ggtdbz

I’ve bought myself exactly one “nice” flashlight and it was a big shock seeing how good the tech has gotten since phones took that over in my life. Some Acebeam model with a ridiculous bulb and a convenient rechargeable AAA battery with a USB C port. It’s tiny and super neat.

While I haven’t bought multiple, I did buy more of the same model for family members to carry around. For what it’s worth I don’t really keep it on me, but if you carry a purse or whatever, a powerful finger-sized flashlight could definitely come in handy without being bulky.

I’ve actually written a bit about my gripes with the EDC subculture online, which is how I learned about the flashlight in the first place. TLDR is that there is a weird disconnect that can’t be ignored between a rational interest in preparedness and the phenomenon of online communities of users goading each other into buying more and more widgets, sometimes with financial incentives to make others buy things.

It’s not just flashlights, it’s a whole bunch of things. EDC is a rabbit hole of rabbit holes and while I do appreciate having a lot of options and reviews for said options I genuinely think it’s a consumerist disappointment if you zoom back out.

The Flintstones was originally an adult-oriented cartoon, and became seen as family friendly as time went on and more things became available on TV.

Its role was closer to the Simpsons when that was new, which also became more acceptable for younger people to watch over time.

I threw my fuzzy dice on the floor and 5 donuts is the absolute maximum donuts I’m allowed to eat today. Anything beyond that would just be unhealthy.

I don't disagree with any of the opinions you've taken the time to write out. I just think you're taking the phrase "fate worse than death" a little too literally. @[email protected] is understandably humanizing the "bad" parents a little, because they're in a hard position and aren't equipped to handle it (whether they should know better or not). And the Lemmy demographic (like the Reddit one we both come from) tends to look at anti-vax people as less than human. Most of them aren't quite as far gone as the people we see in this sub. I feel like "mildly"-convinced anti-vax parents, upon (understandably) getting treated like complete shit (which I agree is what they're behaving like), are primed to double down and triple down. I'm not sure that helps them come around.

My point was that the anti-vax social contagion is different in different places. There are echoes of Wakefield in the problem all over the world, but it's not a one-size-fits-all fix for a singular issue. I'm trying to add something to the conversation that I think makes a more fleshed out discussion. Our anti-vax problem is different than yours in a few ways. That's important, I think.

You really think a comment ending with "Sorry I work with a lot of autistic kids and they’re so sweet and don’t deserve bad parents 😭" is also literally saying these kids are better off dead than with said bad parents? I don't think you do. For what it's worth, I've also worked with autistic kids. I think they're precious kids just like any other. I certainly think they're better off alive.

If I may, Squid, I've seen you all over Lemmy since I joined when the API popped, and I think you might just be the most prolific early adopter of the Lemmyverse. I've probably upvoted a hundred of comments and posts you've made (and probably downvoted a handful). But I'll occasionally find you buried in a comment thread like this, stuck in a back and forth over absolutely nothing with someone that isn't even directly disagreeing with you. Reading too much into a common expression is a waste of both our time, wouldn't you think? I'm off Reddit and social media in general specifically to get away from that kind of thing, man. I don't mean to be patronizing but come on we both know there was nothing sinister to push back against here, besides the most mild of mildly abrasive language.

I think it’s just regional. The average anti vaccine person here is specifically concerned about the HPV vaccine causing ovary (?) issues (cancer?), as well as the COVID vaccine bullshit that’s popular all over the world.

Links between autism and (MMR?) vaccines are not a relevant connection at all here. Also all schools require measles vaccination (as well as a whole bunch of others I definitely wouldn’t know off the top of my head) so it’s not particularly controversial.

Just the HPV one, just for girls, and then COVID brainrot for everyone else. Our Palestinian cousins just a border (and a half) away used to get “vaccines” that were just chemical sterilization, so we’re primed to assume the worst. And that kind of thinking is very hard to tackle, but it is a different social contagion than what you’re describing. There’s much more “The West/Jews/Christians/Muslims/Chinese/Americans/French/Rothchilds/Trump/Democrats/Media want to make our little boys into infertile burgeoning transes” thinking here. Totally normal and functional country, just like the one you’re from :D

I read that as “It’s a fate worse than death for those kids whose parents think it’s a fate worse than death.”

Essentially that being misinformed about how “bad” being on the spectrum is makes their kids’ lives actively worse due to how they treat or deal with their kids. Instead of adopting an approach that regards their kids as people with different brain processes they stick to old fashioned ideas of treating them like misbehaving problem children. This makes the kids’ lives harder, which in turn makes the parents worse. I’d guess this is where the autism vaccine “community” gets their “special attitudes” from, just frustrated people hitting their heads against the wall repeatedly and becoming more dogmatic (and shitty about spectrumy things, by what must be complete coincidence).

