“Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind - except for Hulk Hogan” - John Donne, probably.

No, it happened in the early 80s so bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Budgie, Saxon etc

Cryptpad cam be self hosted. or there’s an instance here

Hate is too strong a word I think - I nothing them - but they produce the sort of soulless indie/pop ballad that you know will end up in the soundtrack of Hollywood paint-by-numbers romcom that would’ve gone straight to DVD a decade or so ago. The unending radio play rotation would force the song (and we could be talking about any and all Coldplay songs here) into your brain and then five years later you’d find yourself humming it as you suddenly realised a longe bar version of it is playing in the lift (elevator USians) you’re in.

List of Send instances.

A lot of us are and have protested for years. The previous gvmt didn’t care and the current one don’t either because its not really about kids, its about control and surveillance. The ruling political class want to know what its citizens are up to and/or want us to know they can id us any time, especially those of us who are noisy about political issues.

Our right to protest is just about gone, including the right to wear masks. We are legally obliged to provide pins to our phones when detained and we can be arrested if a protest is deemed obstructive - which includes being too noisy. We can even be arrested just for discussing holding a protest of some kind.

At the same time, we are told that vocally supporting non-violent groups is now terrorism and can be punishable with prison time.

And the vast majority of the UK population sit on their collective arses moaning about immigrants and watching Love Island. They don’t care - genuinely, they absolutely do not care their rights are disappearing one by one.

My own take on it is that growth is not very important in terms of how a network develops. The only truly successful growth is that which happens completely organically. Worrying about why one service has ‘stopped’ growing is pointless. Those who are unhappy jump ship - those who remain are likely people who are never going to and/or bots or influencers who aren’t interested in being part of a community just finding a way to exploit it.

I would propose so-called ‘smaller’ networks (such as the fediverse) concentrate on quality not quantity. That has the duel benefit of making the experience for current users even better and makes the network attractive to those who are outside looking in.

I don’t know that it is objectively the best - but its the best fit for me right now (LMDE).