I feel a bit of schadenfreude for this one. I was bullied harder in Boy Scouts than I ever was at school or church. None of the leaders ever noticed or did jack shit about it. There was an expectation of physical strength and ability that I was never able to meet. The uniforms were ridiculously expensive. And the higher levels of the local org were deeply cultish under the surface and intertwined with the Mormon church in bizarre ways (this was before the Mormon church stopped being an official sponsor of scouting).

I know things have gotten better lately, and the current administration is incapable of doing good things, but if Scouting goes bankrupt I will not shed a tear.

For sure, I wouldn’t say it’s unpleasant.

Jack Johnson. If you hear one of his songs in public just say “oh, Banana Pancakes” and move on with your life. Not a soul on earth will be able to correct you

Saw a teacher mugshot, saw “high school teacher arrested,” assumed something much worse.

Weed? Yeah, make her pay a fine or something

Search is essential to my job, so Kagi is well worth it. Better rankings than Google, clean results, no ads, kind of a no-brainer for me.

“average new yorker harasses women” factoid actualy just statistical error. Sexual Harassment Georg, who used to be mayor and sexually harasses over 10,000 women each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

Not OP but yes, if you can get through the dialogue with Kierkegaard the rest is pretty digestible. That said, you might get more out of it if you’ve got a basic foundation in existentialism and nihilism first. A lot of what makes absurdism interesting and important is its contrasts with other philosophies.

Microsoft Office: it’s not even good enough for international criminals anymore ™

I worked at a company that made software for multi-level marketing companies (legalized pyramid schemes). Some of our clients sold snake oil remedies and were always getting in trouble for claiming they could cure cancer. I liked my coworkers and the job itself, but I hated the nature of what we were supporting.

I don’t think you can separate one from the other.

The company was always getting screwed over by dishonest clients, but we never sued because it would be bad for our reputation. The financial pressure grew until we started acting like a much dumber business: taking bad deals, outsourcing to cheap overseas teams, forcing everyone to work crazy hours, doubling up on the “we all have to make sacrifices” kool-aid, the list goes on. I didn’t stick around for long.

I’d do it again if I had to, to keep food on the table, but that experience taught me there’s no “right way” to operate in a bad industry. Eventually you either assimilate or go out of business.

Year of Linux on the…handtop?