So far I only managed to find two online communities in which people are able to hold a productive discussion and share interesting stuff - Tildes and LessWrong. Do you know if there are any other great online spaces like this?

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

With some inspiration from the Album of the Week over in ~music I was thinking of having something similar for movies. A weekly discussion on a specific movie - we just need to find a selection format that works. We already have a fine weekly thread with free for all discussion, but I was thinking more like a movieclub type thing.

I was thinking a format where every Monday a new topic is created for a specific movie, and the first Monday of the month it will also include the titles for the rest of the month.

The big problem is how to select the movies and what considerations to availability on various streaming services should be done. Which is not easy since the catalog isn't even the same across countries for the same service. I would like there is some element of random discovery, but with some intent of finding quality titles.

I personally enjoy older classics and film festival type movies such as what is on The Criterion Channel and to an extent Mubi. They also have the benefit of being curated services with monthly selections we could simply piggyback on. But maybe that is a bit too niche. There are of course tons of various "best movies of all time"-lists to use and the 1001 movies you must see before you die would be a good candidate to get a mix of all time classics and some titles that aren't mainstream.

We could also do various thematic selections based on decade, genre, director or actors, but I really just want to get started and see how the traction is.

Feel free to chime in if you are interested and have suggestions on how we could choose the movies to watch, and hopefully I can get this thing started Monday the 30th of October.

Between "enshittification" and my general admiration for hobbyist websites, I have felt more and more pressed to learn how to make the websites I want to see and offer it at low cost. At the same time, people usually have to maintain their day jobs and development expenses. I am curious how easy or difficult it is for people to do. (Also, I guess please share your small website if you'd like)

I’m looking for realistic alternatives to flying across the Atlantic Ocean.

I write this from an airport. I utterly despise flying. I hate it. I dislike literally every step of the process. I find the security screenings degrading despite the supposed advantages of TSA Pre-Check and Global Entry. I find the inefficient, class-based boarding process to be a complete waste of time. I am offended by the ridiculous itemized charges for luggage. Flying wreaks havoc on my body—my legs do not fit in their tiny seats and my head does not rest comfortably against their poorly adjustable headrest. Breathing stale, recirculating air for eight hours next to a coughing madman is unpleasant. When landing, without fail, the change in air pressure annihilates my sinuses, causing me a non-trivial amount of pain. I do not like it.

These factors, primarily, as well as some preference for an environmentally friendly lifestyle, have led me to ask for ways to avoid using an airplane to cross the pond.

I would be willing to pay somewhat more and spend considerably more time in transit to avoid flying. If it’s to be a particularly slow voyage (more than a week, as I imagine is typical), I would need an internet connection to work my job; something that can sustain a connection to a virtual machine, or in an ideal world take video calls. I have no other particular needs.

I obviously cannot take a train. I am left with only two options as a non-working passenger (I think): a cruise, or a cargo ship. The former sounds expensive. I have heard of people doing the latter but at a glance all I see online is “service paused due to COVID-19.” Surely that cannot truly be the case in 2023, though?

Does anyone have experience doing this? Can you offer advice on where to get started, what the experience is like, and what pitfalls to avoid? I am honestly almost at a breaking point here. I am obligated to take several transatlantic flights in the next year and I really cannot bear to continue doing this. I am open to ideas even if not all my criteria can be met. I appreciate any comments.

Always a fan of Sloan here, but I was recently reminded of Pure and have been grooving to “Spiritual Pollution” and “Anna”. So make me a virtual mix tape: What were your fav Canadian bands, albums, or songs of the ‘90s?

Asking because I have been having such vivid dreams lately and sometimes they touch me so much to the point that half a day, sometimes even the entire day, will be negatively affected - although that might also be my poor mental health (decided against posting this in ~health.mental as I wasn't sure it had that much to do with it).

I definitely have more bad dreams when I'm in a bad place or going through things, like if I feel lonely I will dream about relationships. If I've been really into something, like a game or watching a lot of the same genre of tv or film, I will dream about things towards that genre. If I'm having interpersonal issues, I will dream about those and even have conflicts and fights in my dreams very much related to that person - I have so many nightmares about my father for example.

I'm not into astrology, tarot cards, witchy stuff, etc., beyond it being just for fun. And I feel like dreams are more along those lines although I don't know. I just know they can really affect me.

