askchapo

Any resources to understand would be helpful.

This is kind of a random place to ask, but fuck it.

Staying in La Plata Argentina to learn Spanish. Found a good deal on an AirBNB with solid reviews. The woman who owns it has been a PITA the entire time. I showed up and there were some dirty dishes. She told me that was impossible bc her relatives cleaned. Showed her pictures and she was still in denial lol.

Last night I got no sleep because I was itching. Found little black and brown spots on sheets, according to google it is probably bed bug casings or w/e. I just know the owner of the place is going to deny it and be annoying. AirBNB is notorious for bad customer service, so idk if I would get any refund. Especially since I'm a week in and the stay is until mid January.

I am low on funds... What do y'all think. Should I try and fight the bed bugs? And if you've ever dealt with bed bugs, give me the rundown... I don't have a drier but I was gonna wash everything and dry it outside, then spray RAID...

Or should I use my credit card 😬 on another place I can't afford... I don't get paid until January, so I don't want to do that. But I don't wanna see these bugs spread like the plague and end up in my shit.

Thinking of starting a coin collection. Any coin collectors around here? Any tips?

I've read two articles now, I'm still pretty confused. Concerning because I was going to attend a school for a bit there. I see there's a potential coup and some right wing crazies getting riled up. And that the us is against it... But that's about it.

Can someone help me out here?

I recently clicked on a link to a KCNA article, and immediately noticed that my Media Bias Fact Check browser addon started flashing the icon for "fake news and questionable sources". So, I read the detailed report from Media Bias Fact Check.

What struck me about the Media Bias Fact Check report on KCNA was that they did not provide links to specific articles for their fact checking, like they normally do, but instead quoted an article from Mic about "5 ridiculous things said by KCNA" or something like that. This article was poorly sourced and repeated several known falsehoods as well as unverifiable claims. So, I attempted to manually verify everything claimed by Mic and its sources, and basically everything turned up either wrong, unverifiable but probably false, or deeply misleading, except the claim that KCNA had reported on some sort of North Korean miracle cure made of ginseng.

I managed to find several articles about that, albeit only on the unofficial KCNA website (kcna.co.jp), which appears to be run by Chongryon: "Kumdang-2 Injection", "Kumdang-2 Injection Efficacious for Bird Flu", "Kumdang-2 injection efficacious for SARS", "Kumdang-2 injection (R) manufactured", and "Korea Jangsaeng J.V. Company" mentions Kumdang-2 in passing.

So this has left me with kind of a mixed impression. That while a lot of western reporting exaggerates the state of North Korean media in a way that's honestly really racist and built on Red Scare nonsense, that this does not mean that North Korean media does not have issues with poor sourcing and even peddling pseudoscience.

So, I would like to know your experiences with KCNA, and your stances on using it as a source. What is KCNA useful for? What is KCNA not useful for?

I've got one on Tuesday that looks like my best shot at a new job since I got laid off in the summer. It's with a vice president of the company and the person whose position I'm filling since she got promoted

I'm just a little weirdo, I don't know how to make them want to hire me

like one of the only (bullshit) arguments the Zionists have is that opposition to Israel equates to antisemitism (not true), but from what i understand, the "Semitic family" includes both Jews and Arabs, but i am potentially very wrong about this.

also i guess even if it is true, it's not a very good "gotcha" since it misses the point and truth doesn't matter to genocidal swine

CW: I will discuss body dismorphia, or the (seeming) lack thereof I feel when thinking what it would be like to have been assigned the wrong gender. Also I describe sexual roles and thinking about having different anatomy.

