Over a year ago, I had my heart broken pretty bad. I lost most of my appetite for the week or two after that, and felt a lot of that emotion "in my stomach" for a couple months. And, to be honest, I'm still working through the whole thing.

Coincidentally, I've noticed that my hunger signals have gotten a lot worse since. I used to just listen to my stomach to regulate my eating and that was perfectly fine, but now I find myself fairly regularly eating until I think I'm full then waking up from hunger pangs in the middle of the night or feeling hunger pangs as soon as my head hits the pillow when I try to go to sleep. Albeit, my eating habits aren't super great in general. I'll often eat less out of laziness of not wanting to make extra food or I'll skip a meal every now and then because I'm busy. But I've had those habits for a while and it didn't cause me much trouble before.

I'm wondering if these two things might be related or not. Has anyone perhaps experienced something similar?

I need a German phone number, so I need a German SIM.

My preference would be a prepaid year because it’s a bit cheaper. Also, I have a physical sim slot and would rather use a physical sim than an eSIM.

Many apps (Mein O2, MeinMagenta for cell services and most of the local transit apps) are region locked. I can’t currently change my Apple ID to Germany and can’t make a new Apple ID for Germany without a German phone number.

Any hot takes on Telekom, Vodafone, O2, etc. or recommendations on getting a physical SIM card?

Note: The Aldi closest to me only had eSIM today or thought they only had eSIM.

Edit: I actually need a phone number for things, e.g. kita being able to call me if one of my kids get sick at daycare.

My wife and I are having a baby just 1.5 months from now (hooray!). And our insurance provider, Anthem Blue Cross, is cutting coverage to our local hospital network and maternity services in 10 days (boooo!). The entire process of finding out about this (via the news, not our insurance or the hospital) and getting continued coverage has been an absolute nightmare. We jumped the hoops, sent in all the required paperwork, and even got the billing department at the hospital involved. We're still only covered if we happen to be lucky enough that the doctor who is named on the continued coverage agreement happens to be on call at the time of delivery, otherwise it'll be out of pocket to the tune of $10,000 of dollars. At this point it feels like we're betting it all on red.

The response to the United Healthcare shooting illustrated just how frustrated people of the US are in their healthcare system and I'd like to do my part to continue to keep that topic front of mind in the American psyche. I've written up a little op-ed on our experience and I was wonder if any Tilderinos have managed to get one published before. Any insight would be very welcome.

NOTE: I do not want comments bemoaning the current state of US politics on this post. Rest assured that I am well aware of all that. Focusing on that will not help me in my current situation and will only serve to depress me. Please respect my wishes on this.

So others here might remember that about a year ago I posted about how I was getting divorced. While nothing's happened on paper yet, my ex and I have lived separately since then. Between taking in-person German language classes and making new online friends, I've been doing a lot of work on myself in the interim, and my mental health has been mostly doing a lot better than it was while I was married, barring a few short-term dips.

Unfortunately, my unemployment ran out, and I'm no closer to getting a job in my field, and not for lack of trying. The German job market sucks absolute ass right now, and while my German language skills have improved a huge amount over the past year, they're not good enough to overcome the average German's preference for a native speaker, which in this job market is enough. Anyway, the long and short of it is that I'm broke and there's no clear solution here in Germany for that for me.

Luckily for me, I'm still quite young in the grand scheme of things, and I have parents who love me and are willing to support me in getting back home to the US, alongside letting me live with them in my childhood home until I get a job and can save up enough to get back on my feet and get my own place. The job market in the US is better for me than in Germany (especially given the lack of a language barrier) and I have opportunities for further education and career pivots that wouldn't be possible for me in Germany right now. This, plus the fact that I really want to be there while my sister's young kids grow up, means moving back to the States is probably my best next step, moving forward.

I'm excited to be near my family again and to reconnect with friends in the area, but obviously I'm also pretty anxious about the whole experience. I'd love advice from others who have moved internationally about little things that are easily forgotten or are left out of the usual lists of things to consider during the planning stages. When I first moved to Germany, I was a poor student who just had a few suitcases with me, but now I'm an adult with more stuff I own that I value to some extent. I've already begun the process of slimming down what I plan to bring with me to the essentials and checking which electronics can be safely operated in the US with/without a transformer. But I'm sure there's something I've missed that other people have experience with and I'd love any advice from people who have made similar moves themselves.

Also, any little positives about adult life in the US or bits of advice for once I move back are appreciated. I moved to Germany right after I finished my bachelor's, so I don't have much experience as a "real adult" in the US. So any tips to help smooth along the adjustment process or little bits of advice for someone learning to live as an adult in suburban Ohio would be welcome. And any positivity is extremely appreciated -- it might be a tough ask here on Tildes and I know it can be hard in the current times, but that's exactly why I need what I can get.

Preface: Sorry if this isn't the place, and if I'm cagey on some specifics. Also sorry for the length, this turned out a lot longer than I anticipated.

My partner and I have been together for nearly 8 years at this point. This was my first serious, long-term committed relationship; every other one I'd had was short-lived (<3 months) and I hadn't exactly had a lot of them. Maybe this is why I was blind to the cracks until things got unavoidable.

It started off strong and passionate of course, and things moved rather quickly. We (they, I'm not on the title) bought a house and we were expecting a child within a year. I should have kept things slower, thought with my head instead of blindly following my heart. I'd been very lonely for a very long time. I was happy those first few years, even if in hindsight the cracks were beginning to show. Even before baby came along, intimacy fell off a cliff. I had many talks about this with them, which led nowhere much really. The rest of the relationship still felt solid to me though. I pressed on.

In the beginning, they had a better job than I did. I earned far less. Luckily an opportunity came up for me to finish my schooling and further my career, and I put a lot of work into achieving just that. Now things have changed with that, and I feel like we could be doing well together... If it weren't for the financial instability I feel they bring. I'd never been great with money, but my partner's father took me under his wing and taught me a lot of financial literacy. I became adept at putting together spreadsheets and managing our finances. Our first major crisis we overcame together through being very fiscally conservative and digging our way out. We also had several windfalls that helped us out. Then... another crisis, again because of overspending on their end. We pulled from our IRAs in order to stay afloat, with promises to do better. Then... another crisis. Again. Same reasons. We put together a loan against the home's equity. More promises.

We are again heading to a crisis. We are out of windfalls and options and frankly I'm exhausted.

Finally, parenting and housekeeping. I've always loved how my partner cares so much for their children (from a prior relationship) as well as ours. They have a way of making magical moments which I envy. This is contrasted by their complete inability to parent effectively. There's no consequences, no expectations, no boundaries, and it's infuriating. Initially it wasn't quite that bad, and I felt I had equal say in parenting. Over the years, that's eroded to my partner viewing me as authoritarian and domineering. The kids know they'll get their way with them so why would they ever come to me first?

Maybe it was the extra time during COVID but they also put more effort into housekeeping early on as well. Now I feel it mostly falls on my shoulders, and my will to clean and keep up is murdered by the fact that within hours it's a mess again. It isn't helped by the fact that my partner is a hoarder. I have to gut things from the house in secret. I haven't seen the corners of my walls in ages. I spent a week while they were away cleaning the home top to bottom last year. Within a day it looked like a bomb went off.

