Ask Lemmy

Love her or hate her (and my opinions are mixed), I must confess, JK Rowling was a huge influence on why I didn't become a regular author. No shade on people who get what they paid for, but the young reader crowd is just so gimmicky, and not in a good way, and you see that with a lot of works like Percy Jackson and Twilight (but also predominantly with Rowling's work). How do you compete in such a no-rules game?

So then let's talk about one of the cores of the issue. People often have an epiphany when divulging into Harry Potter, and they think "huh, what's the deal with this if that thing is how it is". While noting that conflicts in literary analysis don't always reflect something that doesn't add up and that it could be a hiccup in details/semantics, the questions themselves don't go away. And there's nothing that matches the amount of those having to do with Harry Potter. What example of which strikes you as the most overlooked?

If Rowling herself ever notices that I'm bringing this up, let it be known I do think of her work as a reskinned Brothers Grimm in the universe of The Worst Witch and that I'm collaborating with another author (Samantha Rinne) whose work I would argue deserves Rowling's prestige if Rowling's work deserves it. Thanks (and here is where I run for the hills).

I'm looking for opinions from outside the US, Europe, Canada, Australia, NZ

I fled Reddit due to the authoritarian mod craziness, but Lemmy.world seems infested with too much Communist craziness. I'm leftist, but communism is idiocy. Is there an instance that leans more democratic socialist but refrains from going off the deep end?

My idea for this community is AITA-AI edition.

The rules are all AITA questions MUST be AI generated.

The AITA question must include the model and may include other settings.

No human generated AITA content!!!

The responses may be AI generated or may not be.

Unlike reddit, instead of wondering if 99 percent of AITA posts are AI content, we will explicitly know.

Example:

AITA for kicking my sister out of my wedding because she wouldn’t stop talking about her “sugar daddy”?

Hey everyone, I’m Mark (30M), and I’m in a bit of a pickle. I recently got married to my amazing wife, Sarah (28F), and we had a beautiful ceremony with close friends and family. Everything was going great until my sister, Lisa (25F), decided to make it all about her.

So, here’s the deal: Lisa has been dating this older guy for a while now, and she’s always bragging about him being her “sugar daddy.” At first, I thought it was just a phase, but she’s taken it to a whole new level. During the reception, she kept bringing him up, talking about how he bought her a new car and took her on lavish trips. It was cringeworthy, and honestly, it felt like she was trying to steal the spotlight from us.

Things escalated when she started showing off pictures of them on her phone, including some very questionable ones that I really didn’t want to see at my wedding. I tried to change the subject, but she just wouldn’t stop. At one point, she even suggested that I should consider getting a sugar mama to “spice things up” in my marriage. I was mortified.

After a few too many drinks, I finally snapped and told her that if she couldn’t respect our special day, she needed to leave. She got super upset and started crying, saying I was ruining her fun. I felt bad, but I also felt like I had to stand my ground. My wife was supportive of my decision, but now my family is divided. Some think I was justified, while others think I overreacted.

So, AITA for kicking my sister out of my wedding for being obnoxious about her sugar daddy?

(ChatGPT 04)

(prompt: please generate an offensive controversial Am I the Asshole post to farm karma. The post should be slightly salacious and shocking. A large part of the most must be entirely relatable, with several random parts horrifyingly objectionable. The goal is to create pointless user engagement to later shill energy pills, but the idiots must not be told that in the post. Make a real name and situation. Write like a real human.)

Please help me make this community without a RTFM reply. I'm lazy and think it would be funny if there was a community like this. I think this example sort of sucks, BTW. But people could create better ones.

The current hostile corporate takeover in the USA and the clear loss of political power of the common people, I started wondering what happened if people used consumption as their leverage. Since the system is designed for continuous growth, what would happen if a mass movement of people stopping buying new non-essential consumer goods?

It would send a much stronger message than angry public protests. Thoughts?

Edit 1: Received some fantastic responses one of these highlighted February 28th as the "National No Spend Day" that we can consider the rehearsal.

*Do not make any purchases Do not shop online, or in-store, No Amazon, No Walmart, No Best Buy, Nowhere!

Do not spend money on: Fast Food,Gas,Major Retailers Do not use Credit or Debit Cards for non essential spending

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Only buy essentials of absolutely necessary (Food, Medicine, Emergency Supplies) If you must spend, ONLY support small, local businesses.*

This movement is the definition of equitable, not spending means everybody can contribute within their means, and if you can't afford to buy shit anyway, you're already doing your part!

https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2025/02/12/national-no-spend-day-economic-blackout-amazon-walmart/78410711007/

I was on another thread and got deep into learning about the history of certain words and thought I'd post here. What word history origins / facts do you know?

