The short version is that it was about the transfer of power from hereditary nobility to a different elite consisting of wealthy merchants and “gentlemen” farmers. This transfer was already happening anyway throughout the British Empire, the Americans just wanted to speed it up and codify it.

The last week or so it’s been Too Much Too Young by The Specials. It was on the radio, once, last week and for no good reason I’ve been stuck with it since. Thanks brain.

Several things can be true at once. We don’t have to be all-in on one side or the other of the Snowden affair. I’ve never understood why people seem so eager to pick a team on this issue.

I don’t think Lemmy is ready to hear that kind of thing.

True, but not for the reasons that most people think.

Ok, the fact that you honestly believe this is how legitimate newsrooms work is both deeply disheartening and an indication of how little the average person knows about the news business.

Editors decide what gets published, not the editorial board which is an entirely different and unrelated body that traditionally has zero contact with the content side of things. In the business we say that there is a “firewall” between the editorial board and actual news content. The NYT or WaPo would have mass resignations of their reporters if either of their editorial boards tried to influence content.

Ownership is a bit different and obviously --as we know from the Murdoch empire-- can influence content, but in traditional operations they’ve always been very hands-off. It’s a fact, for example, that Jeff Bezos doesn’t care what the WaPo publishes and has no interest in it beyond as a business concern.

Editors do have control over content, but overwhelmingly they are concerned with doing a good job and furthering their careers and professional reputations. You’re completely misunderstanding the incentive structure in mainstream news media. Outside of the extremist advocacy journalism ecosystems --mostly but not only on the far right-- no one has any incentive to push an agenda and risk ruining their career by getting something important wrong.

Unfortunately advocacy journalism is very much a legitimate type of journalism, just ask Glen Greenwald, who I fuckin’ hate.

It’s more of a cause or a movement than an organization. I guess I don’t know why that should be difficult to understand.

Oh so now you are arguing that deadheads were an organization too? Really? In what universe?

Infamous is the word you’re looking for.

Yeah that’s bullshit. There isn’t some secret cabal that’s in charge of US journalism anymore than there is in the UK. What really happens is that because the old news-media business models have been utterly destroyed by the Internet, there’s a giant and never-ending competition for audience and everyone knows that sensationalism sells.

You have a similar problem in the UK but it’s not as pronounced because the BBC is government funded and even though it’s far from perfect, it does set a kind of baseline. Your other big news organizations are just as bad as in the US though. Your tabloids are actually a lot worse than ours, which is saying something.

While I understand what you are getting at, for the record that’s not what linguistics is about at all.

You obviously know nothing about linguistics.

I believe you are the one who is confused and making unwarranted assumptions here.

I don’t know how it is for you, but when I look back at 24-year-old me, I am not impressed. I guess what I’m saying is that there are a lot of us who definitely don’t have their shit together when they’re 24. They say your prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed until 25 at the earliest, but I feel like it was closer to 30 for me. Granted, I’m kind of a dummy anyway, so this probably doesn’t apply to everyone.

Same. Mine is a regular watch with hour and minute hands and a digital read-out in the background that I can turn on and off. It’s nothing fancy, but I wear it with a fat black leather wrist-band which is pleasing to my easily-entertained soul.

I am a simple man in many ways.

Hardcore agreement with regard to hiking groups. I’m in my 50s and happily married, but my wife has MS and isn’t really able to join me on my hiking excursions. I have a brother and a nephew and a son who will sometimes join me on my various expeditions, but they aren’t consistent partners, which is fine, so I’ve since turned to a local hiking group that has things happening on any given weekend.

I’m not single or even remotely looking for a relationship, but I’ve definitely seen some younger people find romantic partners in our little hiking group.

There’s a bit of a learning curve, but just be cautious at first and you’ll figure it out. It’s not rocket science. Also don’t use dull blades as that’s an easy way to cut yourself. Fortunately they’re dirt cheap.

The mistake here is in assuming that it’s either all or nothing; that self checkouts are either great, or some kind of disaster.

The reality is that they’re great for some applications, but suck ass for others.

Here’s the deal; if it’s just me with a few items, yeah, the self-checkout is awesome, but if it’s me and my wife and we have a shitload of groceries for the entire family, guess what? Self-checkout sucks ass and it’s way easier to go through a regular checkout stand where there won’t be a hundred little different ways for the system to get jammed up and require an employee intervention.

What part about this do people not understand?

I have to think that a lot of the hostility to regular checkout stands comes from relatively young Lemmy users who don’t actually have to shop for families of their own.

There’s a good chance that it’s weather-related, so I wouldn’t take it personally.

I don’t know how it is where you are, but here in the PNW everything is basically an ice-skating rink, and no one is driving anywhere.