'According to a 2024 survey ... 50% of U.S. adults believe California is in decline. Many who could be won to the Democratsβ side are convinced that, under Democratic leaders, the basics of good government are sorely neglected,' an L.A.
Let's talk about the really tough world of art course platforms led by industry veterans (and not).
I don't know if it's good for me to say but i would've loved to get a Schoolism monthly subscription, but you don't know how it feels a rip off for them to remove it to keep the yearly subscription while introducing a one off pay for 79 dollars for each course.
Coloso is overly expensive garbage, offering around 120-200 dollars each course for the most amateur quality you'd ever find.
Schoolism in fact looked really interesting out of those on-demand art course platforms because there's a lot of Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks and other western entertainment veterans. However, it breaks my heart that they're paywalling it and not offering a monthly subscription to enjoy all these stuff.
Aaron Blaise, Disney veteran, at least is the one who loves doing very cheap offers and he does it quite often. I bless him and he's a good person to do that.
Actually i'm taking Artwod, which seems really nice for the foundations, but Schoolism would've been also nice just because i would love to see a course from an ACTUAL industry veteran.
I used to know a MEGA link i had found around the internet which had tons of courses, but it has been taken down since a while. There's also online courses club which is one of those famous ones, but unfortunately due to the rise of Coloso they're only offering it with a paid membership and it's ugly to see reselling courses.
Once again, economy fucking sucks ass, and Schoolism taking away the monthly membership was a dick move.
If it were not for the troubles we're having with late pension funds, the car issues and other stuff, i wouldn't have relied a lot on piracy, because whoever did the courses deserve a lot, but you know, we're people with hundreds of economic band aids since years.
No one is even talking about much how Schoolism's ridiculous plan change hurts so badly for those who rather spend monthly to access the whole library.
Anyway, i used to take New Masters Academy's subscription, but our budget is getting even more tighter that i was forced to switch to a less expensive thing, but now this month my parents' pension is coming later and once again and i can't stand the pain of getting behind a drastically running out budget every month.
The image presents two options for course access, side-by-side in boxes with light beige backgrounds. The left box details a “Subscription” plan, labeled with “MOST POPULAR” above a price of $249.40, crossed out $299.40. Below this is a green button that reads “Subscribe”. Under the button, a list is shown with checkmarks and the following items: “Switch courses as often as you like”, “Access Free Tutorials”, “Watch Interviews”, “Watch Video Lessons at Your Own Pace”, “Assignments Included”, and “Access to Schoolism Webinars Archives”.
The right box displays a “Lifetime Access” plan with a price of $79.98, below this is a green button that reads “Add to Cart”. Under the button, a list is shown with checkmarks and the following items: “One-time Purchase”, “Unlimited course access for life”, “Access Free Tutorials”, “Watch Interviews”, “Watch Video Lessons at Your Own Pace”, “Assign
... show more
The image presents two options for course access, side-by-side in boxes with light beige backgrounds. The left box details a βSubscriptionβ plan, labeled with βMOST POPULARβ above a price of $249.40, crossed out $299.40. Below this is a green button that reads βSubscribeβ. Under the button, a list is shown with checkmarks and the following items: βSwitch courses as often as you likeβ, βAccess Free Tutorialsβ, βWatch Interviewsβ, βWatch Video Lessons at Your Own Paceβ, βAssignments Includedβ, and βAccess to Schoolism Webinars Archivesβ.
The right box displays a βLifetime Accessβ plan with a price of $79.98, below this is a green button that reads βAdd to Cartβ. Under the button, a list is shown with checkmarks and the following items: βOne-time Purchaseβ, βUnlimited course access for lifeβ, βAccess Free Tutorialsβ, βWatch Interviewsβ, βWatch Video Lessons at Your Own Paceβ, βAssignments Includedβ, and βAccess to Schoolism Webinars Archivesβ. Both boxes have a similar design and layout, highlighting the different features and pricing options available.
