What's Bothering You? (The thread about what is bothering you.)

[phinix]

Was that taken off cause people were not able to take criticism?

My guess is that anything that discourages views interferes with the profit flow.

Remember the old saying: "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes."

Did not know that saying, but its true.
For me this is the same as taking away freedom of speech from me.

[tp4tissue]

The vote system is not effective, because it assumes everyone's opinion is equal.

So If an idiot, says, Eating meat makes you strong, on the internet that has as much leverage as a licensed physician/scientist saying, no it causes cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.

Then you have the blue and red maga, who are functionally illiterate, and they just latch onto which ever blip agrees with their existing "narrow" "myopic" world view.

Free speech in general, is too broad a notion to enforce, and that's why we've never truly enforced it. We've done it as window dressing, but push comes to shove, black body bag and an unmarked grave .

[Findecanor]

I finally didn't get employed at the place where I had had an internship, i.e. modern slavery. It didn't come as a surprise, but it still feels bad.

[noisyturtle]

Spill a martini into your keyboard? No problem!
Spill a white russian into your keyboard? BIG problem!

[tp4tissue]

They never told Tp4 that the hardest thing in doin' dat a capitalism is the amount of day, afternoon, night alcohol.

Seriously what is up with making money, then deciding alcohol+++.

Long term, it seems virtually impossible to avoid alcohol-ism.

Also very weary of "tea",  it's droogs-lite. The source of all conflict.

[tp4tissue]

Met a bio-hazard xpurt 2 day.  Most people's kitchens basically are hazard zones.

[fohat.digs]

Most people's kitchens basically are hazard zones. [/size][/color]

Luckily for all of us, cooking is an effective sterilization process.
 

[Findecanor]

Most people's kitchens basically are hazard zones. [/size][/color]

Luckily for all of us, cooking is an effective sterilization process.

Heating, yes.

I once ordered a raw-food salad at a café that also served fish. I'll never do that again.

[noisyturtle]

Something ingrained in me since a very early age: Always leave the kitchen cleaner than when you started cooking, and I still strive for that every time I prepare a meal. Admittedly it is much easier to do when you only cook for one.

[fohat.digs]

Something ingrained in me

Hard to know. Neither of my kids got that gene, I don't think they get much satisfaction from being in a tidy space.
 

[tp4tissue]

Most people's kitchens basically are hazard zones. [/size][/color]

Luckily for all of us, cooking is an effective sterilization process.

Heating, yes.

I once ordered a raw-food salad at a café that also served fish. I'll never do that again.

It's effective, until you touch the same faucet handle you inadvertently contaminated with raw chicken fluids, then a bout of massive poots follow.

[tp4tissue]

Tp4 wishes rich people would stop drinking. That alone would fix so many problems.

That and eating meat, it destroys your body, and the mind follows.

[noisyturtle]

My great shame is I have never been able to learn how to use chopsticks. It is so extremely frustrating to me, the entire rest of the World can easily figure it out naturally, but my stupid invalid hands just cannot do it. I've probably tried to learn 100s of times, and it just does not make any sense to me how people close and have control over the top stick. Plus they give me terrible hand cramps in seconds of holding them.

[fohat.digs]

My great shame is I have never been able to learn how to use chopsticks. It is so extremely frustrating to me, the entire rest of the World can easily figure it out naturally, but my stupid invalid hands just cannot do it. I've probably tried to learn 100s of times, and it just does not make any sense to me how people close and have control over the top stick. Plus they give me terrible hand cramps in seconds of holding them.

I can do OK but I have a lot of trouble picking up a single grain of rice.

[Findecanor]

There must be some trick to how Asians use them that I have missed... Or is it just experience from having used chop sticks several times every day throughout their lives?

I can use chop sticks, but I also feel that I constantly have to fidget with them to make them sit right in the hand. I too get hand cramps if I would use them for too long.

[Findecanor]

I want to fly to Japan, to be there on my birthday this fall, but I don't know who to conquer my fear of flying.

