TBH, I’m not sure I would have recognized that as a Nazi symbol prior to a group of people I knew arguing about Death In June. Some were arguing that the band was fine, some were arguing that the band was pro-fash. The second group was using the band’s iconography–including a totenkopf–as part of their evidence. The first group was claiming that it was satirical. (FWIW, Death In June had a long history of collaboration with Boyd Rice, who is an out-and-proud fascist, which is pretty strong evidence all on its own.) That was around 2010 or so.

If I hadn’t been part of that, I can’t say when it would have broken my threshold of consciousness.

The problem is that the website doesn’t allow some of the critical features that the app allows, such as depositing checks. IIRC there are a few things that I was trying to do–link accounts for payments, I think?–where I had to use the banking app.

I’ve definitely had better luck with them, although it depends on how windy and rainy it is. If it was so bad that a cigarette was going to be soaked before I got it lit, then nothing was going to work. Plus, you also have cold temperature performance; liquid fuels (for lighters) will continue to work in exceptionally cold weather, while butane lighters tend to not.

Haven’t tried NewPipe yet. I currently use YouTube for specific videos, and I’m usually operating it from a private tab in my browser through a VPN, rather than the app. (So far I’m not getting served ads that way, although sometimes I have to skip to different countries to get around sign-in nags.)

Banking apps are the one thing that worries me. My prior bank didn’t allow rooted phones to be used for online banking; I haven’t made an attempt with my current phone. Given that I now live in a… Rather remote part of the country, access to online banking is fairly important.

You know that he covered up the tattoo within a day of revealing it, right? And that he was the one that revealed it first? The ‘scoop’ from large news outlets came after he spoke about it–and released videos and photos–on Pod Save America.

So he’s not a dude with a Nazi tattoo. He’s a dude that had a tattoo that he may or may not have known was a Nazi tattoo at some time in the past.

I neither envy nor admire people that speak multiple languages fluently. It’s a useful skill, but it’s not strictly necessary where I live. If I lived in Europe, or near the border with a country that spoke another language, it would be more useful. But where I am, and where I’ve largely lived, it’s a skill that’s more useful than juggling, but less useful than being able to drive a car without getting in accidents.

I would largely suggest that most people should learn at least two languages though: English and Klingon. If you speak Klingon, you’ll be able to fluently converse with nerds from any country. :)

I would very strongly suggest that you reconsider your stance on guns. You may not want to hurt other people to protect yourself, but there are surely other people in your community that need someone to stand with and for them. I think we all hope that the day never comes that it’s necessary, but I think that the quote I heard was, “si vis pacem, para bellum.”

I know a few people in the north Georgia area that are quite welcoming to new people. I can suggest at least one trainer out in Rome. There are a few gun stores that don’t seem to be full of Trump shit. Unfortunately, I didn’t ever get south of Atlanta, so if you’re in e.g. Macon or Savannah, I don’t know anyone directly.

BTW - I’ve heard him speak in person. I’ve seen how Platner dealt with MAGA hecklers. I think that his solutions are simplistic, because the system is wildly complex, but I think he’s got the right ideas. If he’s undercover as a Nazi, he sure as shit as me fooled.

The tattoo dates to roughly 2009, IIRC. The Daily Wire and a few other far-right shitrags have published hysterical pieces about him–via his Reddit account–talking about training the Maine chapter of the Socialist Rifle Club in firearms use and safety in 2020. Or, as they said, “antifa”. And the SRA IS notably anti-fascist in their ideology (I’m sure that some percentage of them are tankies, but the org as a whole doesn’t seem to be authoritarian), and very pro-LGBTQ+. The turned up photos of one of the events that these publications are saying he’s in. (I can’t tell, TBH; the photos aren’t that good. He could be, but I can’t say for certain.)

So the problem you run headlong into here is, if he secretly has/had Nazi beliefs at one time, sufficient to get a tattoo signifying such, why would be be training SRA members?

In addition to that, everything he was posting on Reddit appears to say he’s not a Nazi. Some of the stuff is questionable (slurs, for instance, although those are probably still commonly used in the military), but most people that are fascists don’t hide that shit when they’re posting “anonymously”. And the account was deleted in 2021, four years before he declared for a Senate run. If he was planning a con, that’s a looooooooong time to be building an anti-fascist online persona before it gets any kind of payoff.

Disappointing.

I bought one of their phones nearly a year ago. The UI was… Not great, IMO, but I was able to re-skin it. The SD card slot was the biggest reason for me. Well, now I know taht my next phone is going to be a Pixel with Graphene installed.

Batteries are quite expensive. Lead-acid batteries are readily available, but don’t really work well for powering a house on a regular basis, because they don’t have a very long life cycle. LiON batteries work very well, but they’re fire hazards. Even worse, if you live in an area where you get freezing temperatures, they must be kept inside, because they can’t be allowed to freeze if you’re cycling them. LiFePO4 is the current best option. If you don’t charge them above 80, 85%, and never discharge below 20%, you should have a nearly infinite lifespan. But that means that for every 30kWh of power you use, you want 50kWh of battery. And currently LiFePO4 battery banks run approx. $1000/kWh (+/- depending on band). If you heat your home with electricity, and you live in e.g. North Dakota, you’re going to want more like 200kWh of batteries, because even high efficiency heat pumps can suck a lot of power when it’s -20F.

I’m currently working on getting a 17.7kW system approved by the local utility. It looks like I’ll need to step down what I’m feeding into the grid, because the line capacity out where I live is only 10kW, and they will only approve 75% of the line capacity for grid-tied systems.

I have priced out gym equipment, because I live 100 miles from the nearest “city” (…which is, like 20,000 people).

