A university is a typically a collection of colleges (or schools).

For example: Harvard University is made up of Harvard College, Harvard Business School, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Law School, Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, etc.

For all intents and purposes - we use the word “college” and “university” interchangeably because they’re the same level of education. Either can do associates through doctoral.

Community colleges, however, only focus on 2 year degrees and certain certifications.

I had a lot of good years on Fark.

You want to kill germs? Use mouthwash. There’s pretty much nothing beneficial about smoking cigarettes.

Even when you take the health considerations out of account, you will reek. I assure you, nobody wants to spend time around a partner that emits a nauseating scent. It’s a bad habit in every sense of the term.

Yes - nicotine can be a quick stress reliever. That’s about al it’s good for.

I understand that you need something to help you get through the days, but there are tons of other things that you could do.

Heck, even switching to vaping will improve your health outcomes considerably. And you won’t smell.

I don’t know why you’re fighting your girlfriend on this, it seems like she’s genuinely concerned and you’re being so stubborn as to look online to justify your addiction. Yes, you are addicted. You smoke more than a pack a week and refuse to quit or offer a compromising alternative. If I was her, I’d leave you.

Well, by that logic, Switzerland isn’t a democracy. The country that decides pretty much everything on referendum.

And Ireland only became a democracy 3 years ago.

For what it’s worth, Blasphemy laws can be compatible with democracy. Democracy is only about fair elections and rule of the people. If the people want blasphemy laws, that’s still democracy.

Freedom is a spectrum - and blasphemy laws just make a country less free. Not necessarily less Democratic.

Thanks for these recommendations! I actually never watched X-Files, and a friend of mine binge watched all of it earlier this year and was sending me funny clips. I should add it to the list.

LOVED Station Eleven. It might be a top 5 show of all time. The first episode felt like a slog until that last minute. Partially ‘cause we were kinda living that pandemic.

But I was absolutely hooked and psyched to see more. And every episode after was “holy crap!” moments through to the very end.

Some of the best storytelling I’ve seen on TV. Really rich character development and such a beautiful concept altogether. It made me really hopeful.

Same writer/creator as The Leftovers (which I also recommend, very cool show - 3 seasons with an ending, gets progressively weirder and wilder).

…Spiiiriiiit……

I heard ‘Congregation’ in the show Devs (loved it), and was surprised I never listened to them before. Went back and listened to the whole catalog… several times over. It’s the best airplane music.

I listen to a bit of everything. Bands in my recent rotation include Low, 3rd Secret, Motörhead, Rick James, L7 and Joji, Aimee Mann, Mdou Moctar, Aphex Twin, Beastie Boys. Donny Benet

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s PetroDragon Apocalypse is my favorite album all year.

My favorite all time genre is industrial. So stuff like The Young Gods, Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly, KMFDM, Ministry, Filter, Mulitple Man, Meat Beat Manifesto, Pig, Emptyset, Youth Code, Atari Teenage Riot / Alec Empire, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, Download…

The PetroDragronic Apocalypse is one of the best records I’ve heard in some time, from any band, in any genre.

I can’t stop listening to it. To add, I’m not really a fan of any of their other records. They’re clearly good, just doesn’t resonate with me as much as this one does.

It’s wild to me when fans of the show disregard the first season. To me, that season is pretty much perfect. Three arcs - a detective story, a motley crew, a political thriller - pay off feels so great when it all comes together at the end. Season 2 was such a drastic change in pacing, concept and ‘feel’ that I didn’t want to keep watching. I felt a little betrayed that Miller wasn’t actually the main character.

Besides Amos, I don’t really care about the Roci crew. I had to wait until Ashford came along in Season 3 for a new favorite character.

All in all - Avasarala, Bobby and Drummer carried the series for me.

I’m always worried watching stuff that’s cancelled too early. Does it end in a decent place?

I have mixed feelings on AC. I really loved the first season. Beautiful cinematography, amazing acting (Joel Kinnaman is incredible), great concept and plot. Pacing could’ve been a little better, but it really evoked that Blade Runner vibe in a cool way.

Season 2 didn’t really resonate with me :/ Felt like a cheap Marvel movie.

Indeed. Prior to 2010 - it was a roll of the dice. If insurance wasn’t provided through your work, you had to be lucky enough to live in a State with decent laws preventing some of these predatory insurance practices. Back then, the uninsured rate was close to 19%. Almost 1 in 5 Americans.

Today, that rate is 8.4%. Which hails the victory of the ACA because “91.6% of Americans have insurance” sounds nice. And compared to where we were 13 years ago, it is nice.

In reality, we have 28 million uninsured people, many of whom are children. There’s a long way to go.

While I’m personally satisfied with my level of coverage and standard of care, I don’t understand how we can comfortably accept a society that bankrupts our most vulnerable residents for being sick. I’m baffled how this wasn’t already solved or mostly resolved in my lifetime. Or at least seeing more states take on the Hawaii or Massachusetts health care models.

An individual can sign up for a plan through their State’s health insurance exchange or the federal government’s HealthCare.gov website.

It is usually more expensive than getting it through an employer - but works to serve small business owners, freelancers, etc.

A few States (like Massachusetts) have semi-universal systems that cover all individuals that earn under 150% of poverty, independent students, newly unemployed, etc.

A lot of Americans are also covered under Medicare, Medicaid , Social Security and other programs.

Retirees aged 65 and older are eligible for Medicare - a semi-universal federal system that covers pretty much everything and accepted most places.

I met one of my closest friends on r/needafriend. Turns out, she lived like a 10 minute walk from me - and we met up over some food.

On paper, our friendship shouldn’t work. We have little in common in terms of activities and goals. But we know how to make each other laugh and ‘get’ each other’s personality. Been like 9 years.

Whether it’s Reddit, Lemmy, Discord or some other platform - there’s definitely people out there looking for the same things. Online is a good place to start.

See if your closest city has a ‘Speed Friending’ event. Here in Boston, we have “Skip the Small Talk” and you get seated with a stranger and a dialogue prompt. I found that to be really effective too.

I’ve got two for Lemmy.

mlem is currently being developed for iOS with around ~20 contributors. It’s in early open beta, and I’m psyched because there’s supposed to be a massive update between now and tomorrow.

memmy for iOS looks promising. Really intuitive ‘swipe to upvote/downvote/reply’ feature and browses similarly to Apollo. It’s very barebones right now, the project is just a few days old and there’s one developer (as far as I know).

Wikipedia is the 7th most visited website in the world, more popular than Amazon, TikTok, even PornHub. It’s not funded by advertisers or other bullshit - rather through reader donations.

With that said, Wikipedia is still centralized content whereas Lemmy isn’t. Meaning there’s fewer expenses and pressure on any one instance or server to succeed. And if one instance or server doesn’t succeed, your access to the Federation is far from over.

If you use lemmy.ml (the developer’s instance), I would recommend reading the front page sidebar. Under RULE #1 - “No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia”.

Here is a screenshot for reference, feel free to share with folks.

If the enemies of Nazis are religious, ethnic and sexual minorities - then lemmy.ml 's front page immediately puts to rest any notion they are associated with far-right ideologies.

That said, my best understanding is that one or more of the developers identify as communists/anticapitalist and are involved in lemmygrad.ml and /c/socialism.

And with that in mind, a platform like Lemmy is communist by nature: nobody owns it.
So it doesn’t matter who the developers are, really. What matter is who runs the server and instance you’re using. You, as a user, have a choice in how you wish to connect to the Federation.