As you can see, I'm on mbin, originally because it has the goal of being a network that could be used to access a number of other networks - definitely Lemmy, and Mastodon was promised at some point but I don't think that ever happened - and development doesn't seem to be going further.

So I'm curious - is there a "do-it-all" network? The basic idea is: when I scroll through my feed, I not only see content from Lemmy, but also from Mastodon, Piefed, Peertube, Pixelfed, etc, and can also comment on or create content there. Is that something that exists or is that a pipe dream at the moment? (Or would that not even be possible due to some technical limitation?)

Whelp. So I actually had the most interesting discussion I've had on ML. Generally, I ignore the nasty comments there and only respond to those who are actually trying to have a somewhat decent discussion. They're few and far between, but they exist. Which ended up happening - I had an extended discussion with Cowbee on what a dictatorship is and what democracy is. While IMO there were pretty huge gaps in his arguments, I have to respect that he actually engaged in the discussion without the usual name-calling, putdowns and insults I'm used to on that corner of the fediverse (yes, it's a low bar, but credit where credit is due). And I'll be honest, it was a fascinating window into the world view of people who think like that. Call me crazy, but I actually learned something.

At some point, the discussion started going in circles, and I figured there's no point continuing, since as far as I could tell, everything relevant had already been said, and he didn't exactly seem to have anything new to add, either - so I stopped responding. (To be fair, I stopped responding once before because life got in the way, but the discussion resumed after I noticed that the thread was actually still alive for whatever reason.) This morning, I wake up - banned for 6 days. Reason: imperialist. The discussion had next to nothing to do with imperialism. It's like whoever it is who banned me didn't even bother trying to give a proper explanation. Meanwhile comments like

That’s literally exactly what that means you fucking moron

didn't get a ban, even though they're in blatant violation of rule 1:

Be civil and nice.

Interestingly enough, my comments are all still up. I've tried to archive it (unfortunately neither archive.org nor archive.is worked) because I actually genuinely found the discussion interesting, even if Cowbee's arguments ended up reinforcing my own opinion more than I thought it would.

Weird place, ML.

EDIT: I checked lemmy.ml's modlog and interestingly enough, my ban isn't listed there, even though I'm very clearly banned from the community. Not sure what's going on there (or if I'm maybe misunderstanding how this works)

More and more it seems like I'm seeing opinion columns being posted in the fediverse that are, to be fair, bad takes - but everyone seems to act like it's representative of the entire publication. Which misses the entire point of opinion columns - they're about providing different points of view, food for thought, if you will. Show you things outside of your bubble. The inevitable reality is that if you do that, you're going to have some bad takes. If you don't have some bad takes every once in a while, your opinion column is bad and you should feel bad.

Yeah, there are bad publications that try to distort reality. But you don't identify them by picking out bad takes from their opinion columns.

Unfortunately can't find the original video, but it was just called "subtitles". One of my very first YT Videos, if not the first.

I remember a couple of years ago I read up about the details on how QR codes are created. Specifically the masks that are added at the end to ensure that there aren't any areas with too much whitespace or something that ends up inadvertently looking like the corner of a QR code (that square inside a square thing).

And for some reason, I'm staring at two QR codes in front of me, looking at the details, one looks like it contains a pipe going around a corner, another looks like it has a bit of a star, which made me wonder... Why have I never seen a QR Code with a swastika or something else you really don't want to have on there? I've never seen any word on filtering out stuff like that when it comes to masking.

Am I just too bored out of my mind so that I'm staring at QR Codes like this with way too much imagination or is there something I'm missing?

EDIT: I'm sure it's possible to intentionally create one, I'm thinking more of accidentally creating one. Specifically when I see, for instance, a different QR code on the back of every seat in a train, for instance - you're generating so many, no human is going to check that.

Sorry in advance for the long post, I've tried to trim it down.

