The local Albertan, rediscovering what it means to be me. May play devil’s advocate at times, as I like being nuanced.

Enjoys electronic music, adorable art, rhythm games, and perogies among other things.

I have lemmy.world and piefed.world blocked. Sorry, too much American politics and an unfortunate amount of casual transphobia for my liking. Feels like talking to a brick wall with people and I can’t be bothered anymore.

Also have lemmy.ml blocked for transphobia and gross dismissal of human rights issues in China by the admins.

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Joined 8 days ago
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Cake day: August 29th, 2025

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  • Not huge into Cinnamon (I think that’s Mint’s default desktop environment). No idea why people hate on Windows 10 in terms of the layout of the desktop environment because it’s just about perfect for me. KDE was like the layout of Windows 10 if it was outright perfect. Kubuntu was incredible as a starter after the mess I had with Manjaro, which was so long ago I can’t even remember what happened there.

    KDE for me is an absolute necessity in a distro in terms of desktop environment. Remember having it with Debian.







  • Not to give too much leeway to these companies, but I feel like the reason for this is all a confusion of what consumers are wanting.

    On the part of the consumer, they want more stuff made here in Canada, but on the part of the grocery stores, they either misread the room and think they want Canadian brands, or assume they know better and go by Canadian brands seeing how so much of what we get at the grocery store in Canada either isn’t grown at demand, or can’t be grown here at all.

    This would probably be best sorted with a better product labeling system enforced by the government. I used to work on Open Food Facts a lot (stopped doing so for a variety of reasons), and learned that how we label food here is so confusing when we can make it much more simplified and easier to read.

    Something like a checklist format would be nice. Something like:

    Canadian brand? [checkbox]
    Domestically owned? [checkbox]
    Canadian Ingredients? [five bars shifting from red to green, each bar being the closest 20% increment of domestic ingredients by volume]

    Just this would help a tonne. You can identify truly Canadian brands and keep your dollars in Canada, and also do so more intensely if you wish by avoiding products that fail to meet a certain threshold of domestic ingredients. It prevents companies from having to assume they know better than the consumer when it comes to assuming what they actually want, and replaces the “made with domestic and imported ingredients”, “product of Canada”, and “Made in Canada” labels with something that paints a more clear and obvious picture to the consumer.

    I do think there is some level of malice, but I think this is overwhelmingly just companies throwing their shoulders up in confusion when major products we buy (coffee, chocolate, tea, sugar for most of Canada) just aren’t grown here, and don’t want the less informed types spending all day looking at labels for a chocolate bar with Canadian-grown cocoa when Canadian brands are the closest thing to what they want lol.







  • Neither petition is likely to get enough signatures. I’d be coloured surprised if the pro-confederation one passed the threshold. However, the signatures on the pro-confederation petition are likely going to be a symbolic gesture instead of anything that amounts to anything.

    I’m not saying that to be a bummer or whatnot, but at the end of the day, the purpose of the pro-confederation petition is simply to stall the efforts of those in support of the pro-separation petition to follow. It stalls Smith’s efforts to cater to the more fringe portion of the UCP base, and allows a new angle of attack by her opponents. It’s one thing to say what Smith is doing is wrong, but to say that she’s also been ineffective is something that resonates more with the electorate. People hate the status quo, but the unfortunate reality is that a decent chunk of them will give benefit of doubt to those actively making things worse simply because they’re doing something.

    It also traps Smith into the bed she made for herself. She’s closer to the Wildrose portion of the party in terms of the merger, and she needs to hold together a party of those who are traditional Progressive Conservatives (think Lougheed types) that are socially progressive and fiscally conservative, Wildrose types that are social and fiscal conservatives, and this new base farther right than she is that are outright separatists.

    Danielle has admitted the only reason the referendum is happening is because she fears a party split. Make it seem to the fringe that you’re doing something they like, and you stabilise support with them at what was likely seen as a temporary cost of support from the more PC wing of the party. She fears the likelihood of a party split causing an NDP win more than she does with the province separating, the former is more likely as it’s what happened in 2015.

    By stalling the separation petition, the pro-confederation petition stirs up UPC party dynamics a tad. While I don’t think this will cause the party to split, there will be a lot of tension brewing amongst the more moderate base in particular, which gives the NDP an opportunity to pick up more potential swing votes.



  • Chiming in to say it’s not just Trump. It’s the capitulation to Trump from the “opposition” as well, from both politicians, and, unfortunately, a significant portion of voters.

    I’m seeing people defend Gavin Newsom over transphobic comments, and instead of demanding better or seeking someone more in line with their beliefs, they’ll attack people who point that out and say “oh, we need to capitulate on this issue because he’s the ‘best’ chance we have!”.

    And it’s like congrats, you’re capitulating your values to be more in line with the people taking people’s rights away, saying that certain people’s rights are now on the table as some sort of playing card in politics… which is exactly what the far-right wants normalised.

    Then you have people like Mamdani come about where they don’t use people’s rights as a chess piece, and the same people who espouse “unification” will be up in arms about how that doesn’t apply to those they disagree with. Democrats have been playing the capitulation game for so long rather than chart their own path, have made zero gains on that front, and decided that doubling down on that is the way to go despite Republicans making it clear as day they have no interest in changing stance.

    All while they further lose support from the people that vote for them, those who are disenfranchised and watching as both parties veer more to the right at the cost of their rights and well-being, and with those who still support them being as smug and insufferable as the people they claim to be opposed to.