What's your take?

Good morning ~ This is a thread to discuss new album releases that have arrived on our doorstep this week. Feel free to share albums and EPs that have caught your eye and interest.

Discussion Points

What are you looking forward to listen to?
Have you listened to any of these releases?
What are your thoughts?
What have you enjoyed from these artists in the past?

Why Friday?

Most (but not all) new LPs release on a Friday, as labels want to give the release a full week of sales before entering the charts.

~~ Feedback on the format welcome!

Discoverability seems to be an issue, so I figured I'd outsource finding "good" publications to you fine intelligent folks.

• What are you subscribed to?
• Do you have any paid subscriptions?
• Where does Substack fit in your daily life?

Thank you kindly in advance

PS: I have other interests I'd like to see long-form content about, but this post isn't limited to these. But if you provide publications about them, I'll love you more than the other commentors:

• reverse engineering/binary analysis
• smoking meats
• moral philosophy
• philosophy of religion
• critical theory

This is more aimed at professional folks I think, or small business from hobby printers.

My wife is hitting the limits and frustrations of using Cricut Explore 3 to cut her heat vinyl projects. Suddenly, they've released a new machine type and adjusted the software they use which makes her machine cut faster (yay) but now it's more sloppy and not cutting as well as it did (it's not the blade, I repeat, IT IS NOT THE BLADE!)

Her frustrations are becoming mine due to the earache. Does anyone on Tildes do heat transfer and normal vinyl work? She's also looking at printing to vinyl roll and cutting; her aim is mostly tees and teddies. Due to this, loading a full roll and having a lot of waste isn't ideal.

We're after advice and what her upgrade steps are. We looked at printing to film (DTF) and garment (DTF) options, but we are definitely going to stay with vinyl for now.

Thoughts, advice, options, anything of value to say is all welcome. Not to self promote or anything, but to give you ideas of what she makes Https://thunderlizard.co.uk/shop and look at near any item. You can see it is like 2x4", 8x8" and max usually 12x12" sizes and a mix of vinyl types from plain through to glitter. Hopefully seeing that should allow for better and more accurate advice.

Thanks all!

Hey all! Long time no see.
So, I'm dealing with a problem that I can't find many other people having online and I thought I would ask you very well informed people.

So, I recently got a double mastectomy, went from I believe C cups to an extremely flat chest.
Since then, I've had quite the trouble with shirts, specifically t-shirts.

They never did this before, but now, the shirt collar rides up on my throat every few minutes. It doesn't seem to matter too much what the size is, large or medium(the 2 sizes of shirts that I regularly wear).
Of course, they also fit looser, but I expected that.
Is this causing the shirts to ride up? Is there any way I can fix this?
Additional, may or may not be relevant details:
I have been on testosterone for 2 years, so could it have something to do with mass increase around my shoulders/neck?
My weight is around 210lbs, and I'm 5'7/5'8.

If anyone knows anything, or could point me to a better place to ask this question I would really appreciate your insight!

With the Youtube adblock debacle going on, and my account on Firefox+Ublock getting the dreaded popup, I was trying out the Piped alternative frontends for Youtube. If you're unaware, this is basically lets you browse Youtube without using the actual Youtube site or your Google account, and there's no ads. Whenever this adblock issue comes up, everyone starts pushing other frontends like Piped as the solution. There's also a dedicated bot that automatically replies with the Piped link when anyone posts a Youtube link on Lemmy. People seem to think very highly of this site! The simping for it can be very strong.

I tried using the main instance, https://piped.video, but it was laggy! Completely, unusably slow. I've also had it crash whenever I try to watch certain videos. I heard there were other instances that would have less users and less pressure on the servers, so I tried out the other public instances. One of them worked great for a couple days, now it just stopped loading videos all of a sudden. All the other instances I've tried either don't load videos, or the domain is down.

Are they cracking down on Piped now, or are all these instances just not good and you need to self-host to get anything out of Piped? Are there any other alternative frontends that you've liked?

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

I am helping someone look for a job related to coding (in Canada). Software development, web development, app development, etc. You get the idea. I have no connections in tech to help them network. And I don't understand what the difference is between an intermediate/intro position, what qualifications to help them highlight on their resume, or what is preventing them from finding a job. I know they've applied to hundreds of posts on LinkedIn and Indeed, etc. but they have only received a single interview (but no job).

