Lately I've been thinking about withdrawing most if not all my money off the bank and investing in a safe box, but I'm not sure how wise of a decision that is. How does everyone here go about that? Do you keep your money in the bank? Do you have a safe box at home? Why one over the other? Do you invest some of it, say in things like cryptocurrencies/stocks? What would you recommend or advice someone to do in regards to this if you could?

No minimum age requirement for the question. Getting older is relative to you, and you can answer for any age or period of life.

What have you noticed about getting older? Could be about yourself; about others; about the world.

Inspired by this post by @kfwyre.

For me, there's many; I don't want to influence responses but I will shout out the monthly mental health threads. Those really got me to (over)share feelings and find some reason. I got through dark times thanks to you all, Tildoes.

How do you spend your money? How do you want to spend it? How do you save?

I'm curious what strategies my fellow Tildenizens use to spend efficiently, build savings for retirement and other purchases, and otherwise maximize their financial lives. How do you use your money to maximize your happiness?

Here's me: I'm young, single, thankfully debt-free, and my annual salary is about $70,000. I'm able to save approximately 35% of that by living relatively frugally:

How does this compare to your life? What tips, tricks, and ideas would you like to share to help each other out? What are your financial dreams? I'm really interested in chatting with everyone about this.

Share what your failures were in 2022. Your regrets; where you came worse off at the end of the year than at the beginning. What will you do better next year?

Counterpart of the successes thread: https://tildes.net/~talk/13w4/your_successes_in_2022

In December, a lot of people make plans and ask about what you want for the next year. But a year is a long time, and maybe it's not a good idea to have a rigid plan for such an extended timeframe.

Rigid plans lead to frustration when, inevitably, circumstances force us to change our perspective to varying degrees. Dreams are put on hold, objectives shift and adapt.

So I am not asking about the entirety of 2023. I'm asking instead: what do you hope to achieve in the first semester of 2023?.

As usual, anything goes. Big or small, personal or professional. Whatever you want to accomplish is good for this thread.

I'm curious to learn what's on your mind. Cheers! ;)

What was your experience like? What do you remember? Any favourite moments, least favourite, most memorable?

Note: School is different in every country! Please respect the international audience: if you talk about a type of school or year, include the age range. Eg “Sophomore (age 15-16)”.

Have you been properly spooked? Did you acquire a fear of a procession of mummies coming to pluck a hair from you each night to teach you about conservationism?

Do you have any annual traditions you follow? Haunted houses, straw mazes, or cider making? Do you or an acquaintance go all-out with decorating?

Do you have horror movie marathons? For fun, or to put on your Mary Shelley hat to look at horror as capturing a zeitghost like Them! for nuclear war, slasher films for rising crime, or Us for class issues? (Leprechaun's bi allergory is an outlier)

Do you have a favorite costume, or future costume idea? A shambling uncanny valley girl, group human obstacle course, ensemble of 3/7 dwarves, or reverse trick-or-treat grandparent?

“Losing” can mean a death, or falling out of touch, or damaging a relationship past a point of repair, or anything else you feel fits.

What have you learned?
How did it change you?

Previous questions in series:

What have you learned from...
...being a parent?
...going through a breakup?
...moving to a new place?
...working in tech?
...going through a pandemic?
…being LGBT?

These threads remain open, so feel free to comment on old ones if you have something to add!

I'm 22 years old and have recently graduated from college. I'm a little disoriented right now. I'd appreciate some help. I'm having trouble explaining my issue precisely, but it relates to these themes: SEX, LONGING, AMBIVALENCE, PURPOSE. I feel I must provide some anecdotes for my question(s) to make sense.

In the wintertime, I made a new friend. She had pitch-black hair. We had exchanged any number of glances from across the room. She caught me one morning as I left the hall and asked if I liked [REDACTED_MEDIA]. I humored her: "Sure, as much as anyone. … No, I've not seen it. … Yes, I'll check it out." The following week I reported back with my opinions, and we spoke a great deal, warming to one another as the days remained icy.

