SwingingTheLamp
@SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
- Comment on What programs do you wish a good FOSS alternative existed, but doesn't or most of the FOSS alternatives simply aren't good? 5 days ago:
That’s amusing to me. Back around 2010, I used a lot of state legal forms that they only released as PDF files, but not fillable. It was annoying to print them and fill them by hand, and terribly fiddly to use the PDF annotation tool on the computer.
So I just used OpenOffice.org to create almost-pixel-perfect versions of the forms, with fillable text boxes, then exported them as PDF. Word couldn’t do it at the time.
Now, at work, I use Microsoft365 because that’s what everyone uses because of the site license. I wish we’d switch to something else, because Outlook fails so hard at basic email stuff.
- Comment on A bit of salt makes it taste more savory 6 days ago:
The first time I had ever heard of the word “tankie” was on Lemmy. It’s just not a thing that about anybody I know offline is, or has heard of. So I don’t understand the obsession with them. Even if they’re doing every evil thing claimed, it’s a) the metaphorical tempest in a teapot, and b) not even working, based on the number of people here who seem to make hating on tankies part of their identity.
- Comment on From a purely political perspective, if you oppose the US tariffs as a US resident, should you buy or avoid buying products subject to tariffs? 2 weeks ago:
You get thrown out of a farmer’s market if you show up naked, though. Probably thrift stores, too.
- Comment on What efforts would it take to strip the name Americans from the folks inhabiting the US? 2 weeks ago:
Does that make the rest of the world Themians?
- Comment on What efforts would it take to strip the name Americans from the folks inhabiting the US? 2 weeks ago:
Each of the 50 states has a somewhat unique name, and residents of the state therefore have a unique demonym. Use those instead?
If that’s too many names, Colin Woodward has identified 11 culturally-distinct nations in the US. That would actually promote a lot better understanding of why the country is the way it is. I’d be a Yankee.
Changing the collective name demonym Americans would be confusing during the transition, and for what benefit? Is this really a concern for residents of other countries in the Americas? Are Colombianos really scrambling to be called Americans?
Instead, I suggest taking Pres. Sheinbaum’s suggestion, if you want to do something: Call the continent Mexican America. Everybody would know what you mean from context right away. No confusion, no need to get anybody else to play along.
- Comment on From Cleaner Bathrooms to Fewer Trailers, 5 Movie Theater Owners on Ways to Bring Audiences Back to Cinemas 3 weeks ago:
Only one of the interviewees said location. That would be key for me. If the theater was close by and integrated integrated into daily life, I’d probably go a lot more often. Instead, all of the theaters are way out on the edge of town, often in some grotty commercial area where the land is cheap enough for the obligatory huge parking lot. It’s a commitment to get there, as in, you intend to go to a movie and only to a movie, because there’s nothing else to do nearby. No dinner and a movie, no random matinee as a break from the office grind, no movie followed by hanging out with friends at the bar across the street. I might as well watch at home.
- Comment on Inching closer to the grave every day 5 weeks ago:
I’ll be happy to leave it to anybody who reads this thread to figure out what the problem here is.
- Comment on Inching closer to the grave every day 5 weeks ago:
That’s a reading comprehension problem, I’ll wager. I said Target had it like it was a common thing.
- Comment on Inching closer to the grave every day 5 weeks ago:
What the hell? Why are you telling me what I think?
- Comment on Inching closer to the grave every day 5 weeks ago:
As an aside, the Target store near me carries Polaroid film and vinyl records. With everything virtual and touchscreen these days, some kids value the kinesthetic experience.
Heck, I’ve been cell phone-only since 2003, but I’ve been thinking about setting up a landline phone from my childhood with a VoIP adapter just because it has such a satisfying heft in the hand, and tactile buttons.
- Comment on Thinkpad for the win 1 month ago:
Goddamn, thank you. I needed the laugh this morning, so I went back to watch the video.
- Comment on Murica 1 month ago:
If it’s me on the bike, know that I’m pitying you. -6°C is nothing. I drove a lot of miles as a delivery driver, and saw a lot of faces behind windshields in that time. Very few happy faces. Driving makes people miserable.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 1 month ago:
Enough farmland? I suggest reading up on the Ogallala Aquifer. Also, where the best climate zones for agriculture will be 50 years from now.
- Comment on Over 20M 'people' listed as 100+ years old in the SS database? 2 months ago:
I feel like Betteridge’s Law of Headlines applies here, too. If Leon had found fire (fraudulent benefits), he would have posted fire instead of smoke.
- Comment on Good morning. 2 months ago:
Borrowing is not an option?
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
Compare the situation to all the noise and outrage, but nobody shows up.
