A place to express your frustration

Donald Trump is truly irritanting.

The bad part isn't "America for Americans" but his boundless arrogancy. This guy looks like the Unabomber but with presidential power.

Trumpism isn't just an American phenomenon; this lack of judgment has spread worldwide, like a creeping poison ivy.

You might ask yourself, 'What the hell are these people thinking?' Because it's not like they vote for them and then regret it; they vote for them and keep voting for them, despite the damage they cause. They seem to be in love with violence.

And it's not that I'm simply bothered because I'm unable to see other ideas, but where are the ideas? All I see is a pack of corner bullies with presidential sashes, boasting and mocking the very people they govern, destroying everything they can, and stealing like madmen to give it all to the social elite (those who least need to be given anything).

What is it with these people? Because I'm completely clueless.

Hello. I am a former Spectrum Internet / Spectrum Cable customer as we ditched Spectrum last year and switched to Fastwyre Fiber. So far, I have been loving Fastwyre, they have been a joy to work with. A breath of fresh air. But, before that, we were, sadly, a Spectrum customer. And my experience with Spectrum was nothing short of awful. I at some points had constant breakdowns due to Spectrum’s horrible and downright dogwater internet service. They were always a pain to deal with and was always the most frustrating ISP we have ever dealt with. They really were a nightmare to deal with on certain days. They seriously pissed me off. I wanna explain every reason I hate Spectrum with all of my heart, and list some redeeming qualities as well.

As a Charter Communications customer for over 10 years (including Spectrum years), we expected to be treated fairly and had decent if not good speeds. Nope! As soon as they completed the merger with Time Warner Cable and Bright House, it all went to crap. Speeds of our router slowed down gradually over time with no signs of ever stopping. At some point, we were getting less than a quarter of their actual speeds. It was the absolute worst during the pandemic when everyone was needing access to COVID-19 information like info as well as locations to where they could take their vaccines. It slowed down 10x as much. We switched to them when they were still a separate company known as Charter Communications, and for a bit, they were actually fairly decent. Now, I'll admit, it wasn't the greatest internet in the world, but it was at least digestible and we could do stuff like browsing the internet without a hitch. But then, we started to hear about mergers taking place. They started with Bright House, which was a smaller ISP company. There was nothing up about that merger, so we thought nothing of it. We still got relatively the same speeds we were getting before with no problems or issues. So, that merger was basically a nothing burger to us. It was the merger with Time Warner Cable that was when things started to go south. First up, the name change to Spectrum. What kind of name is that? Second off, speeds were hit. Our internet got slower pretty much soon after the merger with TWC took place. And lastly, the monthly bill for our internet skyrocketed and went up significantly. What happened? And it was the worst during the pandemic. It went down, like 10+ times a day. It was a nightmare.

So, here's the thing about our connection. Our connection was always usually unbearably slow. I swear, it sometimes felt like we were still on dial-up internet with America Online at some points. The internet would always be slower than the speeds we were promised by Spectrum on their website. You see, we had the usual, standard 200mpbs package for around $80 a month when we were with Spectrum. However, we got barely even a quarter of that. The speed was always usually somewhere around maybe 30 - 40 megabits per second according to the Speedtest website, and it literally made doing even the basic of things on the internet nigh on impossible. The internet would consistently cut out multiple times throughout the day, sometimes for extended periods of time, and would always be happening in the middle of the day. We either would get disconnected from our internet 5 - 6 times every day, or our internet would be slow to the point it is practically unusable. Even fidgeting with Airplane Mode on my computer did nothing if I was experiencing connection issues. It honestly felt as slow as a sloth sometimes. And this really made basic things like gaming and streaming impossible. One time, I was trying to watch a Twitch stream on my laptop at the time that since got scrapped. Oh my god, the buffering was atrocious. The stream kept buffering every few minutes or so and it literally made the entire stream unwatchable. It actually, honestly, pissed me off and it made me just leave the stream entirely. I wish I was able to just cancel Spectrum right then and there. That day will never be forgotten in my eyes. Spectrum was just yanking our chains at this point, treating us like complete arse. That day seriously made my blood boil because all I wanted to do is relax and watch a Twitch stream. Absolutely atrocious behavior from Spectrum. I was merely trying to relax and watch a stream, and I couldn't even do that because of the constant amounts of buffering. The throttling was absurd and ridiculous to the point the stream was just unwatchable and I had to leave because of the constant issues. No, I didn't leave the stream because I was bored or something like that, I left because of the fact that Spectrum couldn't maintain a stable connection while I was trying to watch a Twitch stream. That day still left a bad taste in my mouth, because I was watching a streamer that I actually enjoyed watching and loved. It was annoying to have to deal with constant and absurd amounts of buffering because Spectrum didn't know how to keep my connection and speed higher than practically the speeds of dial-up internet.

In fact, I couldn’t even simply browse the internet on certain days without Spectrum deliberately freezing or straight up throttling my traffic. Websites would load like a snail, and sometimes would refuse to load at all. Sometimes, it got so slow that I couldn’t access about 99% of websites without being shown the infamous Chrome dinosaur. The fact that I kept seeing that dinosaur on my screen so constantly just proves how inconsistent and unstable their internet is. The internet, at a point, literally got so slow that it didn’t even exceed a single megabyte in speeds. Yep, you heard me. Less than a megabyte both down and up at one point (it hit 0.16 mbps down and 0.02 mpbs up). It is the all-time record for slow Spectrum speeds for me personally. I truly couldn’t enjoy my time on the internet with Spectrum due to their inconsistent and crappy speeds. It would get so bad to the point where I would have to use my mobile hotspot pretty much 100% of the time. I shouldn't have had to use my mobile hotspot practically the entire time to have the goddamn ability to simply browse the freaking web. It is so unbelievably dumb and stupid.

In fact, sometimes I was hit offline while I was playing games. Constantly. In the middle of online games. I was in the middle of online play and usually would get thrown off and be disconnected from the instance or the game lobby. This meant that I was unable to play with my friends and unable to play online until Spectrum would get their crap together. And if it was a game that had a cooldown/ban system in place, that meant that if I got knocked off of my internet, I was the one who would receive the punishment, not Spectrum, who was the actual perpetrator, since they were the ones messing with my connection. There was one particular instance regarding this that I will never, ever forget about. There is this one online sports game called 3on3 Freeestyle. It is a 3 vs 3 online basketball game where two teams of 3 players would try and score points by passing the ball to their teammates and trying to land the ball in the hoop. You got points every time you would score. I used to like this game a lot, but the grindy mechanics, ignorant and sometimes braindead teammates, and this particular instance that made me truly despise the game. You see, one of the days I was playing this game, I was in the middle of multiple sessions and was disconnected every single time. And do you know what happens if you are disconnected for whatever reason? The whole match is forfeited. The match is determined a 'no contest' if a player leaves or is disconnected. And this happened every time I was disconnected because of Spectrum's bad internet service. It got so bad that players started to report me for intentionally disconnecting from the game, and as such, I later got hit with a 24-hour ban from the game. Yep, you heard me right. A full day ban because of internet issues. I was so pissed off about this and I even complained about this to JoyCity's support email, and they said that they were aware of the ban restricting me from playing the game and basically told me to make sure my internet was working properly. Yeah, "get better internet", as if it was even possible in the first place. I have never forgotten about that day and I will especially never forgive Spectrum for getting me falsely temp banned from a game that I was enjoying. I no longer like this game; in fact, I hate it, which is in fact mostly due to the game's core design, not this Spectrum incident. But, it's still notable regardless.

And oh boy, their Customer Service to us in particular was incredibly unhelpful and quite frankly assholes at times. All we were doing was just explain that our speeds were constantly going down the crapper and all the time the only response that we got was to restart the router/modem and try again. Sometimes, the reps were just assholes and hung up on us. Your customer is trying to get help, and you just hang up the phone on them purely out of spite? Shame on you! Imagine if I was working for an ISP and I just hung the phone up on you without even helping you! You’d be rightfully pissed off! Well, don’t do that crap to us! Well, once they did finally get technicians out there, they only made things worse. First one installed a new router that made our internet go out twice as frequently within the first 5 minutes of it being installed, and the other one changed everything on the box outside of our house, and still made it worse. How do you send two tech guys out and have them manage to make our internet worse? But, he most notable part is that they were just usually outright unhelpful. Every single time we called their Customer Support we only got more questions and got basically nowhere closer to a solution. We always got the same cookie-cutter response every time we called, which is 'put a pin in the back of the router, and restart it'. I've heard this line so many times that I probably can recite it word for word now. We have even told them that we have tried this multiple times and that it didn't work out for us. They would then just tell us the same thing again and expect a different result. Isn't that the definition of insanity? Trying to do the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result? I'm not 40 years old and I have stated that this solution did not work 99% of the time. It would usually take so much pestering and complaining to get them to finally get technicians out to take a look at it, and they usually didn't really do anything to fix our connection, or would somehow make it even worse than it already was.

In fact, there was one time that our internet was out for a whole 3 hours with no word or ETA from Spectrum. It just went down and we did not get a single word or message from them. Everything went down, the phone, the internet, and the cable. We could not access anything, we could not make calls, we could not go online, and we couldn’t even watch TV. Every bit of our Spectrum service was down. We just had to sit there and wait for the braindead employees to get it working again. It would have been nice if we were given a word on if there was an outage or if there was scheduled maintenance for our area. Nope! We couldn’t even call them to find out what was going on. We just had to sit there for 3 hours waiting for our service to be restored. It took over 3 hours for them to fix our service, the longest outage we have ever faced. And I know others might not be so lucky. Some of you have outages going on for more than a day. A week. Possibly even a month. Some of you may be really unlucky with a year-long outage, but I don’t know. Probably not. A week outage, though? More likely, in my opinion. But, the thing is, extended outages are in fact documented.

And despite all of that, Spectrum’s prices were always outrageously expensive. At one point, the subscription we had to Spectrum Cable literally caused our price to go over $300 on the day our payment was due. Literally. We had to pay that much, and that was the time when we still had the cable portion of our service before we cut cord due to it making our bill insanely expensive. And even when we got rid of Spectrum Cable, our bill for the internet and phone combined still exceeded over $100 per month. We were still expected to pay this much for internet that never worked. And it was like this every month. In fact, it continued to rise every month that we continued to be on Spectrum. We barely had enough left by the end of it. Thanks to my autism check, it was just always barely enough to pay for most of the things we have in our house, like internet and water. So, thankfully, my check managed to keep us from going homeless due to Spectrum’s insane prices for poor service. If it weren’t for that check keeping us afloat, we’d have been on the streets by now, so I am thankful that check kept us from being evicted. Despite all of our complaints with Spectrum's service, we were still having to pay over $200 a month for their services. And that was when we had cable. Even though we had numerous complaints with their services, we were still expected to pay premium for the services we were being offered. That is straight up theft! Why would you expect us to continue paying for a service that we did not even get? If our internet went down, we had to suck it up and pay for it, regardless of how our bad our service was. They did not care. And guess what? We had to completely cut off our Spectrum Cable subscription due to this. It was the main reason our Spectrum service was so damn expensive in the first place. Taking that off took a massive weight off of our shoulders. But, it was still stupidly expensive despite us cutting the cord on our cable subscription. Over $100 a month alone just for the internet and phone. It was absolutely ridiculous.

