deleted by creator

What I don't understand is why the German economy still hinges on heavy industry. That's so 20th century. Shouldn't it be all useless IT startups and financial services by now?

People say a lot of good things about Something Awful these days, but I think there was a real shift towards 4chan-style slur usage and shitposting that occurred a few years back. One of the last things Lowtax did, strangely enough, was close the subforums where a lot of that originated, and one of the first things the new owner did was reopen them and give them free reign of the forums. There was also a minor purge of trans users around that time, as I remember it. I really liked those forums once, but they're completely unacceptable now safe for a few of the better-moderated megathreads.

Certain discussions of weight and eating habits might also merit a content warning – these might trigger people with eating disorders in some way and so I feel it's better to be on the safe side.

I'm still nostalgic for the Saints Row 2 character creator because it was one of the only ones with a gender slider. If there's just two (or even four, see BG3) body types, they're usually still ultra-male and ultra-female in my view. The development of ever more realistic graphics has only served to cement this, I feel.

Suspended, then unsuspended, then labeled, then un-labeled. Bluesky mods are looking incredibly incompetent right now. On the plus side, he's on his way to be among the most widely blocked accounts, so at least there's that.

No regional trains for most of the night. I should be able to get home from the big city between the hours of 22 and 6

Removed: Tracking not fixed

Just remembered a strange event from my childhood. My dad and I were walking down the street when an old man stopped us in order to show us his life's work: a detailed miniature recreation of a famous circus. He had a yellowed photo in his wallet of some acrobats in the center stage of a miniature circus. We didn't know him and I never saw him again, but to this day the art of miniatures is the only thing I still share with my dead father.

Everyone wants to do mystic rituals, nobody wants to learn 16th century German or solve magic squares. Smh

The pre-1996 spelling here is the cherry on top. I'm logging on just to hear the political opinions of German techbro boomers

What seems privileged to me is the ability to avoid bigotry. Even as a comfortable first-worlder, I can hardly spend a day without encountering transphobia of some sort, and I'd rather share a laugh about it with some comrades than stew on it all by myself. Just look at the trans megathreads which always contain people recounting their negative experiences, and rightly so. The world often is a hostile place; it's not misanthropy to think so and trying to have a space that avoids talk of popular bigotry in the name of worker's solidarity is, in my eyes, the more privileged desire.

I don't mean to pour any more oil on the fire, but I'm not comfortable with how snark and gossip are described in that statement. Both are activities heavily seen as feminine (the former as an internet thing, the latter in real life). I'm ready to admit that both can be quite problematic, but using the first one as an example to be avoided because it's too close to "white cishet man vibes" and the second one as something intentionally "unserious" and frivolous seems inappropriate to me on multiple levels. So I'd also like to see at least some explanation of what was meant here.

I wish I loved anything as much as the writer loves quotation marks. So the "anti-imperialists" oppose the "Western world", namely the "US", due to "Marcyist" "Campism". Wow, you really wouldn't want to write this sentence without those scare quotes!

Not a new observation by any means, but people on Reddit are so mean for no reason. Sometimes, I ask questions about various hobbies because you can't always google everything and I inevitably get rebuked for having the temerity to not already know the answer. Sure, I'm also frequently upset about people online, but I don't go and let them know about it – that's just rude.

I need some geopolitical information on Western Sahara. From a quick read, it seems like a simple colonial situation where Morocco acts as a Western proxy against the nationalist Polisario Front. But there's obviously some other complex factors, like the ambiguous position of the non-Western superpowers. Any informed opinions?

Once again reminding everyone that Politico was bought by Axel Springer three years ago, a German right-wing tabloid company that has support for the USA and Israel as its stated core values. Even if they have nominal editorial independence, they know what their employer wants to hear.

Content warning: Physical health (negative)

I'm undergoing a root canal treatment at the moment and it's really painful, all in all. I've had the 3rd of 5 appointments today, my painkiller has worn off and I can only take one more today, so I'm just suffering mild, but absolutely constant and insistent pain. The worst is when I get a sort of nauseating flashback to the moment when the dentist bored into my nerve. Like, that's not just a feeling of pain, there's also the deep discomfort of getting a hole made in your skull. And I've never been good at distracting myself, so I'm really hoping everything just clears up by tomorrow.

I've got a question for all of you: What's the best way to run a leftist reading group? And where to start? For context, this is going to be a small number of young people who do not habitually read, so my academic instincts are useless here. Someone suggested reading during the meeting, which is maybe more approachable but I don't see how would this work logistically (do we read out loud? Do we wait for the slowest reader to finish and then talk?). And I need to suggest a text. Presumably, people would get intimated by Capital, so something introductory with short chapters might be better. Any ideas?

Thinking back on it, it was very strange that the "Interview with the Vampire" TV series included both anti-Communism and apologia for Nazi collaborators in the same season. I feel like that's not something you really have to add in an adaptation.