Do not forget that the internet, youtube, netflix, cars and supermarkets, lightbulbs and modern medicine, do not make our society "civilized". These are a result of often enslaved humans producing "stuff" in a trade-based society. Technologically we, as a society, are quite advanced, but morally we are primitive.
Despite all of this technological progress humans are still forcing ALL of their billions of members to trade in order to survive, despite being able to feed, house, and take care of everyone on Earth. This means we are still primitive and have no greater goals such as exploration, the advancement of technology and science, understanding where we came from and where we are heading... All that humans do is trade, day in, day out.
Slaves and slave owners. Simple minds. Robots.
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Do not forget that the internet, youtube, netflix, cars and supermarkets, lightbulbs and modern medicine, do not make our society "civilized". These are a result of often enslaved humans producing "stuff" in a trade-based society. Technologically we, as a society, are quite advanced, but morally we are primitive.
Despite all of this technological progress humans are still forcing ALL of their billions of members to trade in order to survive, despite being able to feed, house, and take care of everyone on Earth. This means we are still primitive and have no greater goals such as exploration, the advancement of technology and science, understanding where we came from and where we are heading... All that humans do is trade, day in, day out.
Slaves and slave owners. Simple minds. Robots.
If you take away the electrification, internet, the gadgets, the hot water and the mass produced products - stuff - you are left with the "naked" humans who all they want is to acquire more, get "married", work, have kids, drink, and cheer up for their tribe.
It is the environment who creates these behaviors so if we do not change the "mental" environment, nothing will happen. We do not need new tech, new science, new materials. We need new lives for the individuals of this species. Lives that are relaxed and taken care of. Scientific, globally oriented, and to live in a non competitive environment.
So the UN or other institutions, if they ever want to solve any global issues, they need to first propose that we should take care of people and create a decent life for them. All of them, not just the very poor. We are all trapped in this trade-prison. You can't expect for a different society to emerge when all humans do is to slave away and compete with each other. Dog eats dog world.
Happy 1st of May to all of the slaves who got a day off. What a disgrace of a society.
We have raised 40% of the amount of money we need to support TROM forever. We only accept 5 Euros donations from people, monthly, to make it sustainable.
If you think TROMjaro is cool, our TROM books are well made and scientific, the TROM II documentary is important, and the other 20 or so projects are worth supporting, please consider a donation - tromsite.com/donate/
Can you believe this spider here is 40 MILLION years old?! That is so COOL!
Look at this 40 million years old Baltic Amber. What is cool about this amber is that it has a complex structure that makes it denser, harder and more resistant to external factors. It also makes possible good preservation of plant and animal inclusions. Insects, spiders and even their webs, frogs, crustaceans, bacteria and amoebae, marine microfossils, wood, flowers and fruit, hair, feathers and other small organisms have been recovered in amber. Even small mammals. Here you can see some extinct insect inclusions, such as spiders, ants, fleas, mosquitos, etc.
Dont forget to mention that you made these photos haha, else it looks as if you took them from the internet. Our good friend Agata gave us a bag of amber - her father was collecting them, he was a scientists from Poland. We are digging into these now :D - I ordered a microscope so we can look closer and I'd like to make a video about it. Awesome stuff, and hard to believe these creatures stayed there still, for so many millions of years. Such a long long sleep :)
Wait waat?! This is so fuckin cool 🤩 I can't believe she just gave you all that, she's so nice it seems, they're marvelous 😻 A part of me wants to become Agata's BFF right now too, haha 😁 jealousss 😄 These gems might even look great in some museum, but better you have it, hehe. Hope you'll be able to raise a dinosaur out of it or something 😂
oh she didn't give them all to us, but to look and study them for as long as we want probably haha. she gave a lot to the museums too. when you'll come, in less than 2 weeks (yay :) ) we will show you guys all of them - I ordered a microscope already so we have some fun with them!! and you will get to meet Agata. She is so nice!