I am at a loss - how do I help this person? How do you help someone find a job in a field you don't understand or have any network to help them meet the right person? Tech specific advice would be a godsend, but really any job-search related tricks, tips, etc. that I can pass on would be greatly appreciated.

A recent post here made me realize how much I really wish I just could pop in a CD while driving (you can skip those, and I can make mix CDs, so no need for cassettes haha). I commute a decent amount and I'm using a Pixel with GrapheneOS. Adding a streaming service would just be one more piece of Google I'd have to add to my "work" profile. I'm listening to some great podcasts, but I'd rather go full nostalgia without ripping all my CDs.

That being said, I'd like any recommendations. USB would be nice for the constant power option, but blutooth is doable as well. TIA!

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

Hi everyone,

So, I have a DS923+ with 4GB of RAM and while it is running fine most of the time with my Docker containers, I guess everything could be more fluid (e.g. scrolling on Jellyfin while it is loading info / images).

Since the Linux OS uses free RAM as cache, I was looking to buy an extra stick of RAM. I was thinking of buying a 8GB of RAM which in total my system would then have 12 GB. Not sure if overkill, but still, I run a few containers.

I’ve actually searched on the Synology subreddit, but everyone is basically buying 16GB of RAM or maxing out the GB allowed for the RAM on the DS923+. So, that is the reason why I’m asking here.

I know that Kingston has some 8GB RAM sticks which should work with DS923+ but it seems they are blacklisted by Synology, so it seems you will always have a warning on the notification list which I wanted to avoid. :/ But on that list (see here: Ram list), it seems the 8GB RAM that Synology uses is sourced from Innodisk or Adata, so you shouldn’t get any warning there. Sadly, I can’t find them anywhere for sale. Even when I contacted the companies directly.

In conclusion, has anyone bought a 8GB ECC RAM for the DS923+ which doesn’t give a DSM warning?

Thanks everyone in advance!

Cheers!

I have a problem. My wife is currently training for a half-marathon and getting really into it. She's getting anxiety about being able to finish her training runs, she's telling me how much this is going to mean to her, and comparing the race with her giving birth to our children.

My problem is that I just don't "get it".

As a good partner, I'm really trying to support her. I have never said anything negative about her running, I've always watched the kids when she needs to train, and I'll absolutely be there during the run to cheer her on. But deep down it just doesn't feel like a 'big deal' to me.

I'm glad that she's healthy and exercising regularly, and that she's getting some mental relief from being a stay-at-home-Mom. But just running a long way is just that. I liken it to saying everyday after dinner, I'm going to go stack some rocks in the front yard. And then one day saying "Wow, I'm going to stack them 10 feet high!". And really expecting her to get excited for me because of that.

Running feels like a personal accomplishment, and because of that, I'm sure she's excited personally, but I'm just not that impressed. I've always hid that part, and just said things like "way to go babe!" or "I knew you could do it", but she could tell this morning that I wasn't truly excited about it.

To compound things, her sister and brother-in-law are avid runners, and they've both done marathons. She is just in awe of them, and they all hype this up to each other. On his last run (a 30 mile trail run) he was faltering, but made it through. Everyone is just so impressed with his accomplishment. I mean its cool that he's good at his hobby, but also that kind of shit cannot be good for your body, and he had like a 3 day recovery period where his wife is watching the kids almost exclusively.

Why is he doing that to himself, and even more importantly, why is everyone around us so excited that he did? I feel like they're getting excited that someone went to the gym and worked out, but just in an extreme manner.

What is wrong with me? Please help me understand why I'm not excited that my wife is running a long distance.

My wife has an ipad pro, and we have a baby monitor. So I was watching the baby monitor and noticed that her ipad was also in view of the camera. What I also noticed is that her ipad seems to flash an infrared light every minute or so.

After some googling I think this is the lidar scanner, although I'm not 100% sure.

Anyway, does anyone know why her ipad is doing this? It feels pretty creepy that a device is scanning your house all the time. Normally you don't even notice, it's only when you view the iPad pro from a camera that also shows infrared.

