As folks here have said, the Fediverse at this time goes a long way by not carrying over dark pattern nonsense and other deliberate psychological tricks to keep you engaged. But that’s only one half of the equation - why do those tricks work?

Honestly, something I found useful for me (whose main consumption medium is my smartphone) is dedicating specific timeframes for recreational web activity/email checks, and turning off wifi and mobile outside of those times. It can be hard to maintain (particularly when family members suddenly move to web-based messaging platforms rather than SMS), but when I was keeping it up I felt a lot calmer/engaged with IRL stuff.

Worth an experiment - turn off social media notifications, download anything you think you really need for offline use, develop the habit of switching connectivity on and off only as absolutely needed outside of internet rec time (maps, etc.), and keep it up for a few months. See what kind of changes come of it re: your headspace.

Then you got neat little fiefdoms too, like Irvingland - whoops, I mean New Brunswick.

My main counterpoint is for those of us who’ve acquired the taste, the rituals around beer (out at a nice place, away from your home/office, listening to decent tunes and drinking something cold, foamy, and a little bitter) are such that you can get that loose and relaxed feeling without the alcohol.

I’m not the biggest fan of getting drunk anymore, so I find myself grabbing a non-alc beer pretty frequently these days. Sometimes just that, other times once I’ve already had two normal beers but want another drink.

I could grab a soda, but I don’t like how sweet it is most of the time.

True, but you can meet in the middle re: this kind of thing with the ring. Having established that it’s going to happen at some point, take a trip to a jewelers ‘for fun’. Pay attention to what she goes ‘oooh’ over - style, stone, cut, etc. Write this information down to search separately.

It’s a bit of a stereotype I suppose, but trust that your future wife knows what she’s doing on that visit (particularly if y’all don’t browse jewelry together frequently - it’s kind of an anvil of a hint). This way there’s still an element of surprise, but you’re not just picking something random in hopes it pleases.

In an age of LLM, Seaman needs a remake.

Did a unit on interactive fiction for a grad seminar once, and sent a link to the Infocom Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy game as an optional primer. No one in the room except the prof and one guy who was experimenting with MUDs at the time had ever played a text adventure.

I mean, that was fun for me…

It’s definitely not for everyone, but I’ve met a small number of disabled people who do exactly this, for similar reasons.

Wouldn’t offer it as a suggestion though, kinda feel like people have to come to that decision on their own.

Don’t fret - yet. At this point this is just some asshole at the National Post stating a dumbass opinion in light of discussions in the UK.

Let’s see what happens after 2025, though…I do know the CF has a very real recruitment problem right now. I have mixed feelings about the military, but I’m truly hoping conscription isn’t the road they go down versus, oh IDK, effectively dealing with sexual assault in the ranks and paying soliders a good enough wage that they don’t need to use food banks while training in urban centres - at minimum.

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Something I haven’t thought about in a while: In the early 2000s games where you made a direct connection to the other player without an intervening, third-party server were still a thing. You still see it in things like netplay functionality in emulators.

Is this still a thing at all in 2023? Imagine it would be very niche, but this comment made me curious.

I never thanked you for this - I had this one saved but totally forgot the creator’s handle. REALflydog is awesome.

Quebec would like to have a word with you.

Then again they also have some opinions on that whole ‘Canada’ thing too.

Emphasis on the top of this image

As a Canadian, I can say that Big Dairy is 100% a thing in my country.

One story, among a bunch of others: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/merry-dairy-wholesale-milk-act-omafra-1.6538645

It really depends where you are - some places have a lively late night culture, others not so much.

All night diners, 24 hour fast food places are really the only alternatives here (though you could count movie theatres with late showings, I guess).

But (unless you have personal reasons for not being around alcohol and drinkers), you can totally go to a bar with a vibe you like and just hang out drinking soda. Bonus points if that bar has something cool available aside from just booze (barcades, live music venues, etc.).

If you’re not looking to specifically be around people, you could also just check out some green space outdoors, but keep your wits about you and use your judgement - some places are lovely to chill at 3:00 am, some would be if it wasn’t for the sketchy folks shooting up.

One aspect of this, though only one factor, is that a career in the CF is not nearly as attractive as it once was, and they’ve been having a hell of a time getting new recruits. So you don’t have nearly as many bodies to support both international commitments and domestic operations. Even if they did suddenly have an influx of new troops, I’m told there’s limited capacity for training, so it takes longer than it used to to get from the recruiting centre to BMQ to completing your trade-specific courses to do the job you signed on for.

I think having the military oversee domestic operations related to large scale emergencies is a good idea in theory - but they need the people and resources to do this while still being able to do the primary job, which is combat operations (admittedly, there’s different schools of thoughts on that, but they strike me as silly. Standing armies, while useful for other activities, are primarily there to fight).

I have to agree - looking at the full quote in the article and ignoring the [and], I count 19 words, plus whatever was omitted. And that isn’t a seig heil in the photo.

Is this a collection of idiots and (probably) some bad actors? Yeah. Do white nationalist groups recruit people of this kind? Absolutely. Is the term “Pureblood” troubling, given all the eugenic overtones it carries? 100%, though I’m willing to note the connotation of ‘not adulterated by artificial means’ too.

The information in the article does not support this being a Nazi thing. Damaging and troubling in its own right, sure, but for different reasons.

'Cause with all the new traffic, Lemmy’s alive and full of beans!

And if it shows up here, it could Meta-stasize.

…I’ll show myself out.