lothar wrote:
I think maybe I had a psychotic break today. Not sure. It was really weird and like I'm a dream and I was kinda watching myself and time was really slow and sometimes skipped. Totally not high. Also people looked somehow different like I was seeing them for the first time.



Edit
I just realized I described a typical time on thc. But I was sober as all hell

Have you been under unusual amounts of stress lately compared to what you usually handle? Are you on any medication (not recreational, actual meds) or have you been recently?

Either way, in your shoes I wouldn't let this slide. If it's possible in any way, please get a neurological check immediately. It sounds like derealization but it could be something physical and not psychological just as easily and if it is, you need to know what's happening asap.

Lothar, follow Tantz's advice please. She's a professional in that realm

bravo1102 wrote:
I've come to believe the “everybody against whites” came from that it was whites beating up and oppressing every other group for the past few centuries.

Ugh, I know.
That characterisation annoys me from all angles.
There are no such thing as “whites” for a start. :/

Western European nations reached a level of technological advancement and industrialisation that allowed them to gain a lot of power and use it over nations with agrarian focussed economies and low levels of national unity- which started with central and eastern Europe, then spread down to North Africa, South Asia, the Americas etc
-But the trick is that's history from a Western European perspective… Which is also done to make the Europeans look good and powerful. But t's not the only truth

Around the world every powerful group was always also dominating their regions. That includes indigenous tribes in North, Central, and South America, the Mughals in India, the Chinese, the Koreans, the Thais, various Arab groups, various African tribal nations, the Turks, the Russians, the Japanese, The Maoris…

We think about history has being “the Europeans did this and that” mainly because the Europeans wrote it and taught it so it's from their perspective. When we think we're being critical of it and redressing wrongs we're still just stuck in the European version of history where they're the the strongest and best and everyone else was weak and pathetic… Which wasn't really the case.

-NOT to discount the problems caused by colonialism though, which still affects us to this day (mainly from the 19th century). The trouble in Israel and the independence riots in New Caledonia right now are evidence of that :(

I am so sick right now :(

Not as sick as I was with COVID or the Flu but still sick… With weakness, sore throat, coughing, headache and fevers.

When I get better I'll go back to wearing masks in public. 🤬

It's basically like wearing a condom when you know what- sensible precautions!
Despite a very adventurous and varied history I have never yet had an STD. I wish I could say the same about colds and flus! 😭

Ozoneocean wrote:
I am so sick right now :(

Not as sick as I was with COVID or the Flu but still sick… With weakness, sore throat, coughing, headache and fevers.

When I get better I'll go back to wearing masks in public. 🤬

It's basically like wearing a condom when you know what- sensible precautions!
Despite a very adventurous and varied history I have never yet had an STD. I wish I could say the same about colds and flus! 😭

Get Well!

Last time I had a cold I actually dug out the mask so I wouldn't spread it. I mean that's how I got it. A coworker had come in coughing and sneezing and got our manager sick. Even wiped everything down for a few days. Fortunately that kept it from getting anyone else sick. Still have the wipes, might as well use them.

Never will forget 1989 when I had one flu or cold on top of another for six weeks. Could not swallow at all until my doctor started me gargling with Listerine three times a day. I had everything short of strep.

InkyMoondrop wrote:
Get Well!

Thankyou!

bravo1102 wrote:
Never will forget 1989 when I had one flu or cold on top of another for six weeks. Could not swallow at all until my doctor started me gargling with Listerine three times a day. I had everything short of strep.

That sounds awful!
Ugh, I had strep a couple of years ago, it made me SOooo sick, I almost needed to go to the hospital XD
-I thought it was just a cold so I didn't do anything about it until I was shaking uncontrollably and sweating buckets due to a raging fever…
Lucky the doctor made a housecall and gave me lots and lots of antibiotics for it.

Get well soon Oz!!! That sounds awful.

I'll admit it's why I still use a mask inside crowded places (and especially trains and supermarkets) and when I go to the open air market because people cluster and have no problem sneezing in your face while picking eggplants or tomatoes or something.

Tantz_Aerine wrote:
Get well soon Oz!!! That sounds awful.

Thanks Tantz! It really was The worst cold I've had for ages.

The sickest I remember being as back when I caught chickenpox at about 21. That was severe. Weeks in bed suffering and a massive cough for months after. I would have gotten pneumonia and meningitis from that. Foolishly I never went to a hospital.