Maybe I'm just a little paranoid, but it feels like a privacy violation.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

I've been building a playlist of songs that I would classify as, for lack of a better term, "cool" songs. The word is extremely subjective and based on my personal experience, of course. But the best way I would describe these songs would be: if I imagine myself riding in a car with a friend, and he/she puts on a playlist to show off some new music discoveries, these would be songs that I hear for the first time and think, "damn, that is a cool song."

Most of the songs that I'm about to list have similar qualities, but there are some exceptions. I know all of these songs by heart, so my objective is to find new songs that fit these obscure qualities. Also, I'd really like to know what exactly is causing me to call these songs "cool".

The songs (with Spotify links):

• The Prodigy - Breathe
• Eels - Novocaine for the Soul
• Lo Fidelity Allstars - Battleflag
• Sneaker Pimps - 6 Underground
• White Town - Your Woman
• Run the Jewels - Blockbuster Night, Pt. 1

Now, you're instantly thinking: 5 out of 6 of these are songs from the 90's from groups that all probably ran in the same circles and shared pedal board setups backstage. There's probably a lot of truth to that. Aside from that theme though, here's what I've identified:

• Typically the sound is lo-fi.
• There's some sort of funky beat/rhythm. The drums are probably electronic.
• Many of these songs feature buildups into a powerful chorus or ending
• There may be vocal distortion or other effects
• Usage of electronics
• There's a dark/minor/modal sound to them
• Maybe there's a bit of industrial tie-in?
• The singers are closer to monotonous than all over the octaves

And that's all I've got so far. I've been thinking about this a lot and would love to discover some more music to fit into this theme. I want to be clear that I do NOT think this should just be a 90's playlist... unless that just happens to be where all of these songs exist.

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like adhd, digital distribution and antitrust. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was bemused.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

I'm a huge fan of the Peter Paul and Mary version of Don't Think Twice It's All Right
Don't Think Twice It's All Right

But some people prefer the Bob Dylan version (love the harmonica)
Don't Think Twice It's All Right

For my lover left me songs, I really like Pink's version of Me and Bobbie McGee
Me and Bobbie McGee

Does anyone else want to share a favorite song about being the one leaving or the one being left?

This question is particularly regarding kids ages 5-12. I've read some great tips, and I'm wondering what you have found to help. Here are a few:

1. Emphasize boundaries with frequent caretakers, such as grandparents and neighbors.
2. Share science facts, religious traditions, and a variety of creation myths with young kiddos to neutralize Bible stories.
3. Talk regularly about your own ethics and values.
4. Explain others' beliefs and contextualize those beliefs as part of their culture.

Sorry if this is a bit materialistic.

I think furniture reveals a lot about people, and the way that people organise their space is really interesting to me. For example I allocate a vast amount of space for bookshelves, whereas some people like to have big open spaces.

Personally my favourite furniture brand is probably Vitsoe. There's also often some fantastic furniture on EBay, or available at auction from offices (a really mad thing is that it's fairly common for office rental contracts to require the entire fitout to be ripped out and the office returned unfurnished – this often means everything including the ceiling panels and floorboards is throw out – even if the next tennant would happily accept the fitout) as people move out.

p.s. people who buy really expensive furniture which looks super ugly just so that they can flex their expensive furniture are the worst

I'm interested to hear your methods, tools, and philosophies. Do you write meticulous to-do lists? Pen-n-paper, or a favourite app? Rigorous habit building?

Whatever it is you do that keeps your life in check and gets you to do things on time, I'd love to hear it.

Youtube is flooding with very hot models all doing some pilates and yoga claiming you'll get big gains in no time at all.

I'm looking for a sincere, honest and non-flashy 20 to 30 min video that works both my core and bum region.

Hopefully some of you have had the time to dig through all of the weeds.

Choose one album
that you love
that you think deserves more love

Tell us what it is, and why.

Previous posts in series

Additional Details

I lift regularly and I think I have good numbers. For information:

• age: 37
• Height: 178cm
• Weight: 72kg now
• Bench: 7 reps wkth 71kg
• Squat: 8 reps with 79kg (i recently recovered from a knee injury)
• Pull up: 1 rep with 35kg attached to a weight belt
• Kneeling ab-wheel rollot: I can do a straight set of 30 reps, followed by another of 25 and then more 20. Am working om doing it standing, but it's hard.