At $30/mo for a gym membership, it would take me >15 years to pay for a decent, mid-range power rack, Olympic bars, and bench. And that’s not including the weights themselves, which are usually $2-5/pound. A decent elliptical machine from eBay? Another 2 years, plus a year and a half for shipping.

If you’re serious about weights, and not independently wealthy, it almost always makes more sense to have a gym membership.

I wouldn’t call it a satire; it’s more a thought exercise on how to make galactic colonization economically viable. The cost involved in setting up a colony that’s tens or hundreds of light years away would be astronomical, and the return on investment would take so long that it’s simply not reasonable under any current economic system. Right now we talk about how it would be hard to colonize Mars, and that’s only about nine months of travel, and not at anything close to relativistic speeds.

I am 25(M) and never even touched hand of opposite sex

Oh, yeah, I was in the same boat, raised conservative Christian, dating wasn’t allowed until you were 18, and you were supposed to be dating to get married. I was something like 26-ish before I kissed someone for the first time. (…And ended up having sex with them a few hours later; unfortunately, I had such distorted views of relationships that I scared them off.) I’m mildly autistic, have pretty severe ADHD, and yet, I’ve been married this time for eight years. (The first one lasted eleven, but the last five or six were… pretty rough.)

Get some therapy. Work through some strategies for meeting people, and building relationships. The therapy that works is going to depend on you; different people respond better or worse to different treatments.

Sex workers are expensive.

That said, the right sex worker can be an amazing, wonderful experience. You’re not paying just for sex, and maybe not even for sex at all. Moreover, sex workers tend to be very non-judgemental about pretty much everything, as long as you’re clean and non-abusive; they’ve seen just about everything, and can make most things work in one way or another. One that I’ve spoken to said that it was pretty common for clients to have performance anxiety; although a lot of clients think they want sex, what they want is sexual contact with someone, and that’s not exactly the same thing. Sex workers are common and relatively easy to find if you’re a straight male, a gay man, or a lesbian. It will be much harder to find a sex worker if you’re a straight woman.

If it’s all software, that means that you can jailbreak it, just like a phone.

If you’re including all non-experienced shooters

Even if you include only gun owners that think they’re experienced, it’s still easy-ish to be better than average with focused practice. There are a lot of people that think going to the range once every six months and shooting 100 rounds of slow fire makes them good. Meanwhile, the people that are actually good do dryfire drills daily, and shoot thousands of rounds each month.

I’m solidly low-middle when it comes to shooting competitions like local PCSL, local USPSA, Brutality, Gun Run, etc. That probably puts me in the top 5% of gun owners though. (And I absolutely suck at long range shooting; I’ve done a little, but I don’t know my holds, because I’ve had very limited ability to shoot past 100y. I really struggle past 300y without a spotter, and past 500y it’s basically pure luck for me to hit a full-sized steel IPSC target.)

Absolutely. There are certain things that will make it easier–like having very good proprioception/kinesthesia, or perfect vision–but with enough focused time and practice, almost anyone can become a highly proficient shooter. Some people will definitely have an easier time than others, and some abilities in other areas will help more than others. And yes, you absolutely need to practice or else you’ll start losing your ability.

But.

As far as needing to be introduced to shooting early, absolutely not. There are a number of people that have moved to the US in their middle age from other countries (Korea, in particular) with no experience with firearms, taken up shooting, and have become USPSA masters and grand masters, because they understand how to practice.

Depending on what you want to learn, my first suggestion would be to look up NRA classes. Yes, yes, I know, but trust me, the NRA classes are very good for foundational work. You want to start with safety and get very, very familiar with that before moving on, because carelessness with a firearm can kill. From there, you can do something like Project Appleseed to get proficient with rifle marksmanship, or you can take classes with Ben Stoeger and Joel Park for pistol.

Hunting specifically is going to require far, far more than shooting ability; you’re going to need naturalist skills, like being able to see trail sign, land navigation, getting a feel for movement without spooking animals, and so on. For hunting, most of your time will be spent in observation and waiting, with only a single shot at the end of it all. Spending a lot of time outdoors, in the woods or fields, paying attention to animal behavior is your ‘practice’ for hunting.

Aside from all of this, something to consider is that the average shooter is… Pretty bad. Most people that own firearms don’t put in any significant amount of time training. The police are no exception; most cops are not terribly proficient with their weapon, because they only have to qualify annually, and qualification is slow fire at a target 10y away, not a practical shooting course.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the NRA rifle courses; the instructional courses are where the NRA really shines. The NRA as a 501©(4) is great. It’s the NRA-ILA that’s a steaming pile of shit.

The Socialist IRA is… Very dependent on the chapter. Some are fantastic, amazing groups. Some are very cliquish, and you’re going to need to know your theory cold and never, ever voice any contrary opinions in order to get membership. (E.g., if I say that I think that come degree of professional policing is necessary, both because not all criminals are a product of material circumstances, and because ‘community policing’ can be the autobahn to vigilantism and night riders, that would get me thrown out of some chapters.)

There’s also the Liberal Gun Club, which has some pretty decent people in it, but they’re as scattered as the SocialistIRA is.

Operation Blazing Sword lists instructors that are willing to work with LGBTQ+ people; I’m on there for one of the states.

Appleseed events are a great way of learning the basics of rifle shooting over 2 days. Some of the history they teach as fact is highly suspect–it’s more the American myth than American history—but they nominally keep contemporary politics out of it.

He’s not a psychopath; he’s psychotic. Those are very, very different.

Psychopathy and sociopathy are functionally identical; they’re personality disorders where a person largely lacks the capacity for empathy, and hence remorse. Being psychotic means that you’re experiencing delusions; you may be hearing voices, or having uncontrollable impulses to do things that would be out of character. His behavior, based on what he’s saying, is entirely delusional; he doesn’t even have internally consistent logic in his actions.

I believe that he also invented the first silencers.