A university is a typically a collection of colleges (or schools).

For example: Harvard University is made up of Harvard College, Harvard Business School, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Law School, Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, etc.

For all intents and purposes - we use the word “college” and “university” interchangeably because they’re the same level of education. Either can do associates through doctoral.

Community colleges, however, only focus on 2 year degrees and certain certifications.

I had a lot of good years on Fark.

You want to kill germs? Use mouthwash. There’s pretty much nothing beneficial about smoking cigarettes.

Even when you take the health considerations out of account, you will reek. I assure you, nobody wants to spend time around a partner that emits a nauseating scent. It’s a bad habit in every sense of the term.

Yes - nicotine can be a quick stress reliever. That’s about al it’s good for.

I understand that you need something to help you get through the days, but there are tons of other things that you could do.

Heck, even switching to vaping will improve your health outcomes considerably. And you won’t smell.

I don’t know why you’re fighting your girlfriend on this, it seems like she’s genuinely concerned and you’re being so stubborn as to look online to justify your addiction. Yes, you are addicted. You smoke more than a pack a week and refuse to quit or offer a compromising alternative. If I was her, I’d leave you.

…Spiiiriiiit……

I heard ‘Congregation’ in the show Devs (loved it), and was surprised I never listened to them before. Went back and listened to the whole catalog… several times over. It’s the best airplane music.

I listen to a bit of everything. Bands in my recent rotation include Low, 3rd Secret, Motörhead, Rick James, L7 and Joji, Aimee Mann, Mdou Moctar, Aphex Twin, Beastie Boys. Donny Benet

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s PetroDragon Apocalypse is my favorite album all year.

My favorite all time genre is industrial. So stuff like The Young Gods, Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly, KMFDM, Ministry, Filter, Mulitple Man, Meat Beat Manifesto, Pig, Emptyset, Youth Code, Atari Teenage Riot / Alec Empire, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, Download…

The PetroDragronic Apocalypse is one of the best records I’ve heard in some time, from any band, in any genre.

I can’t stop listening to it. To add, I’m not really a fan of any of their other records. They’re clearly good, just doesn’t resonate with me as much as this one does.

Indeed. Prior to 2010 - it was a roll of the dice. If insurance wasn’t provided through your work, you had to be lucky enough to live in a State with decent laws preventing some of these predatory insurance practices. Back then, the uninsured rate was close to 19%. Almost 1 in 5 Americans.

Today, that rate is 8.4%. Which hails the victory of the ACA because “91.6% of Americans have insurance” sounds nice. And compared to where we were 13 years ago, it is nice.

In reality, we have 28 million uninsured people, many of whom are children. There’s a long way to go.

While I’m personally satisfied with my level of coverage and standard of care, I don’t understand how we can comfortably accept a society that bankrupts our most vulnerable residents for being sick. I’m baffled how this wasn’t already solved or mostly resolved in my lifetime. Or at least seeing more states take on the Hawaii or Massachusetts health care models.

An individual can sign up for a plan through their State’s health insurance exchange or the federal government’s HealthCare.gov website.

It is usually more expensive than getting it through an employer - but works to serve small business owners, freelancers, etc.

A few States (like Massachusetts) have semi-universal systems that cover all individuals that earn under 150% of poverty, independent students, newly unemployed, etc.

A lot of Americans are also covered under Medicare, Medicaid , Social Security and other programs.

Retirees aged 65 and older are eligible for Medicare - a semi-universal federal system that covers pretty much everything and accepted most places.

I met one of my closest friends on r/needafriend. Turns out, she lived like a 10 minute walk from me - and we met up over some food.

On paper, our friendship shouldn’t work. We have little in common in terms of activities and goals. But we know how to make each other laugh and ‘get’ each other’s personality. Been like 9 years.

Whether it’s Reddit, Lemmy, Discord or some other platform - there’s definitely people out there looking for the same things. Online is a good place to start.

See if your closest city has a ‘Speed Friending’ event. Here in Boston, we have “Skip the Small Talk” and you get seated with a stranger and a dialogue prompt. I found that to be really effective too.

It’s been rough since 6/30. I can barely browse and leave comments in my .world account. I’m sticking to .ml for now.

I’ve got two for Lemmy.

mlem is currently being developed for iOS with around ~20 contributors. It’s in early open beta, and I’m psyched because there’s supposed to be a massive update between now and tomorrow.

memmy for iOS looks promising. Really intuitive ‘swipe to upvote/downvote/reply’ feature and browses similarly to Apollo. It’s very barebones right now, the project is just a few days old and there’s one developer (as far as I know).

Wikipedia is the 7th most visited website in the world, more popular than Amazon, TikTok, even PornHub. It’s not funded by advertisers or other bullshit - rather through reader donations.

With that said, Wikipedia is still centralized content whereas Lemmy isn’t. Meaning there’s fewer expenses and pressure on any one instance or server to succeed. And if one instance or server doesn’t succeed, your access to the Federation is far from over.

If you use lemmy.ml (the developer’s instance), I would recommend reading the front page sidebar. Under RULE #1 - “No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia”.

Here is a screenshot for reference, feel free to share with folks.

If the enemies of Nazis are religious, ethnic and sexual minorities - then lemmy.ml 's front page immediately puts to rest any notion they are associated with far-right ideologies.

That said, my best understanding is that one or more of the developers identify as communists/anticapitalist and are involved in lemmygrad.ml and /c/socialism.

And with that in mind, a platform like Lemmy is communist by nature: nobody owns it.
So it doesn’t matter who the developers are, really. What matter is who runs the server and instance you’re using. You, as a user, have a choice in how you wish to connect to the Federation.

Before Netflix, there was Blockbuster.
Before YouTube, there was Metacafe and janky websites hosting Flash or Quicktime Player.
Before Spotify, there was PeopleSound and iTunes gift cards.
Before Discord, there was IRC and AOL Chatrooms.
Before Facebook, there was MySpace and Friendster.
Before iPhone, I had an LG Dare and Palm Pre. Good god!
Before Reddit, there was Digg, Slashdot and Fark.

Something better always comes along. Especially if that “better” is tied to a streamlined, easy to use, easy to learn UI.

Reddit would’ve never gotten as big as it did without third party support. Not just apps like Apollo, RIF and Narwhal - but tools like Imgur and RES.

Lemmy and “The Federation” (I’m not quite yet sold calling it the Fediverse…) has a lot of potential to be that “better than Reddit” online space. Nobody owns all of it, so there’s safeguards against the things that we’re blacked out.

And it’s partially why its a fixer-upper.

We, the community, are going to need to make Lemmy the space we want it to be. That means competition between instances and servers, that means user generated tools and content. I read the RIF developer is working on a Tildes app for iOS and Android. Mlem iOS app is in early Beta, but are working hard to have a stable release for 6/30. Jerboa’s out on Android already and folks seems to like it so far.

Give it time. We’re all new. And whether it’s here or somewhere else - we always land on our feet. Maybe the only thing we have in common with u/spez : there’s nowhere to fail but up.