And speaking of Spectrum Cable, there was barely anything good on our subscription. Every time, there was always good channels getting replaced with channels we have never heard of. I was extremely upset when the good retro channel INSP was replaced with GRIT. INSP was a TV channel where we would watch a lot of classic shows that my uncle who passed away a while back grew up with. He was furious when GRIT replaced INSP, and I can’t blame him. GRIT was just a TV channel with nothing but random Western shows that we truly didn’t even care about. Spectrum replaced a channel we loved with a channel we couldn’t care less about. Thank God that they never touched MeTV while we were still on cable, or there would’ve been a riot. So, for explanation, INSP was a channel that was bundled with our cable package that included a lot of shows my uncle grew up with, such as the likes of The Rifleman, Highway to Heaven, and Little House on the Prairie. It was a channel my uncle tuned into frequently. One day, though, the channel number that INSP was on was replaced with a channel known as GRIT TV. The channel was purely a channel that was full of random Western shows, and it completely replaced INSP on our cable package. It wasn't moved to another channel, it was full on-replaced with a filler channel full of shows we didn't even really care about. And my uncle was angry. He was so mad that a random filler channel replaced a channel he loved. The channel MeTV, another channel he tuned into frequently, was thankfully, never touched.

Also, Spectrum had two contract disputes. One with Viacom (now known as simply Paramount Global), and one with Tribune Broadcasting. The Viacom one was set to bring all Nick channels offline, and thankfully, that never happened. But, the Tribune one happened, and it took our local news channel owned by Fox offline. So, now, there was no way for us to get weather on TV, and it pissed off Chiefs fans who were looking forward to seeing them in the Playoffs (this happened in 2019). The Viacom one was from 2017 (roughly) and was set to bring all Viacom related channels offline. So that meant all of the Nick channels like Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., and TeenNick were gonna go dark unless Spectrum and Viacom reached an agreement to keep the channels online. I got super upset about that and I made an angry video about it while the dispute was ongoing. Thankfully, they both reached a long-term agreement to keep all of the channels running before the blackout date, which was unbelievably good news. However, I cannot say the same for the dispute with Tribune. So, Tribune Broadcasting is the broadcaster that owns our local FOX channel, FOX 4. This is the channel where we usually got our news updates from when we still had our cable subscription. Unfortunately, the contract was set to expire soon and both Spectrum and Tribune got into a dispute over the agreement, just like with Viacom previously. We thought that everything was gonna go swell, but no, not at all. The blackout date came, and our local news channel went dark. This made us so mad, but not for the reason you might think, which is related to the Chiefs. No, it was actually because we were now technically no longer gonna get our news updated until the blackout was to be resolved. This meant no news unless we went online for the news. So, now, we had no way to stay up-to-date on what was happening in our local area. But, the thing is, the people it really upset were, actually, the Chiefs fans. The Playoffs were set to happen a little while later, and the blackout basically eliminated the chances for the Chiefs fans to see them in the Playoffs that year, in 2019. So, NFL fans were left high and dry in our local area. It took a while for them to actually reach a long-term agreement to restore programming, too. So, we at least got our local new channel back in the end, which is good, since we got our news station back and we were able to keep up-to-date with our local news again.

And oh man, when we had cable, the commercial breaks were awful. Let me sum it up for you. Spectrum ad. Spectrum ad. Medicare ad. Medicare ad. Spectrum ad. Medicare ad. All day, non-stop. I truly was getting fed up with all of the Spectrum ads and Medicare ads! For one, we already have Spectrum, why are you showing us ads for a product we already have, and, quite frankly, don’t like? And two, why are you showing us these stupid Medicare commercials 24/7? Oh my God, the ones starring Joe Namath and Jimmie Walker were the most rampant when we had cable. I hated that Joe Namath went from being a former NFL quarterback to a person lying about Medicare benefits, and I hate Jimmie Walker’s stupid voice. Him saying “It’s FREE!” in that stupid high pitch drove me to madness. The commercial breaks were truly the worst. The Kay Jeweller's ad with that stupid “You Are The Reason” song made me wish I was deaf on numerous occasions. Spectrum’s ad breaks on cable were abysmal and I am so glad we cut the cord on them so we didn’t have to listen to any more of Spectrum’s stupid showboating, the cringe ads, or the blatant and downright scam ads.

And also, speaking of their commercials, I hate them with a burning passion. Spectrum ads are the pure equivalent of cringe and blatant dishonesty. I had to listen to them lying during commercial breaks practically every single day. It was absolute, pure torture. I hate those commercials because of the fact they are nothing but just showboating about how good their services are, like "We provide fast speeds at a reasonable price" and stuff like that. It was basically them just telling people that they are an amazing and reliable internet service provider and that they have some of the best cable packages on the market. I hated the fact that they played their own commercials alone, and it was even worse having to hear it over and over again, especially considering the fact we were already on Spectrum to begin with. These ads are just nothing but blatant lies and deception used to trick potential customers into buying their service. In fact, I am not surprised a cable ISP provider is lying to people who are looking for a new internet provider, since they've lied to us constantly before. But hearing their ads play every commercial break was exhausting and annoying, considering we already had them and hated them as it already is. The ads are deceptive marketing that is nothing but lying to potential customers and I hate those ads so much. The ones I hated the absolute most are primarily the Spectrum Business commercials. These particular ones were overplayed to death on our cable package. These ads are the worst offenders when it comes to these Spectrum commercials, as not only do they lie to customers, but they also lie to people who are looking to start a business. The one that was overplayed the most was the Spectrum Business ad where Spectrum called rival ISP companies and made them give their opinions and thoughts on Spectrum, which were always positive. This is the Spectrum ad that made me internally furious every single time it played during an ad break, and that was mainly because of the premise of calling rival internet providers to give out their thoughts on Spectrum. I am pretty sure that the ISP companies in this particular ad were either bribed by executives and the Spectrum corporate ladder or forced to say positive things about Spectrum. Either way, their ads were straight-up garbage and I hated listening to them every time they aired. I think their commercials are in fact robotically awful, and we had to listen to this crap every commercial break. It was simply torture hearing them showboat about their service when we know for a fact that they were lying because of all of the complaints we have had to make against them over the years. I was so tired of it. The commercials just drove me up the wall.

And let's not forget, Spectrum has three different cable packages that are basically separate tiers. The three tiers in question are Silver, Gold, and TV Select. All of them are garbage cable plans outright. Do you wanna know what our cable package was full of? Nothing but filler channels galore apart from a handful of channels that we actually did watch and care for. There was, like, a never-ending sea of other channels that were just filler channels that were probably only used to jack up the price of the subscription packages in question. There was barely anything good on our cable package, and the only way we could get more channels was to go to channel 2495 to upgrade our package. And again, all of these packages are garbage cable plans. No channels that you actually wanna watch, but a hundred dozen channels that you don't care about or don't watch like WGN, which I know for a fact very few people watched despite maybe a small minority of Spectrum Cable customers. There was, like, literally endless amount of channels on our cable package that we literally didn't even care about or didn't really watch regardless. And this contributed to the extremely and absurdly high price for our subscription bill. Why are you making us pay for channels that we don't even watch or care about? It makes zero sense for us to be paying for channels that none of us tune into. I know for a fact no one in my household watched WGN, yet we were still expected to pay premium for a channel that we didn't even view. Every package on Spectrum was like this when we were a customer, and in fact, it probably still is like this even to this very day. Why? Money, of course! But hey, you still get like thousands of channels to watch, huh? Yeah, right. Thousands of filler ones, that is. Most of them probably not even good.

The only good thing I can say about Spectrum's cable package was that they had an actually good original show. There was one particular show that was part of their Spectrum Originals lineup that I actually watched through to the very end and ended up actually enjoying. This show in question is called "Curfew". This is a British dystopian drama show that is essentially Death Race meets The Purge. This show is about a deadly race that happens only during the curfew hours one day a year (hence the show name Curfew) that was a race to determine who would be able to leave Great Britain. The Great Britain in question is one riddled with a nasty, deadly infection that was resulted from a man-made virus, and as such, Britain implemented a curfew that happens every 7 P.M. to 7 A.M. under the guise it would be to protect the civilians from the virus and the mooks. This essentially turned Great Britain into a totalitarian state, and a handful of people sick and tired of the curfew enter themselves into a deadly, illegal 1,000 kilometer street race from London to Scotland to win their freedom and escape the regime and the virus. The contenders would use souped-up, modified cars that resemble some of the cars from the Mad Max films in terms of style and design, and the winner of the race would win the ultimate prize, which is moving to a sanctuary island, a rumored 'safe haven' and safe space for whoever was lucky enough to win it. This show was originally broadcasted on Sky One in the United Kingdom before being added to the Spectrum Originals lineup here in the United States. And for some reason, I actually enjoyed this. I watched it through to the end, which is something I don't usually do with TV shows. It might have a mixed reputation, but I actually liked the show's concept, even if it was just a mash up of The Fast and the Furious, Death Race, and The Purge. Honestly was surprising I was even able to watch the series to the end given Spectrum's shoddy service and bad internet. Usually I would never be able to do that with them.

And oh man, don’t even get me started on that “Directory Assistance” nonsense. It was this stupid phone number that we used frequently if we needed to find a business. Whenever we called, their automated bot responds and asks for the name of a city and/or business. Every single time, the bot either gave us the wrong business or said the name of cities or businesses incorrectly. Their stupid bot made me wanna pull my hair out on numerous occasions. It always took so long before the bot gave up and connected us to an operator who actually would usually send us to the correct place. Sometimes, they also gave incorrect businesses or were complete assholes who just hung the phone up on us, but that was rare, the operators were usually really nice even though we could barely hear a word that they were saying. And every time we were in fact hung up on or given an incorrect business through an operator, we’d have to go through the stupid bot again, and every time we had to, it only made me wanna pull out my hair even more. We had to go through this stupid bot 3 times at one point before an operator gave us the correct business. That day was especially a nightmare. And besides, we already have Google. Why would you go through this crap when a far better tool already exists? It really makes no sense. Google is far more reliable than Directory Assistance, and it is much easier to access the things you need, when you need them.

