A university is a typically a collection of colleges (or schools).

For example: Harvard University is made up of Harvard College, Harvard Business School, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Law School, Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, etc.

For all intents and purposes - we use the word “college” and “university” interchangeably because they’re the same level of education. Either can do associates through doctoral.

Community colleges, however, only focus on 2 year degrees and certain certifications.

I had a lot of good years on Fark.

You want to kill germs? Use mouthwash. There’s pretty much nothing beneficial about smoking cigarettes.

Even when you take the health considerations out of account, you will reek. I assure you, nobody wants to spend time around a partner that emits a nauseating scent. It’s a bad habit in every sense of the term.

Yes - nicotine can be a quick stress reliever. That’s about al it’s good for.

I understand that you need something to help you get through the days, but there are tons of other things that you could do.

Heck, even switching to vaping will improve your health outcomes considerably. And you won’t smell.

I don’t know why you’re fighting your girlfriend on this, it seems like she’s genuinely concerned and you’re being so stubborn as to look online to justify your addiction. Yes, you are addicted. You smoke more than a pack a week and refuse to quit or offer a compromising alternative. If I was her, I’d leave you.

Well, by that logic, Switzerland isn’t a democracy. The country that decides pretty much everything on referendum.

And Ireland only became a democracy 3 years ago.

For what it’s worth, Blasphemy laws can be compatible with democracy. Democracy is only about fair elections and rule of the people. If the people want blasphemy laws, that’s still democracy.

Freedom is a spectrum - and blasphemy laws just make a country less free. Not necessarily less Democratic.

…Spiiiriiiit……

I heard ‘Congregation’ in the show Devs (loved it), and was surprised I never listened to them before. Went back and listened to the whole catalog… several times over. It’s the best airplane music.

I listen to a bit of everything. Bands in my recent rotation include Low, 3rd Secret, Motörhead, Rick James, L7 and Joji, Aimee Mann, Mdou Moctar, Aphex Twin, Beastie Boys. Donny Benet

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s PetroDragon Apocalypse is my favorite album all year.

My favorite all time genre is industrial. So stuff like The Young Gods, Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly, KMFDM, Ministry, Filter, Mulitple Man, Meat Beat Manifesto, Pig, Emptyset, Youth Code, Atari Teenage Riot / Alec Empire, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, Download…

The PetroDragronic Apocalypse is one of the best records I’ve heard in some time, from any band, in any genre.

I can’t stop listening to it. To add, I’m not really a fan of any of their other records. They’re clearly good, just doesn’t resonate with me as much as this one does.

Indeed. Prior to 2010 - it was a roll of the dice. If insurance wasn’t provided through your work, you had to be lucky enough to live in a State with decent laws preventing some of these predatory insurance practices. Back then, the uninsured rate was close to 19%. Almost 1 in 5 Americans.

Today, that rate is 8.4%. Which hails the victory of the ACA because “91.6% of Americans have insurance” sounds nice. And compared to where we were 13 years ago, it is nice.

In reality, we have 28 million uninsured people, many of whom are children. There’s a long way to go.

While I’m personally satisfied with my level of coverage and standard of care, I don’t understand how we can comfortably accept a society that bankrupts our most vulnerable residents for being sick. I’m baffled how this wasn’t already solved or mostly resolved in my lifetime. Or at least seeing more states take on the Hawaii or Massachusetts health care models.

An individual can sign up for a plan through their State’s health insurance exchange or the federal government’s HealthCare.gov website.

It is usually more expensive than getting it through an employer - but works to serve small business owners, freelancers, etc.

A few States (like Massachusetts) have semi-universal systems that cover all individuals that earn under 150% of poverty, independent students, newly unemployed, etc.

A lot of Americans are also covered under Medicare, Medicaid , Social Security and other programs.

Retirees aged 65 and older are eligible for Medicare - a semi-universal federal system that covers pretty much everything and accepted most places.

I met one of my closest friends on r/needafriend. Turns out, she lived like a 10 minute walk from me - and we met up over some food.

On paper, our friendship shouldn’t work. We have little in common in terms of activities and goals. But we know how to make each other laugh and ‘get’ each other’s personality. Been like 9 years.

Whether it’s Reddit, Lemmy, Discord or some other platform - there’s definitely people out there looking for the same things. Online is a good place to start.

