@zdl@mastodon.online
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

zdl

@zdl@mastodon.online

Half-German, Half-Chinese, Half-Canadian, all-bad at math, currently living to her consternation in the People's Republic of China.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

chad, to random
@chad@beige.party avatar

Anybody got an ethical, easy, extremely well-paying job they want me to have?

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@chad Yes. I've got it stashed right next to my pet unicorn!

zdl, to steam
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

A friend of mine made a thing:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3011090/Primest_Evil/

pressprogress, to random
@pressprogress@mastodon.online avatar

International Students are Coming to Canada Dreaming of a Better Life. Many Are Leaving Disillusioned and In Debt.

The dream of Canada sold to students by predatory recruiters and private education institutions doesn’t measure up to reality. https://pressprogress.ca/international-students-are-coming-to-canada-dreaming-of-a-better-life-many-are-leaving-disillusioned-and-in-debt/

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@pressprogress I'm helping someone get a visa to just visit Canada and the sheer bull-headedness of Canadian officials is mind-boggling.

Canadians coming to China whine about how hard it is to get a visa. The "difficulty" is a single two-sided form and a few stock documents (passport, etc.) plus maybe a health check. It took me, the times I had to do it from Canada, maybe three hours total from start to submission (this included a bus trip). Then 48 hours later I had a visa.

🧵 (1/3)

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@pressprogress So here's some perspective on the other direction. The BASIC form to get a visa to Canada is about 7 pages alone. You then have another form to fill out with your entire family. You have to supply bank records. You have to supply a letter proving your employment and salary. You have to supply proof of ownership of property. (And like for Canada→China you need a letter of invitation.)

Then you have to repeat all that information on an online form.

🧵 (2/3)

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@pressprogress We're three WEEKS into the process and there's no end in sight yet. And there's no hint yet if he's even going to be given a visa, because every second paragraph, it seems, is a stern warning that even if you supply all the requested documentation it is not guaranteed you'll get a visa.

It's orders of magnitude harder for Chinese people to just get a VISA to Canada than vice versa. So no, it doesn't surprise me that students are disappointed by the reality.

🧵 (3/3)

SteveThompson, to random
@SteveThompson@mastodon.social avatar

"Recent South Dakota policy threatens professors who include their pronouns or tribal affiliations over email. It's part of a concerning 'longer-term agenda' overtaking the US."

https://www.businessinsider.com/south-dakota-threatens-transgender-tribal-expressive-freedom-email-signature-rule-2024-5

"A policy in South Dakota prevents some professors from listing certain details in email signatures. Public university faculty are prohibited from sharing gender pronouns or tribal affiliations. Experts say it's part of a broader attempt to roll back rights for protected groups."

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@SteveThompson I wish I didn't already have a whole-country boycott on travel to the USA so I could add South Dakota as a place I will never again set foot.

rebeccawatson, to random
@rebeccawatson@mstdn.social avatar

anime avatar and saying this, it is honestly very difficult to detect satire these days

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@rebeccawatson Waitwut!? I have to believe in one or more gods now?! Why wasn't I in the circulation list for that memo!?

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@bluecaller @rebeccawatson People blame Ms. Watson for "destroying" atheism because she told creeps to stop being creepy in a public blog post and Dawkins shit his pants in public over it, revealing big-A Atheists to be just as prone to fucking idiocy as big-C Christians.

Basically she pointed out the lack of an emperor's garments and big-A (and little-d) Atheists have been utter shitheads toward her ever since.

Unixbigot, to random
@Unixbigot@aus.social avatar

I was today years old when I realised that the reason that the intro to every youtube video sounds like setting an ad break, is that it is setting up an ad break. I've had whatever they call the no-ads subscription to google for years, and hadn't realised how awful the default experience was. How do people stand it? Where are the pitchforks?

