If applicable: how & why have your lost friends?

I'll start. One: I was terrible and certainly deserved some alienation. Though, I mostly self-pariahed. Beyond that, though... I worked with friends and they sucked so bad it was hard to continue liking them.

Well, how 'bout you??

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 weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!

Hey folks,

since I'm completely out of the loop regarding trends but totally interested in being a 'cool uncle', I am asking you (maybe people having kids around this age) for help!

What is a 'good' present for a 15 year old girl?

I don't know much about her interests or activities and since she is quite new to the family, I haven't had the chance to talk to her.

Is there anything 'universal' today that might work? 😅

Thanks for your thoughts and discussion.

What are the best controllers for console and PC that you've used that aren't just official console controllers? I'm a nerd when it comes to getting a million different input methods for games, and I'm always looking for new ones to play with.

Glad we'll never go back to the hellish days before Valve and various FOSS projects fixed the nightmare that controllers on PC used to be.

This thread can be used for general recommendations for everyone, so feel free to recommend anything that fits.

For me specifically, I'm looking for soundscape-style music that has the following properties:

1. no lyrics
2. very "low motion" (the music feels smooth, slow, and uneventful -- no fast or abrupt sounds, rhythms, or melodies)
3. euphonic (the music has an overall pleasant sound and feel to it)

A lot of the ambient and drone music out there hits 1 and 2, but doesn't often hit 3. Much of what I've found tends to have a darker or more neutral tone than what I'm looking for, and some of it comes across as a bit grating. I instead want something that's sort of persistently, mildly pleasant, if that makes sense.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I'm specifically looking for music that I can fall asleep to and read books to, which is why the fact that it should be almost completely unobtrusive is so important!

I'm interested in hearing your stories.

• What are/were your symptoms like?
• Do you know how/when you were exposed?
• What was your timeline of events, including symptoms, testing, quarantining, etc.?
• Did it affect other aspects of your life (e.g. employment, relationships, etc.)?
• Have you fully recovered?
• What's something about your experience that you haven't seen a lot of mentions of elsewhere?

And of course, feel free to share anything else not asked in these questions.

If you personally have not had it but someone close to you has, feel free to share your experiences with that as well.

META: If this topic is better served in ~health.coronavirus feel free to move it!

I was thinking about how much the quantity of election news is likely to increase as we get closer to Nov 3. And more specifically the likelihood that this election will not be clear cut, will be contested, lawsuits filed, etc in the days and weeks after Nov 3.

With that in mind, do we want to proactively put up a weekly (maybe daily for the actual week of) megathread to consolidate some of it?