Vent Thread

[CinnamonSundae]

I invest in stocks, Crypto (now I have permission), and homes. I use my professional life for some income for more expensive things (travel, cameras, repairs).
I use spend plans more than budgets as budgets assume repetition.

I should probably learn how to invest in stocks, huh...

 

[Connor J. Coyote]

Connor, the only reason I'm dignifying this with a response is because it's just THAT dangerous and stupid to try and guilt people into this kind of thing. If you cannot take an argument prima facie for consideration and counterargument, without the contextual knowledge of who EXACTLY is making it, either the argument didn't need to be made because it's someone's PERSONAL bugaboo and thus can be summarily ignored as axe-grinding that the arguer needs to deal with on their own... or you're looking for the easy out of argumentum ad hominem.

Hmm.... well, my vent (written above) is - what it is.... and is done so, at face value... and so, the people that read it... can either take it, or leave it.... it's up to them.

 

[Ennui Elemental]

For once I actually sort of agree with Connor, with some caveats. Like, okay, don't guilt people into doing it, but hiding behind an alt to make controversial statements does potentially give rise to community problems. Both because it removes the chance for people to remove toxic individuals from their life early on (since they don't know that PleasantArtist is the same as JerkyMcRacistface or whatever), and because a lot of people sadly have a tendency to get more nasty when they've got virtual anonymity. It's sort of like the thing that came up in the artists dating thread in Community Discussion about decorum; some people apparently need the motivator of shame/potential negative consequences to be respectful to others.

I'll use alt accounts when they serve a function (eg on mainsite I have an alt to post art I've received, an alt for hard kink, and an alt for the webcomic I make/made with my husband - all of these have functional purposes). None of these are exactly secret - there's plenty of links between them and my main account. I don't think that's at all the same as using an alt to effectively hide opinions or actions you know people may (justifiably) reject you for.

Which doesn't even touch on how much more difficult it is to report (or even handle reports about) a pattern of antisocial behavior when it's spread across multiple accounts. Sure, respond to arguments for what they are, but sometimes it's actually relevant to know what the same person has said or done previously.

---

As for the venting of the moment: UGH SNOW. Especially UGH SNOW AND ICE ON THE CAR WINDOWS WHEN I NEED TO DRIVE TO THE VET AT ARSE O'CLOCK (by my standards, not by any reasonable person's standards XD). Snow is allowed between about December 20 to January 2 or so, far as I'm concerned. And that's me being generous.

There was a time when making the argument that LGBT people deserved the same rights as every other human being (and this is sometimes STILL the case) was considered controversial enough to endanger you severely if people knew who you were. Pull that ladder up behind you at every future generation's peril.

 

[quoting_mungo]

There was a time when making the argument that LGBT people deserved the same rights as every other human being (and this is sometimes STILL the case) was considered controversial enough to endanger you severely if people knew who you were. Pull that ladder up behind you at every future generation's peril.

Personal safety (actual safety, not “people won’t like me” or “I’ll lose my audience”) would be a valid reason to use an alt for eg advocacy and activism. No argument there. Doesn’t make it less two-faced to be a dick under the cover of an alt while maintaining a pleasant public face.

Presumably you don’t mean to suggest that JerkyMcRacistface’s hot takes will one day be considered acceptable or uncontroversial. Because that’s the kind of alts that I would agree with Connor are undesirable and believe have a negative impact on communities.

 

[Punji]

I can't say I have super strong opinions on the alts conversation, least none appropriate for this setting. Without specifically addressing anyone or any particular point, I do feel it's important to point out that we're all using an alias here. Moreso, we all have several to dozens of aliases on the Internet and I know quite a lot of furries with different names within our own fandom.

Alts serve many legitimate purposes and can be just flat out annoying depending on use. We can't just attack people on the idea of using one by itself, and we can't always assume it's use is harmless.

 

[Fallowfox]

Summer didn't f#ck off until mid-October here.

The seasons really need to get their act together.

In the UK it's been unusually warm all Autumn, until *BAM* snow in November.
It's going to go back to being above average again within less than 24 hours.

I can't say I have super strong opinions on the alts conversation, least none appropriate for this setting. Without specifically addressing anyone or any particular point, I do feel it's important to point out that we're all using an alias here. Moreso, we all have several to dozens of aliases on the Internet and I know quite a lot of furries with different names within our own fandom.

