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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • My system still freezes outside of Steam and gaming. My best guess based on searching around for issues related to my system is that Linux doesn’t handle switching from integrated to discrete graphics that well with amd+amd systems. Other users who have Dell G5 SE systems have had the same issue for at least 3 years now.

    It’s tolerable because it doesn’t freeze while gaming and that’s the most intensive thing I do on my system. If I was writing or editing and it froze and I lost work constantly, I’d be more upset and annoyed.

    Occasionally it will freeze just from opening discord or steam but the load up time is significantly shorter than a windows hard reset. It’s tolerable for me, for now.

    I should also add, I can’t start steam normally. It still freezes constantly unless I start directly opening to steam Settings from the start menu.



  • I have a meeting tomorrow morning with a mediator and representatives from my old company with my lawyer tomorrow.

    I’m trying to get my job back since they fired me in response to bringing up issues of abusive behaviour in the workplace. They are trying to get me to back down and disappear.

    I have mixed feelings. A part of me wants my job back. The act itself would spit in the face of the general manager who is rotten to his very core.

    The other part of me thinks I’ve done enough damage and can safely call it quits by taking a money offer. I exposed to corporate just how awful management at my company was and in response to my firing, corporate has forced several costly updates to work flow practices at the company, cracked down hard on all the unsafe work practices, refused to represent them in my labour board reprisal claim and forced the HR manager to retire ahead of her scheduled retirement plant (I assume, it’s convenient she retired a month after my claim was officially filed and not in 2024 as scheduled).

    Tomorrow I’ll have to pick my battle carefully. As much as I’d love to drag this company to the human rights tribunal, I’m also pretty tired and should consider taking the wins I already achieved.

    Bureaucracy is fucking lame.







  • I recently recieved a bit of offhand news that has made me a lot more relaxed about an important meeting I have at the end of September.

    I was speaking with a person I used to work with about a trip he and his fiancé took recently when he caually mentioned out of nowhere that the HR manager at work retired at the end of July. That random little fact sent my mind into a whirlwind for a couple days.

    Just over a year ago I had been terminated from my job as an apprentice at a place that builds automation assembly lines. That termination came after I had brought up concerns and frustrations with how the company had begun treating people after covid arrived. I also brought up concerns about workplace culture and how toxic it had become.

    I had been terminated approximately 10 months after the monthly employee meeting where I first confronted the GM (General Manager) about how apprentices were being treated poorly and not learning the proper skills. This is important because once people start retiring, there is going to be a huge skill and knowledge gap.

    After that monthly meeting, I had a meeting with the fairness committee followed by a meeting with the HR manager with the fairness committee member on “my side.” That second meeting was basically me getting belittled and blamed for 3.5 hours.

    Unhappy with the results and dealing with my declining mental health, I reached out to the corporate HR manager about the abusive management at my company and this manager made a huge effort to help me. She taught me all my rights as an employee, encouraged me to get help through the corporate employee hotline and when that failed, set up a meeting with me and her boss while beginning an investigation into the abusive environment at my company. Unfortunately before that meeting, my company terminated my employment.

    I retained a lawyer and after about a year of some back and forth (things got delayed significantly because my lawyer got covid) I finally submitted my wrongful termination case against my company to the labour board. Up until this point I felt so uncertain and stressed about everything and was really doubting my decisions.

    About a month after my submission to the labour board, my company replied back with 16 pages trying to have my case thrown out and attacking my character. They also responded through an outside law firm and not the corporate in-house lawyers. About 1.5 months after my submission, the HR manager retires. I found out she was scheduled to retire in 2024.

    Suddenly my mediation meeting with the labour board and my company doesn’t seem so intimidating. Corporate refused to legally support my company and the HR manager retires early and is now back home in Central America. A key figure in all of this who conveniently will not be able to attend the labour board meeting.

    I have no idea if those two things are related to my case and I may never truly know but it sure is convinient for me. I did leave that company in good standing with corporate so I’m left to believe that corporate has been taking serious action with my company. Action that may have also included updating workflow, security and logistics (costing the GM and management huge money), and cracking down on workplace safety issues (costing the GM and management even more money).

    After covid arrived, my dislike of corporations only grew but I think it’s pretty humorous to watch corporate turn it’s back on my company. It’s beautiful in it’s own bureaucratic-hellscape kind of way.