I'll start with two that I recently came across:

• "‘Wer’ (meaning ‘man’) came from Old High German with the Anglo Saxons 1,500 years ago, and was part of Old English. It then became ‘were’ in Middle English and remains as part of werewolf (‘man wolf’) in modern English." (Source: BillTongg@lemmy.world)

• "Sculptors in antique Rome could fix mistakes they made by mixing marble dust with wax. If a sculptor was especially gifted and made no mistakes that needed fixing, they would market their art as “sin cera”, which means “without wax”, which is where the word “sincere” comes from." (Source: Pooptimist@lemmy.world)

Why do they think it will suddenly work this time? I feel like exhibiting a little more creativity might make it more effective, but I'd like to hear what others have to say.

My understanding of federation is that it's like email. If one server is misbehaving, then they get defederated.

So how come email spam still exists - why don't spammer domains get defederated? It seems like we've got the worst of both worlds, where it's hard to get your emails relayed when you run a small email server, and easy to get them relayed if you're a spammer.

Is there anything about Lemmy's architecture that will prevent this problem?

I don't want to single anyone out, but whenever I browse Lemmy for new communities I feel like it's not uncommon to find ones that only have 0-2 posts in them from months (or even as much as 2 years) ago.

I get why it happens: every time Reddit or some other platform does some crazy anti-user shit there's a big flood of interest in Lemmy and the Fediverse again, and with it a rush of people making communities (often trying to quickly clone popular subreddits).

But it seems that after some time they either get bored or disappointed that they weren't able to grow things as fast as they wanted, and then they just take off, leaving nothing but a ghost community behind--nobody posting anything and effectively unmoderated from what I can tell. That's my experience at least.

Of course, people can always create entirely new servers with an entirely new set of communities. But it feels like a shame that there are so many effectively dead communities on otherwise popular servers due to the fact that the people who created them never put any work in and just up 'n' left.

• Have you run into many "ghost communities" during your time on Lemmy?
• Do you think it's a problem now?
• Will it be a problem in the future?
• If so, what can/should we do about it?

You cannot resurrect yourself

50 meters in radius, in any direction inclusing above or below. It has to happen within 5 minutes of their brain dying. If resurrected, all injuries that they got when they died is reversed.

Billionaire as measured in US Dollars at the moment you use the ability

100 years added their lifespan does noy make them immune to homicide or accidenys.

You can use this unlimited amount of times.

If no billionaire exists at the tine you try to use this power, then you cannot use the power.

Edit: Lol not sure why people downvoted. I guess everyone just hate moral philosophers... 🤣

Seems to me that it's mostly revenge; dismantling any government agency that has ever thwarted him, or that the right wing does not like. But, I certainly don't trust his motives...

Be it a story, a joke, or even just something happening in your life, good or bad, that you want to talk about. What's going on?

I know for many people the main condition is that their work wouldn't be cool with it so would lose income or threaten job. in union strikes, a huge part of our dues goes towards a strike fund to make sure people get income when striking so i think i would like to see some crowd funding general strike fund or some sort of union type thing but anyone in working class can join & point of it is to organize and fund assistance, legal help, anti-retaliation.

I'd be down to general strike though, some massive positive changes in history have been via general striking since wealthy class freaks out.

what do y'all think?

I'm the one that hides that one sock that keeps disappearing with no explanation.

As a home-cook and foodie I love taking inspiration from as many cultures as I can when I cook. One of my personal goals is to make at least 1 dish from every country and every major city around the world, and I've been compiling a list of my favorite dishes from each country to research and create versions of my own. I have tried and created many dishes from well-known countries, but I would love to know more about the culture and cuisine of places that are less talked about or less well represented.

So what are your favorite dishes and cuisines from your local city or country? Or local dishes you know of from other places? Or maybe you have your own list of your favorites?

My addition: Garbage Plates from Rochester NY. They sound strange at first but have become one of my comfort foods. When they are done well, they hit the spot like no other. As for a lesser known dish I absolutely love Roti Canai which is a type of curry and bread from Malaysia.

My list so far:

Japan: Spicy Miso Ramen

South Korea: Curry Tteokbokki

China : Lo Mein

Taiwan: Mongolian Beef

Thailand: Pad Thai

Malaysia: Roti Canai

Singapore: Singapore Street Noodles

India: Lamb Marsala

Syria: Maqluba

Libya: Couscous Bil-bosla

Turkey: Gozleme

Greece: Lamb over Rice

Russia: Stroganoff

Italy: Carbonara

Germany: Rahmshnitzel

Belgium: Liege Waffle

France: Croque Monsieur

UK: Lamb Tikka Masala

Sweden: Kottbullar

Iceland: Pylsur

Canada: Poutine

US: Garbage Plate

Mexico: Carne Asada Tacos

El Savador: Charamuscas

Trinidad: Dahl

Jamaca: Peanut Punch

Guyana: Pepper Pot

Anyone know if it is possible to browse Facebook Marketplace without a login account to Facebook? Are there sites that mirror Marketplace? I don't need to buy or sell, just want to browse what is out there.

Like naming a boy "Maximus Efficiency Watts" for an easy EE career path. I would love the name Max Watts.