Troy Spiral

I've got no problem stopping the cards if people don't care enough to post to ask for them. I like making them somewhat, but what I actually like is people enjoying them. If it's not worth a minute to ask then people don't want them enough for me to bother. If you want them, get people to ask for them. If 90 seconds is too much to ask, its too little interest. Waste of my minimal energy. We can just drop the gathering and DGN too for that matter. All of this stuff is here to be used. I can't be the only person promoting or pushing other people to promote. 15 years is enough.

WTF how did I miss this. Happy birthday sir! Hopefully, this year and every year is better than the last. Also just as a random aside... that profile picture looks great. Man, I wish I would have been around during the actual Batcave days. I actually have hunted down years worth of Batcave UK playlists that I used as a template for my radio show to try and be 'actually old-school' rather than what passes for old-school... 90s music is not old-school, we are just old. XD (I do love that 90s stuff just saying).

It's probably mainly me. First off I come from a family that is crazy-insane about NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVER telling or even suggesting to someone else how they should raise kids. So this subject has long been super sensitive for me but after 35 years i see it slightly differently. But just to re-iterate no one has any business 'telling' someone how to raise their kids (within reason u know like the dicks that really mistreat children that i know you would never ever do.) I know if someone would have told my mom or dad to encourage me (they never did, like ever) my life would have been better. I know that is not the situation you are referring to nor does it even imply that it is, it's just an example of my situation growing up and why I don't think to make suggestions (that have zero obligation to even be taken seriously) is a problem. I wish someone would have made a SUGGESTION at least to my parents when I was a kid. It's not a judgment. It might be totally wrong. It's just a suggestion. Moe's kids act better now because of Tron. Not because of any suggestions, she just went right into it after she had enough....hey fuckers behave! Then kept after them for a while. Now they act better and less like monkies. (to oversimplify). There I wrote that in public. Someone doesn't like it? Too bad. Its how it is. Historical justification for higher learning standards is interesting and I can understand the frustration. But development and biology do not care about our expectations based on family history. That sort of discussion is necessary I think for our own sanity but Its probably counterproductive to throw it at the kid themselves. I know all that sort of talk did to me as a kid is lower my self-esteem which made it harder to learn and speak up for myself. I think I always translated it (correctly) as "you aren't good enough what the hell is wrong with you!" Which, being honest is a fairly accurate judgment I think. But, does that help improve the situation? It can be MADDENING I'm quite sure. But the best course again trying to be as fair as I can... Is just to take situations as they ARE and try to figure out how to improve them rather than repeating how they should be. That sort of 'what if' or 'ought to be' talk is fine, just not so much of a help directly to the kids themselves. The Coprate Summary: Tron, you have helped EVERYONE so much and continue to help everyone so much and you do the best you can and are an admirable person for trying your best. I also feel like you get taken for granted a bit too much and that really pisses me off. Me saying the above doesn't diminish any of that. I love you. If there were 200 people that I knew and they were all gonna die but I could only save 3 you would be one of the three. I also know people tend to not take your problems as seriously as they should and just assume you are a workhorse that doesn't need any care. Bullshit makes me so mad. GRRR. You have your own stuff to deal with yet still manage to take care of everyone else! The world needs more Trons! 😍

Hah. Just in case I didn't say it before, good to see you around again @Burrich1 . I have some key people that have not set foot on DGN in years but almost their entire friends' network is directly or indirectly related to DGN and the DGN/CC 'cloud' overlap. Nowadays if I still had my health I would be still actively promoting this sort of stuff but meh... life. The Gathering is about all I can manage on anything like a regular basis until I can get my health in gear. A slight topic shift but similar... Part of the plan since day one was to have an online place that was semi-secluded from the rest of society. People, especially shy people, could interact here, then when we met in real life it would be less awkward. My old system (its still my system just my energy level is shit) is to grab any new person that shows up and just shotgun introduce them to as many people as possible. I've not been clubbing in a while but I do a smaller version of this at The Gathering. That almost always resulted in them netting like at least 5 insta-friends that they didn't have before. Many of these friendships continued (and expanded to larger friend networks). I had over the (17) years at least 10 people tell me they never had so many friends in their life. A bit of an awkward analogy is the church. Many people that are basically either non-believers or even straight up atheists still go to church. Why? Many reasons, but a key one is a community. Where else do you get a welcoming near instant social network? Very few (near zero) places. DGN certainly is not even slightly as good but we try/tried. I'm still trying but god damn my health. I need sleep! That chronic scary level (like I sometimes have mild hallucinations due to sleep deprivation) has overshadowed the PTSD and the depression and the anxiety now. I am working on it.

It's a crap feeling. *random bro hug* Just remember its only the first 5 days after the weekend that are the hardest.

What do we think about these? I mean yeah they look cool but who buys custom mugs?

