dunnevens

Of course they think of him as a man. According to the doctrine, he was supposedly God in human form. He was here as a man. Artistically, he's always presented in a male physical body. What else would they think of him?

In a nation frequently obsessed with race, the racial identity of Jesus as it's presented matters. I'm not sure why that's controversial to you.

As is the identification of the oppressed and downtrodden with Jesus. That's common enough to be cliche. Maybe it's correct or incorrect, depending on how you look at the old stories, but it's done so often that it's strange to me that someone else would find it strange.

Of course, the oppressors have also frequently used Jesus. So I guess the one thing we can agree on is that the gospels are quite flexible.

My point wasn't about Jesus' actual racial appearance in history but how the image is used in the current church. Apparently most Christians, at least in the US, like the white Jesus. I suppose, technically, it's white Italian Jesus since the modern depictions are usually based on the old paintings.

I have no idea of the tone of Jesus' skin. Of course, there are paler people in the Middle East. When I traveled there, I met many people who fit that description. But practically none of them looked like the modern portrayal of Jesus. And how could they when the modern portrayal is based on European paintings with European models?

This does bring a racial perspective into play. Especially in a country where the churches are almost entirely segregated. I grew up with the evangelicals. They thought of Jesus as one of them. Not as a Middle Eastern man.

And I'm quite familiar with Jesus' lack of resistance in the Gospels. But, for better or worse, many oppressed people have taken comfort in his story. Seeing him executed by the occupiers and collaborators gave a point of common ground by those facing horrendous regimes. And since Jesus stood up to the religious leaders, and went out of his way to attack the wealthy, there's some comfort and support found there as well.

Which makes it unsurprising modern people with their modern struggles would use Jesus as an example or as someone who would supposedly support them. They're part of a long line of people who have done so.

You'll most often see "Republican Jesus" brought up by the people who were born and raised in the evangelical church. People quite familiar with the subject. I am one of those people.

I guess if you want to ignore the movement of evangelicals to the right wing over the past 40+ years, then perhaps you could pretend it's just an invention of the "Left". But as someone who was alive for this transition and was once deeply embedded in American fundamentalist culture, I can tell you it's no invention.

There are countless books on the subject if you want to understand the history. "Jesus and John Wayne" is a recent release on the evangelical move to the right, and the evolution of "Republican Jesus". It's a good introduction if you're not familiar with the background. Written by someone who was once a member of such churches, and is still a practicing Christian.

It's true that not all Americans have this particular view of Jesus. Non-evangelical, non-fundamentalist denominations will give you a different viewpoint. If the Christians you know belong to those faiths, then "Republican Jesus" would seem quite alien. But the evangelical faiths have had much more success in broadcasting their version. Which makes their version of Jesus the one most prominently seen in the public square and the one currently in use by one of the political parties.

He was in an occupied country ruled by two sets of rulers: the imperial occupiers and those who were willing to collaborate with the oppressors. Jesus often spoke up for the downtrodden and condemned those with wealth and power. Those rulers tried to silence him and eventually executed him. There's a reason why the oppressed sometimes look to Jesus for inspiration.

And the skin color may not have been important in Jesus' time, but it is now. At least in terms of the American religious experience. Here, they almost universally portray Jesus as white. In a country where churches are the most racially segregated institutions, that means something.

Thank you for sharing it. That's the one thing I always wanted from Townscaper.

Just dive in. You could find a list of the more far-out episodes. But the fun of Art was not knowing what to expect. Even when the guest was boring, there might be a caller who wants to talk in detail about the starship that abducted them last night.

Art Bell had the absolute best voice for late night radio. Used to listen to him on my overnight road trips between Salt Lake and Vegas. Just the endless desert under a full moon, and Art's guest is rambling on about interdimensional beings. Could almost believe it for that moment.

One of my favorite things about Art was the tension. Did he believe what his guests and callers are saying? Or is he just humoring them for the show? I never knew the answer. Not sure if I would want to know.

I took an astronomy course a few years ago which had a fairly forward-thinking (if a bit lazy) instructor. The initial tests were fairly conventional. But for the intense test right before the final, he gave us a comprehensive take-home. With the full assumption we'd be hitting Google hard for the more difficult questions. He knew this was a complex topic. Thought we'd learn more and retain more with a test where we had to show some initiative in finding the right answers without the stress of having to remember it on the spot.

