s coworkers and bosses are actively objectifying her and ruining her career.

Long story short, at the end of the book, Hannibal rescues Clarice and gives her misogynistic boss an impromptu (and tasty!) lobotomy. Clarice ends up running away with Hannibal, because she realized he’s the only person who respects her as an intelligent human being and not a piece of ass.

The movie chose to keep her loyal to the FBI and combative against Hannibal, even though the FBI actively tried to destroy her life. Hannibal escapes alone and the film just kind of ends. It was a complete non-ending.

The whole point of Silence of the Lambs and its sequel, Hannibal, was that Clarice was a woman trying to survive in a “man’s job,” yet proved she could belong - and excel - through her own skill and intellect. Silence of the Lambs did a pretty good job showing that on the big screen, but Hannibal didn’t get the point of the story and decided the hero shouldn’t end up with a cannibal, period. They treated him as more of an irredeemable monster.

It’s kind of the “man vs. bear” meme, except replace the bear with a cannibal serial killer, and the girl still chose the cannibal as the safer choice to her co-workers.

Agreed. I live on 6 acres of land out in the forested countryside. There are untouched, natural fields and forests all around me. There are literally 40 acres of natural preserve right next to my property, where no development of any kind is allowed to happen.

I like having a clean, mowed patch of land in the middle of it all. When I go adventuring in the forest, I always come home covered in ticks, mosquito bites, and sticky plant pods. It’s nice to not experience that just walking through my own backyard.

Not to mention, natural habitats invite snakes, mice, rabbits, possums, skunks, etc. into my home. I currently have field mice living in my garage and I can’t keep them away because the forest grows right up to my garage. I keep having to bring my cars to the shop because mice and squirrels keep building nests in them and chewing through cables.

I also have moles tearing up my backyard in the un-mown field out back. Maintaining a patch of lawn helps to keep them away from my house and makes my life more comfortable here.

People who fantasize about natural gardens instead of mowed lawns live in the cities or suburbs. If you actually live in the countryside, it’s much nicer to have a freshly mowed lawn around the house, to keep the wilderness at bay.

Otherwise, nature will just swallow up your home. I actually need to cut down a tree behind my garage because it’s gonna crack through the foundation of the garage if it gets any bigger. And I need to re-side my garage as well, because vines and other plants have started working their way into the siding. That’s probably how the mice keep getting in.

It’s a multi-year project for me to cut back the wilderness trying to encroach on my home, and it’s a very expensive lesson to learn. I’d much rather just mow a chunk of land around my home and call it a day.

I find this easier to understand with comic books, since I’m a bit of a collector:

Action Comics #1, the first issue to feature Superman, originally printed 200,000 issues in 1938 and sold for 10¢ each.

But because it’s a highly desirable issue and there are currently less than 100 copies left in existence (that we know of), their value has skyrocketed. One copy sold for $6 million last year! It’s worth a lot because it’s so rare and so many people want a copy for their collection. Scarcity makes the price go up, because it’s valuable and desirable to so many collectors.

Money works the same way, but in reverse. Back in 1938, when that Action Comics #1 released, it was only worth 10¢. Back then, there wasn’t as much money in circulation in the US, so 10¢ could buy you a lot of things. Comics, groceries, gas, etc. all were less than a dollar.

But every single year, the Federal Reserve orders more money to be printed for circulation. More money in circulation means that it’s all worth less.

Remember that Action Comics #1? When there were 200,000 copies available, they were worth only 10¢. But now that there are less than 100 left, they’re worth millions. Money is the same way, but it’s moving in reverse. As more is printed, it’s all worth less.

Back in 1938, a comic cost 10¢. But today, there is so much money printed and in circulation, that a modern comic costs about $5. That’s 50x more expensive! The overall value of comics hasn’t changed; they’re just paper with printings on it. Heck, you could argue that it should be worth less today because they’re so much easier to print with modern technology. But because there’s so much money in circulation, its value has tanked and you need lots more money to buy the same product.

Granted, money doesn’t stay in circulation forever. Bills get old and tattered and eventually become destroyed and unusable. Coins disappear or get melted down. Both types of currency get returned to the Federal Reserve to be removed from circulation and destroyed. But we still print much more money than what falls out of circulation each year. And they estimate how much money is in circulation annually to better approximate inflation each year.

So why do we keep printing money? Because more and more people are born, more products and services are being made and sold, and our economy keeps growing. We can’t just circulate the same amount of currency forever; our economy would stagnate and certain groups of people would just never earn money. And in our capitalist society, if you don’t have money, you can’t survive.

So… We keep printing money to keep up with the demands of capitalism, and the growth in circulating currency means it’s all worth less. Therefore, it costs much more to buy the same item as time goes on. A comic in 1938 costs 10¢. Today, it costs $5. Because there’s so much more money in the world, the value of money is less and you need more money to buy the same things.

I retired young. I had joined the US military at 18 years old and signed up under an IT profession. It started as a jack-of-all-trades IT job (if it touched a computer network, we managed it), but as the years went on, they started specializing us. Because if you’re a jack-of-all-trades, you’re a master of none, and the military wanted subject-matter experts. My final job was basically a server administrator, although they never fully adopted to the specialization change, so I was still doing odd IT work outside of my job requirements until I left the service.

After 20 years of service, I qualified for retirement from the military, which I jumped on. I was grandfathered into the old pension program, which means I get about half my base pay every month for the rest of my life. The military also kind of broke me (physically and mentally), so I’m 100% disabled according to the VA, even though I don’t look like it. That comes with it’s own free lifetime medical and dental plan, along with pay that’s twice as much as my pension every month.

So… I decided to take an early retirement at 38 years old and actually spend some time enjoying my life for once. The military was constant stress and focus on the mission. I didn’t get to spend much time focused on my own life because I was constantly being moved around the world at the whim of the govt. So now I’m settled down and just enjoying not having any responsibilities except what I choose to focus on.

I did try to find other IT work when I left the service. But I couldn’t get a call back from anyone, even through the military’s transitional internship program. Eventually, Google reached out to me, but their “internship” was to give me free access to their online training programs on Coursera for 6 months. They never called me back after that.

Eventually, I realized I didn’t need to work to survive. I wasn’t filthy rich by any stretch of the imagination, but my passive income was enough to live comfortably on without working another day of my life. All my basic needs were being met and I had enough extra each month to squirrel away a little bit for a rainy day. So I chose that path. It’s been just over 3 years since I retired and I’ve never been happier.