Unfortunately I may not be able to start any new video series for TROM anytime soon, due to the circumstances I am in. I have tried but it is kinda impossible.
Driving school madness.
For one I am too busy with the insane driving school - here in Spain it takes ages to do it and they are so draconian when it comes to these exams. You have to drive so perfect and the vast majority will fail the exam the first time. Funny part is NO ONE drives like that here or anywhere else in the world. And everyone knows that, but these people have jobs so they continue to teach you like this....as usual on this planet. Nothing surprising.
My instructor wants me to do more and more lessons, which means more time and money wasted. If she "thinks I am ready" for the exam, I will do it in July (next month). If not I'll have to wait till September....and based on statistics I am more likely to fail it the first time. So I'll probably have to wait a few more weeks after the first exam to try again.
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Unfortunately I may not be able to start any new video series for TROM anytime soon, due to the circumstances I am in. I have tried but it is kinda impossible.
Driving school madness.
For one I am too busy with the insane driving school - here in Spain it takes ages to do it and they are so draconian when it comes to these exams. You have to drive so perfect and the vast majority will fail the exam the first time. Funny part is NO ONE drives like that here or anywhere else in the world. And everyone knows that, but these people have jobs so they continue to teach you like this....as usual on this planet. Nothing surprising.
My instructor wants me to do more and more lessons, which means more time and money wasted. If she "thinks I am ready" for the exam, I will do it in July (next month). If not I'll have to wait till September....and based on statistics I am more likely to fail it the first time. So I'll probably have to wait a few more weeks after the first exam to try again.
This is so absurd it is hard to imagine how fucked up it is. If I knew I would have gone to Romania and get the driving license there in less than 2 months. Mind you I have started the driving school in Spain in December last year. Already some 7 months in...nuts!
I will make an article/video about the entire experience because there is a lot to learn from it. In a TROM-sense.
Summer madness
I live in a very small town that is 100% touristic. 3-4 months a year, from June/July to September tens of thousands of people come here and everything is a fucking mess. Noise, everything busy and kinda dirty, insanity. My family is working all day, they are stressed, they come and go, it is a terrible environment to be able to do anything creative. Add into the mix the extreme temperatures that are coming with the tourists, and it is really impossible to do anything like a video series.
For a video series I would have to first be motivated and have the space to "think" and come up with ideas. Write the scripts, fact check, etc.. Then to record - and when can I? I do not have the space/env to do that. And then to edit....Every summer is like that here, and every time I felt quite lethargic because of it.
Even while I write this article I have to put my headphones on with a white noise to be able to focus because I am sick to hear the noise coming from outside or inside the house. Every night I also put my speakers at maximum volume with an artificial thunderstorm, as loud as I can, to "cancel" the noise that comes from everyone getting up in the morning getting ready to work.
Else I could not sleep. I've been doing this for years now. Luckily it works. But this is not an environment that can allow me to do anything creative at all. I managed to do it somehow over the years but am too tired now....something needs to change, and it will!
Make money, buy a motorhome.
We will buy a small motorhome somewhere at the end of this year or beginning of the next. We want to live in it full time. One like the one in the photo.
But this puts a pressure on us to make more money now. Sasha is working a lot as a divemaster and I honestly do not do much. That makes me quite frustrated and depressed. I want to help in that regards but I was always terrible at making money. I can write books, make documentaries, and a lot of projects, but I am unable to make money.
I have tried with Webape.site but I cannot get any new "customer" who wants a website....
Unfortunately the donations I get from TROM are not enough at all to support my work. You know if the 200 for TROM campaign was successful and I knew we have enough money to survive, I could find a way to start a new video series for TROM and do more.
Unfortunately we are barely 40% funded. This is a constant struggle and a motivation killer for me after so many years of doing what am doing.
Motivation.
Speaking of getting support, it has become more and more difficult for me to keep myself motivated in this situation especially when you see that you can't even get 200 people to support all of our projects with the bare minimum of contribution. It means whatever I do for TROM does not reach that many people. And that is true. So without a proper support how can I push it forward? Projects like TROM are quite impossible to survive in this society....
I've been active since 2007, that's some 17 years. It is tough. But I am not giving up.
The best anyone can do now to help the project is to subscribe to our 200 for TROM campaign. 5 Euros a month, 200 people, make it sustainable. Unfortunately we need money else idk how I can work full time for TROM and keep this project relevant and alive.
Future?
I've said for months now that this year will be a bit insane for us. We need to move and do a lot of changes to our lives, make money, put up with a lot of stress and so forth.
The plan is this: suffer for the next few months and make money as much as we can. I have started to also sell some of our stuff that we do not need. And after the driving bullshit is done probably I'll work some days in cleaning. I will also try to get myself motivated enough to perhaps write some articles for TROM since that can be easier than making videos. I just have to find some quiet place/time (say from 00:00 to 06:00 in the night when everyone is asleep) and write/do research. Maybe later I can transform them into videos.