Alts serve many legitimate purposes and can be just flat out annoying depending on use. We can't just attack people or the idea of using one by itself, and we can't always assume it's use is harmless.

My opinion on alts is that they're bad if people are using them for deceptive reasons, like bullying people, spamming political content, or playing games with the site administrators.

 

[Ennui Elemental]

Personal safety (actual safety, not “people won’t like me” or “I’ll lose my audience”) would be a valid reason to use an alt for eg advocacy and activism. No argument there. Doesn’t make it less two-faced to be a dick under the cover of an alt while maintaining a pleasant public face.

Presumably you don’t mean to suggest that JerkyMcRacistface’s hot takes will one day be considered acceptable or uncontroversial. Because that’s the kind of alts that I would agree with Connor are undesirable and believe have a negative impact on communities.

I sincerely hope they WON'T be uncontroversial ever again (they were, and are so no longer, and that is important to remember). The fact remains that Jerky's idiot takes are soundly defeated in their own right without the need to pull back any veils, and making a habit of doing so gives Jerky's friends the blueprints they need to jeopardize those they would oppose. Double edged swords cut everyone. You will tell yourself over and over that the day will never come when you are the controversial one and he is not, and your successors may be the ones to discover that you were incorrect in that assumption.

 

[Firuthi Dragovic]

So, the news ran a segment on fire alarm safety.

I immediately got to thinking about whether there were autism-friendly smoke alarms (which might also be pet-friendly, the relevance being that when I brought this up with family I got a story about how my brother's wife's dog jumped off a balcony once because the alarm was hurting his ears. The alarm kept going with its battery removed, so a hammer was necessary to silence said alarm).

Turns out, there ARE. They apparently use a voice instead of a shrill tone.

.....I kind of already know what voice clip I'd want if I got one of those. (I can picture it saying "Alert. Fires. Alert.", and that might be enough of a cue to know what game and character.)

Summer didn't f#ck off until mid-October here.

The seasons really need to get their act together.

Mid-October is roughly the absolutely first chance at snow around here. I don't remember the earliest I've seen snow in a given year but I know that it's happened before Halloween on a couple occasions.

The fact that mid-November was the first real snowfall this year is... actually not that odd now that I look at the snowfall history for the region. We've even had a few years where the snowfall by December doesn't even get above my boots (those have been the worst snowfall years by a long shot).

Which is only strange because my area's usually one of the highest-snowfall regions in the US. Not having at least a foot of snow by Christmas happens but it's bizarre when it does.

 

[quoting_mungo]

I immediately got to thinking about whether there were autism-friendly smoke alarms (which might also be pet-friendly, the relevance being that when I brought this up with family I got a story about how my brother's wife's dog jumped off a balcony once because the alarm was hurting his ears. The alarm kept going with its battery removed, so a hammer was necessary to silence said alarm).

I used to have the worst smoke alarm. So you’re taught to test your smoke alarms periodically, right? Yeah, this one wouldn’t shut up after you hit the test button, unless you took the batteries out.

And there’s a sticker next to the battery hole that was like “always test your alarm after inserting batteries.”

It was… a thing.

 

[Ennui Elemental]

Well, that's one strikeout. 3 more applications still waiting for responses and a voicemail from one of the places I applied to. Promising, maybe.

E: scratch that, two voicemails from employers requesting interviews. Okay. Getting somewhere.

 

[Fcomega121]

I feel weirded out...
First of all, why something new has to happen every month??

Second, I find it that the "Plural system" thing is frightening, and dumb and that I hope a cool person doesn't gets actual dysociation or something worse due to bad influences from those "multi system in one body" persons

I feel heartbroken tbh, that person is a cool friend and..... I miss that person.
they Got into that thing that will make them most harm in a long term most probably ;w;
I hope they aren't affected by this and that it is just stressing roleplay... ;w;

 

[Attaman]

Apparently my Vent this morning is hearing that Dissociative Identity Disorder, Multiplicity, et al are "frightening and dumb", a "bad influence", and that it's heartbreaking to discover somebody might have as much (and a shame to happen to an, implicitly, otherwise 'cool person').

