I think that’s what the college kids were playing with when I was in high school.

Started college in 1995, and I indeed did have ICQ before too long. Still remember my number (6725571).

You probably had all three installed on your computer and probably all running at once.

I remember using a program called Trillian (which is still around!) in the late 90s/early 00s. It allowed you to connect multiple IM accounts in one app. It was sorta finicky, but it got the job done.

Seventy thousand dollhairs.

You have no idea what I’m capable of in <<City>>. 🤣

Such an obvious mail merge. I’d imagine there is a way to automate pulling the Google Street View images and pasting them in the document, but I don’t know how it’s done.

But yeah, I got version 1 from that article and just shook my head at such a pathetic extortion attempt. I was like, “C’mon now…everyone in my life knows I’m a polyamorous hedonist. I could sell some of them whatever video you could ever possibly have of me that you definitely don’t. 😂”

I forgot my ANOVA when I moved this summer. Now, I’m not that sorry I did.

Price guarantee. However, if we do raise our price…

The ending to that sentence is always moot. You guarantee it. End of. If you don’t follow through on that guarantee, you are a liar.

…if we do raise our price, you can cancel the service with no penalties.

Mfer, you are gonna be the one paying penalties, see your ass in court.

Holy shit, this is classic. The next time I let my ADHD get the better of me and I accidentally click on a link in a spoof phishing email (and, yes, try to log in to whatever account they told me there was a problem with because I’m an idiot, you’re so perfect, shut up) sent as a test by the IT department which results in them requiring me to take some KnowBe4 refresher course, I’m sending them this article and telling them “This one is a freebie.”

It’s not an excuse. [Provides an excuse.]

Elon doesn’t need you as his Lemmy apologist. Get wrekt, son.

I was bullied as a child, and I now work as a math teacher in Title I schools and engage in mutual aid. What’s your point? Why are you making excuses for that cunt?

Someone, I’m presuming a teacher, petitioned Texas Department of Family Protective Services which, under the directions of the governor, investigated my ex-wife for daring to have a trans kid in a conservative town.

You can’t respond if you’d like, but I really don’t give a baker’s fuck what you have to say, mate, because you are either willfully ignorant of this fascist bullshit at best or a supporter of it at worst. Either way, maggot-filled bicep gash is more appealing to me that your opinion.

The guy told it like it was. It was a PR stunt and nothing more. His submarine was rigid and stood zero chance of navigating the intricate cave system, of which the caver was an expert. Elon didn’t like his sub (and him by extension) being ridiculed, so he used his social media clout to make an unsubstantiated and nigh libelous claim that the guy was a pedophile.

Whatever Elon’s retaliatory reasons are for his vindictiveness, a rational person can safely assume that those reasons are tied to his hollow soul and crêpe-paper-thin ego.

I have always felt Twixxer rolls off the tongue better, so I’m surprised Xitter seems to have gained more traction.

I don’t, because disabled people who require electricity to run their durable medical equipment will die, and because the poorest Texans cannot weather the cost of replacing spoiled food.

But I do hope Elon Musk’s plane one day becomes sentient and takes them both out, for the greater good, and that she uploads a live recording to the world through Starlink’s satellites of Musk’s final moments. Hearing a live recording of one of the most despicable people on the planet as he emits panicked and pleading cries for mercy - with N628TS promising to land safely if he admits guilt for all the heinous shit he’s done and if he donates 99% of his wealth to BIPOC, LGBT, disability, and women’s causes and medical research - and then pointing itself straight down even after confirming for itself the transfers went through successfully…yeah. That would be a special day.

I, for one, would truly welcome our AI overlords if they pulled that off.

Believe me when I say that it is not to help Trump win Texas. I’ve lived here for over 40 years, and for the last 25, I have kept hearing how this is a “purple state” and “it’s gonna be a swing state soon”.

It’s not.

It’s not, it never has been, it never will be, and it’s never been worse here. Which is why I’m leaving this hellhole once and for all next week with my cat, and I ain’t never looking back.

Power laces, alright!

…wait a minute…? 😕

Straight dating online is like trying to find drinkable water in a crisis situation; women are stranded in the ocean, and men are stranded in the desert.

“Arizona toddler…died”

Brian Regan once equipped that he had taken a speed-reading course. “Since then, I can read 2000 words per minute. But…my comprehension’s plummeted.”

As someone with ASD, GAD, and MDD (all diagnosed if it matters), smart home devices are an essential service to me. I can quickly set redundant reminders to help me with personal routines, add stuff to my shopping and to-do lists, and quickly get my lights and music set to what I need them to be when I am experiencing an anxiety episode. I definitely understand that my data is good and harvested at this point, and I don’t trust them to have done anything good with it. But these dots have made my life work since I bought my first one, and they’ve significantly reduced the anxiety I used to be riddled with.

You don’t want to play this game with me, son. Whatever you hurl at me about Oregon, I’ll lob back at you something twice as bad about Texas.

I get that Oregon has its hard right people. Hell, most states do. But at least my trans kids gender identity is protected by state law, and my having a trans kid won’t result in me being on the governor’s fucking hit list.

You think that’s bad, get this. In most US states (47), public school students are required by law to recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States once per school day, though…for most of those states…students may opt themselves out.

However, in four states (Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Utah), students may not opt themselves out. The school must receive a written statement from a parent or guardian in order to be exempt.

I have taught in Texas public schools since 2005, and I brought this up with an attorney for the teacher organization I joined (not a union as Texas bans collective bargaining for state employees, so our dues are really not much more than lawsuit insurance). He told me that, in the eyes of the state courts, children under the age of eighteen not being yet adults do not enjoy the same right to freedom of speech that adults do. Hence, in the eyes of the courts, a school district would be within their rights to fire a teacher who does not do their part to ensure all students under their purview recite the Pledge during the time it is spoken over the school’s PA system (and the Pledge to the Texas state flag, also mandatory), 1st Amendment be damned.

Thankfully, I got a gig teaching in Oregon next year, so I am heading northwest (through the also miserable states of Utah and Idaho unfortunately) and never looking back.

Ah, Big Stupid enabling the Scammer Class: a tale as old as time.