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Cake day: June 18th, 2026

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  • huey_m@reddthat.comtoPrivacy@lemmy.mlSo it begins
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    2 hours ago

    I’ve been predicting for while we’re going to see two parallel Internets develop, the “new” net running on the old infrastructure that’s basically run by the big guys and a new infrastructure modeled after the old internet that’s decentralized. We’ve been seeing a bunch of different pieces from Fediverse to LoRa communication, Meshtastic, Matrix, increased hobbyist interest in old ways of connecting computers (even saw a guide on how to set up your own dial up ISP for fun), etc. I’m not sure exactly how all those pieces are going to come together, but a locked down internet is only going to increase demand for what was lost in its creation. And its already been trending this way for awhile.





  • This is way worse than what Yen did. This guy donated a lot of money to a party that explicitly pushes demigration policies, and if there was any doubt that this was a motivating factor for the donation, he later said he felt those policies were necessary. That’s understandable to not want to give your money to someone who you know is going to go bankroll demigration politics with some of your money.

    Yen praised the Republicans at large over an anti trust pick.

    I think the other criticisms of Proton’s policy changes are valid, and everyone has different standards for what is enough to divest from a company I guess, but I’ve heard people calling Yen a fascist sympathizer for that statement, and that’s just divorced from reality imo.


  • Look, I’m not saying I agree, and I’d turn pretty much all companies into worker cooperatives tomorrow if I could, but the reality is the median American disposable income is ridiculously high compared to most countries (if I recall right, only Luxembourg compares, which, I mean…). Inequality is also ridiculous, and there are also a lot more in extreme poverty, but they tend not to be as politically active (because being in poverty is fucking exhausting, been there). But the middle class, which tends to be more politically active, still has way, way more wiggle room than the middle class in most other places. It takes a lot more economic pressure to pinch them hard enough to take action.

    The fact is if you’re poor, the US is financially an awful place to be while (most of) Europe is pretty tolerable, but a middle class American generally has way more money in their pocket (even accounting for things like health care) than nearly any other country’s middle class. There’s a reason a lot of young professionals from Europe go to America for 5 years or so to build up a nest egg to bring back to Europe… salaries for the same positions are usually way lower here and advancement is usually harder compared to the US (again, talking about professional work here). My wife is in middle management and can literally make about 4-5x what she makes in our country in the US… while things like rent and healthcare would take a larger % of our income, our total dollars saved at the end of the year would be way, way higher in the US (we’ve both lived and worked in the US in the past).

    None of this should be read as an endorsement of the US system, I’m personally a socialist that would see worker co-ops required by law, and as someone who has moved from real poverty into the middle class, I’d gladly take a reduction in income to ensure my neighbors aren’t on the street trying to find enough to eat, I don’t believe in shutting the door after yourself… but it does explain why there isn’t as much clamor to change it as people might expect. The unpopular truth here is we’re a very biased sample here and the wider middle class in the US is actually doing pretty well globally. People don’t like it, but it usually takes real economic pressure to get people into the streets.


  • huey_m@reddthat.comtoMemes@lemmy.mlwestern women rights
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    15 hours ago

    Dress codes for restaurants (jackets and ties required), dress codes for gas stations (no shirts, no shoes, no service)

    Now this is goofy… comparing a private business telling you what you’re allowed to wear in their business versus a state mandating what you can or can’t wear? Come on, man…

    dress codes for schools (uniforms)

    We have all sorts of extra restricted rights for children. They don’t have a lot of rights most adults do in public schools. Free speech is greatly restricted… should the state then extend these restrictions to the wider public because it happens in public schools for children?

    Calling this idea goofy when making a false equivalence that should be dispelled with a 101 level understanding of government is the soul of throwing stones from a glass house, dude.

    There are definitely arguments for restricting this kind of thing, but this isn’t one of them, this is just silly.


  • I mean, this is true, but if you ignore enough rules you’re essentially playing a different game.