Next sickest was a bad flu I got when I was 31 or 32. That left me bedridden for two weeks. Lucky I was working from home then and had carefully set up my computer so it could all be used in my bed- the screen folded out above me, the keyboard had a fold out table… it was brilliant. I was really skinny then so it probably made things worse.
After that I had trouble walking for too long without getting exhausted. It too me a long time to get back to normal.

3rd sickest is a tie between CoVid and Strep. The strep hit me hard and fast, with the worst fever I've ever experienced- Shivering uncontrollable shakes and boiling full body sweats. Got a doctor to come around and he dosed me with antibiotics to kill it. He said I should have been in hospital.
CoVid19 was horrible and lasted almost 2 weeks. Horrible headache, cough, sore throat, bed ridden, fever etc. Strep was worse but only lasted 4 days at most so they're tied because CoVid19 was harder to get rid of, plus the vaccinations probably helped me with getting through it.

This cold doesn't rank among those, but it was very bad for a cold nevertheless.

Grumble-grumble-grumble. As much as I dislike Firefox, I've had to re-install it on my computer for the sole purpose of using YouTube, because YouTube has apparently managed to bypass all adblockers in Chrome - and not only that, but they have fixed it to where you not only can't skip any of the ads, but the video won't even start after the ads are finished. Firefox, however, appears to be unaffected by this, so like I said, I'm only using it for no other reason than for YouTube.

Call me crazy, but I was in the minority of people who actually liked Internet Explorer back in the day. I don't know why, but website layouts and fonts always look so distorted on Firefox (and still do), which is why I never liked it. When it came time to leave IE behind, Opera was recommended to me, and I did sort of like it at first: it looked and behaved very similarly to IE, but it had outdated color profiles that would distort the color of media (pics, vids, gifs, etc.), so I decided to go with Chrome instead. Love it. Especially with how customizable it is; Firefox is more like a Dustydinosaur in this department.

If YouTube finds a way to bypass adblockers in Firefox I'm going back to Winamp

I still use winamp.
The old 2. something version. With a Google skin.

Ah Firefox…
I still use its proginator- Seamonkey, with the modern skin.

They both came from Netscape but Firefox was the breakout mass popular one. I hated it when they started using the crappy Chrome engine though, which is based on the even crappier Safari. UGH!
Shitty Apple and Google internet duoppoly.

Seamonkey doesn't work as well these days because like Drunk Duck it's only worked on by volunteers and they have a hard time keeping up with all the stupid changes Google and Apple force on the web so newer sites like Youtube don't work well with it.
Works great with DD and other sites like us though.

The reason that Chrome and Firefox work differently with Youtube is that Chrome now uses version 3 of some codebase for extension and functionality and not version 2 which they discontinued. While Firefox still uses 2 as well as 3 so it retains support for all the old adblookcers- their operations are all hamstrung in version 3.


I quit using IE when it was too slow to adapt back in the 1990s and couldn't even show images on websites haha! I moved to Netscape then.
Ever since though I stayed away from IE because it became too integrated with Windows and would do weird things. Didn't that start with Windows 98?
But that never changed. They ALWAYS ALWAYS wanted to do what Google and Apple are doing to the web now but never succeeded for some reason.

J_Scarbrough wrote:
Grumble-grumble-grumble. As much as I dislike Firefox, I've had to re-install it on my computer for the sole purpose of using YouTube, because YouTube has apparently managed to bypass all adblockers in Chrome - and not only that, but they have fixed it to where you not only can't skip any of the ads, but the video won't even start after the ads are finished. Firefox, however, appears to be unaffected by this, so like I said, I'm only using it for no other reason than for YouTube.

Call me crazy, but I was in the minority of people who actually liked Internet Explorer back in the day. I don't know why, but website layouts and fonts always look so distorted on Firefox (and still do), which is why I never liked it. When it came time to leave IE behind, Opera was recommended to me, and I did sort of like it at first: it looked and behaved very similarly to IE, but it had outdated color profiles that would distort the color of media (pics, vids, gifs, etc.), so I decided to go with Chrome instead. Love it. Especially with how customizable it is; Firefox is more like a Dustydinosaur in this department.

I changed to a different Ad blocker, problem solved.