And lastly, for a while, we were stuck with Spectrum whether we liked it or not. For quite some time, we were stuck under a stupid monopoly that essentially made them the only ISP that was available in our rural area, and they for sure took advantage of that. Before Spectrum, we actually had a few ISP providers available to us; in fact, we used to be subscribed to D-Link, which I honestly think was turbo shit (don't wanna get into the shit we had to deal with on D-Link). And before we went to Charter Communications, we were on Virgin, which was pretty bad, and then we went to DirecTV and then DISH Network. And then, Charter came into the picture and was honestly a breath of fresh air for us, since we needed reliable broadband internet. And then, well, everything that could go wrong with Spectrum did go wrong, and it went to crap. And because of the monopoly, we were stuck with them. You see, when a ISP controls an entirety of a town or city, it's called a monopoly, and Spectrum had it in our are for a while. Because of that, we actually considered moving on numerous occasions to places that offered Google Fiber, but we couldn't due to certain reasons I don't wanna discuss. We could not switch providers because of the fact Spectrum was in control of our area. It was either Spectrum or no internet at all, and unfortunately for us, we needed internet, so we had to suck it up and deal with it. And I hated it. In these cities or towns, if Spectrum has a monopoly in that said city or town, then that means they are the only option available to that particular city or town, and everyone who lives inside of it is forced to go with Spectrum whether they like it or not. And because of them being the only option available, they are also listed as the only ISP in that city or town that is not ridiculously overpriced, and they take advantage of that as well. They will do whatever they please and no matter how much the people in that city or town complain, whoop, holler, and shout, Spectrum will not have any sort of action taken against them as they are the only option available in that particular city or town, and the people are either forced to go with it, or move out of the city. And it should be illegal for any ISP to have a monopoly in any sense of the word, regardless of how big or small they are.

Alas, the good news is that I am no longer a Spectrum customer. Finally, in 2024, Fastwyre Broadband began offering their fiber-optic services in the very tiny, small town we reside in. My father had a few chats with one of the people working for Fastwyre, and they seemed to be very promising and were looking to be a breath of fresh air. They were offering speeds Spectrum could never provide, and they also stated the pricing, which was so much more cheap and affordable compared to Spectrum. And so, we decided to go through with Fastwyre, expecting it to be too good to be true, and we finally got a installation date of May 1st, 2024. And when the day finally came, we got our new router supplied by the company, and we disconnected our Spectrum router and internet service before being able to finally cancel our Spectrum subscription and service.

And let me tell you, switching was the best decision we have ever made. Our internet has always been constantly and consistently up, even during the worst of weather. Our speeds have been nothing short of incredible as well. We always get a staggering 800mpbs down and 700mbps up every single day, and whenever there is a service outage, it usually happens late at night when we are all in bed, and it always takes them less than 5 - 10 minutes to restore our internet. I have never, ever had a single complaint towards or about Fastwyre, and the best part is that we got our first month of service with them completely on the house and didn't have to start paying until next month (June 2024). And guess what? The cost of our service has never went up in price as far as I am aware of and has mostly stayed at the price when our service was first installed. I think we are still paying just $59.99 a month (roughly $60/month) compared to Spectrum prices. And, so far, I have never had to contact Customer Support in any way, shape, or form. It's so reliable and consistent, no matter the season or time of day, which makes calling them just seem completely pointless, in a very good way, of course. We've had our Fastwyre Fiber service for only a year and roughly 7 months, and it has stayed the same. To say that I love Fastwyre would be an understatement. They are the dream ISP I wish we could've had years ago, and they are 100,000,000 times better than Spectrum. I love them and I cannot recommend them enough. And the funny part is that over the past year we've had Fastwyre installed, Spectrum's been constantly sending us junk mail in a desperate attempt to get us back by offering us price cuts and discounts for being a long-time customer. Haha. Classic. How do you think that is gonna work on us?

Also, a little extra funny story: My dad said that the guy that installed our fiber-optic Fastwyre service was, funnily enough, a former Spectrum customer himself. My dad told me that he had Spectrum for quite a while and absolutely despised and hated them with a burning passion like we all did, and when he was finally able to switch ISP provides, presumably to the one he's working for now, Fastwyre, he called up Spectrum to cancel his service as he found new internet service. Well, they did finally listen to the man and cancel his service, and before he hung up the phone, he gave Spectrum a very kind and friendly "f off", then hung up. What an absolute mad lad. I love that dude for that.

In short: Spectrum is an awful ISP and cable provider, and if you can switch to a better ISP, definitely do so.

You people outright need to stop making BS excuses entirely to blame us for our financial woes and especially give us useless advice that doesn't help us. You're making a fool out of yourself.

"You made bad decisions!" - Well, I'm so freaking sorry the only jobs I can apply for are garbage jobs in retail work or jobs at fast food establishments like McDonald's and Wendy's. I can't find anything better because every decent paying job that will actually help me rejects my application or just refuses to respond to it. Sometimes, even the fast food jobs reject my applications and I literally am unable to work at all. How is job hunting and getting applications rejected 50 goddamn times over or only being able to work at jobs that pay the least is a 'bad decision'? That is absolutely ignorant.

"Just work harder!" - You can be working your goddamn ass off at a full-time job for 40 plus hours a week and still barely get anything back, if anything at all. I could be working 3 part-times at once and still not have enough money to pay for my egregious rent. What do you mean 'work harder'? I'm already working as hard as I can and am still unable to keep up with the prices to afford basic essentials. Working any more jobs at once is just asking for me to 100% overexert myself for barely anything back.

"Stop being poor, then!" - Oh, wow. Great advice, thank you tons! That's what I am TRYING to do. But in the here and now, being poor is more likely for low-income people than being financially stable. I'm sorry that I can't work in the first place due to having disabilities. I'm literally 23 years old, still living with my parents who are also going through the same shit as me, and can't even afford my own place to live. Thank you for the utterly useless advice. How I'd love to stop living in poverty, but I literally am unable to make any money for myself and I don't even have a credit card. Trying to get out of this is what I WANT to do, but can't. This advice is not only unhelpful but also incredibly rude and condescending. You're making it out like it's so easy to get out of poverty. Newsflash, buddy - it's not. You are seriously arrogant if you say this. In fact, telling someone that they need to 'stop being poor' is like telling a homeless person to buy a house. How they'd love to do that, but they're literally HOMELESS!

"Join the military!"- And come out with lifelong trauma and basically have my soul and spirit broken? Nah, hell no, dude. I'm not putting myself through this, especially when I am on the spectrum and have ADHD and probably PTSD as well. I've already seen and heard horror stories in war and I wouldn't be able to deal with the stress and the anxiety that comes from fighting in the armed forces. No way in hell are you convincing me to join the Army. I have already played Spec Ops: The Line and I've seen the real horrors of war firsthand. I came out of that game absolutely traumatized. There's one scene in the game where you have to bomb a refugee camp to the ground with phosphorus bombs. That image of the burnt carcass of a mother holding onto her child has been seered into my brain forever. No way in hell I will ever be joining the military when I've already seen the true pain war inflicts on soldiers, so I wouldn't be able to handle it in a physical setting. I'd end up having a COMPLETE breakdown.

"Get a job!" - I literally can't. I have already been deemed 'unworkable' by a doctor due to my disabilities. How is it possible for me to get a job when I have already been told I can't work? By a doctor, no less? In fact, on top of that, I would probably not last a day or two in a workplace environment and would probably lose my job and get fired almost immediately because I would be so damn stressed out. How would I even be able to find work in the first place? My disabilities make it impossible for me to work in the first place. You probably wouldn't last a day in my shoes with the disadvantages I have. You would be completely lost. The only way I am even able to make a little extra money for my family is some program I luckily got approved for that gives us a LITTLE bit of extra money for work my dad does around the house. It has taken a big weight off of my shoulders.

"Go to college!" - How is being able to get a degree by going to college possible when I have no money to go to college in the first place? I don't have, like, thousands upon thousands of dollars to hopefully go to college and get a degree. Besides, colleges have the ability to reject applications if they deem that you aren't worthy enough to enroll as a student. And also, these things aren't cheap, they are ridiculously expensive to afford, especially for the far more prestigious colleges like Stanford and Harvard. I was barely able to graduate high school due to bad teachers, leadership, and management during my Junior and Senior years. I do not want to go through that kind of experience again, and I don't even have money to do this in the first place. And the fact you HAVE to have a degree to be able to apply for certain jobs is utterly ridiculous bullshit. It's like they just make it so much harder for people in poverty by shutting them out of job opportunities for not having a stupid-ass college degree. Going to college is not possible for me and it would probably suck. I'd rather go to a trade school than go to a college or a university.

"Stop living in America!" - Are you actually stupid or something? We can barely keep up with the rent. How would we even be able to leave the country and go to another country like Canada? You have to pay for a ton of expensive things like a house to live in, a hotel to stay in for a few days, a flight to even get to the country in the first place, and you also have to have a ton of shots, visas, and passports to even get the damn approval to leave the country. We can't even move to another city at the moment, let alone state! Moving to another country entirely is flat-out impossible. We can't afford to travel and we're stuck in this dumpy ass apartment that we've lived in for over a decade where the rent is surprisingly low. Trying to save up to be able to move to another goddamn STATE is already hard enough as it is with our situation, and I have never been able to go on a proper vacation. Moving countries is only possible if you already have the funds to. And we don't. We're still struggling to afford rent for our apartment, for Christ's sake!

"Unworkable is not a disease!" - I'm sorry, do you even have a brain? Being unworkable literally kills your chances of even being able to work, especially when a goddamn doctor has told you so. If a doctor tells you that you can't work, it's because you have a disability that makes you unable to work. This is absolutely one of the STUPIDEST arguments I have ever seen. I cannot believe there's people that think like this and think it is still possible for people deemed unable to work to be able to do so. Guess what? I have already been told I can't work due to my disabilities. End of story. My chances of going to a workplace or any job for that kind of matter have just been thrown out the window. I'm sorry that you can't accept that. It's like you're in some way telling me my disabilities are fake. They're not. I have ADHD and probably also have PTSD, which are real disabilities that can affect someone negatively in a workplace. Having these disabilities is not as easy as you all think it is, there are real disadvantages, and a major one is not being able to get a job. Even if I did go to work at a job, I wouldn't last a week without probably having a nervous breakdown. This program I had to apply for and got approved for is LITERALLY the only thing I could do to help out and support both me and my family.

"Stop being lazy!" - You are definitely an absolute DUMBASS if you think I am being lazy. I am trying to do everything I can to support my family and it apparently isn't good enough for you guys. Getting approved for this program has taken a massive weight off my shoulders and it feels relieving to be able to get just a tiny bit of extra money to help us out. That's not even the only thing I did. The other thing that I did was share my dad's GoFundMe campaign to help him out with car repairs that need to get done - a full repair of everything estimating to over a thousand dollars and shared it all over social media. Barely anyone even donated to the cause; we only have made $173 so far, less than 25% of the $1,000 we need for all of the repairs in total. Oh, and I also tried to apply for YouTube monetization multiple times. Every time, I got my application rejected for 'reused content' when blatant content farms that are already Partnered are full of blatantly reused content in the first place. I could've been making my dad money for making videos. But YouTube said 'no'. I've sent in three Partner applications already and ALL of them have been rejected for the same goddamn reason. It's stupid. I'm not being lazy, I'm actually trying to help us get out of this situation and barely anything I've tried so far has worked except for the program I got approved for. Were you hit on the head as a child or something? Besides, there are literally people working multiple side hustles at once on top of their part-times to keep up with their rent, are THEY being lazy as well?