Ok, so I've previously read Trans Liberation by Leslie Feinberg and I care about gender insofar as it takes to ensure all gender nonconforming people get healthcare, feel safe in public life, etc. I also will/have changed my language as much as it takes to make my trans comrades feel comfortable. With that out of the way:

I am a cis male, and I guess I am mostly okay with the body I've been given. I prefer to be called him, but I would only be a little annoyed if someone used she/her or they/them to describe me. If I try to imagine my body with a vagina and developing breasts in puberty with my current state of mind, I don't feel very much discomfort. I don't feel particularly attached to the role of penetrating another partner as a gay guy who enjoys bottoming more than topping. If I was forced to wear dresses to church growing up, I don't imagine I would be very distressed.

I do value the relative ease of building muscle that comes with having a male hormonal profile, and I guess dealing with having a female hormonal profile could be alarming, but mostly because it's not what I'm used to. But before puberty, I also wasn't used to having a bunch of testosterone.

On some level, I understand that it can be traumatic to be the target of violence and hate speech, or to be denied medical care. I'm speaking from a position of relative privilege.

Does this mean I'm possibly non-binary? Or something else? I feel content to be assumed as male, but I don't feel that strongly about it. And the title question again, does anybody else who is cisgender or otherwise just not have strong feelings about their own gender?

I'm looking specifically for a historical text or comprehensive article that specifically connects the mass pilfering by European colonial powers to the development of capitalism and beginning of the industrial age in Europe, even in countries that (at least initially) didn't have overseas colonies like Germany/Prussia. I have a broad knowledge on this (particularly on how European markets interacted with each other) but I want to deepen it.

"They're all run by a fat dictator while everyone else is in poverty"

Every chud in my life is obsessed with someone breaking into their house and the situation being resolved with the discharge of a firearm. And these are people living in low crime areas out in the suburbs, with no pedestrians. It's frustrating to talk with these people since their whole worldview is a racist panic over some imagined brown interloper invading their white fortresses.

One of my coworkers tells me he always pulls out his Glock to check the corners when he comes home in the evening. Another has a CCTV system and an AR15 by his bed. I personally don't own a gun anymore because I don't trust myself with one, and chuds will ask me what I'll do if some mentally unwell person high on amphetamines decided to enter my apartment. I guess I'd leave or call an ambulance? It seems so unlikely of a scenario that even if I had a firearm I probably wouldn't use it right, or even register this person as a threat quickly enough to do a John Wick style takedown.

How many home invasions are actually stopped this way? Do chuds all think they're Robocop?

I would pick Magneto from the X-Men comics. I think if he was written by better writers and comics weren't the vessel of a lot of fascistic ideals, he wouldn't come off as 'villain who goes too far'.

His backstory is so much more interesting than what powers he has. He survived the Holocaust as a child and when his powers developed, he sought out other people like him to prevent future atrocities. He formed the Brotherhood of ~~Evil ~~ Mutants and opposed humanity's attempt to kill or control mutants. He's long-lived because his experience as a Holocaust survivor is integral to his character. With that age, he's been well-read, studying science, history, literature, and art. He's educated and due to the way comics keep the timeline contemporary, he's bound to have strongly formed opinions on whatever is happening.

Having incredible power on top of that makes for such interesting questions.

"Why don't you just more often?"

"How much more efficient are trains when you can move them with your mind?"

"What are your thoughts on the concept of dehumanization?"

I dunno. Sometimes I see interesting characters and get frustrated that they're not talking about their lives or experiences. They're restrained by capitalism and you don't get to see cool interpretations of characters who you're supposed to believe are real people.

I'd love to helm a rewrite of Magneto to make him aggressively anticapitalist and antiracist I know. But it's like this character has studied the world on how to prevent fascism and genocide and he's still not calling out the contradictions of capitalism. He's not pointing out how oppression is used as a tool for profit. I want to see the guy who read Marx and then got superpowers.

My vote for best goes to Vietnam 🇻🇳 with honarable mentions to Bhutan.

Worst are all the countries that just have three coloured stripes. I cant tell any of them apart

Nitter

Seen incels say to one another "don't worry brother were both gonna make it and get a cream colored white girl someday" creepy as that sounds.

