FriendOfDeSoto

I’m sure many people can relate. I’m not sure how helpful this is. You sound like you’re not from an area currently in a state of war or suffering from famine. So you’re probably somewhere where you could try to talk a therapist.

It’s not from the machine because I clean that as well. And then all clothes should get the smell and they don’t. It’s a riddle inside an enigma wrapped in confused consumers.

The problem with the question is us, the consumers. When is the last time you sat down to read the instructions in great detail? A cursory look at the recommended temperature maybe and off we go. Meanwhile a labcoat has produced the greatest formula to clean everything at room temperature. If only we used this much water and these many spin cycles. But no one read the back of the container.

Where I am at, people tend to not do a hot cycle or if they need it they go to a launderette. The liquid works okay on clothes in a cold cycle. But bed sheets and towels start smelling if they don’t get at least a 40C/100F cycle every once in a while. And I do that one on powder because it was the only one that wasn’t designed to be for cold wash only. So to summarize this extremely boring anecdote: it depends where you are, what your machine is like, and probably on local water quality as well. Or: we’ll never find a good answer here that satisfies the demands of the scientific method.

Technically, “the Holy Spirit” isn’t a proper noun. That’s because it contains an adjective also. Personally, I wouldn’t capitalize any of those terms. The head of the Catholic church only really when talking about it as a title in front of the assumed name, Pope Leo. Somebody’s style guide may have them capitalize all nouns with religious notoriety. That’s a style choice then rather than grammatical necessity.

Also, grammar is the attempt at formulating rules about how people talk. Meaning the talking came first and then somebody tried to codify it. That means there is virtually no grammar rule that doesn’t come with at least one exception. Learning when to use an article or not, when it should be the indefinite or the definite one, is killing students who come from languages that don’t use articles at all. And in some cases also those who speak other article-infested languages. That’s because it doesn’t make any sense and you had to grow up being corrected by other speakers to get this mostly right. It is convention more than clean cut rules.

How would you feel about the fact that they made the Jim Carrey movie and put it where you could see it?

I don’t think the Morisetteian irony of watching a movie that’s equally fucked up in its premise as you found out your life is would move the needle much. The rug would’ve been pulled out from under you and this wouldn’t cause more than a wry bored smile a couple of weeks later when the shock has subsided a bit.

It’s a stressful situation, a funeral. It seems insurmountable before it happens and once it gets going it becomes mostly manageable. I get why you don’t want the stress and all the family dynamics and the religious top layer.

That being said: yes, you are unreasonable. If you like going to funerals, there is something wrong with you. Nobody likes it. For much the same reasons as yours. That’s the baseline.

Think of it as a game and try to avoid talking to all the family members you don’t like. And since it will be your father’s funeral, you have the perfect excuse to have a thousand mile stare and be monosyllabic. And then you treat yourself when it’s over.

There is no need to make your father sad now. Tell him you’ll attend. Because it matters to him. Even if you have no intention to show up, which you should though. He’ll either come back to haunt you from the afterlife (slim chance) or the only people who will maintain a grudge are your living relatives. That’s the bed you’ll be making for yourself and you can avoid a whole lot of additional shit in the future by investing half a day and attend the goddamn funeral.

In a way this might be explained away with changing expectations by the audience or it’s a way to grab audience attention. I think it also depends which media you consume and how that’s funded. I think public broadcasters like the BBC are less likely to add music to their proper news segments than CBS because they don’t need to sell commercials for pharmaceuticals with an unending list of side effects. In my European view, American news at least since CNN became a thing has always had an emphasis on form over function with more pretty people reading the news, sound effects, animated graphics, breaking news alerts, etc. Unfortunately, a lot of that has filtered through elsewhere as well.

Music on news is nothing new though. I remember Enya infused VTs of collapsing World Trade Centers and videos of the tsunami and exploding nuclear reactors in line with some trip hop beat. And I remember people getting mad about that back then as well.

If you are something like 4chan or a descendant of that type of website, the answer is as easy as that. If you are Xwitter or Facebook it is not. You’re too big. You may have opened an office in the country, either because it was a legal requirement to continue operating in the country or because you collect money through it. So throwing your hands up and saying eff you we just don’t serve your country any more comes with a cost. Your ad money now needs to be paid abroad, which comes with the danger of increasing the cost for advertisers who now need to pay in dollars rather than pounds. And the representative in the local office, which you may want to close now, may find themselves in court for all the infractions that occurred before you threw your hands up (something that happened in Brazil IIRC). Also, you want the people who make the laws continue to use your platform to give it relevance. A Melon Usk Xwitter hissy fit may finally drive the rest of the politicians away. Loss of relevance will translate to loss of money.

