They cost the same as a comma to go between “what” and “are.”
Rob T Firefly
Nerd of all trades from New York City.
he/him 💙💜🩷
- 🌐 https://robvincent.net/
- 🐘 https://masto.hackers.town/@Rob_T_Firefly
- 📻 https://2600.com/offthehook/
- 🎙️ https://modern.technology/
Original content [OC] of mine which I post here is licensed Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 International.
- 29 Posts
- 931 Comments
Back in the early 2010s I was sitting on a long train ride, and opened my hacker-sticker-covered netbook and started doing some terminal stuff in a console window; nothing particularly remarkable or exciting-looking, just navigating directories and moving some files around. An older lady sitting next to me glanced over, her eyes got wide, and she got up and moved to a seat further away from me.
I still think about that moment a lot.
Rob T Firefly@lemmy.worldto
Technology@lemmy.world•Marco Rubio bans Calibri font at State Department for being too DEIEnglish
2·22 hours agoTrust that these people would 100% be removing the curb cuts from every sidewalk if they thought they could get away with it.
Rob T Firefly@lemmy.worldto
Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world•Can I find communication in places other than discord?English
5·7 days agoThere’s still IRC. Discord has always just been IRC with additional media embeds and an outer layer of shiny Nerf controls for babies.
Read the room, dude. This person is from the UK. They use metres over there, not feet.
Rob T Firefly@lemmy.worldto
Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world•Polar Bears are one of the only creatures that naturally hunt Humans... This one tries to break into the Cameraman's glass boxEnglish
3·7 days ago“Get off the phone. Get off… the… phone!”
Rob T Firefly@lemmy.worldto
Fuck AI@lemmy.world•Fucking seriously ruining the general web in terms of looking up information.English
11·7 days agodeleted by creator
Rob T Firefly@lemmy.worldto
Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world•wow, I just found out that Donald Trump has been awarded inaugural FIFA Peace PrizeEnglish
4·7 days agoIt only got a short mention by Colin Jost at the top of Weekend Update:
Trump has not yet won the Nobel Peace Prize, but he did win the equally prestigious Soccer Peace Prize.
FIFA actually invented a fake peace prize in Trump’s honor, and that’s why the trophy shows Trump’s gnarled hands dragging Earth into Hell.
The Music Dance Experience is officially cancelled.
Rob T Firefly@lemmy.worldto
Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world•How do you personally use upvotes/downvotes?English
2·8 days agoI click the arrows.
Of course the mascot is a cartoon bear.
Rob T Firefly@lemmy.worldto
Technology@lemmy.world•Meta to cut up to 30% of metaverse budget, Bloomberg News reportsEnglish
6·8 days agoThat may be the first good thing that author did.
Rob T Firefly@lemmy.worldto
Technology@lemmy.world•Meta to cut up to 30% of metaverse budget, Bloomberg News reportsEnglish
3·8 days agoThat was pretty much the trajectory of Second Life, as I recall.
Rob T Firefly@lemmy.worldto
Fuck AI@lemmy.world•Microsoft forces AI into Notepad, users say, “Leave it alone”English
13·8 days agoNeither Wine or Proton require running Windows. They’re compatibility layers which allow Linux to operate software intended for Windows.
You may be thinking about when someone emulates a full virtual Windows machine within Linux, which is more resource-intensive. The overhead and performance impact of a compatibility layer like Wine or Proton is generally negligible compared to running such a VM.
Rob T Firefly@lemmy.worldto
Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world•Do people actually call their parents by their name (as in First-name basis)? Have you ever done that? Or witnessed someone doing that?English
3·8 days agoSpeaking as a white person of mostly Italian-American ancestry in my late 40s from New York, USA.
My mother and father were always called “Mom” and “Dad.” They divorced, my dad remarried first, and my stepmother has always been called by her first name; my sister and I were never asked to call her “Mom,” and it would have been very weird for anyone to ask us to do so when we already had a mom who wasn’t her. When my mother remarried, he was an immigrant from a Spanish-speaking country and we briefly fell into calling our stepfather “Papi” which is Spanish for “Dad.” That was a little weird, though, and we went back to using his first name.
The cliche’ you mention from Western TV and films of a child calling a mother or father by their first name is often a standard joke about the kid acting rebellious and rejecting their parents’ authority, and usually is depicted as a brief goofy phase which passes by the end of the episode, and not meant to depict a realistic ongoing relationship between parent and child. Alternatively, it could be illustrating a more nontraditional “hippie” family culture as noted by some others in these replies.
As for uncles and aunts, calling them “Uncle (name)” or “Aunt/Auntie (name)” is generally the norm in many Western cultures. I generally call my own “Uncle/Aunt (name).” However, it does very much vary.
Sometimes the formal “Aunt/Uncle” address is more of a thing for children, and when one reaches adulthood they might drop the “uncle” or “aunt” title and just use first names as their relationship transitions from one between a child and adult to a more equal dynamic between adults.
In some families the dynamic may even be different for individual aunts or uncles depending on how close the family relationship is; if it’s a family member who lives nearby and you see all the time and have a very close personal relationship with, or if it’s a distant relative you may only meet in person and communicate with rarely over the course of years, one may find the individual relationship (and, consequently, the form of address) develops differently with that family member. I call my close aunts and uncles who are regular presences in my life “Aunt/Uncle (name),” but if I encountered a distant relative from far away who I haven’t seen or spoken with in 30 years I’d probably just use their first name.
Also, in some families “Uncle” or “Aunt/Auntie” can be a form of respectful address for older adults even if they are not family relations. In my childhood some of my mother’s closest friends who were regular presences in our lives were addressed as “Aunt/Uncle (name)” despite there being no blood relations between us, though when I grew up the “Uncle/Aunt” title was dropped and we just call them by their names as our adult-to-adult friendship continued. This was not the case on my father’s side of the family, where adult friends were always just called by their first names.
Particular mention must be made of the use of the terms “Uncle/Unc” or “Aunt/Auntie” among and toward elder members of the Black community with which one is not related. It is a very delicate issue, and as a white person I don’t use it and don’t claim any authority to speak on the subject, but I think it’s important to learn more about. Some more info can be found starting here and here, but it should be discussed with members of that community if you wish to know more.
Rob T Firefly@lemmy.worldto
Fuck AI@lemmy.world•Microsoft forces AI into Notepad, users say, “Leave it alone”English
7·8 days agoRunning most Windows games on Linux is easy nowadays, regardless of how you acquired them.
Rob T Firefly@lemmy.worldto
HistoryPhotos@piefed.social•Ugliest gun in history? Here's the British "Welrod" pistol, an ingenious blow for European resistance in 1941. [more in post]English
1·11 days agoThe lightsabers were mostly handles from photographers’ flash lamps.
Intro post for camera nerds - Obsessive guide to all lightsaber props for Star Wars nerds
Rob T Firefly@lemmy.worldto
HistoryPhotos@piefed.social•Ugliest gun in history? Here's the British "Welrod" pistol, an ingenious blow for European resistance in 1941. [more in post]English
3·12 days agoThe Star Wars blasters were modified WWII-era European guns, so this one giving you that vibe makes sense.
The Jewish guy is the ham?









The minuscule touchpad sucked on that netbook, making it far quicker and easier to type than smush my finger around while clicking awkwardly-placed buttons.