Back in 2016, I got to taste a new flavor from Ben & Jerry’s called “Feel the Bern” which showed their support for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary. Anyone who gets surprised that Ben & Jerry’s is political hasn’t been paying attention.
Then again, some people became shocked that Rage Against The Machine was political leading to a commenter asking “what machine did you think they were raging against?”
I was the victim of a cyberstalker about a decade ago. This person was convinced that I was really someone else that she had a beef with. Her reasoning? We both like taking photos. (Apparently, I’m the only one posting photos online. All those pictures you see online? That’s all me. No wonder I have no free time!)
I couldn’t argue with her to let her know that she was mistaken because she had it on “very good authority” that I was lying about who I was. Namely, “God told her.” And I’m not exaggerating here. She literally thought that God talked to her and told her stuff like who was committing crimes.
Oh and I was guilty of those crimes according to “God.” I won’t name those crimes because they’re heinous, but suffice it to say she thought I was doing unspeakable things to kids. She was threatening to call my employer, the police, and everyone who knew me to tell them about what I was doing.
Luckily for me, all she had to go on was “TechyDad.” I blogged at the time, but didn’t post my exact whereabouts or my real name. The guy that she thought I was wasn’t as lucky. She contacted his employer (a school in New Zealand) and everyone with the same last name as him that was on Facebook and near him. All to tell them what he did to kids. (Again, her source was “God.” He didn’t really do anything and he had to have quite a few awkward conversations to clear things up.)
I finally got rid of the stalker by grabbing her IP address (from one of her comments) and modifying my htaccess file to report 404 Page Not Found for only that IP. She crowed on Twitter about how she singlehandedly took me down and then moved on. (I and her other targets would report her to Twitter, but she’d constantly have dozens of other handles ready and waiting and would switch to them the second her main one was banned.)
To my knowledge, she’s still out there stalking people.
Now, how would this have been different had she had my real name? Well, with a little work she would have been able to look up my location. (My name’s pretty common, but she’d find me eventually.) Then, she’d locate my employer, my address, and other information. She could send me packages or mail harassing me. She could contact my local police to swat me or just to report my “crimes.” She could contact my employer to report me and try to get me fired.
Now, I eventually did tie my real name to “TechyDad.” I wrote a book and didn’t want to publish under “TechyDad” so I used my two name. That being said, it was my choice. I definitely wouldn’t want it to be required for me to use my real name everywhere.
I like Liftoff and Jerboa. I flip between them depending on my mood.
The only reason that he seemed like a “Genius CEO” with SpaceX and Tesla was because those companies had layers of management dedicated to protecting the company from Musk.
If Musk marched into Tesla and decided that all Tesla cars should have eyeball shaped headlights, managers would tell him what a genius idea that was and that they’d get right on it. Then, they’d distract him with something else while the idea went in the trash can.
Twitter has no such management layer so every Elon Epiphany becomes Twitter policy no matter how bad or destructive it is. SpaceX and Tesla were successes despite Musk and Musk gained his “genius” reputation because those companies were able to filter out his idiocy.
The last one is Imposter Syndrome. I struggle with it too. Despite having worked in web development for 25+ years, I’m constantly finding myself thinking that I don’t know anything and any day now everyone else will realize it. It’s a constant battle to remind myself that I’m actually talented and knowledgeable and not just a huge fraud.
Building with LEGO can be fun, but obviously buying tons of sets costs a lot of money and displaying them takes up a lot of space.
A nice alternative is using BrickLink Studio. This software lets you build LEGO creations using a 3D CAD-style software. You can not only build creations, but can generate photorealistic images. Here’s a recent virtual build of mine:
You can upload your creations to Rebrickable.com and download other people’s creations.
If you really want to build your creation, you can upload the parts list to BrickLink and buy new or used pieces. Obviously, this last part takes real money, but buying used pieces can bring down the cost.
Republicans seem to want to turn back the clock to the 1950’s and in one aspect I agree with them. The top tax rate back then was 90%. That should be returned for anyone making over $10 million.
