Short, quippy, and categorically wrong. You’re underscoring my points about how we’re getting divided and subsequently conquered. But keep on being divisive and see how that works for you. I’ll be over here trying to unite my fellow leftists.

Want to demolish a regime? It’s gonna take a lot more than a vote. But waiting for a perfect candidate is a sure way to lose. The worldwide fash uprising didn’t happen within a single voting cycle; this was a concerted, multi-front effort on the part of Conservatives and oligarchs (see: “Evil Geniuses,” by Kurt Andersen). In the United States, that movement probably started in earnest with the Powell Memorandum, but can trace its roots much further to psy-ops like the Red Scare and covert ops like COINTELPRO. Coincidentally, note the dates of when COINTELPRO was revealed and when the Powell Memorandum (“an excess of democracy”) was written/disclosed.

Get out from behind the keyboard (yep, I’m calling myself out on that one, too), get out and about in your community, talk to people, organize, unionize, seek out common ground with people, build a bigger table instead of bigger fences. We didn’t get into this shit overnight; we’re not getting out of it without decades of work and probably bloodshed. The faster we want the change, the more of our own individual blood we need to be willing to invest, while being careful to avoid the exact mistakes that always happen when people demolish regimes. And count on more COINTELPRO-like opposition at every turn. The oligarchy have lots of motivation and money to invest in keeping us divided.

Right? Shit like this almost feels like… a psy-op to keep the left divided against itself. And then we ape-brains conveniently spread such content to soothe our egos via complex purity tests.

Seriously folks, I get we all want to hold the absolute moral high ground, but we’re all losing the war because of letting psy-ops divide us. “Oh, I wouldn’t fall for any of that.” Bull. Fucking. Shit.

Pay attention to when Be wary of messaging that pits you against people with whom you actually have more in common than in opposition. When we wait for perfectly aligned allies, we die alone. And when we propagate and perpetuate divisive content, we’re just doing the fash’s job for them.

There’s so much I love about Aurora. Every time I boot up my video editing laptop or rendering desktop, it’s like… slipping into a hot tub on a cold winter night.

Funny you say that… my previous job was on Win 11 and a sovereign cloud version of Copilot, the latter of which we were “strongly encouraged” to use for everything. That went nowhere fast.

When the soap, ballot, and jury boxes repeatedly fail to protect the populace, the 4th box becomes inevitable. I’m not saying it’s right, but this is the general arc of these things.

I know ricotta doesn’t go on stromboli.

That’s just food abuse. And I’d still mow down a bunch.

Designer’s Republic was the graphic design firm. Their work is so distinctive and, for me, the apex of 90s graphic design.

Roland AE-30 (wind synth). It’s great to get back to playing “saxophone,” as well as use it in my MIDI setup to control other synths. Added bonus: it’s small enough to pack just about anywhere, and I can practice anywhere, anytime with headphones. Even just running scales is chill, meditative time, especially during stressful workdays.

I interpret “guilty pleasures” as things that are not-so-great, but I enjoy them anyway. No shame implied in my head. Some crappy, simplistic EDM track, but is still a total earworm… sign me up! Nothing like that for you?

Velveeta, specifically a Velveeta cream sauce on thick al dente pasta.

The crowd noise is a really nice touch. Makes the space feel inhabited.

The suspension is in the steerer.

It’s not hydraulically damped, on top of being super proprietary. For me, proprietary is a hard nope at any price.

It’s a matter of direction. Loosely speaking, polarizers block light that is moving in one specific way, e.g. up and down. The light filtering is specific to the filter rotation. Also, there is a polarizing filter in the monitors screen. Stacking the filters results in an interference pattern, analogous to a moiré pattern.

Wait … Is it even legal to eat Oreos without dipping them in milk?

Parallel/overlapping with mutual aid: timebanks. My regional timebank has an emergency services category (not sure how widespread that is). More generally, timebanks are a cashless means for exchanging services where everyone’s time is valued equally.

https://passwordentropy.com/

For your example string:

even with adjusting the barrel adjuster ane confirming that the low and high set screws were correct. No matter how far we used the gear shifter, it would stop at 6 gears; it’s like the barrel adjuster would move the range up and down, so the shifter would go from gear 3 to 8, or 1 to 6, but would never reach 1 to 8

For future reference and for all the people suggesting bent derailleur hanger: a bent derailleur hanger WILL NOT cause the exhibited symptoms.

If you want a 3x8 drivetrain, you can maybe stay with your current derailleur and cassette. That’s gonna be cobbling some different bits together. But Acolyte is only compatible with Acolyte; this component line has a proprietary pull ratio and is explicitly designed to be 1x8. Depending on where you live, the 12-46T cassette might have enough gear range for your 11 year old. Gear range in this instance is “set” by crankset and chainring selection.

In your case, and depending on how much patience you have left, I suggest you get the correct shifter (and a new rear derailleur cable + cable crimp). This is the shifter compatible with your derailleur and cassette: https://www.modernbike.com/microshift-acolyte-right-trigger-shifter---1x8-speed-acolyte-compatible-only

From here, you could get a triple crank and front shifter. However, if you want 3x8, I strongly suggest that you don’t mix and match. The Microshift rear derailleur you have has a capacity of 37T. That 37T capacity is all in the cassette. Even a modest range triple crank might add another 20T to required capacity. Without overloading you on details, inexperienced riders tend have bad shifting habits that very potentially can destroy the derailleur and damage the bike if you add a triple crankset to this drivetrain. Triple cranksets tend to require long cage derailleurs or careful shifting.

In general, for these contexts, I usually suggest Shimano CUES (https://bike.shimano.com/products/series/cues.html). It’s a component line designed to circumvent the compatibility morass that we see within a lot of component lines. You can also get a complete component group for something like $275.

Don’t. Trust. Amazon. This is the entry point into troubleshooting your current set of problems. The second shifters you posted have a 2:1 pull ratio. Microshift doesn’t say what their pull ratio is for Acolyte, but I’m quite sure it’s not 2:1. The first shifters are not explicitly Acolyte, and compatibility is not guaranteed even for same brand + cog count.

If the derailleur can physically sweep the width of the cassette when the shift cable is disconnected, the shifter is incompatible with the derailleur. Mixing and matching shifters + derailleurs tends to be pro-level wrenching especially when indexing is used; friction shifting less so. You really need to understand compatibility when mixing up component lines, e.g. Acolyte, Sword, CUES.