… So the Iraq war was now to help the little guy and so the US could be anti-Imperialists? wtf is going on in here.

I’m starting to think they put something toxic in the Zip System, or at least it’s like a gateway for corporate sponsorship cocaine. Once they start jerking themselves off talking about how great Zip is, it usually goes downhill from there (not bashing zip, just is always funny). I just recently gave up on him so it was interesting to see the decline. There would be a really great informative video, then several just commercialized crap.

The sad part is if any of these products are scammy, we probably won’t find out about it publicly. The company product will just slowly fade from existence, maybe a report done by a safety or efficiency board that will call it out and be dropped from code. There’s been plenty of building products that don’t hold up to their specs when scrutinized.

damn, that sounds like you were part of a case study in your childhood. Is there a difference with how your brother turned out and yourself? Interested to know if you picked up skills like DIY and stuff while your brother isn’t capable of those things.

It’s interesting the preconceived notions over managements usefulness and the actual role a CEO plays in a company. I’ve had a lot of conversations with people over the years and everyone just expects that it “has to be this way or it won’t work”. Like every admin position is critical or the company will fail, completely disregarding that most of those positions didn’t exist before and the company ran just fine.

There’s a lot of misinformation over what their actual job entails. Management is mostly just one big “telephone” game (been on all sides of it, got out just in time before it warped my perception of life). The original role of being support is completely absent in their duties as our society and culture has changed. People also think a co-op would never work because you need a big shot CEO who runs the company and makes all the decisions (they don’t, plenty of examples in reality).

It’s kinda funny to hear a lot of the tech people on here mention imposter syndrome. Every person in administration has this feeling deep down inside that they aren’t important and they have no clue what they’re doing. The only difference is everyone in the C-suite pat’s eachother on the back and help build each other’s ego up so they can just pretend they don’t feel it. It’s why people in these positions get so defensive and irate if you start dissecting their actual duties and importance. They’ve been reassured everyday that what they do is integral when it’s suppose to be the managers job to make his employees feel that way.

I think it’s important to realize that we fantasize the person more than actually knowing them in the beginning. This can be bad if you’re expectations are high and you find yourself fantasizing about a partner often. It’s especially hard when just chatting online as we tend to form that person in our head before we actually meet them.

Just remember it takes time to really get to know someone. You can spend a lifetime learning someones inner workings and never really figure it out 100%. It can be a blessing though since it will allow you to fall in love with the person more than once.

edit: meant to add that it’s also a similar struggle if you fantasize about “The One that Got Away”. It’s not reality, that person isn’t who you believe them to be in your dreams (both literally and figuratively if you dream about them at night). Your perceived notions of what that relationship would be might hold you back from actually fully committing to the person you’re interested in.

I’m torn on affiliate links. I’ve worked with people in sales before and it’s usually scammy unless the contract is done right (flat rate commission, no bonuses for selling “certain” items). I’ve seen really hard working and informative workers that are actually impossible to replace because of the knowledge of products and handling the customers needs without flair or extra cost. Will inform them of cheaper methods like how easy it is to purchase and install a cable versus paying someone $100 just to plug something in and flip a switch basically.

In those instances, I think the affiliate/commission is warranted. Same with some awesome youtube channels I’ve ran across where they test the shit out of several products in a category (Torque Test Channel is a good one). If I need the product and I’m buying it off their recommendation I will gladly use their affiliate link if I think about it beforehand.

Now, there are some channels that I’ve just taken the affiliate link to be basically a form of sponsorship and promotion. Sadly a lot of construction/trade channels end up falling into this eventually. Matt Risinger is probably one of the worse ones, but even lower end guys like The Stud Pack just become a “new product showcase” channel instead of DIY or instructional videos.

You’re cute

Ah, guess we’ve just hit different perspectives in life. I live in the rural south of the US. So radio, local news, politicians, and social conversations all basically skew either religious or right-wing (often times mixed). The fear-mongering is constant. One of the reasons why I was so discouraged by the DNC this last election cycle; they lead with fear mongering lately, which I was already inundated with.

I think you’re just gonna have to double-down on returns if you want that in-person experience online without jumping through hoops. Just make sure to shop online at places that have a good policy, some clothing websites know this is how it works so their policy is setup to compliment that (free returns, awesome customer service, decent return time policy).

