We just don’t want neoliberals running. We’re done with that. Everyone is. I hope AOC runs.

If I had access to good quality copper, I could invent electricity and do very well for myself.

So long as I can avoid Ur in the 18th century BC, I could go back pretty far.

Is Kagi worth it? I mostly use DDG but every search engine I’ve tried is terrible now and rapidly getting worse by the day.

There are two red flags on the new Steam Machine — the fact that it still includes USB-A ports and the 8GB of VRAM. Anything under 12GB is a major problem in 2025. While there are adapters for USB, I hope they offer a version that includes 12GB or 16GB VRAM.

I was pricing out an entry level gaming PC for one of the grandkids for Christmas and the price of parts has gone mad. It’s even worse if you want to make a smaller ITX build. How does less material and complexity translate to higher costs? And storage and memory are ridiculous. With a few small upgrades, even at $1,000 these would be a steal. It’s a shame they won’t ship before the holidays.

So right now, we’re discussing Steam Decks with some third party docks and accessories so they can be used like a PC. I can’t find anything better.

One that obviously isn’t worth playing.

You did not just imply that being bisexual makes you a terrible person. What the fuck.

If this flow existed once for disabling the entire feature permanently, I would be okay with it. But it seems like they are going to intentionally make installing any software they don’t get a piece of painful to install every time. That is not an acceptable compromise.

Maybe changing the context will help you see the problem:

You are doing the libertarian thing and completely and repeatedly ignoring context. Do you also try to argue “woke DEI is the real racism?”

then read your statement again and see the sexism that you defend.

What on earth makes you think I am defending sexism? I am pointing out that sexists deliberately misinterpret this letter — exactly as you are doing — to subjugate women in the here and now, while that is in no way what this letter is about. If you read some of my other comments you will know that I am a militant atheist but I get really pissed when people intentionally misuse these documents as a weapon against others, including myself.

Again “women” is NOT universal in this context. It is “ambitious, entitled, and wealthy Artimisian women of Ephesus”. It is very specific, not universal. I am not sure how to make this more clear since you continue to dismiss that objective fact in favor of a sexist, wildly fallacious modern xtian re-interpretation.

Maybe we have our wires crossed. I am not trying to perform apologetics, but correcting the record for a historical document that academics understand very well, but is nevertheless a holy weapon for ambitious, immoral, political tyrants because people are stupid, ignorant, and uneducated all the things this letter is specifically admonishing against.

Called it.

Where is the admonishment that men should do the same?

Ephesus is not a patriarchal society. You are still assuming a culture and context that is equivalent to your own modern experience. Women are a privileged class in 200 CE Ephesus, and had been for hundreds of years. Like all privileged classes in all of human history, they are the group that are most likely to try to seize authority for themselves. Parading ostentatious wealth in the form of fancy hair, jewelry, and expensive clothes was not a trait of Ephesian men, but Ephesian women.

Also “a woman” and “a man” does not mean “every woman” or “every man”, or even “any woman” or “any man.” It is a targeted reference to the specific issue that Timothy was dealing with in Ephesus… Artemis adherents trying to take control of the fledgling christian cult, even though they don’t know the first thing about them or their doctrine. The Koine offers a lot of clear meaning and intent that is very difficult to convey in either English or terms that are understandable to a modern person with no historical frame of reference.

What Paul is saying is “If women want to teach, they first need to learn. If they want to learn, they need to stop flaunting their wealth, stop behaving like entitled jerks, and start treating our teachers — who are men — with respect, instead of trying to usurp their positions. We aren’t doing this for clout, but to improve everyone’s lives. Those who haven’t learned the rules are going to make terrible mistakes.”

This is the original Koine per the NA28 for 1 Timothy.

Βούλομαι οὖν προσεύχεσθαι τοὺς ἄνδρας ἐν παντὶ τόπῳ, ἐπαίροντας ὁσίους χεῖρας χωρὶς ὀργῆς καὶ διαλογισμοῦ. ὡσαύτως καὶ γυναῖκας ἐν καταστολῇ κοσμίῳ μετὰ αἰδοῦς καὶ σωφροσύνης κοσμεῖν ἑαυτάς, μὴ ἐν πλέγμασιν καὶ χρυσίῳ ἢ μαργαρίταις ἢ ἱματισμῷ πολυτελεῖ, ἀλλ’ ὃ πρέπει γυναιξὶν ἐπαγγελλομέναις θεοσέβειαν, δι’ ἔργων ἀγαθῶν. γυνὴ ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ μανθανέτω ἐν πάσῃ ὑποταγῇ· διδάσκειν δὲ γυναικὶ οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω, οὐδὲ αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρός, ἀλλ’ εἶναι ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ.

Paul wrote to the various movements about their unique challenges and how they should approach them. The Koine is dripping with meaning that is not easily translated to English.

This is how most English speakers - who have no knowledge or experience with the cultures being written about or the Koine language they were written in - read their rubbish translations. This is also clearly you.

Men need to be praying all the time, and when they pray they need to raise their hands up and do it without fuss. I want the women to cover themselves up, not wearing jewelry or caring for themselves, but serving on others, which is what God wants. Women need to shut up and do what they’re told. I will not tolerate a woman being a teacher or having any authority over a man, she must shut the hell up, because God created Adam first. Eve came second.

