[Outdated, please look at pinned post] Casual Conversation

Started having a conversation about it in another casual thread and it was suggested I make a post.

Its a 17 track compilation of 80s songs, some well known like hit from Depeche Mode, Madonna, Duran Duran, and The Pet Shop Boys, some are more underground like Skinny Puppy, Love and Rockets, etc. It was up to the contributing artist who they wanted to cover. And some really amazing people stepped up to contribute, like Betty X, PreCog, Missing in Stars, Giant Monsters on the Horizon, and so many more.

The recipient of the preceeds is Charles Levi, he is a well loved and respected musician in the scene and was in bands like My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, Pigface, The Newlydeads. Not a mainstream artist by any means, but he contributed to films like The Crow and Cool World, and had a huge impact on the dark electronic scene.

But yeah! Sometimes getting this together was like herding eccentric cats, a ton of different personalities all working towards a goal. Everyone was really cool though and we got it finished in the end.

Im honestly really proud of what we were able to do in a relatively short time and I appreciate everyone involved.

So, what are you guys up to?

In order for groups to function, the people that make them up have to operate in a sufficiently shared reality. The best one of those to operate in is, of course, actual reality. The more you deviate from that, the less cohesive your organization is.

I definitely consume too much dystopian content to be a fair dystopian barometer, but the sheer amount of ads being pushed my way is starting to make me feel legitimately anxious. It feels like a techno-dystopia where all of the neat and artistic elements have been extracted and then ground into dust for our corporate overlords. Even the ‘regular’ people are just trying to sell themselves. The streamers, the funny videos, the pet videos, the porn, the reposts of all of those, so much of it is just monetizing my attention.

Do ads even influence people that much? Does anyone even eat Church’s Chicken?! Do people consider switching their car insurance? I though the postmoderns were jumping the gun a little with the pictures they painted of a future with corporate logos and other advertisements spread across every visible surface, but now I have to see 5 ads and a cookie consent pop up to look up a quick definition. Watching a friend’s youtube video? 30 seconds of rapidfire ads from 15 brands. It’s starting to feel absurd. Are we going to be okay?

Some are amazing like Alien, Aliens, and the first Predator. Some are pretty good modern takes like Aliens: Prometheus and Aliens: Covenant. The synth David played by Michael Fassbender is one of the most interesting and well acted characters on recent cinema. I'm definitely looking forward to some sort of sequel to Covenant.

One of the movies is downright awful (AvP: Requiem, doesn't thematically fit either Aliens nor Predator). Alien 3 had some poor decisions that really constrained the narrative and has pacing issues. Alien Resurrection is quite corny (Sigorney Weavers acting in it, in particular all the sniffing and licking lol) and doesn't really fit the Alien theme, it's more like Firefly with Aliens in it. Predator 2 is funny in an B-movie action way (the Predator is shown getting stuck by lightning and roaring for the express purposes of looking cool). Surprisingly Predator 2 remains lore accurate despite being a bit of an action movie trope-fest.

The other franchise formats are interesting as well. The original AvP classic 2000 video game was remarkable playing as the Alien since you could climb walls and ceilings. The more recent Alien: Isolation is great at story telling and atmosphere but I hit some unfortunate game breaking bugs where I couldn't progress :(. Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a nice little co-op shooter but they hobbled the design by only having 3 players in a game that should really have about 6 players to make effective use of all of the classes (like Killing Floor 2).

I have no idea where I'm going with this, but yeah I've been on a bit of an Aliens kick.

Hello everyone,

We were discussing with a friend the other day and how Covid has one good thing when it was there: the reduced amount of socialization.

We are in our early 30s, so weekends get usually packed with one things on Friday evening, something on Saturday, sometimes Saturday evening too, and then you try to catch up with family on Sunday.

In the end, even if it feels very good to see people, sometimes it can be quite tiring too.

My current weekend was

• a chill evening on Friday with a friend
• nothing planned on Saturday until a social gathering at 6pm
• nothing on Sunday

And I feel fucking great.

So that's it, just some random thoughts, what is your stance on the matter? Do you manage to keep time for yourself, or are you running from one event to another?

Yesterday, I made bad decisions. I may make bad decisions tomorrow. But today, I made a decision that was slightly better than it could have been, and I’m calling that a win.

Enjoy it guys

So I'm feeling pretty bad, guilty and on top of that extremely tired and well, poorly.

How's your day/night going?

LIMITATIONS:

• Flight -- Cannot fly faster than 48 kph/30 mph.
• Speed -- Cannot move faster than the speed of sound or run on penetrable surfaces (e.g., water). Super speed is not restricted to running.
• Telekinesis -- Cannot lift more than 2,270 kilograms/5,000 pounds. Cannot use power on your own body.
• Invisibility -- Must be conscious to remain invisible. Your clothes become invisible when you do.

It's been months now. I've been applying to dozens of jobs per day, adjusting my application to the position, working with agencies, getting feedback from recruiters, trying to network, improving my skills, volunteering as a research coordinator, etc. I've had interviews but unfortunately haven't received any offers. I know it's a matter of time and luck, but I just don't know how to keep my morale up at this point. Does anyone have any recommendations to share for myself and others going through this struggle?

I usually avoid them because of the mark-up, but yesterday I was in the mood for a soda and didn't feel like going into a store and interacting with the cashier, so I bought one out of a vending machine. I enjoyed it. What about you? When was the last time you used a vending machine, and what did you buy?

its a very interesting, nice, and awesome experience, at least for myself n.n i got very bored of social media and honestly its toxic now :c so i decided to only make a website and maybe sometimes use forums or discussion sites (like lemmy), fortunately i made it all using html and css :3 it was so easy and i liked it. you should do that too c: do you know anyone who has a personal website??

Had go to the shitty Reddit site for the first time in a couple of months today. Aaaaaaannnddd servers are down.

Lol, meanwhile I haven't had issues with Lemmy for a couple of months, and never had any issues with mastodon.

@casualconversation #fediverse #enshitification

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/12894133

I read this article recently and I was just thinking about my news consumption and how much I want to be affected by it.

I feel like it is important because shit is going on in the world however I usually don't change my habits much over it.

I also think that there should be a middle ground somewhere but I can't think of it so if anyone of you have ideas please share them.

I called a friend yesterday, it had been a while we hadn't talked. Very cool conversation, had a good laugh at some of the stories.

What about you?

As the title says. Sometimes posts like this lead to a bunch of “paranormal” discussion—that’s ok but not a necessity. I’m relatively skeptical of that stuff myself, but they always make for good conversation and friendly debunking. This also includes very unlikely things. I’ll start:

When I was growing up (in the days before the communication revolution) my family took a trip to Chicago. During our five days there we somehow hailed the same cab driver three times, in three extremely different locations in the city. The second time all of us were shocked, and the third time we actually had him take a picture with us. I’m sure my folks have the old disposable Kodak photo buried somewhere in an album. Could he have been stalking us? I guess so. But he certainly didn’t seem like he was, and nothing bad happened. He seemed as surprised as we were. Definitely stochastic—but it’s funny how weird stochasticity can seem when it’s a little less random.

Disclaimer: full fluency, no studying required, but knowledge of the written language is not included.

As discoverability can sometimes be an issue, I thought it would be nice to share some of those

(or the equivalent of your local currency if your country doesn't use US dollars.)