Pretty sad that people that don’t want to fight in a war and just go live elsewhere are forbidden to do so and kept as potential canon fodder. And only if you are a certain age and gender.

I would probably defend my country if it was invaded, even if I hate guns, violence and military organizations, but I can understand anybody that would prefer to flee. Forcing them to stay “just in case we need more soldiers” is immoral in my opinion.

Lately, Firefox + uBlock Origin and YouTube on Linux is sometimes horribly slow for me. It uses all the CPU and chokes my computers. Sometimes it’s even difficult to just seek in the video, as it’s so sluggish.

It seems to vary depending on the type of ads. It’s not “random” because a video that has this behavior will always do it, even if I restart FF, while others will be fine.

I thought it was my old computer at first, or that I was out of memory, but the same thing happens on my modern Ryzen.

Although I notice it less and less, so maybe it was a bug with YT + uBlock.

And it’s only on my Linux computers. On Android, FF + uBlock works super well.

My pet peeve about ads everywhere now is on Android.

Your Android phone doesn’t come with a voice recorder? Download one, with ads every time you record.

You want a different calculator? Ads!

Flashlight app? Ads!

Notepad? Ads!

And people just apparently accept ads in nearly every app, even the most basic ones.

I don’t remember the Sound Recorder, or Notepad having ads. But because people are now used to ads everywhere, it’s certainly coming as MS is trying to jam ads in everywhere possible in Windows too, now.

I’m so grateful for Linux. The apps I get through apt-get don’t make me watch ads. Unfortunately even if based on Linux, the Android world is so infuriatingly crammed with ads.

I wish I could find a “phone” or portable device in that format, with an OS that works like “true” Linux.

I can understand. I could have stayed in a small town and just accepted it, and try to just use it as sparingly as possible, but stubborn me decided that I wouldn’t cave to this.

That’s why choice was in quotes. As much as I could drive, it scares me and makes me anxious. And the easiest way to avoid that was to move.

Obviously I can only encourage you to continue finding ways to avoid drive a big metal box around!

I have a health card with my picture and it’s official ID where I live. I can buy alcohol, cannabis (legal here), rent bikes, whatever. I can even vote without a driver’s license, imagine that!

And for everything else, I have a passport. I have been in multiple countries, booked hotels, bought booze, et al., without the need of a driver’s license.

Would it sometimes have saved me trouble with stubborn people thinking it’s the only valid form of ID? Yes. But they’re in the wrong.

I will gladly insist that my health card is a valid ID where I live, and use my passport elsewhere.

Yes. But it’s more than this for me.

I got my license years ago but it expired because I didn’t want to drive a car. I have none and don’t really need one where I live. I really really didn’t want to drive a car so I moved in a city where it’s not needed. My whole life is organized around avoiding cars.

However my family still lives in the countryside and there is no public transit to go there. In summer I cycle the 130km ride to go there, and back. But in winter, it’s a problem and I just stop going to see them. It’s unfortunately too much of a hassle. I will not get a license back, rent a car and drive there. They have to come and get me at the closest bus station. If they don’t want to, I’m not going.

I also mainly refuse to take taxis because it’s also perpetuating car dependency.

Also, if I want to go to a national park, I cycle there. Not in winter, but I plan a trip in summer and just cycle to some of the closest parks. It makes me pass through villages and towns that I would never have seen by taking a car.

In fact, I left the fuckcars subreddit two years ago because people there were telling me that I was too much against cars.

Sometimes my “choice” of not wanting to drive is obviously limiting, but it pushes me to find other ways and in the end, it makes me glad I did.

I like tech, old and new, so:

https://www.youtube.com/@CathodeRayDude

https://www.youtube.com/@TechTangents

https://www.youtube.com/@ConnectionsMuseum

https://www.youtube.com/@VeronicaExplains

https://www.youtube.com/@UsagiElectric

https://www.youtube.com/@PlatimaTinkers

https://www.youtube.com/@RetroBytesUK

https://www.youtube.com/@harkeofficial

I"d also suggest Jeff Geerling but he’s close to a million subscribers.