I'm trying to understand what is happening to a friend (assuming that what's between us is still a friendship). Background story:

I've known her for a couple of years, but the friendship really only got started about a year and a half ago, it started more as an acquaintance with a colleague. She was always really open - she talked about how she's not super stable psychologically, is in a toxic fwb relationship (her own words, not mine), and a whole bunch of difficulties she was dealing with mentally. Having had a lot of difficulty with my mental health, having been in an abusive situation myself, and having learnt a lot about toxic/relationships in general, I've noticed I listen to people's mental health difficulties very differently, where they open up to me in ways that they don't open up to anyone else. And a lot of what she was dealing with was people being inconsiderate with her. She wanted the same consideration she gave other people - a fair ask, in my opinion.

Eventually, we started developing quite the friendship. I got to know her as a very empathetic, relatively open person with whom you can talk about everything. Qualities I look for, whether it's friendships, relationships or even just the parts of my family I chose to spend time with. Thing is, at some point, she said she thought she was developing feelings for me. That "thought she was" turned into "she was". And honestly, I was never expecting it to go in that direction, but when I started looking at her that way, I could slowly start seeing it. Long story short, this toxic fwb was a major obstacle that fucked it all, literally. We ended up saying things would stay as a friendship, and I'm fine with that (even though I had the impression she wasn't super happy with it, even though it was her suggestion, but that's a longer story). Things have settled in that regard, at least from my view, in the meantime.

In the same time span, I had encouraged her to go to a therapist. I had talked about the mostly positive experiences I've had with therapists, her GP had also recommended she get one, and eventually she called me out of the middle of nowhere saying she was legitimately considering it, and she then did go see one. Thing is, from her descriptions, he seems to be quite the oddball. He's a depth psychologist - not a problem, but some of the things she said about him seemed off. On top of that, after sessions with him, it was like a time bomb had been set off in her, that would detonate about a week later and then she would not be doing well at all. With weekly appointments, that means she was feeling pretty shitty. The psychologist's "answer" was: I do depth psychology, not CBT. Like, I get that psychotherapy can make you feel unwell in the short term, but help in the long term. I sometimes feel pretty shitty after walking out of my psychologist's office, as well. But in her case, it seemed like (and she even said that's pretty much what it's like): here are your sometimes pretty difficult realisations that make you question everything about yourself, what you do with it, figure it out or your own. Maybe I'm off here, to me that seems kind of irresponsible.

Now we're on a trip we planned a year ago, and something really isn't right. Where before it seems like she was a boiling pot of emotions that you could see, now it seems like the contents of that pot have been poured into a pressure cooker. You don't see it boiling anymore, but hear it hiss every once in a while, and I feel like I'm expecting it to explode. I've noticed this in the last few months, but this trip really cemented it. I'm almost kind of afraid of addressing things, this was never an issue before. She barely talks about how she's doing, she always says everything is fine. Sometimes I can manage to get into conversations about deeper topics with her. And in one of them, she said the main goal of her therapy now is autonomy. Which - at first glance, makes sense. She was always pretty worried about other people and what they though of her, and often did things to avoid a bad conscience. But she continued explaining. What that means for her. That, for instance, if there's someone who fell while skiing, she doesn't stop because she's worried about that person, she stops because it's part of the ski hill rules. There were a couple of other examples, but you get the idea.

Honestly, I was shocked. I had a feeling things were going this way, but to this extent? This person who I once knew as an extremely empathetic person has now turned into someone who doesn't care all too much about the people around her. I have no idea where this is going, but a part of me is afraid she's turning into a monster. I know I shouldn't feel bad for this, but I feel like I made a mistake in recommending therapy. Suddenly, a bunch of people she does stuff with aren't friends anymore, but people who are useful for doing things with. I asked if I'm one of these people. She said yes. And then later said she's always available for me if I need something (one of many weirdly contradictory things she's said or done recently).

We had a disagreement the day before yesterday and talked about it yesterday, really talked the whole thing through, about our emotions in the whole thing, why we acted like we did, and were really honest with each other, something that hasn't happened in a while. After that, she seemed a lot more relaxed, we had found a solution for us both. But then, this evening, I have this feeling something's in the air again.

I'm at a loss. Has anyone else ever experienced anything like this?