My SO decided to go on a diet and I joined her to help. My goal is to have a six pack abs for the first time in my life.

I don't even plan to maintain it all around. I just want to reach this milestone for a day or two and call it a day. After that I'll maintain weight for a month or two then start bulking. I am counting calories and macros.

I know it is a bullshit goal, but why not.

Anyway, I dropped from 77kg to 72kg and reached a point where she pointed out that my cheeks are sucked in. And I agree, my face is skinny right now.

I feel like I'm close, but I don't really know. Here are some pics I took this morning when flexing for reference: (1) (2)

My unflexed belly is not much bigger than this tho. I don't have fat hanging anymore.

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

This random late-night thought that hopefully someone can quickly point me to (my Google-fu is weak tonight). I'd like to see some pictures of space from the ISS that don't include Earth. I live in an area that is heavily light polluted so my nightsky view is terrible and I've seen amazing images from other places on Earth that look stunning - I figured a view from the ISS would be even more amazing.

Some of the ones I've quickly found on google appear to be photoshopped - as I'll find the same scene with only a few stars, another seemingly showing the entire Milky Way and then another plain black highlighting the earth.

Many Thanks!

So I'm looking for a solution that's basically just a remote to scroll the web while I'm slouched down in the couch. Something that doesn't require a flat surface to work.

I'd also be interested to hear your solutions for your living room PCs. Thanks!

I'm in the market for a set of dishes. The consensus is:

• Corelle - lightweight and solid
• Fiestaware - built to last

I'm not a fan of either unfortunately. Not because these brands are bad, but I'm looking for a particular look. Something akin to stoneware with a darker color. I also prefer heavier dishes. Unfortunately stoneware is known (or said) to chip easily. I'm not looking for something that will survive being dropped (I don't remember the last time I dropped a plate). This is the first selling point that gets brought up I've noticed.

What did you choose and what has been your experience? Has your stoneware chipped after washing & stacking?

EDIT
I forgot to provide more details about my situation to help with recommendations.

• I'm in the US
• No family/single, but plan to host for a small group on an occasion (~4 people)
• I'm starting from scratch and would like a set that works in all situations + everyday use. I'm willing to splurge (assuming it's quality and lasts).

Let me start by saying I really enjoyed playing the Mass Effect games. They are awesome.

I found the plot, though, incoherent. Especially in ME3. I don't mind small conveniences like "good thing this random teleporter beam designed to suck up corpses has easy entrée to the reaper's command center," because it's a game.

But how on earth did Cerberus amass seemingly billions of elite special operations forces with nobody noticing? What do you mean the secret weapon against the reapers has been improved each cycle by people who didn't know what it was supposed to do? How could that possibly result in a functional device?

It's clear, I think, that this wasn't necessarily the direction the first game was going. Cerberus was the subject of a side quest, but nothing more. The authors of the lore seemed to be taking great pains to ensure everything was logical, based on the in-universe rules they had established.

...and then ME2 kicks off and the series is almost as much about Cerberus, from this point on, as it is about the reapers.

What did you think about how the plot unrolled?

(You may also wish to read this series of essays. It's about 18 billion words long, though - fair warning. https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=27792)

Good morning ~ This is a thread to discuss new album releases that have arrived on our doorstep this week. Feel free to share albums and EPs that have caught your eye and interest!

Discussion Points

What are you looking forward to listen to?
Have you listened to any of these releases?
What are your thoughts?
What have you enjoyed from these artists in the past?

Why Friday?

Most (but not all) new LPs release on a Friday, as labels want to give the release a full week of sales before entering the charts.

~~ Feedback on the format welcome!

A lot of people argue that we should try to protect "minority languages" and support "linguistic diversity", but I struggle to understand why having more languages is actually a good thing.

I would be very interested to hear about concrete benefits in the present to linguistic diversity.

Lots of random musings I had on this

A lot of people say things like "it helps you to think differently" which I have not really understood at all (I speak multiple languages, for context, some quite different), but my sample size is really just me in saying that. They also say things like "protect minority culture" which I think is quite harmful. For example my great-grandmother immigrated to an English-speaking country in the west from Africa (she was Indian-African), and she could not speak a word of English which put her at a massive disadvantage, but also gave other family members a lot more power in their relationship because they could all speak English. [Edit: I think there's a gender aspect where women are expected to maintain the traditional language and the burden is not put on men in the same way]. I get the whole assimilation versus integration, but I think there's a very strong case for trying to assimilate (into the dominant group).

