TechyDad

I was the victim of a cyberstalker about a decade ago. This person was convinced that I was really someone else that she had a beef with. Her reasoning? We both like taking photos. (Apparently, I’m the only one posting photos online. All those pictures you see online? That’s all me. No wonder I have no free time!)

I couldn’t argue with her to let her know that she was mistaken because she had it on “very good authority” that I was lying about who I was. Namely, “God told her.” And I’m not exaggerating here. She literally thought that God talked to her and told her stuff like who was committing crimes.

Oh and I was guilty of those crimes according to “God.” I won’t name those crimes because they’re heinous, but suffice it to say she thought I was doing unspeakable things to kids. She was threatening to call my employer, the police, and everyone who knew me to tell them about what I was doing.

Luckily for me, all she had to go on was “TechyDad.” I blogged at the time, but didn’t post my exact whereabouts or my real name. The guy that she thought I was wasn’t as lucky. She contacted his employer (a school in New Zealand) and everyone with the same last name as him that was on Facebook and near him. All to tell them what he did to kids. (Again, her source was “God.” He didn’t really do anything and he had to have quite a few awkward conversations to clear things up.)

I finally got rid of the stalker by grabbing her IP address (from one of her comments) and modifying my htaccess file to report 404 Page Not Found for only that IP. She crowed on Twitter about how she singlehandedly took me down and then moved on. (I and her other targets would report her to Twitter, but she’d constantly have dozens of other handles ready and waiting and would switch to them the second her main one was banned.)

To my knowledge, she’s still out there stalking people.

Now, how would this have been different had she had my real name? Well, with a little work she would have been able to look up my location. (My name’s pretty common, but she’d find me eventually.) Then, she’d locate my employer, my address, and other information. She could send me packages or mail harassing me. She could contact my local police to swat me or just to report my “crimes.” She could contact my employer to report me and try to get me fired.

Now, I eventually did tie my real name to “TechyDad.” I wrote a book and didn’t want to publish under “TechyDad” so I used my two name. That being said, it was my choice. I definitely wouldn’t want it to be required for me to use my real name everywhere.

The only reason that he seemed like a “Genius CEO” with SpaceX and Tesla was because those companies had layers of management dedicated to protecting the company from Musk.

If Musk marched into Tesla and decided that all Tesla cars should have eyeball shaped headlights, managers would tell him what a genius idea that was and that they’d get right on it. Then, they’d distract him with something else while the idea went in the trash can.

Twitter has no such management layer so every Elon Epiphany becomes Twitter policy no matter how bad or destructive it is. SpaceX and Tesla were successes despite Musk and Musk gained his “genius” reputation because those companies were able to filter out his idiocy.

I buy Beyond Meat bricks for $8.99 a pound. That’s pricey compared to regular beef, but I’m an outlier with pricing. I keep kosher at home and kosher meat is VERY expensive. Between the price and hassle (it requires separate pots/pans, plates, utensils, etc), I keep vegetarian at home. It’s just cheaper and easier.

Beyond Meat lets me cook “beef” dishes for less than kosher beef would cost me and with more flexibility. (Tonight, we had pasta and Beyond Beef meatballs with cheese - a dish I couldn’t make using kosher meat.)

There’s still a market for products like Beyond Beef, but I agree that they’ll need to hit “normal need” price levels before it really takes off.

Even if cultivated meat was initially bad for the environment, I’d guess that it would be easy to minimize it’s environmental impact versus traditional meat. There’s only so much you can do to stop cows from belching CO2. However, a factory making vats of cultured meat could install pollution controls to reduce their emissions.

I’d definitely like to see peer reviewed studies backing everything up, but my guess is that cultivated meat will on par with or be better for the environment than traditional meat and will only get better.

I’m not vegan, but I do keep Kosher and I’m sure there would be a huge debate in the Jewish community as to whether cultured meat was kosher.

Assuming that the animal that the original cells were taken from was Kosher (e.g. a chicken or a cow, not a pig), then would the cultured meat be Kosher? Would it not need to follow usual processes (specific slaughter techniques, salting and soaking the meat to remove blood, etc) if there was no animal/blood?

As cultured meat takes hold, there are going to be a lot of communities trying to take it into account. I’m sure there will be plenty of arguments as to the status of it as well. It should be interesting.

Apparently, those subreddits are now not only open, but completely unmoderated. Reddit’s solution was to remove the mods and put nobody else in charge. I’m sure that won’t backfire in any way whatsoever! /s

Thanks for posting this. It will help me replace a few more of the subreddits I loved going to with Lemmy alternatives. I might still need to go to Reddit for a couple of subreddits (one local one and one hobby one), but my goal is to reduce my Reddit usage as much as possible.

Looks good. I can’t wait to try it out. I’m liking Jerboa so far, but having more apps competing to be the best would be great.

It’s working for me. I typed out the address before. Let me try copy/pasting: https://redditmetis.com/

My first day off Reddit, I had severe withdrawal. I kept trying to launch Boost (my third party Reddit app of choice) despite not really wanting to. Thankfully, a focus app I installed for just this reason stopped me. I eventually moved the app shortcut and put Jerboa in its place so that muscle memory took me to Lemmy instead.