About trains, cycling, transit, and urbanism:

https://www.youtube.com/@OhTheUrbanity

https://www.youtube.com/@BenDurham

https://www.youtube.com/@MilesinTransit

https://www.youtube.com/@JagoHazzard

https://www.youtube.com/@TFTSB

And about hiking, camping, outdoors stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/@StephenJReid

Oh and on languages and etymology:

https://www.youtube.com/@WordsUnravelled

https://www.youtube.com/@RobWords

https://www.youtube.com/@Xidnaf

https://www.youtube.com/@kklein

https://www.youtube.com/@Linguisticae (in French)

https://www.youtube.com/@Linguriosa (in Spanish)

I saw this on another community and was pleasantly surprised to see some (hopefully) sarcastic comments about being the cyclist’s fault.

As someone using a bike to get around, I’m so used to people in cars being mad at me for existing, that it’s refreshing when they are not.

Instead of just announcing and promising high speed rail every few years, can’t the federal government help or do something about the “sharing” issues?

Like, force the CN in some ways, or in buying or building routes that VIA would own. Wouldn’t it be needed for high speed trains anyway?

It’s both sad and frustrating to see VIA struggle like this, and have the federal government not really helping in any other ways than empty announcements.

I can’t tell for BlueSky because I have not joined yet, but I did create a Mastodon account months ago and I’m not sure what to do with it or how to interact with others. I find it confusing.

On Twitter I was mostly following a bunch of like minded people, liking their stuff, and I could see what they liked too. But on Mastodon there’s uuh, boosts and favorites?! I’m not sure of how it works or what I’m doing. I can’t just “like” posts? I have to boost them?! I found the people I liked that were on Twitter, but on Mastodon I feel like there’s nothing I can do aside from seeing posts and it’s just not attractive.

What? It’s hard to hear anything with all that noise.

The slow death of the American empire. It may push the rest of the world to a geopolitical realignment that excludes the US. This could allow international organizations to proceed without having the US veto human rights, actions against climate change, or things like that.

I’m not sure about the circlejerk thing. I am vehemently anti car and would like to circlejerk on one of the many “fuck cars” communities, but any post that gets some attention gets filled by comments of people not from those communities.

So I very often see posts where I agree with the content but the discussion and the comments are all over the place, from car apologists that are like “but IIIIIIIII live in the woods therefore public transit is not feasible for anyone”, and it makes “circlejerking” difficult.

Like, if you have a community about mushroom and want to have enthusiasts discussing mycology, it’ll be fine until a thread becomes popular and fills with users not from that community, asking what is mycology and why they should care.

To be honest, I had the same issue on reddit too and that’s a major reason why I stopped going there.

You don’t even need to go live somewhere else; just visit.

I’m from Canada and went back to visit Germany and Belgium a few months ago. I already went to Germany and the Netherlands a few years ago and just used the trains. I had no fixed itinerary and was deciding where to go a day in advance before buying a train ticket to go there. It was obviously fine (most of the time) but because of how trains “work” here, I was anxious about buying tickets a day in advance, thinking it was “last minute”.

Then while I was in Belgium I had to plan a train ride in Canada a week later, and there was no affordable tickets left. I was sitting in Liège, and just bought a train ticket to Bruxelles that was departing in the next hour… while trying to book a train a week in advance in Canada, and failing to do so.

Every time I have to use a train in Canada, or just any kind or intercity service, even a coach, I’m painfully reminded of how bad it is here.

I go camping for an additional night. I already planned to bike and camp to the closest national park one last time before winter, this weekend, but I would gladly add one night to the trip and go right now instead of tomorrow.

Well, the tower was also supposed to be temporary and yet, it’s still there 137 years later.

And those motocross. My family lives in a rural area with a rail trail. So to go there I often just cycle on the rail trail.

Unfortunately it’s also used by a local motocross group. They’re not supposed to but they obviously don’t give a fuck.

At least you can hear them coming from kilometres away. Which is interesting because the police or whoever is supposed to enforce “bicycles only” on that bike path doesn’t seem to hear them. Nor see the very obvious tracks.

The most insulting part is that they close the path in fall, winter and spring because they don’t want CYCLISTS to damage the bike path, yet there’s assholes on motocross driving on it.

The one about the memorial built in advance for a damn disaster that they all saw coming but did nothing about, except for the memorial of the future victims.

This disaster will have been preventable. All of the warning signs are here now. Yet, no one will have fucking done anything about it.

And those same people were thriving and doing much better when Trump was president?