"You're a choosing beggar!" - No, I'm not, I'm wanting actual support and assistance and you are instead laughing at me for being stuck in a shitty financial situation, along with the rest of my family. Telling me that I am a 'choosing beggar' for getting sick and tired of being made fun of for being stuck in poverty? That is SO disgusting and is wrong on SO many levels. All I want is for my family and I to not have to pick between paying the rent and going out for groceries next week so we don't starve our goddamn selves to death. I'm trying to be realistic here and have realistic goals. I try things, but it's never enough and there are still a ton of things keeping us down. I am not asking for much here; like, I am not begging for my dad to buy me a goddamn game on Steam. I am literally just wanting to get out of this mess and for us to FINALLY end up being financially secure so we actually ARE able to buy stuff for ourselves for once rather than focus on our goddamn needs pretty much all of the time. That is NOT being a 'choosing beggar', that is being 'a person who just wants to relax and not have a million goddamn things to worry about all the time'. If you think like this, you need to go fuck yourself with a cactus. Not wanting to deal with constant struggles is me being a 'choosing beggar'? You are delusional, AND insufferable.

You people just find any excuse to blame us for being poor. It's pathetic.

I live in a townhouse complex with a strata that contracts with a gardening company, whose costs make up a not insignificant part of the monthly "rent" we have to pay for the house we own.

Every week they bring in gasoline powered tools and make the entire complex sound like a biker gang HQ for literally the entire day. Not just a constant engine sound either, CONSTANT revving up and down because otherwise people would be able to get used to it and block it out and we can't have that. That was great back when I worked night shift and it's still great now that I work remotely and no one in online meetings can hear me properly that day. And then the exhaust fumes waft into your windows which is great in the summer in a house that doesn't have built in air conditioners (because they weren't necessary where I live until literally a few years ago, can't imagine why with all the fossil fuel powered tools we use constantly) and where the strata bans installing proper high efficiency split air conditioners. So we're forced to use only portable air conditioners that don't seal against the swing-out style windows properly and create a constant low pressure that draws the air from outside in. Even better when you can't afford an air conditioner in every room and get to choose between the room smelling like an oil refinery with the windows open or risk heat stroke with them closed.

Also, they used to not just maintain the common areas, but would go into each unit's private yard (again, which we own) and pull up any non-compliant plants (read: food). Though to be fair they haven't done that in quite a while so maybe the strata changed its policy. There are also quite a few bushes around here that are just sticks and branches because every time it tries to sprout new leaves they get trimmed back, and the strata wonders why they keep dying and keeps forcing us to pay for replacements that will die in a year from not being allowed to grow properly. Who needs green on your plants when you can make them unnatural geometric shapes instead?

And this isn't even "oh you demand neatly trimmed hedges but get mad when it inconveniences you" I don't want neatly trimmed hedges. Just let them grow naturally like plants are supposed to, the ends truly don't justify the means. Save that money and use it to maintain the aging buildings themselves instead of hiking up the strata payments every time something goes wrong while refusing to budge on any existing spending. Also, these are plants in the interior courtyard past the gate, who the hell are you impressing when the only people who see them are the ones living here?

And I’m trying so hard not to go spastic I’m trying hard it’s just not working

I talked it with Gemini, to be clear about english language. Today, I asked him(it?):

how to say "primo" and "prima" in english?

This AI machine replied:

Only "cousin" for both. Also, cousin is applied in all orders: first-order, second-order...

Obviously, "SURPRISE" is a small word to describe it.

Really??? I undestand that, maybe, they don't have interest in cat sex, but... in persons??? Such a carelessness with language!

I continued. Gemini said (in spanish):

The root is in antique french "cousin" and "cousine" but they lossed the gender in english.

I asked him if I can use "cousine", at least, to compensate it. I went far away, saying:

I don't want to suffer with these anti-gender sillinesses of Yanquis, can I use "cousine"?

Gemini response:

No. "Cousine" is not english word. Native persons will believe that you are wrong and will fix it

"FIX"? OH, MY GOD! 😂 I can't do it anymore. I swear I'm trying.

I signed up in lemmy.ml (before here), my reasonfor it was that they put my register data in the drawer, and I was unsure about if they going to register me really... Then, I registered here.

But the worse part is that they did not register me and... reason? "Spam" (??????). Tell me, how can I spam if I am not in site yet? Pure lies. In any case, I declare I am not spammer and this is a facade. Maybe, they admit only their ideas' applicants, for example, if they say something like: "oh, I hate Trump, I love LGBT flag and my cat Patrice, and I hate Brave in full-hearted way".

(In this moment, I am struggling against 404 images in Lemmy, but I am not --and was not-- a spammer)

Sometimes, I see my hands, thinking if under my skin maybe there are wires and integrated circuits...

Each site that I enter: "excuse me, you look like a robot; wait for an exam" (captcha, some algebra).

The internet that I knew was different.

I entered in chat... they said "Free Software Community in XMPP".

First thing: usually, they spam another political group. I didn't know what is it. One day, a guy came whining: "these persons are kirchnerists and don't respect other views than theirs" (it is referred to Cristina Kirchner, ex president of Argentina, with a leftist vision).

Second thing: I had small argument with owner because I insisted on "only speak about software" and he said "free software is politic topic" and we can't separate them, supossedlly

Third thing: another user, recently, said to be "neutral", said that "he doesn't want to participate in political debate"; other user acussed him of covered fascism (but not in toxic way but sutile), the neutral guy kept his position firmly and mentioned the fact that in other software groups the political speaking is absolutelly forbidden, he ended with: "I will return in another moment".

Fourth thing: I mentioned the fascism of Alberto Fernández in pandemic "emergency", I insisted on "human rights first" (implicating that the same justification could be used today for Javier Milei, rightist, for extreme regulations and they would be against it, but I did it in a way that maybe sounded conspiranoic for their tastes). In any case, the user( "anti neutral") said: "I can't take it seriously" and after the owner insisted on my vision is not welcome in the chat (the used words sounded like cersorship, in some form, but always the real anti-stablishment persons are unestimated).

THE CASE: Owner didn't say nothing to say fascist to neutral person but he said it to me for saying fascist to president who had taken a fascist way of government (you can compare Pandemic ways in Mexico or Brazil with Argentina and will understand my view).

Including if owner isn't sure about my view, he shouldn't censor me (I tried many times to return to software topic but "anti neutral" user attacked my view and insisted on the thing that "you must explain your view after saying that". But owner and antineutral are complementary in forcing one point of view ("kirchnerism").

In any case, i only want to talk about software, see code, share code...

This guy was really traumatized by a mod (--easy ban--, a tyranic otaku who enjoys the extreme control in the small bubble that is this website).

My friend was whining frequently... I intended to help. I create an account and said: "the mod will trust if use it for one month". But my idea needs that he uses a VPN for masking his IP (his country, unfortunately he is the unique user from his country and mod bans immediatelly). VPNs turn off while he navigates and show his location... then, it is not successful.

Other persons were before mod: "please, forgive him... he is a good guy". But mod says: "he surpassed all of limits and is no more welcome". Really, he was banned and created new account, offending to mod. It's all of his wrong doing: be angry for an injustice.

My friend said: "so much problem for this fckng site... better I pass off it". And I invited him and others to my new little tree house, recently created (for them). But no one came. It's really weird way of people whining and after not doing a thing so simple to resolve it.

NOTE: I didn't have a real need of tree house, I made it for them

Me venting about native english-speakers

Before, my maximum respect to W. Shakespeare, L. Carroll and other artists. Let them out of it.

1. Americans: i would be American too, because America is a continent. Then, a semi-communist guy proposed call them "USonians", clearing the ambiguous language.

2. My worst problem in english is adjective position: "a guy tall fat... oh, no... a tall fat guy" (swapping constantly adjectives position at writing). You can't imagine the wasted time for this cause, but I'm not blaming you.

3. "El/La... spanish is so weird". Seriously? did you see your language?

"Ella me quiere" - "She loves me" (not I)

"Yo soy querido por ella" - "I am (be)loved by her" (not she)

"Yo la quiero [a ella]" - "I love her" (not she again)

NOTE: "She/her" vs "Ella/ella"

* Trans person appears*

"Tell me they/them" (eh? plural noun for single person??? you lost me)

4. Dog (me: 🙎‍♂️dogo or 🙎‍♀️doga?)

male dog/female dog 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♂️ perro/perra

little male dog/little female dog 🙅‍♀️🙅‍♂️ perrito/perrita

🤦🤦🤦🤦

NOTE: english language struggle so much for merge common pieces, it put adverbs and things before noun without worries (it implies that they never thought in this problematic)

5. "spanish is not gender friendly"

No, I fix it: "people is not gender friendly"

Spanish language is so flexible, you can do:

"elle" (el+ella)

"le" (not elegant "el"+"la" but possible)

It is the LGBT community but not mainstream, they replace to E all of A/O letters.

perro/perra/perre

LAST THING:

I'm not "a language nazi" but I am pointing you that your language is not perfect, like certain delirious guys believe. You must be thankful that you don't need learn another language to communicate internationally but don't abuse.

I'm getting fed up with the current state of game preservation. It's practically non-existent.

This is exactly why I prefer GOG over Steam whenever I get the chance to. You actually OWN your games on GOG unlike on other platforms that just give you a temporary 'license' that can be revoked at any time. You can download offline backup install files for every game in your GOG library, and they will continue to work as long as you have those install files saved onto your computer, and you can play them entirely offline without needing a constant internet connection or third-party clients needed to even launch the game. I already have over 100 games in my GOG library, which includes Alpha Protocol, Kerbal Space Program, all of the mainline Deus Ex games, DREDGE, both Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, The Outer Worlds, MAFIA: Definitive Edition, all of the BioShock games, Metro 2033 Redux, The Talos Principle, Saints Row: The Third Remastered, Hypnospace Outlaw, LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, GRIP, Sir Whoopass, Pumpkin Jack, A Plague Tale: Innocence, The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, FlatOut, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, Shadow Warrior: Classic Complete, Quake II, POSTAL: Classic and Uncut, the first two Elder Scrolls games, Betrayer, and even Talisman: Digital Classic Edition before it got delisted from all platforms not too long ago.

