Well, when I was a kid my favorite things where always electronics, TV, radio, music, so if I had children I would never deprive my children of electronics, no matter what the “experts” say.

Not electronics, screens. My kid has lots of music and electronic toys, just not a tablet or smartphone to play with independently (yet). And it’s not about deprivation, it’s about moderation. The screen moratorium is mostly for children under age 3 or 4 as very young children are pure hedonists and they lack emotional regulation and impulse control.

Well, I have to disagree on this one, if I’m dealing with complicated texts where I need to quickly refer to multiple sections then nothing beats being able to crtl + f. Also scrolling is much faster than turning pages. But I guess it can be a personal thing.

I concede that this heavily determined by personal flow and I even noted that point in my original comment. I think both our perspectives on this are valid, but I just wanted to clarify that by “complicated texts,” I mean texts where you need to have immediate or quick access to jump back and forth between sections e.g. scholarly editions or books like House of Leaves that are literally “complex text.”

Yes you can lend a book from a library, but in my experience libraries never have anything worth reading…

This may be determined by the libraries that you have access to, but where I live I can get almost any in print book from my library. Granted, I can’t get it immediately, but through inter-library loan, I get a lot of books that aren’t in my local libraries’ collections that I would otherwise have to purchase. The main thing is to have a reading queue and place requests in advance which, I admit, is its own skill. My neighborhood is also full of the little free libraries that the original thread is in reference to, which have been a great source of free books (I also give away books to the free libraries, too).

I think you are also greatly exaggerating the technical skills needed to download a book, sometimes even just searching “book name pdf download” is enough to download a book, which can be done on a smartphone that most people already own.

I’m not exaggerating at all. Sure, it is easy at face value, but it really does assume a lot of preexisting digital literacy and technical knowledge. We might be reaching a point where enough people have these skills from youth, but older generations are still lacking a lot basic tech literacy.

…buying a physical book online or lending it from a library also means the book is registered to the reader’s name electronically, in this case tied to the user’s real name and payment details.

Okay, so two things here:

1. I’m not talking about privacy regarding purchasing goods online (good point, but that’s a different privacy concern), I’m talking about the privacy ecosystem on the device itself e.g. bloatware infested tablets, proprietary walled-garden e-readers, and apps that exist to collect data and serve ads.
2. All libraries in the United States, at least for now, are very protective of patron data. Some libraries even regularly purge the check-out history. Bullet three of the America Library Association’s code of professional ethics even states: “We protect each library user’s right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted.” It’s baked into the modern library profession to protect the patron’s privacy. I haven’t heard of any entity or group hacking (or subpoenaing) public libraries for check-out history other than the Federal government.

Now I actually favor reading on a screen…

You might be a monster. 😂

It’s widely accepted among pediatricians and psychologists that you should delay introducing your kids to screens as long as possible. We started reading to our kid when they were a newborn and there is no way in hell that I would be blasting them with a tablet screen (children’s ebooks tend to be pdfs because of all the graphics, which also rules out using e-ink readers). Reading to a child is also a pre-bedtime activity in low light where stimuli should be reduced; a tablet or e-reader is far from ideal here.

A lot of children’s books in the 0-4 range are also tactile, include lift-the-flaps, have mirrors or noisemakers, and are safe to chew on. The other thing is that in order to teach independence, the kid needs to be able to access and choose books on their own which is something a physical books and a shelf is really good at and an e-reader is really bad at.

One may argue that physical books are expensive, impractical, or whatever, but there are several organizations that send free books monthly to kids (we are subscribed to two of them). Public libraries are really good for exposing kids to books that don’t have to be purchased as well as teaching additional skills like:

• patience (can’t have a book another kid has, or have to wait until we can go to the library),
• spatial awareness (where the library is, where the children’s shelves are), and
• temporary possession of objects (the books have to be returned).

And to your earlier point about physical books being “a novelty of the past,” I would counter by saying that physical books and ebooks are not a binary pair and using them to read is not an exclusive or (the exception being children’s books).

• Textbooks are great candidates for ebook versions because of their intended use and unintended bulk; there are also enhancements to ebooks that work really well for textbooks and manuals, like search/find.
• Fast-paced novels, especially those in a series, are great candidates for ebooks particularly when the reader knows they will consume multiple books quickly.
• Physical books are preferable when dealing with images or large formats. I can’t imagine reading a coffee-table book or art book is as effective on e-reader.
• Physical books are also better options for complicated texts, especially ones that the reader needs to quickly refer to multiple sections of text while reading e.g. indices, appendices, or that chapter where a character is first introduced. I know there’s digital analogues, but they don’t work for everyone.
• E-books make sense when you want to have hundreds or thousands of books immediately on hand, or don’t want to clutter a dwelling with bookshelves.
• Physical books are great for acquiring out-of-print titles. Sure, someone may have created a decent pdf or epub of it, but there are texts that are easier to find used physical copies than a digital version.
• In a complete reversal of what I just wrote, e-books are great for finding out-of-print titles that are prohibitively expensive to acquire. Thanks to that random internet user who created that spectacular pdf.
• Digital versions of manga or comics make a lot of sense, especially when considering the amount of space those collected items require.

