nimble

1. Default behavior is to allow emotions to drive thoughts, which immediately inform behavior. Times are very hard for people around the world, so it stands to reason most people online are going to be in a negative frame of mind to start with. Anger going sideways and getting projected or transferred where it shouldn’t, and solves nothing.

2. Bots have definitely made their way to the Fediverse and like anywhere else their whole point is to foment disagreement and fights, as well as pressure people with a flood of information implying the majority opinion is far right, pro-AI and that sort of thing. See above, but it behooves them to create a stressful atmosphere since stressed people are angry people and angry people don’t think clearly.

3. Every platform tends towards certain patterns of behavior and I am inclined to agree on the specific pattern here. It’s almost always about something personal, including political beliefs. I have seen some incredible comments and comment threads based upon someone reading whatever OP posted as if it were a personal attack or a political press conference. People also seem here, like on tumblr a decade or two ago, to think that fighting with random people online is equal to real political action. It’s not. It never will be. Worse, it seems a lot of people feel insecure about their intelligence because man do these arguments stink of someone trying to prove how smart they are against, again, some random person they don’t even know.

tl;dr, people are angry but don’t know how to handle it in a more mature manner, or they’re deliberately fomenting discord with bots because they were paid to do so, which honestly circles right back to the beginning because why do that?

I do think it’s still better here than on Reddit though. I hope that this remains the case for years to come. I had some bad shocks on Reddit which caused me to cease engaging there. Same to BlueSky, honestly. I follow some people who know what they’re talking about, but… the keyboard warriors are just too much.

I’m gay, but, Yennefer (The Witcher series) is pretty fine, and back in college I had quite a thing for Seras Victoria (Hellsing).

It depends. Health metrics, when used correctly, can be useful. I mean, back before smart devices some of us were taught to monitor our heart rates regularly with our fingers, a clock, and if you need to track this over time, a notebook. A smart watch just makes it a lot easier to do. Tracking stuff for health or habit is not a new idea (Benjamin Franklin, for example, promoted tracking behavior and thought in order to improve oneself) and it is useful. Trying to keep track of detailed information in your brain will not work because our brains just don’t do that very well, so we invented writing for that purpose.

That being said, tracking is only useful when you need to do it for a specific purpose, and often only in the short term barring exceptions. I tracked my water intake for a while to figure out how much dehydration was a problem for me, how much water I actually needed to feel more comfortable, and about how to schedule that so I could get the right amount each day without a tracker. I used tools to develop discipline, but which discipline is correct and effective. Otherwise, using subjective data only, we might just engage in self torture (ie, relying on what we believe or want to be the case, not necessarily what is the case). Similarly, I’ve been adding sensors in my home because it’s good to know the temperature, humidity, air quality etc especially when we’re curious about whether the devices we use for certain conditions are working, necessary, effective, etc. We made some serious quality of life improvements so far, too, thanks to that data.

The short of it is tracking is like doing research in a lab, but people treat it like a gimmicky toy. They don’t have a reason to monitor (whatever metric), they just like the idea of doing so, to feel like they live in science fiction.

Oh, I’ve been through a few. Most places in Ohio, but particularly Toledo and Cleveland. Sandusky, OH is also pretty off. Oh, and Cincinnati for hiring demons for its urban planning. I visited once and felt queasy the whole time. I mean, I don’t have a problem with hills but Cinci is an M C Escher print mixed with a Sonic the Hedgehog stage. Helen, Georgia has a pretty rotten energy. Atlanta, GA isn’t much better around Easter. Now, Atlanta was better when I lived there some years ago, but it seems to have dropped off sharply around the time I left. I’d say before that specifically Five Points and Buckhead, sometimes Inman Park, felt not good, but now a days it’s probably the whole city. I definitely felt a shift which prompted me to get out when I did. Dallas, Texas. What cold, miserable people. And I can’t really pick a place in Florida. I’ve been to a few, they all suck.

Oh, sure, although mostly older stuff (The Real Ghostbusters, Freakazoid, Sonic Sat-AM, Digimon Adventure 02 specifically, Batman The Animated Series, etc). Nostalgia is certainly a factor, but I enjoy animation and especially appreciating the work that goes into creating a cartoon. Helpfully, a lot of the shows I grew up with in the late 80s and through the 90s were only sort of intended for children and were made by people who loved art and animation and wanted shows they could enjoy, and not just slop intended to sell toys (not that I don’t watch The Masters of the Universe on occasion. What a goofy fucking show. I watched it a lot as a kid and always said I hated it, but obviously I didn’t. Today, an Orko figurine lives by my computer). TRGB slips after the first two seasons, but the others I enjoy wholly. Eh, there’s others I like too but only watch piecemeal and on occasion, like Dexter’s Laboratory and Power Puff Girls. I need to find Pinky and the Brain to rewatch. I wonder if I would enjoy rewatching Inspector Gadget?

Newer stuff not so much. I mean I like animation a lot as an art, but also, I am very picky when it comes to style, so most newer programming for any age is right out.