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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • The last time I bought a Mac was like 10 years ago, at an independent computer shop that specialized in them. The person at the register insisted on getting my personal info “because Apple needed it” but I didn’t want to give it. The person at the register very slowly sauntered up to their manager, had a long discussion, and eventually they figured something out because I suddenly didn’t need to give my info. It was kind of nervewracking because I was paying cash and I was like: what if I hand it over, and they change their mind? It’s not like I could call the cops, I’m the wrong demographic.

    Anyway, whenever I thought about getting an Apple system, I remembered that experience and went with something else.



  • Kind of a clickbait headline but there are some interesting parts in the text… It’s worth keeping these in mind when doing election outreach in the US.

    "… I feel like we, as Latinos, are traditionally conservative.”

    “traditionally conservative” is a tautology, and this statement is a bit exaggerated, but Latinos do often have strong values associated with family, religion, work, and other things that conservatives try to “own”.

    Paschall said that if there is racism, it comes from white liberals who tell her that, as a Latina, she should not support Trump. She describes that view as “so deep-rooted that they don’t even realise they’re being racist”.

    I disagree with Paschall’s assertion. However, while white liberals call Republicans “weird”, those same white liberals often come across as weird to people who don’t share their ideas. DISCLAIMER: I think Republicans are weird and agree with white liberals more often than not. I’m just describing some of the attitudes I see here in my battleground state, so we can communicate better during voter outreach. END DISCLAIMER

    There are other factors at play. The proportion of Mexicans crossing the border to work without visas has dropped sharply in recent years with much larger numbers of people now coming from Central and South America as refugees. They sometimes face hostility from more established Latino communities, about 60% of which are of Mexican ancestry.

    There’s a tendency to think of Latinos as some monolithic people, but this paragraph describes one way that isn’t true. Even if you only consider those with the right to vote, there’s a tremendous difference between say a third-generation Cuban-American, a recent Central American naturalized citizen in Nevada, a second-generation Puerto Rican in Georgia, and a Tejano whose family has lived here for hundreds of years. Each of them have a wide variety of priorities and opinions, it’s not all about immigration. And if they vote for Trump it’s not just that they’re brainwashed or ignorant, a lot of times they’re holding their nose in the same way a lot of people on the left are holding their nose to vote for Kamala. (Not me! I think she’s all right! In fact I just recently signed up to help her campaign, I hope it’s not too late…)





  • The email analogy kinda works here.

    • Imagine an email server dies forever. All of the email that it sent is still out there. If you are on another server, any emaills to/from people on that server are stil in your local email storage.
    • Likewise, a post that was made to kbin.social is still out there, if someone outside of that server was subscribed to that kbin.social community (“magazine”) when the post was made.
    • To find out the “new” server… well in an ideal world the old server would at least have a notice to that effect. But this case involved a medical emergency, so that didn’t happen.
    Click here for an additional detail which may be amusing
    • See: https://lemmy.world/c/13thFloor@kbin.social This is the copy of the kbin.social community “13th floor” that was made on lemmy.world to show people on lemmy.world.
    • Now look at: https://lemm.ee/c/13thFloor@kbin.social This is the copy of the same community, but made for the lemm.ee instance. You’ll note that it is missing a post that was made on July 6th. That’s because the July 6th post was made by a user on lemmy.world. Because kbin.social was down by then, the post didn’t “federate” from lemmy.world through kbin.social to lemm.ee.
    • See https://lemmy.world/c/synthwave@waveform.social for another example. waveform.social was an instance that died, but people were still posting to the lemmy.world copy, but only lemmy.world people were able to see those posts because they were not federating. So in comments we just decided to make any new posts to another community on a “living” instance, and we put a notice to that effect.






  • I think a general anesthetic, where they just knock you completely out, is usually considered unnecessary for a root canal, but you can ask. If you have anti-anxiety pills prescribed, that might work, just let the dentist know beforehand. Some places have movies or some other kind of “patient distraction” because yeah, it can get a little unnerving hearing all those sounds.


  • Like everyone else, I agree that pain management can be pretty good these days. For me the experience was:

    • dentist comes in, says hi, reviews what’s going to happen, asks if you have any questions; tell them if you feel nervous, it’s ok
    • doctor puts a “local anesthesia” (something on a q-tip) to your gum, so the needle won’t hurt too much
    • then the doctor injects the “real” anesthesia in the gum. (an assistant may do this part - it varies) Depending on how deep they need to put it, you may feel a bit of pain, but not too bad. Pinch your arm moderately hard, and imagine that happening in your gum, and that’s the most I’ve ever felt for a very deep injection for a removal. it lasts about 1 second. (some places might give you nitrous oxide for this part, but I’ve never had that.) They may give more than 1 injection, depending on the situation. From this point on you should feel no pain.
    • doctor/assistant goes away for 10-15 minutes to let the anesthesia spread. your mouth starts to feel numb.
    • the dentist comes back with an assistant, they get organized (figuring out what tools they need, etc) From this point on they’re mostly just drilling or doing whatever they need, and your job is just to move your head however they want and keep your mouth open and spit when they tell you. it’s a little boring, tbh, at one point I almost dozed off and made a bit of a snoring sound.
    • it can be a little weird having saliva pool in your mouth. the assistant should be vacuuming it out regularly. if they’re not doing this often enough, let them know. It is also very very helpful if you can breathe through your nose. if you have a problem with this just let them know.

    Good luck, let us know how it goes!