I will also try to film some stuff with the tourism here and other things "incognito" to then later on make some videos about.
In October we have to plan and see what money we have. We will have to bring my parents to Romania in November, so we will drive their car from here with their stuff since they move back for good. They will retire. We will stay a little bit in Romania to try and solve some more paperwork bullshit if we can - imagine this: Sasha has a driving license from USA, but she is only allowed to drive in Spain for 6 months with it. After that she needs to change it into a Spanish driving license. Easy? NO! She would have to go through the same bullshit driving school and exam like I am now....imagine that shit! She already knows how to drive but she will be forced to do again the theoretical and practical exam and take "driving lessons".
This world is such a load of nonsense it is not even funny anymore.
So we may try to see if we can exchange her driving license into a Romanian one, then exchange it for a Spanish one without doing the exam.
Hey Spain are you fucking mental?!
Anyway. We hope the madness will be over at the end of November. We will spend no more than a month in Romania (I hope). Then come back to Spain to buy a motorhome. Move into the motorhome and go fuckin away from the stupid parts of the world as much as we can.
We won't have enough money to buy the motorhome + pay the monthly expenses.....so we will also make a campaign if anyone can help out considering all I am doing for TROM is free and the motorhome is a house for me as well, of course, so that's a help for TROM basically. We will make the campaign towards the end of the year. We have the vast majority of the money we need to buy the motorhome already, but what do we do after we buy it when the only monthly support i get now is around 3-400 Euros?!
So it is going to be a bit rough for us to do the move.
The motorhome life.
Hopefully at the beginning of the next year we will be in our motorhome (TROMhome) and start a completely new life. We will make videos about our "adventures" and how it is to live in such a tiny mobile space with limited resources. Perhaps it is interesting for some. I want to put a big TROMhome logo on the motorhome, and to eventually go meet with interesting communities or projects and make videos about them.
In parallel I will keep our projects alive and relevant and I still hope to start a new video series whenever I can.
Ideally we would be able to travel and meet interesting projects and people and make videos about all of it, and also keep TROM relevant and alive and create new content. Meet our TROM friends, take them for a week or so with us, and try to live a very minimalistic life, enjoy it, and see where it goes.
Final thoughts.
I am terribly eager to make new content for TROM. I have a ton of ideas and notes. I feel quite depressed and frustrated to not be able to do that. But it is what it is. If it wasn't such a struggle to live in this society, perhaps I'd be wrong about this society when I describe the awfulness of it through our TROM materials. That's the paradox.
Maybe a miracle will happen and I would somehow start the video series soon, but I can't see that to be very likely. It is a terrible situation to want for the time to pass by faster, considering that our life is so short, but that's how I feel now: I want for these next months to be over! I want to see Sasha free and focusing on real important stuff not be trapped working 10-11 hours a day. I want us to not live in the same place anymore and be on our own. I want to start a video series that I can keep producing for the many years to come. I want us to keep on fighting but also have a relaxing life. And it is very doable!
This is a cake my family bought for my "birthday" recently haha. Me and Sasha, and TROMhome :). We will make this happen ;)
That's a total bummer to see you struggling with this fucking world so much, my friend 😔 I hope it'll soon pass for you, even though, you're absolutely correct that our lives aren't that long. I feel myself unmotivated and tired all the time from my job as well and I can't figure out how to squeeze in anything more sane and useful into my life. It's sad we have to fight for it, even though we have so many ideas and real passion to do beautiful things..
But I'm glad to see that you aren't giving up and it gives me hope too 😌 You aren't alone in this and I'll help you whenever I can. Awesome that you're considering a campaign for the TROMhome, I'll gladly participate, you can count on me 😉
Stay strong my brother, and hope this fucking nonsense will end for you soon 💪
Thank you my best friend Roma :) - we will pierce through this, us all. For you too this year is going to be difficult, but like with us after the struggle good things may come, finally :) . We will help and take care of each other as much as possible ;).
Patience! You will detach yourself from the BS society soonish I hope. And we will see each other soon! :)
It's hard to keep yourself sane when the world is full of such insanities. Sorry to hear these few months have been a struggle for you, hope it passes..... Sending love
On a more positive note, that cake looks so cute I hope it becomes a reality
Today is also the ALS day. Here a Spanish guy reivindacting more investigation and sharing how he deals with ALS for the last 10 years. His story was impacting to me since I am just one year younger than him... youtu.be/H8rw6dATGFw?si=26rl0m… Un abrazo Tio.
