askchapo ratboy • 4 weeks ago • 100%

Does anyone know if there would be penalties for having an organized sick-out if there is no contract yet signed? We are not bound to any no strike clause and a coworker was fired and I think naturally people are calling out sick anyway due to stress. Can we be fired for insubordination or something? What are the risks?

askchapo ratboy • 2 months ago • 97%

Thinking about planning a trip!

I have pretty much given up on being social at all any more because of how much I seem to resist it, even though I WANT to go out and do things and make more friends and be consistent. But it's just so exhausting, I dissociate when I'm out and about unless I'm drunk, I get super anxious about what to talk about, etc etc. I've been going to punk and metal shows for like 20+ years but now I pretty much have resigned myself to the fact that I just am not gonna go anymore because I just disappoint myself again and again after I tell myself I wanna go, but then when it comes down to it I figure out a way to just avoid it. And that makes me sad. I'm AuDHD, and currently exploring meds. Has anyone noticed an impoved ability to socialize/go out in public when medicated?

anarchism ratboy • 2 months ago • 100%

On the internet I don't see too many Anarchists give arguments past "communism doesn't work because communists are doomed to repeat the same exploitative power structures of the capitalist state" and "we dont know what an anarchist society will look like we gotta wait til we get there!" Which like...is not convincing to me at all. I've engaged in what was supposed to be consensus based decision making systems and there were a ton of flaws, though that's purely anecdotal. So, I'd really like to have some suggestions on what to read that you think might really challenge where I stand/take anarchism more seriously. It might take me 5 years to get to them bc executive dysfunction but I really want to see if my mind can be changed on if it would be a better system from the get go than communism. I think it would be super interesting to hear from anyone who shifted into anarchism from Marxism on why it made more sense to you

Picked up my bottle today, and I'm starting tomorrow. I really hope it works, I'm so tired of being tired! I've only ever taken Focalin, and Adderrall twice recreationally. The Focalin was all over the place for me but I did not have any sort of schedule. One day no food, next day caffeine, next day food and no caffeine, etc. So I wasn't able to tell if it was helpful, I just know on the days that I felt gacked out I did NOT like it. Curious if anyone would want to share their experiences taking Strattera?

technology ratboy • 3 months ago • 96%

Would like to spend under or around 1k. My refurbished laptop that I got from work crapped out and I need a new one. I'd like to do light gaming, like Cult of Lamb or Disco Elysium and that would probably be the most heavy use application that I need it for. I'm also a caveman and can be pretty rough on my things, I think my last laptop ate it because I dropped it like 3 feet to the ground by knocking it off my couch on accident. So something that's somewhat durable, but I do not plan on throwing it across the room lol. I plan on learning how to use Linux; I know next to nothing about it but have just heard good things and I think I'm just computer savvy enough to figure it out. Also any suggestions on solid alternatives to things like Word, Google docs, etc would me super appreciated!

food ratboy • 3 months ago • 100%

Bonus points for healthy/low carb. Omivore, vegetarian, vegan, I eat all the things but my autistic ass is very low on spoons. I'm a good cook but even the thought of cooking instant ramen sounds daunting sometimes. Easy things I've incorporated are protein shakes with coffee, flax milk and chia seeds during the morning. Keeps me good til 1pm or so since breakfast grosses me out during the weekdays and it takes like 2 minutes to prepare Also wraps. Throw a protein on, condiments or a sauce like pesto or something, rip up some lettuce with your BARE HANDS, and that's it. Or if you're feeling fancy, slice up some cheese/veggies. Less than 5 minutes with minimal clean up, just a cutting board knife, plate and maybe a spoon or butter knife. Sometimes if I'm not cutting much ill just do it carefully in my hands or on my plate to avoid washing the cutting board

askchapo ratboy • 4 months ago • 100%

If there is language in an article that is along the lines of "until the expiration of the agreement", does that mean that whatever is contained in that article is no longer legally binding once a contract expires? I feel like that should be obvious, but my union rep seems to think that's not the case. I do know that terms and conditions of a CBA are to continue under an expired contract (besides strikes/lockouts) but if that language lives in the document, then is that how an employer can get around maintaining whatever benefit it's tied to? I feel like I read a labornotes article that spoke to this but I CANNOT find it. If anyone can help I would be grateful!

askchapo ratboy • 4 months ago • 100%

What publications do you find to be the most factual? Do you often check multiple sources when reading about a current event? How do you keep your own biases in check?