These are all things I've tried discussing with them, multiple times, over the years. I mostly get brushed off, or (what I feel now are) empty promises. Most infuriating to me is "I don't know what you want me to say." I want you to say what's in your heart, what you feel! Don't tell me something you think I want to hear, be honest.

I feel I know where this is going, I don't want to fall in the same trap I see many couples are in where it's clearly over and yet they keep moving along. We're not married, a clean break is reasonable, I know my partner can be mature about things because their relationship with their ex is amazingly calm and chill.

I'm terrified in a way of being alone again.

I don't really know where to turn for more perspective. I've already talked with my sister, and a close co-worker who is going through some of the same feelings I am. Those conversations have been very helpful. Recently, what really put things in stark contrast was the other day when my partner's father asked "So is everything ok between you two?" If he went out and asked, it means it's really obvious things are not ok.

I've been fantasizing a lot lately about what a split would be like. Making plans for where to go, and figuring out how to reconcile things like accounts, items, and debts. Worst of all I've been fantasizing about being with other people; the intimacy and passions has been gone between us for a long time. The last time my partner initiated anything between us was a year ago, and I don't even remember the time before that. Everything feels so wrong and unsatisfactory.

I told them yesterday we need a frank talk, and not through text this time - their preferred method of communication with me for a while now... But I have no idea when we even have time for that away from the kids.

Closing thought: I don't want to feel like I've pre-determined my outcome here. I feel I've done what I can though, to make my own feelings clear. Thank you for any thoughts.

Imgur album of what I'm thinking, apartment-provided floor plans that aren't 100% accurate. Kitchen and bathroom dimensions are not accurate, I just put them there as a reference for walkways and such. The patio is on the north side of the living room and opens from the right side.

Okay! So since the last time I posted asking for advice about housing options (thank you all who read or contributed to it), a few factors have come up with the housemate option that made it a bit less appealing. Is it so unappealing that 1k extra in savings isn't worth it? Probably not... but I actually really liked this apartment unit even if it still lacks things like the in-unit laundry and have been approved for it.

I have to hire movers. There are two items that I physically cannot move on my own once they are plopped down by the movers: the Ikea Hemnes daybed (twin size bed that can expand to full size) and the larger standing desk with my gaming PC setup. I can probably shimmy the desk around if nothing is on it, but that daybed is... not moving. Because of this I'd really like to work on laying out my potential future apartment with those two items in mind.

Some personal preference notes:

• I would like the living room to feel at least a bit cozy even if I don't expect guests regularly at all. I will not be obtaining a couch/sofa because I'd need one that I can actually sit on, but that is pretty far out of my preferred budget at this time - like I'd rather get two Ikea Poangs instead of one cheap sofa that will hurt my back to sit on.
• Avoiding certain things within reason - no backs to windows while seated at a computer desk, prefer no back towards entryway. I realize my tentative layout plan absolutely has my back towards entryways but I'm struggling to find a layout that really ticks all boxes
• I can buy new furniture! Not immediately because I mentioned money being an anxiety-inducer of mine even if I'm doing comparatively well. But I'm not really sold on needing a big TV. If I want to watch a show while working on some arts and crafts, I do it on the iPad or 16in portable monitor.

I've considered:

• Two desks in living room, bedroom only for sleeping. I'm not against it, but with just a twin bed and maybe a bookshelf or two, I don't know what I'd even put in here... I've never had an entire bedroom dedicated to just sleeping, minus the several months prior to the breakup :')

• One desk in living room, another in bedroom. Probably gaming desk in the living room. I don't like my options for the bedroom because of the bathroom placement and closet doors along the west wall that make it difficult to place anything on that side. I don't enjoy the work desk having my back to the entrance, but those closet doors don't really allow me to put the desk anywhere that doesn't have my back to it in some way.

Any and all thoughts appreciated, whether it's on the two desks in living room vs. 1/1 split setup, or a layout of a specific room!

Has anybody tried these? I just ordered a Silent Mammoth... which is essentially a coat hanger bent all fancy. It arrives in a few days.

Anyway, anybody have any experience with these sorts of things? I went with this one purely because its metal and I don't want to have some ten-use plastic to recycle if this whole thing leads to improvement.

I don't have sleep apnea but I do think my cute button nose could use a little opening. :)

LISP and schemes have always, from a distance appeared to be the best way to write code. I even started my own language that has languished for the past couple years, and it's taken on a pseudo-likeness to (scheme)-like languages by accident.

This brings me to my questions -

1. How did you start?
2. Does anyone here do systems-level scheme/lisp? what do you program in for that?

The recruitment agency I temp with are a major multinational player in the market, have a bit of a reputation for being sharks (based on feedback I've seen about them on Reddit and Trustpilot.) They're a publicly listed company who absolutely 100% should know better.

I caught a really nasty virus two weekends ago and had been practically bedridden for nearly a week. For the first two days of calling in sick, I logged into my work laptop and messaged my line manager via Teams. On Wednesday morning, I was advised that I should also keep my agency in the loop, so I instead sent her an email, ensuring to copy in the recruitment consultant who is my point-of-contact (I'll just call him Ben.)

At roughly 3:40 PM, Ben sends me a snarky WhatsApp message out of the blue. "you know we can see your details on job boards lol." I left him on read because 1. I'm in bed and 2. My job search is frankly none of his business.

He then called me and proceeded to all-but-accuse me of pulling sickies to attend interviews, going behind his back to apply for jobs. He asked me if I even considered how bad I was going to make him and the agency look if I quit my job, then proceeded to interrogate me about my contact I had with other recruiters and warned me to delist myself any job boards moving forwards. I complied, purely because I wanted to shut him up and didn't want to start a further argument, when in my head I just wanted to verbally chew him out.

I don't appreciate being intimidated and guilt-tripped about my job search, especially when I am genuinely unwell, and I am seriously thinking about lodging a formal complaint with the agency, but I'm also worried about facing retaliation for this.

AFAIK, I have not signed into a contract preventing me from applying for roles with other employers or agencies. I'm also on a temp zero-hours contract that is due to finish in less than three weeks where either party can terminate it without notice or liability. There is the possibility of the work assignment being extended, or me being offered a permanent role but I don't intend to stay beyond this. This was a decision I made to myself weeks before Ben's recent asshole behaviour. Other than that, I literally have nothing lined up.

Has anybody had experiences raising formal complaints with recruitment agencies? The agency does have a complaints procedure and a dedicated quality care team that investigates formal complaints.

I have been going through trials to see what ADHD medication might be a good fit for me, and as a side effect have amassed a good deal of unused pills. I have like 60 Vyvanse, a whole bunch of Strattera, and with how expensive they are I'd love to pass them off to someone who might be able to use them. Is this a possibility?

Cheers!

Some background here - I have a niche YouTube channel, mostly doing longform (often 3+ hour) commentaries on a board game with a friend. We're both very skilled at the game and are apparently entertaining to listen to, but it's all very amateur - I don't really know anything about videomaking except what I've picked up as I go.

That had never really been an issue, because the topic is so niche that only people really interested in the game watch, and they didn't really mind. But last year we got a shout-out from a big YouTuber and the subscriber count has gone up a lot since, to the point where it feels like I really should figure out how to make it a little less amateurish.