    But some systems are easier than others to wing or remove pieces. 5e already, for better and for worse, hand waives a lot stuff as up to the judgment of the GM, rather than having explicit rules on how to handle something. I think this is a bad thing for long term groups because it puts a lot more work on the GM (this might, ironically, make it good for new players but less good for new GMs), and for people who know their way around ttrpgs it’s a little annoying that so much of the experience, even more than usual, relies on each given GM with less reliable and predictable outcomes.

    But what rules 5e does have are usually pretty simplified… looking at 3.5, something like grappling has very explicit rules on how to resolve things in what feels like a pretty satisfying way, but it is very verbose… 5e just says “eh, contested Strength check and call it a day”. It’s just a very, very simple system at its heart. And again, a lot of stuff is just straight up written as “leave it up to your GM”. This is frustrating for more veteran players that might want to try optimizing or pushing the bounds of a system and need a structure to push against, but for a newbie just having fun and who isn’t too hung up on outcomes, this is a feature not a bug imo.

    My fear with more open systems is like you said above, it can give especially new GMs and players a bit of paralysis in not really knowing where to go… I think 5e strikes a good balance of giving newbies a structure to work with while telling them not to sweat details too much. I could see with the right group though that isn’t too timid or afraid to explore how this might be a benefit more than a hindrance…

    All that said, I haven’t tried Fate itself, so I’m speaking generally here. I’m sure I’ll get around to checking it out at some point, though I’m mostly moving genres these days into stuff like the new Shadowrun and Cyberpunk RED so might be awhile… appreciate the rec though, we have a sub group that runs new systems all the time so I’m sure we’ll get around to it lol.



  • Just hasn’t been my experience, man, and I’ve introduced maybe 2 dozen people through that system to ttrpgs. 2 bounced off. That’s a pretty good success rate imo.

    I think it feels fiddly to people who already know a thing or two about mechanics, but most of the fiddliness can easily be ignored or barely paid attention to and you can still manage to play and have fun. It’s a lot easier to just hit straight brick walls in games like pathfinder or shadow run where the player is so lost they just can’t play. I’ve started 5e games impromptu at parties for people who’ve never played and been up and running in 30 minutes with drunk people and had a blast lol. That’s hard to pull off in a lot of systems imo.

    The ones I referenced that wouldn’t learn to roll dice weren’t confused by the system… they just honestly didn’t really like to play as much as they liked the idea of playing through popular media. The hobby just wasn’t for them, I can’t really see them engaging with any system.

    I’m not saying there may not be other systems out there technically better suited… but 5e is pretty damn good at it while also being popular enough that people have heard of it and are interested in trying. That last part is just as important as being technically good on paper.


  • It’s by design. It’s just meant for more casual play, that’s all. I play Shadowrun (pre Anarchy) so I’m no stranger to crunchy systems, but 5e is nice for just getting together with friends, drinking some alcohol, and having fun role playing without having to pay too close attention or needing a group that’s really dedicated to learning the game deeply. More tilted towards friend groups and less towards gaming groups, if you will.

    I’ll say as a GM, the low bar needed for learning and playing 5e is much easier to get people on board with and even then that bar isn’t always reached… I’ve had to kick people for just refusing the learn what dice to roll after months of sessions. 5e is a great gateway drug to get people into TTRPGs though, and then when you start finding out who is really getting into the hobby, you can spin that group off into crunchier systems and keep 5e around for the more casual role play enjoyers.


  • huey_m@reddthat.comtomemes@lemmy.worldtrains rule
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    2 days ago

    Relax, amigo.

    Look, I’m not sure if there’s a language barrier here, so I’ll try to rephrase this simply: if trains have fencing on either side, there are almost always man gates every so often so that a) the tracks can be accessed for maintenance and b) in case of an emergency ( like we’re discussing, ahem ) there is an exit to get people out and off of the tracks.

    Is your expectation for emergency egress that sidewalks are required along the entire route in order to have emergency exits from a fenced area???