A few years ago, I thought that.. perhaps I could take a railroad through Russia and then a ferry from there.
Well, a certain someone made that impossible, and also closed the airways, so that plane trips from Europe would have to take longer and be more expensive.

[tp4tissue]

I want to fly to Japan, to be there on my birthday this fall, but I don't know who to conquer my fear of flying.

A few years ago, I thought that.. perhaps I could take a railroad through Russia and then a ferry from there.
Well, a certain someone made that impossible, and also closed the airways, so that plane trips from Europe would have to take longer and be more expensive.

You're more likely to die from the increased cancer odds, of rad1oa(ti v hot particles from fvksh1ma contaminated tokyo region,  then you are from a plane falling out of the sky. toyko region, food, water, soil, city scape is heavily contaminated. All the rich japanese people have moved away their wife and children, only the worker husbands and the oblivious population stay.

Planes are somewhat more dangerous this year due to significant lapses in the economy on parts and maintenance, but it's still much better than your average car/bus.

The only other draw back to planes is because you're high up, you have less protection from gamma rad1a7ion,  meaning, it's equivalent to getting 1-3 Xrays, depending on the length of your flight.

[fohat.digs]

to conquer my fear of flying.

I don't have any particular advice except to say that flying is statistically very safe.

My experience is limited, I doubt that I have flown more than a couple of dozen times in my life (with the first few in propeller craft without pressurized cabins) and never in any sort of severe weather, so I have never felt unduly frightened.

As a science fiction fan I have thought a great deal about space travel, and there is no way that I would want to leave the atmosphere. What sort of shielding would it take to protect you from something the size of a car engine coming at you at 30,000 miles per hour?

[tp4tissue]

Don't get in trouble wiht dat LAW people, it's a mess, Tp4 head's bout to blow up just handling it for someone else..

[iri]

I want to fly to Japan, to be there on my birthday this fall, but I don't know who to conquer my fear of flying.

A few years ago, I thought that.. perhaps I could take a railroad through Russia and then a ferry from there.
Well, a certain someone made that impossible, and also closed the airways, so that plane trips from Europe would have to take longer and be more expensive.

EU isn't 'someone'.

Also, a train journey on Transsib from end to end is going to be both boring and exhausting, so it's better for you to try to 'conquer your fear of flying'.

[Findecanor]

I've been diagnosed with shingles. The doctor said that it could have been caused by stress.. and indeed my life has been quite stressful lately.

[fohat.digs]

I've been diagnosed with shingles.

Ouch! A couple of my friends went through that and they did not enjoy it.

That made me go get the vaccine, the 1st shot was no big deal, but the 2nd one sent me into half a week of pain. Still - much better than the whole enchilada.

[tp4tissue]

I've been diagnosed with shingles. The doctor said that it could have been caused by stress.. and indeed my life has been quite stressful lately.

This happens when your immune system is weakened as the herpes virus is dormant otherwise, kept in check.

Stress could cause it,  but you could be dying from 100000x other things.


Don't sweat it though, when the universe decides you die, you die.  Try to enjoy every sip of water.   There are afghanistan mothers drinking dirty water, and towns with massive birth defects due to the use of Dep1 et   d   Ur 4n  ,, ivm  ammo by the US4 .

So relative to that, or an Indian slum, or Philippines slum where they eat discarded second day trash bin fried chicken from Jollibee, search PagPag.

Your life is actually pretty good despite the setbacks you've had.

[Kavik]

I've been diagnosed with shingles. The doctor said that it could have been caused by stress.. and indeed my life has been quite stressful lately.

I apparently had a mild case of this a few weeks ago myself - bumpy rash on my shoulder and one-sided sunburn sensation and itchiness. My doctor cut me off as I was describing the symptoms and said I'd had shingles. I'm not even 40 yet. My brother had it a few years ago too, and he's not that much older.

[Findecanor]

To top it all off, yesterday when I was tending my tomato plants, I leaned down right onto a cane and hurt my eye. Has been hurting like hell, but at least the eye is OK.

[tp4tissue]

Becoming a pirate, could be fun.