Look. This isn't meant to get up in your face or drag you through the mud or anything like that. I get that it's a fairly complex subject matter and one that is not helped due to the relative shortage of readily available material for it for the general population (as well as the - in some cases - rather dramatic differences between various cases), but... like, the American Psychiatric Association has recognized it as a thing for generations at this point. It isn't some hip modern trend or the like that people are trying to get in on the trend of. Occasionally there's some edge cases of people self-diagnosing (in large part because a lot of countries' mental health services are utter shite), but it's a clinically recognized thing to the point that the APA has gone so far as to explicitly mention and acknowledge it in various works that in some cases go back before the 90's.

 

[Minerva_Minx]

I can't say I have super strong opinions on the alts conversation, least none appropriate for this setting. Without specifically addressing anyone or any particular point, I do feel it's important to point out that we're all using an alias here. Moreso, we all have several to dozens of aliases on the Internet and I know quite a lot of furries with different names within our own fandom.

Alts serve many legitimate purposes and can be just flat out annoying depending on use. We can't just attack people on the idea of using one by itself, and we can't always assume it's use is harmless.

Aileana Samantha Steele. You do the math. Sticking with alts. All I gotta say.
Hate my biological father.
Hope this makes someone's day.

Also, my mom stepped in at last second and god, i love that cunning woman and my stepfather so that was prevented.

 

[Goldarm]

people are freaking weird.

so i was rescuing people from flooding today and one of these guys was one of those conspiracy theorists.

His name was Dave and he was ranting on about an old PC called a BBC Micro Model B and time travel.

As a police officer i'd naturally remember most of the information in a given conversation for later but this guy just kept adding new information constantly without reiterating himself or backing up anything he was saying so i'm sorry to say that i've forgotten a lot of the wild ramblings he was saying at the start of the conversation by the time it reached its end.

As for the end of the conversation, considering how this guy had been bombarding us with a seemingly endless stream of digressions constantly changing course throughout ever going onto another tangent without ever finishing anything he started, the conversation ended so abruptly it took me by surprise like he just switched it off on a whim.

Near the tail end of the conversation when he was talking about things in English but using words i don't understand like he'd just adopted a foreign language though admittedly English is not my first language and they sounded like they might be technical terms he asked me if i knew what the date 21/09 meant.

I reiterated the date back to him and he nearly collapsed to the ground in shock of what i'd just said which made no sense because i'd just repeated the same thing back to him.

He started yelling "THAT'S IT" over and over and wandered off into the rescue centre.

People are weird.

 

[Ennui Elemental]

My opinion on alts is that they're bad if people are using them for deceptive reasons, like bullying people, spamming political content, or playing games with the site administrators.

Anything is bad if it's being used for a bad reason. Blanket assumptions of "x is a bad thing/sign of dishonesty/tool for harming others" are not helpful. Opiates are incredibly harmful when abused, but you get in a car wreck and crack three ribs, lacerate a kidney and puncture a lung and you'll be begging for the morphine drip.

 

[Minerva_Minx]

people are freaking weird.

so i was rescuing people from flooding today and one of these guys was one of those conspiracy theorists.

His name was Dave and he was ranting on about an old PC called a BBC Micro Model B and time travel.

As a police officer i'd naturally remember most of the information in a given conversation for later but this guy just kept adding new information constantly without reiterating himself or backing up anything he was saying so i'm sorry to say that i've forgotten a lot of the wild ramblings he was saying at the start of the conversation by the time it reached its end.

As for the end of the conversation, considering how this guy had been bombarding us with a seemingly endless stream of digressions constantly changing course throughout ever going onto another tangent without ever finishing anything he started, the conversation ended so abruptly it took me by surprise like he just switched it off on a whim.

Near the tail end of the conversation when he was talking about things in English but using words i don't understand like he'd just adopted a foreign language though admittedly English is not my first language and they sounded like they might be technical terms he asked me if i knew what the date 21/09 meant.

I reiterated the date back to him and he nearly collapsed to the ground in shock of what i'd just said which made no sense because i'd just repeated the same thing back to him.

He started yelling "THAT'S IT" over and over and wandered off into the rescue centre.

People are weird.

That conspiracy theory is weird.

 

[Fallowfox]

I sincerely hope they WON'T be uncontroversial ever again (they were, and are so no longer, and that is important to remember). The fact remains that Jerky's idiot takes are soundly defeated in their own right without the need to pull back any veils, and making a habit of doing so gives Jerky's friends the blueprints they need to jeopardize those they would oppose. Double edged swords cut everyone. You will tell yourself over and over that the day will never come when you are the controversial one and he is not, and your successors may be the ones to discover that you were incorrect in that assumption.