- Comment on Why do some laws exist if everyone is expected to just break them? 2 months ago:
Given those conditions, everybody drives the speed of the slowest driver.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
And what will not doing it accomplish?
- Comment on Electoral politics doesn't get the job done 2 months ago:
The strike is not the start of the exercise, oh, no! To pull off a huge action like this will take coordination, spreading awareness, cultivating relationships of trust, establishing lines of communication, laying the foundations by organizing, and getting people primed for action. That’s what we lack now.
Right now, we could all just choose to disobey together, and there are so many of us that they couldn’t stop us. But it would take a lot of people; only a few here and there taking action would simply leave those few destitute or in jail.
A general strike is not the goal, it’s the announcement that we’re organized. That awareness, those relationships, that trust, doesn’t just have to go away…
- Comment on Why do some laws exist if everyone is expected to just break them? 2 months ago:
If that’s true, then it would be a good idea to have everybody converge on a particular speed. It doesn’t seem practical to negotiate that speed amongst a constantly-changing set of drivers, it probably needs to be chosen in advance. That seems like a natural function of government, to choose the consensus speed through a process designed to represent everybody in the community.
To communicate to drivers entering the roadway this consensus speed which everybody must travel at—for safety—the government could, say, post it on signs located along the roadside.
But that’s probably just a ridiculous fantasy. How then should all drivers negotiate the consensus speed to ensure safety?
- Comment on The one drawback to walking at night 2 months ago:
Hard to say. I see women out walking alone at night all the time in my city, at least a handful just past my house every evening. (It’s a university town.) I passed one woman happily chatting on her phone, and oblivious to the world, while riding home tonight after dark. The last time anyone was attacked by a stranger was, I dunno? It definitely happens, but it’s years between instances. They’d probably be safer in the late night hours, with hardly any car traffic. A lot more people get killed by cars.
- Comment on Why do smokers specifically seem to be disproportionally bad for littering? 2 months ago:
I hear ya. I just wanted to provide an example in which social norms lead people to do the right thing.
- Comment on Why do smokers specifically seem to be disproportionally bad for littering? 2 months ago:
If you want a happier example, there’s the trash in Wisconsin state parks. The Dept. of Natural Resources used to place trash receptacles in our state parks, and haul the trash away. That worked, people put their trash in the bins, because that’s the social expectation.
But the DNR lacked the staff to keep up with the trash. Sometimes animals would get in and spread trash around, but mostly, people would pile trash on or around cans and dumpsters. If that’s where you put your trash, that’s where you put your trash, right?
So, the DNR simply stopped putting trash receptacles in the parks altogether, and announced that you’d have to pack your own trash out. And it worked! Without a socially-sanctioned place to deposit trash in the park, people pack it out. (Mostly. Humans are still essentially animals, so various detritus gets dropped, but no garbage bags full of food scraps left on the ground for the raccoons.)
- Comment on To my late wife, Carmen, my spicy little habanara pepper (pls read and lmk if you think it's okay to send) 2 months ago:
To add to the other comment, saying “always-late wife” would convey the correct meaning to most English speakers.
- Comment on To my late wife, Carmen, my spicy little habanara pepper (pls read and lmk if you think it's okay to send) 2 months ago:
If she’s dead, I don’t think it matters what you say.
- Comment on Gimme some evidence that anyone at all in the government is pushing back on Trump with any effectiveness at all. Someone throw me a bone here. 😬 2 months ago:
I dunno, man, it just feels like the ol’ fascist/totalitarian tactic of flooding the zone with shit until people get exhausted from fighting it has worked, people are exhausted, and there’s this energy of elated resignation, like, we can’t swim upstream anymore, so fuck it, riding the current is kind of fun (and the inevitable waterfall is out of sight and out of mind for the moment).
- Comment on What's the deal with male loneliness? 3 months ago:
So young men are believing that everyone except them are all in relationships and/or fucking all the time, and believing that them not doing those things makes worth less as a human being.
I just want to add that, in virtually every online discussion I’ve seen about the dynamic between men and women, if a man says something incel-ish, or otherwise not popular, there will be somebody (almost always a woman) who will fire back a retort like, “yeah, but no woman wants to be with you anyway,” (I haven’t seen it on Lemmy, which is wonderful.)
There it is: Your opinion, and by extension your worth as a person, is based on your ability to have sex. Is it any wonder that men think that, after being explicitly informed so?
- Comment on What's the deal with male loneliness? 3 months ago:
Without a single coherent thought expressed!
- Comment on Hurry 3 months ago:
Sheeeeit, don’t hit a guy with those turgid vacuoles without a NSFW tag.
- Comment on Where's the mayor? 3 months ago:
This is the guy who set a woman on fire in a subway car.