Yeah, now I have my own family and we do our own Christmas, it’s shorts, thongs, BBQ, seafood and beer.

No - it’s definitely Christmas in summer in Australia. But somehow my dear old Gran never got the memo, and insisted on making us sit down and sweat through a full roast Christmas lunch each year, sometimes in 40°C+ heat.

Time and time again, we’ve proven the best weapon we have against corporate greed is our ability (and willingness) to share knowledge.

Arguably, her giving the blowjob meant she got the berries

For channels I want to preserve, Tube Archivist. For individual videos, yt-dlp.

I pay for Usenet - not my fault if they don’t pass it on.

Joking aside, like some others have said, I support many artists via Bandcamp.

Yeah, no dispute here, mate. We’re pretty shocking like that. But I think religion stands out as an example of the worst, most inventive way we’ve come up with to subjugate and hurt people.

As a species, we’ve convinced ourselves that religion should be protected rather than inspected. We let lots of bad things happen in the name of religion. It’s bullshit.

IMO, and without actual data to back it up, I reckon religion (and religious difference) is responsible for the most suffering throughout the history of humankind.

The first time or the second time?

The first time was because I was sick of paying the “Australia tax” for new releases that took longer to reach us than most of the rest of the world. The second time was due to subscription fee hikes with associated reduction in quality & range of content.

I just wish Smarttube would support Piped instances - that would 100% complete the puzzle for me. Being able to use Piped on my streaming stick.

Please use a personal email. My email is ‘mail’ @ ‘my actual name’. It does not get more personal than that

It’s a legit rule they’re enforcing, IMO. Generic email addresses are usually unmonitored mailboxes that don’t bounce. Easy to use if you’re spamming contact forms and stuff like that.

Instead they advised me (3 times) to create a personal email on a service like Yahoo, Outlook, Gmail, Orange, etc

I think this is more a boilerplate suggestion, to lower the barrier to entry for people. Gotta remember, those of us that host our own email and/or use our own personal domains are definitely in the minority.

Not really. Here in Australia, our supermarket duopoloy does the same thing, offering discounts per litre. At the time it all started, the supermarket chains started buying into/acquiring petrol stations and rebranding them. This has been going on for over 20 years.

Recently, both supermarkets sold off their petrol station chains, but the sales included long-standing agreements to continue to offer discounts and loyalty program points for those that shop at the associated supermarket brand.

is ambiguous

Ah - like a double negative? I didn’t realise I cancelled out my sarcasm with more sarcasm. I need to spend more time on the internet. I’d hate for my sarcasm to be misunderstood.

Lol - the sheer volume of people who completely missed my /s, and didn’t cotton to the fact that I was making a joke about the very subject…

Oooh! A wiki article! Look at you, educating people with science and stuff.

/s

Would they agree if Biden used his absolute power to pass a federal law guaranteeing safe access to abortion?

Aaargh! Audible did this to the Stephen King Dark Tower series. Don’t get me wrong - Frank Muller did OK in the books he read, but George Guidall (books 1, 5, 6 & 7) has an almost Johnny Cash quality to his voice, that just made his reading really fantastic to listen to.

Anything Fry does is just pure gold. I loved his 7 Deadly Sins podcast series .

Jesus, you couldn’t possibly have misinterpreted my reply more than you just have:

• No religious view was expressed - I’ve been a staunch atheist for nearly 40 years, since I was old enough to tell my mum I didn’t believe in any of it.
• I never said people shouldn’t suicide - I’m very much a supporter of assisted suicide. I’m saying that, if the rules around assisted suicide don’t apply, then the default action for people sworn to protect human life should be to stop suicides. You know - the point of this entire post.
• Who said anything about pain? No need to put words in my mouth.

I think that’s where this commenter was leaning, though, with their final comment. Assisted suicide should absolutely be available to those suffering terminal illnesses and the like. But, the rules surrounding it must be very clear and anyone assisting suicide under those rules must be very well educated.

In the absence of assisted suicide rules, or where existing ones don’t apply to a specific case, then human life should be protected, by default.