    What you suggest is like letting people leave a plane and walk along the tarmac.

    Buddy, this is exactly what sometimes happens. What do you think they do? Sometimes a plane just isn’t able to be fixed on the spot and you have to disembark on the spot. Shit happens.

    What I want is to get from point A to point B safely.

    Then why are you driving? That’s statistically way, way, way more likely to end in a fatality for you and it isn’t even very close.

    Southern Europe cosplaying as western Europe for the purposes of feeling superior to eastern Europe is legitimately funny though, especially since I’m from a place where both would be considered barely functioning countries lol.

    That being said, you seem to really be getting up in your feelings with this since we’re devolving to both unearned and mistargeted national pride, so I think now is probably a good time to block and move on :) . Been fun, amigo, but maybe get one of your countrymen to pass a J and loosen up a bit, eh?

    Drive safe!


  • I generally agree, but there is a level of ignorance where you don’t even really know what questions to ask, and subjects complicated enough that you just aren’t equipped to understand an answer without needing a lot of background education first because they just aren’t intuitive at all by nature. At that point, is there really much value in asking the question?

    Determining where that line is is hard sometimes, but I do think it’s there.



  • huey_m@reddthat.comtoGames@lemmy.worldSingle player games
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    2 days ago

    Oh, come on. It’s not bad if you play something fantastical like cyberpunk… that’s a world so far removed from reality, we’re talking corporations running the world, harsh police actions driven by corporate interest, commodification of basic health services, constant death and destruct…tion.

    Well, shit.


  • Walking through the woods is not what I would call “a better [train] experience”.

    What are you actually wanting here? “They won’t let us off the train, we’re cooking in here” and then “Oh they let you off the train, what an awful experience”? Pick a lane here, guy. Being let off the train sounds a lot better to me than heat stroke… I’m still not sure what you really want in this scenario.

    I’d still like to know when this actually happened? A breakdown, sure. But trying to keep people to stay on a clearly dangerous train? Hard to believe.

    Do you not have mandatory gates every x km in Spain? We have plenty of sound barrier fencing, and all of them have gates a short distance apart exactly for safety reasons.


  • They will not open the door you dufus.

    No need to be a prick :).

    They will indeed do exactly this in my experience. We even had a sort of viral video of this happening here in Hungary… train broke down, they opened the doors and walked people through the nearby woods to the nearest village.

    If Hungary is managing a better train experience than Spain… I would understand your frustration, the situation must be pretty damn dire there.

    But again, I doubt this has happened at all… even aside from physical, can you cite a situation where conductors would not “let people off the train” when it was getting dangerously hot during a breakdown? It’s hard to believe that Hungary would handle this better…

    You can get a fine for using emergency exit.

    In a non emergency, of course.



  • huey_m@reddthat.comtomemes@lemmy.worldtrains rule
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    2 days ago

    Man, I’m surprised to hear that. International travel is infamously shit, that’s part of why so many Europeans fly. The trains themselves are fine, but there’s a mishmash of standards, electrical systems, booking systems, etc, and every country just wants to engage in protectionism and refuses to harmonize with others. Trying to book travel through multiple countries is usually seen as a bigger headache than it’s worth, not to mention more costly, than flying which is just backwards in terms of incentives.

    Maybe if you’re getting one of the tourist Eurrail pass thingies it isn’t so bad, but for regular international use (aside from just going to one country over, so just one journey) Europe really needs to standardize its rail travel much, much more.


  • the AC stops working, the windows don’t open and it gets real hot real fast unless it’s some extreme situation they will not let you leave the train

    That sounds to me like an extreme situation.

    All trains have emergency releases on the door to allow manual opening. Practically, if it is actually getting hot to the point of danger, no conductor is going to physically stop you from leaving the train. More likely they’d be the ones to let people off.

    I’d need to see a news story of this happening where they were trying to force people to stay on a dangerously hot train. This sounds like a made up scenario.