I tried to watch the Thursday night football recap yesterday and accidentally opened YouTube instead of smarttube. I was shocked. I watched a minute of ads to start and one minute in I had another minute of ads. YouTube was basically unwatchable.

I’m okay with blaming nepotism. I also want to point out the other problem is the vast majority of new housing builds in cities is entirely luxury condos. You can’t fix a supply and demand issue if you never address supply.

This. I attended several concerts and recitals when I was in college. A girl I was seeing was actually music major. Now I’m a hick who just happened to get a degree and enjoy classical music. But I felt like a fish out of water before and after the concerts. Concerts themselves were excellent.

There was a time that I thought people didn’t understand the consequences. Now I realize that most people are just entirely apathetic.

My friends started calling me a cat because they said I had 9 lives. lol

Side note: I don’t know if I was clinically dead in any of these.

I have three experiences. When I was 10 I was hit by an SUV travelling 50+ mph while walking across a highway. It knocked my shoes off and threw me dozens of feet. I still don’t remember anything. Apparently I was unconscious for awhile. First responder said they saved my life while waiting for an air lift to take me to the hospital. It was the kind of nothing when you sleep and wake up.

The second I mixed a bunch of drugs. I think I was on 5 different ones. I took an absolutely massive rip of air duster and instantly my body was gone and so was anything resembling reality. I remember thinking ohhh I’m dead. My being and/or individuality was melting / merging into this infinitely recursuve fractal pattern. The sense I was an individual was an illusion. Then I snapped back into consciousness.

The third I definitely don’t think I was dead, but it was a very relevant dream. The kind of dream that is so vivid it is indistinguishable from reality. I was completely sober at this point in my life (in part because of the experience above and another experience with hallucinogens where I saw the exact same thing the VFX artists made in the exorcism of emily rose, but I saw it before the movie was even made).

The dream started with me at my own funeral. I was for lack of a better word a spirit. I’ve never had dreams like this before or after.

The most fascinating thing was the sense of need and/or desire was completely gone. I felt the most free I had ever felt in my life. But I did have tasks. I had to visit my best friend Brant. He was in a very dark small place that I kind of transported to he was dead/ a spirit too. He apparently hasn’t had a source of light here and I apparently had a small bit of shine. Because the room lit up a bit when I entered. We laughed about how weird it was that there were shadows even though we were semi transparent. Then my dad (whom I never saw but apparently was guiding me through my tasks) said I don’t know how long you have left you need to go. So I left and I visited/transported to my mom who was also a spirit. We danced together. She was skinny and wearing a bright red dress. There was more light here but it was still nondescript. Then I woke up .

I sobbed like a baby for probably 30 minutes when I woke up. The biggest change was that I had desires again. I desperately wanted to stay in that state I was in during the dream. The best I can describe it is if you had a good job, had great sex, ate an amazing meal, than sat in your most comfortable chair next to the people you love, for a brief moment you wouldn’t feel any base human level desire just a vague satisfaction. It was like that but times 100 and it was just the default state.

Since they dream I’ve only told it to strangers and Brant. Brant had since died via suicide at age 25. My mom who has been obese most of my life, has lost significant amounts of weight and now owns a strikingly similar dress. Honestly I don’t know what to make of it. It still spooks me. It changed my life.

Only one million. Apparently the IRL answer is come talk to me when your company makes the fortune 500.

Lol. I always tell people I have oceanfront property, in 2050.

Carrier pigeons? Idk.

Any culture can be harmful and secular people can and often do good.

A lot of that has more to do with modern politics than with religion, most of that is a reaction to Western Imperialism. Look at the way women dressed in the 50s and 60s in Tehran. Even Indonesia, the country with more Muslims than anywhere on earth had a female prime minister before Hilary even ran.

This is a very narrow viewpoint in my opinion. I’m not denying religion has caused harm, but a large portion of people have found it to be a means to do good (and I mean legit good that almost everyone can agree on, things like foodbanks, stopping addictions and so on)

How are you finding Palestine in general. I’m planning a trip in a couple years to visit the done of the rock and although I’m a Muslim in a very white blonde hair blue eyed American with very limited Arabic skills.

It’s like saying airplanes are completely harmless. Compared to cars sure, you are much less likely to die in one, but it isn’t a nill chance.

It took me way too long in life to realize you can’t change other people. There is a famous Persian poet (Rumi) who stated “when I was younger I wanted to change the world. Now I want to change myself.” Really it’s made me a lot happier as well. No more stressing over why people don’t believe me or spending hours in pointless arguments. Just focus on what I know is needs improvement in my life.

I should have left reddit a long time ago and I even tried a few times, but the lack of an alternative to keep me connected (it was my only social media) always had me coming back. So I’m proud to say I’m at least a week without any reddit whatsoever, not even peaking in my rearview mirror at this point.

Until we live in a world where people have equal access to information and essential technology piracy is a moral imperative.

Should something which costs a few hours worth of work in the developed word cost three weeks worth of work in a less developed country, just to make a publishing company worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars a few extra bucks? Of course not!

Every other argument is a moot point to me. If I hadn’t pirated Photoshop and other software when I was a poor kid I wouldn’t have the six figure career I have today. The ultrarich steal from us every day in more ways than I can count. Maybe when they start being held accountable I will start caring about their bottom line.

Is the pirate bay not good for this? I was surprised I didn’t see them mentioned.