What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

(I am not directly posting as a link, as I have originally shared this over Gemini, which I don't think a majority of the people here have a client for, and directly linking to a proxy just seemed weird to me. So here are both the original and proxied links for people to choose between)

gemini://ebc.li/posts/open-standards-are-simple.gmi (HTTP Proxy)

I'm in a bit of a personal musical renaissance at the moment and am actively seeking out new music after having listened to the same albums for years, effectively playing them out.

One of the areas I'm interested in exploring is LGBT artists out there making good music, especially because it seems like so many have entered the scene in recent years. Let me know if you have any recommendations! I'm open to any genre.

This is different from the what have you been playing thread, which is more of an objective reporting of what we've been doing. I instead want to hear a story about your gameplay. Tell me about a discovery you made, the journey of one of your characters, an achievement you're working towards, a funny mishap, a close match, a puzzle that you got stuck on, a realization you had as a player, a glitch that ruined a save, etc.

It can be about anything noteworthy, interesting, exciting, funny, disappointing -- whatever you think makes for a good story. Also, while I'm intending for this to be mostly current -- for games we're playing right now -- feel free to share a great story from times past if you like.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

One of the most notable aspects of political discourse today is how many of the problems we have seem to have relatively simple solutions for how consequential they are:

To reduce wealth inequality, we can use progressive taxation, antitrust, support of unionization so that poor people/workers have a large stake in their wages.

To give poorer people equal opportunity, we can use welfare initiatives like free (as in paid by taxes/free at the point of use) college, better pay for teachers and more equitable resource (as in textbooks, tables, chalk distribution for schools so poor people get more equitable education to rich people.

To reduce crime, violence and repeat sentencing we can reduce poverty (see the top question), encourage mental health initiatives and do not have cops take thatand have jail be rehabilitative rather than punitive.

To make make software less centralized and invasive, we can require Internet companies give you full, immediate disclosure of all the forms your data will be used and let people opt out of all of them, delete all their data, and also enforce antitrust when it comes to social media platforms (I.E Facebook should not own Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and their new TikTok analogue and the first thing you should see when logging into any of them is a list of ways these companies will collect your data and let you opt out of all of them and be as anonymous as you please)

To make sure democracy is indeed representative of the people and works well, we can introduce a parliamentary system or multi-winner congressional seats and institute STV or RCV or just approval voting if you really can't have more than 1 representative for an area (the US senate is cucked)

To make more progress in stopping COVID, we can have mass testing by the government, people must take social distancing seriously and wear masks, medics need to be taken seriously and properly supplied with PPE and all that.

Given these solutions, what are large problems we have/will have that we genuinely don't have an answer to instead of just not wanting to do something about it?

A few examples that come to my mind are:

How do we get corrupion out of a government? Since the vast majority of stuff I have mentioned in this post would be done by governments and governments under extensive corruption cannot be trusted to regulate anything.

How do we regulate news outlets to be fair and objective? We can get news outlets to be publically/popularly funded instead of ad(large-corporate)-funded and enforce antitrust, but that doesn't stop bias, outright lying and sensationalism.

How do we get peple to change their minds? Evidence of everything I've mentioned in this post is more than around, but that hasn't convinced Republicans/conservatives. For some people groups, acceptance has literally been a decades-long political campaign to be recognized as normal or ok.

EDIT: 3 4 more.

How do we get people to befriend eachother and be social and tell apart those who genuinely don't want to do this and those who do but don't know how to or don't like to/aren't good at doing it in the ways usually available?

If we choose to let the population decline (see the climate change question), are we fully prepared for the consequences of having a society that will be growing older and older, perhaps indefinitely?

If we choose to not let the population decline and seek to keep birthrates at replacement level, how do we convince people to do so? If we don't/can't and start using things like artificial wombs to have children, who will take care of them? Do we make orphanages socially acceptable/valued and well-funded? Do we turn kindergartens and schools into a 24/7 institution and add in non-study things like housing and video games, and make teachers basically parents, but with many children to take care of?

If electoralism fails, what can we do to still have a voice in the world? Can we do anything?

Olly never liked people very much. He was rescued at ~9 months old wandering around the streets in my hometown. Because of this, and perhaps his past, he had an aversion to lots of commotion, people he didn't know, or unexpected noise. But between all of that, he came to trust me, and placed his faith in me—his twelve year old owner. He grew up with me, as I went through high school, then university, a few jobs, and more.

My furry companion, who at night would sleep on my bed, curled up, paws covering his eyes (but only after licking my hand with his raspy tongue for minutes on end) and during the day would wander outside—safety assured, away from any main roads, with lots of high grass to wander through—or lounge under the sun in the front yard.