At the end of the day, the medium you use to read is a preference and I am a strong advocate for audiobooks, ebooks, and physical books being simultaneously available. What I am not an advocate for, is the dismissal of the print on physical media as if it is not one of the most stable and easily accessible methods for communication. No matter how you argue it, at the end of the day, ebooks and audiobooks still require mediation and energy. Those formats also impose technical and financial barriers to access (you may be savvy enough to access thousands of books for free and maintain your own e-reader that respects your privacy, but the majority of people to whom e-books are marketed to cannot). I can lend or give away a physical book to anyone I meet and they can immediately read it; the same cannot be said for digitally reformatted texts.

I think hip-hop, specifically dirty south hip-hop, dominating mainstream pop charts around that time had something to do with it; e.g. Outkast, Lil Wayne, Lil Jon, Rick Ross, Ludacris, etc. I also remember about 10 years ago reading reddit posts as well as hearing people in grad school intentionally advocate for the usage of y’all (or the even more annoying folks) as better inclusive term as opposed to “you guys”.

But if y’all annoys you, let me tell all y’all about super plurals like all y’all…

I’ll respond to this because I’m a father and have observed a lot of things about other parents that I never noticed or paid attention to before becoming one. There are some seriously selfish-ass people who treat their kids like accessories or tea-cup dogs. On the other end of the spectrum, there are people who treat their kids as franchises or property and view the kid in terms of ROI.

Some people only find value in themselves as mothers or fathers (“I’m the goddamn pater familias!”) where the role is often more important than the kids. While the act of parenting can be selfless, there is a performative element to it that takes over some people’s identities and personalities (clothing that advertises your “parent-ness,” name-brand clothing, chic and fashionable accessories, strollers that cost as much as a used car, humongous houses and baby suites, paying for full- or part-time help, excessively documenting “baby’s” life and sharing it widely beyond friends and family, et cetera and ad nauseam).

Now, there’s another take on selfishness I’ve picked up on from anti-natalist threads which is specifically tied to the concept of agency: a child has no agency regarding the circumstances of its birth. The fact that two people can intentionally (or even worse, unintentionally) choose to procreate is viewed as immensely selfish since it denies the created being of all choice. Parents often “want” to have a kid; but there is often no “need” (biological imperative notwithstanding). Hence, a selfish act.

Another expression of selfishness is that some parents cannot help themselves from creating clones. From birth, the kid is a reflection of the parents’ identity, interests, politics, hobbies, and media fandoms. The political or religious parts are especially disturbing—no kid has a valid opinion of the election and has no solid foundation for belief in a deity. Raising kids with values is one thing, but creating little mouthpieces that just repeat parents’ opinions is another. There is also the chance that a parent will try to live vicariously through their child and push them into sports or academics so that they can fix their mistakes or relive the past.

All said, some people make really shitty parents. And I don’t mean shitty people—there are lots of pleasant and thoughtful people who are fucking terrible caregivers. I think that some people felt too much social, cultural, or religious pressure to be honest with themselves and stay away from parenting. I think that nothing says selfish like knowing that you shouldn’t do something but do it anyway because you know that you will benefit from it in some way (financially, socially, etc.).

Let’s capitalize nouns again while we’re at it.

It’s an appeal to vanity (a troll). Trump is wildly vain and if he thinks this qualifies him for a Nobel (it doesn’t) then he might just put the worm back in its jar for awhile.

It’s because trans technology is so advanced that they all pass undetected. /s

In all seriousness, I think it reflects just how distorted the anti-trans bigot’s perception of reality is and how enabled they feel to act on those perceptions. These people believe that trans people are more common than they actually are and they are hyper-fixated on proving it.

I think your critique of the “not a problem until it affects me” nature of this is valid; however, this also signifies that transphobia is becoming less rhetorical and more actionable. That is terrifying for anyone who doesn’t meet the arbitrary socially acceptable expressions of gender.

My hope here is that more people will come to realize how stupid transphobia and gender/bathroom policing is when they start to realize that it affects them, too.

But the same nonexistent god of Abraham.