I have yet to see a case arguing why it is better to have more languages (and thus necessarily less mutual comprehension and a more segregated world) rather than a single one (e.g. if everyone spoke English). My issue is not really with high-level philosophy about what would be better in an ideal world, but multilingualism as a practical concern. For example, Tildes does not really seem to 'believe' in multilingualism because it only allows English (which personally I think is better than if we had people arguing backwards and forwards in many different languages, but I am also a native English speaker so that might prejudice my perspective).

Most of the arguments about this that I see are from (usually) French speakers bemoaning the decline of their language (and it's kind of ironic to see France becoming a flag-bearer for linguistic diversity given that they exterminated a lot of languages to force French upon the world).

Platform: Android

What is your calorie counting/meal planning application of choice? Looking for something simple and hyper-focused on calorie counting, and I'm ok with a bit of macro tracking, however that's all I want it to do - no feature creep into other wellness/fitness goals and coaching, etc.

I'm fine with paying (as long as it's reasonable) for a simple application without a ton of ads that does this one thing really well.

Suggestions?

Yesterday, I really enjoyed listening to the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Umberto Eco's The Name Of The Rose (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkpLbVtTAuk).

And today I'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations for similar audio-books which have multiple voice actors.

All genre is okay but preferably singular works that focus on story over recurring characters (anthology series are okay). Preferably works that are available on YouTube, or otherwise freely downloadable--but this is not a strict requirement.

I grew up semi-bilingual (English as my native language, Spanish spoken at least once a day at home), and went on to study Spanish as my language of choice in middle and high school. Despite this, I would still like to further my Spanish language skills/knowledge with some self-paced coursework, as the Spanish I grew up hearing in the house was much more colloquial and then the Spanish I studied in school was the "from Spain" Spanish, rather than the Central American Spanish my family spoke. I grew up being better able to understand more than what I could speak or write myself.

When I moved onto to college, I wanted to try studying a different language, so I chose French (bad idea; I could never really get the hang of it between the spelling challenges and the pronunciation being so different from the written word). I took one semester and passed just enough to get credit for the class but moved onto to German -- which was a little bit easier than French but more difficult than Spanish. Beginner classes in it were easy for me to learn, but I started to struggle when I got to upper-intermediate. Plus, I'm not always great at spelling in English, and French and German are not "speller-friendly" languages haha.

Now as I approach my midlife, I am thoroughly enjoying my ASL for Beginners course through my local community college. I find it incredibly intuitive whenever I learn new signs ("oh, that makes sense, cool" when I see a new sign). My mother-in-law has known and taught ASL (as well as SEE) for over 20 years so she is very helpful with me practicing and being able to correct any small mistakes I make. I don't know anyone who is Deaf, but have had a few friends growing up who used hearing aids (I don't think they knew ASL).

So what about you? Are you currently learning a new language? If so, what is it, how do you like it so far, and what led you to want to learn it? If not, are there any languages on your wishlist that you'd like to learn someday?

For me, I wanted to learn ASL as a way to connect more deeply with my MIL in our relationship, as well as have some level of ability to sign with those who are Deaf/deaf. I also wanted to learn it because I wanted an alternative way to communicate with my spouse if we are at a noisy event/party/etc. without having to shout to be heard.

I've been writing and rewriting this to make it more formal, but I've decided to screw it because the original was raw and can probably describe my needs better than my rewrites could ever. So apologies if it doesn't fit the tone of Tildes

As of right now, I am currently not seeing anyone for my mental health. However, I'm in the process of getting help. I already have a consultation form for one and all I have to is figure out if I'm saying too much because one part ended up being like 16 paragraphs long and I don't think mental health professionals like that...

Anyways, I've been having trouble getting myself to clean. There's a gap between my bed and the wall that I put in case I ever got bedbugs (never got bedbugs in my life) and what ended up happening is various items of clothing would fall into that gap without me knowing. Which led to a whole bunch of carpet beetles suddenly flying in my room a month and a half ago.