The GOG platform has the absolute most consumer-friendly policy of any online storefront, because it is technically real ownership. As long as you have those install files, you can do whatever you want with those files, as long as you're not harming others. This is exactly how physical game ownership used to be; we used to own those products outright. Sure, anti-piracy did exist even back then, but they weren't as intrusive and outright anti-consumer as the anti-piracy protections we have today like Denuvo, which requires you to re-authenticate your game using online servers. We are getting into an age where we flat-out don't own the games we buy, and in some cases are flat-out told so by companies like Ubisoft, so, we need things like GOG and Stop Killing Games, because those are the only ways we can ensure full, 100% ownership of the games we buy. That is real ownership. Not a stupid 'license' to said game or product. Real ownership is being able to re-download the game at your own will, say, 20 years from now. Stuff like Denuvo and SecuROM are not real ownership. Buying a digital game does not mean you own that product, it means you own a license to that product that you can use indefinitely until said license is revoked at any time for any reason whatsoever. You're not buying digital products, you're renting them. It's literally just like a digital, online version of Blockbuster Video - you're renting VHS tapes, you're not buying them. At least Blockbuster let you keep your VHS tapes if you just bought them outright.

I'm not going to sit and "own nothing and be happy", no, I'm not going to be happy. If one thing's for sure, telling me that is just gonna make me refuse to buy your products. The idiots at Ubisoft already proven they don't care about ownership - I mean, their EULA practically states that you must destroy all copies of the game in your possession, INCLUDING physical, if your Ubisoft account is terminated. Way to go, Ubisoft, you just lost a customer. And those Switch 2 Key Cards, yeah, that's literally just a digital game, it's not physical. But it comes in a physical box with a physical cartridge. So, not only are you now paying for a digital game, you're also now being tricked into buying a digital game through a deceiving physical purchase that just grants you a limited license. And Nintendo has already proven that they can make your digital products useless, they have been banning Switch 2 consoles left and right which basically bricks the Switch 2 completely, and even Nintendo can't reverse these bans - they are permanent, and this is getting them into serious trouble in Brazil. Steam, sure, they've been doing well, but even still, you are explicitly buying a license to the game, which they recently added to their storefront amidst a brand-new Californian law which makes it so companies have to explicitly say if customers are buying a product or a license. And you can't even share your account with your descendants, either. You're not allowed to transfer ownership of your Steam account to someone else, they have to make a Steam account themselves and buy games themselves, unlike GOG, which allows you to transfer your account to someone else. And Microsoft and Xbox is a whole other story, ownership is basically dead in the water, same with PlayStation/Sony who created a 'kill switch' that can remove digital products from your library at any time. Game ownership is dying a painful death, and we need to start fighting back.

We need stuff like GOG and Stop Killing Games to exist. We need to take back ownership, and we need to do it now. If we let game publishers get away with this, it is going to set a very bad precedent for video games in the future. It is exactly why indie developers are destroying AAA publishers; they actually care about their fanbase. We need that EU petition to win and succeed. If we win and the EU signs this into law, it is going to create a ripple effect throughout the entire video gaming industry, where publishers will add offline modes to games and give us full ownership of our games we rightfully bought, and made so they are legally forbidden from taking those games away from us. If they do at that point, they will be in violation of the law, and can be legally sued. I already get games on GOG whenever I can, because of their pro-consumer policy when it comes to the games that we buy on the platform, and CD PROJEKT RED is the only AAA publisher out there that actually understands the importance of video game preservation. Why do you think My Abandonware is so popular? They are an ever growing list of games that can't be legally purchased, and key resellers often sell remaining keys for outrageous and insane prices that are way too expensive - I mean, come on, the Deadpool game is not worth over 100 dollars. I've seen games like London 2012 being sold for over $150 on Kinguin. It's just not worth it. If we let companies get away with killing games, then these publishers will continue to make it so we need constant internet access to play single player games, will be allowed to legally take our games away from us or even outright make them unplayable like the situation with The Crew, and so many other things. We need that EU petition to succeed and GOG to become even more popular than it already is. Sure, it is already a popular storefront, but it needs way more attention than ever, especially as of right now. Video game preservation has never been more important than it has been as of right now. They cannot keep getting away with this. We need to stop them. Not later, but now. It's time we stand up for ourselves and demand full ownership of the games we buy. No questions.

Buy games from a real storefront where you ACTUALLY own the games you buy: https://gog.com/

Support the movement against video game destruction: https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

I am officially done. From now on, ANYONE who reiterates any phrase like "Stop being poor", "Get a job", "Pull up your bootstraps", or any other type of phrase that solicits 'poverty shaming' earns a free block from me. As a poor person, I have put up with this mentality for far too long and I've had enough of it. I'm done listening to toxic assholes who think they can just say anything. They can look down on me, so I can look down on them, not for having money, but because of their toxic, douchebag attitude. I'm unworkable, have autism, and I am not gonna listen to people who tell me how to live my life and tell me that I should be doing "x instead of y". Anyone who says that is either just simply an asshole or is privileged and was babied by their rich parents and had everything handed to them. I am absolutely not sorry and I am not apologizing. I've listened to this mentality all my life and I am about ready to snap the next time someone tells me to 'not be poor'. I am so sick and tired of it and I don't wanna be around or interact with anyone who reiterates making fun of people for being stuck in poverty. Y'all don't know what it's like to live off of basically scraps and wonder if you're gonna be able to pay for food or electricity next week. Face it, you guys wouldn't last two days in my shoes and you would hate living like this. I'm done being nice to people who just want to blame poor people for being poor rather than blame the circumstances that got them into this mess. There are several factors as to why people are poor and stay poor: they can't work, everything eats up practically all of their savings pretty much all of the time, they got scammed out of money, they have to pay for a shit-ton of house expenses to even have the privilege to live in their home, literally hundreds of things, and yet, the very first thing you wanna do is blame the poor, unfortunate soul for their financial woes. Nah, I am done with it, and I am not sorry at all. You wanna repeat this and make fun of people struggling to survive, like me? Well, congrats, you've earned yourself a free block. You should take a hard look in the mirror and see just how much of an awful, horrible bully you are. Because I am fed up and done on so many levels. I have hit my breaking point and I will not be tolerating it any longer. Y'all have actually crossed a line with me this time.

You have a choice: either be nice and show actual empathy, or earn yourself that block. Choose wisely.

I played 3on3 Freestyle on Xbox, right after the game released on the platform and had its trailer. To start off with, it was actually fun and engaging. It was a fun, arcadey-like basketball game with a ton of replay value. But then, as I continued to do matches and continued to level up, I realized the true nature of this game and I started to absolutely hate it. Every match onwards, I was placed with basically starter-level players while I was around maybe level 11 - 15 and had already made progress in the game. And almost every single game, I was being faced off against a team that consisted of players above my level, I think they were around level 20 - 25. The matchmaking system completely sucked. But, the worst part is that I was always being placed with teammates who were literally between levels 1 - 5. My teammates were always the absolute worst at this game and I can't even count how many times I lost online matches due to having bad teammates. I was completely ignored every single time I asked for the ball, and even when I was wide open and able to take a shot. I literally was right there, ready to score, and my teammates still passed the ball between each other and completely ignored my existence. There was several times I could have been able to score my team a point, but alas, I was never able to because of my teammates disregarding the fact I even existed. And then, they never played defense properly, and we always kept getting scored on. Over. And over. And over again. We rarely got a single point while the other team got 5 - 8 points in a single game. Their coordination with blocking shots and passes was horrible and it always resulted in us getting schooled by the other team. Meanwhile, I was the only one actually trying my best to block the ball from getting passed or landing in the hoop, and the other team still managed to outmaneuver and outplay us, mainly because my teammates sucked at defense. And most importantly, they always ended up trying to take impossible half-court shots for 3 points, which always failed and always resulted in a turnover. They always attempted to shoot the ball into the hoop from impossible distances, which always caused the ball to bounce off the rim of the hoop. I was trying to be realistic and shoot the ball from closer distances that were close to the hoop, and I only went back to the 3-point line if I wanted to do a 3-point shot. But not my teammates. They just always wanted to go the to the half-court line, and in some cases, even attempted to shoot the ball all the way from the opposite hoop, a full-court shot. And because of all of this, I lost. Constantly. I was always on a losing streak in every online match, and I've had multiple cases where I literally just lost 100% of the time, no matter what. I have rarely won a single online match due to this. After so many times of losing matches and hearing that "Don't feel too bad" crap over and over again, I quit playing the game outright and have never touched the game since. I was getting paired with awful teammates, losing pretty much all of the time, and literally getting smurfed, so I decided enough was enough and I wasn't gonna be putting up with it any longer. I have refused to play this game ever since, and I will continue to outright avoid it like the plague. This game is an unfun heap of trash that practically hands victories to higher-level players and might even be pay-to-win. Never playing it again. Ever.

Nowadays, most, if not everyone online are toxic fiends and just harass and bully people to make fun of them while feeling like they are better than them. It is horrible and it makes the victims feel miserable. It is absolutely wrong and disrespectful, especially to people who are less fortunate than others and can't pay for expensive luxuries like Rolex's. What ever happened to being kind to people? I feel like most people online, especially on Reddit, just get a kick out of being toxic, insufferable brats. Back when I was a kid, people were far more respectful online and actually showed empathy and compassion to people. Now, it's the complete opposite. Which is why I lashed out on one guy in one of my most recent Reddit posts. If you aren't gonna be nice about it, why the hell should I be nice to you? It's called 'respect', and it's earned, not given. I feel like ever since the COVID outbreak most people online have acted more like manchilds. It's all too common on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, pretty much all of social media in fact. People have seriously forgotten what it means to be 'kind'. Being 'kind' does not involve belittling people and bullying them. You lot need to take a long-ass look in the mirror and see how awful you're being. It was in a ranting subreddit for crying out loud and there was someone being toxic to a person making a genuine argument over in-game skins you have to buy using physical items (which is stupid, and I STAND by my opinion). I'm tired of being nice to people who act like assholes. I used to have more patience, but life is too short and I'd rather just not bother with them. We all need to remember kindness, and by God, it's literally the first rule of Reddit: "Remember the human". You may see a username as just a username, but there is a person on the other side that is the one having to take this toxicity and abuse. You are hurting a real person on the side and that should make you feel ashamed of yourself. I don't know what the hell happened, but it is just depressing as hell that pretty much nearly everyone online has turned into toxic fiends over someone simply stating an opinion. I think we need a complete resetting of humanity, Thanos-snap everyone out of existence and restart the entire human evolution tree. That way the new generation of humans can learn from us and our toxicity and be more nicer and kind to others. It is not hard to be nice and respectful to others, my God, stop acting like it is. You're not only making a fool out of yourself, you're also making people hate you to the point that they want to block you and avoid your presence anywhere on Reddit or any social platform for that matter.

The only thing I hate about DOOM: The Dark Ages is the fact you need to buy physical items for some in-game skins. I am wanting the Executioner skin but it’s locked behind a limited-edition Xbox controller that is probably already sold out by now.