I see, but "as long as you want" sounds long enough to me, haha 😁 Anyway, it's super interesting to have them close to study 🤓
Oh man, you can't oversell it more to me already, haha. Can't wait! Seems like previously we observed the macroworld through the telescope and now it's the microworld time! 😎 See, this is why I love the TROM tribe, so many of like-minded people, naturally curious and wondering Humans ❤️
haha yah! I wish we would do these more often and for longer...and more people would do these. This is part of our story as humans: form micro to macro. Can't wait to meet up again my friend!
@tio I first thought Georgi maybe went to a museum and took these pictures, didn't realize you have it at home! That is so cool man! 😍 Thank Agata and her father for letting you take a look 'cause those are some precious scientific collection.
yup. actually Agata's father died a year or so ago and he left behind a lot of amber - Agata took it and donated a bunch to museums. Amber is such a time machine.
I finished reading @Sasha 's book after reading a rough draft some 2-3 years ago. I wrote a review when she released the book but now that I finished it and it all is fresh in my mind I want to briefly say some condensed atom-sized thoughts about it, without spoiling it for those who have not read it.
This book can be deceiving. You may think it is about a small cute girl traveling around the world with very little money. And that is part of it, but the unique aspect of this book is the overall mental growth for Sasha. This is what I LOVED about it. To see how a human grows to understand how the world works and how that makes her react. All of the crazy and wonderful (at times scary) adventures are not just that, are part of the ingredients that create the cake.
And she is a wonderful cake.
The places that Sasha saw and got to experience
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I finished reading @Sasha 's book after reading a rough draft some 2-3 years ago. I wrote a review when she released the book but now that I finished it and it all is fresh in my mind I want to briefly say some condensed atom-sized thoughts about it, without spoiling it for those who have not read it.
This book can be deceiving. You may think it is about a small cute girl traveling around the world with very little money. And that is part of it, but the unique aspect of this book is the overall mental growth for Sasha. This is what I LOVED about it. To see how a human grows to understand how the world works and how that makes her react. All of the crazy and wonderful (at times scary) adventures are not just that, are part of the ingredients that create the cake.
And she is a wonderful cake.
The places that Sasha saw and got to experience make me feel like I lived in a cave my entire life. I bet many people will think that Sasha invented some of these stories because it is insane in a few years time to jump from tribe to tribe, meet locals, go live with them, have extraordinary experiences with them, have no money, then work a few months make a shit load of money, buy a car, live in the car; hitchhike the entire Europe, sleep in the middle of Australia, go and snowboard for free or little money on so many tall peaks from all around the world, become a divemaster, surf awesome waves in Hawaii, drive your car across the entire USA and swim with dolphins, sharks and manta rays.
Fucking shit! This human lived 55 lives in 15 years. You either get depressed at that, thinking like me that you have not experienced even 1% of what she experienced, or make you motivated to go see the world and free yourself from this trade based society (which also makes me want to do).
Sasha did a WONDERFUL job describing all of these places and experiences. No photos needed! And many of these adventures and places will forever live inside of my brain as if I was a close observer.
Best of all, in my view, is that now she signed a "contract" with me with this book, to join me in my battle! :) A battle of TROM vs Society! Her book is her contribution and there is more to follow!
With that she sandwiched her book perfectly - the beginning bun (prologue) that will give you a taste of what is about to come; in the middle are the many flavors of ingredients stacked neatly and chronologically on top of each other - some 300 pages of life; and lastly the top bun that perfectly brings it all together in a perfect taste, connecting the dots and making all of the ingredients and the bottom bun part of one big thing.
Thank you so much Tio, that was such a nice review that I don't even know what to say 😊 I'm so happy that you enjoyed my book and that you found something important in it. I'm so happy that you could feel my growth as a human- that was something I hoped to achieve in this book, but was difficult because there are so many stories, people, and so many things happening. Thank you for all your kind words and for the huge amount of support you've given to me and this book over many many years.