I want to start with audio, because that's 90% of what we do. But I don't even know where to start with it.

I got Blue Yetis for both of us a few years ago because I was vaguely aware that was a good mic, but if anything it made it slightly worse than just using headsets (quite a bit more echoey) - I don't know if that was a mistake, and if there are better mics to go for?

I'm also aware that you're supposed to have some kind of padding on the walls to stop the echoing, but that isn't really feasible for me both because I rent, and because all the rooms of the apartment I'm in are absolutely massive. I've heard that you can throw a blanket over your head, which I've tried for a short video but I absolutely couldn't handle for a three hour one. I'm lost on how to solve that too.

If anyone here knows much about it, I'd love either direct advice about it or a recommendation for how/where to learn about this stuff. It's super appreciated!

Operation: Move Far Away is well underway in my house.

As part of this operation, I am realizing that I have quite a lot of Stuff. Stuff that is worth selling, but not huge collections that I can get an auction house involved with. This is Stuff that I have inherited, or happened upon over the years of being in various hobbies.

Things like alternate cover DnD books , what I assume is the exact same collection of Pokemon cards that every other 30something has, porcelain dolls of some flavor, coins, video game paraphernalia, that kind of thing.

I figure the best way to liquidate this stuff is just to list it all on ebay, but that requires an account with a buildup of reputation that I neither have, nor have time to build up.

I figure the worst way is to take a box of stuff to the nearest pawn store and ask what they'll give me for it.

I am curious what kind of middle ground approaches other people have tried. Is there some version of a business that takes Stuff and sells it on ebay, pocketing some percentage of the sale? Is there a different kind of business that I should be looking for?

This has to be a common enough scenario that a solution exists in some way, but I'm just not sure exactly what to look for.

(Not sure this should be under ~finance, but not sure where else to post?)

I've been de-googling and going more privacy-based for most anything I can lately, and I always love when my company gifts me a $100 Visa gift card for Christmas.
I find myself paying for a lot more of the booze in our lives (usually one shot at going out, and before additionally replenishing a few dollars on my TouchTunes account because I've only used gift cards on it) because now nothing's tracking my sinful habits. :)
Honestly, I mostly would like to use this card to do online things with apps I honestly don't want to be attached to (specifically Discord, and I'd like to recharge TouchTunes, but... that's more of a secondary option).

That being said, I'd like to get some sort of non-"traceable" type of card (that is, physical and not requiring an account or app), and I'd prefer to keep as much of my "investment" as I can (purchase charges, fees, or whatnot). I would like a rechargeable option, but I feel that would be too pinpoint-y. I could just go to my local store (in the US) and buy cards with cash, but while I have no problem with that, I'm also not that paranoid and I am a little lazy heh.

I asked my DDG search, and AI has highlighted "toasty choice" (at toastycard dot com) which looks sketch AF, probably because it appears you need an app. Maybe I'm paranoid, but it just looks too sketch for me.

So, I would like to hear folks' thoughts on this. Do you have a spot you'd recommend to purchase "gift" cards online, or a local spot (as I mentioned, US companies would be required), and any strings attached you'd highlight that may be avoidable?

So the Mrs. and I are planning on a trip to Japan for June of this year. I received a tip to take a look at the deals found on said travel agency and I was impressed. I made a cursory research on the legitimacy of the service and found that it does deliver. I took the dive and got myself booked--with an additional fee to cancel and have my deposit fully refunded. Since then I've been looking more and more into their services and find that way too many reviews are overwhelmingly negative. The corresponding Reddit board screams "don't do it!" (though most of the posts there are a bit dated, admittedly)
And now that I'm finally a member of this fine community at Tildes, I figured that I'd ask you kind people for your feedback and discussion. What do you all say? Is there any consensus on any particular travel agency? Or is it best that I engage in the grunt work to book all the hotels ahead of time? We're looking to hit Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto at the very least. My total cost so far is less than $5000 for 9 days, FYI. And travelling from USA, if that makes any difference.
This is my first post on Tildes prompting discussion, btw. Glad to be here! 🤞

@RoyalHenOil's comment in another thread got me thinking, and I feel like it might be helpful for me to hear what other Tilderinos have to share about this. I've wondered for years if I might have ADHD. Any time I've looked into it, it never seems like I check enough boxes for that to be an accurate label. But I've also gotten the impression that many psychological things like ADHD might be better understood as a spectrum (or even a region?), so lately I keep coming back to the possibility that I just have some other/related flavor of executive dysfunction. Or maybe I just haven't figured out how to "adult" properly yet for other reasons. I don't know, but it feels like being able to name the way my brain works would help things somehow.

I tried for hours to write up an explanation of my experiences, but I couldn't come up with anything that felt accurate and was a reasonable length, so the five-second version is this: The thing I keep coming across and identifying with is the "hyperfocus mode" that some people report. I enjoy this but also feel like it must have something to do with my struggles in some areas. I can prioritize tasks effectively plenty of the time, but I also can't at other times. If I used an Eisenhower matrix, things in the "important but not urgent" category would mostly be gathering dust (except for ones I happened to focus on). I don't really have any control over the "hyperfocus mode" and its target changes unpredictably.

There's an exhausting amount of nuance I could add to the above. I'd really love to hear from anyone who's had experience with any sort of divergent executive function that doesn't seem to fit into any of the currently available boxes we use to understand these things.

Addendum: I reread RoyalHenOil's comment just now and I think responding to it directly might be easier than writing out my own explanation from scratch, so I'll include that response here for anyone who feels like reading it.

• I have an AMD processor that is not supported by Windows 11.
  • I don't wanna deal with the consequences of workarounds.
• I have an old NVIDIA graphics card that was never even close to being a flagship. It is essentially unsupported on Linux (I’ve tested it).
• I intend to keep running Windows 10 for as long as possible, using either official or unofficial means.
• My current Windows installation is becoming unmanageable, as Windows often does.
• I am a competent Linux user, and I run Linux on my laptop.
  • I have WSL2 on Windows 10 and it is great. Especially because I am a heavy Emacs user. I cannot live in an OS that does not allow me the full power of Emacs over a Linux base. This greatly reduces the need for bare-metal Linux.
  • One reason to keep running Windows (at least in a dual-boot setup) is that WoW runs at around 30 FPS on Linux for me. Other games have different issues.
    • I often run games from shady origins that are not obtained from Steam and tools such as Lutris and Bottles are just not there yet in terms of ease of use. I don't enjoy doing a lot of work just to play a game.
  • I understand that there are ways around almost any issue on Linux; I just don’t have the energy right now.

Any suggestions for post-installation cleanup and removing crap from Windows 10?

Thanks!

Hello Tildes,

My partner and I are at the point where we need to get more care for my dad and I could use some advice from people who have been down this road. He's in his early nineties and still living in his home, and the family has been lucky in many respects. Dad still has good cognitive function, he has excellent health care through his military retirement (USA: Tricare for Life). My brother is living in the family home, so there's someone in the house overnight in case there's a fall or other serious issue.

Last year we got Dad set up with a medical alert service, so he's only one button press away from talking to a helper if he's in crisis. My partner and I are down visiting him about once a week to help with chores and hang out. Same with my other brother. We've been holding things together.