The fact that you need to buy physical, real-world items for a fucking in-game skin is just fucking absurd. Like, come on, are you actually fucking serious?! You have to buy a fucking TWO THOUSAND DOLLAR GPU BUNDLE for the Legionary skin? That is just absolutely ridiculous. And then there’s that Ranger skin. You’re telling me that I have to buy a LIMITED-EDITION PIZZA from a specific pizza parlor to get the skin? I am nowhere near a Prince St. Pizza location! So, I have to fly across the US just to order the Hellfire Pizza? That is crazy and it is absolute fucking insanity. I cannot afford plane tickets to travel across the fucking nation.

The fact the skin I want, the Executioner skin, is locked behind a physical controller purchase is nuts. The controller is probably already sold out, so I am probably just not going to get this skin at all unless I buy a DOOM Xbox controller for an inflated price from a scalper. And now, my only options to get the Executioner skin are to either buy the controller from a scalper, buy a code from a reseller, or go in the corner and cry. It is just like someone dangling an object or prize in front of your face and laughing at you just to fucking tease you. “Haha, I have this exclusive in-game item and you don’t, go cry about it!”.

This FOMO bullshit is exactly why I quit playing Fortnite. “Do you want this skin or emote? Well, you better hope you have enough VBucks for it before it is removed from the Shop forever!”. It’s the ‘fear of missing out’ on exclusive items and it is absolute BULLSHIT. It’s exactly why I HATE limited-edition items and bundles. It creates a sense of FOMO for not wanting to miss out on exclusive items, which will make people do stupid and dumb purchases for in-game items. This is about as dumb as paying $80 to have Vader locked in Battlefront II and having to spend real-world money just to unlock him.

Limited-time items are fucking stupid and they should be in the goddamn game to begin with. It’s like when EA said it “creates a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes”, basically telling people the more you spend, the more you’ll feel superior. I don’t have money falling outta my ass. Just put all the damn skins in the base version of the game and make them unlockables for completing certain missions and challenges. I come from an age when we earned EVERYTHING through just playing the fucking game. Rewarding Gameplay. Paying for skins is NOT rewarding, it’s fucking tedious.

It’s the ONE goddamn thing I hate about DOOM: The Dark Ages. I do NOT wanna spend eighty fucking dollars on the limited-edition controller just to have the Executioner skin!

Make it make sense and just put them in the fucking game to begin with! It’s fucking stupid, Bethesda.

I was a victim of this website.

I had to go through this website when I was in high school.

NoRedInk is a terrible way for students to learn basic ELA. The first thing is that instead of students' taking their time to look at each question thoroughly, it is instead much easier to just rush through each question instead to attempt to complete the assignment in the fastest time possible, which hinders their true learning experience while using this website. The second thing is that this site uses a very harsh system for penalizing mistakes. If a child gets a question wrong at any point during a NoRedInk assignment, the program automatically imposes three extra questions which the child must correctly answer in a row, in which don't even contribute to the final score, and the counter resets if another question is incorrectly answered. This 'penalty system' approach can be very demotivating and especially brutal to students since it makes them do extra questions just for simply making an incorrect answer or making a tiny mistake and accidentally placing a word, etc. in the wrong location. This hinders their learning process and it takes much needed time out of their days, with some assignments reportedly taking well into the late hours of the night when children are supposed to be sleeping instead of focusing on school or any kind of homework for that matter.

The next thing is that NoRedInk genuinely causes harm to the students - harm that can cause negative effects to them later on in their lives. Students are not motivated when they are forced to do these assignments because they take too long to complete and it makes them do even more questions for every single incorrect answer. Instead of providing a true, honest learning experience for the very students in question, it makes them stressed out and unmotivated. This causes them to want to rush through the assignments instead of paying attention to each question carefully, because it causes them severe stress. The stress that comes from this program is very, very harmful and can cause permanent damage to them later on as adults. This site can cause things such as multi-personality disorder, sleep deprivation, depression and anxiety, and a lot of other things. This site has even caused some students to have severe thoughts about offing themselves to get rid of the pain the site has caused them. The fact kids are wanting to commit should be a giant red flag in the first place and force severe change to the ecosystem of NoRedInk, most notably penalizing mistakes in a much more friendly manner. It ultimately ends up ruining the days of students, lowers their grades, and severely harms their mental and emotional health to the point of suicidal ideation. Yes, it's true. I've heard about attempts to do it over this site online.

Also, the site doesn't even give the students any useful tips when it comes to the hints the site provides. Whenever a kid gets stuck on a question, they can click on the hint to have NoRedInk tell them what they need to do for the assignment. However, the explanations the hints give are way too broad and are very hard to understand even for a teacher. It uses broad and vague wording that the kids cannot comprehend, and the hints don't go into detail and don't leave any lasting impact on the kids to the point they'll know what to do - they'll just be confused. It doesn't help the fact that every time a kid needs to rely on the hint, they're given a warning beforehand about using the hint during a question, and if they have to rely on the hints, they will have to do, again, three extra questions in a row and answer them all correctly. This makes students not even want to rely on these hints, because they know if they use a hint, they will be penalized by being forced to answer three questions in a row. So, not only are the hints not helpful for the students, but they also might as well not even bother to look at the hints to begin with, because it will always result in them getting punished with three extra questions, that again, they will have to answer correctly in a row.

On top of that, there's no true reward for completing a lesson, let alone an assignment. All you get is some stars on the lesson in question, and that is it. This does not make students determined to complete the NoRedInk assignment, since there is no reward on the other end that would make the several hours of work worth it, let alone a reward at all. It doesn't give you anything for completing a lesson - just stars saying you've completed the lesson at the end of the lesson, and then, back to your main home screen with an inspirational quote. Making students determined to complete these lessons would require a real reward on the other side, such as access to a fun activity, or even a fun video going over the topic of the lesson. Rewards like that would make students want to complete these assignments, and it would severely boost student productivity and it would result in better marks.

And speaking of activities, there are no activities on the site at all. It's just a boring, generic educational website that only has the bare necessities that qualify it as such. There are no fun games, activities, or anything at all that make NoRedInk a fun experience: just assignments that do nothing but stress out and push students to their limits for no reason in the name of 'homework'. An equally despised site is one under the name of Study Island, a website with a quiz-like system for assignments. The website had fun games that students' could play in their downtime while waiting for further Study Island assignments, or just to pass time when they're done with their work. There are no games on NoRedInk at all, which severely hinders the enjoyment of the site and makes Study Island feel like a far more reasonable investment over NoRedInk, since there's nothing 'fun' about it.

And also, this website makes teachers' jobs so much harder as well. Why? Well, since they assign so many NoRedInk assignments, it makes it much harder for teachers to do their jobs since they need to look over each and every assignment by each and every student in every hour they teach. It takes time away from a teacher that could be spent on doing far more important things, such as tutoring kids who are struggling with the assignments being assigned to them. It creates a heavier workload for teachers who now have to do twice as much work looking over each completed NoRedInk lesson, and it can cause teachers to become overwhelmed and exhausted with how much of the work they need to take a look at on top of the other assignments they have assigned for their class. Their job is already hard enough as it is, and NoRedInk just forces them to work 2 times as hard to the point it drives them to exhaustion. It makes their jobs harder and even more difficult, since they're having an extra layer of work to look over.

And speaking of such, the site also causes students to work 2 times as hard as well. NoRedInk assignments have reportedly been caused to take multiple hours to complete due to the harsh penalty for simple and honest mistakes. Some reports say it took students 3 hours, some 5 hours, and even some longer than that, sometimes to the point where it keeps them up late to the point they are well up past midnight, which affects their sleep schedule in a very negative way. The typical time that it should take to complete one of these assignments should be around 20 to 30 minutes max. It should not take longer than half an hour to complete a lesson on this site. But, some students have gotten especially unlucky when it comes to NoRedInk lessons, and that is because it is reported that some students are multiple days late on some of these and are still not done with the lesson. It wastes students' time and it takes much needed time out of their days that they could be spending on doing other, far more important things. But, the sheer volume of how many NoRedInk assignments are given, and how it all too often takes too long to complete one of them, diminishes their time value they could be spending on doing assignments for other classes, and it adds on to an already heavy homework load, of which they have enough of it already. They are already tight on homework as it is, and NoRedInk only gives them even more of it on top of the homework they've already been assigned (or are about to be assigned). Not to mention the fact that the amount of times that they are given these NoRedInk assignments takes much needed time away from a child's development that should be used on developing them and introducing them to the world, it's beauty, and lots of other things.

This site also causes bad student behavior - some students have experienced severe emotional outbursts in the middle of class due to NoRedInk's toxic learning structure. Some of them have ended up destroying school equipment (most notably school-issued laptops) or home devices they took with them to school. Students have expressed severe anger at this site sometimes, and emotional breakdowns in the middle of class due to it are all too common in personal stories about the site online. You will constantly hear stories about how NoRedInk caused them to break a personal device or caused them and/or their classmates to get very angry and frustrated. The emotional response students have to this site is nothing short of completely negative. If a learning tool is harming students enough to the point where they actually start showing anger, then the teachers need to re-evaluate what programs they are using to teach said kids. Some students have actually given up on some lessons at times, and just ultimately refused to do the work, and some students are genuinely frustrated. But, they are most notably scared. They are ultimately scared of failure. Why? Because failure means more NoRedInk, more copy and paste questions, and more anger and frustration. But, some students have even ended up dropping out of school due to NoRedInk, because they got sick and tired of the website and its constant, stressful environment.

And lastly, NoRedInk fails at leaving a meaningful mark on students and actually teaching them ELA. With all of the core factors contributing to students, teachers, and even parents not liking the website, it fails at leaving an impression in a ton of different ways. But, the most notable part of this is that it doesn't help them with retention of the material that is taught to them. Because students are being forced to rush through assignments instead of looking over them carefully, students will end up easily forgetting about the material taught to them, as NoRedInk did nothing to actually help them understand the material fully, and it will leave their brains quickly as a result, in a month at maximum. There is a video game called Timez Attack that teaches kids multiplication through video gaming, as the creators of the game, Big Brainz, actually did in fact consist of former game developers who made games for the PlayStation 2. The addition of Timez Attack being a full-on 3D computer game full of various worlds, like a Machine world and Lava world, made learning multiplication fun and engaging. The developers wanted to get away from traditional methods of learning like NoRedInk, and so, they wanted to create a fun way for students to learn their multiplication facts. And as a result, students (players) who came out of Timez Attack ended up getting extraordinary final marks on their post-credits scores - with the highest being an eye-popping 95% fluency. And guess what? Those students were able to hold on and continue to memorize and understand those multiplication facts, because it was a full 3D game. That game helped students retain those facts, and it is the reason why teachers recommended this game to everyone they could find: student grades improved exponentially. NoRedInk does not have anything that makes it engaging in any way, and combined with the need to rush through each lesson and the penalty system penalizing small and honest mistakes, makes it extremely hard for kids to retain basic ELA lessons. They did nothing to innovate or improve. It's just another generic website that has no staying power in kids' minds, since there is nothing about the site that helps these kids with retention of basic English. I'd give it a week max, and then poof, the material they learned would be gone.