But language is funny, because it’s meant to convey meaning through ideas, not approximations of words with zero thought to origin or target context. Because I can read Koine and history is one of my 'tisms, this is what it actually SAYS.

Whenever the men lift up their hands to address God, I want their hands to be clean, not soiled with resentment or quarrel. In the same way, women need to present themselves reasonably - with dignity and self-discipline. Not with extravagant hairstyles, golden jewelry, expensive pearls, or decadent clothes, but in alignment with the values of a woman who claims to serve God: by setting a good example in how they live and behave. Let them learn, but they must be calm and composed students. I will not give my permission for a woman to seize control of teaching from a man. They must conduct themselves peacefully. Remember the story of Adam and Eve. Adam, who came first, was not deceived, but Eve, who came later, was tricked into doing wrong.

This builds directly on a couple paragraphs earlier, which laments the destabilizing influence of Ephesus’ pagan culture on the Christian movement there. Men were bitter and women were powerful and ambitious, and people who had no idea what they were talking about were trying to seize positions of authority in this new Christian sect. They needed to learn, first. The integrity of the teaching had to be maintained.

τὸ δὲ τέλος τῆς παραγγελίας ἐστὶν ἀγάπη ἐκ καθαρᾶς καρδίας καὶ συνειδήσεως ἀγαθῆς καὶ πίστεως ἀνυποκρίτου, ὧν τινες ἀστοχήσαντες ἐξετράπησαν εἰς ματαιολογίαν, θέλοντες εἶναι νομοδιδάσκαλοι, μὴ νοοῦντες μήτε ἃ λέγουσιν μήτε περὶ τίνων διαβεβαιοῦνται.

What does that say? Well, resist the urge to assume that all self-important blowhards are always men and remember what I said about Ephesus being the seat of the matriarchal Artemis cult.

The purpose of our mission is love - love from a pure heart, a sense of integrity, and genuine commitment. But some of you have lost sight of this mission and wandered off to blow self-important wind, holding ambitions to be esteemed teachers. But despite their projected confidence they have no idea what they are talking about.

Interesting. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

I completely agree.

Religion - and all dogmatism - exists solely as a tool for the powerful to subjugate and oppress others. This has been the case for all of recorded human history. Christianity is no exception.

I won’t take a fantastical mythological approach to any ancient document, even if that’s what modern acolytes are doing. I won’t pretend to care about their fan fiction, but I will casually correct factual mistakes and move on. Why? Because it’s therapeutic. I was raised in an abusive evangelical home, and besides that abuse, because my existence was “sinful”, the insistence on reading “The Bible” and learning that it doesn’t actually say any of the things I was told it did was formative. The people who demanded I read it clearly hadn’t themselves, and never dug deeper than the english words — which they insisted were “God-inspired.” Yes, the english ones. Which english ones? All of them. And whatever you wanted to extrapolate from them, which meant all your hate and torture and mental, physical, and emotional abuse were also the literal words of god. Fuck that. Fuck those people.

You are right that nothing can change a cultists mind. They are in a cult of millions and millions. Their own holy book disagrees with all their dogmas, their speech, their actions, their teachings, but pointing it out will never change their minds. I’ll do it, anyway, because I need to. Liars should be exposed, even the liars themselves won’t recant.

There is actually a lot of historical context missing and — like most things Biblical — this has been terribly mistranslated and deeply abused and twisted by patriarchal leaders to suit their own political ambitions.

Ephesus was home to the cult of Artemis/Diana, and the Temple of Artemis which was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. The cult was matriarchal, Artemis being the goddess of girls and fertility, natural forces and archery, among other things. Her priestesses spoke with the authority and voice of their goddess, who was strong, fierce, and independent and the culture developed around this for hundreds of years.

The entire letter is to a specific group of people regarding specific cultural conflicts. What the letter is saying is that women who are converting must not be allowed use their sex as an excuse to suppress or dominate male teachers. Instead, they need to learn this new religion respectfully from the existing teachers, who are men, rather than taking over by force as the culture would have historically promoted as their Ephesian/Artemisian birthright. Flaunting wealth and social status is also frowned upon. And while the sexist “women made the mistake” line is there and is intentional, the call back to being “saved by childbearing” is meant to extend a familiar bridge for Artemis cultists. If it’s not immediately obvious why, then do you remember what Artemis was goddess of?

Jaws.

The shark prop didn’t work well and looked terrible, which resulted in much of it being left out of the movie. The movie is more terrifying because of this.

A better source.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/09/trump-administration-tells-states-to-undo-full-snap-benefits-00643887

USDA’s latest memo, sent Saturday to state directors of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, instructed states to deliver just 65 percent of benefits during the government shutdown and required those who already sent full payments to claw back that money.

There really is no bottom to this administrations evil.

Sometimes I forget that Italy, despite its history, is currently under control of far-right neo-fascists.

I have not allowed myself to feel proud or hopeful as I know that, at any moment, they will give the fascists everything they want and all of this will have been for nothing.