hedders
@hedders@fedia.io
Rarely entirely serious. Fond of otters and dogs, scarily obsessive about music and old videogames. He/him.
- Comment on ‘Intimidatory’ far-right marches should not be allowed, says Angela Rayner 2 days ago:
She's right, of course. Although those losers hanging around ports in balaclavas aren't so much intimidating as just sad. Like, you just know that every one of those guys has lost access to their kids and lives on their own in a shitty little flat above a shop with only Stella and a stupidly oversized telly for company.
- Comment on Do you still believe in having friends despite there being long, long gaps of time between the last time you communicated or hung out? 1 week ago:
Life stuff happens as you get older. Jobs, moves, marriages, kids. Time becomes shorter. There isn't as much time for the things you describe. But I still have one or two friends from my early teens and even now, as I stare down the barrel of the big five-oh, we can not see each other for months or even years and then we speak and it's like it's 1993 again and we're all the same people, just a bit greyer and fatter.
- Comment on Is "American posing as a Canadian" a real thing? 2 weeks ago:
I think that's kind of my point - to us Europeans, those accents sound the same.
- Comment on Is "American posing as a Canadian" a real thing? 2 weeks ago:
Only heard about this anecdotally, but it's plausible that it would work. People who aren't from North America often have trouble distinguishing at least some American accents (generally the more northern ones) from Canadian accents. Like, you won't get away with it if you're from Texas or Louisiana or some such, but if you talk like Dan Rather or David Sedaris you can pass for Canadian in most places that aren't Canada.
- Comment on Emergency Alert About Wildfires 1 month ago:
Well, anyone with a secret phone they're e.g. hiding from an abusive spouse has had that blown, haven't they? But at least they now know portable barbecues and fireworks are a Not Very Good Idea when the country is basically a tinderbox. So, there's that.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
No weirder than any other kind of religious belief, I suppose. The Quakers have this kind of pretty loose approach to doctrine, for instance, and they're generally pretty decent people.
- Comment on Painful to recover from 1 month ago:
Er, no. No, this is just not how humans work. Even if we take love out of the equation and talk only about lust, that can be triggered by all sorts of things and a person's physical shape is only one of them. A particular look, the way a person smells, how they carry themselves, their voice, their charm, their laugh, and a thousand and one other things can be the thing that makes you want to jump someone's bones.
- Comment on Why are expressions like "women artists" or "women writers" used? 1 month ago:
I'm not a native English speaker, so forgive my ignorance, but isn't "women" a noun, not an adjective? Why not just say "female artists" or "female writers"?
The English language is unusual in that it doesn't have gendered nouns, so we find other, often quite clumsy, ways to indicate it. You're right that it doesn't make sense grammatically; we say it that way simply because it scans better.
As a side note, I've also literally never seen anyone say "men artists" or "men writers". What gives?
Patriarchy. Society defaults to the male. That's not unique to the English-speaking world, of course.
- Comment on Where do I go for unbiased news in the world without it having an ulterior motive or kissing ass to the establishment of said country? 2 months ago:
Others have mentioned Reuters and the AP. I'd also suggest the Financial Times and The Economist; they're quite expensive but you get what you pay for. The BBC isn't too bad actually - it's obviously very British-focused and can be a bit wet, but they usually get the facts right and they do try hard to avoid favouring any given political viewpoint. Al Jazeera is also surprisingly good.
- Comment on Why do Britain get to send three teams to the World Cup? 2 months ago:
The prosaic answer is that they each have their own FIFA-recognised national football associations.
More broadly, little about the UK makes logical sense. It just sort of ... happened that way. Lots of history, lots of it pretty fucked up, and here we are. A funny little collection of islands off the coast of France.
If it's any consolation, the nations making up the UK don't live in perfect harmony. The Scots and the Welsh hate the English, the Northern Irish hate each other, and the English largely tend to forget that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland exist at all, except perhaps as somewhere pretty to go for a nice holiday where it's kind of like England except they talk a bit funny.
- Comment on Can you explain like I am a child terrorism without the whole good vs evil schtik? My sister in laws kid asked me about it. He is 9. 2 months ago:
Terrorism is usually defined as acts of violence against civilians to further a political or religious agenda.
- Comment on Is it reasonable to tell a person you once loved about the fact years later? 2 months ago:
You all will NOT gaslight me into thinking I'm insane. You. Will. Not.