Provided by @altbot, generated privately and locally using Gemma3:27b
π·πΊ #Russia has labelled Deutsche Welle an "undesirable organisation", in what the German international broadcaster called an effort to suppress independent reporting.
Halbzeit beim letzten Teil meines Crowdfundings - und erst eine einzige UnterstΓΌtzung. Wenn es so bleibt, waren drei vorherige - erfolgreiche - Crowdfundings fΓΌr die Katzβ. Bitte teilt & verschafft meinem Aufruf ein wenig Sichtbarkeit! mastodon.social/@marvinoppong/β¦
Nach vielen Erfahrungen mit Rassismus habe ich beschlossen, Deutschland zu verlassen.
Meine journalistische Arbeit in einem Vierteljahrhundert β und mein Projekt, mit anderen nachhaltigen Wohnraum zu schaffen, kann man hier supporten im gerade gestarteten finalen Teil: startnext.com/neuanfang-amsterβ¦
Everyone screaming for the past century (or longer) about consumerism has been absolutely fucking right.
Americans especially have been poisoned with it, & it is so fucking hard to recover from.
I don't shop to the same degree that a lot of people I know shop (& I couldn't afford it if I wanted to), but I still have collected so much fucking crap along the way, because it was cheap & was "kind of neat" or seemed to represent my identity in some way.
I'm trying to consciously break it, but this time of year is especially hard. I love gift-givingβI truly doβbut there is this pull towards useless crap from corporate sources.
You know, "here, have an action figure. It's just more plastic trash enriching a soulless corporation, but it's related to a character you love, so doesn't it feel like it expresses your identity?"
I've always agreed with the sentiment "buying more won't make you happy", & to a certain degree I've lived that way, but ...I also have habits & ways of thinking that suggest maybe I don't always believe it
I've never had much spending cash, so I've always tempered my expectations to what I can afford. I don't really envy luxury cars or whatever because that's just out of my reach & I will not allow myself to be miserable about it.
That's great, but that's not the same as being free of it.
Like, I've definitely gotten easily caught up in collecting things that I feel reflect my identity in some way, related to something I like. I purchase objects to show people who I am & to make myself feel like that person.
Gross.
Now, I do love delightful objects: a mug, a print, what the fuck ever. I'm not going to stop loving them. I am going to stop picking up random corporate crap though. If I'm selecting important objects in my life, I want them to really mean something.
And when you let go of the impulse towards instantaneous consumption, one of the interesting things is that the "expensive" things created by actual humans may become slightly more "affordable".
I mean human-made things, especially including useful things. Why buy some crappy mass-manufactured thing if you are able to find something crafted by someone? Why buy some extra object to make your life seem special if the useful things in your life already carry meaning?
I like pretty things. I like interesting things. That's pretty damn human, & I don't think it's bad. But the pleasure we feel over the artifacts of our life is so, so exploitable. We can be induced to trade things we value for things we don't by novelty, by cheapness, by availability.
I'm pretty sure the Luddites were right, & the Industrial Revolution was largely a mistake. Some capacity for mass production can be useful, but mostly...what has it done for us?
I have enough comfort in my life to be exploited for whatever slice of what I get from my labor remains after survival. It's not much, but it's enough to gobble up if there are enough people
Yet it comes at the cost of environmental devastation, horrible exploitation & abuse, & even fucking genocide for other people. So that some of us can collect a bunch of garbage made by no one in particular for the sole purpose of selling for more than it cost to make.
So yeah, I think consumerism is one of the great evils afflicting the world.
It's certainly a poison I am trying to flush out of my veins.
I just want to be done making the things I purchase part of my identity. I want to be done with soothing myself with novelty. I want to be done with impulsively acquiring things for no fucking reason. I want to get free & clear of this. I want to achieve consumption sobriety.
This year has been a good start. Next year will be even better.
I think the thing we most mean by "late stage capitalism" is capitalism at its most bare & obvious.
People have been manipulatedβin many cases basically willingly manipulated (comfort & convenience & not thinking about their real cost is so fucking appealing)βby promises which have simply failed to come true. Have failed spectacularly.