music ratboy • 4 months ago • 100%

youtu.be

Performance in a friggin' cemetary!

music ratboy • 4 months ago • 100%

youtu.be

Goodnight my love Remember me as you fall asleep Fill your pockets with the dust and memories That rises from the shoes on my feet I won't be back here Though we may meet again I know it's dark outside Don't be afraid Every time I ever cried for fear Was just a mistake that I made Wash yourself in your tears And build your church On the strength of your faith

music ratboy • 4 months ago • 100%

clique-lhf.bandcamp.com

Bay Area Hardcore

politics ratboy • 10 months ago • 100%

I'm trying to learn more about the Russia/Ukraine conflict. In the articles that I find that seem to be critical of Ukraine, there are a few that are right wing that seem to have similar viewpoints as what I've read on here or in the more leftist articles. For example [this](https://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-west-got-russia-and-ukraine-wrong-200845?page=0%2c1) piece from National Interest, or [this](https://www.cato.org/commentary/washington-helped-trigger-ukraine-war#) from the CATO institute. There are others that aren't flagged as right wing that are critical, but it's just got me wondering, why would right wing politicians/publications perceive these things similarly to how some communists would when the ideologies of both are so extremely opposite? Disclaimer: I'm not pro-ukraine at all, but in my search for info that's not super pro-Ukraine propaganda, this is the stuff that comes up for me

fashion ratboy • 10 months ago • 100%

I am very picky about clothing and I gained quite a bit of weight so I need to go through the horrifying task of buying a new wardrobe. My fellow chubby bunnies, where do you buy ethical/somewhat affordable plus sized clothes in (more or less) dark/solid colors? I'm starting to size out of most of the stores around me. My usual outfit is a cropped/tiny black band t shirt or ringer shirt, black skinny jeans, black vans or blundstone boots, cropped hoodie, perhaps a flannel. Outside of that when I'm wearing stuff that's more flashy I go for a "doom metal elf vibe" in terms of jewelry and adornments lol. Corny but I don't know how else to describe it.

World News ratboy • 11 months ago • 88%

apnews.com

"We are focused on producing all types of weapons and ammunition, and we show that we can test it on the battlefield and make it better during the war,” Kamyshin said. “That’s something we can contribute to the free world, because as you see, defense industry is becoming more and more important globally.”

news ratboy • 11 months ago • 100%

apnews.com

“We are focused on producing all types of weapons and ammunition, and we show that we can test it on the battlefield and make it better during the war,” Kamyshin said. “That’s something we can contribute to the free world, because as you see, defense industry is becoming more and more important globally.”

music ratboy • 11 months ago • 100%

"Majazz Project is a Palestinian-led record label and research platform founded by Mo’min Swaitat in 2020. Over several years, Mo’min amassed an archive of rare tapes and vinyl from Palestine and beyond, spanning field recordings of Bedouin weddings to revolutionary tracks and synth-heavy 80s funk and jazz. Many of these were acquired from a former record label in Jenin in the north of the West Bank. Majazz Project was borne out of the archive and is focused on sampling, remixing and reissuing vintage Palestinian and Arabic albums. It is a collaboration between Arab and non-Arab DJs, producers and artists interested in shedding new light on the richness and diversity of Arab musical heritage. Palestine Sound Archive is a celebration of music, spoken word and album artwork from historic Palestine, mainly from the 1960s-1990s."

effort ratboy • 11 months ago • 100%

I attempted to give a broad overview of the history of Palestine & Israel, beginning with the Canaanites up until today. It is not perfect, this was more or less intended to be something for myself to learn about the occupation in depth, but then some people started showing interest in reading it as well. If there is anything included that is inaccurate PLEASE let me know and I will absolutely edit it. I probably spent 30-40 hours compiling this information and in most cases tried to double and triple check the context. I had a very basic understanding of the history of Palestine, and so it was an incredible learning experience for myself. I am by no means an expert on the situation but I feel much, much more confident in my knowledge now. Many sources are from Wikipedia (I know) but I did rack up like 50 sources so I hope that I was able to accurately record and double check information that appeared biased towards Israel. I started compiling information on the 9th or 10th of this month. This history is geared towards people who may have little to no knowledge of the ongoing occupation of Palestine, or towards people with a broad understanding of it. It comes out to about 14 pages. I also include a document with my copy/pastes from different sources and a glossary for different terms that some people may not be familiar with. - [History Of Palestine & Israel](https://app.box.com/s/babimamo9dbenjd2n35lckwghi0u2azk) - [Copy/Pasted notes](https://app.box.com/s/1y6syo6s0jf18udniz1x1ye4mrf1ev6t) - [Glossary](https://app.box.com/s/niz6pi3rgy5vtxk0sdp2fmi1lx4ex3k2)

