I wrote a frikkin’ essay. I wish I’d saved a copy because I was sure they were going to read it and file it under “whackadoodle: do not admit.”

Argh! I’m ded. I love Orange kitties.

I’m not sure they understand Reddit.

Did you know they also silently censor users?

Reddit has been shadowbanning users (making it so their accounts don’t publicly hold data or karma, but allowing them to continue making comments) without telling them they’re shadowbanned for many years now. The idea that Reddit is silently going and removing the content from some users is really not a surprise.

There are a bunch of places in SE Michigan that has a large Muslim population. Michigan has more Arabic-language speaking people in it than any other US state.

Yet it’s only the Christians who freak out about this. For a while there was a bizarre rumor being spread by Christian bigots that Dearborn, MI, which (last I knew) has even more Muslim people than Hamtramck, was run by a Muslim mayor with everyone forced to live under “Sharia Law.” The mayor was Protestant and there is no place in Michigan where Muslim religious law is part of the area’s laws.

Oh the one I grew up with was very gentle and nice but he had a very strong will. If he really really wanted (or didn’t want) to do something, he could get very stubborn. If it snowed, for example, getting him to go back inside practically took two people.

Due to being disabled I do most of my cooking in the microwave. I’d love to get an air fryer but I have no counter space for it where I currently live.

I often do actual cooking - you can cook almost anything in the microwave, except most baking and anything that needs to be browned like a hamburger or a pot sticker - but sometimes it’s just, feh, let’s just do this.

I’ll take a packet of the Knorr’s “fried rice” (which is rice, thin pasta, freeze dried peas & carrots, and spices) and extend it out. I always use plain olive oil for the fat, and slightly reduce the water it wants if I use frozen vegetables. Then, chop up whatever vegetables you need to get rid of and/or feel like throwing in with the mix, oil, and water into a bigass bowl. I tend to use broccoli, snap peas, string beans, and/or asparagus, but sometimes I’ll use a pre-mixed package of “mixed stir fry vegetables.” Whatever I’ve bought that’s on sale. If you want to add any kind of meat or tofu, add it in the last 5-6 minutes of cooking time, less if it’s pre-cooked. You can also stir in an egg or two at that point if you’d like. You’ll get thin threads of egg throughout. I set my microwave to cook the whole thing for about 15 minutes; all the additions makes it need more. Adjust as you need.

One thing I do that’s less lazy but more “lasts for a while” is a tuna pasta salad. Boil up half or a whole box of pasta - I use shells or bowties, but any pasta will do. Wrap a head of broccoli in moist paper towels and nuke briefly until it’s just starting to soften. Cool it down, then chop it up. Chop up some tomatoes (I usually use 2-4 Romas). Drain 1-2 cans of tuna fish [depending on how much pasta you have. Toss this all together. Pour over it a good vinaigrette. I make my own with red wine vinegar, olive oil, black pepper, garlic powder, and because I use a lot of vinegar, a pinch of sugar or a drop of sucralose, to offset the bitterness. Let it sit for at least an hour, toss again, then consume. The best thing about this recipe is what goes into it is up to you. You can completely change the vegetables. You could use shredded or chopped chicken instead of tuna. Or finely diced extra firm tofu and make it vegan.

The easiest snack of all is popcorn. Don’t buy the microwave packets. Buy the raw kernels. Get yourself a silicone popcorn popper for the microwave; they’re about $10 online. It’s a silicone tub/bowl with measuring markers at the bottom and a lid that goes way down at the start but rises as the kernels pop. Some people put butter in the bottom but I’m afraid it will burn and haven’t tried that; I melt and add butter afterwards. Some people claim you can do this with a paper bag, but I’ve also heard others say the bag can catch on fire. A couple of handfuls of kernels and 2-3 minutes in the microwave and you have a big bowl of fresh popcorn. Yum.

I grew up with a Samoyed. He was bonkers. SO MUCH FUR.

Is that a baby Sammy?

I was nearly 40 when RCT2 came out. :-)

My biggest wish for RCT3 has always been that you could store modified shops like you can store coasters. That’s the one thing about it that drives me further bonkers.

I really really really want to like Planet Coaster but dang, trying to put paths down and the like is a nightmare for me. I have bad arthritis in my hands and having to do minute and detailed movements can be incredibly difficult. So I wind up with things where they don’t belong and lose money and ARGH.

I’ve heard Parkitect is better but I’m gun shy after PC and afraid I’ll waste even more money on a game I can’t play.

I still play Dungeon Keeper (the original) sometimes, too. It’s such a classic, and every “new reboot” of the game seems to just fail in all the wrong ways for me.

Sorry. RollerCoaster Tycoon 3.

I know most people love 2 the most, but 3 is the one I like best. I like the 3D way you can move around and I like the whole way the mechanisms work.

Same thing I play every week. Coral Island and RCT3.

Coral Island is in Steam Early Access and is as yet unfinished, but is making steady progress and the devs are doing great at keeping everyone up to date on progress. Coral Island is frequently compared to Stardew Valley. Frankly, I don’t enjoy SDV. I’ve tried and tried and it just doesn’t do it for me. Coral Island is everything I was hoping SDV would be. It’s game play is similar, but I find the whole thing much more enjoyable.