By the second day, the withdrawal wasn’t as bad. I did miss some things, but I was starting to realize how little I really cared about much of it.

By now, Lemmy has replaced about 40% of my Reddit usage. Another 50% I’ve deemed not important enough to replace. I now have only one subreddit that I really miss. I’ve found a Lemmy alternative, but of course Reddit has a bigger community.

That one remaining subreddit is still dark. (I tried to see how many subscribers it had and saw it was still dark. I wasn’t going to read any posts if it had gone back online.) If it comes back, I might stick around there, but I’ll also stay on Lemmy and will push this as a Reddit replacement. (I think Jerboa and Lemmy have some rough edges that need to be improved upon before they can truly be a replacement, but they are surprisingly close.)

It is https://redditmetis/. You put in your username and it will tell you stats about where you post and comment among other things. (Look for Top Subreddits By Number of Comments and Top Subreddits By Number of Submissions.)

That’s the one I joined. Only 19 people are subscribed there, though, versus over a million in the LEGO subreddit. It’s got some room to grow before it can be a complete replacement for me, but I’ll definitely be sticking around there.

Ukraine would be happy to provide Russia with more ammunition. It’ll even be delivered at high speed!

The problem for Trump is that even the lesser charges come with prison terms of up to 5 years. If he gets a “light sentence,” he could still be required to spend two years in prison. This isn’t something that he could handle easily.

I’m waiting to see if the Feds manage to get a change in which judge handles the case. I think they have a decent shot at it. If they get a sane judge in charge, then Trump is sunk.

Before the subreddits went dark, I used a tool to see which subreddits I’ve posted to and commented on the most. Then, I added in a few subreddits that I had newly joined and so weren’t represented in the data.

I had a list of 17 subreddits. I actually subscribe to over 30, but clearly the others weren’t that important to me. I’ve replaced at least 7 of those (including the top 2) with Lemmy. Most of the others really need no replacement as they were just time killers.

About the only subreddit that I really care about that I haven’t found a good Lemmy replacement for is r/LEGO. Yes, there’s a Lemmy alternative and I’ve subscribed to it, but there are few people there.

So if I do return to Reddit, it will likely be for 1 subreddit only. I’ll unsubscribe to everything else and deal with Reddit trying to push me into other discussions while I help the Lemmy LEGO community grow.

Trump keeps claiming that he’s being treated differently and he’s right, but not in the way he means it. He’s not being persecuted. He’s being treated with exceptionally soft kid gloves.

He was given multiple chances to return the stuff he took. He was asked politely before a subpoena was issued. He was given time between the subpoena and the raid to turn everything over. After the raid, he wasn’t immediately arrested and tossed behind bars. They even allowed him to come in and skip some procedures like being handcuffed and getting his mugshot taken.

He’s been given way more considerations than anyone else who committed even remotely the number of infractions that he committed would get.

If Trump wants to not get treated differently, I’m all for it. Arrest him and toss him in jail while he waits for his trial. As a bonus, suddenly his usual tactic of delay, delay, delay won’t be as attractive.

Hello fellow Reddit Refugee!

Here’s a list of Lemmy communities that I found which helped me to get settled: https://browse.feddit.de/

Remember that they only get their information from pro-Trump sources. Imagine if you didn’t listen to anything but FOX News, OANN, Newsmax, and the like. All the “news sources” you listened to told you that this was a witch hunt and that anyone who disagreed was a traitor to this country.

You’d likely wind up shouting about Trump’s innocence and how this was all political retribution.

They’re wrong when they say this, of course, but the root cause is a refusal to listen to anyone who tells them a contrary position.

My proposal has been house arrest at Mar-A-Lago with a twist:

First of all, no visitors. That includes no members allowed to come stay at Mar-A-Lago. Not even Trump’s family. Mar-A-Lago can refund any membership fees because Trump will be the only resident allowed besides Secret Service and security guards hired by the feds.

Secondly, Mar-A-Lago is taken over by the federal government. Trump could owe fines as well as prison time and this could help pay the US back. (This also means he can’t charge the Secret Service to stay in his club.)

Third, Trump’s movements are highly restricted. He’s confined to a small guest bedroom (not his normal one) for most of the day. He’s allowed out for meals and 1 hour of “exercise” a day. Obviously, smartphones/computers/social media are NOT allowed at all.

Finally, Mar-A-Lago gets a downgrade. Trump doesn’t get a cushy bed, but whatever a standard prison bed would be. He doesn’t get his normal meals, but whatever slop the prison food service cooks for him. I wouldn’t expect them to make his stay imprisoned at Mar-A-Lago into 100% the same as a federal prison, but they could get it as close as possible. (Keep any luxury for the guards and Secret Service. They’ll need to be dealing with Trump daily. They deserve some comfort.)

I was waiting for someone to do this. Should make for interesting listening.