One day I offered to take her to [REDACTED_EVENT]. She didn't come, but regretted it, and gave me a phone number as reparation. She was a little embarrassed, but I found it endearing; I was quite happy to see more of her. From here the courtship was a breeze. On a Saturday we took a drive into the country and strolled along a quiet, wooded trail, a respite from our world of books and burdens. As we rested by a stream, talking about trivialities, she laid out a moment of trauma before me. She was not looking for answers to an unanswerable tragedy so much as a good listener. I obliged, and held her closely as we walked home. She appreciated the comfort.

From here the romance was a breeze. One invitation to study at hers and we were having unbelievable sex. She was very beautiful. We would spend an entire day together, ignoring our responsibilities and enjoying each other's bodies. Never in my life had I indulged in such things as she asked for. I think it actually changed some of my brain chemistry. It was exciting, it was fun, and it was very satisfying—for both of us. I also thought our conversation was authentic and emotionally fulfilling. Apparently she did not share that feeling, because she broke up with me (suddenly) a couple weeks in. Her exact reasons were a little strange, but I was not going to push it. We said our goodbyes, and I walked home in the bitter cold, alone.

I hadn't known her long enough to be debilitatingly heartbroken, but it did hurt. And maybe I'm just being naïve, but I question whether it's possible for a future relationship to beat that sex. This prompts a greater existential question: "So why bother?"

Some time ago, a dear friend invited me to her home in a city I no longer called mine. We dined and spoke of our passing lives: exciting and intimidating in their opportunity; tiring and burdensome in their demands. There were so many choices ahead; work gave enough but took too much. It was a relief to be free from the school; it was lonely. But it warmed my heart to be in her company again.

She drew me to her bed and closed the door. I sat, and we chatted. Her expectation was obvious and the reason for my passivity was not—the dance of intimacy was familiar to both of us. After a pause, she faced me and said, "We can sleep together, but I don't want you to stay the night."

Her request was reasonable, but I found it deeply jarring. Sex had not really motivated my visit, though I had entertained the possibility, and it had certainly not motivated my behavior at dinner. (I had planned already where I would be sleeping that night, and it was far away.) I had missed her a lot. More than anything I had missed her presence. Her statement revealed a terrible disparity in how we viewed our relationship. It was my fault for not stepping out after dinner, and it was particularly my fault across many months prior for setting a series of expectations that effectively downplayed my emotional feelings.

I acknowledged her and quickly changed the top of conversation, and for a moment it was as though nothing had been said. Then, with another pause, she leaned over for a kiss. My heart was not in it. All I could hear was "I don't want you..." Still, I could not refuse. I had been sliced open, but she was very pretty, and more importantly I was reluctant to disappoint the people I cared for. The sex that followed felt passionless and transactional—different from before. She seemed impatient. I was distressed. It was consensual, but it was really weird and I did not enjoy it.

I walked out of that house wishing I could cry. It was not the time. I could betray no weakness here or the city would devour me. I did cry, later. And maybe I'm just being naïve, but this incident made me question whether it's possible for a future relationship to beat the sentimental connection we had at the peak of our fling… including another go at it (that time has evidently passed). We were emotional matches/peers/equals in a way I don't know if I will ever find again. This prompts a greater existential question: "So why bother?"

We're meant to see each other again quite soon, but this time the bed will be my own, and this time she'll stay the night. I couldn't say no when she asked. It's going to be awkward. I'm unsure what I wish to do.

Not long ago, a friend asked near midnight if there was something happening between us. I froze up and sputtered something out about not expecting that question. I was genuinely unable to say anything for a few minutes. The answer that came to mind was kind of "Yes," but it was also, "I'm confused at this time and I don't know," and also, "This is going to hurt the group dynamic." I said yes but mumbled something about not getting her hopes up because I was pretty weird and also pretty uncertain about how I wanted to shape my life in the near and far future. I did not talk about the group dynamic.

I'm proud of myself for making it clear that my wants are currently shifting and that my boundaries are unclear. I would've liked to be more specific. However, I'm not proud of saying yes before I had resolved all my emotional problems, nor about glossing over all my reservations. I feel it is irresponsible; I'm setting myself (and her) up to fail. I'm uncertain how to feel about the group dynamic. In the past year I've been the recipient of a lot of romantic attention with them and I've consistently said no. It is fine right now but it might not be fine if I change course like this.

