It's Still Winter To Me...

[thed...@sdf.lonestar.org]

And it's been one of those days when I've just about had it. Partly due to
recent news about Facebook I'm considering leaving it, but that would mean
trusting people I want to stay in touch with to stay in touch with me.
Which was the reason I went there after the practical death of Usenet in
the first place. And as for my "rants," would anyone even keeping track of
my posts on this relic platform, even through Google Groups? I don't
really want to start a mailing list, which for one thing would subvert the
voluntary nature of being informed of what I'm doing & thinking at the
moment: I really don't want to be a pest on a personal level. Nor do I
want to see how few people care about me at all or how little those who
do do.

Maybe I'll stay on Facebook in an almost-read-only way, doing nothing to
indicate my presence there except to post URLs to my latest "Google
Groups" posts. Practically speaking, given how slowly I type with one
finger and how my attention span works, this would mean spending very
little time on Facebook. We'll see.

But then I have very little of substance to say anyway, because it won't
do any good. (You. People. Just. Don't. FUCKING. Listen.) I thought back
in 2004 that America had doomed itself by re-electing G.W. Bush, but the
absolute low was electing Trump. All I can say is I'm glad that under the
existing rules I still get SSI & SNAP (formerly known as Food Stamps) and
that I'm lucky enough to live in a place where the cost of living is low
enough to allow me to live indoors all by myself with my own kitchen &
bathroom, and that I have just enough bipedal and four-footed friends here
to bind me to this place: there's no real need to kill myself yet.

But maybe I should stop paying attention to "current events" entirely for
the sake of my sanity, given that most of the news I see about my country
and my planet is bad. Do I really need to know how stupid most people are
and how badly they're treating themselves -- and by extension me? Would it
be better for me to cocoon myself in my own personal life, to ignore The
Big Picture as thoroughly as I ignore TV? I can trust people who don't
turn off to keep me informed of happenings that affect me directly, such
as plans to kick people like me off SSI; otherwise maybe I'm better off
ignoring things that don't affect me directly and/or those I can't do
anything about, such as restrictions on abortion rights in the USA or the
latest massacre anywhere. I've only kept up on that shit out of
schadenfreude, and a sense of moral obligation to people I care about,
anyway. "Doctor Doctor, it hurts when I do that!"

(To be continued...Perhaps...)



--
(C) 2018 TheDavid^TM

[Cujo DeSockpuppet]

<thed...@sdf.lonestar.org> wrote in news:p8spph$13h$1...@odin.sdf-eu.org:

I still get a kick out of your blatherings and don't bother looking up
people in Farcebook.

So keep whining and I'll pretend to care.

--
Cujo - The Official Overseer of Kooks and Trolls in dfw.*,
alt.paranormal, alt.astrology and alt.astrology.metapsych. Supreme Holy
Overlord of alt.fucknozzles. Winner of the 8/2000, 2/2003 & 4/2007 HL&S
award. July 2005 Hammer of Thor. Winning Trainer - Barbara Woodhouse
Memorial Dog Whistle - 12/2005 & 4/2008. COOSN-266-06-01895.
"You are the childish moron if you think anyone is dumb enough to think
that you harass me for fun." - Ed displays his sense of humor to all.
This signature was made by SigChanger.
You can find SigChanger at: http://www.phranc.nl/

[pataphor]

Welcome back, and I see you're even on netbsd now, still way ahead of
me.

On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 05:15:29 -0000 (UTC)
<thed...@sdf.lonestar.org> wrote:

> And it's been one of those days when I've just about had it. Partly
> due to recent news about Facebook I'm considering leaving it, but

I never understood why all these people went to livejournal (first) or
(later) facebook. Having some not quite impartial software mess with my
timeline, and thus with my inner loop was impossible to bear in
principle, so I decided to try and make lemonade out of lemons and try
to turn this defunct newsgroup into a personal blog. Little did I know
that this idea would soon be co-opted and made me experience the utter
depths of inanity.

I saw no other option than to move to some equally deserted group, but
it turns out there is some weird bottleneck effect where a few big
usenet providers are essentially able to do keyword filtering, unless
one is willing to pay for having the option to contribute, which
unfortunately is some other unbearable situation for me. I kind of
object to people making more money off me than I make myself even if it
is just because of me filling some (free) platform they're selling
access to with my creations.

