Indigenous Canadian from northern Ontario. Believe in equality, Indigenous rights, minority rights, LGBTQ+, women’s rights and do not support war of any kind.

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • I have an old clock in my cottage. I got it years ago from a previous cottage I renovated. When I found it, the glass had broken so I just treated it as a piece of junk. I renovated that first cottage over a winter and left the clock there to freeze. I put in an AA battery and forgot about it. It kept time great and didn’t lose time … for about two years on the same battery!

    The dammed thing outlasted every other wall clock I owned. So I kept it, removed the broken glass and just left it like that.

    After about 15 years I still have it in my cottage and it freezes and thaws with the northern Canadian weather. And I’ve only ever changed the battery with the same basic energizer alkaline battery maybe four times!

    I’ve never found a comparable clock anywhere. Every new clock I’ve ever bought either fail prematurely or I am constantly changing batteries every two or three months.

    So far I’ve junked about a dozen new clocks because they stopped working while this old cottage clock just keeps ticking reliably.

    I’m never getting rid of my cottage clock.



  • Feel the same here … I miss my 960 … it was known as a diplomats car … the thing was luxurious inside and it looked like a plain vehicle from the outside. And it could turn on a dime! I used to love being able to turn around on two lanes without doing a three point turn! I joked with my friends that it had a turning radius of a bicycle. The main reason I didn’t want to sell it to the demolition derby guy was that I didn’t want to see the car destroyed!


  • 1990s or 2000s era Volvo station wagon or sedan

    I owned a 96 Volvo 960 for about 15 years before engine gave out with fixable problems … I didn’t have the money to get it fixed, sold it and from what I heard, the new owner is still driving the thing. (one potential buyer that wanted it was a young guy that wanted it for a demolition derby as he claimed that Volvos were great for this kind of use because they are indestructible in a crash. He said the engine is so well placed and protected that it would take several hits from other vehicles before being compromised)

    Later bought a 2004 station wagon and other than a few minor problems (electrical issues that aren’t critical to driving the car) and a bit of rust spots, it’s still my daily driver. I met a young guy a few years ago that had a 1992 Volvo Station wagon with a million kms on it (the thing was covered in rust and looked like hell but it was still driveable)






  • A time capsule

    Place photos and some small objects maybe even a usb key, dvdr or cdr with a video of you explaining everything and telling the viewer who you are, what year it is, what’s going on and what’s important to you right now. Place it all in a water tight container, maybe even an iron case and weld it shut.

    If you have small kids, tell them what you’re doing and show them … maybe they or their kids or your descendants might dig it up some day.

    Of all the places I’ve renovated, I would have enjoyed finding something from someone else’s life.


  • IninewCrow@lemmy.catoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlHow do adults find happiness in life?
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    16 days ago

    By remembering and being fully aware of who you are in this world … by being grateful for the good fortune you had by being born in the situation and family you have now.

    You could have been born in an African village and lived for a year before dying of something. You could have been born in the slums of Mumbai. You could have been born in Gaza. You could also remove the time constraint and you could have been born a peasant in medieval Europe.

    Out of all the billions of human lives that have existed so far, there are many that were born during this time but only a small percentage of them were lucky enough to be born in a family with wealth and privilege enough to enjoy the modern technologies we’ve created so far.

    I am lucky, you are lucky and anyone who is able to read this is lucky to have been born at this time to enjoy this online chat.

    Remember where you are in this world and this time. As unhappy as you think you might be, there are millions of people that wish they could have the life you have now.

    Be happy because you are a winner of the cosmic lottery of existence.


  • Most people (including myself) would like to agree with you on building some sort of system to create credibility or honesty or reliability among people on a social media platform. I think the majority of people that use any social media (including Lemmy) would probably agree and more than likely would participate in it.

    Unfortunately, it only takes a small group of people to upset the system, game the system, play with the system or create situations or systems of their own to manipulate everything … either to fight against others, or to generate some sort of power or control of their own. All it would take is this small group to completely change everything and make everything difficult and non functional.

    It’s a lot like the democratic system of government. When you think about it the majority of everyone would like to participate in it and make it work … unfortunately, its only a small group of powerful individuals who have gamed the system to give themselves and their friends power over everyone else.



  • I’ve been on a motorcycle for over 25 years now and I’ve had some near misses but nothing serious.