Last year I made a post on this website about three experiences I'd had and received a few comments. One of them in particular stuck with me:

I will give you one piece of advice. There's absolutely nothing wrong with anything that you told us, but since you are young and reminds a bit of myself when I was your age, I'll say this: be careful not to inadvertently hurt anyone. Be explicit instead of implicit. People often have all kinds of expectations that differ from our own, so it's a good idea to let them know where they stand.

I really did take that to heart. I don't want to hurt anyone. I am trying so hard not to ruin everything. I broke this advice soon after it was given to me and it severely damaged a friendship. It was not on purpose, but it was incredibly foolish. Since then, I've been extra careful not to lead people on and to be really clear about my needs (or at least I hope I have). But this is hard because I live a very social lifestyle and people seem to misinterpret friendliness as flirting. Or they just have opinions. I can't say this without sounding arrogant, so please forgive me, but people often comment admiringly on my appearance. It is obvious that they treat me differently because of it. It's not that weird (or that bad honestly) for an acquaintance my age to be a little bashful in front of me—but it feels different when it becomes an increasingly significant part of my reputation. I try not to touch people or to otherwise give them the wrong idea, but it seems like I am breeding longing/jealousy just by existing.

Anyway, I feel I am struggling to move this relationship forward in part because I wasn't explicitly looking for one, and have been hit hard lately by general listlessness and uncertainty, so I wasn't prepared for it. And I'm also struggling to reconcile the physical needs of a new romance with my current incredible level of apathy toward sex. "Why bother?" I've never been this indifferent toward it before, it has always been important to me. The more I think about previous relationships, the less it seems like it's worth it to pursue anything at all. I would call it freeing to not care, except that it's fundamentally concerning. It stems from bad memories and also I think some trauma I haven't really resolved, which is not the same as "letting loose and living my life." It's been physically difficult for me to even think about sex and to be honest the thought is occasionally a little revolting to me, which I have never felt before, at least not for an extended period. And I feel like I'm too irrevocably closed-off to ever sufficiently open up emotionally in a relationship to make it last long-term. But… I also know what it feels like to fall into despair, not knowing what great things lie around the corner. This makes me reluctant to cut it off or make an ultimatum or actually do anything decisive at all.

It's all just so much.

None of that is really in question form, but it sort of explains my headspace. I'm sorry that I can't explain it better, but it's very late and I have work tomorrow. I would really appreciate some insight. Thanks.

Question here is for any LGBT users:

What have you learned?
How did it change you?

In the Tildes-preferred spirit, "LGBT" here is used as an umbrella term that refers to all minority sexualities and gender identities.

Previous questions in series:

What have you learned from...
...being a parent?
...going through a breakup?
...moving to a new place?
...working in tech?
...going through a pandemic?

These threads remain open, so feel free to comment on old ones if you have something to add!

Do you thrive on chaos or structure? Are your personal spaces clean or populated by all kinds or objects? Do you wear bright colors or white shirt and jeans? Do you prefer fast cuts or meditative editing? Probability or deduction? Heidegger or Russel? Buñuel or Buster Keaton? Lynch or Spielberg? Godart or Hitchcock? John Lennon or Paul McCartney? A party or a small gathering? A lot or just a little?

:)

Question is for our users here who work/worked in the tech industry (in any capacity) or in a techy position in any industry.

What have you learned?
How did it change you?

Previous questions in series:

What have you learned from...
...being a parent?
...going through a breakup?
...moving to a new place?

These threads remain open, so feel free to comment on old ones if you have something to add!

Question here is for everyone really, since we all went through/are still going through the COVID-19 pandemic.

What have you learned?
How did it change you?

Note: the intention of these threads is reflection, not hot takes. I know that a prompt like this can provoke quippy responses, but please try to limit those or, if you feel compelled to give one, try to dive a bit deeper with it.

Previous questions in series:

What have you learned from...
...being a parent?
...going through a breakup?
...moving to a new place?
...working in tech?

These threads remain open, so feel free to comment on old ones if you have something to add!

"New place" can be a small move to a new apartment down the street or a big move to a completely different city/country/continent.

What did you learn?
How did it change you?

Previous questions in series:

What have you learned from...
...being a parent?
...going through a breakup?