Plus, it doubled as a study guide for the actual final which was only a couple of weeks later. I thought it was a remarkably kind thing to do. Took out a little stress. Gave even the struggling students an easy "A". And it worked as a comprehensive guide to almost everything we covered.

This isn't true. Something creative, some web toy, gets linked on HN's front page at least once a day. Usually more often. Even in the hellscapes of Twitter or Facebook, you'll find interesting writing, weird animations, or new illustrations. There's immense creativity released daily. Too much for one person to ever keep up with.

Just because strip malls are plentiful, doesn't mean good architecture no longer exists.

And I remember the old days. For every hand-crafted gem of a site, there were a 100 with little more than a grainy photo of Slipknot and an "under construction" animation.

Did you notice the reduction of information density on web pages? I think that would be the biggest immediate difference. Old Reddit vs. new Reddit as one prominent example. The dominance of responsive designs now, as compared to the old separation between main site and mobile site, as another example. I guess hamburger menus weren't a big thing in 2013? I honestly can't remember. Maybe time to hit the Internet Archive and look at pages from 2013.

It's interesting thinking of the changes. I guess many of the current trends were well underway by 2013 so the current state would be different but not too different to you. At any rate, I'm glad you're out and hope you can sort the ID mess.

I would imagine the Internet Archive is already storing them. APKMirror is fairly comprehensive. Wouldn't take much for the Archive to mirror them.

Sometimes, I wonder what the Archive stores in their non-public repositories. Just waiting for the day when it's safe to show the world.

Determining the sweet spot is a fun thought. I'd argue for the Windows 7 era. General purpose computing is still the norm. The web & apps have almost as many services as now, but with less bloat and less tracking. There's social media but it's not completely dominant. Linux for desktop is beginning to be in good shape. Smartphones are available for those who want them but they're not dominant yet either.

That's my personal one. I'm sure it'll be different for everyone else.

Battery needs replacing on my 6s+, but otherwise it's working well with zero repairs. And considering my use cases, I can put up with the battery as-is. I'll probably keep it as my main device until next year.

Same. I used to mock those used Google as their address bar. But I've ended up in the same place. At least for sites I don't visit daily / weekly. There's so many different TLDs now. I never remember if some rarely visited site is .com or something else.

In the US, the Duet is frequently on sale for around $200 to $250. Has a great screen, all metal construction, and a passable keyboard. I'm rather fond of mine. End up using it more than the iPad.

FB allows commenting on ads. This does not go well for certain types of advertisers. Political and religious ads especially. Even the bland corporate advertisers have to spend some time cleaning up the inevitable mess.

What's especially puzzling is that FB allows image uploads as an ad response unless the advertiser was smart enough to disable it.

It was also in Civ 1. Industries and nuclear war would create pollution on the map. Would appear as a black cloud over a tile. You could send out a settler unit to clean up the pollution but it was a slow process. If the map accumulated too much pollution, global warming would happen. A random plains tile would be changed to desert. Or a coastal tile would become a swamp.

It wasn't too difficult to stay ahead of the pollution curve in the late game as long as you didn't have a war. But there was one memorable game where I had a massive nuclear exchange with Gandhi. Created too much pollution. The world become a wasteland because I couldn't clean it up in time. And the AI didn't clean anything on its own, iirc. I won the game, but it was such a Pyrrhic victory.

This was probably 29 years ago. Playing obsessively on my old Mac LC. Still remember it because it was the saddest game session I've ever had. I won, but there wasn't much left at the end. Broken cities and the earth was dead.

https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Global_warming_(Civ1)

FPH actively went after individuals who could be easily identified. And they weren't content to keep their opinions in their own sub. Instead they would pop up regularly in completely unrelated discussions. They also had a culture of harassment.

They made themselves rather unpopular. If they had stuck to their own sub, made an effort to hide the identities of their targets, and mostly just said: "boy, I really hate fat people. So disgusting", then they'd probably still be around today.

Those are some key differences between FPH and HCA. Not to mention HCA is a response to the ongoing pandemic. While fatness isn't contagious. The obese are only hurting themselves.

All of the majors stripped down to the basics, IIRC. At least the ones I visited.

