The difference is if the primary (sometimes only) admin of your instance loses interest, goes to jail, or gets hit by a truck, your entire instance could be dead in the water, whereas there are way more safeguards to “established” social media like Reddit and Twitter. Plus the issue of “well shit my instance got defederated from most of the fediverse because it turns out the admin is an asshat” is completely nonsensical on platforms without instances. Example: before I knew that Lemmy had a tankie problem, I almost signed up on lemmygrad because I thought it was just a witty pun…

Plus when you say “point them to lem.ee” what scenario are you imagining? Because “you should join reddit” or “our business is on Facebook” or “Twitter is a great resource for artists” are all straightforward and easy pieces of information to convey and pick up. “Join Lemmy, a subset of the fediverse, I signed up via lemmy.world although I hear lem.ee is also good, but don’t let that stop you from picking another instance” is like… Dude, people just want to go to [site].com, click on “sign up”, enter a username and password (and maybe email) and that’s it. Just having to explain to people that “lemmy.com” isn’t a thing is already too complicated for most folks.

Lemmy (or at least lemmy.world) was bonkers levels of buggy last summer during the reddit blackout. Like, literally unusable levels of buggy. Getting the word out that it’s (mostly) bug-free now would probably be good, because I’m sure there were many redditors who tried it and quickly swore it off as a pile of shit.

Otherwise I’m in agreement that the instance-selection part of sign-up is a huge barrier, because what instance you choose is actually really important but it’s overwhelming when you’re just getting started. Plus not being able to migrate your account/communities/posts to another instance if yours goes to shit/shuts down/turns out to not fit your needs makes the fediverse feel really unstable.

You’re completely correct on the exposed demand issue. I would also add that in most cities (in the United States anyway) hotels can only exist in very specific corners of the city due to zoning, often in just three places: downtown (expensive!), the suburbs (so not even in city limits), and “motel alley” (which is usually an old highway in askeevy part of town lined with mid-20th century fleabag accommodations that are slowly being abandoned/bulldozed). For some cities this isn’t an issue, but in others it’s a problem for accessing the tourist attractions, especially if the tourists in question don’t have a rental car. Then there are the non-tourist visitors to consider: if you’re in a city to visit family, you’re probably going to want to stay as close to them as possible. Same with a lot of business travelers. This is a bit of a conundrum when the nearest hotel (or affordable/decent hotel) is a 30 minute drive away.

All I want to know is: will this push companies to rethink infinite scroll? Like, even to make it a toggleable option.

I really appreciate that Lemmy still has distinct pages. “I’ll stop at the end of this page” is the easiest way to quit a social media session, which is why most companies have eliminated it.

It could actually go either way, based on the title:

Only half of South Koreans willing to marry; even less [than half] want kids

Or

Only half of South Koreans willing to marry; even fewer [South Koreans] want kids

I’m inclined to lean toward the second. “Even less than half” sounds a lot clunkier than “even fewer South Koreans,” so it’s not surprising other readers assumed the latter.

There’s plenty of Christianity-as-a-source-material media out there. The obvious example is the Narnia series, but LotR was also highly inspired by Tolkien’s faith. Many pre-20th century Western works are based in Christianity (when the world was less secular). It’s fallen out of favor recently so most Christian works that make it big are Evangelical, like the Left Behind series.

As another comment mentioned, there actually is a Bible stories manga/anime, but it’s pretty old.

If those count, we should also toss in Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan, Heaven’s Lost Property, Blue Exorcist, and Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne.

Or Qwaser of Stigmata! Only issue is that it’s Eastern Orthodox Christianity, but as long as you’re cool with that…

I’m going to second this opinion. You’re not going to find an anime that’s Christian in philosophy/religious doctrine. There are a decent number that use Christianity as a motif or setting however. Chrono Crusade is maybe the closest you’ll get. Or you can go the Maria-Sama ga Miteru direction, which takes place at a Catholic girls school (but all the characters are lesbians, and it aired in an era when the Catholic Church was very anti-LGBTQ so…)

Edit: Kids on the Slope has Christianity (or rather, being a Christian in Japan) as a minor theme, and it’s historical fiction so it might be one of the most accurate portrayals of Christianity in anime.

Columbia should be Jefferson. Alternatively Columbia could be Oregon, then Oregon becomes Columbia. Cascadia would also be appropriate for either.

They rank lower than Volkswagen! I didn’t think that was possible given the VW emissions scandal that just happened [checks notes] eight years ago?! My god everything from 2016 onward has just been a giant blur hasn’t it

Imagine a coast-to-coast red eye in the bumper car seats. Or a transatlantic flight. RIP anyone on a non-stop from Singapore to NYC. And that’s assuming there’s no turbulence…

Fully honest audit of my cycling abilities: we never left the ground in the first place

Everyone’s going for the gunner seats… An I the only one whose restless legs are excited to have the opportunity to pedal?

Eerily similar to the Dublin riots a few nights ago: far-right men “protesting” in reaction to social media rumors of violence upon white citizens by immigrants. When have these types of xenophobic shows of force ever ended well?

Saga of Tanya the Evil may be the greatest isekai of all time. Also the complete opposite of a harem. I’m not sure there is any romance in the series at all, actually.

Not “just”… It happened in May

You are free to disagree with my assessment.

You’re absolutely correct; for the sake of the discussion I was assuming US/Western cultural standards given the Lemmy platform and English-language discussion. And I didn’t mean to shame Japanese standards necessarily; I think issues like violence in the media are less of a concern in a country with low levels of violent crime for instance. However especially as a former resident of the country, I’ve been disappointed with Japan’s general lack of progress on many social issues (such as gender norms and LGBTQ acceptance) even as many of their Western contemporaries have made great strides. I do think this is reflected in their media, anime obviously included. This isn’t to say there haven’t been changes to anime, but many of them appear only to placate highly specific demands of the overseas market, such as the disappearance of “female-presenting nipples” even in otherwise highly sexualized series.

Again, I’ve only read the manga so I don’t know how they’re portrayed in the anime, but:

Yuzuriha: primary purpose is motivation for the male protagonist (ala Miho Asuki in Bakuman)

Kohaku: min-maxed strength and dexterity at the loss of intelligence, wisdom, and self-initiative (and I’m sorry, but that is one ridiculously skimpy outfit, especially given her acrobatic role)

Suika: pre-pubescent characters (thankfully!) usually bypass misogyny/hypersexualization so I don’t include her in my assessment

And then there are the other first-half characters, like:

Ruri: helpless sick girl (omg that shot of her being fed medicine)

Kirisame: zero self-initiative (mindlessly follows orders), and that outfit makes Kohaku look like a nun

And a bunch more that I don’t remember because it’s been a while since I read the series.

The first female character I didn’t feel at least a little uncomfortable about was Chelsea, who I think is actually a strong character and the first (non-child) female character to be accepted into the group for her insight, smarts, and decision-making skills, AND her design is not sexualized (almost as if she stumbled in from another series). But she appears quite late in the series, hence my comment about the first half. Some of the American female characters are also okay, but not great (and again, introduced in the latter half). But even towards the end, the male characters are in nearly all the leadership positions, and the female characters are left to play support.

I don’t mean to single out Dr Stone; you could do a similar analysis for most anime and nearly all shonen series. But especially given the gender imbalance in STEM, it’s unfortunate to see more business as usual.