Yes I know this is the basis of capitalist hegemony but that's just
not how I think how it should be, not that some limited form of
capitalism would still be possible, mind you, but it would just not
have to go through these lengths to defend copyright and create rent
seeking oligarchs.

So, living with keyword filtering according to some dumb (US?) morality
effectively creating a form of **** banning was not acceptable either,
as in not being able to know if one's post still arrives or who is going
to see it and who not, which circumstance is not unlike facebook
timelines I gather, unless one is turned into an expert website tweaking
specialist, or able to construct meaning out of pure twitter
randomness, even if produced by one's own tweets.

So where am I now? Luckily what I do have is relatively quick
linguistic reaction speed, enabling me to persist on IRC, even if I
have to switch channels regularly due to acquiring the scorn of various
moderators, named 'ops' on that platform, not that unmoderated channels
are always preferable as they not always attract the best, even though
the advantage of having a wide range of tolerated discussion is as much
desired as it is or was the case with usenet.

> that would mean trusting people I want to stay in touch with to stay
> in touch with me. Which was the reason I went there after the
> practical death of Usenet in the first place. And as for my "rants,"
> would anyone even keeping track of my posts on this relic platform,
> even through Google Groups? I don't really want to start a mailing

Google groups implies javascript, another intrusion in my cognitive
processes that I'd rather live without. Has all this time on facebook
still not taught you that your eyeballs are programming interfaces
that big corporations use to modulate your thoughts via a browser? Not
that in the end creating half a billion worth of tv series is not also
a way to control the narrative, but at least it's not trying to bypass
your cognitive processes by directly interfering with your attention,
unless your tv series has got boogers.

> list, which for one thing would subvert the voluntary nature of being
> informed of what I'm doing & thinking at the moment: I really don't
> want to be a pest on a personal level. Nor do I want to see how few
> people care about me at all or how little those who do do.
>
> Maybe I'll stay on Facebook in an almost-read-only way, doing nothing
> to indicate my presence there except to post URLs to my latest
> "Google Groups" posts. Practically speaking, given how slowly I type
> with one finger and how my attention span works, this would mean
> spending very little time on Facebook. We'll see.

Sorry to hear your options are so limited. I'm still here to read stuff
now and then, but not posting very much because fitting my thoughts in
this medium, if filtered, is like trying to push a square peg into a
round hole, or the reverse.

> But then I have very little of substance to say anyway, because it
> won't do any good. (You. People. Just. Don't. FUCKING. Listen.) I
> thought back in 2004 that America had doomed itself by re-electing
> G.W. Bush, but the absolute low was electing Trump. All I can say is
> I'm glad that under the existing rules I still get SSI & SNAP
> (formerly known as Food Stamps) and that I'm lucky enough to live in
> a place where the cost of living is low enough to allow me to live
> indoors all by myself with my own kitchen & bathroom, and that I have
> just enough bipedal and four-footed friends here to bind me to this
> place: there's no real need to kill myself yet.

Don't sell yourself short, even if you still only have dog shit to sell,
at least it's not inane.

> But maybe I should stop paying attention to "current events" entirely
> for the sake of my sanity, given that most of the news I see about my
> country and my planet is bad. Do I really need to know how stupid
> most people are and how badly they're treating themselves -- and by
> extension me? Would it be better for me to cocoon myself in my own
> personal life, to ignore The Big Picture as thoroughly as I ignore
> TV? I can trust people who don't turn off to keep me informed of
> happenings that affect me directly, such as plans to kick people like
> me off SSI; otherwise maybe I'm better off ignoring things that don't
> affect me directly and/or those I can't do anything about, such as
> restrictions on abortion rights in the USA or the latest massacre
> anywhere. I've only kept up on that shit out of schadenfreude, and a
> sense of moral obligation to people I care about, anyway. "Doctor
> Doctor, it hurts when I do that!"

There must be a place where even you can function. Have you ever
thought about mastodon? Seems like an ideal place for slow thinking
communist bureaucrats slowly taking over the world via neck beard
technology.

> (To be continued...Perhaps...)

P.

[Fergus]

On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 05:15:29 -0000 (UTC)
<thed...@sdf.lonestar.org> wrote:

>

Hello, TheDavid. Long time no read. I remember you well from the past both on the group and from when we met one Friday evening a long time ago in Baltimore,


--
Fergus <fergus.c...@yahoo.com>