I was filming video in Hungary about Hortobagy Natural Park and then unexpectedly found out that in these days should be a natural phenomenon which occurs only once in a year, only in this week in...
Yeah religion is crazy but this is still incredibly sad man, those people didn't deserve to die 😔 As the effects of climate change worsen over time this is gonna affect more and more people's lives, not just because of heat but more frequent natural disasters and stuff like that.....
And speaking of religion, if this was any other place I'm sure it would've been shut off for safety reasons, but humans are stupid 😐
No one forces these idiots to go around in circles. I know it is their environment that makes them so stupid, however it is idiotic when you see such news and pretty much no one criticizing their stupid beliefs....just because we call it "religion". If this was a small group of a few thousand people believing this shit, prob we would call them a cult.
Religion is of course a big problem, but I guess it feels a bit insensitive to talk about dead people like that..... I've heard of real cult stories that happened in Kenya where the followers were convinced to starve themselves to death, a women was explaning how a relative of her fell victim to this cult and it's always heartbreaking to hear these stories..... I could call these people idiots but in the end they were all victims brainwashed into believing these bullshit.
For sure, this is a more wise view and I respect it and I usually have that kind of view as well, but at times I feel like saying it as it is: a bunch of idiots. After a while you get sick of these morons :D
It is shocking for me to see, in 2024, that many people are so "nationalists". Our language! Our land! Our stuff! Our people!
It is terrible. We now know that we are one species living on one planet. We have common issues and are connected with each-other and with the environment around in the most scientific way possible. This is what should matter.
You language was stolen from other language and it is in a constant mutation and dynamic changes. Your traditions and food are borrowed and mixed from other cultures and lands. Your territory most likely stolen from others through force, and the stuff you consume is not made in your tribe. Music, movies, and so on, are also remixes from different parts of the world. Your healthcare system relies on the work of people who are/were not from your tribe, and overall the development of science which allows us to build buildings, make food and stuff, and overall understand the world around us is built on the shoulders of humans that came from different tribes.
So fuck off with your nationalism bullshit!
Grow a fuckin
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It is shocking for me to see, in 2024, that many people are so "nationalists". Our language! Our land! Our stuff! Our people!
It is terrible. We now know that we are one species living on one planet. We have common issues and are connected with each-other and with the environment around in the most scientific way possible. This is what should matter.
You language was stolen from other language and it is in a constant mutation and dynamic changes. Your traditions and food are borrowed and mixed from other cultures and lands. Your territory most likely stolen from others through force, and the stuff you consume is not made in your tribe. Music, movies, and so on, are also remixes from different parts of the world. Your healthcare system relies on the work of people who are/were not from your tribe, and overall the development of science which allows us to build buildings, make food and stuff, and overall understand the world around us is built on the shoulders of humans that came from different tribes.
Reminds me of Sasha's Prison Earth video. I wonder if there'd still be any nationalism left if people were allowed to freely move from one place to another without restrictions. Humans make up these imaginary ideas like borders and then use force to make everyone accept them.
Just a reminder that my Pixel 4a running @CalyxOS is still rock solid after months of use. No issues at all. No ads, no tracking, no bullshit. No need for a new phone for many years to come. Long live CalyxOS! :)
Nice! I also have a 4a and I was torn between Calyx and Graphene. My only issue is I need Android Auto and neither OS supports it on the 4a. Glad to hear Calyx has been stable on it, though.
Better than throwing that phone away. There are so many phones in the world that are not updated in years and I do not see an epidemic of phones getting hacked. Yes it is fucked up that google and the like do not provide updates for older phones, but with CalyxOS and the like you can make your phone usable for many many years.
I trust Calyx so that's enough for me. We can't throw these phones away, that would be a lot more insane. We already throw some 350 cruiseships of ewaste every year. I have no idea where you got that gossip about Calyx and Graphene I never heard of this.
What has Google listened to? So are they providing security support for their Pixel 4a? Or just the new Pixel as a marketing scheme? Because rendering millions of phones "dead" and unusable because you refuse to support it software-wise, should be a criminal act.
I can't trust you saying that CalyxOS for Pixel 4a is a security risk. I have no idea who you are or what you do. I bet most phones are not getting security updates anymore but we still see no epidemic of hacked devices and dead people around us.
I think you are greatly exaggerating and it seems to me you have some beef with Calyx for some reason.
Yah you should stop with your assumptions. I have no clue what you are talking about so better not comment unless you provide some context/links to inform the uninformed ones about this "situation".
@GalacticBox "But people shouldn't take it to an extreme and use an insecure device for years on end"
Years on end? You make it sound like I've been hanging onto this phone for the last 10 years.
I bought the phone at release in August 2020. Google ended support for it in August 2023. Three years is an absolute joke.
