AnarchistArtificer

When I visited Scotland, I had a deep fried Mars Bar. It was okay.

Damn, thanks for that link; earlier today I was telling a non techy friend about Unicode quirks earlier and I could vaguely remember that post, but not well enough to remember how to find it. I didn't try very hard because it wasn't a big deal, so the serendipity of finding it via your comment was neat.

Man, comments like this are why I love the internet (and the current culture on Lemmy); You have given me a tiny glimpse into a part of the world I'm oblivious to; it's a reminder that basically everything that exists actually has a mind-blowing level of hidden depth and complexity, and people who care about these niche areas enough that this texture is their life.

It makes me feel small, but in a good way.

I hope you have a delightful night. If you would indulge me, tell me something about the most interesting person you met tonight, if any.

I've been, and it's not as bad as it sounds. It does definitely lend itself to people who want to do a huge night out, but it's super viable to just go for a normal night out (though I'm told that the Friday night's party peaks at around 10am on Saturday). Something I noticed while queuing was that people who were super dressed up always got turned away. I'm talking people like this (image source: the reality show "Geordie Shore") This kind of garb is an extreme example of what women often wear on night out where I'm from. German clubbers, by contrast, are far more relaxed in what they wear, so foreign clubbers who are just there to do a heckton of drugs and stay up all night are easy to spot.

Certainly it's not a typical nightclub though. Lovers of techno will have a great time there, though I'm told that some other Berlin nightclubs are better nowadays. I'm not a huge fan of techno, but it can be fun to lose yourself to the rhythm for a little while, and I honestly find the enthusiasm of techno nerds more intoxicating than any drug. I think part of why I got in was that the doorman asked me a question that I think was roughly 'what brings you here?', and I was able to respond with the name of the main person who was DJing that night (having seen that info online). I was also wearing something that was mildly weird, giving the vibe of "I'm a punk who is tired from travelling for a month, and I don't give a fuck if these clothes don't match each other, because they're the only clean stuff I have left". I was mostly curious about whether I'd get in and whether it'd be fun, and I think that chillness probably contributed to why I got in. There were loads of people who were clearly there for Berghain's legendary status (but not in a good way)

It's not as weirdly gatekeeping as it sounds, given that it must be hard to not have a nightclub become terrible once it gains a reputation for being cool. The mystique of Berghain comes from there not being an explicit door policy, but if they did have straightforward rules or entry criteria, then that would make it easy for people who are 100% there for the wrong reasons to get in, or would lead to more arguments at the door. My local goth club used to have a similar vibe, albeit far more chill; rules or not, having a trusted person be the doorman helps to curate the vibe of a night club (tangent: I am affectionately recalling how my late best friend used to always have his song requests rejected at this goth club, for being too metal. That seemed silly at the time, but I think it's the kind of thing that's necessary if you want the goth club to stay a goth club and not just become a generic alt club)

It was a great night though. Despite loads of people on various levels of drugs and debauchery, I felt more safe and welcome than I would in a typical nightclub. I enjoyed that there were actually quite a few spaces that were quite chill, and I could gather my thoughts and talk to people. As a club, I would say it's simultaneously over hyped and also underrated

People who were born in 2007 will be adults now. As we age, it will become a more rare achievement to have been "Time Magazine Person of the Year, 2006". What a weird thought.

That's a fun thing to put in your bio though. It's edgy enough to be clear that you were exasperated to have to fill out a bio, but not so much that it makes you seem like an asshole. Very wry

I'm really glad that I discovered the phrase Corporate Memphis, because it works really well as an out of context pejorative. E.g.

"Ugh, that's so Corporate Memphis"

That could refer to something that isn't at all like the corporate Memphis art style in a literal sense, but has all of the vibes.

A friend who is Indian told me that they reckon it's linked to colonialism — now that I'm reflecting on it, I'm inclined to call it "post-colonialism" (a separate thing from neocolonialism, which exists alongside it). My friend described it as an especially toxic form of hustle culture. There's a lot of pressure to be the best — not the best that you can be, but the best. It leads to a lot of burnout.

Indian culture also values seniority/age quite highly, which means that compared to places like the US, it can be less socially acceptable to disagree with your boss. Apparently this has led to India having a lot more assholish middle manager type bosses. I can imagine in that world that being the CEO of something that's not real is basically just a fantasy of being out from the thumb of asshole managers. Plus if you feel very pressured to always be working and being Productive, then making your hobbies seem like businesses may serve to legitimise a hobby that you feel guilty to even have.

I think it's less of a "cargo cult" capitalism, because that term implies people going through the motions with no understanding of the underlying mechanisms. I think that the Indian CEO types you describe probably understand capitalism pretty damn well, because it sort of feels like a 'roided up version of capitalism, so to speak. It makes sense when I consider the population density of India, and the hustle culture competitiveness. It's probably useful to consider that profiles like this aren't necessarily aimed at us, and and are likely just operating under different social conventions. There's a lot of objectively silly stuff that I have to do as part of playing by societal expectations, so perhaps this is just something like that. It sounds like a rough experience though; Burnout due to the pressures of capitalism is definitely a worldwide phenomenon, but it sounds like Indian workers are having an especially rough time with it.

The other day, I was getting angry at my computer and I called it a stupid piece of shit. However, because I find that letting myself be angry and unkind to inanimate objects makes my brain a less kind place to inhabit, I try to not get angry at my devices in this way. I apologised to my computer:

"I'm sorry, that was uncalled for. Past experience has shown us that there's the most baffling errors are often down to user error anyway, so it's not productive to speak to you like that. Even if that's not the case this time, I know that you're trying your best and that you've got a lot on your plate. Most of the time, we work well together, and regardless of what the specific problem is right now, I'm not helping us to return to that by shouting at you."

Lo, the error was inexplicably solved. Is it possible that it was solved by something like a background task that finished processing while I was talking? I mean, yeah, it's almost certainly the case that the timing was the cause. However, does it also make me happy to half jokingly use this as an example of "see, this is why you should be kind to your computer"? Also yes.

I have to keep reminding myself of this. I'm in my late 20s and I still slip up when referring to myself sometimes.

Do your feet ever get too cold to wear that, and if so, what do you do instead?

Oh my gosh, the "abusive partner" comparison resonates so hard. I was helping a friend out with their laptop recently, part of which involved reinstalling Windows. Even in the initial configuration stages (before the stress of updates and resetting settings), I was incredibly skeeved out by the process.

"Do you want to turn on $thing? [Yes / Ask me later]"

I was surprised by how genuinely gross I felt to be clicking "Ask me later". The next screen didn't help matters

"Do you want to turn on $more_bullshit? [Yes / Not now]?"

"No." is a complete sentence, but it's apparently not one that Windows understands. Or perhaps it understands it all too well, because I expect that this coercive strategy works to push this bullshit onto some of the people who try to opt out.

The whole process was genuinely stressful, and I could feel that stress in the tightness of my chest by the end of it. At first, I felt silly that this had felt so invasive and weird (especially given that this form of asking for "consent" is everywhere nowadays), but my friend said that it made sense to them if we consider how tightly entwined our lives are with technology nowadays. I am not my body, but the degree to which I inhabit it is why bodily autonomy matters so much. Similarly, I am not my computer, but I spend so much time there that it does sort of function as an extension of me — it's no wonder we take psychic damage from the kind of bullshit Windows pulls