music ratboy • 12 months ago • 100%

www.youtube.com

Never saw them but when I broke into my punk scene arond 2008, a bunch of friends played shows with Warkrime and talked about Brace. It was wild to see years later that he was someone who went to fight with the Kurdish

So I bought a Happy Lamp, which is one of those sunlight lamps meant to help with Seasonal Affective Disorder. I've used it for two days in a row, and it feels like it's replaced my SAD with super ramped up ADHD symptoms. This is totally anecdotal, and could be other factors. I'm rebounding from covid, so maybe it's my store of energy from being super duper sedentary, but I am usually pretty sedentary and that hardly ever happens. But holy hell it's been a wild two days. Typically I'm pretty fatigued, always feeling like nappin', distracted while working and very, very unmotivated. Since using the lamp, I feel like I have a ton of energy. I worked from home today and yesterday. I could NOT SIT STILL either days. Yesterday I had no caffeine, but I was up every five minutes or so, pacing, making food, thinking of things to clean or put away, fuck around on Hexbear, etc. Normally when I'm distracted I'll just stay in one place, or if I get up it's not nearly to the extreme that it has been. My brain also felt on overdrive, thoughts going a million miles a minute, multi-tasking on accident, getting up again, etc. But ended up being more productive than I had been in a while. Then today I had caffeine and that doubled the intensity. Sometimes caffeine doesn't work on me at all, other times it's way intense. But yeah, same stuff today, except feeling so out of control that I double checked my bottle of lamictal to make sure I didn't accidentally take my ADHD meds (I didn't). Jaw is still feeling tight, but I'm not clenching. What the hell, guys, are these ADHD-Hyperactive symptoms? Cuz I am...on one and I don't know if I like it. Maybe it's a fluke, maybe it's a placebo, maybe my body will adjust but it is intense.

news ratboy • 12 months ago • 100%

blockclubchicago.org

[Another article](https://thehustle.co/the-small-town-that-saved-its-only-grocery-store-by-buying-it/) about a town in Kansas that bought their own grocery store. It seems to have had success and motivated town residents to open up other stores and create programs. It sounds like it is also funded as a utility, so a monthly bill charged to the residents and they can shop for what the need. Rural Kansas and Chicago embracing juche? We will see

music ratboy • 12 months ago • 100%

www.youtube.com

It's going to swing back up into the 80's in the next week for me but damnit I am ready for spooky weather! I really turn towards a lost of shoegaze, post punk, darkwave etc. Cascadian black metal is also acceptable. Here are some cozy weather bangers: Cocteau Twins - Blue Bell Knoll (Linked): Darkwave, New Wave, ???. The first couple of Cocteau Twins albums are phenomenal, way better than Heaven or Las Vegas in my opinion. [Them Are Us Too - Eudaemonia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA2onxrh_9g): Darkwave, synth. Seriously a fucking beautiful song, makes me cry every time. Cash, one of the members, passed away during the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland several years ago. RIP, way too young. [Siouxie and the Banshees - Cities in Dust](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsOHvP1XnRg&t=13s): Darkwave. Ultimate gothnight banger. Definitely a song that gives me goosebumps, never gets old. [Sonic Youth - Shadow of a Doubt](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFNnvQLvs7I): Postpunk, shoegaze. From Sonic Youth's first album, Kim Gordon's breathy vocals are so hot! The whole tone of the song just feels cold, perfect for gray rainy weather. [Bauhaus - She's In Parties](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxqq5vahHKk): Deathrock, darkwave. Pretty much the godfathers of goth along with Siouxie and the Banshees and the Cure, classic. [My Bloody Valentine - Soft As Snow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze8A33p5-h0): Shoegaze. This song gets the spraybottle  [Agalloch - The Mantle (Full Album)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INgo0xmYBeg): Cascadian Black Metal. Sad, melodic, cacophonous. Truly a masterpiece. Not traditional black metal if that typically turns you off. Listen to it. [Asunder - Rite of Finality](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_QE08dfVXo): Funeral doom, acoustic. A fucking 50 minute song that I swear just feels like an entire album. Dino from Dystopia performs. Pretty, brutal, haunting and depressing as hell. Perfect for winter.

