As an indigenous person who grew up without running water or modern plumbing for the first ten years of my life in Canada … I always appreciated this quote …

Will Durant Quote: “From barbarism to civilization requires a century; from civilization to barbarism needs but a day.”

Personality, presence and confidence

Natural self confidence, but NOT an arrogant selfish confidence.

Some people naturally have confidence and presence and some people need to build it as a skill.

I know guys and gals with little to no knowledge or skill build up careers because they just knew how to talk and connect to people.

I also know guys and gals with years of education and degrees but have little to no way of politely or easily getting along with people.

Isn’t that what those supporters are there for? … to be scammed

*Windows won’t take screenshots of everything you do after all (that the company will admit to without you knowing)— unless you opt in

Great idea because the merch acts as an advertisement to support the project and create awareness. It’s the main reason why corporations like Adobe are so successful - they have a pervasive marketing campaign. We should do the same and wearing a hat, t-shirt or bag would help do that.

Now you got me thinking about what to buy from the projects I like to support. Thanks

Thank God … I’ve been on Gimp and Scribus for the past 15 years, mainly because I could never afford Adobe products for the little bit of work I needed them for.

I was open source a long time ago because I just couldn’t afford paying for stuff for the little time I needed software. Now I’m happy to be fully open source and even contribute with donations to the projects I like the most. I donate annually now to projects like Wikipedia, Libreoffice, Scribus and Fediverse developers and projects.

This is one criticism I’ll always have with open source supporters … if you want open source alternatives, contribute with donations to them. Give anything you can afford … $1, $2, $10 … because they need money to survive and stay engaged and committed to their project.

If we all just stand aside and take advantage of free open software and not give anything, then we are no better than the corporations we were trying to avoid. Instead of corporations taking advantage of us, we are taking advantage of developers.

So if you want these open projects to live and survive, contribute to them with whatever you got. If we all just gave a dollar each to these projects, no matter what they are, the developers would have more than enough to maintain their work.

And whatever you contribute, it will be far less than the hundreds of dollars annually you would have given to a big corporation that would have just counted your money as profit and not directly contribute or support the actual developers.

Throws old man cane to the side and starts dancing

Hooray I’m young again!!!

… breaks hip because he is actually still old

Throws old man cane to the side and starts dancing

Hooray I’m young again!!!

Coca-Cola, coffee, barbecue sauce, ketchup and hamburger juice … all naturally soaked and baked in the sun.

It arrives with one critical screw missing making the whole thing unusable.

My old neighbor al long time ago today motorcycle with a plate in the back that said …

Retired, not Retarded

We’re all going to be held hostage by these dumb wars until the US election is over.

They’re turning Palestine and Ukraine into forever wars now because they are convenient distractions for all of us from ever having to deal with the fact that we are zombie walking into our collective global environmental disaster.

Simple and to the point, everyone should know and follow this. One of the best pieces of advice from the Dalai Lama

“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”

The best part is … you’re in Japan! … that in itself is amazing. Good for you.

Is this a critique … or a political party slogan?

Driving in North America

I once took a trip to the UK and was brave enough (or dumb enough) to rent a car in London and drive around the country side. I drove down small town streets the wrong way several times and I nearly killed myself trying to navigate a roundabout twice.

As a passenger it was frightening. You sit there in what has always been the drivers seat to you yet you have no control over the vehicle.

It all completely screws with you brain.

We got to see Stonehenge tho, so that was great.

Authoritarianism doesn’t just happen from the strong arm actions of a minority group in power.

Authoritarianism often takes hold because the majority of everyone just doesn’t say or do anything to stop it.

I’m up in northern Ontario in Canada and I had a French Canadian neighbor who loved watching John Wayne movies. He often told me that he had Cherokee ancestry too.

I told him a hundred times that this wasn’t Cherokee territory because I was full blooded Ojibwe Cree from this area and we had never heard of Cherokee. I kept telling him that he was probably part Ojibwe or Algonquin which is who the French mixed with in our area … but he really wanted to be a John Wayne movie Indian.

I grew up in a very unorganized town that wasn’t really regulated with traffic laws. I learned to drive a truck at about 12.

When I was 14 I was driving my dad’s truck around town. I suddenly had the urge to see how well the brakes worked. I drove fast down a gravel road than slammed on the brakes as hard as I could. Within seconds it blew both front brake lines.

Later that same year in the winter I got the truck stuck on some ice. It wasn’t bad, I just happened to stop on a very slippery patch of ice and couldn’t move forward. I got the idea that as the tires spun, they were getting hot which meant it was melting the ice. If I did it long enough I would eventually get down to the gravel. I got impatient and spun the wheels faster smoking them like crazy while the engine roared. In the middle of the noise and smoke, a tire exploded and the truck jumped and deflated. I had blown out a tire.

Dad wasn’t happy with me for a long while because the truck went to the shop and we had to pay a lot of money to get them fixed.

At the very least, I never made these mistakes again.