See if your closest city has a ‘Speed Friending’ event. Here in Boston, we have “Skip the Small Talk” and you get seated with a stranger and a dialogue prompt. I found that to be really effective too.

it always makes me miserable to see her happy with someone else

Well, frankly - you can’t handle a friendship with her. Friends are supposed to support each other’s successes and you don’t have the capacity to be genuine about it right now.

It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person or weak or whatever. It’s human nature. It’s part of the risk we take when we have the capacity to love. Even when we want a friendship and understand that value, there remains an unskippable hurdle.

Go to the festival, but you should tell her honestly that you’re not ready to be friends - and it has nothing to do with her. And ask her to respect your boundaries in the interim.

Maybe in a few months or a year, you’ll be a better place to reconnect. Maybe by the time you’re ready, you’ll find your circle of friends to be more fulfilling and you don’t need her.

Time and space. You otherwise can’t heal if you’re constantly having sounds reopened.

Here is a list of Apps coming to Lemmy:

https://kbin.social/m/kbinMeta/t/71764

Plenty for iOS to chose from, Christian’s legacy continues. Memmy and Mlem both feel pretty close to Apollo - and are both directly inspired by it.

These apps are in early beta. They have constant updates (daily for Memmy and weekly for Mlem), so you can kind of see them being built in real time. If you’re patient with the developers, you’ll get that Apollo experience very soon. It’s like 80% of the way there.

Liftoff is pretty cool too, though it’s a different design approach.

(I’m using Memmy now, actually.)

Lemmy is Reddit.
Mastadon is Twitter.

Kbin is a bit of both.

They federate. So imagine using your Reddit account to reply to a tweet. And vice versa.

They don’t share the same servers - they just communicate with each other. Kind of like how I can use Gmail to write to a friend that uses a Yahoo Mail.

Makes more sense for Meta to create their own “Metaverse” than join an open-source network.

Instagram and Facebook already communicate, it won’t be too difficult to include WhatsApp into that mix.

If they buy something like Mastodon, it would make better business sense to cut it off from the Federation and sync it with Meta’s products instead.

Which app?

They are two different apps with different developers/contributors and different visions.

There’s huge difference in where each are in their current stage of development, but keep in mind both of the apps will look & act completely different in a few weeks.

Mlem’s beta test has met it’s 10K user limit, but there’s still room Memmy. Give it a try. Join the Discord after and talk to the developers/contributors about what you think - they’re very responsive.

They’re both forums that look and act similar to Reddit.

Fundamentally - they look different, are coded differently and have some jargon differences.
For example, the communities in Kbin are called “magazines”. A lot of folks still say “sub” as a holdover.

Yet, they’re both part of the Federation, so you can up/down vote, comment and subscribe to each other’s stuff from your home.

Federation is similar to having a group text with friends. It doesn’t matter if you have an iPhone and they have an android. It doesn’t matter if you’re on Verizon and they’re on ATT. The software is designed to communicate with each other.

Lemmy differs from Kbin in that it can be franchised into an independently owned and operated instances. So there’s multiple Lemmys like Lemmy.ml and Lemmy.world. Each instance can set its own rules and even chose which other instances/platforms it can federate without. More importantly, nobody owns all of it.

Commenting from the Memmy App beta for iOS.

Still early days, but it’s doing the basics quite well. They and Mlem are hoping for a 6/30 App Store release, so interesting times ahead.

Spez started the site to make money. This was always true - a completely typical reason to start a company. When there was no community in the early days - he made fake accounts, and fake conversations to generate traffic to attract attention. So Spez is someone that’s always used dishonesty to get what he wants.

Aaron joined the site because he saw it’s potential as a tool for civic engagement and political awareness. He left when he saw what Reddit was becoming… or really - what it always had been: a tool to extract wealth from its unknowing volunteers.

Aaron and Spez weren’t friends. They were business partners for a very short period of time. To the best of my knowledge, that’s all there is to it.

I speculate that Aaron would feel unfazed by what Reddit looks like today… because it’s expected. The founders are people that make the Forbes 30 Under 30, marry world famous pro athletes, and are worth tens of millions of dollars. They’re divorced from reality.

I would hope that open and decentralized online spaces like Lemmy reflect the sort of values & ideas Aaron spent his life advocating for.