I was 15 during the 1998 ice storm.

It's obviously not as dangerous as a tornado or an earthquake or a flood, but it's still a natural disaster, and disrupted society in the region for weeks and months.

At first it was difficult to realize the size of the catastrophe but then millions went without power, the infrastructure crumbled under the ice and roads became impracticable. The magnitude of the disaster became apparent when the army had to come and help.

Luckily I lived in a rural area at the time and we relied on a wood furnace for heat and hot water. We also shared a generator with other family members so I had power a few hours a day. Compared to people without heat water, food or electricity, it went ok for my family.

It took about 10 days for my region to have power back, while others had to wait for up to 30 days.

This left its mark on me and now I try to be prepared, have batteries charged, solar panels, water reserves, food for a few days, a camping stove, ways to keep warm, etc., just in case.

You can also start an orgy instead of killing, but I guess the sex can also happen while slaughtering.

I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

Thus solving the problem once and for all.

Instead of just announcing and promising high speed rail every few years, can't the federal government help or do something about the "sharing" issues?

Like, force the CN in some ways, or in buying or building routes that VIA would own. Wouldn't it be needed for high speed trains anyway?

It's both sad and frustrating to see VIA struggle like this, and have the federal government not really helping in any other ways than empty announcements.

They did in rural areas 20 years ago. I grew up on a rural road and it was totally a thing to send mail by putting it in the mailbox and raise the flag.

Maybe it's just a rural thing for people with individual mailboxes, or maybe they stopped doing this, but it was possible a few decades ago.

I've been using MATE since Gnome 3. I really liked the simplicity of Gnome 2 and was unable to adapt to their "new" way so I switched to MATE and it just clicked. I tried Gnome 3 a few times again but I just can't.

As for why MATE instead of XFCE or others? Because I already used and tried XFCE in the past and prefered Gnome 2's look and feel. In fact, I have been going out of my way for years to keep every app using GTK2 and my favourite theme because I like how it looks and feel, and Gnome 3 and GTK3 broke this. So MATE it was. They switched to GTK3 too eventually but it gave my time to adjust.

My only "complaints" about it are the file manager Caja, and the way you can list windows, which both feel very basic. I would like those two to get better.

I try and use different DE from time to time, from Fluxbox to E17, but I just go back to MATE. My favorite DE of all time was E16 but it took waaay too long for E17 to be functional and I ended up keeping MATE.

This reminds me of the efforts made against tobacco and for cleaner air in certain areas, but it also reminds me how we do this for other things too.

Radium toothpaste, lead paint and asbestos curtains.

So, as someone that sees cars as a significant source of pollution, from exhausts, brake pads and tires, I find it ironic that some places are banning outdoor smoking in public areas while it's perfectly acceptable to drive a gas guzzler around and among those places.

Like, I'm so grateful nobody can smoke around me on that restaurant's terrace, this way I can fully enjoy breathing the pollution from the thousand of cars around.

He was right. Tipping culture is horrible and should go away.

In the past two years, Trump has called for every major American TV news network to be punished, according to a CNN review of his speeches and social media posts.

He has imprecisely but repeatedly invoked the government’s licensing of broadcast TV airwaves and has said on at least 15 occasions that certain licenses should be revoked

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/22/media/trump-strip-tv-station-licenses-punish-media/index.html

And speaking of him, thank god for our giant gas guzzlers that allows us to drive in those extreme conditions and are certainly not part of the problem. Oh and Jesus, if you could lower gas prices, that would be really great!

Mildly interesting fact, what English speakers call tarantulas are called mygales in French, while the term tarentule is reserved for a specific species from the region or Taranto in Italy.

It's a false friend that is really easy to get wrong, and is often confusing. As a native French speaker I thought "wait, there's no tarantulas in the Americas", only to realize that there are, in English.

Sad to hear but... GaS pRiCeS aRe ToO HigH!

Until "their" stuff disappears. I follow 123 backup rule so I have stuff online but there is nothing like having your own collection. Thanks but I'll stick to physical media if possible.

Floppies were the most ubiquitous storage device for a while so it's no surprise. Nowadays it could be a few USB type A ports. We're slowly switching to USB type C but type A has now been standard for around two decades.

Actually, Canada is a leader in high speed rail studies.

I can't tell for BlueSky because I have not joined yet, but I did create a Mastodon account months ago and I'm not sure what to do with it or how to interact with others. I find it confusing.

On Twitter I was mostly following a bunch of like minded people, liking their stuff, and I could see what they liked too. But on Mastodon there's uuh, boosts and favorites?! I'm not sure of how it works or what I'm doing. I can't just "like" posts? I have to boost them?! I found the people I liked that were on Twitter, but on Mastodon I feel like there's nothing I can do aside from seeing posts and it's just not attractive.

I can't stand ads. It's even worse on TV when they yell them at you. So I actually stopped watching TV in 2009 because I couldn't stop the ads, and I was tired to have the TV trying to convince me to buy a car every 15 minutes.

If I want to watch something that was on TV, I download it from... * the internet *.

My parents still watch TV and just let the ads blast in the background, and we need to yell over them to talk. I hate it. Then they're like "oh it's just like in the ad". I don't know how they can tolerate this. I did when I was younger but when I realized that the TV was trying to sell me twice a car in 15 minutes, or about 8 times an hour, I couldn't help but notice and it's just really annoying.

It's obviously not "full self driving" because I don't have a driving license and cannot use a Tesla to drive me where I need to go. Same for people that can't drive, like the blind.

If they were truly autonomous cars, people wouldn't need a driving license to use FSD.

I'm not American and will do the same. The amount of artificial and inflated drama is just unbearable. Not for another four years.

"Trump said this unacceptable thing!!!1!" followed by a few days of outrage, nothing changes, then he says another stupider shit a few days layer and the cycle continues.

In a way I'm sure the media are very happy for that Trump win. They're gonna have some drama every fucking day.

Then you can stay on forums that needs to be refreshed, or uuuh.. isn't there a proprietary IRC like thing for young people, something like Disco? Or Discom. Or Discord? Apparently it's much like IRC but without the freedom.