Sorry if I made you feel like you lived in a cave 😬 But you were actually doing much more important things than me in that "cave". You were growing your brain and making the important and inspiring content that brought me to you 😊 And this in turn grew my brain and the brains of many others 🙂 Thank you for your contribution to this book- the design, the emotional support, and even the content. Without you, this book would not have been the same (and neither would I 😉) 🙂
I already feel like living in a cave, lol 😄 Maybe reading your book will inspire me to go out more often 😁
> But you were actually doing much more important things than me in that "cave". You were growing your brain and making the important and inspiring content that brought me to you 😊 And this in turn grew my brain and the brains of many others 🙂
This is so true, Tio might be physically in a cave but he travels around the whole damn universe with his mind, haha 😂
It is funny, in Spain if you want to legally trade your own services, say you make websites, then you have to become "autonomo" - like self-employed, and pay between 60 to 100 euros a month taxes even if you make no money as self-employed. hahaha. That after you will have to pay a lawyer some 60 more euros a month to deal with the shitload of papers and nonsense.
You know these "taxes" in theory seem like a decent idea: take a bit of money from each citizen, to then put that money into healthcare and other things that will be free for these "citizens".
In practice it is shitshow of corruption and making the rich richer. And a huge pain in the ass for everyone. I would not mind contributing 20% of my "income" to a tribe if I get free healthcare and other benefits, but only if it was made simple and you could see the effect of your contribution.
Spain seems like the capital of papers and nonsense. But the entire world is like that one way of another...
Such a wasted time on the most "unique" planet in the universe. Deal with papers, try to survive, be busy wi
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It is funny, in Spain if you want to legally trade your own services, say you make websites, then you have to become "autonomo" - like self-employed, and pay between 60 to 100 euros a month taxes even if you make no money as self-employed. hahaha. That after you will have to pay a lawyer some 60 more euros a month to deal with the shitload of papers and nonsense.
You know these "taxes" in theory seem like a decent idea: take a bit of money from each citizen, to then put that money into healthcare and other things that will be free for these "citizens".
In practice it is shitshow of corruption and making the rich richer. And a huge pain in the ass for everyone. I would not mind contributing 20% of my "income" to a tribe if I get free healthcare and other benefits, but only if it was made simple and you could see the effect of your contribution.
Spain seems like the capital of papers and nonsense. But the entire world is like that one way of another...
Such a wasted time on the most "unique" planet in the universe. Deal with papers, try to survive, be busy with nothing things... No thank you!
So yeah, in a trade based society is not enough to "trade", you have to do it in a particular way. And if you are poor you are entirely fucked to begin with anyway.
Oof man that sounds like a bad deal for poor folks trying to make some money for themselves. If you have a thriving business then you're good, but for poor folks with small self-employment projects this will be a pain to deal with.
Flatpaks are really outrageous in size...I have tried to use flatpaks for the past months but man o man....hundreds of MB for each package, takes forever to update them even on my 1GB internet connection. The idea is great, but this is such a huge downside that I cannot see how it is going to make the flatpaks easier to use than normal packaging.
probably really depends on your usecase. For my slow internet connection, I really love how Flatpaks are an exception to the "partial upgrades are not supported" problem. Just because I need to install discord it does not mean that I want to do a 2,3GB update to my system, my friend is waiting for me.
A lot of those sizes are a worse case scenario. If you have shared requirements with other installed apps, flatpak will deduplacate requirement and save space.
Sometimes it is just bad packagers not cleaning up the builds. I package with flatpak, mainly legacy applications, and mine never usually get that explosive in size. Chromium is about 350MB installed with apt.
I don't understand what is the point of releasing an IDE via #flatpak, when that flatpak doesn't include all the necessary dev tools, and it can't access the ones outside its sandboxing. Honestly. What's the point? I'm looking at you, #Geany.
Personally, I can't stand flatpaks or #snap. #Appimage is nicer just because it's just one delete away from within the file manager and doesn't leave crumbs everywhere. But overall, I prefer #apt, and #dnf.
FYI each Flatpak app is like a Git repo and an update just downloads the files that actually changed. The files of all installed apps are stored together in a content-addressable storage, then hardlinked one or more times to form each app.
OSTree-based host OSs like Fedora Atomic work in the same way and hopefully in the future the files will be shared between the host OS and Flatpak apps too.