My understanding is that Graphene gets the security updates via AOSP. Since Google no longer provides updates to the 4a then there is a definite security risk.
A new service was added to our trade-free services at TROM.tf - TROM Draw draw.trom.tf/
A tiny and useful online drawing board providing basic tools for the job. You can also create multi-user drawing boards where your friends can join you and draw together. The drawings can also be saved locally.
My debunk of Terrence Howard's Joe Rogan appearance caused quite a stir, pissing off a lot of delusional toddlers who thought he was a genius. So let's do it...
This man is asking to be killed (assisted suicide) because he will be kicked out of his home and he does not want to end up being homeless and sick - youtu.be/Up5k2Lx5SPI
Just a news from planet Earth where the "only" intelligent species in the Universe lives. Where they, humans, have so much shit (cars and toys, electronics and houses, food and clothes) that they create mountains of waste out of them. And yet, many people suffer on a daily basis because these "intelligent" humans do not realize that they are merely a more advanced species of ants who work all day, but never wonder for what. They trade trade trade....and that's all they do. They are blinded by the fantasy of their system that they themselves created and it is now obsolete.
We can provide for everyone with a decent life, trade-free. Now. Today. Not tomorrow.
A St. Catharines man says he will choose medically assisted death over homelessness. CityNews explores the ethics of MAiD amid concerns some feel they have n...
This is absolute abomination and hard to believe that this is "the system" humanity has built for themselves.. when everyone are preaching about "human rights", that "human life is priceless" and yet the cases like this happen. Not even saying how many are actually dying on the streets every day. Apparently, only "consumer lives are priceless" after all. Disgusting.
Just to be clear, I'm not OP. But I know that content warnings are not as prevalent on Friendica as it is on Mastodon, it makes sense when you consider the fact that one is made for blogging and the other for microblogging, the UI is completely different. I think Friendica devs recommend using filters instead, as it has excellent filter support.
I agree that as many people as possible should see it, but it can be triggering for people that already struggle with suicidal ideation, and I doubt you want to accidentally kill somebody.
This is too much projection tho. Too much.... We can't label some posts as "sensitive" because we may think we could make someone harm themselves....there is no end in sight if you have this approach. We can't babysit people in this manner. This is the internet and it will be full of all sorts of negative stuff.
The good news is that this man was saved by random people from around the world who donated money to allow him to pay for the house he was living in youtu.be/__rk7KVMbxM - but ofc this should not be the case. We need to have a system that takes care of people.
@tio There are humans out there who can recognize this injustice, the fact that people donated money to this man is proof of that. I hope we can all use our collective will to change the system for good, at least having a safety net for preventing poverty is a must.
FINALLY! I was able to capture a waterbear! These creatures are fucking fantastic, read more about them here. These motherfuckers are some of the most resilient forms of life that we know. You put these fuckers into space and they won't give a fuck.
I've heard about these creatures before, they go into a sort of hibernation mode when they're in a hostile environment and stay that way until favorable conditions arrive.
In this video I show what happens to Water Bears (Tardigrades) when they are in a vacuum. Water bears were on board the Israeli spacecraft that crash landed ...
We live in a world where everyone is busy, everyone is consumed, everyone seems confused. Money, social credits, ads, data collection, prices and billionaires. Climate change? Who cares! A one-marb...
Sad to hear that Michael Mosley has died and in such an unlucky situation after a short walk on a tiny Greek island. Probably because of the extreme heat and his age/health.
He made many great documentaries, lots of them are featured on VideoNeat.
Life is a short adventure and you have no clue when it is going to end.
Roma
in reply to Tio • • •That's a total bummer to see you struggling with this fucking world so much, my friend 😔 I hope it'll soon pass for you, even though, you're absolutely correct that our lives aren't that long. I feel myself unmotivated and tired all the time from my job as well and I can't figure out how to squeeze in anything more sane and useful into my life. It's sad we have to fight for it, even though we have so many ideas and real passion to do beautiful things..
But I'm glad to see that you aren't giving up and it gives me hope too 😌 You aren't alone in this and I'll help you whenever I can. Awesome that you're considering a campaign for the TROMhome, I'll gladly participate, you can count on me 😉
Stay strong my brother, and hope this fucking nonsense will end for you soon 💪
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Tio
in reply to Roma • •Thank you my best friend Roma :) - we will pierce through this, us all. For you too this year is going to be difficult, but like with us after the struggle good things may come, finally :) . We will help and take care of each other as much as possible ;).
Patience! You will detach yourself from the BS society soonish I hope. And we will see each other soon! :)
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Rokosun
in reply to Tio • • •It's hard to keep yourself sane when the world is full of such insanities. Sorry to hear these few months have been a struggle for you, hope it passes..... Sending love
On a more positive note, that cake looks so cute I hope it becomes a reality
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