askchapo ratboy • 1 year ago • 100%

I figure this is a common ask but I haven't seen a post anywhere in the recent past, so....What is the VERY first book on theory that I need to read? I haven't read any theory yet, besides a short excerpt from the Communist Manifesto a long time ago. I have read some Parenti and Blackshirts & Reds is definitely on my list. I'm also interested in history books, biographies, autobiographies, anything socialist/marxist really. I am also very interested in recommendations from non-white folks, as well as any literature about non-white socialist movements/people/history/theory etc.

TLDR: What is ADHD medication supposed to feel like? Is it supposed to feel like anything at all? Will someone with ADHD feel really gacked out/high? does it change based on food intake or other factors? So I received an unofficial diagnosis from my AuDHD psychologist a while ago, and then my psychiatrist did a very short written assessment on me and determined a positive diagnosis. I really want to get a full assessment one day, but for now I was prescribed Focalin (dexmethylphenidate). I originally wanted it as a prn. The first time I took it, I definitely felt "peppy", needing to stand while gaming, needing to move around more frequently, generally more awake. I didn't eat breakfast, and had coffee. My blood pressure was also very high. Within a couple of days I took it again, but being good and eating in the morning with no coffee. I couldn't even tell if it was working. I may have taken it another time soon after and did not notice a difference, so I stopped taking it. I've been extremely fatigued and my executive dysfunction has been off the charts so I tried taking it again. Yesterday I didn't eat right away, and I felt *gacked*. Tight jaw, jittery, like definitely felt like I was on stimulants. I felt like that today as well; I tried to eat a little something this morning but it didn't seem to make much of a difference. It kicked in during a client appointment, too. Jaw tight, jittery, making a ton of typing mistakes, my body feeling fuzzy. So, is it something where you should be able to notice a difference when you take ADHD meds? I'm assuming that I felt it so intensely because I didn't eat, but when I do it it literally doesn't feel like anything has changed. I may also not even have ADHD at all and was misdiagnosed (I was informally dx'ed with ADHD, Autism and bipolar disorder).

games ratboy • 1 year ago • 100%

It is so cute it hurts and the soundtrack is super cool. What are some other games you'd suggest for Cult of the Lamb lovers? I just got a refurbished old hp laptop for free and I can do some gaming on Steam but uh, it's not a gaming laptop per se. I also have a switch. Hit me!

music ratboy • 1 year ago • 100%

www.youtube.com

First heard this band played as intermission music during a Twitch stream of a dude playing sitar covers of random doom metal songs. Yes, that's right. First Utterance quickly became an album I obsessed over. At the time I was delving into a lot of forgotten 70's psychedelic music from the US and other countries so it was a real treat to find out about this. It's dark, creepy, beautiful, acoustic, heavy. From their bandcamp: "Forged in the creative crucible of 1968’s ‘Summer of Love’, Comus took a decidedly darker path than flower-draggled hippiedom, with a prophetic counter-culture vision of ferocious, glowering firepower."

Asklemmy ratboy • 1 year ago • 90%

I haven't owned a functioning laptop in like, ten years because my phone does most of what I like, but I (probably) have tendinitis and carpal tunnel and need something more ergonomic for my terminally online needs. Arguing with strangers on the internet is not as effective on a cell phone lol. I'm mostly streaming media, researching online and screwing around on lemmy. I'm interested in toying around with linux just to try it as an OS but would probably want to keep windows because Im not super tech savvy as people here seem to be. That said I can figure things out pretty quickly if I put my mind to it. I would like the ability to game if I wanted, but that might mean a whole different beast so if I could even run at least SNES roms or something like that that would be cool. I'd also like a decent sized screen, 16 inches at least. Hoping not to spend more than 1k if possible but I'm old and don't know what the average price is really for something that's upper-middle quality so whatever clever. Thanks for any recommendations!

labour ratboy • 1 year ago • 100%

I work at a non profit and we just won union recognition and are slowly moving towards first contract negotiations and I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING. Would love to chat with some folks about their experiences, especially if you've negotiated around contracts/grants/etc.