Ideally, OP’s crawlers will just come from their own instance that other instance owners can defederate from if they want to opt out.

There’s no inflation in space, just explosive decompression!

You felt much more strongly about it than me then. I just found myself not caring about it in the slightest; the only thing I really felt was boredom. Which is arguably the worst possible outcome for any work of art.

I’m pretty sure the opposite of “critical thinking” is “free thinking”, at least based on all the “free thinkers” I’ve spoken to. I assume it’s short for “free-of-critical-thought… thinking”.

The last thing I saw regarding him was him being unable to comprehend how secret rooms in Metroid work. It was painful.

I don’t know if it’s perhaps a regional thing but, in the UK, “being patronising” is used pretty much exclusively in the pejorative sense, with a similar meaning to “condescending”. I don’t think I’ve ever heard (in actual conversation) “being patronising” used to mean someone is giving patronage, in fact - we would say someone is “giving patronage” or “is a patron” instead. We also pronounce “patronise” differently, for whatever reason: “patron” is “pay-trun”, “patronage” is “pay-trun-idge” but “patronise” is “pah-trun-ise”.

It seems the pejorative use of the word dates back to at least 1755, too, so it’s not exactly a new development.

Nowadays, you have to assume your personal data being used to train an AI model is the cost of signing up to any free website unless they explicitly tell you otherwise.

So am I!

However, I can’t say I listen to or follow Billie Eilish - I only found out about her coming out from reading this, in fact - but even as someone who’s just mildly aware of her, I will say I’ve never assumed her to be straight. My gaydar’s probably better tuned than the average person’s but even so, I feel like her being some flavour of queer was fairly obvious and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that’s influenced / shaped the kind of audience she has.

Unfortunately, I suspect an artist who’s less obviously queer would lose a larger following for coming out. But yes, Billie Eilish only losing 100K followers is really encouraging still!

I’d play the hell out of a Remnant-like Warhammer 40K game. The Remnant blueprint is perfect for a 40K game.

I prefer real poo, personally.

rich people who ruin things

I wouldn’t say I’m consciously boycotting Ubisoft, personally. But I sure as hell haven’t bought one of their games for a long time, and with the way they’ve been going as a company in general, I can’t see myself buying anything from them in the near future. If they do release something worth buying then I’ll consider it, though.

“Access your data for all websites” is important because otherwise it doesn’t know what domain you’re on in the first place.

My usual go-to is to ask what their latest/current obsession is. It works really well for a few reasons:

• it’s nice and simple to ask - it doesn’t require a monologue/wall of text to set up, and it doesn’t require you to know anything about them to ask it;
• it’s both as personal and as low-stakes as they want it to be. They can give very intimate, in-depth answers if they feel like it, or they can just mention something like the latest film they enjoyed. There’s no risk of making them uncomfortable by asking it;
• it lets you filter out boring people who don’t really take interest in anything;
• assuming they do have interests, it often gives you plenty of opportunities to dive into deeper conversation;
• it’s often engaging for them because they get to talk about something they’re passionate about;
• it’s often interesting for you because people talking about things they’re passionate about is awesome (and often attractive).
• it’s pretty much always relevant and fresh because their latest obsession will change over time. This makes it particularly great for things like dating sites/apps because people’s bios will often be out of date and/or they’ll have talked about the things mentioned in their bio so much that they’re kind of sick of them.

I’ve actually had multiple people on dating sites tell me how great a question they think it is, and that they’re going to use it themselves in the future. So obviously it’s not just me who thinks it’s a great question!

I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely not hydrated enough to take a piss break every five minutes!

“I can’t find a source because the government and [[[globalist]]] mainstream media is covering it up. Do your own research”

If everyone’s super(rich), no-one is.

People can be angry or upset about more than one thing at a time. And you’ve no idea whether the person you responded to has been outraged about the US’ strikes or not. Just because a society as a whole has a viewpoint that trends a certain way doesn’t mean you can assume each and every individual you talk to has that exact viewpoint.

By all means, criticise society as a whole - it’s a very valid thing to be critical of. But making assumptions about individuals - and being rude to / critical of them based on those assumptions - isn’t the way to win anyone over.

Well I’m just glad Harry Mack managed to release his 100th episode of “Omegle Bars” this week. He decided to take a break from doing Omegle-based content at the right time, it seems.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Harry Mack’s a freestyle rapper. He has (had) a series where he’d ask strangers on Omegle to give him a handful of words and then create a full song out of them on the fly. And not just saying those words then immediately moving on like most freestyle rappers do; he actually creates entire verses on the topics he’s given and really raps around them. Plus he’d be calling out things the people were doing as they react to him, responding to things they say, mentioning things he can see in the room, etc, as he raps.

Here’s one of his freestyles that’s really stuck with me ever since I first saw it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehcA4zCeaPI

He takes what are some fairly negative, “cry for help” words from the girls and turns them into a really beautiful, positive rap overall. He’s a very positive guy in general, and I’ve watched him consistently since I discovered him. Binging his videos got me through a breakup, in fact.

My own experiences with Omegle have either been penises or just bland, and it’s not something I’ve used for many years as a result. But videos like Harry Mack’s show what wonderful things could come from it and I do think it’s a huge shame it’s gone. It feels like another part of the old internet’s gone, and that we’re moving even closer to the sanitised, heavily-monetised internet run by megacorporations. I hate that.

Even if Starmer and the Labour party were pretty much the same except they kept the mask on, that would still be a step in the right direction. Normalising the racism, bigotry, corruption and general inhumaneness that fuels the Tory party is absolutely something we should try to avoid.

However, I don’t think Labour is like this. I don’t think they’re perfect, but I think they’re much, much better. They’re not going to fix everything overnight, but I do think them getting into power would be an important first stepping stone in moving the country and politics towards being a better place in in 10-15 years. They may not be your ideal party but, if you’re pragmatic and have any kind of long-term vision, you’ll likely vote for them (or the Liib Dems, depending on which constituency you’re in) to make sure the Tories are eliminated.

The Overton window is far too far to the right at the moment and Labour getting into power is important for helping to gradually shift it leftwards. People simply aren’t going to vote in a “radical” socialist in the current political or economic climate; they want someone they can see as a safe pair of hands who can work on stabilising things somewhat. Right now, that’s Starmer - the boring man who’s politically central (by current standards) with a fairly clean record and an air of competence. When, in most constituencies, the options are Labour and Tory, you working to put everyone off Labour is just going to benefit the Tories.

Stop letting perfect be the enemy of good.