MrFunkEdude

The fact that people in this thread are bitching at each other and calling each other names over how they approach meditation is sad. Over the last year I have practiced Transcendental Meditation, Samitha, Vipassina, and I am now working on Zazen. I practice for two hours each day. Once in the morning and once in the late afternoon.

From all of them the one thing I have taken away is an increase in empathy and compassion. By calming the mind and noticing the impermanence of thought and coming to the realization that the majority of people suffer from their thoughts which they have little control over, I was able to extend compassion and widen my capacity for empathy. So I don’t understand the vitriol being tossed around by those professing to know what meditation “really is”.

If someone is saying that they meditate and it’s as good as drugs for them, then who am I to judge? If someone says that they meditate and it’s not as good as drugs, who am I to judge? If someone says that they meditate and that it doesn’t increase their capacity for empathy and compassion, again, who am I to judge?

There is a Zen saying… "Practice like a blind person in a dark room.” I encourage everyone to meditate on this informal Koan.

I don’t even care anymore.

I love GTAV and play Online almost everyday. But this bullshit about delays and more delays every year is just annoying as hell. How many years have they had to get this right?

I’m reminded of the quote “Don’t let perfect get in the way of good.” and I’m beginning to wonder if that’s what’s going on here? Are they delaying a good game because it’s not “perfect” or are they just so incompetent that they have to keep going back to “fix” things???

And watch, when it does come out it’ll be buggy as hell. Everyone will be asking “You’ve had all of this time. Why are there so many bugs?” and Rockstar will just shrug their shoulders all of the way to the bank.

I’ve been using Mint for a year now and I just got a second laptop and the first thing I did was Wipe Windows 11 off of it and install Mint.

It does everything I need it too.

People still use Email???

Was the $100 price ever confirmed? I thought it was just rumored?

I like your thoughts about having them look different from each other in someway to make them distinguishable. I think that might be a smart thing to do if you’re an instance owner.

I also think that we’re not really that far apart in what we’re both saying. When I read your example of the on boarding process for some people, it just reinforces what I said in my original reply, which was “ It’s been my experience that people who couldn’t figure out how to join Mastodon are the same people that get so used to doing things one way, that when you introduce a different way, they fall apart.” it’s not that ideas like “instances“ are difficult subjects to grasp, it’s that the person who is joining is expecting a different experience. Which I think causes part of their brain to kind of shut down a little. So things start to become confusing. I think this becomes obvious when you talk to people who had no issues joining. What they usually say is something along the lines of “I read it and caught on pretty quick.“ Which was my experience as well. Sure, once I got in it took me a few moments to realize what was what and get a grasp on @names but it was never something that made me say “this is too confusing“. It was just new. And I treated it like that.

Which makes me think that the people who say they don’t understand things like “Federation“ never really tried to understand them to begin with. As you noted, email is a handy comparison to use. When I’ve explained it to them like that, most people kind of smack their head and “get it” pretty quickly after that.

I’ve thought for a long time the first thing that someone should read when they try to join Mastodon is “This isn’t like any social media you’ve ever joined. We do things different, and if you read along, you’ll understand why.” Or something similar to get the person who is joining out of that frame of mind where they think they’re joining something that they’ve done before. I think that would put people in the right frame of mind right away.

But I’ve been known to be wrong before.

I can’t imagine how much you must have suffered choosing an email client. 🙄

It’s been my experience that people who couldn’t figure out how to join Mastodon are the same people that get so used to doing things one way, that when you introduce a different way, they fall apart. Regardless if they’ve done virtually the same thing with different services.

Mastodon isn’t difficult to sign up for and use. FFS there are people of all ages and tech experiences who figured it out easily. I’ve seen grandmas who only ever used Facebook figure out Mastodon and teens who failed english figure it out. It’s not rocket science. It’s just not what you are used to when signing up for similar services.

I love that the people who weren’t smart enough to leave Twitter two years ago are now eagerly jumping from one frying pan into another.

Fortunately there have been a few who learned their lessons a bit late and came over to Mastodon.

But the rest of them? The one who tolerated the racism and misogyny that Musk brought with his red pilled idiots? Let them have Blue Sky and the rest of us can watch as history eventually repeats itself.

Cool.

I just started using Bitwarden almost a year now. I don’t know how I lived without it before? It’s nice to know I wont have to switch to something else.

I’m kind of glad that it wasn’t a continuation. His story seemed just so complete to me. Anything else would’ve just kind of, diluted it.

What I was looking at was the percentage of registered democrats that vote. But even if I am wrong, and your numbers are right, it would seem to me to be even more of a reason to widen the gap and help people to register to vote blue.

I only said “the left” instead of “the dems” to be more inclusive. If that was wrong, I apologize. My intent was not to “blame the left for liberal apathy” but to suggest we need to do more together.

And yes, I agree that liberals should embrace leftists more, they are the ones who are trying to stand up for the rights of others more then any group in my opinion.

So let me ask, what would you say is the best most actionable thing we can each do when it comes to safeguarding democracy this election? I mean that sincerely.

I honestly don’t think “education” is the key. It’s been well established that people don’t make decisions according to “the facts” as much as we do our emotions. You can’t “convince” someone that they are wrong unless you give them an emotional carrot to lead them.

Give them the facts, but give them an emotional grounding to those facts. “This is your chance to make a fascists day shit.” might work better then “You need to vote because of X,Y,Z.”

That’s exactly what we need.

We each get one vote, but together we get to keep democracy.

People still use Opera?