I’ve been playing RCT3 off and on since I first bought it on CD a million years ago.

The US is not a Muslim country. I’m not talking about Muslims in a Muslim country or Jews in Israel. I’m talking about the US, which this article is about.

I’m not talking about Muslim countries. I’m talking about the US, where Hamtramck, Michigaan is. Where Christianity is the force that pushes the laws, while they whine that the other religions are the ones making the laws.

Talking about other countries is disingenuous and irrelevant to the conversation. When I talk about what Judaism does I’m talking about Jews in the US (and Canada, and the UK, and other non-Jewish majority countries), not what Jews in Israel do.

In general, Muslims don’t. Only the extremely conservative ones do.

Many religions have conservative factions that think that their religious laws should also be general laws.

Muslim religious law, just like Jewish religious law, only applies to people of their faith. For most people in their faith, the religious law is only applied in religious settings. It is independent of non-religious law because both religions realize that not everyone belongs to their faith. It’s only when you get zealots that you get the idea that everyone has to follow the religious laws.

It’s only Christianity that tries to force non-Christians to live by Christian rules, whether it’s businesses closed on the Christian Sabbath (something that’s waned in the past 50 years, but I can recall it being hard to find stores open on Sunday in the 1980s), laws about women’s reproduction rights (outside of extremists, Judaism is pro-abortion) as well as gender and sexuality, and protests over absurd things like the words “happy holidays.”

I’ve yet to see Jewish people protesting that bacon is sold at Kroger or Muslim people demanding that they’re wished Eid Mubarak.

First: Good. Everyone deserves good and safe working conditions (and reasonable pay).

I have the same mixed feelings about Amazon as I do about Walmart. They underpay and overwork their employees, and treat them as replaceable cogs. They often gouge the companies that supply their stock. Their customer service ranges from “OK” to “forget it.”

But as someone living with a low income, I often don’t have a choice. Amazon’s “subscribe and save” program can save me significant money on bulk products, and sometimes Walmart’s prices are the best when I don’t have much money for the rest of what I need.

If you have the choice, I encourage you to choose to avoid these companies. But for those of us struggling to make ends meet, we’re stuck having to give business to companies that not only help create people like me, but depend on our need for them. Please remember that when there are calls that everyone has to stop using them.

Officially? Yes, it’s all against the rules. It’s against the rules to harass moderators. It’s against the rules to go attempt to rile up others to cause problems. It’s against the rules to have subreddits dedicated to trying to convince people to go to other subs and harass moderators.

In reality? It has to be very persistent for the admins to take real action. There have been cases where subreddits have been cautioned or (rarely) sanctioned for allowing or encouraging their users to go visit other subs to harass. There have been cases where harassers eventually get their accounts banned, but not before Reddit has smacked them on the hand and said, “No, no! Bad Redditor!” 3-4 times first. More likely, reporting this kind of crap gets you the response, “We don’t see a problem.”

Part of that problem is that a lot of report responses are automated, and you have to know how to appeal and get the attention of humans to even have a sliver of hope that one of them might take action.

It’s a case of too many problem children, not enough human staff to deal with it.

It’s against the rules to create account after account to follow and harass a moderator for over four years but 8? 9? of his alt accounts later, they still haven’t been able to stop this one nutbag from Australia who gets his jollies by following me around Reddit to disagree with everything I say.

I see it as Reddits obligation to educate the community about moderators and what they do on the daily.

Reddit thinks moderators are as disposable as napkins.

Oh, this sounds lovely.

I have heard people tell of using the seasoning packets that come with ramen noodles.

I’m a purest. I generally just use butter and salt, but sometimes sprinkle on that fake-ish grated parmesan & romano cheese that you shake out of a canister.

You keep repeating that. Just how many times have you been banned on Reddit? I’m guessing a lot.

This is such a common attitude, and it’s nonsense. Non-moderators think moderators are “power hungry” when they ban people. While there are some few exceptions, moderators don’t ban people because they like power. Moderators ban people because they’re disruptive and causing trouble.

What moderating is really like, part 1

What moderating is really like, part 2

99% of the people I’ve banned who were not obvious spammers or bots are one kind of troll or another. Usually they fall into three categories: Concern Trolls (“But I’m only saying this for your own good!”), Factoid Trolls (“I’m here to tell you the TRUTH!”), or Disruptive Trolls (dick picks, offensive memes, slurs and racism, etc.).

Roughly 1% of the people I ban apologize for their mistake, remove their rule-breaking content, and either follow the rules or quietly leave.

I regularly get called a power-hungry mod by the crybabies who get angry when they aren’t allowed to break the very clearly stated rules, and repeat their offenses after getting first, sometimes second warnings. They run to other places and go try to stir up other crybabies to come and cause the same kind of trouble.

Moderating is tireless and endless. Jerks don’t get banned for saying “Dur the mods suck! Free Speech!” Jerks get banned because they think the rules are for other people, or because they think that the rules are wrong so that means they don’t have to follow them.

Thank you for coming to my Moose Talk. (Ted is taking a nap right now.)