> That said, on my most recent trip to Paris, I actually found Parisians a lot nicer than the last time I was there (~1995ish?).
My wife and I had the exact same experience. We had been to Paris in the late 90s and when we were there a couple of years ago, we found people to be much nicer than they had been previously. Our theory is that it is / was a generational thing.
I chalked it up to increasing globalization. My memory of France in the 90s was that it was way more French.
Now, it seems like American, Japanese, et al. cultures have penetrated a bit, and there's more awareness that there are other-than-French ways of doing things.
Which they'll still do it the French way, because god bless them they defend the hell out their culture, but at least they're more aware of alternatives.
I pulled an old Kenwood HF transceiver my dad had given me about 10 years off of a shelf in the garage about a week ago. While I was digging around for the various pieces of it (long story short, it was broken, started repairing it, got overwhelmed, boxed it for a decade) I found a USB SDR in another box. I hooked up the SDR and checked out the FM broadcast band from the basement. The online radio guide showed that there were about 80 FM stations within 60 miles. In the basement, I could pick up about 35 of them. 1/5 were Christian stations. 2/5 were country (and/or western) stations, and the other 2/5th were interesting. A couple of 'adult album alternative' stations, a couple of Spanish stations, a few classic rock, a classic hip-hop, etc.
Once I got the transceiver repaired and functioning, I checked out the AM band on the Kenwood with a endfed shortwave antenna strung up in the back yard. between the local stations and the ones coming out of Denver, I think I could pick up about 20 of them with reasonable fidelity. They were, without exception, all talk. Some religion, some sports, a LOT of politics. Shortwave, which is arguably more dead than AM, seems to at least have more interesting content on it. (Still a lot of christian content, but also some propaganda / government news stations and some cool music coming across in languages I don't understand.).
Radio, as a hobby, requires a lot of poking around looking for signal these days.
Meh. The moment I, for any reason, cannot collaborate unless I get my hands on a computer it stops being collaborative.
Or not. 'Collaborative' doesn't mean 'accessible by anyone'. Collaborative just means capable of supporting two or more parties working together, and freeform clearly meets the criteria...
"Guess what: in the fediverse, it would never have been possible to ban Trump in the first place. Sure, leftist servers could have stop syndicating his posts, but this would not have had much more of an effect than individuals blocking him on Twitter if he had never been banned there."
My observation is that the modern right wing social media user only thrives when there are 'liberal snowflakes' around that they can piss off. Hence Gab, Truth, Parler, etc. being largely failures. They all miss the key ingredient that the right wingers need to really get their endorphin hit: people to offend.
My observation is that the modern leftt wing social media user only thrives when there are 'conservative Nazis' around that they can piss off. Hence Lemmy, Tumblr, Mastodon, etc. being largely failures. They all miss the key ingredient that the left wingers need to really get their endorphin hit: people to virtue signal over.
We can both play this game but I don't think it's particularly helpful. One could say Elon is bringing ideological equality to the platform. For leftists/liberals, this equality feels like oppression after years of dominance and privilege on Twitter.
I think you're only half wrong here. The difference is that you can virtue signal to people inside of your own crowd without much consequence, but if you seek to offend them, they kick you out. There's definitely (a lot of) virtue signaling going on in the fediverse, for what it's worth. And I really don't see people on the left getting the same sort of kicks out of pissing people off that people on the right seem to enjoy. As you sort of pointed out, they're annoying in different ways. ;)
I’m just grabbing my popcorn and can’t wait to watch the inevitable splits. Each of the communities will split into 2, will split into 2, etc. They just can’t help themselves.
I think you're only half wrong here. The difference is that you can piss off people outside of your own crowd without much consequence, but if you seek to offend them, they kick you out. There's definitely (a lot of) pissing off lefties going on in Parler, Truth Social, etc. for what it's worth. And I really don't see people on the right getting the same sort of kicks out of virtue signaling (AKA pissing right wing people off) that people on the left seem to enjoy. As you sort of pointed out, they're annoying in different ways. ;)
Again, we can both play these games. You original presumption:
>My observation is that the modern right wing social media user only thrives when there are 'liberal snowflakes' around that they can piss off.
Remember, one of the major reasons behind Truth Social, Parler, etc. failing to gain user share is the fact that their respective apps were banned from Google/Apple stores.
At the end if the day, both extremes, left and right, need an enemy to point at and rally over. They are different sides of the same coin.
It took me about 45 minutes last night to install a pleroma server and get it set up. Also as 'just an experiment'. This was on a server that had nginx running on it but not much else.
Dick Cavett has forgotten more about the art of the conversational interview than most people have ever known. Intelligent, perceptive, and witty. I'll take his 40-year-old youtube clips any day of the week over the wannabe everyman that Joe Rogan pretends to be.
How is that “counter-balance”? Obviously the medical folks are only going to have talked to people who’ve had accidents, where as the bike forums are filled with people who’ve had accidents, who’ve had close calls, and who’ve had no issues.
For what it’s worth, I’ve got thousands of miles on a touring bike under my belt. I’ve had close calls…but I’ve also had close calls driving, flying, and boating. I’ve had close calls swimming and climbing, too. If the alternative is to hang out in my basement on the computer where it’s ‘safe’ all the time, I’d rather stick to the close calls.
It's also a bunch of horseshit, because the Acropolis museum in Athens is absolutely phenomenal and clearly shows that Greece is capable of caring for them adequately.
Indeed. That was not the case 20 years ago (when I first saw those pamphlets on "Why we're not giving these back"), but today the Acropolis Museum is absolutely stunning. It sits at the base of the hill, and the top floor is oriented the same as the Parthenon. It contains all of the meropes and other art, laid out as if you were able to walk right up to it in its original site. It's an extraordinary exhibit, and your appreciation of the Acropolis will be vastly enhanced by visiting.
Some pieces are original; others are reproductions of pieces held elsewhere. (It's not just the British Museum, but also the Louvre and Berlin Museum.) Those museums should do a 1:1 swap: the reproductions for the originals. The originals should all go back to where they belong.
I do actually respect the British Museum as a museum of British Empire, which was a noteworthy historical event in itself. The theft of artifacts is itself history at this point. But they have plenty of pieces to display that, which interfere less with Greece's need to recover from colonization -- including connecting to its own great past.
I only use Spotify (well, and YouTube for a lot of indie Korean artists...?). At least if they sell vinyl, I regularly go buy vinyl/merchandise from them directly. Not that I'm in favor of the "Spotify pittance", just that it's non-zero in terms of conversions.
They're actually visible? Without Spotify and YouTube I would've never stumbled upon some of the artists, bought their albums or listened to their concerts.
My wife and I had the exact same experience. We had been to Paris in the late 90s and when we were there a couple of years ago, we found people to be much nicer than they had been previously. Our theory is that it is / was a generational thing.