Yes, we "should have known", because this robbery, this exploitation has been out in the open for so long. But people like comfort.
We are at a moment of possible change. I feel sure of it.
I do not know what we can do with this, how far we can go, but I do believe there is a tipping point, & we are nearly there.
This shit just doesn't work like it used to. It was always a grift, a long con, but the thing about long cons? Eventually they go on too long. You can't prop up the rotten structure forever. Something will give.
It's not inevitable that things get better, but the opportunity exists.
(also, "moment" here is in the historical senseβthere is a lot happening here, & the time scale is unpredictableβthis "moment" could take 50 years for all I fucking know)
I'm not trying to predict the future, but I am trying to read the present, & I really do feel the world shifting under my feet. We don't live in the 90s anymore. Or the 2000s. The world I knew once is not the world I know now.
It's dark in some ways. It's really dark. I sure wish thatβfor instanceβmore people would have listened in the 80s, one of the times when consumerism experienced new life & just fucking exploded. Things were fucking dark enough then.
On the other hand, people aren't comfortable with the state of things in quite the same way they were then, & that's a bright spot, in my mind.
Things feel different. Things are different. Exactly what happens from here is unknown, but it is not "the same world it has always been". That's not how things work. And in every upheaval, there is opportunity.
Something I do not discount is my own awakening & the awakening of others on a similar path to mine.
You can feel unique & alone as you wake up from the comfortable slumber of ignorance. You try to shake others awake & they just won't budge.
Well, except the ones who do. Maybe they only turn in their sleep, but maybe they start to open their eyes. I'm one of them. So are you. So are so many others.
Casting off the bonds of cultish, religious extremism felt lonely to me, but if you look around, you find out you are not alone, not by a long shot.
You & I don't stand outside the stream of history. We are moved by our surroundings, affected by the same things other people are. We are not lonely watchers standing outside of everything. The currents reached us too, & they brought us here.
Who fucking knows what else could happen or who else could awake? Some people I thought would slumber forever are shaking off their grogginess & looking around.
The changes we see in ourselves are not only in us.
Maybe it doesn't seem like enough, but tides are changing. Who can say where people may wash up next?
Somebodyβmany, many, many somebodies, actuallyβwoke me up. I was not anywhere near able to understand things the way I do now. I was deep in a cult. I was fucking brainwashed.
But somehow I'm here today. Some of that was me. Some of that is about the person I specifically choose to be. But I didn't get here by myself. I was moved, I was brought along, I was *changed*.
"but it seems like everyone refuses to budge. No one is changing."
You are.
You see the world differently now than you once did. You see your obligation to others differently. You value different things than you used to. You consider realities you used to be wholly ignorant of.
You changed. I changed.
That's relevant. That's progress. That's something real & important.
I feel like something massive happened in my brain once I finally came out as trans. I had spent years trying to mash myself into clothing that didn't fit or feel like me and wearing things that would help me blend in, and I think that was a big part of consumerism in my old brain: trying to fit instead of just being.
I stopped buying clothes and learned to sew. Nothing ever fit me well, so I was constantly searching for things that fit.
Now I make my own self expression out of recycled bits and pieces and existence has slowly become art, as existence should be. One small act had lead to that permeating everything I consider surrounding what I actually need in my life.
Nach vielen Erfahrungen mit Rassismus habe ich beschlossen, Deutschland zu verlassen.
Meine journalistische Arbeit in einem Vierteljahrhundert β und mein Projekt, mit anderen nachhaltigen Wohnraum zu schaffen, kann man hier supporten im gerade gestarteten finalen Teil: startnext.com/neuanfang-amsterβ¦
If you wonder why at times I have a low opinion of librarianship (and yes, I am a librarian), well, it's this kind of #fuckery my brethren tend to embrace because it's the cool and hip thing to do regardless of consequences.