Question is for anyone who's ever gone through a breakup -- no matter how big or small. Also it goes for whether it was mutual, you were the one broken up with, or you had to be the one to break the news.

What did you learn from your breakup?
How did it change you?

I recently felt an itch for a big expansive RPG and decided to play through AC:O for a second time. The game is really big, was a timesink the first time around (like 80 hrs) and is bogged down by a lot of resource sinks and differing systems all trying to get your attention. But I'm a sucker for the Greek Myths and ancient Greece, so this game is perfect for me; so I gave it another go.

So NG+ on AC:O is your typical affair: You begin a new game, but you keep your experience, all your items, and also crucially, all your invested resources. AC:O has an extremely tiring resource sink in the form of the Adrestia, your ship. You can upgrade the hull, the ramming damage, the throwing spears, the arrows, the fire to light your arrows, and the ability of your crew to brace against enemy ranged attacks, the ramming speed, and I think I'm even forgetting a few. Doing this all on your original run is an extreme timesink, as the resources required to get a single one of those things up a level scales incredibly fast. Even worse, the items required to do so are all fairly common (wood, iron, and the like) except for one, which are ancient tablets, of which there is only a set amount in the world, at various locations you need to loot. I went the distance on my first run, and upgraded my ship fully. And it remained upgraded! This means that one vast system in the game is now basically gone. It has made ship combat very easy, but then that never was the highlight of the game anyway, so I don't mind. On top of that, all rewards are scaled up in NG+, meaning that you begin to immediately drown in money and resources, and with the biggest resource sink gone, you can focus on building your equipment exactly the way you want to.

A second one is experience. Now, when AC:O came out the first time, lots of players complained that the amount of experience you gain is abysmal, pointing to the overly convenient ingame shop selling a permanent XP and money boost for like 10 bucks. And I can absolutely see their point. To progress in any form in AC:O in the normal game, you pretty much need to do every "proper" side-quest (as in the ones with a plot, not the automatically generated ones you find on message boards and the like, only the ones marked on the map with the golden exclamation mark), and then the main-quests of an area. If you do that, you'll be just about the minimum level to do the main quests. So for the people who are here for the scenery and a main story, they got fucked hard, or had to pay up again.

Another incredibly annoying thing about vanilla AC:O is that like many open-world games, the world is divided into large regions and islands. Every region had a minimum level recommendation that might as well have been a requirement, as fighting someone just 3 levels above you bordered suicide, as you could die in sometimes 2 hits, and did a fraction of their health in damage even with your most powerful abilities. This means that on your original run, the world is not open at all, but you have to progress in the way that developers want you to. You start in Kephalonia, and can't leave until you unlock the ship. Your first quest leads you to Megaris, but you'll immediately notice that the level requirement for the region is too high. Conveniently, along the way is a different area which actually fits your requirement, so you have to stop there, and do every quest there before you can progress in the main story line.

NG+ fixes that entirely. Completely. Whatever level you are, every region in the game is now set to your level. Which means that you can follow the main quest line along without any problems at all and actually do the fun thing where you travel the open seas to sail to a random island and do the quests there. You know, open-world stuff! I vividly remember on my first play-through how sad I felt that I couldn't actually use my ship to sail around and explore, because the game forced me to do each region in a specific order, and "enjoy" my time there before moving me along at the pace of the main story line. I couldn't even stealth my way through it (in an ASSASSIN'S CREED game) because Odyssey has this really fucked up mechanic where stealth kills stop becoming instant kills if the target is too high of a level above you. Seriously. But NG+ fixes this, because you immediately get access to the crutch ability that the devs implemented to fix this issue and because most enemies you encounter are going to be around your level no matter where you are.

Since now everything is just scaled to your level, the world immediately opens up after you leave the tutorial area and you can do pretty much whatever you want. I didn't hunt down the Cult of Kosmos, a gameplay system where you discover clues about members of a secret dangerous cult hunting your family, have to piece those clues together (or collect enough where the game is just willing to locate them for you), and then go to a place to assassinate the person, which gives you another clue, and so on. Killing all cult members is optional, but does influence the main story-line, as they serve as the main antagonists. I didn't complete this objective on my first play-through, because some of them are specifically level-gated, as in the person you have to kill is just set to have level 59, which is post-endgame content, meaning you either have to commit to a worse ending of the main plot, or stall the final mission, ruining the pacing even more, to go on a world-spanning quest of hunting down every member.