The ads on YouTube are ridiculous. They'll break into a presenter mid-sentence.
Sometimes I like to see what the algorithm has chosen for me. It's also amusing when it picks up on what my wife searched for on the computer. Suddenly there will be all these cruise line ads.
I actually appreciate ads anyway because it breaks things up and I don't get sucked into a program where I start ignoring the rest of reality.

Apparently I'm too weird for advertising algorithms to understand.
Thankfully the Youtube ones just give me generic ads for cars or health insurance most of the time.

Facebook was utterly CONVINCED that I was an out and proud gay man with full blown AIDS who was into cross-dressing, clubbing, B&D, S&M, had multiple BFs, and would attend every pride or love festival around the world.
I am not kidding. The adds I got were specifically tailored to that person.

Instagram is CONVINCED I am a veteran retired army officer doctor.

I have never done or said anything to create that impression.

I have to somehow get my alternative universe Ozoneoceans to STOP using my social media :(

My Twitter handle was Robofemoid so I'd get feminine products.
The algorithm picks up on the strangest little thing and sometimes the conclusions it reaches are ridiculous. It also considers who you interact with. I know some gamers. I had to cclose all gaming suggestions and say it wasn't appropriate each and every time. I used to waste lots of time gaming. Never again.
And when YouTube asks you a marketing question? Check everything so they think you know every brand name. Skip them and they'll throw that category of item at you. Obviously you need to know more about it.
Sometimes I think I should have gone into advertising. So it can be fun to see what they throw at me next. Amazon got the information I recently bought a car, so I'm getting ads to trade up. Yes, my information was sold. It was awful when my wife and refinanced the house. Every loan service jumped on us.
I really prefer the cruise line ads or Spanish language ones because of where I live and work.

Genejoke wrote:
I changed to a different Ad blocker, problem solved.

The thing of it is, I had multiple adblockers installed, some all-purpose, some specifically designed for YouTube ads, plus the Ghostery Tracker and Adblocker; YouTube has bypassed all of them in Chrome. Changing and trying different adblockers didn't solve the problem at all.

Ozoneocean wrote:
Apparently I'm too weird for advertising algorithms to understand.
Thankfully the Youtube ones just give me generic ads for cars or health insurance most of the time.

Facebook was utterly CONVINCED that I was an out and proud gay man with full blown AIDS who was into cross-dressing, clubbing, B&D, S&M, had multiple BFs, and would attend every pride or love festival around the world.
I am not kidding. The adds I got were specifically tailored to that person.

Instagram is CONVINCED I am a veteran retired army officer doctor.

I have never done or said anything to create that impression.

I have to somehow get my alternative universe Ozoneoceans to STOP using my social media :(

For a while some time back, Facebook kept showing me sponsored material for ladies lingerie, and like I said a few months ago, for months they would not stop shoving Taylor Shit down my throat all the damn time, even though I never follow her, never watch her vidoes, never listen to her music, never post about her, never like any pages or groups about her, etc. Thankfully that finally stopped recently, but still, it was such overkill.

YouTube also went through a period years ago where they would keep pushing Fox News content, even though it's a channel I never watch or follow, nor do I ever watch any political videos that would convince their algorithms that their content is what I would want to be recommended to me. On the other hand, I know you can pay YouTube quite handsomely to push your content out there to get more people to watch, and something tells me that's what Fox News was doing.

For a while some time back, Facebook kept showing me sponsored material for ladies lingerie, and like I said a few months ago, for months they would not stop shoving Taylor Shit down my throat all the damn time, even though I never follow her, never watch her vidoes, never listen to her music, never post about her, never like any pages or groups about her, etc. Thankfully that finally stopped recently, but still, it was such overkill.

Hate to disappoint you, but nowadays it's enough if you just stop scrolling on the wrong ad or post on facebook for two seconds and it'll feed you more of the same stuff. It's probably how my timeline got filled with Baby Reindeer stuff every day since it came out, despite never even checking out wtf that was. Still haven't watched it, but I can confidently say I've seen enough articles pop up about it to know 70% of its plot. You can't turn off the ads on facebook, so even though you restrict talking about Swift to places like this (but you do talk about her, they succeeded) one day you'll stop scrolling to read what ppl post about her and boom, you've got yourself another 10 posts on her.