Think of the mail delivery as your personal entourage, they bring you clothing to try on at your leisure (which you’ve pre-selected the style/etc) and you just give them back if you’re not satisfied. You can schedule pick-ups easily without needing to go to the post office every week if the company has a decent enough packaging system (some even send return slips/packages or are printable etc).

To make it easier, I would suggest getting into the measurements of your body. It’s not like your body is going to dramatically change from day to day so it should be something you’ll be able to monitor and get used to real quick (male centric video/female centric video). It’s a little more work, but will last you a lifetime as a skill to better understand your body. It will probably help lower the number of returns as well since you’ll be better informed.

Kinda sad to see the local news comment. I’m not sure if there’s just a really bad local news station by you or there’s some preconceived notions floating there, but you’re more likely to remember the reporting of a death versus Grandma Martha’s award winning plant that got recognition.

If you have other techniques for staying up to date with local and state events please share them, people need to be involved with local more than national (both are important, statistically you impact local more though). I have a couple of local news stations that I follow with their online postings. I feel it’s important to comment and discuss on those because the only vocal people seem to be extremists on there, people need to see that there are like minded people nearby so it’s not so weird to think differently to them.

I’m also confused by your religious missionaries and leftists comment, are you including the right-wing with religious? I can’t argue that everyone doesn’t push the whole savior narrative, just not sure why you singled out those two groups and left everyone else out lol.

It’s tough. Just keeping up with “trying” to be aware is a full-time stressful job (there’s literally only so much time in a day to absorb information, some have less/more). That would be hard even if everything was awesome news all the time in a world so connected.

It helps to realize that it’s always been this way, the world is a busy busy place. Everything going on, all the time, never stopping. It doesn’t pause, you sleep and the world continues on without you. It’s overwhelming, but kinda cool at the same time.

So for me, I take a step back with “mindfulness”. It’s just a word, but what you’re going for is a feeling. For instance, if you’ve been on here a long time, turn off your screen for a minute and look at your surroundings. Don’t let your mind wander back to the screen. Literally give your mind a second to realize you are just existing in a small space. Look at your wall and pick out a detail you haven’t seen before, or a tree (anything to let your mind think about something else).

Take some deep breaths or stretch or feel your toes, there’s lots of different techniques people use. But, you’re going for the disconnected feeling. If you’re breathing and still thinking about what’s online you gotta refocus to your immediate area. That argument or event is not in your vicinity. You are not helping by stressing out over it. Don’t be a fire-fighter who’s in a firehouse worried about all the houses catching on fire.

You can compensate your mind’s news addiction, by realizing you are better prepared to interact and absorb information online if you’re more stable. At some point your cognitive mind is tapped out but you’re still scrolling from habit, or you’re less likely to get your point across with proper communication if you’re not in your best mindset.

By just giving your mind a little room to breathe you’ll start figuring out what you want to do with that time. Local organization, hobbies, chores, your mind will try to fill that void with something and you’ll be able to hopefully choose something that helps your current overwhelming feeling. Fire-fighters check equipment, play games, shoot the shit, etc. They’re still extremely helpful when the time comes.

From recent events I believe online discourse is an important part of society interaction. Look at the media attention over the CEO, instead of just demonizing him, they had to spend time trying to fight all the online support and looked like fools during it.

Yeah! Can’t understand why they believe checks comment…oh… climate change? Umm, sure. You got them, glad you gave them that mental check and brought them back to reality…weren’t just being insulting or anything.

It’s morning and don’t have a lot of time but this is an interesting question I wanted to answer while it was relevant.

A lot of people have touched on the basics which kinda follow along any industry. Price gouging, variety is more expensive than just making one repetitive design, etc. Few things I wanted to touch on,

1. You shouldn’t really be replacing faucets that much. They design them to have internal structures which can be replaced. Even the crappiest low cost items can be fixed with a few bucks (they call these mobile home models, what gets put into all the mass manufactured items and are usually in a different section all to themselves). Pick a design you want and look into it’s replacement parts to save some money (if you’re worried about the part being reliably available, just get like 3 kits and you’ll be set for life).