Fark and Metafilter held up, but they were text to begin with.

Internet video was interesting that day. Couldn't get any from the major sites because they were hammered. But I remember links would get passed along to some Quicktime clips on personal sites. No cell phone cameras, but small camcorders + Macs with firewire were popular enough that personal footage appeared quickly.

The western nations have been seeing the opposite of an uptick. Churches are generally in decline, while the number of non-affiliated is rising. Even in the US. Some American denominations still have considerable political power because of various factors, but their membership numbers are shrinking.

Definitely the eMate. The clamshell Newton. I very much wanted one back in the day but could never really justify it. Settled for a Palm + folding keyboard combo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMate_300

Regarding high latency twitter: maybe someone should make FidoNet.social. For those who don't remember, back in the early 90's your local BBS's might offer message boards connected to the rest of the US/world. Not a continuous connection. Every day at 2 AM (or whenever), your favorite BBS would dial into some remote node and sync messages.

Practical effect was a roughly 24-48 (or more) hour wait for responses. Didn't stop bickering though. I was quite young at the time. Asked some question about a game. The first response was fairly hostile. Which started an argument. My first time flamed online, and my first online argument. Which went very slowly.

Still, slow social media would be interesting. I kinda like the FidoNet model. Where syncing only happens once a day. Maybe only at a set time overnight. Faster than snailmail but you have the full day to type out your response about why Ultima V did not suck as your opponent claimed. With the ability to submit a post any time, but also with the ability to edit it until sync. I think it would encourage long posting more than the current systems. Which may or may not be a good thing.

I came up with similar thoughts after losing someone I loved. Helped immensely to think of time as a dimension. Even though I'm trapped on a one way course, those previous moments still exist. Even though the person I loved is dead and I'll never talk to her again, those moments of her life will always exist. As far as I know, nothing can ever erase it.

There will always be a place in the universe where she's alive and happy. A place that I'll probably never be able to visit but still is immensely comforting knowing it exists.

I guess that's my version of a secular afterlife. Not entirely comforting as all the moments of suffering still exist too, somewhere. But still, it means there's a permanence to even the most impermanent things.

I think SOS would almost have to be free on iPhones for the reason you stated. Besides, it would probably pay for itself because it would be such a great selling point. Could see a fair number of Android users switching for having emergency access available anywhere.

And it would be great free advertising. I'm just imagining the first news story with a lost hiker rescued because of their iPhone. It would make a big impact.

This is one of the more intriguing rumors. I'm not even remotely qualified to say if it's feasible or not. But, if it was, I'm curious about pricing. Would users need to contract with one of the existing satellite providers? Or would carriers start offering "Satellite Add-on" for $10/$20/$30 a month for X number of texts?

And would there be free SOS emergency service? Seems like that would be a huge selling point to get people to upgrade. People who wouldn't otherwise want or need satellite communication.

If you're on Firefox, there's an extension called Auto Reader Mode which saves you the game of "click reader mode before the popups appear."

Though I guess this extension is less useful now that many sites are purposely breaking reader mode.

I am too. I haven't pulled the trigger yet, but I'm thinking about one of Google's Pixels. The reason for that specific product line is because they are well supported by a wide range of de-Googled Android variants. I'm leaning towards CalyxOS, which seems to have the best mix of privacy, security, and ability to use apps from the Play Store. But GrapheneOS looks tempting too.

I already own a Pinephone but it's not at a point where I'd want to use it as a daily driver. But they're only $150-$200, so worth taking a chance if you don't want an Android alternative. You may end up liking it. I do know people who are using it daily. It's just not for me. Not yet.

If you want to look into the Android alternatives further, this HN discussion about CalyxOS went into some great detail about that OS, and about other alternatives too.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28090024

You are correct. They did make their own font. Which seemed like a very strange expense to me. Even though I use Dropbox heavily, I'll almost never see their font. Dropbox is used mostly through the OS's file manager.

Good point on the DDOS. Didn't think of it that way.

Wouldn't be a DDoS. At least, I don't think it would.

It would just be simply people refusing to work on captchas more than a certain amount. Basically, if you make me hunt for bikes and there's more than 3 of them, then I'm not doing it. More akin to a deliberate labor slowdown than a DDoS, or even a strike.