No, I think I’m far enough on the left to be aware of capitalist propaganda. In all fairness to you, my statement did not treat the subject with the appropriate nuance the subject should require.

The DDR was socialist. However, it was state socialism, which in my opinion is not ideal and not something we should strive to replicate. Yes, the means of production were “owned by the people,” but the state tasks itself with protecting the people. And therein lies the problem with state socialism - the state is easily commandeered by a corrupt minority who then uses the governmental apparatus to run an authoritarian regime. Precisely what happened in the DDR and the USSR.

We should be able to recognize the imperfections in prior socialist attempts, without immediately calling it “capitalist NGO propaganda.”

Even the DDR wasn’t doing socialism. The public had to be all-in the idea, or they were discredited or arrested. It was an authoritarian autocracy acting in the name of socialism.

Lol. Nice erasure of the existence of McCarthyism.

Communism pwnd itself bruh - shit sucked so hard they didn’t need Anti-Propaganda like:

Is This Tomorrow? America under communism!!

Shit was so bad, that the US didn’t need to run any covert operations to subvert, discredit, arrest, jail, or even, allegedly, assassinate the prominent figures and leaders of progressive, socialist, and communist movements – I mean, if they did, they certainly wouldn’t have called it COINTELPRO. It’d be a dumb name anyway.

Pfft

“If you can dodge taxes, you can dodge a ball”

Where are these “men’s groups” you speak of? As a “man,” I’ve not heard of any, at least none that aren’t inherently linked to toxic masc MAN-man personality traits.

What do you mean by “police speech?”

Not if Ianthe has anything to say about it.

Yes, but …

Setting aside the polarized nature of named generations, as a class; for these are entirely arbitrary and designed to create polarization …

There’s fun theory on the “Gen X are forgotten” meme. Yes yes, you Gen Xers got shafted, here’s a cookie 🍪 Please hear me out.

Most people fall on the cusps of their “generation” and Gen X is no different - in this case, you’re either old enough to identify with boomers, and are shouting “snowflake millennial” with them; or you’re young enough to identify with millennials, but still too old to identify with Gen Z, so you’re shouting “cringe zoomer” with the millennials, they who are cuspers themselves and too old to identify with Gen Z. The quintessential Gen Xer is uncommon, but exceptionally kind. You always know when one is around though, because they are quick with a self deprecation point out that Gen X was “forgotten again.” 😉

The sad thing is that many of the so-called boomers are being replaced by Gen Xers. And the millennials shouting the same inter-generational slurs will eventually take the throne of generational bully.

On the other hand, there is hope inspired by this meme - all we need to do to stop inter-generational trauma is stop perpetrating it.

Fair enough. Ski resorts in the US mostly only offer burgers and fries, so the seasonal worker attitude is more understandable. Leave it to the French through to try to put a fine dining experience atop a ski slope.

Will check out the Samsungs, thanks for the recommendation. Cheers, good chatting with you :)

Ooh, gobshite has a nice ring to it 🤪

Sounds about right for French cuisine. Yes, I said it - French cuisine ain’t that great, it’s just buttery.

“Reasonable, but not exceptional, and ridiculously overpriced…” Could be an apt descriptor for the iPad too!

It’s a bummer that they kind of dominate the tablet space though… I want a tablet, but have been avoiding pulling the trigger because iPads are designed for the sticky fingered folk.

Why’s it yikes? I’ll admit it was a bit of a ramble, but my comment was (mostly) coherent, factual, and at least a little humorous. No?

Nope. I’m just a bit loquacious.

That sounds like an entirely unpleasant experience.

Reading your post inspired me to write a wryly informative yet droll linguistic comment for your edification and enjoyment (and my own entertainment). However my comment may strike you, in any case, I am certain it is entirely unrelated to the miserable experience you describe in your comment, as well as the content of the original post. Ready? Ok.

At face value, the message is entirely clear from what you’ve written. The restaurant owners required you to use a tablet to browse the menu items they have on offer, and that tablet had a particularly poor user experience.

However, I found your last sentence quite ambiguous, and interestingly so:

…it was an iPad which only pensioners use,…

I see at least three interpretations of this sentence fragment:

1. iPads, as a category in general, are devices used by pensioners and no one else. (Note: my guess is that this is what you actually meant)
2. This particular iPad had specific features that indicated all preceding users were pensioners. You don’t mention any of these features, but perhaps there were fingerprints of denture glue on the screen, or a distinct odor of moth balls.
3. The particular iPad was restricted for use by pensioners only and no others, in which case you’ve broken the law and the Police Nationale are on their way. The laws are strict in France, I don’t make the rules.

Okay, yes yes, readings 2 and 3 are hyperbolic; however, this was intentional, partially for the lolz, but also to convey a sense of saliency for the respective interpretations.

The internet comment section is such an interesting treasure trove of human language. See, in typical language use (by typical, I specifically mean how language evolved, as humans in the bush, making sounds at each other around a fire), there are a multitude of cues that go beyond the simple string of words, collectively referred to as “pragmatics.” These are nonverbal cues like body language and facial expression, but also verbal cues like prosody, intonation, and stress. There are also “discourse” level aspects, like how we can follow the overall point of a speaker. (As an example of discourse, I told you up front that my comment would be somewhat amusing and educational, and hopefully I have delivered that to you - if I haven’t, well it’s still the discourse level pragmatics that underlie your feeling of annoyance or disappointment.)

Another pragmatic element is shared knowledge. Off the bat, we both have some fluency in English, but pragmatically (ha, see what I did there?), that’s a given, but it goes further than that. Friends and family have a history of shared experiences. On the Internet, well we’re both Lemmings, so we likely have an aptitude for technology, as well as other niche hobbies or interests. Shared knowledge is more or less anything that one speaker can assume about another on the basis of experience or overt group membership.

This is what is so interesting about Internet comments though - the pragmatics of language are often missing! This sentence might have been 100% clear if we had more shared knowledge. Perhaps all that was needed was hearing you say it, which would have carried prosody and stress.

Anyway, I hope you learned something interesting.

Was the food good at least?

I should have listened.

Don’t be fooled like me - it starts out like eye bleach… But it suddenly turns horrific

I kinda wish these schmucks would spend their billions on Mechas and battle it out anime style.

It’s an entirely pointless undertaking, but think about it - it would be an outlet for their sociopathic and narcissistic need to win; it would keep them relevant in headlines as they desire, yet far enough away from the political sphere; the news media gets their headlines; the people would get both work and entertainment out of it.

He really would have done well as the lead in a fictional Michael Jackson biopic that’s an alternate retelling of how his life took a turn in the mid/late 90s, when he discovers that he’s actually in the Matrix and is the one. And instead of Annie, we’re asking “Neo, are you okay? Are you o.k. ne-o? – Sha-mona”

Adguard and pihole rely on DNS redirects - googs has already implemented “secure DNS” for Chrome in Android, which circumvents network level/local DNS by connecting to a Google owned DNS, serving content using those listings instead.

They’ll likely bring this to all flavors of Chrome.

Yes, one should use Firefox. Yes that could also avoid the android problem, but also no, because Google forces chrome at weird times (eg, some apps will load a minimal web viewer for hyperlinks links, without leaving the app - sometimes apps don’t respect the default browser setting and instead just use chrome.

🤷

Hmm, well, best to avoid watching the “how it’s made” about sutures then.

“An exceptionally small minority of people…”

You dropped this.

Seriously, who calls it the Fourth Reich?

What makes you think it’s anti-CRT?