Had some fun with this. Rules:

1. When a tankie post comes up, post a legitimate, fair argument. Do not argue in bad faith. No matter how nasty the post may be. Legitimately combat the disinformation there by going into their bubble and posting a sane response.
2. Watch the responses come in. Especially if the post is on the tankie triad.
3. Don't feed the trolls. Don't respond to anything, unless there is actually a legitimate attempt to have a legitimate discussion. Otherwise, start a game of tankie bingo to help prevent yourself from responding to the madness.

Suggestions for expansion welcome.

EDIT: well, to the surprise of no one, it's made its way to the slop community at Hexbear. Aaaand again, they totally miss the glaringly obvious point.

EDIT: since some can't access the link: https://bingobaker.com/view/9956948

(Sorry for the double post, sometimes I'm too stupid to use the internet)

Trigger warning: abuse, suicide First off, I'm not taking about guys who call themselves nice and act like manipulative jerks. I'm talking about people who are legitimately nice, caring and loving. As such, this doesn't only apply to men. Storytime: a good number of years ago, I got to know someone who I not too long after started a relationship with. She was loving, kind, and caring - really, what I look for when it comes to relationship material. Except... She still lived at home, and her "mother" was horrifically abusive. Unfortunately, also very intelligent, so that she was always a couple of steps ahead of you. Well, she also got abusive towards me very quickly but was such a master of manipulation and Gaslighting that I had no clue what the fuck was going on. I also didn't know how abuse worked, so I was ripe for the picking. A year and a horrific half later, I got "kicked out" (in other words, my then girlfriend was gaslit into projecting all of the faults of her own mother onto me leading to a messy breakup) because I started asking too many questions and didn't simply accept what I was being told, including that I allegedly had memory problems (which turned out to be pure and utter bullshit to gaslight me). So, I finished last, I lost the person who I thought was going to be the love of my life and I was ready to marry eventually. You know who also finished last? The women who would have liked to been with her father, who is a great guy. The likelihood that any one of them could have been worse than her is exceedingly small. You have to achieve that kind of evil first. My ex? Still living at her parents' place. Word made it around that my ex's and her father's cars at some point regularly had nails and screws under their tires, which mysteriously stopped when one of the father's friends told him "you know exactly who did that if you're honest with yourself". Well, I did a shit ton of reading on psychology and abuse to understand what the hell I went through. And also in the hopes of helping them, but as mentioned, it didn't work. But the fact that I know so much about it, have experienced it myself and tend to try and listen to people when they tell me about their situations means that I seem to be a magnet for victims of abuse. I always try to help. I know how awful my situation was and if I can help someone out of a similar situation, I will do what I can. But it's often frustrating. But I actually was able to help someone out of an abusive situation. After a suicide attempt due to the effects of the abuse I landed in the hospital, and got to know someone there fairly well. She was also in an abusive situation. And I actually was able to help her out of it! Mind you, it was after I had lost count of her suicide attempts, but hey, you take the victories you get. So hey, at least in that situation it wasn't as bad... But fast forward to the last few months. A colleague I've known for a little over a year and a half tells me more and more about her friend with benefits. She tells me almost right from the start, that it's a toxic relationship. I hoped it's not that bad. After a couple of tell tale signs too many, yup, it's abuse. Long story short, we also started developing feelings for each other and were hoping to help each other through what we were dealing with. Well, the fwb made sure to fuck it up. She even said, otherwise, she's an afterthought for him (even though he expects to be at the top of her priority list), but in a case where he might lose her, he will fight for her. When I asked how, she described exactly what he did in my case. But still doesn't see that he did it in my case. And now the feelings she told me about apparently weren't feelings but something else, and he's suddenly not as bad and besides the constant manipulation and if you ask me rapey behavior, he's actually quite OK... Like don't get me wrong, my primary concern is that she gets out of that situation, which doesn't look particularly likely at the moment, but to get back to the topic, yet another case of the nice guy finished last. Rant over. TL;DR: fuck abusers and the people who enable them. And why the fuck are they often more successful than the people who don't abuse people.