When you install a Flatpak, it will need runtimes (GNOME, KDE, Freedesktop...). These are the ones that really take up disk space. But the good news is that it looks big if you install just one Flatpak application, but the more you install, the more they'll use the same runtimes already installed, and the less disk space they'll occupy.
And no, ungoogled-chromium doesn't require 4-5 GB, just 153 MB...
And no, ungoogled-chromium doesn't require 4-5 GB, just 153 MB...
How come on my system it had to download 4-5GB? And yes I use many flatpaks but that didn't seem to help. And this is not the first time am seeing these massive downloads.
And if your package manager doesn't do it automatically, you can also use this command to uninstall old runtimes you no longer need: flatpak uninstall --unused
@florke64 Why do you think native packages are going away? Especially when flatpaks has all these downsides like taking too much space and not respecting the user's theme or integrating well with the system. Flatpak is there as an option but you don't need to use it if you don't want to, I personally never use it and I'm fine..... 🤷 I'm not sure about Ubuntu tho 'cause I'm on Arch, but I'd be surprised if Debian ever gets rid of native packaging.
"takes forever to update them even on my 1GB internet connection"? huh?... you're on gigabit internet and it's taking forever? honestly that's not possible... Are you sure you have gigabit internet? or do you mean that your lan port is a gigabit port?..
I use flatpaks and it's really not that big of a deal (plus it happens in the background anyone, so most people will pretty never notice it)
Yes I know very well what connection I have but since it has to download around 4-5 GB in that case, it takes a long long time. It depends the server where it is pulling these updates from I guess.... Maybe that particular package is worse than other flatpaks, but I have noticed this issue with long download times and huge download sizes on multiple computers and multiple flatpaks.
@futureisfoss @florke64 easy of use. Flatpaks are much easier to use for the average 'new to linux' user. Plus they actually have a proper permission system (flatseal) unlike native packages.
definitely it's outrageous. it's that way by design. personal example: i don't run KDE but wanted to try okular, and ran the heck away and removed it when i saw it had installed 48,954 files at a cost of 820MB. this is just ridiculous...for a friggin' PDF reader?
@futureisfoss Interesting points. Inconveniences like theming are going to improve over time. Transition will happen gradually. I don't see Debian dropping *.deb support. However, I can imagine Debian shipping Flatpak applications.
@thibaultmol @florke64 I'm not sure about ease of use because most GUI distros have a software center these days for installing native and flatpak apps - so both are easy now. The permission system is interesting and could have some privacy/security improvements, but this containerization can also create issues with theming and such. A friend of mine recently had issues with playing games on Bottles because of flatpak's sandboxing - so in certain situations it can get in your way.
We have changed the way we deal with the 200 FOR TROM campaign in terms of donations. Let me explain.
Ideally we wanted to have a simple donation campaign where people can only contribute 5 Euros a month - no more, no less. However pretty much no Wordpress plugin is designed for this, since they are all geared towards selling products or creating campaigns where people can donate any amount. But I wanted to try something new by limiting the amount of money that people can donate monthly. I want to distribute the burden we put on individuals, but also to limit the growth of TROM, as a project, to a manageable "height".
The plugin we were using was not reliable at all and I even had to pay for it (which is ironic since we do not get enough financial support from the campaign itself). Because it is important to accept a wide variety of payment options, and "cards plus Paypal" are the most used worldwide, this plugin tried to combine Stripe (cards) with Paypal
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Hey people,
We have changed the way we deal with the 200 FOR TROM campaign in terms of donations. Let me explain.
Ideally we wanted to have a simple donation campaign where people can only contribute 5 Euros a month - no more, no less. However pretty much no Wordpress plugin is designed for this, since they are all geared towards selling products or creating campaigns where people can donate any amount. But I wanted to try something new by limiting the amount of money that people can donate monthly. I want to distribute the burden we put on individuals, but also to limit the growth of TROM, as a project, to a manageable "height".