Then you have instances like Elliot Rodger who drones on and on about blonde white women.

Is it because these are the types of women they see as having rejected them in high school? The blonde cheerleader type?

I've worked in SaaS tech my whole life. Been out of a job for a few months now, and while I do have debts to pay that would be much easier with a paycheck from the tech field, I wouldn't be fulfilled with an office job.

The thing is, I'm not even sure what Id want to do yet. I've known my whole life that I was put here to help others, and there are so many causes out there I could work with that would help. So I think figuring that out is probably the very first step.

I'd also need to make above a certain threshold to be able to really function unless/even if I get a roommate (someone is checking my place out this month, so that might happen in January for me). Seems like figuring out what that number is between bills, rent, food, etc would be a good second step.

Beyond that, anyone else here made drastic career changes (I also don't give a shit about having a "career") that worked out for them like this? Would love any advice or tips! Tell me your story!

Thanks all, love you!

Edit: What terms might you use instead of "Nazi sympathizing?"

I lost a friend to the Nazi movement. I'm not white, and I imagine all the time if I could use his racism to fetishize me until I get enough anti racist propaganda across and he leaves the Nazi movement. I didn't realize how horrifyingly sad this was until I tried looking up the search term "romance stories" and shit like, German soldier falls for Jewish woman or racist falls for black woman, showed up.

Half the time I hope his antivax ass dies of a disease, and I hate his guts. The other half I try to think up of ways he's so attracted to me, he sits in for anything I have to say until he's convinced into respecting me, and being on my side of history.

I don't think anyone fetishizes their way into fully respecting someone. My imagined scenarios would be dumb and potentially dangerous.

At the end of the day, I never want to see him again. I don't want to hate him, feel grief about losing him, or imagine these scenarios. I just want to be.

Is it just something they view as a disability and therefore weak or "defective"?

One that's car-sized and super jiggly, but won't fall apart. You can go on any kind of adventure in it because you can't get hurt in it. I think it'd be really cute and trippy. Could be a 10/10 amusement park ride.

A friend of mine had a few positions open up at his job last week. I used to work there as a contractor and they seem happy to get me back on. I interviewed yesterday and the boss said to keep an eye out for their HR to get the ball rolling. It's been a week since the last time I smoked weed, but I am a nightly user so shits still in my system. I'm expecting to hear back some time this week or next so I'm looking into fake piss. Looks like the test is a standard 5 panel but has MRO at the end (medical review officer) and that has me freaked out. Anyone pass one of these with quickfix? There was a few people who swore by it at my last job but that was a few years ago and idk if piss testing got better or not.

And of course what does it mean?

I just mean things you do or can do for yourself as part of self-care?

Here are some of mine:

Relaxation Break - 10 Minutes: Like if you're sitting at a desk, or have some time where you can steal five minutes away from whatever's bothering you.

Little Chore - 5 Minutes: Some small productive thing you can do in that time and no longer. Like if you want to do some dishes or you want to replace the toilet paper roll.

Listen to Music uninterrupted - ? Minutes: Pick a song or an album and just let it rip without getting up to do anything. This one is really hard for me where even doing a 2 minute song was hard.

Watch something - 2 Hours: Movie, video essay, anime, whatever. Challenge - Impossible: Do it without doomscrolling.

I love the fediverse movement's goals to create more democratized online services, especially with things like social media, and I believe that if it properly matures technologically and comes to fruition it will have real potential to make the web better.

At the moment, however, a large portion of users on the fediverse (particularly on mastodon) are libs who post almost exclusively about elon musk, twitter, or trump, with the occasional incoherent yet ferociously racist post about geopolitics.

I'd like to improve my mastodon feed and explore the fediverse more in general, beyond just free software news and hexbear. For funny posts and politics on mastodon are there any other groups comparable to hexbear? Are there any accounts or communities in particular that you really like?

Thanks and have a good day