In summary, this site is nothing short of ineffective, and it does a lot more harm than good to not only students, but also teachers. This is not a site that you should be using as a tool to teach kids English in school. There are far better ways to teach kids English and this site is absolutely not one of them. There are too many negatives that completely outweigh any of the positives about this site, and it doesn't leave any meaningful impact. This is mediocre at best and atrocious at its worst, and it's more usually atrocious than anything mediocre. If you are looking for a site to teach kids ELA, I'd recommend you steer clear away from this site and look for alternatives that will actually help kids understand the material. Throwing them onto NoRedInk is just setting them up for failure and it will end up with frustration, tears, and quite possibly holes in the wall. Avoid it at all costs.

You all should be angry, and quite frankly, pissed off at both Sony and the infamous UMG record label. They are trying to get a stupid-ass law passed that might end up killing the Internet entirely if it goes through. This new proposed law brought on by these companies will turn your Internet service into an expensive paperweight if you are found to be pirating anime content. You watch a clip of an anime on YouTube, by any chance if this law is passed? BOOM - you have just permanently lost access to your Internet service entirely. This law is a massive human rights violation and is a massive breach of privacy! What if you just watched an anime clip on a website such as Twitter and had no idea that it was a pirated clip? What if you didn't do anything wrong and are living with someone who was in fact pirating anime content? Nope, you still lose access to your Internet seemingly for the rest of your life and it applies to the whole household. That's right, your service will never be turned back on if you break this proposed law even ONCE. There is one side you should draw your pitchforks to and that is Sony and Universal Music. This is going to flat-out kill the Internet if this is passed. These companies need to know that what they're doing is a MASSIVE overreach and overstepping of their boundaries. If this gets passed then I am fully expecting UMG and Sony stocks to tank like crazy, the foundation of YouTube being entirely ruined, VPN sales increasing tenfold, and even hackers attempting data breaches on both companies. We need to stop this from moving forward! I am getting sick and tired of these stupid companies trying to bully us normal internet users into submission. We need to start fighting back and pushing back against the narratives these companies propagate! Enough is ENOUGH! We should REFUSE to stand by and have our basic human rights listed in the Constitution ripped away from us ANY LONGER! WE ALL SHOULD PROTEST AGAINST THIS LAW AND DEMAND THAT IT IS SHELVED FOR GOOD. AND ESPECIALLY BOYCOTT BOTH SONY AND UMG! There's already been severe backlash online regarding this proposed law and I can bet there's gonna be so much more later on should this law actually be taken into effect. And I bet this law is going to end up backfiring in both Sony and UMG's faces spectacularly. I can fully bet that this is probably just gonna end up causing the number of people pirating anime content to increase tenfold - a classic case of the Cobra Effect in action.

My final words? Fuck you Sony and UMG! Please do the world a favor and go kindly FUCK YOURSELVES! 🖕

Blacklisted from The Internet Over Anime Piracy if This Law Backed by Sony and UMG Passes

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(in the style of AVGN's YKWBS series)

You know what's BULLLLLLLSHIT? Those tiny-ass door locks that you have to push to lock the door. Who designed these? They are seriously the worst fucking door locking mechanism I have ever seen in my entire life. You know how on most doors, especially bathroom doors, where they have dials that you turn to lock and unlock the door? Super convenient and easy to use. But those fucking tiny lock buttons you have to push are the complete opposite. These things are so poorly and horribly designed. They malfunction so fucking easily! They are these tiny little buttons right next to the doorknob that you, you guessed it, push to lock the door, and you have to turn the doorknob for the lock to be disengaged. These things are so prone to issues, it's unreal! Sometimes, the goddamn lock refuses to deactivate after the doorknob is turned and actually gets jammed! So, you'll have to fight with getting the fucker freed so the door can be properly used from the outside. But wait, that's not all. Imagine if you lock the door with one of these things to go to the bathroom. I mean, no one wants to see you do your business! So, it would be logical to lock the door. And then, when you are done, you get out, and you shut the door behind you, thinking nothing of it, but behind your back, guess what? The fucking lock is still active! And you didn't even notice it. And then, when you try to open the door again, you can't! Congratulations, idiot! You just locked yourself out of the bathroom. And now, since you have no way of getting into the bathroom because of the shitty lock still being primed, your only hope? Pry open the door with elbow grease using random things from your home. No one wants to do this shit! It's much extra work! Especially when you gotta go really bad! You can't just afford to shit yourself, you gotta go take care of yourself! But the damn lock won't fucking budge, no matter how hard you try and get the door loose! You try everything; screwdrivers, your whole body, pens, pencils, scissors, and everything else. No. Dice. The door won't move a fucking inch. And then, you finally get in after like 30 or so minutes, and realize the goddamn lock was still turned on! How were you even supposed to know that? I've had this bullshit happen twice to me already with the bathroom door in my living room. Twice. Both times I had to pry the damn door open. The first time, I had to use a flyswatter, and the second? A god. Damn. Backscratcher. Yes! I am NOT kidding! I had to use a fucking BACKSCRATCHER to pry open a goddamn DOOR that wouldn't budge! And it's all because of this fucker. How are these things even allowed to be sold, let alone produced? They are so prone to getting stuck and jammed that there's gonna be a shit-ton of incidents like this one! Why can't all doors just have a goddamn dial lock like every other door out there? It's such a laughably bad excuse of a door locking mechanism. It works fine except when it doesn't want to. I can't even fathom how often people have locked themselves out of their bathrooms, their rooms, or even their entire fucking homes due to these bastards. This is such garbage-ass design! These fucking things should be OUTLAWED! And you know the little "clink" sound that the lock makes after its been deactivated? Well, when it gets jammed, it makes no such noise. But, you don't really think anything about it and shut the door when you're out, and you end up unintentionally locking yourself out because of shitty-ass architecture! It doesn't help that the doorknob on the outside can't be moved for shit when the lock is active. So, if you lock yourself out due to one of these, you gotta pry the damn thing open to get back in. Those tiny buttons just feel so fucking cheaply made. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised with how often they malfunction! It's just a simple-ass door lock and it ends up fucking people over and causing them undue stress and loss of time for no reason. These things piss me the fuck off. Why did anyone think these door locks were a good idea? They're not! Not even close! They all too often stop working correctly and require unjamming. I mean, what the fuck? These things need to be just flat-out banned across the entire goddamn country. Yeah, imagine if your fucking car had one of these! You'd be fucked! You wouldn't even be able to get in your vehicle to drive. You wouldn't be able to go to work, get gas, get groceries, anything! You'd be stuck with a fucking door that takes an eternity to get open if you have the strength and patience. But if not? Boom! Probably fired from your job. "Yeah, my car door is jammed!" "No excuses, fired".

These tiny-ass door lock buttons existing is proof that we've failed as a society. And THAT... is BULLSHIT.

Face it guys, Kerbal Space Program 2 is officially dead in the water.

This game was released to Early Access with a LOT of missing features, with a full $50 AAA game price tag. The price of the game along with the amount of content was absolutely not worth it at all. Not to mention they were planning to jack UP the price of the game after it left Early Access - wouldn't have been surprised if the game was $69.99 on full release. The progress of development was slow beyond belief and there was barely any major updates other than just patches to fix the numerous amount of bugs in the game. The amount of bugs and glitches during its EA launch was abysmal, especially for one priced at 50 goddamn dollars.

The only major update that was given to this game finally added new, promised content and was looking to be on the right track, but still, an abhorrent amount of bugs and a ton of missing content. This game had probably a rough estimate of around 90% of content missing from the original KSP. It looked to finally be going somewhere, and then, boom, Take-Two shuts down the studio working on it, Intercept Games, leaving the game entirely unfinished and in the same state that the game was in after its last update, with a whole host of bugs and glitches. The game was looking to finally start getting its footing in the right places, and then, all of a sudden, studio shuts down and there is now no longer any progress being made on it. And they still had the nerve to charge people 50 dollarydoos for the game in its now abandoned state. That is absolutely scummy and ought to be illegal.

This game has officially become 'dead and abandoned mall' status where all that you can see are rows of stores with those big metal gates blocking the entrances to them. But, in this case, the game is still available to be purchased in this absolutely atrocious state. This is BELOW any standard of quality I have ever seen. This is pretty much Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 all over again: game launches in a horrible state, content starts coming out to make the game better, Robomodo is then shut down by Activision, game left unfinished. But, it's in fact in a worse state than THPS 5 in my opinion since this game is still on sale in a now "permanent" Early Access state despite no progress being made, and still able to be bought.

And then, Take-Two puts the game on SALE? ALREADY? This game went on sale as quickly as Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League did! And that was a full $70 live service game! That is absolutely laughable.

But, that's not all. New company owns this game now, and if you're getting your hopes up for the future of Kerbal Space Program 2, just get rid of all of those hopes already, as this game is now being controlled by a private equity firm. I wouldn't say the game is "actually dead", but "content dead". The game is not actually 'dead', it's just under... 'new management'. Don't even think that this game is getting new content, either. It's not. Private equity firms are NOT publishers, they are instead an IP PRISON. Nothing is going to be done with it. It's going to be kept in the same unfinished state as it was in last time with no new fixes, patches, or improvements. Not even any new content. The only thing these firms truly care about is money.

The fact that this game is STILL being sold should be classified as a scam. Even when THPS 5's developer was closed down, Activision at least took the game offsale digitally. But this? The studio is now shut down and completely non-existent, and yet the game is still up for sale. Still available to be purchased digitally despite the fact the game is going to be left in a permanently unfinished state due to Intercept Games' closure. Selling an unfinished game in Early Access despite the developer being shut down should be illegal.

I literally got this game for COMPLETELY free and still feel ripped off.

All of my hope for this game is now lost. It's officially been cut loose. This game NEEDS to be delisted as it has been turned into a straight-up scam that is probably still conning and tricking people. If they won't take the game offsale themselves then Valve should step in and delist the game manually as it is no longer being maintained.

It's completely dead, guys, just move back to KSP 1. It's over and you know it.