2. Supply chain cost. Manufacturers make a product for 30, they sell it to distributors who mark it up to 50, they sell it to a store who then marks it up to 80. Home Renovision DIY has a great video detailing the process, compares online vs boxstore vs plumbing store. Also cuts them open and shows you the internals which is all great with a 13min video.

I mean, you’re not the first one to say thing. People picket, people protest, people make noise. College students are arrested, protests either get Zero media attention (or worse, are regulated to an ineffective location because of regulations) or the protestors switch to disruptive tactics that actually get noticed and are demonized by everyone for it.

Like I keep hearing this “You have to go out and take action”, EVERYONE IS! People are walking up and knocking on people’s doors and getting punched in the face. People are outside houses getting cops called on them and arrested. Everyone is now more able to point out the bad actors and exactly how that’s effecting the parties and policies.

You have Bernie Sanders and AOC out protesting and “making noise” in the spot light every damn day.

• third party doesn’t work
• you can’t solve the 2 party system
• The way to solve the issue happens between votes

our election cycle is every 2 years or less depending on the occasion. IT IS ALWAYS ELECTION CYCLE IN AMERICAN POLITICS. They have to plan early and extensively to knock off any candidate they don’t want (pulling national resources to squash anyone they view “outside” their establishment).

At this point the “make noise” comments need to reiterate what the end goal is for that make noise. You’re setting people up to just be angry and upset and protest the inequality or inefficiencies of our system when that’s exactly what the politicians want (it’s a feature, not a bug). No amount of protesting, a litany of policies at that, will be effective when the complete political spectrum is against change. Take a look at the Civil Rights Era and the voting that was concluded, it looks completely unlike anything we have now.

The political parties have strengthened their stranglehold (I’ve argued in the past that they are “political parties” in name only, they are more incorporated or an oligarch representatives at this point and should be regulated as such). They listen to power only, the power was taken from the working and lower classes a long time ago. We get our shows we can put on, but it doesn’t move the needle anymore. It used to at least force them to talk about moving the needle, even that’s gone now.

I honestly wouldn’t mind trying this once. I wouldn’t go through the whole process of setting it up, but it looks way fucking comfortable for a nice warm relaxing “my mind is in the 5th dimension” kinda fucked up night shower/bath. I could totally see the “blinds” being a mind-appeasing aesthetic for privacy.

Hating companies you perceive from a certain ethnic community is also racist. Are all “Indian” companies like this or are you making blanket statements against a race? Are all the companies exploiting workers founded from India, or again, are we singling out an ethnic group as antagonists while ignoring the governing body? Can someone be born in India, become a Canadian citizen, operate a company under Canadian law and on their soil, and it’s still the “Indians” fault?

You’re right about the international student part, that would be Xenophobia added onto racism.

1. A fear of strangers or foreigners. 2. A strong antipathy or aversion to strangers or foreigners.

Any chance you could be anymore racist with your demands? “I blame the Indians” (while working in Canada). “Once the International people leave it will be fixed!” (still, working in Canada).

How about highlighting a specific company who’s founded from India and treating employees bad in your neighboring Canadian community that has impacted you? Maybe some news articles or reports of the mishandling and abuse? Or we can just vaguely and anecdotally continue blaming “THEM” and anyone who’s International?!

Remember, Anti-work doesn’t mean Anti-immigrant.

I’m sorry, definitely on the fence philosophically about the line in the sand with vigilante killing, but wtf are you trying to say about charity and what it says about the person? I’m imagining someone sipping on their expensive tea sitting in their “designer” chair reminiscing about their grand-papi’s charity advice. Meanwhile, inheriting a large bank account and looking down on anyone extreme enough to illicit actual change in a defunct system that you benefit comfortably from.

If you’re unfamiliar with the realities of charities or meant something different than I apologize

The great majority of adult Israelis are militant settler-colonizers

link: Conscription in Israel Since the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948, fixed-term military service has been compulsory in Israel.

I don’t see how your statement and the hyper-texted link are relevant. I went through the sections but it’s just their basic military service that a lot of countries require?

This is not in defense of a government, just want to make sure we’re not making vague blanket statements on a populace.

sniffs your hair deeply