It happened on this forum. Between 2016 and 2018, a group of alt-accounts began posting racist comments and backing each other up in arguments.
It got to the point that some users changed their signatures to quotes from Hans-Hermann Hoppe and Augusto Pinochet.

I agree with you that it shouldn't have been necessary, but ultimately that behaviour was only brought under control, after it was revealed that many of those accounts were not real people.

So, the news ran a segment on fire alarm safety.

I immediately got to thinking about whether there were autism-friendly smoke alarms (which might also be pet-friendly, the relevance being that when I brought this up with family I got a story about how my brother's wife's dog jumped off a balcony once because the alarm was hurting his ears. The alarm kept going with its battery removed, so a hammer was necessary to silence said alarm).

Turns out, there ARE. They apparently use a voice instead of a shrill tone.

.....I kind of already know what voice clip I'd want if I got one of those. (I can picture it saying "Alert. Fires. Alert.", and that might be enough of a cue to know what game and character.)




Mid-October is roughly the absolutely first chance at snow around here. I don't remember the earliest I've seen snow in a given year but I know that it's happened before Halloween on a couple occasions.

The fact that mid-November was the first real snowfall this year is... actually not that odd now that I look at the snowfall history for the region. We've even had a few years where the snowfall by December doesn't even get above my boots (those have been the worst snowfall years by a long shot).

Which is only strange because my area's usually one of the highest-snowfall regions in the US. Not having at least a foot of snow by Christmas happens but it's bizarre when it does.

In my location at 50 degrees North it sometimes doesn't snow at all. There is a very pronounced seasonal lag, because of the ocean, so snow on Easter is historically more probable than snow on Christmas.

 

[Yakamaru]

I love the snow, but I hate the cold.

Going to be fun seeing -30C this Winter. Hah, not.

 

[Ennui Elemental]

It happened on this forum. Between 2016 and 2018, a group of alt-accounts began posting racist comments and backing each other up in arguments.
It got to the point that some users changed their signatures to quotes from Hans-Hermann Hoppe and Augusto Pinochet.

I agree with you that it shouldn't have been necessary, but ultimately that behaviour was only brought under control, after it was revealed that many of those accounts were not real people.

I would say it's as simple as not bothering to even engage with a fallacious, racist and countless-times defeated argument in the first place, but I do remember where I am right now. More to the point is that this particular forum is absolutely not the place to have contentious debates ventured even in sincerity, we already rip into each other enough over less.

 

[Rimna]

Tomorrow are the "final tests" after my training at the new job. 2 months of training and studying 8 hours a day. Boy, do I feel *not* ready. Failing these tests means that I'm getting fired.

Getting a job is getting more and more difficult as time goes on. I dread the future.

 

[Ennui Elemental]

Well, once the piss test comes back I have a second job. Probably. Taking nothing for granted until I have a paycheck in hand.

 

[ssaannttoo]

Jus wanted to say that all of you are absolutly worth it, every single one. Alll the problems you guys face are nothing compared to your strength, you got this and keep going champ

 

[Fcomega121]

Jus wanted to say that all of you are absolutly worth it, every single one. Alll the problems you guys face are nothing compared to your strength, you got this and keep going champ

*hugs you super tightly*

Santo, I love you friend ;w;
I hope all the problems get fixed soon, for you and everyone

You're an amazing friend and need a hug ;w; *hugs you tight*

 

[quoting_mungo]

My opinion on alts is that they're bad if people are using them for deceptive reasons, like bullying people, spamming political content, or playing games with the site administrators.

Just want to add to this, in regards to playing games with site administrators: best case scenario, someone using an alt to be nasty means you as the admin waste maybe a half a minute to a minute extra (per account) suspending all of their accounts when they're dicks. Worse case scenario, you're spending 10+ minutes digging to be sure you catch all alts and you don't inadvertedly also suspend friends/partners/roommates/foo who share an IP with the offender. Worst case scenario, you're spending the next several months playing whack-an-alt.

And that game gets old really fast.

Damn, now I'm irritated again about the more tiresome shenanigans I would deal with on staff.

 

[Minerva_Minx]

Think muttcat thoughts!

I mean happy thoughts!