[fohat.digs]

I leaned down right onto a cane and hurt my eye.

This has happened to me numerous times and makes me nervous. But it is difficult because a sharp stick is very small when viewed end-on.

[tp4tissue]

I leaned down right onto a cane and hurt my eye.

This has happened to me numerous times and makes me nervous. But it is difficult because a sharp stick is very small when viewed end-on.

The sticks also don't have to be "That long,  they can be lower than the tomato plant.

Also, you can ziptie a little color cloth to it.

[Findecanor]

Becoming a pirate, could be fun.

I could cosplay as David Hasselhoff as Nick Fury. (although few people would understand who I was supposed to be)

Also, you can ziptie a little color cloth to it.

I could stick styrofoam balls on them and paint them red. On second thought: red balls might be mistaken for ripe tomatoes...

[tp4tissue]

Either Yellow, or bright magenta.

[tp4tissue]

Seriously, how do lawyers stay sane*.

The legal process is so convoluted and the vaste majority of it is just poor use of time. It's almost like throwing your life away.

[fohat.digs]

process is so convoluted

I once attended a sales training session where a senior AT&T salesperson said "Where there is confusion there is opportunity."

[tp4tissue]

You know what really sux.

When you have to "PRACTICE" something you have absolutely 0 interest in just to "Fit in."   Of course no one Tp4 hangs out with like dat arm0r cr0e..

Fffff Golf.  Golf sux. sigh........

The only thing worse is horse stuff. Where it's like Golf, + sweaty smelly animal. Not to mention the cruelty of it.



All this stuff also involves the outside,  which Tp4 is extremely allergic to. 


Why can't people just stay in doors, and play dat PC.

[tp4tissue]

Speakers young people buy.. Do they even consult physics?

/head desk

[fohat.digs]

Here it is in brutal clarity.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/7/21/2334266/-Thom-Hartmann-asked-a-question-Why-is-the-GOP-ruining-America-Here-s-my-reply-FWIW

TL;DR
"So this is where we are. The Republican Party can’t win using ordinary methods. On the process side, they can win only by inflating the white vote via gerrymandering, cracked-and-packed districts, and ruthless black voter suppression. On the policy side, they can win only with heavy dollops of strident and outright bigotry against Mexicans, Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, Chinese, and anyone else who comes along. Even Canadians will do in a pinch.

Today, the Republican Party exists for one and only one purpose: to pass tax cuts for the rich and regulatory rollbacks for corporations. They accomplish this using one and only method: unapologetically racist and bigoted appeals to win the votes of the heartland riff-raff they otherwise treat as mere money machines for their endless mail-order cons .... 

The mainstream media and too much of the Democratic establishment is still in denial about Drum’s conclusion — and especially about his suggested remedy:

Like it or not, this is the modern Republican Party. It no longer serves any legitimate purpose. It needs to be crushed and the earth salted behind it, while a new conservative party rises to take its place. This new party should be conservative; brash; ruthless when it needs to be; as simpleminded as any major party usually is; and absolutely dedicated to making Democrats look like idiots. There should be no holds barred except for one: no appeals to racism. None. Not loud ones, not subtle ones. Whatever else it is, it should be a conservative party genuinely open to any person of any color.

It would also help if they were absolutely committed to the rule of law, the constitution, accountability, and democracy, but increasingly those ideals seem to be incompatible with conservatism." 

[tp4tissue]

There are 2 conservative parties,

They're both extremely racist, both funded by billionaires, both inflate the dollar, both waste all public funds on the military, both support unheathy americans to slush the medicare cabal.

Both parties are severely weakening america.

[fohat.digs]

"Is This the End of Youth Sports?

Private equity firms ruin damn near every business they snatch up. That’s by design. It’s the entire point. They recently did it with Party City. Then they did it with Toys “R” Us and KB Toys. Private equity firms only care about what a business looks like on paper—not if it’s actually healthy and thriving.

These firms are akin to a house flipper who remodels a home as cheaply as they can with the lowest quality products, using the most inept contractors possible to flip the home to an unsuspecting buyer.