Here's my concern: I did have a period where I found fleas in my room, and after seeing them a few times I went on a cleaning spree. Eventually my dad had to stop me because I was deep cleaning the house every single day, and when I wasn't doing that I was researching about pest control. When I wasn't able to clean I ended up researching too deeply on pest control, which led me to find out about scabies. Which led me to a delusion that I had scabies, then went straight back to my cleaning frenzy again, this time with this newfound fear that I'm infesting my family with scabies if I don't babywipe or vacuum everything.

Then one day, I started getting psychosomatic hallucinations that matched the symptoms of scabies. At night, I wouldn't be able to sleep because I would feel hundreds of bugs crawling inside my skin every time it got dark, forcing me to sleep with 3 lamps around me to mitigate the sensation. Every time I got out of a hot shower I could feel it too, but not as strongly as at night. And then when I sought out a dermatologist, because there was no way I didn't have scabies if I was going through all these symptoms, it just suddenly... stopped? Which was my biggest indicator that it wasn't scabies, because it would have never stopped if it was scabies.

It was a... bizarre experience for sure, but an impactful one. Especially now that it's been about a year since it all went down, and I've been having trouble sleeping because my room gets so stuffy. I keep my window open at all times, even when I'm too cold to sleep, just because the air is so musky and makes me feel like I'm on the edge of throwing up. I don't feel hunger in my room, and all I can think of is how there's carpet beetles in those gaps and how I will have to clean them when I get better. Because I don't want to repeat what happened last year. I don't want to clean and have these stupid carpet beetles or whatever else I find in that gap briefly take over my life like those fleas and imaginary scabies did. For the past few years I've been swinging between moments of depressive symptoms, grandiosity, and paranoia one after another and a few months ago is the first time in five years since I stopped having these back-to-back moments and I just... can't have another one again. Not until I get help.

But it has come to my attention that help might take a long time. If I need therapy, that might take months, if not years, and there's a good chance if I need medication I won't find the perfect one right away. So either I have to wait until months or years of my room rotting more and more or I clean it now. To clean knowing full well that I might relapse into another stupid paranoid episode because it was a trigger before and can be a trigger now.

I don't know. I don't know what to do. I want to clean but I don't want to trigger what I went through in the past again. I don't want to trigger anything. Any causes to my episodes I keep it in my head and make it a rule to avoid at all cost, but how do I avoid cleaning when it's impacting my physical health not to clean? I know I should get help, get treatment, but I shouldn't do anything funny while I wait for the perfect solution right? When I have the right treatment and coping mechanisms I can tackle my triggers, so best not to clean? If that's a trigger? I hate this. I just want guidance

This is Album of the Week #5 ~ This week's album is Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP

Year of Release: 2000
Genre(s): Hip Hop
Country: United States
Length: 72 minutes
Album.Link

Excerpt from Pitchfork:

But the anger and trauma he conjured from his childhood of abuse and bullying felt uncomfortably real in all his performances. On The Marshall Mathers LP, he suits the action to the word and the word to the action. He picks the right tone for the right mood, the horrorcore of “Remember Me?,” the beleaguered artist on “The Way I Am,” the impish malevolence of “Criminal,” or the tortured, regretful, loving, deranged, murderous everything-all-at-once feeling of “Kim.” We don’t really believe it, but we believe Eminem really believes it.

Discussion points:
Have you heard this artist/album before? Is this your first time hearing?
Do you enjoy this genre? Is this an album you would have chosen?
Does this album remind you of something you've heard before?
What were the album's strengths or weaknesses?
Was there a standout track for you?
How did you hear the album? Where were you? What was your setup?

--

Album of the week is currently chosen randomly (via random.org) from the top 5000 albums from a custom all-time RYM chart, with a 4/5 popularity weighting. The chart is recalculated weekly.

Missed last week? It can be found here.

Any feedback on the format is welcome ~~

My kids are 17, 15, 14 and 3. The eldest have heard my repertoire over and over again. I speak of my beloved dad favourites such as:

2 cows are in a field. One turns to the other and says "Moo!", the other cow says "Oi, I was going to say that."

2 sausages are in a frying pan. One says "Phew, it's hot in here!" And the other says "Oh my God. A talking sausage!"

Did you hear about the magic tractor? It was going down the road and turned into a field!

Now that you have finished laughing, I need some fresh stuff. So what hidden gems do you have for me to steal and use to cause more groans?

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.