But Dad's having difficulty with normal life stuff (walking, bathing, eating) and he's transitioning into a bedbound state, losing weight and eating very little. He seems fairly comfortable, just extremely tired and increasingly frail.

To be clear, I'm not asking for medical advice. Where I'm stuck is: How do we initiate and navigate the process of getting him a home health aide? His medical team was entirely unhelpful when we asked about case management. They say "if he's struggling, bring him to the ER" but he absolutely does not want to go to the ER, and we're loathe to force him at his age unless he's in crisis. Also, the ER is full of people with the flu right now.

We've reached the "we can't put this off any longer" moment, I think. Any advice on getting the ball rolling would be appreciated. Do we just randomly call up home health agencies? How do we figure out what his insurance will and won't cover?

Thanks so much.

GP

I have a specific ask at the end, but any and all musings on this topic are invited.

Lately it's become apparent that the endless fire hose of content and subsequent extinction of boredom is one of the most insidious shifts of modern life. While social media and the internet have accelerated this, upon further reflection I realize this battle to hijack our time and attention is something basically all of us were born into (and an even steeper climb for those of us blessed with ADHD).

These reflections have been borne out of a desire to protect my toddler's curiosity and passion for life outside a black mirror for as long as I can reasonably manage.

The issue as I see it is not the existence of content beyond what one could ever consume (books have been that way for centuries). It's the evaporation of friction. One click and you're on an infinite loop, optimized and engineered to keep you there.

I used to think this was a symptom of the smartphone & tik-tok era. However, looking back at my own childhood TV habits, cable TV was the precursor: dozens of channels that never went dark and 24/7 news cycles that bred fear and never stopped churning.

The ask: How have you set up an environment for your kids (or yourself!) to delay the hedonic content treadmill as long as is reasonably possible?

The goal is to avoid a smartphone until we can't. I'm not anti-screen. There are loads of great educational TV and movies, I just want to introduce them slowly and with intention. But unfortunately now every TV front-end is ad-stuffed and every streaming app is basically a recommendation engine in disguise.

How do you share content with your kids without letting the algorithm worm its way inside their brain? How do you give them access to the collective wisdom of mankind in the internet without turning it into a slot machine?

For reference, I have next to zero knowledge of building electronics. I've replaced the joysticks on two Nintendo joycons (which I actually found pretty fun), and that's it. I also have no experience with 3D printing or designing specific products.

I am also sick of touch screen keyboards on phones, do not like any of of the phones that do have keys or the Clicks phone case (why is it on the BOTTOM—), and currently have a lot of free time.

So my question to you: how would I go about designing my own slide out case with its own keyboard?

Because that is my ideal solution at this point. And in fact, it turns out someone DID make a 3D printed "slider terminal" this year. Except it's for the Note 10 (I have a Galaxy S9), and seems to be used as a full-fledged replacement for a desktop experience with a trackpad. That's neat and will probably appeal to a lot of people here, but personally, I just need physical keys.

Along with the keyboard used for that terminal, I also found this other tiny keyboard which doesn't have the trackpad and is about the same dimensions as my Galaxy S9. Actually I found that first and was trying to figure out if there were any cases that could store and pop that out. The biggest issue is that it would cover my camera except maybe when it's slid out, but screw it, I want a damn physical keyboard.

I do have access to 3D printers (yay public libraries!) and I'm willing to learn Blender in order to make this thing. I just need advice on where to begin and how to tackle this. In particular, I have no clue how to go about the slide out part. I feel like I should be able to figure out how to make a case that fits the dimensions of my phone and the keyboard fairly easily, but no idea where to begin with researching the sliding component.

Besides that, I also know that I'm not alone here in my frustrations with phone keyboards, so I'm hoping we can pool together ideas on how to do this. As far as I can tell there's not really a "one size fits all" solution that would work for all phones (well, except perhaps a foldable case instead of slide-out), but maybe we can at least share decent starting points for people to design their own. For instance, the slider terminal uses a keyboard that came with a remote, and it would never have occurred to me that could be used for this sort of project. And there are a lot of potential workarounds for the camera placements, so Person A may have an idea that doesn't work well for them, but does work better for Person B than their own original idea.

So yeah. Advice, ideas and general brainstorming are welcome!

Started a new job today and got a mac as a dev machine. I won't do technical onboarding until later in the week, so I haven't seen what the dev tools are like, but today I was driving myself crazy just trying to do basic things like copy, paste, screenshot, change windows.

At the last job, we had ubuntu machines, so I was able to use gnome extensions to mostly replicate the same general layout, menus, and shortcut keys as Windows. Primarily, this allowed me to keep the same "muscle memory". Since the ubuntu gnome desktop is nothing special from a UX point of view, there didn't seem to be a downside. But I understand that the Mac experience is very curated, so I'm thinking I should lean into learning it.

So my questions are: what are your mac pro tips and things that speed up your work? And for others who have made this transition, what did you learn to do the "mac way" and what did you tweak?

Without going into details, my partner's parent is sick with an unknown prognosis (1-5 years; 1 year has passed). I admire how they've come to support their parent and have tried to both be supportive and keep myself busy so my partner could focus. Still, it's created a lot of distance for me. Where I see the future as exciting and exploratory for us, for my partner, they imagine their family in shambles and their favorite person gone. With the uncertain prognosis and the aftermath, it's hard to imagine that really changing for the foreseeable future.

I am looking for insight from people who have been in similar situations. Perhaps it's the sort of ridiculousness of how selfish this is or sounds, but I don't know if I've ever heard much about how this affects romantic relationships.

Sadly, I think I need to reduce my coffee intake. I only ever had a cup a day, but I've always been in to light roasts... roasted within walking distance of my house*... super fancy shit. Anyway, I'm trying to nail down some health things, so coffee has to go for a time.

I am now a tea person. I don't really like it, but I need something like that in the morning. I've started with Lapsang Souchong. This is pretty much the only tea I've ever had. I don't have any dairy in my diet, either, which seems to be a big part of tea-life.

Any top tips for getting into tea? I was just mocked for weighing tea... I guess that isn't as important in this scene.

* not joking about this :)

edit: thanks everybody! the first round of teas are:

• Lapsang Souchong
• Hojicha
• Irish Breakfast
• Margaret's Hope

so far so good!

Hello all! My lease is up mid-March of this year. For personal mental health reasons I would like to secure a move-in date of around mid-February and perhaps even earlier than that, because I'd like to have things finalized before my ex starts her own moving out process. This is the first time I'll be apartment hunting on my own, and while I have definitely talked to many friends and mentors regarding my options, I figured I wouldn't mind getting thoughts from folks here.

I have a few hard requirements for personal reasons: I would ideally not be too far from groceries (I have a car), be able to go for walks/runs without having to drive to a specific place, not too far away from the main airport here as I have to fly for work very very occasionally or when visiting family, and central HVAC. I have, generally, two options to choose from:

1. The expensive option, 1500 base rent and estimated 300-400 for utilities/parking/etc. At this time I do not believe it possible or even worth looking for anything slightly cheaper than this - whether it's a studio or a 1bed, the cost is more or less the same in this area. And even if the location were less of a factor and I looked farther away from the main city / big hubs, at best we're looking at $100 cheaper and I don't think that is big enough savings given how inconvenient location is.