The plugin we were using was not reliable at all and I even had to pay for it (which is ironic since we do not get enough financial support from the campaign itself). Because it is important to accept a wide variety of payment options, and "cards plus Paypal" are the most used worldwide, this plugin tried to combine Stripe (cards) with Paypal into one single campaign. But the plugin stopped working with Paypal and then could not communicate with Stripe anymore, so when a donation was canceled the plugin had no idea.
In short, we could not count how many people are still actively subscribed to the campaign via this plugin, so I ended up having to check in TROM's Stripe and Paypal accounts to see how many are subscribed...and then manually add that number to our donation page. On top of that I cannot pay for the plugin's subscription and therefore I cannot receive updates - and having an outdated plugin that deals with payments is not a good idea.
OK.
These being said it is time to give up on this plugin and rely directly on Stripe and Paypal. If anyone wants to support us they will be redirected to any of these websites where they can complete the payment and manage their subscriptions via them. It is the safest, easiest, and direct way of doing this. If the Stripe integration with Paypal will be enabled in the following days then perhaps we will only use Stripe which can process pretty much any kind of payment, including Paypal.
I hate dealing with these things, trust me.
What will happen to your current subscription?
If you want to cancel it, please contact us or reply to this email. If you want to change the payment method then it is better to ask us to cancel your subscription and then you can do it again. After that you can manage it via Stripe/Paypal. It is simple.
What about the wall of donors?
I would really love to have a "wall of donors", a list of people who are actively supporting this campaign...maybe this is a nice way of thanking them publicly. But right now I do not know how to do that since we use both Stripe and Paypal, and some people do not want their names to be displayed publicly. If Stripe enables Paypal as a payment option then maybe I can do something about this. Sorry! But also...this is not a fashion show and we all understand that. We need some financial support to maintain our projects that are about serious global problems and ways to think differently about "fixing" them. TROM is not a project that tries to blend into this system and find financial support to be "sustainable" in that sense - it is a way to scream and harness the anger towards something positive/educational/informative and helpful. And for that we simply need some financial help.
Lastly.
A big thank you to Marcel who became the 80st donor for our campaign while I was writing this message. And I appreciate all of you very much! We are almost half way there, and that gives me some hope. We have a lot of plans for TROM, so let's see how things will evolve. We will keep you posted.
Movies/Music/Books are not just that. Often times they are a marketing tool and many people may be clueless about the fact that they insert product placements everywhere.
When @Georgi shared a video from our documentary on Facebook and wanted to tag @Be Brave To Act Facebook page, she had no option but had it appeared as if this was a "paid partnership" with @Dima 's page. haha. Because as I said before, Facebook is not a "social network" it is an ad platform, so they naturally see these "taggings" between pages as partnerships.
I will delay with the video series I wanted to make for TROM. I am working for a WebApe project/website, so it is what it is. If I had the minimum support that I need (see here tromsite.com/donate/ ) then I would focus 100% on TROM.
But the video series will come.... ;). That I know for sure!
A revealing and moving portrait of lives compromised by war, filmed exclusively by Ukrainian soldiers with extraordinary access to a tightly controlled front line.
A reminder that our tromsite.com domain is blocked by Google and thus we cannot send any emails form our tromsite.com domain to any Gmail accounts... We have tried to fix this but so far no luck.
Google is an ad company so better not use Gmail in the first place.
Finally Sasha got her residency approved here in Spain after 4-5 years of us trying, spending money, being stressed. After being rejected once because we did not have enough money as a family - imagine that! That was the actual reason.
But now that I had a "job" they made us wait 7 months from the moment we applied, and 2 complaints later from the lawyer about why they do not approve it, it finally got approved. And the reason was ONLY because I was a "trader" in this bullshit trade society.
How terrible that we treat people like tools. The value is in what and how much you can trade. Does not matter if you are a good human being. Smart? Doesn't matter. Calm and helpful? Nope. Scientifically minded? Nah.
I spent my life doing free things for others, never made a profit, but this has 0 value in this society.
Anyway, fuck you to those who support a world where we are divided into tribes and languages, and treating people like sole traders/marketers and not humans. We have global problems but so many still want to have their own "separate" tribe and care only
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Finally Sasha got her residency approved here in Spain after 4-5 years of us trying, spending money, being stressed. After being rejected once because we did not have enough money as a family - imagine that! That was the actual reason.