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@Unixbigot I just turn off ads everywhere. Even the sponsor segments in Youtube videos.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@Unixbigot Yep. :smugcat:

SponsorBlock for Youtube is the name of an extension that, well, blocks sponsor segments on Youtube. It works by crowd-sourcing.

https://sponsor.ajay.app/

There's a similar effort from the same guy to quiet down the clickbait video names and thumbnails.

https://dearrow.ajay.app/

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@Unixbigot Oh, and you can use Ad blockers to shut off the comments sections of toxic sites like Youtube as well. That's been a life-saver as well.

gwynnion, to random
@gwynnion@mastodon.social avatar

James Baldwin: "You never had to look at me. I had to look at you. I know more about you than you know about me. Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@sortius @gwynnion You learn about it the way you did: seeing it.

When we surround ourselves only with carbon copies of ourselves, naturally we have no idea what others are like.

quinn, to random
@quinn@social.circl.lu avatar

Young people are waking up every day to media about war, genocides, dead children. They are unsure of being able to make a living, scared by debt, violence, addiction, homelessness. They are unsure if the burning planet will even support their lives. They are struggling for secure basic housing after having their lives upended by a pandemic...

meanwhile the NYT:

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@quinn Well, the NYT isn't WRONG as such. I mean it is, after all, smartphones delivering all that media about war, genocide, the death of children, etc. to them.

And we all know it's always the messenger who's to blame, right?

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@thetechtutor @quinn Remember what I sarcastically said about blaming the messenger earlier?

This is what it looks like when you're foolishly not being sarcastic.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@StephanieMoore @quinn "The medium is the message." — Marshall McLuhan's casual viewin'

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@ClancyParliament @quinn On the other hand, though, we also had the "inevitable" nuclear holocaust hovering overhead to the point that it shows up in pop songs: Silent Running, Eastern Wind, 99 Luftballons, etc. etc. etc.

I mean in German dance clubs we were DANCING to inevitable nuclear holocaust!

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@angiebaby @quinn No, it's role-playing games!

textfiles, to random
@textfiles@mastodon.archive.org avatar

A DDOS against the Internet Archive has commenced again, timed for maximum pain for the California staff to deal with. (I don't sleep, but I also can't do anything on the infrastructure here.)

So, we're down until people wake up to deal with the constant DOOS against us because... reasons

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@textfiles What kind of sociopath attacks a library?

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@OldGrumpyGameGuy @textfiles If it's such a long list why did you give me only one example? 🤭

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@jerkey @textfiles It's almost as if I was subtly referencing that, Reply Guy.

zdl, to random
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEjCNzGOe3Q

There is literally nothing that won't get death threats from the right wing.

We find out that statues were once painted? Death threats.

🙄

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@confluency @jens I have to say, though, that the ones that they got rich restoration done on are REALLY NICE.

I've never been in the "bare white" fan club. I like riots of colour.

BootsChantilly, to random
@BootsChantilly@mstdn.social avatar

Good morning & happy International Women’s Day! #DailyGiggle #InternationalWomensDay

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@BootsChantilly Wow do I feel this one!

inquiline, to random
@inquiline@union.place avatar

Love too live in a country led by a corpse in an electrified tank shouting “fund the police!”

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@stevenbodzin @angiebaby @inquiline "But you see / it's not me / it's not my family / in your head in your head / they are DYING!"

It's always tragic when Dolores' words are seen in real life.

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@stevenbodzin @angiebaby @inquiline The following words are likely even more descriptive: "What's in your head? In your head? Zombie. Zombie. Zombie--ie--iee..."

carnage4life, to random
@carnage4life@mas.to avatar

Found an incredibly useful app for finding people to follow on Mastodon. It crawls your social graph then finds the people who your followers follow the most that you don't follow.

https://followgraph.vercel.app/

zdl,
@zdl@mastodon.online avatar

@carnage4life And as seems to be de rigeur for software ... it fails out of the box for me.

I love the high quality that the word "software" implies!

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