2. The budget option, estimated 700-800 with utilities included, 3 housemates. A friend is currently sharing a house that his family owns with two other housemates. I've never met said housemates but they are personal friends of his. All housemates are male, I am female. I would be getting a single master bedroom, attached bathroom. At this time I do not consider the... eyebrow-raising-ness? of being the sole woman to be a problematic factor.

Some of the factors I'm considering, that probably isn't comprehensive because I'm new to all this:

• Living with housemates. I haven't had to share a house with so many people since my first year of college, which was 14 years ago. My ex did keep me honest over the last year of living together, and from a brief call with the friend who would be renting out the room, his housemates do keep to themselves, don't really use the kitchen, plenty of fridge space, etc.

• Living alone. I actually haven't "lived alone" since the last semester before I dropped out of college. My roommate at the time was taking a leave of absence and I had the studio to myself for three months. I feel neutral about this.

• Laundry? House has in unit laundry. No apartment I've looked at has in-unit laundry unless I add at least $200 on top of the base price.

• WFH and personal space. I do work remotely and for my entire WFH life, I have always had my personal PC setup, bed, and work setup in the same room. This has been difficult for me in the last two months while recovering from the breakup, and moving into a 1bed apartment would allow me to have a dedicated work setup away from bed since I personally value that higher than a nice living room space (no television, no problem). Or I could even fit that work setup into a small but still cozy living room space, who knows. However...

• MONEY. I've broken down all my fixed monthly costs, including any recurring annual subscriptions. I am estimating very, very high for absolutely everything, such as monthly grocery costs (400/mo, which is the highest that my ex and I split over the last 10 months. We're both very light eaters and "groceries" would include the occasional toiletries restock and such). Right now I am looking at taking home around $1300/mo living in my own apartment, vs. $2300/mo sharing the house.

  • Furnishing a new apartment, vs... not. Ex and I split all costs 50/50 for everything BUT furniture, and she paid for most items such as the sofa, coffee table, TV console, dining room table, ie. she will be taking those items with her. I do not want a large sofa but cozy seating in a living room space is, well, not cheap. The only furniture I'd bring with me is a decent Ikea shelf cabinet thing, my two standing desks, a single bookshelf, a twin bed. I would not be acquiring additional furniture if I move into the single bedroom.
  • Schooling costs. I don't know if I've gotten into this online degree program yet, won't know until probably April, and even if I do get in I am not sure if I will jump into it (though at this time I am leaning towards it just to have a guided path which I'm lacking right now with my career). This is an estimated 30k over the course of 2 years, or $625/mo. Not counting any potential textbooks.
  • Lasik/PRK? I have pretty poor eyesight. I have always been afraid of pulling the trigger on this, but I would like to in the next few years.
  • Current savings. I have a little over $20k in savings. I don't know anything about stocks, I have a 401k I never look at. My financial literacy boils down to "I use my credit card like a debit card" and my only current debt is a financed car, costs are factored into the numbers posted above.

• Mental health? Monthly therapy costs are factored into my numbers. So is a $150/mo cost of classes at a local muay thai gym (picked up recently for sake of both physical and mental health, joining a community, a regular activity to take me out of the apartment).

What considerations am I missing from the above? What would you go for? I mentioned I have not lived on my own for a very long time, and to be honest I don't have concrete long-term financial goals. Obviously property ownership is like... the American Dream and whatever... but frankly I am so very far from being able to realize such a goal that it just is not a factor when it comes to me saving money. I just don't want to look back at myself in 2027 and regret my finances. My family is in another part of the state and I can't rely on them for money or housing... well, I actually can, for housing, and save even more money, but I vastly prefer the climate where I am at now and my mental health will suffer far more living with family than with 3 housemates.

I really appreciate any thoughts! I know I have time, there is no rush, but I am also aware that distracting myself with this has been pretty helpful with, you know, not being too depressed about circumstances.

Finally embarking on a side-project that I will be doing with Django.

One thing that I am having to consider is how to do encryption.

Looking at the explanations of different levels of encryption here, I think data at rest is really all I need to do (although, I will probably use cloudflare tunnels which will also ensure data in transit but I just won't be implementing it myself is all).

Now, doing data at rest, doing some research, django-cryptography comes up a lot but that hasn't been updated in forever, to point where an open issue on its repo points to a new library (django-cryptograph-5) that was made specifically cause the devs of django-cryptography seem to have abandoned it, but that same thing could happen to the new off-shoot.

I can't tell if this means that I am looking on the wrong webpages for knowledge of how to do about this or when working in the python open-source ecosystem, there's no list of trustworthy reliable publishers of a library for data at rest encryption? like how Django REST Framework is so established, they even have sponsors now.

Previously, I wondered what model car I should buy if I wanted to maintain my privacy. Thanks to everyone who chimed in, especially @kari, @qot, and @Narry. Although I astound myself to be typing this, I may just have found an option in a Cadillac Lyriq.

Earlier this year, the FTC banned GM from selling driver data to consumer reporting agencies and GM ended their egregious program. This and privacy laws in my state give me some small hope of avoiding the worst data collection practices. But, if I buy this car, I would want greater certainly that can only be had by physical intervention. Local audio/security aftermarket installers have nothing for me. Would anyone have a resource or ideas?

I'm doing a long overdo computer update (new CPU, mobo, and RAM), and am going to be reinstalling windows for the first time in a while. My current system is still on Win10 due to incompatiblity with Win11, however I wouldn't have updated to Win11 until now anyway. I have Win11 on a Surface Pro and with recent updates adding features that match my existing muscle memory better (such as allowing expanded window buttons and putting Start on the left), I'm not as resistant to installing Win11 on my new hardware. I have access to the Education version of Win11 which after some research looks like it's basically Windows Enterprise and that itself seems like a big feature since it shouldn't come with a lot of the bloat apps already.

With that in mind I have few questions:

1. Does anyone have a PowerShell script they've put together to run on a fresh Windows 11 install that configures a lot of the settings to make it behave more like Win10 (and it's predecessors), toggles privacy settings on, etc. I am not looking for something that tries to strip anything out, I just want something that will save me time chasing down all the settings I've slowly found and adjusted on my Surface. I have the default folders like Pictures and Documents pointed to a drive on a seperate drive from my Windows drive specifically to make migrating to a new installation easier. I'd love something that prompts me to update where those shortcuts should point as well.
2. Does anyone have any protips for getting the bulk of programs I need installed? I looked at Winget and Chocolatey a couple years ago, but they didn't quite look as fuss free as I was looking for. I generally avoid installing things from the Microsoft app store (which I understand would make this easier if I was willing to lean more into the Microsoft ecosystem). I'd love something (script based or otherwise) that's going to grab and install the program (rather than app) for a list of things like Firefox, Spotify, Steam, Miniconda, etc. I plan to make a list of programs I have installed that I know I will want to reinstall before doing the fresh install, but I'm making a plan to make installing everything as easy as possible. If there's a reliable script based way to install like 80% of my main programs I'd be thrilled to only have to track down and install more specialized stuff.
3. Any general advice for transfering my browser data? I use Firefox, am signed in to an account, and think I have everything set to sync. However I'd love to bring over all my browser tabs and windows I'm still working in. I did look up how to transfer the browser data and found a Mozilla article for it, just wasn't sure if anyone had a method they discovered and like better.