But now that I had a "job" they made us wait 7 months from the moment we applied, and 2 complaints later from the lawyer about why they do not approve it, it finally got approved. And the reason was ONLY because I was a "trader" in this bullshit trade society.
How terrible that we treat people like tools. The value is in what and how much you can trade. Does not matter if you are a good human being. Smart? Doesn't matter. Calm and helpful? Nope. Scientifically minded? Nah.
I spent my life doing free things for others, never made a profit, but this has 0 value in this society.
Anyway, fuck you to those who support a world where we are divided into tribes and languages, and treating people like sole traders/marketers and not humans. We have global problems but so many still want to have their own "separate" tribe and care only about that. Fuck your flag, your language, your culture. Fuck nationalism. A primitive disease.
We are all humans with a 4 billion years long history, a mindblowing one. Single cells becoming what we are today. The way we are connected to each other, scientifically, dwarfs any bullshit man-made story about their own tribe. We have lego-brick-like structures we call the DNA that encode all of what we are. And all of what other creatures are, and how we are all connected.
We live on a giant sphere with a thin layer of atmosphere protecting us from the infinite universe out there.
So fuck you if you think your nationalism is so important, and your borders and stupid nonsensical laws.
I had to let this out because it is outrageous how primitive this society is.
Yea, it's fucking nonsense that they treated you both like that and I agree 100% about "nation" phenomena and I would even add how actually trade plays a major role in forming those tribes and nationalism in order to protect the historical, territorial and location advantages for milking the benefits and profits out of the things in possession and participating in global trading. If you think about it, even some of those entire tribes are nothing for the world, because from that perspective they have no "value", like we see by all what happens in Gaza nowadays. Imagine that. It's crazy how outdated and delusional our civilization's perspectives on what is Humanity real history and advantages..
In any way, as someone who has to pass through the same process every two years, even though I'm a way more "decent trader" from their perspective and it was way easier for me to get those papers, I congrats you both @Sasha @Tio. I hope it will really make your life at least a bit easier from now on 🙏
@Tio and @Roma you make such good points, I love you both and am so happy to know you guys, real humans- smart ones 🙂 It is unbelievable really, that you can't be together with your "wife" if you're just a good human and you do things to help others without asking for anything in return. Fucking insane. And true that borders and nationalism just benefit a few powerful players at the top, and the rest are their pawns without even knowing it..
Indeed @Sasha ! Agree about the power-players at the top and that no people should be treated like you were, especially such wondeful and caring Humans like you both are ☺️ Much love back! ❤️
Yes 100% @Roma ! Also politicians using this "nationalism" to et more votes, bcs that makes them more money if elected, and so forth.... ways important to understand where these issues arise from.
Oh, that's so true @Tio ! That's all politics are about - money.. Even the fact that you have no access to the election process and thus to the decision making without a huge amount of money, says it all about the systems we have.. it's a game for big daddies 😑
I love how you mention the actual scientific history of human beings! Countries and borders are man-made fiction/ideas that we choose to believe in, and they keep changing from time to time - there is a stark difference between that and the actual scientific reality of our world. Science is often a very humbling experience I feel like, think of the famous pale blue dot image and how carl sagan described it......
BTW, I'm glad to hear @bigworldsmallsasha is finally free to stay there in Spain, that must've been a huge relief after having to go through this much trouble.
"It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." C.S.
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in reply to Tio • •I see, but "as long as you want" sounds long enough to me, haha 😁 Anyway, it's super interesting to have them close to study 🤓
Oh man, you can't oversell it more to me already, haha. Can't wait! Seems like previously we observed the macroworld through the telescope and now it's the microworld time! 😎 See, this is why I love the TROM tribe, so many of like-minded people, naturally curious and wondering Humans ❤️
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in reply to Tio • • •@tio When you said "Agata's father was a scientist" I thought maybe he retired, sorry to hear he passed away....
Donating amber to museums is the right thing to do, it really is a time machine indeed....
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