He always had to be the boss—have things his way. A large, well-built 6.5kg ginger-tabby who was neutered much later than you'd normally neuter a kitten. This bossiness extended to the neighbourhood competition. He didn't like other cats much, either. This would lead to an occasional, emotionally painful (for both of us) trip to the vets to treat a scratch, or bite. A 20 minute drive in a cat box, as he meowed and sobbed his head off—telling us in no uncertain terms, "let me out!".

And do you think he'd ever let you pick him up? Not a chance. Everything has to be on his terms! But in between his assertiveness, he shared his love for me, bumping his head into mine, gently touching my face with his paw on occasion, being a part of my life as I was a part of his.

Unfortunately, none of us can escape the forever ticking of time. 13 good years pass. For the past week though, he started becoming more introverted, would sleep more—and eat less. Taking this kind of cat to the vet is a judgement call that you don't make lightly. Do you cause stress and anxiety, making him trust you less for weeks on end, make him spend more time outside, away from your watchful eye? Or do you visit the vet less frequently, but still proactively, if you know something is definitely wrong?

I made the latter decision last night, taking him to afterhours. The triage indicated a heart murmur, and a blood panel indicated parameters that might be indicative of mild renal dysfunction—to be followed up at the proper vet tomorrow. So he was sent home, with some precautionary injections, and an appetite and hydration boost.

Sadly, I never got that opportunity to take him for a follow up. He slept with me that night, but his condition deteriorated rapidly this morning. I rushed him to the proper vet, watching him helplessly tremble and vocalise his scaredness. I can't help but cry as I type this. The staff told me it was time. I knew it, and in some ways, I think he did too. I'm glad I got to give him the opportunity to fade away peacefully.

I don't have many frames of reference to compare this part of my life to, but it seems to me this is the most pain I've ever felt over a single event. You might be able to get another cat, but you definitely can't get another Olly. A part of my heart is forever gone. I'm a believer that the pain doesn't really go away, you probably just learn to cope with it more, to focus on the years of good, and not the hours of bad. I really hope I can do that, because he was my best friend.

I love you, buddy. I hope you're at rest now, and I'll miss you always. 🧡

An announcement shook Turkish football seriously. Turkish Football Federation (TFF) announced spending limits for clubs. That is very low because club debts. Everybody knew it would happen one day. But corona took early that crisis. All of big Turkish clubs near to bankrupt. Their total debts over 2 billion dollars. Clubs signed too heavy deals with goverment banks. Goverment and TFF try to keep up clubs alive.

This isnt about only coronavirus or only Turkish economy. Clubs loaned more and more each year since the early 2000s. Presidents of clubs spend money badly, they transfer useless football players. And now money ran out ! And of course, turkish lira in crisis. Clubs gains with turkish lira, but spend with euro. And Lira still unstable. Euro/Lira increased from 7.7 to 8.6 in just one month. Its ~%10 lost only one month. Broadcaster company BEIN SPORTS, pay less money to federation for corona and lira crisis. Debts, income loss, lira crisis, corona. Everythings

Yearly spending limits of some big FCs:

• Galatasaray: 58m €
• Besiktas: 35m €
• Fenerbahce: 20m € (too low)
• Basaksehir: 20m €
• Trabzonspor: 17.5m €

That values very low. For this budgeds, clubs cant transfers. Someones should make the team smaller like fenerbahce. Fenerbahce protest that limits but they have 600m $ unstructured debt and they can't show income ! I think if this year fenerbahce cant be champion and can't go to the Champions Leauge, their clubs will be mortgaged or to be sold in the near future. A very rich bussines man -Ali Koc- became president of this club and he transferred a significant amount of money to the club. But for two years he was not successful in terms of sports.

There is also Başakşehir. Our champion, Basaksehir played really bad footbal againts Copenhagen FC and eliminated from Champions Leage. But Basaksehir is a brand-new club, in fact they were established in 2014. They have profesional management team and every year become better since 2014. Today, they became champions for the first time and may be the brightest club in Turkey. Some arabs from Qatar want to buy this club. Fans do not react to this. Because this 6-year-old club has almost no supporters. They became champions, but they didn't celebrate. (Ironically, I am one of the very few fans of Başakşehir.)

Galatasaray is less worried about debts. Because they postponed their debts for 5 years (with insane interest rate) But still too many debt in 5 year. the 115 year old club has many lands. Club think they can pay off the debts by selling the land at in the good areas of İstanbul.

Source:
TFF Spending Limits: https://www.tff.org/default.aspx?pageID=687&ftxtID=33547 (Not in turkish)