Playing on NG+ has significantly increased my enjoyment of the game, as I feel like I can just go everywhere and do thing as I want to, not as the developers intended to. Do you know how great it is to actually see a place on the horizon and just, I don't know, go there? You know, the main attraction of the open-world genre? And not be greeted by an enemy town guard 10 levels above you decimates you in 2 hits while you'd be whaling against him with your best weapons for a solid 15 minutes before he goes down. It's great. I'd honestly urge it to even new-comers who like RPG or like the setting but don't like the grindy messy bits to just download a full save of the original game and start a new game + on it. The start will be a bit intimating since you'll have all abilities, but you can just reset the skill tree for spare change and re-level the way you want to. The game is better off not having the grinding for better ship parts in the game and you being able to go wherever you want.

It's far from perfect, but I really think it just turns into into a better experience. I'm fine with not really levelling my character, because 1 out of 3 skill trees is entirely useless and the other two only contain a couple of abilities which are any good, so putting your points into prestige skills that just percentage increase your damage or resistance or whatever is honestly good enough. It's not interesting, but the world and characters are plenty interesting enough for me.

Falling Down

Runtime: 1h 53m

Budget: $25m

Tomatometer: 75% 6.8/10 (Audience 88% 4/5)

IMDB Rating: 7.6 / 10 - 188k ratings (Top 1000 7.5/10)

Language: English

Streaming: Vudu , Amazon

Michael Douglas plays Foster, a man with 1950's era mentality who is having a really bad day. He just wants to make it across LA in time for his daughters birthday. The increasing setbacks he faces from modern 1990's society see him increasingly break down into a string of violence episodes. But his violence is guided by his 1950's era set of morals. And in spite of Fosters nerdy 50's appearance, he is surprisingly good at the modern violence thing. Does the movie glorify the violent anti-hero? Not so fast.

Robert Duvell plays Prendergast. A retiring cop on desk duty who is the only who connects the violent dots together. But because he is a retiring desk jockey who is clearly too afraid to take on a real cops job, almost no one listens to him. Almost no one. There is one person on the force who knows Prendergast has a lot more going on than people realize.

This story is an interesting analysis of the male psyche under pressure. Foster reacts with anger and aggression. Predergast bends to the point of being a doormat, and he just lies there and takes it.

What the movie uncovers at the end, is there is a middle ground, that handling life's setbacks sometimes requires patience and grace, and sometimes requires assertiveness and boldness, and that wisdom is knowing what you can and should try to change and what you can and should try to accept.

This movie has always been a favorite of mine, because I love a little bit of the old ultra violence, and I love an unusual ending that makes you rethink about the entire movie with a new perspective.

But what is really interesting, is this movie touches on the 1950's era males ideals and expectations men are still raised with today, and the outrage that arises when that sense of entitlement goes unfulfilled.

No age requirement on the question so anyone can answer, and it can be about anything -- opinions, beliefs, preferences, your own body, etc.

If you're comfortable sharing specific ages/ranges, feel free, but if not that's fine too.

I received my Steam Deck on June 6th and have used it literally every day since then. Here are some assorted thoughts that might be of value to people either waiting on theirs or on the fence about ordering:

The Good

• I had no idea until I got it that there's an official Deck test game: Aperture Desk Job. It's essentially a cute test/tutorial for the Deck's controls, set in the Portal universe. Takes about half an hour, but it's a fun onboarding for the device.
• On the past two Saturdays, I have woken up and played Vampire Survivors with one hand while I held my morning coffee in the other. This is the way.
• The control remapping options are absolutely incredible. It is a very robust system. Even simple fixes (like putting A on a back paddle so I can play Vampire Survivors one-handed) can make a world of difference.
• I haven't run many heavy games on it, but I started up Bugsnax, and it was keeping a solid 60 FPS and looked great.
• Emulation on the device is a dream. I haven't done anything past OG PlayStation games yet, but the power of the device, the robust control customization, and the ease of installing emulators (adding Flatpaks in desktop mode) make this absolutely ideal for revisiting older consoles. I've spent probably 80% of my time on the device in PSOne games.
• Battery life is fine, but I don't really use it. I bought a long power cord and spend most of the time with it plugged in on my couch since it has passthrough. I thought the cord sticking out the top of the device would bother me, but it hasn't really been an issue.
• Game selection is increasing steadily (1700+ verified games currently). If you're buying it to play specific games you might be disappointed, as there's still a lot that doesn't work. If you're buying it for games in general though, there is plenty to keep you occupied.
• The grips are MUCH more comfortable for bigger hands than standard Switch joycons. Those would always cramp my hands, but the Deck feels natural and comfortable.
• The middle of the device gets warm to the touch during gameplay, especially on more demanding stuff, but the grips remain cool and you won't feel the heat at all unless you specifically move your hands to the back middle of the device.

The Bad

• The paddles on the back are a little awkward, and I accidentally click them more than I like. In most games they're not mapped to anything so it's fine, but in emulators I use them for save states. I had to set them to respond to long presses only so my accidental clicks didn't mess things up.
• The software is... still getting there. I get navigation issues on store and profile pages frequently, along with frequent UI lag. It's a bit unpolished at the moment.
• Don't know if it's specific to my hardware or a software bug, but sometimes it won't log me in to my Friends list and the only fix is a reboot.
• I wish the control sticks had deeper indents for your thumbs. They're pretty flat, and my thumbs tend to slip off on stick-focused games (most noticeable on my right (aiming) thumb during 20 Minutes Till Dawn).
• Bluetooth headphones have to be manually reconnected in the Settings menu each time. No idea why this is, but it's a bit of an inconvenience.
• Mid-game suspending is still clunky. I don't really do it, as I don't trust that it'll save like it should. It also still counts playtime while suspended but seems to have a rollback feature? I put the device to sleep with a game open that I'd played for 20 minutes and came back to it saying I'd played it for 3 hours. The playtime ended up dropping back down to 20 minutes, but only after I restarted the device.

The Ugly

• There isn't any ugly. I absolutely love this device. Despite my nitpicks above, I think it's nothing short of splendid. I'm more excited about this than I've been about anything in videogaming in a long time.

If anyone has any questions, ask away! Also if any other people here have their Steam Decks and want to chime in with their experiences (@Autoxidation), go for it!

Thanks

After about a year-long absence I've hopped back on to Tildes again. There wasn't anything about the platform that made me "leave", it was purely external things in my life. With online communities, you really don't expect people to recognize you from day to day, but people here do and it's one of the things I love about Tildes.

What has absolutely shocked me is that after being gone for a full year people recognize my username. They have been incredibly kind and welcoming. They are happy to see me again. They remember the photography posts that I made and said they look forward to seeing them again. They remember the hard times my family was experiencing and have wished me well.

I'm not trying to be dramatic, but I'm being serious when I say that this reception has made me tear up. I've never experienced this before in any community, anonymous or otherwise. In all of the noise of the internet I never really expected my voice to be heard, much less be remembered by anyone. I never anticipated strangers to care beyond the time it takes to comment on a post.

I am completely overwhelmed by this reception. This is the kind of place that I thought had gone extinct on the internet. All of you have made me feel like I matter, and I don't think there's any way I can ever express my gratitude for this.

Since I'm posting anyway, I'll give a quick update for everyone.

Family

My family is doing amazing right now. Both of my sons have flourished and made so much progress. I've been around other foster/adoptive parents and the transformation that has happened for them in such a short amount of time is nothing short of a true miracle. Neither of them has needed inpatient psych care for almost two years now, and my oldest is now able to go to a special school that can meet his needs. My youngest who has struggled his whole life with social interaction now has several friends and even a best friend. My wife and I's relationship, which was on the verge of total destruction is now back on track and stronger than ever. I really appreciate the awesome support this community gave me during the worst year of my life.

Photography

I also fell out of photography during that time, but with the new stability I have rebuilt my darkroom in our new home and I'm picking it up again. It has gone from a fun hobby to a driving passion, and I'm now partnered with a mentor who has decades of experience. With his guidance, I hope to start producing gallery-quality material. I don't know that I'll ever submit to a gallery, it's really just a personal goal to start making things I can be proud of.