Nobody is gaslighting you. You asked for advice. The fact that you don't like the advice you're getting probably means you need to hear it all the more.
- Comment on How to fly from the US to the UK as a duel citizen? 2 months ago:
My wife and children have UK/US dual nationality, so we've run into this. What we do is carry both sets of passports, exit and enter the UK with British passports and exit and enter the United States with US passports. In our experience, the UK authorities don't care as long as you're legal and don't give you grief, and the US authorities will usually be dicks to you for a bit but they do eventually let you through.
That said, we're white. The position might be quite different if you're not.
- Comment on Is it reasonable to tell a person you once loved about the fact years later? 2 months ago:
I'm horrified and appalled by how the community perceived my intentions; at large, judging by the number of votes on comments in the conversation below, placing no doubt in them being nothing more than sick and twisted desire for attention
You might want to think about that a bit.
- Comment on Is it reasonable to tell a person you once loved about the fact years later? 2 months ago:
If you're honest with yourself - really, really honest - you will see that your desire to tell them is motivated by your own vanity and desire for attention. You're doubtless imagining some big scene in which either they fall into your arms or in which you get to stride off into the sunset as some kind of noble self-sacrificing hero while they wonder what might have been. Don't fall into that trap. It's childish, and it's selfish, and it's getting into some really dodgy territory that ends with the manosphere and incels and all that. Just keep your counsel, and move on.
- Comment on Former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe dies at 78 2 months ago:
It's worth pointing out here that it is perfectly possible to (a) think that Widdecombe was a thoroughly vile person and (b) deplore her murder.
- Comment on How come they don't do a cooking show for poor or middle class people? Something that is under 10 bucks that will last a couple days and be great. 2 months ago:
Look up Jack Monroe.
- Comment on Why is Nickleback so hated? I think they made the perfect song for America after 9/11 with Hero. 2 months ago:
Because they're completely beige.
- Comment on What is it like being drunk? How much control do you have? 2 months ago:
Alcohol removes inhibitions. You still make decisions, though. What it tends to do is bring out who you really are. "In vino, veritas" as they say.
- Comment on 2 months ago:
@codewizard Of itself, nothing - it needs another argument telling it what to perform the operation on. Something like rm -rf * would delete everything in the current directory and all subdirectories.
- Comment on Is IPV6 better for youtube adblockers? 2 months ago:
Question one: No.
Question two: Depends on your ISP. Ask them. No line upgrade is required, but they may need to enable it and/or have you make changes at your router.
- Comment on Former Tory MP Craig Williams pleads guilty to cheating at gambling with election bets 2 months ago:
A timely reminder of what Tories are.
- Comment on How come it seems a lot of celebs have severe anxiety disorders? How did they choose their profession know they were walking into something which would constantly put them in a fear state? 2 months ago:
Lots of people have anxiety and still do stressful things. Many forms of it can be treated, or at least managed, and some people are just determined enough that they refuse to let it stop them.
- Comment on How do you avoid AI music? 2 months ago:
This. Streaming services are doing to music what Lars Ulrich thought Napster would do.
- Comment on How do you avoid AI music? 2 months ago:
My answer is - buy music. Not only because that way you'll get actual human works of art by real musicians who you like, but also because that way they stand a chance of actually being able to make a living so they can, y'know, make more music.
- Comment on What hot af take do you have that you think you will be HORRIBLY executed and shunned from society for? 3 months ago:
Can I make a suggestion? It seems like it's not dogs themselves that bug you. What seems to get your goat is people who performatively like dogs instead of having an actual personality. Which ... yeah, you're right.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 months ago:
Because time offsets are calculated +/- from GMT. Because colonialism. No, that doesn't make much sense in the modern world, but I suppose "hour zero" has to sit somewhere, and the world has settled on an eastern suburb of London as being that somewhere.
- Comment on Still Listens to Southern Death Cult 3 months ago:
Could we trick her into listening to Placebo?
- Comment on What are the fun ways to learn and master the file management system in Linux ? 3 months ago:
You can think of it as basically "programs", "more programs", "stuff", "gubbins", "misc" and "other".
- Comment on Would you want to be Michael Jackson-level famous? Why or why not? 4 months ago:
Jesus H Christ, no. Rich? Sure. It would make a lot of things easier and less stressful. Famous? Not on your life. Can't imagine anything worse. And Michael Jackson levels of fame? Sounds like hell. No wonder he was such a monumental fuck-up.