That’s why a report from The New York Times on the infiltration of private equity into youth sports is such a depressing read. If you’ve been to a youth sports tournament recently and felt like you accidentally wandered into a minor league stadium crossed with a theme park, it’s because youth sports leagues are increasingly being sold to private equity firms.

Those firms are pricing out underprivileged communities as they cater exclusively to the wealthy parents of youth athletes who display even a modicum of talent. 

After Running Every Other Industry, Private Equity Is Dead Set On Ruining Youth Sports Next

The Times report follows a man named Jon Bash, a New York diner owner and a baseball dad, who spent a decade chasing his son Jesse’s baseball dreams. He spent thousands sending Jesse to a private equity-owned facility. Jesse will play college ball, and who knows? Maybe he even makes it to the majors one day.

So far, to Bash, it’s all been money well spent. But the world of professional sports has no guarantees. There are only so many teams with so many open roster spots. With thousands of kids who have parents willing to fork over the tens of thousands required to play in these leagues and attend these training facilities, the only people guaranteed to succeed here are the ones who run these businesses.

Josh Harris and David Blitzer, the billionaire owners of the Philadelphia 76ers, are major players in the world of private equity youth sports. They saw a potential gold mine. So they launched Unrivaled Sports, a company that gobbles up youth leagues and the fields they play on with the intent of making a fortune off the hopes and dreams of children.

It’s Little League meets the depressing dystopia of late-stage capitalism. Where nothing can be good and pure anymore. Something can’t exist for its own sake. It has to turn an enormous profit, or it is an abject failure and it’s ripped to shreds, leaving a gaping hole in its wake that at one point provided a sense of community.

The youth sports industry hauls in tens of billions a year, and it’s no secret why. Places like IMG Academy, a sports-centric boarding school in Florida, tuition clocks in at around $85,000 a year.

For that money, kids get pro-level coaching, careful dietary monitoring from nutritionists, and mental performance labs that look like they were built to train astronauts, not volleyball players."

- Luis Prado 2025-07-11

[tp4tissue]

Youth sports is a problem that will solve itself.

Sports, historically was the domain of the Excessively wealthy.

Guy didn't work the field, he had "an education" and "played sports."


Youth in the not too distant future, 20-30 years, will probably be working factory jobs as the "Energy economy" rapidly contracts.

Just like in India and most low-energy-access countries.  NOT an outlier, not a fantasy, but THE REALITY.


Fact of THIS VERY MOMENT, There are more children on the planet, with jobs, than without.

According to slavery research, depending on the width of definition, there are more slaves TODAY, than before the abolishment of Slavery.



What do all these 3rd world children and slaves sponsor,   the 1st world way of life. Fast fashion, single use plastics, excessive unboxing experiences, Obesity, throwing away 40% of purchased food.

This way of life is extremely temporary, we're rapidly running out of sustainable EROI on new energy extraction. The ecosystem is also closing in on total collapse, and do remember, Our ECONOMY considers all ecosystem damage Externalities, as they are unaccounted for in any metric.

Humanity's Tombstone will read,  GDP, the end.

[fohat.digs]

It looks like Aeroflot got hit hard by hackers.

My fear of a worldwide cyber war inches ever higher.

[tp4tissue]

It all comes down to Escalation.

We already have uncountable supr weapons to destroy the world. They are trivial to deploy.

[noisyturtle]

I've had my computer upgrades sitting around for over a week and I'm too lazy to do the clean and rebuild -_-
What am I gonna do when I take a break? Go on my phone at home like some sort of animal?

[iri]

"in which Noisy learns how to read a book"

[fohat.digs]

Since inauguration in January, Trump has missed playing golf only 5 Saturdays and 6 Sundays.

[phinix]

Since inauguration in January, Trump has missed playing golf only 5 Saturdays and 6 Sundays.

He's here, like 40 miles from me 

[tp4tissue]

Hide yo' wives hide yo' kids

[phinix]

Hide yo' wives hide yo' kids

Hehehe  )