Not sure why the pictures look crummy they look fine on my comp. Ah... apparently the auto resize thing is just doing a bad job of keeping the image clear. Looks fine if clicked on.

Welcome!

I'm trying not to collect ANYTHING so my limited funds don't go flying away. I've given up almost everything I collected except the Game of Thrones Mystery Minis. Even my magic cards, Firefly, and BSG stuff is gone to eBay. But I've not bought any in over a year. (Yes I have a constantly updated spreadsheet with what I have and don't have, nerd alert) My long-term plan is to buy the more expensive ones individually, and then buy the 'commons' in a huge lot even if there are duplicates as the 'cheap' ones cost maybe 6 bucks each, but in a large lot that drops to like 2 dollars. The harder to get ones range from $20 to $100 and would never be included in a large lot.

Unfortunately long discontinued. Now. 😞 Skylanders (better game and toys) and Amiibo's (Semi game independent and all 'franchise' well known characters) are still actively supported and more advanced technologically and quality of figures wise. Plus the latter has that anime look for most of them that some weirdos are addicted to. 😄

Broke.

I'd say a third of that place is 'old people' that were in and around the DGN and extended CC/DGN 'cloud' crowd. Every time i've been there I run into 10 people I know, and 20 people that know me. I've probably been there 10 times. The age range has shifted upward a ton. One of my problems is I never really know for sure when it is since it's not every week I think they call it "thirst wave" or even just merged the two into one? Its also not 'regular' like CC was. It's on and off. Same DJs though. It's a little foggy to me since I'm so sick all the damn time going out and partying is very very low on the priority list. Even though I miss it. They are more afraid of the word 'goth' than even CC was. (CC still has a following but its small because they too are not every week anymore, totally squandered a world-wide reputation as 'the' goth club in the midwest. I know there are reasons for it, but it's just sad even from a pure $$ standpoint.

That is the place where half my ex's live / lived. Not sure how that happened. I actually had to looked up the difference between where and were despite using the terms my whole life, somehow I was drawing a blank. Just ran it by my mother after reading the actual definition, she got it wrong and is angry at me as if I'm saying she's lying. lol

That damn guest guy!! Hi, burrich

lol *waves hi*

Omg. I just wrote war and peace and the internet ate it. Haven't had that happen in ages. GAH! lol The reason MOST people (that is people probably not even reading this) aren't on DGN. 1. Not enough people / content. This has been true since before message boards proper even existed. People (the vast majority) don't eat at empty restaurants. Even back in the day when we had 600 posts a day, if I personally would disappear for awhile the post count would drop or if some of the most active moderators stopped for awhile the posting would drop. The posting especially tanked when there was no one promoting the board in real life much. We ALWAYS had a natural attrition rate that was fairly high. People would leave and come back, but many people would just leave and not come back. Often not for a bad reason, it's just how it is happens even on FB but they have a whole culture promoting them. You have to reload that attrition with new people or any social structure eventually becomes a virtual ghost town. 2. It's not convenient. Not compared to mutual scrapbooking 'social media' platforms, especially FB. We can work on that to a point, and I would like to , but it will never get to the level of a multi-billion dollar corporation's ability to make their platform easy to get to and psychologically addicting (yep they are designed as mutual scrapbooking systems to encourage small hits of serotonin and change the way your mind works, to continually seek likes and social validation. Many of the early creators have admitted this last part, several of whom openly campaign for change to what has become to be known as social media. 3. Some people just never post on anything or rarely do. This one is not actionable or fixable in any significant way. No 1 and 2 are the most important and no 2 is the most actionable (and the one people are least able to do including me).

I doubt anyone was on here for more than maybe a week that didn't want to be here for long. I also know you are addressing a little bit different angle than I am. But for instance, say they got dragged her by their GF (very common) or their BF just didn't want to be left out so they came, when the GF got tired or whatever then they both left. (Happened dozens of times) If it was torn's 'fault' (i think that is the wrong word, its more like 'torn tried and they decided to throw a fit') much I'd be in shock, and if you try and they take it wrong it's on them. I'm sure I've run more people off due to trying to get them to play nice OR even better... me saying something that came off wrong, and rather than talking to me about it they just run off in a huff than anyone else has a chance of catching up to my 'they left because of me' score. heh. But all of that was so long ago, I've not had anything like that anytime recently.

