I hate TikTok too, but it’s not going away without comprehensive legislation regulating social media. Until then, a fediverse alternative that’s not ruled by corporate algorithms would at least be a form of harm reduction. Think of it like a Safe Injection Site program; it’s not great that they’re still using, but at least they’re getting clean needles.

Ah man, I used to live in this town. I wish the infrastructure had been this good when I was there.

And your husband knows what he’s doing on a skateboard. Learning at my age will destroy my knees and make me look like an idiot. Part of me will always want to know the thrill of zooming down a half-pipe, but it’s just not worth it. Someone suggested longboarding, that might be fun, or maybe surfing.

Oof, that is my nightmare. I’m a runner, and so far I’ve never torn a ligament or anything, but as I get older I get more worried about it. I always stretch before and after each run, but I know any damage I do will take 10 times as long to heal as it did in my 20s, if it even does heal.

Oh, no, I agree that I’m primed for a midlife crisis, but it’s way too late to start skateboarding. I’m in pretty good shape, eat fairly healthy, exercise regularly, etc., but I can’t shake off an a injury like I did in my teens or twenties. I’m not risking permanently messing up my knees learning how to ollie.

Skateboarding. I was into punk in middle/high-school, some of my friends were skateboarders, but I never bought a board. I’m pushing 40 now and it’s way too late to start, even as a midlife crisis.

Please stop with the assassination conspiracy theories. A false-flag might be somewhat plausible if there were just shots fired at the rally; it would certainly be possible to convince some mentally unstable MAGA chud to shoot wildly into the crowd, and then have Trump fake his injury. But we have a photograph that actually catches one of the bullets passing by his head. There’s no way he risked someone missing him by inches to fake an assassination.

Fun fact, Snowden decided to leak to the Gaurdian over NYT because he saw the Times kill a story on Bush’s warrentless wiretaps in 2006 and knew they couldn’t be trusted.

This is assuming you live in a walkable town or neighborhood. I remember a reddit post (can’t find it anymore) of a guy trying to walk less than 2 miles to an appointment in Orlando. He followed Google Maps directions down the shoulder of a highway that led to a dead-end, backtracked, tried again, and finally made almost all the way to his destination, which was on the opposite side of a 6-lane highway Google wanted him to cross.

I’ve only ever visited the theme parks in Orlando, but I experienced one intersection I had to share with cars. I spent every walk sign waiting for cars making a turn to yield. Even though I had the right of way, literally none of them did, until I finally had to run across the street because the cars at the red light, who could see I was 1/3 through the intersection, floored it the second their light turned green. Sure, fuck all of those car-brained drivers who refuse to yield to pedestrians, but also fuck that city for not fining drivers for shitty behavior, or at least changing their traffic lights so all cars have red lights when pedestrians have the walk sign.

Anyway, point is, personal choices are important, but they can’t overcome the systemic issues created by car culture without collective action. And Orlando sucks ass.