I am literally sick and fucking tired of video editors locking features behind paywalls. It's like "Oh, you found a feature that you actually NEED to use? Well, fuck you, pay 20 dollars a month to use that one feature you need!". The free versions ALWAYS have less goddamn features then the paid versions to the point where they actually become borderline fucking unusable. A free plan is always a cop-out to get people to pay for overpriced bullshit with the excuse of "Feature addition!". It's fucking stupid. Every goddamn video editor out there is paid, every one of them. Basic free plans always have the basic and fucking barebones features that qualifies it as "video editing software", and the actual useful features that you might need access to are always locked behind fucking expensive subscription plans that are overpriced as shit. Come on, the original Movie Maker had a ton of more fucking features and was FREE as it came pre-installed with Windows. Guess what? WeVideo? Fucking useless for anyone on its free plan. A huge-ass watermark that takes up way too much of the screen, video length restrictions, low-ass quality with not even ANY of the HD Export options being available for free users (basic 720p and even FULL 1080p), and a ton of other restrictions. You'd have better luck finding a goddamn heads up penny than you are finding a truly free video editor without ANY of the bullshit paid tiers with features locked in it. It's gotten to the point where ANY fucking time I go on a website for a video editor and see a "Pricing" page on it, it's an instant and IMMEDIATE blacklist and I will fucking avoid it like the goddamn plague. I literally will go look for something else. Paywalling features doesn't 'attract' new customers. Quite the goddamn opposite. It instead DETERS them and instantly drives them away from your product or service. Over 10 years ago it was so easy to find a free video editor that suited your needs, all features were included in installation without any features being locked. And now, everything requires some form of goddamn payment to access them. Even the few things still labeled as "free". But I am sure people are gonna come in saying "Oh, but they need to pay for server costs and hosting", to which I will respond with "NO ONE is going to be paying for a service that makes certain features paid and TAKES AWAY features from users stuck on their free plan". It's like every goddamn open source video editor is SOMEHOW making more goddamn money than the paid shit... gee, I WONDER FUCKING WHY! People are literally donating to the people making these to keep the program running while with the premium shit you have to pay to "ACCESS CERTAIN FEATURES". There's a fine line between necessity to survive and greed, and it's FULLY clear to me which fucking side the premium crap uses. Guess what? Davinci Resolve has EVERY feature included on its free tier. No bullshit. No stupid paywalling. No excuses. Everything is accessible, and if you want extra features (keyword: EXTRA), you can pay for Studio which is a one-time payment of $295, and then the ENTIRE software is yours with no stupid subscription plans or extra payments required. Like, I just wanna be able to EDIT MY GODDAMN VIDEOS and yet EVERY GODDAMN VIDEO EDITOR OUT THERE IS FUCKING PAID WITH FEATURES LOCKED BEHIND PAYWALLS! I'm not giving any of my fucking time or money to video editors where you have to pay to access all of the features. And yet, somehow, the prices of EVERY single video editor out there are going up in price while wages don't keep up. STOP. RAISING. PRICES. We need the programs to cost LESS, not MORE! Oh, and yeah, since every goddamn video editor out there with a "free plan" that is missing basically 90% of the full program's features you can bet your fucking ASS that people are pirating them. Especially when they are THIS fucking outrageously expensive. This is the EXACT fucking reason why piracy is still running rampant, and instead of making things cheaper, they make things MORE expensive, which only drives up the number of pirates even more. And guess what? Pirates? They get everything for free yet the legitimate customer is fucked over because they have to PAY to use these features while pirates can enjoy them without paying a SINGLE fucking cent. Louis Rossman put it perfectly: "Any time you create a system where the pirate is rewarded yet the legitimate customer gets screwed, the legitimate customer decides they're gonna pirate and they will never give you money again", which ties directly into Gabe Newell's famous quote where he said that it's not a pricing issue, but rather a service issue. Why the fuck do you think Davinci Resolve is making more goddamn money than those "free" video editors with features locked behind paywalls? Nearly everything is free out of the box and you don't need a subscription plan to use them. And if you make the paid options better than the free options, then oh wow, you're ALL of a sudden making more money. Gee, I wonder why. I'm not giving video editors that lock basically everything behind paid plans ANY of my money. My time is fucking valuable and I have far better things to worry about. So, they will see NO revenue from me. At all. Yeah, I'm not paying $20 a fucking MONTH for Sony Vegas. That shit is WAY TOO overpriced. My only other option is a "Free Trial" that WILL expire, and so, I kindly will say "fuck off" to Vegas as I will never be using it. And guess what? I won't pay over $200 for Davinci Resolve, either. But guess what? Davinci is free with most features, Vegas is not, it's a fucking free trial for the full product that will expire after the free trial lapses. Resolve is EASILY the better deal! I can use EVERYTHING for free. Boom! Easy recommend. I'm fucking tired of the goddamn excuses these companies give. You can ABSOLUTELY make people pay for your product without stripping features away and making them exclusive to paid tiers. But, you choose greed over consumers and I have FINALLY hit my fucking breaking point with this bullshit. It's either you make more features free for the less fortunate, or you can watch as your fucking numbers go down to the point where NO ONE'S using your shitty-ass product.

I'm fucking tired of this shit and I want it to STOP!

I'm serious, I loathe and despise people who tell us to stop doing the one thing that we are having trouble doing - being poor. We do not "choose" to be poor, we are forced to live in this crappy financial state because something always seems to get in the way of everything to halt our progress. Yet, these people just love to bully us poor people and tell us "Y'know, you could just not be poor" or something among those lines. I would absolutely love to stop being this way, but I just can't. I can't even work because I have literally been deemed 'unworkable' by a doctor. And these people just pick on us and tell us that we need to stop living like this. How about you stop being toxic? Yeah, sure, let's victim-blame and poverty-shame poor people for being born into poverty or being pushed into poverty through circumstances that are out of their control. We pay for so much crap as it is: food, water, electricity, a place to live, and internet. Don't you think we've been through enough? That we have suffered enough crap as it is? We are over here struggling and suffering because of everything being ridiculously expensive. I mean, we had to previously afford $80 for horrible internet service from Spectrum before we were able to switch to Fastwyre Fiber. I mean, gas prices literally go up every year, make that every month, due to inflation. There's gonna be a time when we won't even be able to afford gas because of it costing too damn much. And yet, we get victim-blamed for having financial woes. But, guess who is still doing good? Greedy, heartless, exploitive rich people who want to gut social programs for the poor, disabled, and sick. They always are able to get out of everything, which includes taxes. And then, those very same people tell us to start getting more money and tell us "have you ever tried not being poor" if we say anything about living expensives or having a hard time buying anything essential. We need help, we get none, and we are laughed at as a result because we need to "stop being poor". Well, if you say it to me, then I have this to say to you: "Stop talking to me". Cut me out of your pathetic life if you don't like the fact I am financially struggling. I have actually ended up crying sometimes over this nonsense and people like you saying crap like this doesn't help me. I literally have bawled my eyes out over me worrying about ending up homeless due to the fact we have barely any money left after we pay all of our bills and taxes. The only thing that gives us hope at this point is our yearly Tax Return. I did not want to end up in this situation, and I don't need some toxic fiend bringing me down and making me hate myself for being poor. If all you can do is bring someone down, then I just don't want anything to do with you. The whole system is designed to keep people like us down and keep the heartless and exploitive rich people flowing with cash. I mean, they literally find legal loopholes to get out of doing taxes, whereas families like us aren't able to use those "loopholes". And guess what? They always waste their money on useless crap like multi-million dollar mansions and expensive supercars. And they sit on their butts doing nothing and the government pays them to do it. But no help for us poor people! No! We have to deal with the taxes. And we're getting made fun of and laughed at by people online whose parents probably failed them in their upbringing and didn't show them proper discipline as a child for acting like a smartass. There are hundreds of contributing factors as to why people are poor: they can’t work, they got scammed, they’re having to pay a shit-ton of house expenses, something always eating up their funds, literally hundreds of things. Do you think they wanted this to happen? Absolutely not! They're already struggling enough as it is. What we should be doing is taxing the overly-wealthy rich people who work against us and force them to pay mandatory wealth expenses and actively punish them if they refuse to pay the expenses, evade them, or both. But no, we're in this stupid system where the heartless rich people get money for doing nothing while we get nothing from it. And people online who tell us to "get a job" and "stop being poor" only make us feel like crap for being poor. It actually makes us hate ourselves. I am stuck in poverty and I don't feel like there is ever gonna be a way out of it, I do not need someone bullying me on top of it. It's bullying in real life, and online, it's cyberbullying. You say this to me, and it's a great way for you to end up on my blacklist; I will ultimately avoid talking to you and will never speak to you again. If anyone says it to me in real life, I will just drop my conversation with them and walk in the opposite direction, far away from them. And the digital equivalent is me blocking the account in question that said it. I do not have time to deal with toxicity from people who just want to poverty-shame poor people. You say it to me, and you will be on my ignore list for the rest of your life. I am done dealing with toxicity towards us poor people as a poor person myself. I'm done with toxic, heartless monsters who think they can just say anything and get away with it. I used to have a lot more patience, but life is too short. I'm serious, I am fed up. I hate everyone who uses the "stop being poor" sentence or any other form of it. Any form of the sentence is poverty-shaming and it will cause you to immediately get the boot should you even dare utter that sentence or any form of it to me. If you want to act toxic, do it somewhere else, because I am done listening to you and done playing your stupid games. It'll be one less asshole to deal with.

I'm sorry if I went on a tangent. I just hate seeing poor people mocked and made fun of.

TL:DR; If you tell me, or any other poor person to "stop being poor", I will consider you to be a toxic person you will be put on my blacklist, and you will be forbidden from speaking to or interacting with me.

My ex-wifes dog is dying. It's old. She emotionally can't handle the steps involved with that. She called me.

I grew up on a farm. I love animals but death was just part of life. I've had pets I loved get hit by cars, accidentally shot by hunters (on our land illegally), bitten by snakes... Plus there were lots of pets that stupid people dump in the country ("Fido will hunt rabbits or some nice farmer will take him" no he won't. Fido will slowly starve in the wild and get very mean/crazy, then get shot when he attacks me. Just have the dog put down, dumping the dog isn't better it just makes 10 year old me do what you couldn't).

Anyway my ex-wife calls me because she can't handle it and I can.

The problem is that I've slipped up a couple times and said "it" or "the dog" instead of "him" or "Toasty".

I understand that it is insensitive and hurtful, Ive absolutely been trying to avoid that since I first came over. However it's also insensitive and hurtful to call me bad for not getting emotionally attached to the dog at this point in its life. It's dying.

I'm taking care of it. I'm using all my farm skills and animal knowledge to be sure it's not dying from a disease, bacteria, or injury that I can fix or cure. I'm making food for it that is easier to eat so I can know for sure when the dog starts choosing not to eat vs having difficulty eating. When/if the time comes where the dog doesn't want to continue, I'll handle those steps and give it a burial.

If I was a monster I wouldn't help at all or just come over, shoot it, bag it, and trash it. I'm giving this animal every chance and looking for the moment when it gives up. I'm not cold. It's just a bad time to make friendship bracelets with the dog. It's a dying dog. I don't need to get more attached, I need to keep emotional distance to make good choices for the best interest of the animal.

That's exactly why I was called in the first place. That doesn't make me a monster.

Edit: before the "take it to the vet!" Comments. Our daughter is a vet. She said the same things I did. It's probably going to die. When it stops eating and gives up, put it down.