This was my experience as well.

I did, however, have the unfortunate experience of studying a degree that required four sequential semesters of courses that started at 8AM. Granted, I could have solved that problem by changing majors, but here I am. Once those classes were over, all of my classes were between 11AM and 3PM.

I deal with shy hyphens a lot. They don’t display unless there’s a line break, so they get copied from various word docs or websites and end up in a database somewhere waiting to piss me off.

Bell Witch is like this. Their album Mirror Reaper is technically one “song.”

My univeristy library would often have one or two copies of the current textbook on course reserve in the library. This meant that 1) you had to know where the course reserves were, 2) hope you could get it before one of the other 100-150 students also taking that course got it first, and 3) hope some dickhead didn’t just take it off the shelf and hide it in their study carrel or in a quiet corner of the library. Number 3 gets worse the higher the level of degree you are studying.

I remember a buffet place—it may have been a Golden Corral, not sure—that had a sealed off smoking section with a glass wall, one of those “air doors” above the sliding door that function like an air lock, and a separate AC system.

It was always weird to look into that space and watch the lonely people smoking and eating.

Every other restaurant was a smoking free-for-all.

To be fair, the schisms have been occurring for like 200 years.

What do trees have to do with computers?

Why wasn’t he arrested and charged for this before being sent to El Salvador? If he is this heinous of a criminal, why was he the alternate for the seat on the flight down to El Salvador?

Let’s argue for argument’s sake that he is the kind of person the DOJ claims he is. Does this mean he is guilty before being given a chance to defend himself? Shouldn’t he be afforded an opportunity to hear the charges and offer a defense? Granted, immigrants without citizenship can be deported for any criminal activity, but this guy had a court order preventing that. So why couldn’t the DOJ arrest and charge him before sending him to a death prison? Wouldn’t it be in the interest of the nation to maybe find out more about his network before disappearing him, especially since they claim he smuggled thousands of people?

This is some kafkaesque, fascist, dumbass bullshit.

Serial killers need patterns, process, and specific situations tailored to their individual neuroses. They are driven or compelled to kill to create or recreate certain events. That’s one thing that separates them from mass murderers or spree killers.

This guy was just in it for money. Mass murderer, yes, but there have been mafia hitmen with more morals than this fuck.

The scale of this, and the callousness of it, are far closer to Hitler and other genocidal maniacs because none of them wanted to get their hands dirty; they’d never kill anyone, personally. At least serial killers are into DIY and often are quite proud of their fucked up accomplishments.

It really says something about this guy’s absolute depravity when a comparison to a serial killer makes someone say “you know, that’s offensive to serial killers.”

I’m not disagreeing with what you said, I’m just frustrated because this guy was worse than serial killers and that is really something else.

I’m just going to drop selections from the Troma catalog in here:

• The Toxic Avenger
• Surf Nazis Must Die
• Class of Nuke ‘em High
• Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD
• Tromeo and Juliet

These are objectively shitty movies. Most of these movies are irredeemable; hell, some of them are down right an exercise in poor taste. A lot of it hasn’t aged well, and I’m not talking about the cinematography. I haven’t kept up with Troma in the 21st century, though, so maybe Troma has gotten worse-better or better-worse?

However, I find joy in these movies because they are like a time warp back to New Jersey and New York in the 80s and 90s. They were so low budget and always filmed around New York (except for Toxic Avenger II which somehow was filmed in Japan), that they used a lot of family members of the cast and crew or random locals as extras. It is obvious that a lot of people on screen probably didn’t know they were being filmed (or if they did, didn’t realize what type of movie they were in). There’s bad hair and makeup (but not from the effects department), and thick accents and regionalisms that have faded. There are mainstreets and skylines that don’t exist anymore, or if they do, are wildly different. It is amazing to catch a glimpse of an era that doesn’t exist anymore. This exists in all old movies, but the low-budget realness hits differently.

Most of these movies are trash, but they’re my trash. Apologies to Mr. Kaufman.

Haven’t you noticed how shiny and flake free our hair is?

I’m dying on a lot of hills when it comes to 90s action/sci-fi. Sci-fi movies from 1990 to 1997 or so have a very specific vibe that I can’t articulate well but I know it when I see it; the Stallone Judge Dredd is a shining example.

Judge Dredd, Demolition Man, Total Recall, Fifth Element, Mario Brothers, Tank Girl, Starship Toopers all have this campy retro-future theme-park vibe that is just fun.

I don’t care too much about Judge Dredd the movie(s) lining up with Judge Dredd the comic; they’re both fine to me. The Karl Urban one is a better movie, but it is missing the “eat recycled food” aspect.