Unlike Republicans, though, I think people should be free to be who they are - whether they’re LGBTQ or straight/cisgender, black or white, Christian or Jewish or atheist, or any other group I didn’t list. (I didn’t list all groups only because I don’t want this comment to be novel length.) Basically, as long as your actions affect only yourself and consenting adults, I’m fine with them.
I’m also fine with parents having some control over what their kids do. I’m a parent myself and know that as a parent you need to make judgement calls as to what’s best for your child. I wouldn’t want someone else questioning my parenting based on their beliefs. However, there are limits. If your child is LGBTQ and you try to force them to be straight/cisgender, you aren’t acting in your child’s best interests. If your 10 year old child is raped and their life is in danger, but you refuse to allow them to have an abortion because your religion doesn’t allow it, then you’re harming your child.
Also, a person’s “parental rights” shouldn’t mean that they get to decide that certain books are banned from everyone reading them. My son actually just finished reading a book because it had been banned and we laughed over how innocuous the “ban triggering passage” was compared to some stuff in the Bible.
Basically, I think I’d call myself a Pragmatic Progressive. I advocate for progressive causes, but I also realize that society can often be slower to adapt than we like. While we would love to be able to pass X and have it be widely adopted immediately, there’s often a series of slow moving battles to get X passed and another slow march to get wide acceptance. We can’t simply throw in the political towel at the first setback. Neither can we pass up 10% of our goal being within our grasp because we’re holding out for 100%. We need to get whatever advancements we can while continually pushing for more.
Does the money go poof if you spend it? For example, say I buy some jewelry with half of the million dollars. Then, the time limit passes. Does just the half a million I still have on hand disappear or does the cash I spent vanish as well?
If the cash I spend vanishes, then I might be opening myself up to fraud charges after the hour is up. Going back to the jewelry situation. I buy half a million in jewelry and hand over the last of the cash just as the time limit ends. If the money in the store clerk’s hands suddenly vanishes, they’re going to demand their merchandise back. If I’m already walking out the door when it goes poof, they’ll call the police on me.
Of course, if the money that I spend doesn’t vanish after the time limit expires, then that’s a different story.
My worst experience came just before the API disaster started. Someone posted on the ELI5 subreddit asking what autistic people experience when they are nonverbal. Now, I’m autistic and, while I’m verbal most of the time, I do have moments where I can’t speak even though I want to. Typically in moments of high emotion or stress. (It feels like the words are in my brain, but the highway to my mouth has a twenty car pileup blocking all traffic.)
My comment was upvoted many times and many people replied positively to my comment. Then, suddenly, my comment was deleted. The mod said that because this was my personal experience, it was too subjective. Meaning, only an “objective” experience from someone who wasn’t autistic would be allowed.
Needless to say, I was upset and needed to vent. I vented in the Autism subreddit about the situation and got people replying in support of me. Now, I did make a mistake where people started asking to see my original comment and I posted a screenshot. That was on me - especially because I forgot to blank out the original poster’s name. (In my defense, I had nothing against the OP or their question so nothing lept to mind saying “better blank that out.”)
The whole thread was suddenly deleted from the Autism subreddit for “doxing.” I deleted the person’s username and asked for the thread to be restored. Instead, I was given a 30 day ban. Then, I quickly got notified that I was permanently banned from ELI5 for “sh*t-stirring.” My goal was never “raise an army of autistic people to attack the ELI5 mods,” but just “blow off steam for something I felt wasn’t just.”
I decided not to contest either and just stop going to either sub. In fact, I was deciding to reevaluate my Reddit use altogether. And then the API debacle started.
Clumsy Vision. You shoot rays out of your eyes that make the person mildly clumsy for a few minutes. Not like Slapstick Comedy levels of clumsiness, but just like tripping over their shoelaces or looking back and running into a pole clumsy.
You’ve won a few battles (like that time the purse thief mistook you for an A lister superhero, ran away, tripped over their own feet, and twisted their ankle), but you’re mostly useful for anything other than occasionally stopping petty criminal behavior.
It was the worst possible response. Had they stuck to their guns, the right would have remained angry, but the left would have been fine. By ditching Mulvaney over the “outrage,” the left became upset and the right wasn’t mollified.