UPDATE: the surgery went well amd she is recovering now

I talked in the past about my mother here.

She's been diagnosed with abdominal aortic aneurysm and keeping an eye on it.

Now it's time for surgery because it's big and in danger of rupture.

She's already in the hospital and will operate today or tomorrow.

She is still frail and eating less since my brother's death. Weight is only 44k/97lbs. She is 74 years old.

I keep reading that the endovascular surgery is not that dangerous. Just a minor cut in the groin, but I'm really afraid due to her weakness. Doctor assured is OK and he is the best in town. Last year he did 25 of these and this year 15.

Guess I'm just venting and afraid. Lost a brother a year and half ago and now it's my mother.

Feels like I'm just living between tragedies.

New Thread

Server host: tildes.nore.gg
Dynmap: https://tildes.nore.gg
Playtime Tracker: https://tildes.nore.gg/playtimes.html
Tildes website extension (shows online status & location): Firefox (Desktop and Android) - Chrome
Verification site: https://verify.tildes.nore.gg
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TildesMC

The server operates on a soft whitelist. Anyone can log in and walk around, but you need a Tildes account to gain build access.

New Thread

I was asked to recommend a phone to an older relative that is bad with technology and wanted to ask some advice.

It is important that the phone is reliable and clean. That is no bloatware, popups, adware, nagware or anything like that. Other than that the requirements are simply as good a camera as is available at the budget and maps.

The options I can see are:

• standard Android phone - Personally I have Samsung A34 which would fit the hw and price but the sw is horrible. I also have no current experience with custom ROMs as I went with adb(and Universal Android Debloater for ease of use) to remove the worst of it. From what I have heard the Google Pixel comes with least amount of bloat as Android(single source) but they seemed to have different problems with hw each generation and the price would mean an older one. Maybe something else would be better choice here.

• iPhone - honestly I have zero experience here as I never had it so I don't even know how much it would fit. The price would also mean an older or used model

• Dumb or KaiOS phone would fail the camera requirement and the minimal phones mentioned here(eg. Light phone, Minimal phone) are expensive for what they are and I am not convinced a good choice here given the usual problems with niche hw and sw(but maybe I am wrong?)

I am in EU and the budget is less than 500EUR, preferably less than 350EUR.

This is something I've been thinking about for a long while. I will try to briefly explain my reasoning.

I live in a country that's not a western country. It has plenty of its problems with right-wingers, and they certainly do hate queer people. However, for years I've been observing and interacting with these people. Many of them, especially teenagers, 20 and 30 year olds, use the language and rhetoric of the American/Western right-wing.

They constantly talk and complain about SJWs, even though there is barely any left-wing in this country, much less a "SJW" type. They talk about "blacks" infiltrating the tv shows, movies, games. They talk about black people as if they are invaders. An ex-friend of mine, whom I cut contact with because of his increasing radicalization due to right-winger brainrot on Twitter, even said they will come here and ruin our country, "like they did to Europe". He doesn't talk to or have any friends from another nation, and has said this due to the American and Western brainrot spreading on Twitter.

This is extremely weird, because nobody before recent times had a major problem with black people here, because it's an extremely rare occurance whenever you see a black person. So, even right-wingers didn't seem to pay any attention to them. But this all changed with the utter shit rhetoric spread by the American and Western right-wingers on social media sites.

This applies to queer people as well. I've heard and seen so much imported rhetoric that I'm amazed at the international connectedness of right-wing hate. For example, even though trans people never were the focus of any big attention on social media before, thanks to the weird "tranvestigation/infiltration" rhetoric spread by American and Western right-wingers on social media, local sites here started fixating on trans people, especially trans women. However, this in time spread to hating on queer people in general. Just the other day I reported a major hate speech graffiti I saw in my neighbourhood. Luckily it was removed, but I heard from friends similar recent occurances of this hate speech graffiti targeting queer people. Never before in my life I had encountered such a thing. I suspect the trigger was the propaganda spread by American and Western right-wingers.

Why did I create this topic?

Well, first of all, I wanted to share my story and observation.

Second, I wanted to bring attention to a problem I deem important.

