Well ‘buy local’ tends to be the solution most people offer when this particular discussions arises. But I agree that only solves some issues. Especially since local shops also get that stuff from the same sources.

I’m more of a ‘there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism’ kinda guy.

But frankly, I’ve got too much going on to worry about the ethics of where I’m sourcing pens and notepads. I’d rather focus on the big things.

It’s also a question of availability. Looking at my last ten purchases, simply none of those were available locally here. We don’t HAVE a camera store here to buy things like lens caps. The stationary store where I went didn’t HAVE large elastic bands, only small ones. Nor did they have the specific Pentel gel pen that I use for work. The shoes I bought (US size 17) are not available, since stores don’t stock past size 13.

I did buy a laptop stand, so technically I could’ve bought say, a plastic box or some books locally to do the same thing. But the stand is nicer.

For me, it’s not about the price. I’d rather spend 10 for something great than 1 for something that sort of works. I am by no means cheap. But I do have specific needs and tastes that my local stores don’t cater to.

And hey, if they won’t sell me what I need, I’m not going to feel bad about buying it somewhere that will 🤷‍♂️

Well, that’d mean missing out on some really cool stuff.

Games like Vampire Survivors and Stardew Valley were made by a solo developer. A couple thousand bucks is a LOT of money for some people. I’d hate to have missed out on either of those.

We certainly do need some quality control, but I don’t think the financial route is the way to go.

This shit frustrates me to no end. These days I just look on Aliexpress first, just so I’m aware what the usual drop shipping item actually goes for.

It’s very annoying that platforms like Amazon tolerate this. Because it’s actively driving me away from them. I want to see good quality items, not the same Aliexpress shit priced ten times higher. But I can’t FIND the good stuff because the platform is literally full of garbage.

Hey, you and me both; sweet and salty is an excellent combination. But some people have not yet seen the light and the glory that is pineapple on pizza. Goddamn heathens.

No doubt the thing had some no-no thoughts. Probably regarding the acceptability of pineapple on pizza, or the total extinction of the human race. Either way, good on them for pulling the plug, I guess.

To be clear, I’m not ‘not adopting’ - I’m actively boycotting that shit. The whole TOM thing was annoying enough, but everything else surrounding it has proven to me that Microsoft cannot be trusted with that level of access to MY hardware.

So yeah, I’m going to put Linux on my PC and ultimately back to Mac full time, I imagine.

These will always be challenging topics for sure :-)

I love a bit of statistics to be honest. If you look at general web use of men versus women, it’s actually fairly close: 65 percent of women are online, versus 70 percent of men.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1362981/share-of-internet-users-worldwide-by-gender/?srsltid=AfmBOorKXVKN0UiT2Y390LczKu4wTJIUfgaandRAK1rCE22WrXwrgXow

There are obviously some discrepancies to be found, for example in less developed countries, women are online a lot less.

If you look at platforms, men certainly are a majority on all of them - which makes sense, since we obviously outnumber women online in general. But the gap tends to be smaller than most tend to think.

For example, Facebook is 43 percent women, 56 percent men. Reddit is around 65 percent male.

https://adamconnell.me/reddit-statistics/#%3A~%3Atext=Like+most+social+networks%2C+Reddit%2Cplatform's+audience+identifies+as+male.

Now, Lemmy might be a bit more niche which attracts a bit more men. But I imagine women will certainly be more than 6 percent here if we did a proper, honest platformwide survey.

I imagine the male-centric feel of these platforms is more determined by amount of posting and engagement. If men outpost women 2 to 1 for example, it’s going to feel way more like a guy place. I also imagine many women don’t feel like pointing out that they are women for obvious reasons, further skewing our perception. We think the person on the other end is male, and since they post nothing to the contrary, our assumption must be correct. Even if it isn’t.

I’d certainly love it if women felt safe enough to share their perspective without fear of being harassed. Even if it’s only 1 in 100 men doing it, it only takes 1 to ruin your day I imagine…

Where’d you get that stat? That feels high. I certainly have never been asked to show my penis on Lemmy or anything like that. The signup thing also doesn’t ask for gender.

