My BS, unprovable hypothesis: The Golden Age of Piracy was actually a successful Socialist movement, with Nassau being a disruptively successful enclave of Socialism in action. The pirates deeply threatened the budding power structures in the US (not conjecture) and the entrenched powers in Europe. While some powers, most notably royalty, were willing to use pirates as mercenaries (privateers), there was an excess of democracy and human concern (somewhat my conjecture) among the Nassau pirates. The Nassau pirates had pensions, a form of worker’s comp, disability, democratic command structures at sea, and healthcare (such as it was given the era). According to the historical texts on the Nassau pirates, there were almost no written records, which strikes me as especially odd since they had so many long-running financial and governing processes.

Fake it til you make it!

Ya Kid K’s Congolese accent definitely has some of that marbles-in-the-mouth Staten Island sound. I was also surprised to learn she wasn’t from the Burroughs.

“Nonviolent Communication” by Marshall Rosenberg.

The lessons for communication and non-reactivity will pay dividends in every aspect of your interpersonal relations. Work, friendships, romantic relationships, even dealing with customer disservice.

As a very young kid, I thought there was a very hungry monster that lived inside vacuum cleaners. The switch was just a lever to open a flap and expose the monster’s sucking hunger.

I see Robert Evans, I upvote. Really folks, Jobs was such a piece of shit that he got a 4-parter of coverage on Behind the Bastards. Highly suggested. https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=aEv08Zzunfc&si=xGHOjTXfizCplLDp

I see a lot of specific examples, but here is a good engineering guideline: do not skimp on physical interfaces. **Anywhere energy is changing form or if it touches your body, don’t skimp on those. **

For example

• tires
• bicycle saddle
• heaters/furnaces
• electrical inverters
• keyboard
• mouse
• engines
• shoes
• eyewear
• clothes (buy used if necessary, but always buy quality clothing)

Quality usually means more money, but sometimes one is able to find a high quality and low-cost version. In my experience though, trying to find the cheap version that works well means trying so many permutations; it would have been more economical to just get the more costly version in the first place.

We hoi polloi think in money numbers and what we can afford to purchase. For the Capital Class, it’s all about power. Money is just how they keep score.

I want to know who the hell downvoted Freddie.

I use a bar soda siphon.

According to Consumer Reports, Topo Chico consistently tested the highest for PFAS among carbonated waters. But they also said almost all store-bought carbonated waters tested positive for PFAS.

Our social media and blog are severely neglected, in large part because of surveillance and chokepoint capitalism (see: Cory Doctorow). But this would probably be the best entry point into our socials: https://youtube.com/@svcascadia

then we popped the stern tube during an engine test (40 years worth of copper corrosion)…

0_0 HFS! Glad you’re okay AND saved your necessarily minimal (because boat) belongings!

We live on an ocean-going sailboat. We make our own water and electricity. We have ~25 years of membranes, filters, and most parts. While we have the means to move around to cooler climes, going further northward means more severe storms and shorter working life of everything. So there’s that consideration.

Having the escape hatch of the boat does a lot to ease the anxiety.

Other coping mechanisms:

• fixing people’s bicycles for free and evangelizing micro-mobility
• monitoring and mapping marine health in maritime communities (kelp, fish counts, bottom conditions); yes this is “just” monitoring, but one measurement is worth 1000 opinions and hopefully helps to move the needle on getting everyone to pull together on environmental protections
• community education on aeroponics and micro-hydroponics
• community support on emergency preparedness

I’m sure I’m skipping over some of my other copium prescriptions, but those are the most salient.

How do I subscribe to acoustic propagation facts?

Sailing, scuba diving, cooking a big meal for friends, having a lazy start morning sipping coffee with my partner.

Right there with ya. Oh, I tried so hard. Walking and junk collection simulators in a depressing, ugly setting. The humorous bits are way too infrequent to make up for the litany of misery.

You and me both! 😆 We continued to live together and were besties for another four years, and she would never talk about anything relationship-related, even as her next three relationships imploded.

I had a partner for eight years. We met when we were both 31. She was my first monogamous relationship theretofore because I decided to give monogamy a try. She was utterly, screamingly boring in bed. There was nothing else notably wrong with the relationship, except for her unwillingness to communicate on anything beyond household, workaday topics. No oral (give or receive), no anal, not into foreplay, and she would just lay there. But no conflicts either. There was the advantage of she was always willing and ready to go without any foreplay or lube. She got off and claimed she was absolutely sexually satisfied. Sex wasn’t even fun in the context of Free Use, which is a kink I enjoy. I tried to engage her in all kinds of Gottman Method relationship work, but she bluntly and explicitly refused.

At one point early in our relationship, she moved and clamped her vagina in a way that was quite enjoyable. “Honey, that was great! Please do that more.” And for the rest of our relationship, any such complement was a sure-fire way to make sure it would never happen again. After eight years of nearly daily, invariably terrible sex, I stopped approaching her sex for three weeks. She never said a thing. On day 22, I broke up with her, and she was absolutely gobsmacked, claimed that I was throwing away eight years of great history. She hadn’t even noticed that there had been no sex for three weeks.