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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • Dude. I found a working baratza preciso at savers for $11 a couple days after I realized the same thing and decided I’d start hunting for an espresso grinder.

    It was the perfect confluence of timing, interest in making different style coffees, and unwillingness to spend a fortune.

    Undoubtedly my best thrift store find.

    Now I can get pretty much like 75% of the way to real espresso (won’t get crema, but whatever) with my free secondhand aeropress and my $11 grinder. It’s amazing. Another $15 for a milk frother and I’m making yummy cappuccino style drinks easy peasy




  • Hell yeah. I just read Guards, Guards! by Pratchett and I’m working through LotR again. Dune is amazing, but I haven’t continued past the original so maybe I’ll read those next.

    If you’re into history, I’ve been listening to The People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn, it focuses on each major historical event from the perspective of the regular individual person rather than focusing on the people who happened to be in power during them, and it’s pretty good so far. I also read Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky, and that was life changing. Those are two pretty political ones, though.

    In terms of fiction Id recommend Cormac McCarthy – either The Road or Blood Meridian – The Road is a post apocalyptic story about a father traversing through the ashen environment with his son, while Blood Meridian is a brutal Western set in the 1800s. With both of these, it’s not as much about plot as it is about the poetry of the writing.

    I haven’t read a scifi book in a minute, but I haven’t seen a lot of people recommend A Canticle for Leibowitz. It’s three separate-but-connected short post-apocalyptic stories that follow the gradual resurgence of humans after a nuclear event. It’s really subtle in that it doesn’t slam you with like a whole universe and systems like Dune, but it’s expertly written and hits some pretty thought provoking topics. Def underrated.





  • I live in a small city about an hour away from a major city. I’m also an hour away from what I would call the boonies – rural, remote areas where owning guns and open carrying is normal. In fact, I’ve seen open carry around here, in the city, quite a bit. It’s pretty normal around here.

    I heard a shooting happen in the suburbs near my house when I was a kid. It’s what’s considered the “nice” part of town. An old woman walking her dog was killed. I heard the shot through my bedroom window. Only til I moved into the inner part of the city did I witness guns being shot in the city more often. Most of the times you hear pops, it’s fireworks. A couple times, it’s been guns. Those couple times are pretty freaky.

    Every once in awhile I’ll walk past a crime scene downtown, usually something happened like a stabbing the night before. One day I scrolled through reddit and saw a video – a point-blank execution had occured outside the club down the road. That one was disturbing. I think the kid is going to jail for a long time.

    The inner part of this particular city is not as safe as the suburbs, but for the most part you should be okay, as long as you’re not looking to start trouble. When I’m walking around town, especially the immediate area I live, my eyes are open. At night, they’re wide open.


  • jwiggler@sh.itjust.workstoLinux@lemmy.mlUbuntu or pop! os
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    11 months ago

    I’ve been using Ubuntu for the past 6 years, haven’t tried another distro because I’m so comfortable here. Could you tell me why you think others are so much better?

    Maybe I should switch, but I think my experience in Ubuntu might outweigh the negatives that it has ie I might just know how to deal with it’s peculiarities and I don’t even realize


  • Mainstream media is generally propaganda, too, even lots of “left leaning” media.

    For example, we don’t hear about the war crimes committed by Ukraine, only ones by Russia.

    We don’t hear about how the US was actively working with right-wing groups in Ukraine to overthrow the government in 2014, efforts that helped further fracture relationship between Ukraine and Russia.

    Or the military posturing by NATO in a geographically adjacent country to Russia.

    War makes us forget nuance and accept simple absolute truths like Russia attacked Ukraine and therefore Ukraine must defend itself.

    And for the record: fuck Russia for this ongoing conflict. They are the perpetrators, for sure. But all historical context to this conflict is completely thrown out in the eyes of the mainstream media.

    Where are the anti-war democrats? Where are the people looking to end the war, rather than further fuel it with weapons? Nowhere to be found.

    You know why? Because war makes too much money. Americans are paying to subsidize the cost of weapons to keep the war going. We the people are funding this.

    We say “what are we supposed to do? Just let Russia invade Ukraine?” And then turn a blind eye to Palestinians occupied by Israel.




  • I’m listening to wages of rebellion right now. It’s so infuriating being reminded of the shit we live in the US.

    It’s good, and I’ll definitely finish it, but so far hasn’t scratched my itch. I guess I feel like most of the atrocities perpetuated by the corporate state are already apparent to the public, but accepted. The idea of freedom of privacy, freedom of speech, they’re just illusions. People just accept that radical political speakers, even if they are non-violent, are locked up. They just accept that the corporations and state lull them into placidity with consumerism and entertainment. It feels good and is convenient.

    I mean, me too. I really like the convenience of being able to turn on and dim my houselights with my voice. I really like being able to keep in contact with my friends and family using my smartphone. But these things are at the cost of my privacy. An everyday individual does not have a choice to opt out of being tracked short of using a dumb phone and never using the Internet, which simply is not realistic, and still does not ensure complete privacy, as I understand it. It’s insanity.

    I’m gonna continue on, maybe with Blackshirts or Why Socialim? by Einstein, but I’m also interested in reading some Chomsky (maybe not necessarily about Socialism? but seems like an interesting dude)

    Thanks for the recommendation!


  • I work IT doing linux administration stuff for a research company. I’d say its a 7-8/10. Some days are difficult. I know a good amount, but don’t really have anyone to guide me, which is difficult. I’m the most experienced Linux person here, and I have ~4 years experience, so…

    What’s nice is it’s a really relaxed environment and pay’s not bad. Just not a great place to learn/progress in my linux administration skills