    That’s an amazing story and lucky you for making it through. I’ve known of two people in my circle who died from motorcycle accidents and a few more in my community and region who died … it’s also amazing to realize that you don’t need to be riding fast in order to get killed on a motorcycle. One woman in my town was at an intersection, moved across in an awkward way, got hit by a truck and neither were moving fast, she just got hit in a particular way, knocked down, pinned down by the truck, crushed and then died on the way to the hospital.

    My near death experience was not as dramatic as yours. I was a dumb teen on a four wheeler on gravel. I did a major jump without knowing it out expecting it, launched about 20 feet in the air, landed front wheels first, launched forward and smashed my face in the gravel. Thankfully the atv went flying in a different direction and didn’t land on me. I also didn’t have a helmet on. I didn’t get knocked out and I was aware the whole time. I was just lucky I was fit strong and landed in a lucky way that didn’t hurt me too much.

    I have a cousin who fell off an atv as a passenger, landed the wrong way, hit her head (again no helmet) severely injured, treated in hospital for a day before she died from injuries.

    Motorcycles and ATV are dangerous machines


  • Whoever wins … the country will fight about the result for the next four years and completely obscure any reasonable debate or conversation about anything of importance like inflation, wealth inequality, war, the military industrial complex or creeping fascism.

    If America doesn’t get its act together during this election … it’s just taking another step towards becoming a failed state and will break apart within the next decade or two. But it won’t be a war or anything too dramatic … it will just look and sound like a never ending slapfest between shouting children and crying babies who threaten each other but never actually do anything except leave the room with all their toys.


  • About 20 years I went on a vacation to southern Spain … during the point when Spain was just fully transitioning into the European Union.

    I remember trying to watch some TV programs (there wasn’t much to watch) … but the funny thing that struck me was the commercials. They’d play an hour and half long movie for about an hour … then stop and play non stop commercials for about 15 minutes. It was normal for everyone because they used the time to just get up, bathroom break, kitchen duty, clean the house, go grab some groceries, etc … then return to the living room in time to watch the rest of the movie. No one watched commercials because they all hated them as much as anyone else.

    I don’t think they do that any more but I thought I wouldn’t mind that myself … instead of breaking my show every ten / fifteen minutes with a minute of commercials … just show them all to me in ten minutes at the end of an hour.




  • I have a theory that every company/service/corporation has dozens of loopholes like this everywhere that people could take advantage of. But no one ever does because most people are too honest and proud to ever ask for a discount or to take advantage of an opportunity like this. Most people are too nice and gullible.

    Corporations bet on people being too nice all the time.

    People are too embarrassed or self conscious to go after a deal or even to ask for one … when in reality corporations are complete greedy whores and will sell your grandmother if it meant they could save a penny.

    No one should ever feel embarrassed or shy to ask for a discount or go after saving themselves a few dollars. Corporations do it all the time and they never shy away from skimming off a few pennies from you if they can.

    BTW - beautiful work on getting that regular discount for yourself


  • For every service you sign up to … phone company, subscription, gas company, water service, electricity, whatever …

    … always ask if you can get a discount or a better price.

    Don’t be embarrassed to ask. No one cares. We just build a culture around the hope that no one will ever ask for a better price and negotiate. The rep your talking to doesn’t care about you and doesn’t care about the company … they might be having a bad day and won’t care about helping you … or they might be having a good day and they know an inside method or option to save you something … or they might be facing losing their job so they figure out a way to save you a ton of money.

    I got a banking service a few weeks ago and they gave me a price for a subscription … I knew it was a sham but it was a service I needed … I asked for a discount from the Filipino rep who spoke bag English … she went off for five minutes and came back with a 60% discount.

    Sometimes these businesses set their prices high and just hope that no one will ask for a different price … because most people never ask.


  • Beautiful work … I really don’t mind the long wait between releases … the previous Gimp 2.0 versions were so robust and practical that they have lasted for close to 20 years

    In the early 2000s, I started off with cracked version of photoshop before I discovered GIMP and as soon as I did, I stuck with them since. They’ve saved me several thousand dollars in software costs over the past 20 years that I really don’t mind waiting for the latest major release.

    They can take their time releasing 3.0 for all I care. I’m still using 2.10 and I probably will for the next long while until 3.0 becomes stable. They’ve done a mountainous amount of work already and I congratulate them on everything.

    This makes me realize too that I should probably donate something to their community for all the money they’ve saved me over the years.