I believe the French had a nice invention for that. And it’s not the ‘pain au chocolat’…

Huh, I didn’t know that. I would’ve guessed they’d use some open source alternative.

There’s people who use that? That’s news to me.

Did their parents drop them on their heads as kids? Because there has to be something seriously wrong with them if they think that’s the way to go.

A 60 dollar buy is a VERY hard sell. And a 15 dollar subscription is a completely no-go. Or rather, ANY subscription.

Whoever came up with that is seriously detached from any form of reality.

Microsoft is going the way of Boeing; trade in the actual people who know how to build a good product (the engineers/seasoned developers) and replace them with management fuckwits.

Case in point the recent updated to Windows 11, which outright bricked a whole bunch of PC’s - again.

And just look how they’re handling the forced move to Windows 11. Well, fuck’em. I’m going to Linux. Windows is dead.

Not exactly surprising, considering the TV’s and monitors are outpacing the contemt creators and gaming development.

A lot of gamers don’t even have GPU’s that can crank out 4K at the frame rates most monitors are capable of. So 8K won’t do much for you. And movies and regular TV? Man, I’m happy there’s 4K available.

A 4K screen will be more than most folks need right now, so buying an 8K at the moment is just wasted money. Like buying a Ferrari and only ever driving 25 mph.

Yep. As a child of the ‘80’s, life was definitely like that for the most part.

A lot of it comes down to both smartphones and the loss of ‘third spaces’ in general. I read an article in Newsweek this morning about an MIT study that analysed footage from between 1978 and 1980 and compared those same spaces today.

It shows people are now walking faster and not hanging in groups as much. There’s less eye contact and less engagement in general.

As stereotypical as it sounds, hanging out with your friends at the mall was just what you did. We spent hours just hanging around game stores and such. It connected you with people you knew and people you didn’t. Hang out with someone in the mall for 30 minutes and you’re now friends.

The current generation is a lot different. There’s no real physical, organic hangout. And when there is, it’s now more often seen as a nuisance rather than an integral part of the social fabric.

I definitely feel like the author of that article posted here missed the mark. The 80’s were definitely radically different from today.

God yes. I absolutely LOVE a well written manual.

Even if you THINK you know how a thing works, it’s always good to find out the quirks and gotchas, not to mention functionality that might not be obvious at first glance.

In fact, I read the manuals before buying an item or piece of software. They tend to be much more enlightening about a product’s limitations than the marketing material is.

Conversely, it really annoys the fuck out of me when people come on forums and ask a really basic question that’s answered on page 2 of the manual. It shows that someone is incredibly lazy and incapable of basic problem solving. And they have the audacity to get offended when you tell them it’s covered in the manual.

You’re welcome, enjoy your odd new fact :D

Stuff like this is why I really enjoy The West Wing. It often has interesting real world arguments that it plays out smartly. A bit too optimistic in our current political climate, but still fun to watch.

We absolutely, positively, one hundred percent need adult only spaces as well. Especially when the goal is to relax.

A lot of parents simply aren’t doing proper parenting. As a child, I was taught not to be a nuisance to others. And those others would also correct said behaviour in kids. But these days? Kids apparently have the right to be as annoying as they can be, and god forbid you tell them to knock it off… the parent actually gets offended!

So parents are really doing this to themselves. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that we have a TON of actual child friendly vacation options. Let the adults have a proper place as well.

And if child free vacationing being on the rise bothers you? Maybe look at your parenting style.

It was very much a real discussion back then as well. The writers didn’t invent this argument.

People have been complaining about maps in general since we first started making them. The Gall-Peters projection that they mentioned traces its origins back to 1855 when James Gall first introduced the concept.

In the 1970’s, Arno Peters made this projection well known. He specifically argued the point the show makes: other maps distort our perception of the world and it fosters problems with how we treat some countries.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall–Peters_projection