I’m from a part of the world where the average person is still very misinformed about this type of thing. It’s pretty common for kids who are far enough on the spectrum to essentially be treated as shut-ins. It’s getting better but it’s still quite bad.

Just off the top of my head:

Steven Wilson, one of the most influential artists in my creative life. Turns out even some of the songs were even recorded there. I don’t even think he has a familial claim to benefit from Zionism, I think he’s just gotten roped in. At least I tell myself that.

Sacha Baron Cohen, IMO one of the most brilliant comedians. I don’t think he’s necessarily an extremist to the extent that Natenyahu is, knowing his politics, but that is the logical conclusion of Zionism and just being on that path is all the red flags in the world.

Quentin Tarantino, bro why

I actually can’t think of many. I’m from Lebanon and if it’s even a small part of someone’s public life we just avoid them, it’s been that way for very long. So there’s an extent to which these people are filtered out.

I also don’t use traditional social media at all so something like the Sarah Silverman meltdown you mention would be completely off my radar.

Because I was terrorized and not some Americans or Europeans so it’s cool. The Empire is fine, go back to work.

Imagine driving down the road and everyone affiliated with one gang just has their phone explode. While they’re driving, sitting in buses, walking down the road or eating at a local restaurant with their family. Wouldn’t you be so relieved to see them all die morbid deaths? Wouldn’t the screams of their children and their careening vehicles as well as the panicking normal people trying to break their way out of bus windows warm your heart? They were in gangs or something, this is a good thing! 🥰🥰

And the mass hysteria right after, 48 hours of people thinking their phones, computers, CPAP machines, solar inverters, cars, wireless devices, and basically anything with a power button could imminently explode. Like we don’t have other problems.

And then you go online and enough people are smug about it, even on Lemmy (a rare decent space online), that you genuinely lose some remnant of respect for the average person. I’ve been online for almost two decades now, I’ve seen and gotten used to how mean it could be, but this event broke something and I’ve actually cried over nothing more than expressions of callousness online that weren’t even directed at me.

It’s kind of funny. As Lebanese people we are pretty damn racist and judgmental, we think we’re some forgotten actually-European country that’s not like all those countries, I could write a whole essay on why deep down we culturally feel more white than any western white person. But then things like this happen, and everyone pretends you’re in rural Afghanistan and always have been, and worse still, that you deserve it on some level.

Which now just makes me wonder how they feel in Afghanistan.

Ah. I was hoping I was holding on to some long-lost file, I think every one in my list is included in your list. I think the rare ones were limited-time exclusives.

If it’s not too much trouble, you should make sure there’s an up to date copy of all these files somewhere. At least the IA should have it, I’d think.

Best of luck finding the rest.

Here's what I got in my old local archive folder, if it helps. Let me know if I have something missing, I've never been on this side of this interaction!

Not entirely sure if this is complete, or if it's even all Maxis. I have a third party mod folder backed up somewhere (and one with those old text guides, loved those) but I didn't find it with a quick search. This folder is from 2010, so it's not exactly period-correct. In case Windows doesn't like these older .exes they seem to just be archives with the .far files inside, so you can rip them open. Not exactly sure why some of these are .zips and others are .exes, but the .zips only contain the .far files.

One thing that sucks is that some disk content was just permanently gated behind these downloads, and there was every possibility that you wouldn't know these downloads existed. Specifically there were Makin Magic recipes for child-only magic stuff that used ingredients only adults could gather. So the Magic Bookshelf was mandatory to see that stuff that came on the damn disk. I'm pretty sure I was using a third party reskin of that item before looking for the original, but I could be wrong.

Good lord, .far files. Remember FARout? Those really were the days. I still like to think I'll revisit TS1 properly someday. That was a proper game, with unapologetic personality.

I still prefer paper, although not having to store moisture-sensitive fragile things is nice. So is the fact that I can read books that are out of print or hard to find (or banned, yay Middle East), even if fumbling with PDFs isn’t wonderful on the device.

And of course, the obvious: downloading them for free. Which is always ethical when Routledge wants to charge you 85$ for a scholarly work of which the author doesn’t see a dollar.

I got a Kobo and just use the networking to sync Pocket articles. Stock system.

I don’t even think an account is available in my country. Just been syncing over Calibre. It’s not perfect (it uses a community plugin) but once you get the quirks of the Calibre-to-Kobo transfer it’s easy enough.

Now the hard part. Actually reading.