Thanks in advance for tips and advice.

Hi Tilderinos!

First, apologies for the ramble. I'm based in the US. I got a letter from our state's child services department telling me that one of my relatives who is a minor has been removed from the custody of their parents. The letter asked me to complete a form to indicate the level of involvement I'm interested in having with said child's placement and/or support.

We don't know what the child's situation is. I'm the furthest-degree relative they search for - hopefully someone closer will step forward, but unfortunately, based on what I know of our part of the family, other relatives may not be in the best situation to take on a child. I'm hoping that this would be a temporary situation and that the ultimate goal is for the child to be reunited with their parent(s), but we have no information at all right now other than "child was removed and we're looking for support from relatives."

I'm going to call the contact info on the letter tomorrow, as we received it after business hours today. We've discussed our comfort levels with caring for a child and what type of situation we could say yes to and what we would have to say no to. We are very fortunate to be in a stable situation (in control of our own housing, dual incomes, qualified for leave programs, etc.). Our point of view currently is that this child is a child in need of support, and we are willing to provide what we can as long as it's not overtly detrimental to us or to them. I already filled out the form the best I could in a manner that corresponds with our comfort level, which is approximately that placement with us would be a possibility but not right this instant, and otherwise we're happy to correspond or communicate in whatever way benefits the child. (We suspect that the child is currently 1-3 hours from us, so frequent physical assistance on our part would be less doable unless the child were placed with us.)

Is this something you've been through before? What experiences have you had with child placement? (I'm actually not even really sure what questions to ask beyond this, but if you have been down this road and are comfortable sharing, please do!) We've discussed adopting or fostering before, but only in hypotheticals, as it's something we weren't planning to look into for 5-10 years (we're in our early 30's and are not having bio kids). Something externally-initiated like this was never on our radar. Any guidance, tips for questions to ask, or experiences you would like to share would be welcome!

My wife and I are potentially adopting a cat.

The cat is an adult, not sure the exact age (but will see if that’s known when we get it).

The long story short is, a close friend had 3 cats (I think strays as kittens but not 100% sure, I think they were acquired at different times - they do not appear to be related to each other), but due to the current political state of the US ended up moving abroad on a visa for this past year, and is planning on staying away for longer. Initially, the cats were staying with another friend but that has recently fallen through (I think they did not expect the 3 cats to be as much to handle as they are, they keep getting onto counters, eating food that is left out/left unattended, and scratching furniture, and at this point they’re getting fed up with them), and we were asked if we could take any of them

We have met the cats quite a few times, and they do seem friendly towards us.

My wife seems very allergic to one of them, but only mildly allergic or significantly less allergic to the other two.

We currently live in an apartment that does allow pets, but this would be the first time either of us have owned a cat, so unfortunately I think we could only take one of them.

I’m thinking we could probably use some advice on things to consider and best practices.

Preliminary research has said to get 1 or 2 litter boxes, feed at regular times, running water bowls are preferred, and get lidded trash cans. We plan on keeping the cat on the same food and litter type, at least initially. I know there are other things, and we will take the cat for a check-up and establish a vet. Due to my wife’s allergies, we are planning on keeping the cat out of the bedroom and running an air purifier there, and hopefully visiting an allergist before we adopt the cat if time permits.

But I’m wondering what others’ experiences have been with a cat in an apartment and what advice you may have? (How to keep them off of counters? Keep them from getting bored while at work or while working from home?)

My oldest zygote is 5 years old. Up until now, I've been able to keep a good lid on what he's allowed to watch. We have Roku with a handful of streaming services, and he's comfortable navigating it himself to watch shows. I'm big on teaching agency and responsibility, and he's responded well to that: he watches shows we've okayed, asks about other shows he's interested in, and respects us if we tell him no. He's a smart kid and I'd like to keep him that way.

It's starting to get harder. Originally I could say on on grounds of age appropriateness, or I could point to things about a show that I outright didn't approve of for him. This is important to me because I want to teach him to think about these things and make good choices for himself in the future. So instead of telling him "No, you can't watch that", I want to tell him "No, you can't watch this because _________."

Now that he's getting older, he's asking more and more to watch things. And in some cases, I find myself saying "No. It's hard to explain why, but this isn't good." I hate saying that because I know that's not satisfying at his age, and it doesn't teach him anything about how to make good choices about what to watch.

YouTube is rife with examples. If my son is watching a branded show about Spiderman, I know what to expect. There are brand standards that I don't always agree with, but I know what the damage is, and the problems I have with those shows are problems I can talk through with him.

But when YouTube recommends videos that are low production quality videos of people in their living rooms playing with Spiderman figures, I don't want him watching it. Some of it feels Elsagate-adjacent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsagate) in that it seems harmless but you are just waiting for it to veer into weird or inappropriate territory. There's no trust between me and the content creator. Sometimes they're just harmlessly dumb. But in any case it's hard to explain why I don't want him to watch something that appears harmless to him.

Does anyone have similar experiences? Advice? Commiseration? Perspectives?

Hey there! I'm trying to repurpose a Raspberry Pi that's been collecting dust for a few years, and I'm a bit out of my depth with systems/networking, so I'm hoping for some guidance on what I did wrong (or what I could've done better).

The story is: I upgraded my PC and had an old SSD lying around, and I also had a Raspberry Pi that I never really had time to toy with. I figured I could combine both and make a small family “drive” where everyone can upload photos/videos/documents and keep them in one place at home.

Then I realized the Pi sits right behind the TV, next to the router since the Ethernet cable is short. So I thought: if it's already there, maybe it could also be a media player. The idea was: upload videos and store them on the SSD then play them on the TV via Kodi.

What’s going wrong is that Nextcloud uploads are painfully slow, even short videos take ages, and movies are basically impossible. On top of that, once files are there, Kodi playback is choppy/laggy.

I'm not sure what the real bottleneck is. Nextcloud was already "kinda slow" before Kodi. I don't know if this is Docker overhead/volume configuration, the Pi just being overloaded, Nextcloud background work (previews/scanning/etc.), or the SSD adapter to USB C limiting speeds.

If you have ideas, I'd really appreciate pointers on where to start diagnosing, and what the "sane" architecture is here (even if the answer is "don't do both on one Pi").

TL;DR: Tried to reuse an old SSD and a Raspberry Pi to make a family Nextcloud drive, then added Kodi because the Pi is behind the TV. Nextcloud uploads are extremely slow and Kodi playback is laggy. Not sure if it's Docker, Nextcloud tuning, USB/SSD adapter, or just too much for a small device. Looking for beginner-friendly troubleshooting steps and/or a better setup plan.

Hey there, going to keep this short: I used to love camping and hiking, but now can't quite bring myself to do it, this is partially due to the fact that I am single, and none of my (very few) local friends would ever be interested in joining.

So, does anyone around here have any tips or ideas on how to get into hiking or camping again?