And third, the userbase of this site seems to be mostly Americans, and I wanted to challenge an assumption many Americans seem to have—that hateful propaganda on social media seems to almost exclusively come from USA's enemies. No, American and by extension western right-wing is extremely strong. It has extreme reach and powerful rhetoric. It's a global problem. I've been paying attention to this topic since 2015, and in recent years more and more American alt-right rhetoric I've seen in 2015-2016 on American internet started being voiced here more and more.

So, I guess, queers from other countries, beware of American alt-right rhetoric. It has a powerful effect on local right-wingers in other countries, and you might benefit from studying and learning to deconstruct and fight it.

This is also another reason why USA's elections are everyone's problem. The internal power struggles and ideological battles there are exported to the rest of the world.

For clarity, a mandatory arbitration agreement is when a consumer or customer must "agree to have their case reviewed by a third party—called an arbitrator—and to be bound by the arbitrator's decision." The intent is that you waive your right to sue (in a regular court of law) the party you're entering this agreement with. But these agreements can, in some cases, be ruled as invalid by a court. The examples I've seen apply to the US, but I'd be interested in examples from other countries.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been noticing how out of hand it's becoming to see these statements plastered in Terms of Service and several other locations.

The most newsworthy example recently was Disney claiming that a statement like this in their Disney+ ToS also applied to a wrongful death case on one of their properties. As the linked article says, they backpedaled on this, but it's still disgusting and disturbing they even tried it in the first place.

The most recent example I've seen is this post on Mastodon where it was included on the packaging of a supplement.

I can't help but wonder if this is just a way to deter people from seeking litigation in the first place, especially if they aren't wealthy enough to hire a legal team that could poke holes in the legitimacy of their mandatory arbitration agreement.

I'm sure there's a nearly endless supply of examples of this, especially in software service agreements. But is there anything that can be done about it? Or is this just one more way corporations get to have more power than people that won't ever change?

I'm back! I missed Zanvdoort since I was moving cross-country.

Anyway, this turned out to be a fun race! I wasn't sure how it was going to end up but the tire strategies kept it interesting. Not sure if the Ferraris, particularly Leclerc, made a big gamble, or that the McLarens snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Probably a little column A, little column B. Either way, I did not expect a Leclerc victory; they probably didn't either. The Tifosi will be partying hard tonight!

Red Bull continues to, unfortunately for me, shit the bed. During the first half of the race, Perez could barely overtake Russell, even though Russell had a damaged front wing. Later in the race, when Max switched to new mediums, with Hamilton ahead on slightly used hards, Max still couldn't close the gap. The gap even opened up! At least both RBRs finished in the Top 10 (more impressive for Perez, less so for Max).

I didn't see what happened to Yuki that caused him to retire; need to find that out.

Lastly, congrats to Colapinto finishing P12! Excellent for an F1 debut.

Onward to Baku.

Next race:

Azerbaijan Grand Prix
Baku City Circuit
Sunday, September 15

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

Hey guys,

I've had a Switch for a couple of years but I haven't really played it lately because I've kinda been disappointed with the last two titles I've played. I've played God of War recently and I was just blown away by how much fun I had and I kinda of want to replicate that? Sadly, my friend wants his PS5 back so I'm looking for some game recommendations for the Switch.

I've played BOTW and I just found it so boring. I played maybe two hours and I was at no point entertained. I also played the Link Awakening remake but I didn't really like the graphics and so I just stopped playing after two hours or so. 2D Zeldas are among my favorite games of all time (OOS/OOA; Minish Cap/LADX), I'm kinda scared to say this, but I also didn't really like OOT (although I played it a good 10 years after its initial release). I don't really like open worlds and much prefer having "guided" gameplay, but I do enjoy a mix of both (like God of War).

I've played Hades and absolutely loved it, just like Rayman Origins, but since I've been disappointed with BOTW and Link's Awakening, I'm kinda scared to buy another critically acclaimed game just to not like it... Looking at the list of games and picking one seems so daunting, I don't really know what to do.

You guys have any suggestions?

Find yourself watching tons of great videos on [insert chosen video sharing platform], but also find yourself reluctant to flood the Tildes front page with them? Then this thread is for you.

It could be one quirky video that you feel deserves some eyeballs on it, or perhaps you've got a curated list of videos that you'd love to talk us through...

Share some of the best video content you've watched this past week/fortnight with us!