Being an old guy and following vintage and nostalgic groups the only Swift I get is Tom Swift. Now that's an obscure reference. XD

InkyMoondrop wrote:
Hate to disappoint you, but nowadays it's enough if you just stop scrolling on the wrong ad or post on facebook for two seconds and it'll feed you more of the same stuff. It's probably how my timeline got filled with Baby Reindeer stuff every day since it came out, despite never even checking out wtf that was. Still haven't watched it, but I can confidently say I've seen enough articles pop up about it to know 70% of its plot. You can't turn off the ads on facebook, so even though you restrict talking about Swift to places like this (but you do talk about her, they succeeded) one day you'll stop scrolling to read what ppl post about her and boom, you've got yourself another 10 posts on her.

Baby Reindeer? Never heard of it. Is this the new Baby Shark or something?

Baby Reindeer? Never heard of it. Is this the new Baby Shark or something?

It's some true story about a female stalker harassing a male comedian. There's an ongoing scandal about it, when online sleuths found the real woman and she wants to sue Netflix or the creators at least.

Well, that's . . . something.

In other news, have YouTube videos always had such choppy and jerky playback in Firefox? I haven't used the browser in years, but I don't recall ever having this problem with it.

Youtube plays perfectly on my Firefox.


———–

Social media is poison. and Apple and Google are an evil duopoly that controls the net.

Well, today wasn't the best birthday I've ever heard, and it wasn't the worst either, it was . . . just different. Interesting, to say the least. What's funny is that almost nobody could believe I'm 35 - namely, at least a couple of women who are exactly my age, but do look a little older than me.

Okay, this explains everything.

https://cybernews.com/news/youtube-testing-ad-injection-bypassing-adblockers/

J_Scarbrough wrote:
today wasn't the best birthday I've ever heard, and it wasn't the worst either

Happy birthday.

Do not remember my 35th but it would have been while I lived in Yorkshire. Good times living there.

J_Scarbrough wrote:
In other news, have YouTube videos always had such choppy and jerky playback in Firefox? I haven't used the browser in years, but I don't recall ever having this problem with it.

Just asking do you have uBlock Origin installed? Essential for keeping intrusive ads and other pesky critters from interfering with your experience.

plymayer wrote:
Do not remember my 35th but it would have been while I lived in Yorkshire. Good times living there.

We're all old codgers hahaha! Where are you living now?

Most of my 20s were spent in the 1990s and I can't remember much but then I don't remember much from any time, things seem to blend into an infinite ongoing single day, where I am a constant, slowly ageing rock while all the world races and changes around me.

This is probably the real reason why DD is stuck in the early 2000s… I'm basically Tom Bombadil XD

Old codger? Oz you're not even fifty yet.

This year I turn 60. My brother turns 65 and will retire soon, my sister turns 70 and still full of life.
I intend to beat my mother's record amd keep working past 83. I'm a security guard so my job is kind of sedentary.

The world has been on the brink of ending since I can remember, they keep turning up the stupid. When I was in my 20s it was at a ten, now it's past 25 or so. People keep adding another tic mark to the meter.

My ottercase for my phone is so destroyed.
The button broke off so I grew out my pinky nail so I could reach it. That or a key.

bravo1102 wrote:
Old codger? Oz you're not even fifty yet.

Soooo close…

Speaking of the world ending-
People go on about recycling now more than ever, as if we JUST NOW invented it, but the stupid ridiculous reality is that we recycle now LESS than ever before in the history of the planet LOL!

All those stupid corporations going on about how good they are and how green they are only do that for advertising, there are no green companies.
Things are in plastic jars now, bottles that used to be glass are plastic, packaging that used to be paper is all plastic.

My mum collects old jars that she found in the ruins of demolished houses, these things are over 100 years old- They have writing on the bottom that advises people to RETURN them to the manufacturer so they can reuse them. That's universal. They all have that on. So not to some stupid fake recycle plant that just ships stuff to India for landfill, but direct to the company that made the goods so they can wash the container and reuse it. O_O

We use LED lights now that use a lot less electricity… Except these F***ing moron businesses use MILLIONS of them for advertising signs all over their buildings plus giant TV screens running at all hours and using more electricity than their gran parents did in their entire lives.

I would LOVE to see green restrictions truly in force and us stick to the climate accords, I truly would, but big business keeps flouting it :(

Is it true that new laptop computers don't even come with USB ports or headphone jacks anymore? I mean, those are rather necessary; how can they not even have them?