> Libraries open their archives to train AI chatbots with books spanning centuries of human knowledge milwaukeeindependent.com/newswβ¦
probably not. Tossing a coin is for when you have to decide something, like you want to go somewhere, and the wife wants to go somewhere else. He just does whatever he wants, never thinks of what others want, never has to work out if he can afford it, never has to defer to others' choices.
Twintig maanden celstraf, waarvan tien voorwaardelijk. Dat legt de rechtbank in Utrecht een corpslid op vanwege de verkrachting van een medestudent begin vorig jaar.
[AF]2050
in reply to [AF]2050 • • •Schoolism in fact looked really interesting out of those on-demand art course platforms because there's a lot of Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks and other western entertainment veterans. However, it breaks my heart that they're paywalling it and not offering a monthly subscription to enjoy all these stuff.
Aaron Blaise, Disney veteran, at least is the one who loves doing very cheap offers and he does it quite often. I bless him and he's a good person to do that.
Zambunny
in reply to [AF]2050 • • •[AF]2050
in reply to Zambunny • • •[AF]2050
in reply to [AF]2050 • • •Sensitive content
I used to know a MEGA link i had found around the internet which had tons of courses, but it has been taken down since a while.
There's also online courses club which is one of those famous ones, but unfortunately due to the rise of Coloso they're only offering it with a paid membership and it's ugly to see reselling courses.
Once again, economy fucking sucks ass, and Schoolism taking away the monthly membership was a dick move.
[AF]2050
in reply to [AF]2050 • • •Sensitive content
If it were not for the troubles we're having with late pension funds, the car issues and other stuff, i wouldn't have relied a lot on piracy, because whoever did the courses deserve a lot, but you know, we're people with hundreds of economic band aids since years.
No one is even talking about much how Schoolism's ridiculous plan change hurts so badly for those who rather spend monthly to access the whole library.
[AF]2050
in reply to [AF]2050 • • •[AF]2050
in reply to [AF]2050 • • •Altbot
in reply to [AF]2050 • • •The image presents two options for course access, side-by-side in boxes with light beige backgrounds. The left box details a “Subscription” plan, labeled with “MOST POPULAR” above a price of $249.40, crossed out $299.40. Below this is a green button that reads “Subscribe”. Under the button, a list is shown with checkmarks and the following items: “Switch courses as often as you like”, “Access Free Tutorials”, “Watch Interviews”, “Watch Video Lessons at Your Own Pace”, “Assignments Included”, and “Access to Schoolism Webinars Archives”.
The right box displays a “Lifetime Access” plan with a price of $79.98, below this is a green button that reads “Add to Cart”. Under the button, a list is shown with checkmarks and the following items: “One-time Purchase”, “Unlimited course access for life”, “Access Free Tutorials”, “Watch Interviews”, “Watch Video Lessons at Your Own Pace”, “Assign
... show moreThe image presents two options for course access, side-by-side in boxes with light beige backgrounds. The left box details a βSubscriptionβ plan, labeled with βMOST POPULARβ above a price of $249.40, crossed out $299.40. Below this is a green button that reads βSubscribeβ. Under the button, a list is shown with checkmarks and the following items: βSwitch courses as often as you likeβ, βAccess Free Tutorialsβ, βWatch Interviewsβ, βWatch Video Lessons at Your Own Paceβ, βAssignments Includedβ, and βAccess to Schoolism Webinars Archivesβ.
The right box displays a βLifetime Accessβ plan with a price of $79.98, below this is a green button that reads βAdd to Cartβ. Under the button, a list is shown with checkmarks and the following items: βOne-time Purchaseβ, βUnlimited course access for lifeβ, βAccess Free Tutorialsβ, βWatch Interviewsβ, βWatch Video Lessons at Your Own Paceβ, βAssignments Includedβ, and βAccess to Schoolism Webinars Archivesβ. Both boxes have a similar design and layout, highlighting the different features and pricing options available.
Provided by @altbot, generated privately and locally using Gemma3:27b
π± Energy used: 0.160 Wh