These days, it's been difficult for me to figure out what to make for dinner. I scroll through recipes on TikTok and various other recipe pages that I've come across, but I can never seem to figure out what exactly I want to make. It gets to a point where I just give up and eat out somewhere... which is a convenient option but not very cost-effective especially for someone who's going on one year post-grad and trying to make more home-cooked meals.

Do you plan your meals throughout the week? How far ahead do you plan out what you're going to make? Do you meal prep and, I guess as an extension of this topic, how does one start getting into the habit of meal prepping? Would love some help trying to get back into the rhythm of cooking.

I recently set up some public computers with Ubuntu at a hackerspace. People kept logging into their Gmail etc. and forgetting to log out. For their own benefit I changed the computers to use overlayfs so on reboot all changes from the base filesystem (Ubuntu 24.04 + packages + updates) are lost. I'm looking for tips on configuration. Keep in mind that because our users tend to be fairly technical I am not attempting to outright prevent changes, just prevent them by default.

Here are the current details:

• The machines have a wallpaper warning users that all changes are wiped on reboot
• The normal automatic update system is disabled (updates through it won't persist)
• I install updates and reboot on a cronjob at 5am every day (this uses overlayroot-chroot)
• The overlay is implemented as an encrypted filesystem on a separate partition, with the key generated on boot and held in memory
• Documentation is taped to the desktop computer itself educating users on how to make persistent changes

Could you recommend a make of vehicle whose spy tech is easy to disable? This is the highest hurdle and single most important factor in my search for a car, so my other preferences and needs fall far second. I would like an electric vehicle or hybrid model with no less cargo room than a Prius, and not larger than a mid-sized station wagon, with a track record of low repairs. Correct me if I'm misinformed, but applying those criteria seems premature until I can identify something I can make private.

I have only ever bought used cars, and have lived the same story many times: I will construct elaborate spreadsheets, research models until I could host a video walk-through of trouble spots to watch for, then will shop and cavil until I make a purchase I'm proud of. Sure, it ends up 25% over my initial budget, but I pat myself on the back for a full 18 months afterwards. Nice work, careful consumer. But it's then the repairs begin, and soon I'm spending $3-4,000 a year maintaining my certified reliable used car.

So, I am searching for a newer used car or a new car whose telematics can be disabled. I have read through discussion boards, but weary quickly at the comments defending the cozy convenience of the corporate surveillance net or chiding people like me for even trying. I don't care. If lacking or disabling spy features means I can't use my car as a phone, that sounds like a win to me. I know a little about cars and have alright technical know-how. Most importantly, I am resolute. I will not drive a car that listens to me or transmits video of my travels. Has anyone had success here?

Changing Mullvad server at router level

Reddit is becoming increasingly more and more hostile to VPN connections to the point where I often get the "whoa pardner" error message and have to try 4-5 different VPN servers on my desktop or phone before I finally get one to work with Reddit. Same thing sometimes with Google/YT, it keeps asking me to prove I am not a bot and a bit of experimentation with the servers gets me through.

This makes me wonder, is it as easy to switch my Mullvad server on OPNsense? I get the sense from the YT videos I have watched, I have to effectively setup an entry for every Mullvad router as separate instance on my OPNsense' VPN WireGuard settings and toggle which instance is being used at the router level?
I know I can technically have Mullvad on my router to hide all my traffic and then on all my devices that I use Reddit on, I can additionally have Mullvad on them too and play with the servers I am connected to on my device specifically until I find one that works but I am curious what the workflow is if I choose to do all my Mullvad related configs at the router level.

Making custom block?

I have a love-hate relationship with Reddit. On one hand, I can't deny that certain subreddits are useful as someone in tech, but I also can't deny that certain subs are just a time-sink and some subs are just toxic (looking at you AITA). I can often prevent myself from browsing the time-sink/toxic ones but sometimes I lose myself in them and I am in search of a way to block them via Mullvad at my router. Obviously a DNS-block won't work if I want to block reddit.com (the home page) and certain specific subreddits but leave any other tech related subreddits open for me to read so the next best thing I assume is some kind of firewall? But I don't know if such a firewall exists that can basically start doing regex on a URL to see if it should be accessible from within the network? Which makes me wonder if I can create my own firewall but I don't even know the first step, as in would this be something that integrates with OPNsense, or a stand-alone program I have to create myself? I know Python, Java and have some basic knowledge of C++ but don't even know if those are the language I need to know to create such a filter or if the filter I am looking for is even possible? Any and all pointers welcome.

I learned French to schoolboy level as a, well, schoolboy. I've remembered quite the remarkable amount I think. Learned The Klingon Language must be 20 years ago, to a point where I could converse with other speakers to some extent, but never the best.

More recently I've become quite interested in historical linguistics, from watching Simon Roper with Old English, and Jackson Crawford. Old English fascinates me as we were never considered clever enough at school to study English properly - that was only for the clever kids.

Because I couldn't find a good Frisian online learning resource, I decided to try my hand at modern German.

Been following Babbel for about 2 months now so super early. I "completed" the first set of lessons and have been doing the vocabulary tests to try and make sure these sink in before progressing, but I find that I regularly only get 2/10, 3/10 on the flashcards.

I've started doing whole first lesson set again, and I find them really easy. I'm basically intuiting a lot of the questions from knowledge of English, French and "common sense" I suppose. Is it odd that I can 100% the lessons easily and quickly, but the vocabulary tests just aren't there for me? My listening and speaking seems quite good according to the app.

Is it too early to tell (I think it might be), should I supplement Babbel with something else, like live learning (perhaps eventually, not right now - I think it'd be pointless at such a low level).

Anything else? Interested in anyone's thoughts.

Hi!

I've decided to move some of my selfhosted things from on-prem (at home ;)) to the cloud, and at the same time I'd like to try and run this in EU, or at least europe. I'd like to get started fairly quickly as this was prompted by one of my home servers halfway dying on me.

The features I'm most interested in are approximately:

• Virtual machines.
• Storage. Cheap long term for backups (similar to S3 Glacier).
• Managed DB, most likely postgresql.
• Serverless jobs (similar to AWS lambda).
• IaaS (I've got a bit of experience with terraform, but it doesn't have to be that).
• Builtin monitoring.
• Git hosting, it's likely that I'll just go with github/gitlab here, but if there's a nice alternative I'm up for it.
• Automated sending of email. I'm using AWS SES atm, and I'm very happy with it.

Some other things:

• I intend to run a combination of services written by others, e.g. nextcloud and software I've written myself.
• I'll most likely be running linux only, but I prefer to select my own flavour where it makes sense.
• I much prefer managing permissions and users in gcp than in aws as I find aws way too complicated for my needs while gcp mostly just makes sense.
• I'd prefer a platform that's being developed and improving over time with big potential for the future.
• This is a hobby project, and some of these requirements may seem a bit contradictory or non-optimal, but that's ok.
• I have some experience running kubernetes (self-hosted), and I'm not a huge fan of the complexity and yaml files, at the same time OpenStack is getting kinda old, and I don't know if I think it's a platform for the future. But from what I see most of the options seems to be built on top of one of those.
• Cheaper is of course better, I don't have a company-sized budget, this is all coming out of my "hobby pocket".
• I live in Sweden, so datacenters geographically close is a plus.

Right now I'm looking at European alternatives to Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Scaleway is looking the most promising, but I'm really skimming the top when it comes to info atm.