The internet is multilaterally interdependent and scale matters.

If they’re going to Singapore, do tell them because bringing durian on public transport can get you in trouble. I think it’s just a fine and not a caning but still.

This looked totally legit until

secure communication channels below. TELEGRAM

Straight pride.

You are making this up.

I don’t think I am. I was in at least two threads where people just referred to them as Nazis and in a stage of outrage weren’t open to other interpretations. However, my post can be taken as all users who got mad called them Nazis. Some got mad and didn’t call them Nazis. That’s why I said assholes are still assholes.

It is mathematically correct to say that a portion of the energy I may contribute to Mullvad will end up financing fascism.

It’s mathematically correct to say a portion of your fees in the past may have ended up in the coffers of the Örebro Party. It seems likely that continuing payments to the company may filter through Daniel to them as well. Facism is traditionally associated with right-wing extremism. This party is a Frankenstein monster of traditional associations and they lean further to the left than to the right, except on immigration. With “remigration” as the de rigeur pipe dream corner stone. Xenophobia alone doesn’t fascism make. The Soviet Union wasn’t exactly a hit destination for immigrants. So we either enlarge the definition of fascism to include these horseshoe loonies. Or we need a new word. Or we just agree to call them assholes and any continuing payments to Mullvad carry a mathematical risk of further financing assholes, more than one.

Daniel is one of the founders of Mullvad and part owner. He took a big chunk of change from his private wealth and donated it to a horseshoe loonie party. Horseshoe because they try to marry ideas from the extreme left to immigrant hateful ideas from the extreme right. Loonie is self explanatory. His donation made it possible for that party to run a nationwide campaign.

Mullvad users who got mad simplified this to Mullvad fees finance a Nazi party directly. Which isn’t true. How much of this donation truly came from VPN fees is also a matter of debate. They aren’t strictly Nazis, more xenophobic communists. But assholes are still assholes and people choose labels differently. There is a lot of kneejerk reacting going on.

The company seems to want to ride it out. They correctly point to this being a decision by a private citizen who may exercise his free speech by donating to the loonie party. But they either don’t recognize the PR hell of being guilty by association as a company or they know the subscription drain isn’t as bad as the online outrage makes it look like. They publicly say this is all about free speech, which is their DNA, yada yada yada.

If you want something European, I’d throw AirVPN in the mix. I went there and never to Mullvad. And now I’m glad I didn’t and at the same time I’m looking forward to hearing inevitably what corpses my current provider has in the cupboard.

I dislike Proton, which I quit after the CEO praised 47 on his big tech regulation and before they handed the email account of some environmental activist over to the authorities, in France IIRC. They want to be your replacement for Google and keep pushing more services at obscure subscription levels at you. In terms of VPN, they were good though.

They seem to be on the inertia as a strategy train. Most users won’t have heard about this so they’re not in danger of losing them. A few who have won’t abandon ship because it’s a pain. And the rest they seem to tolerate losing. That’s unfortunate, say I who isn’t even their customer. I would have thought they do more but maybe another two weeks of ended subscriptions can lead them to reason and get rid of Daniel.

Fast food is slop anywhere.

This will not be the final chapter on VPNs. People in government change - the UK is ushering in the 100th PM in the last decade this week. Somebody is going to scream “think of the children” again and all reason dissipates faster than you can say “haven’t we been here before?” It’s like chat control on the continent. These zombies are eternal.

A word of warning about Ente: I chose them as what I thought would be a good alternative to Google Photos based on a thread like this about a year ago. I’ve had nothing but trouble with them to the point where I can say the only thing that works is the automatic backup function. That’s not nothing but also none of the fluff on top they say they can do. Sharing is a nightmare, especially if it includes videos. They don’t have the server capacity of a multinational tech conglomerate so they offload a lot of processing onto your devices. If you don’t always get the latest and best phone and use older laptops etc. I would not sign up for them.

I share your view on humanity. I’m glad you said something. Tone is tough to transport online.

I should have added /s.