    My goal at the labour board meeting is going to get my job back and hopefully getting a public apology at the monthly employee meeting while sending a problematic manager to a training course regarding abusive behaviour. After being forced to confront my own mortality through their abusive and negligent behaviour, money means nothing to me. No amount will bring back the dignity this place took from me and the others who work there. I’m hoping my actions are able to throw some power back into the hands of the employees and other workers there as well as bring more awareness to mental health issues.

    And to think, I probably wouldn’t have gone down this path if it weren’t for the head fairness committee member telling me that I should just suck it up. That I should just wait for all these problematic people to retire. He told me I couldn’t change anything. His attempt to de-escalate the situation by demotivating me may have backfired slightly.


  • We may never know the true intentions behind the attacks because we aren’t Orcas. That should not mean we must escalate the situation between humans and orcas. Using more noise and susbtances to fend off one species may have unintended affects in other species or ecosystems.

    If they are targetting objects that are luxuries of humans (for example a boat or yatch) then we humans should consider just not participating in those activities. We should not be introducing more sophisticated solutions which may come with even more unforeseen consequences. In this case, I believe less is more. The less we humans invade their space, the less likely either human or orca is to be injured or killed. If this is just an Orca cultural fad then it may mean this destructive behavior will disappear quickly if they are left alone.

    Human enjoyment or satisfaction does not have to come from distressing or endangering other life. Sentient or not.

    Regardless of Orca intention or perspective, I’m still rooting for the Orcas. It’s their home. We humans have caused way more damage to their homes than they have to our boats and yachts. Their damage to our stuff is totally justified in my eyes.


  • I don’t think it has to do with a “whales are sacred” mentality. Humans with our modern technologies are invasive, loud and destructive. We travel across the whole world in loud, dangerous, harmful and polluting vehicles. We also take from this planet far more than we return with absolutely no respect for the complex and diverse yet fragile ecosystems we live within.

    Here we have a species of dolphin that are working together to try and stop another invasive species from threatening their home. Humans have a long and rich history with the sea but we are still land animals that are invading and disrupting their home and way of life. These Orcas are defending themselves. As humans, our reaction should be to acknowledge their right to defend themselves and leave their home alone. We should not escalate by introducing even more noise and substances. Instead it would be wiser to look within ourselves and see that our luxuries should not be causing so much distress to other sentient life.

    I personally believe the Orcas and any other wild life have the right to defend their home just like any indigenous people who want to live in balance with nature. We should be stewards of this planet and respect the life it gave us by respecting the life around us. We should not be waging active or passive wars on everything above or below the waters.




  • I’ve always saw the bias against women on reddit until about a week ago when I got a chance to really understand that it’s more like pure, unfiltered hate against women.

    I rarely post to social media because it’s a huge energy drain on me but I decided to make a post on a support subreddit regarding toxic masculinity. I talked about how I was a target for bullying and harassment for not being ‘manly’ and shared experiences of witnessing gross and manipulative behaviour against women and lgbt+ people.

    I received a lot of positive feedback. Some men spoke up about seeing the same, unacceptable behaviour from their coworkers. Some women confirmed what I said was true and a few were happy just being validated.

    My post had to be removed because the moderator of that subreddit had been receiving threats about my post. My post didn’t violate any of the reddit or the subreddit rules. Some very angry individuals who couldn’t read the nuance in my post had claimed it was hate speech.

    The moderator contacted me and thanked me for talking about such topics. Ultimately she couldn’t deal with the hate that was being directed at her, which I completely understand.

    That whole incident really opened my eyes to just how much hate women get on that site. Leaving reddit for good got so much easier after that.



  • After playing Battlefield 3 and feeling an indescribable emptyness for AAA games, I turned to indie developers. The desire for more profits can really suck the uniqueness and character from a game when it’s designed for accessibility to as many people as possible.

    Bonus points if the game supports modding. It’s a great way to extend the life of a game as well. Some of my first online gaming memories are from Quake and it’s modding scene. Even Sven Co-op is still developing their mod for Half-Life to this very year.

    Games like that seem to have a bit more passion behind it which gives it a bit more charm. It’s been a bit sad watching old titles milked dry throughout the years in the name of the mighty dollar. Unfortunately the struggle now is finding those gems in a sea of mediocrity as gaming became more mainstream.