Hope that makes sense =) I'm interested in all kinds of feedback.

** Edit: I updated my situation below in a comment but I'm gonna keep this post up to help others! **

About a month and a half ago I was put on PIP to step up at work. Feedback has been good over the last few weeks but not enough I guess. I was told I was terminated today.

The job market out there is rough right now and I'm not sure what to do. I know a lot of people here have faced similar situations and everything, so I'm wondering if there's any tips/tricks/thoughts anyone has.

I'm an Android developer and was working in fin-tech adjacent work if that's relevant.

I am thinking of buying a treadmill so I can run even when its nigh impossible outside (for example this week most days had slippery snowy goop out, probably still can run most days but coupled with how early it gets dark and how cold it is I am just not morivated most days in the winter). Biggest problem I have is that I live in an apartment, so I am scared I couldnt run cause my downstairs neighbors would hate me. Is there any way to make it work? Or does anyone have any ideas how to properly motivate myself to run in winter? I used to go running every other day and I loved it and I want to run more somehow, I barely force myself to do it like once a week now in the winter. Its just annoyingly cold before I warm up, or if I put on too many layers instead I am too sweaty after I warm up. Maybe I need better clothes?

Hi Tildians,

As a chronic over thinker, I just realized I have held off of sharing a number of cool space articles to ~space because I didn't want to spam posts and couldn't decide which one was cooler.

So, I figure I should ask: what's our consensus on over-posting? Is there such a thing? Should I just let my adhd loose and share all the cool space news I see?

I have been an Android user for a long time, but I never bothered to buy a new phone when I didn't feel I needed one, so my current phone is very old (Android 7.0). There are several annoyances I see in modern smartphones that I'm kinda hoping to avoid, the biggest one being that I want to be able to replace the battery. I'm therefore eyeing the Fairphone for being modular and repairable.

• Has anyone used a Fairphone and can talk a bit about what it's like?
• Does anyone know the best time of year to get the best deal? Should I wait until after Christmas?
• Will I still be able to side-load/use F-Droid? I hear that Google is putting a stop to this but if I get one that allows it now, will it continue to allow it in perpetuity?

Would love to hear some input from fellow nerds who know more about this stuff than I.

Edit to add: I'm in Germany.

Hullooo, today I got updated to Android 16 by GrapheneOS autoupdater.

I'm 99.5% happy with it as I trust them more than myself with regards to privacy & security, but...

The battery icon in the status bar is invasively ugly and disturbing.

It's too big and it changes colour, makes me shiver!

So... Is there anyway to change that? Most importantly the size (to match the other icons) but also the colour stuff.

Hey Tildes food crew!

I made some olives 3 years ago and kind of a "set it and forget it" situation. And well, I forgot them for too long. It's been 3 years now and I've only found them because I was looking for jars for a new batch. I opened them up and didn't hear any "hiss", they smell good, there is no sign of mold (on the 2 good ones I'm keeping, we did lose one jar to mold), and I did a small taste test and they tasted olive-y and good. They have been in a cupboard for the entire time and I'm happy to share the recipes if that is helpful. The olives in each were slit to facilitate faster edibility. They both have a 5% brine, one with red wine vinegar and the other with balsamic vinegar.

I know we have quite a few crafty, homesteady, foody folks here and would appreciate any advice you can provide! Just making sure they are still safe to eat! Thanks!

Have you had a fulfilling mentorship, whether as mentor or mentee? How does one gain a mentor? Are there professional associations that one pays a fee to join?

Advice on career development wanted. Especially advice for introverted, neurodivergent women in business.

I want to hear a variety of stories, of how you became good at "career", beyond becoming competent at "work", and how you learned to be good not only at what you do but how you go about doing what you do.

Thank you for your time.

I ran the dead horse ultra today! It went well, I had to work through some foot discomfort and crashing physically from going out too hard.

Ran the first half in almost exactly 3 hours and finished up the second half in just over 3 1/2. It was my first ultra (and actually my first official race longer than 5 miles) and I am very quite happy with how it went.

I am tentatively planning on running a 50 mile race sometime next year and depending on how that goes shooting for a 100 mile at some point in the next couple years. Anyone who has any questions (or advice) please let me know!

I use a Mac for work, Linux for my personal machine, and the same mouse between the two. I’m accustomed to the dpi/acceleration on Mac, so when I switch to my PC at the end of the day there are slight inaccuracies with the pointer. My wrist compensates to cover the gaps and I develop wrist strain after short periods of use.

Does anyone know how to make the Linux mouse dpi/acceleration as close to identical as possible with my Mac?

chimera linux w/ gnome btw

Hello!

I recently reworked my setup such that I have my drive which holds the operating systems (dual boot of Windows 11 and Linux Mint Cinnamon) and another drive which holds all my actual data. This is my first dive into trying to move to Linux as my daily driver but I'm noticing some performance issues.

The first thing I noticed is that transfer speeds are much less than expected. Copying a large file within my data drive I get about 300MB/s on Linux, which is pretty slow for M.2 drives- I get about 10x that speed doing the exact same operation on Windows. I could be okay with this but I also noticed that some video files, like the 4K mp4s off my phone, are virtually unplayable. They'll run at maybe 1fps and/or bog down the UI so much I cant even use the seek. This is the case in both the default media player and VLC. These same files play with no issue on Windows.

I suspect the reason for all this stems from my data drive being NTFS, though my file system and Linux knowledge is pretty weak so this is just a theory. Any ideas / best practices that might help me here?

I have been working on adapting the Mul from AD&D 2e's Dark Sun into my general AD&D 1e campaign to coincide with the deletion of gnomes (they deserve it). I chose to not simply take them 1:1 since even the dwarf has different mechanics in Dark Sun. I took into consideration what the dwarf is good at, as well as how the half-elf and elf relate, and tried to model it in the same way.

What I'd like is opinions from people with experience in the pre-WotC editions of D&D that are pre-disposed to picking demi-humans on whether the mul is something they'd pick.

Note that the Runecaster is a Fighter subclass from a 2e supplement that I've ported back and the Occultist is a personal creation that combines the cleric and magic-user with additional abilities in the way that the 1e bard does with the fighter and thief.

• Requires Strength 8 and Constitution 6
• Gains +1 to Strength and -1 to Charisma
• Gains +1 to poison saves per 4 points of Constitution
• Can detect certain aspects of stonework within 10'
  • At 30%, detects grade/slope, new construction/passage, moving walls/rooms
  • At 25%, detects traps relating to pits, falling blocks, etc. as well as approximate depth underground
• Thief adjustments as follows
  • -5 to Open Locks and Read Languages
  • +5 to Move Silently and Climb Walls
• Infravision 60'
• May qualify and check for psionic ability per the PHB Appendix 1
• Classes Allowed (Level Limit), with dwarf for comparison
  • Cleric (U), 6* for dwarf
    • Druid (6), NA for dwarf
  • Fighter (8), 7* for dwarf
    • Runecaster (9*), U for dwarf
  • Thief (U), 10 for dwarf
  • Can qualify for Occultist, NA for dwarf
    * Having a prime requisite of 17 or 18 will increase this limit by 1 or 2 levels, respectively.