I was calling you by your old DGN name for years after you changed it. Hah. I remember you leaving for quite a while once and then coming back, then the last time was a decade long. On Facebook, my friend's list is probably 70% DGNers of one sort or another even if they were just part of the much larger DGN "real life cloud" that didn't necessarily post much but were associated with most everyone on the board. One of the key people I remember missing for a long, long time was you. I probably have 50 FB friends that half of their friend's list is also DGN related even though they themselves may not have been on the board for 10 years. Hah. Hell, I have 3 married couples that met via DGN (at least) some of whole didn't even live in the same state (or even country in the case of Chris and Jinx). That is the only one that really kinda burned my ass, as soon as they hooked up and Jinx moved to the UK I never heard from them on DGN again, (they were on FB but jinx had some emotional issues with hearing about things happening in Detroit that she couldn't get involved in and unfriended or blocked a lot of people so she wouldn't get upset. I was more irritated with him than her since I was listening to him (and trying to help him) get over his like 6-year long crush (for six years of my life or at least it seemed like that) on a girl named Robin that he would talk about on and off board all the time. But it been so long now.. whatever. heh. It's nice to see you pop in. Wish we would have had more real-life time to talk.

I've never heard anyone say they left the board because of Torn. I'm sure a few thin-skinned people have, but F-em. You have tried to be fair. So have I and they still get all in a huff, it's just how some people are. Worse, some people take their cue from others rather than from reality. Not much to be done about that except trying not to let it bother you. Because 90% of the time it's on them, not you or I. >> The real exodus came from a ton of mods (including myself) that were very active online and in real life at the club(s) went MIA for too long and thus not promoting to replace the natural attrition of any online discussion board and worse not posting (people leave if there isn't any content regardless of what the content is). We always had drama despite trying to minimize it, we always had people leaving and coming back or never coming back and being replaced by new people. There are a lot of different reasons for specific people leaving had nothing to do with either of the reasons above, but they are isolated and probably glare in a particular person or person mind as to what the 'overall' reason was but it was no single person. That and the rise of FB striking at almost the same time. (Not that FB is a crushing reason as there are many, many active message boards that serve a different function than FB. Even just what I'm typing now is longer than 99.99% of FB posts. Mostly FB is mutual scrapbooking. Not that that is bad, it's just very different. Having said that I don't really think that is the reason you don't post more. That is a reason you I guess feel bad (to oversimplify) which you really shouldn't. You are wanted here just as much as anyone else and are in the top 3 people I personally want here. Posting regularly or not. One huge reason is you didn't just quit like literally everyone else has. That isn't to say people that left didn't have valid and perfectly understandable reasons for not being around much. But, no one is here now that was here at the (very) start. Not a single person.

I think the answer to this one is to figure out how to turn off all notifications for existing and future users except for direct quotes or replies to topics that they personally started by default. (which would be via a SQL query that we would have to get from someone that knows how to do it from the IPB forums). You can manually choose to follow just about anything from a single person to a whole sub-forum. The notifications I get (and I know others have complained of this before) are just too many by default. Also, a mobile notification would probably work better. I know that can be done but how to set it up I don't know off the top of my head.

I typically only do the upgrades if there is a security fix, a full version number increase .1 .2 .3 not .1.1 or if a particularly useful app needs it. The previous upgrades so it sort of all happens at once. The hard thing is to try and make sure all the buttons and linking and all the various features of the board actually work. Plus nowadays since 80% of people access the internet on mobile, the desktop experience is a lot of wasted time optimizing for. Have to look at it on mobile and optimize it for the mobile users. Desktop users make up a tiny fraction of users. All the PHP errors and the fact that even though the user accounts themselves are secure, the site is not encrypted is really nagging at me. I have so little energy that every time I sit down to 'do work' on the computer it just has to go to housespiral.com. I'm hoping that will change but I don't see it happening super soon.

So what does this mean? The richest .01 percent have had HUGE increases in income. The top 1% have had HUGE increases in income. (Also the top 10% not shown) while "the bottom 90%" (thats us) have had zero increase in income for decade upon decade (this trend goes farther back than 1980 just that is all that is shown here) Why is this? Are the rich more productive? No. Do they create more jobs when they are richer? No, they don't and never did it is a great propaganda tool to give them our money. The biggest reason for this increasing income gap is they rig the system. You and I could if we wanted to at the max donate something like 5,000 dollars to a single politician in a single election (the primary + the actual election). Corporation PACs (political action committees) can donate an infinite amount of money and now corporations have >constitutational rights< as if they are people. This was passed via an evil bill deceptively called "Citizens United". Corporations are people? MMMKAY...no. Huge sums of money being donated by a very small number of people means we live in an Oligarchy (rule by the rich) not a democracy. Huge money corrupts and has badly corrupted the system. It can be fixed. But it won't be easy. The primary way to fix this is to make corporate PAC money illegal (as it was) via a constitutional amendment. Believe it or not there are now many "justice democrats" that openly support this idea. It is becoming an actual issue with voters. "Do you accept corporate PAC money? Yes? Don't vote for them. (unless the second choice is worse). In the long run this is THE most important issue for democracy. Spearheading this concept (although many groups are as well) is the alternative media outlet and really informative and very different than your usual news The Young Turks (Young Turks is a reference to "new energetic progressives") which has a lot of great programming.

Just in case