Again I can't thank everyone enough for all that you've done for me. I'm excited to be here and get plugged back into this awesome place!

I'm talking about silly harmless stuff like "I believed in Santa Claus till I was 13", and not deep existential stuff like "It took me till adulthood to realize that my parents were doing their best despite their their failings".

I'm a longtime Linux user, and I haven't used Windows in a while aside from just launching games from Steam on my living room computer, but my new work laptop is Microsoft's flagship Surface Pro 4 so I figured it'd be the best experience you can have on a Windows machine.

I got the laptop in yesterday, and here's the summary of my experience:

• I am required by IT to use Chrome. To install Chrome, I had to click through no fewer than three "Are you sure you don't want to use Microsoft's more secure, faster browser?" banners to do so.

• When I plug in my external monitor, by default, the two monitors were mirrored; when I went into display settings, it didn't show the external monitor until I closed and reopened the settings menu.

• I have an Apple Magic Touchpad 2, and I had some issues getting it set up on Ubuntu 20.04 when I initially got it. These problems are now solved on the latest version of Ubuntu, but I was expecting a nice contrast in a good plug-and-play experience on Windows. Instead, I had to install sketchy drivers from some random GitHub page to get it to work properly.

• I've had some minor annoyances with my audio interface (a Zoom R-22) not being set as the default when I want it to be on Ubuntu, and I was really looking forward to getting a smooth video calling experience with my nice mic and interface on Windows. Lo and behold, the R-22 audio input - the whole reason I have it - doesn't work at all, at least in the Zoom video calling app.

• On Ubuntu, I use QV4L2 to configure the framing, zoom, exposure, etc of my camera. It's a bit clunky, and I was looking forward to having a smooth experience with this on the premier business OS. Unfortunately, the camera on this laptop has extremely aggressive aperture priority mode enabled, and there is no first-party app to configure it! The documentation tells me to go to Settings -> Devices -> Camera but there is no such menu item. So, I just look either washed-out or ultra-dark in every video call.

• After running Windows Update and rebooting, I was greeted with a full-screen and quite annoying to exit tutorial for Microsoft Teams - an app I did not install, because my company uses Slack.

This in addition to some setup papercuts, but I think those were probably due to my corporate IT's process rather than Windows itself.

Is this common? Do people who use Windows just... put up with this kind of thing? Or am I having an exceptionally bad experience for some reason?

I've posted about my mental health issues on Tildes before, 1st post 2nd post.

I reread my other 2 posts before writing this, and I definitely cringed a bit at them. I was not doing good and did not have a real sense of what to include and not. However, I really needed to feel seen and heard, so I also don't regret either of them. I didn't have anyone to open up to in my real life.

I've gotten a much better understanding of what I went through as a kid over the past year. My sister physically and emotional abused me since before I can remember until she left for college, and my parents always ignored it. That's fucked up, and there's nothing wrong with me for being so damaged because of it.

I moved to Portland, and it was definitely the right choose. I can't imagine living in the suburbs again. I went to my first concert, I got my first tattoo. I tried weed for the first time, and it really helps me gain emotional clarity. For first time in my life, I have some real hope for my future.

As the final note, I'd like to thank all the nice people here again; you really did help a scared, lonely kid more then you think.

In a previous topic, people discussed their pet peeves, but that's not what this post is about. The idea is not to list (or rant about...) the ways in which others use language incorrectly or annoyingly, but rather to talk about our own habits and preferences both in writing and in speech.

Things like:

• How do you like to talk (complex, simple, formal, informal, brief, lengthy...), and what do you like or dislike listening to?
• Do you have certain words or phrasing patterns that you either love or avoid at all costs?
• Do you have a tendency to be overly formal? Conversely, are you often too informal, or use too much slang?
• Do you have an inner dialogue?
  • If so, how does it sound?
• Do you think exclusively in your mother tongue? If not, which situations bring up specific languages in your head?
• How do you adapt your patterns to different contexts (formal, informal, social, professional, etc)?
  • Does that come easy for you?
• Do you prefer to be addressed by specific pronouns which people often get wrong?
• Do you clearly differentiate between serious and jokeful registers?
  • Do you use phrasing and tone of voice to differentiate between the two? Does it work?
• Do you sometimes talk too much or too little?
• Do you make a lot of faux pas?

So, what are your linguistic idiosyncrasies? In what ways is your use of language particular, odd, or peculiar? Let's begin!

2020. That's when I met her.

To some of my close friends it sounds silly to them when I tell them we loved each other. It's hard for some people to grasp the intensity that a long distance relationship can have. But I don't have anything to prove to anyone - I truly did love her.

Being with an ace, I thought, would make things more complicated as I am not asexual myself. But if anything it made things simpler. It made the long distance easier to deal with. It made it easier to be patient. Easier to deal with her not being in my life all the time, because when push came to shove, she was in my life when I needed her to be. In fact, she was the main reason I labeled myself as polyamorous this year. I realised that I didn't want to pretend we were just friends anymore. I cared for her too much for that.

In so little time, she changed me into a better person. She taught me subtleties about love, sex, relationships but also about life in general. She helped me through mental struggles. She was my first call when we got my SO’s sister out of Kyiv this year. In fact, the day of the war, we talked for over six hours in a row.

She was always, always positive no matter the challenge. A true constant. Saw the flip side nobody else could see. No matter how ill she would get, she'd always brush it off and get back on her feet. In the two years I knew her, she had never made me cry, and her messages would always put a smile on my face.
Difficulty tends to make people stronger. She's had an incredibly difficult life, and was the toughest person I knew.

None of those challenges defined her. She was not defined by her gender, illness, sexuality. She was defined by her constant, absolute positivity. And her unending love for Korea.

She believed, as I do, that we're all one entity - the universe experiencing itself. That her role here had been to spread love and positivity. I hope everyone here will be lucky enough to meet someone like her, at some point in their life.

She was 30. The world is worse without her in it.

Like the title says, over the past couple of years, I think I slowly forgot how to have fun. I'm looking for any advice anyone might have (whether you've gone through the same process or not) on how to have a bit more fun.

The past 4 years have been transformational and formative for me. At 21 I decided to switch majors and move out from my parents' house to a more urban city. I mentally (depression) and financially struggled for the first 3 years, going broke in my second year of my second chance at undergrad at one point, eating bowls of rice. I identified my shortcomings (lack of achievements and disposable income) and worked on them. In the 3rd year I worked part-time while also taking a TA position with a full engineering course load. Last summer I completed an internship while also working as an independent contractor for a startup and kept the contractor position while being a full-time student up until this year. I signed a full-time offer at a big company this January and have one course left to fully graduate. I'm also correcting exams and tests on a part time basis for a professor. All this to say, I suddenly had a significant boost in income the last couple of months, and even more free time, whereas I was living on ~20k/year previously, with no free time.

This doesn't mean I don't enjoy or appreciate any fun activity I partake in. When I do go out with my friends I'm having a lot of fun and I'm breathing in every moment. I'm not depressed (not anymore), but I find myself having a more neutral mood outside of hangouts. What I'm struggling with is initiative with regards to fun. What can I do to have fun? I live in a cramped-up studio which I plan on moving out of in spring, but for now I don't have space for a TV let's say. I don't have a gaming pc, because up until now I couldn't afford one. I have a ps4 with a couple of old games, though sometimes I struggle to play them because of a lingering feeling of guilt from using it as a medium of procrastination in my teens. People mention lifestyle creep that follows an income boost, but I think my financial situation in the past has some lingering effect on me that's inhibiting even a small healthy dose of that. It's hard for me to justify upgrading some of my stuff, because they still work. Or buying some items I've wanted, because I'm doing fine without them. The isolation in a studio and the now gone uncertainty that was during the pandemic before I signed a full-time offer also played a role here I think.

So, having read through all that, I welcome any ideas or suggestions on how to spice my weekly life a bit more. I want to shake off the fight-or-flight phase that I was in. What are some things that you do that you think I could adopt to have a bit more fun by myself?

What’s a subculture you’re part of, and what insights can you give to outsiders about it?

What’s important that people outside the subculture know? What are some common misconceptions they have?

How and why did you get involved with it? In what ways is it meaningful to you?