Sometimes a comment thread is very very toxic/controversial and I would like to avoid getting sucked into it. Just because my decision-making is much better at 2pm than it is at 2am. I understand I can and should exercise self-control, and I'm working on it, I assure you! In the meantime, if at all possible, it would be nice to remove certain comments from my view, along with its children. Thanks!

For the past 3 years I haven't worked in any full-time job because I've been trying to sort my mental illness problems and I started a new Master's degree. Now that I am working on my thesis and my savings are running out, I want and need to find a job.

The problem is that my mental health still isn't where I wanted it to be. I don't think I can work 8h per day. For example right now I'm trying new medication and after around 3 hours of focused work I get tired and sleepy.

I've been applying to many jobs and I feel I'm close to getting one as I'm having multiple interviews per week. So far I've explained the gap in my resume as being severely I'll and needing time to get treatment. But I never tell interviewers exactly what my issues are or that I'm still figuring out how to be at the level of a normal person.

I've been hearing a podcast about a guy who faces the same issues as me and his strategy was to be upfront with his employer and tell them when he is entering a dark period and needs to work less. He works in the effective altruism industry which I think is very different from the rest. I think that if I am as upfront as he is I wouldn't get a single interview.

Tell me what you think. Thanks.

For the past month, I have been reading "The Wisdom of Psychopaths" by Kevin Dutton which delves into traits, behaviors, and motivations behind psychopaths. This book isn't just about serial killers but rather also the "successful" functional psychopaths such as stockbrokers, politicians, and business executives. You can read an excerpt from the book here if interested. A few interesting takeaways that I have had from the book so far are the innate cues that some people have on picking up on psychopathic cues. This is like speaking to someone and getting the heebie-jeebies from them for some reason. Apparently, women are more perceptive to this than men.

So, I'm curious if you have ever met a person that gave off that vibe, and what in particular gave you that vibe?

The IFSC is an international governing body for competitive climbing, recognised by the Olympic Committee. Sport climbing is now an Olympic sport. There are three disciplines: lead, boulder, and speed. In the Olympics the climbers will do all three disciplines.

In speed climbing there are two 15 meter tall walls with hand and footholds attached. The two walls are the same as each other. The layout is fixed -- the same layout is used for each competition. Two climbers race each other up the wall, and the winners go on to race each other up the wall.

Here's Wired with a useful introduction to speed climbing: Why it's almost impossible to climb 15 meters in 5 seconds I like this video because it gives a good "elevator pitch" introduction to the 3 disciplines, and then gives a good detailed intro to speed climbing. They talk about beta and some of the beta-breaks that have decreased the time taken to get up the wall.

Here's Albert Ok with a quite personal video about his training for speed climbing. I won't say more because I don't want to spoil it, but it's a nice description of training. 5 Lessons I learned speed climbing for 150+ hours

Here's Magnus Midtbø and Pete Whittaker having fun in a gym, challenging each other to a speed climbing dual. (The whole video is a fun watch - they both seem like nice, chill, people and they have good on screen chemistry with each other). I challenge Pete to a speed climbing dual

The most recent speed world cup was in Chamonix 2019. The next one (for speed and boulder) will be 28th - 30th May in Salt Lake City. The IFSC tend to live stream the events.

On my desk I have two screens -- one off to the side for movies, TV, etc and my main in front. Sometimes I find myself wanting subtitles on my main screen. The main issue I've found, at least with macOS, is that the SRT players suck.

I figured, why not just generate a tiny black video with embedded subtitles?

ffmpeg -i subs.srt -t 3:00:00 -s 40x10 -f rawvideo -pix_fmt rgb24 -r 25 -i /dev/zero subs.mpeg

Set the ratio to be super small without being too small. This video is 40px by 10px and the video only takes a few seconds to generate. For me, this generated at ~850x speed.

From there, jack up the subtitle font size and shift it up a little bit so nothing gets cut off. This also works really well with tiling window managers.

Screenshot

I'd love to get a passable alternative interface to YouTube that just shows me what I'm subscribed to, a search bar, and nothing else. Does this exist as a userscript or alternate site?

Edit:

My current solution is to have my YouTube bookmark go directly to my subscriptions listing. I also have my ad blocker cut out the recommendations feed on the side. It works okay but maybe there's a better solution out there.

This is the ad block rule:

www.youtube.com##.ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer
www.youtube.com##.ytd-guide-entry-renderer[title=Explore]
www.youtube.com##.ytd-guide-entry-renderer[title=Home]

I've been married for about 20 years. Our bedroom has been mostly dead for half of that. When I left to go take care of my mother, I didn't know if I would come back home. My husband and I like each other well enough, but we have each been in our own personally narrated relationship hell for too long. While I was away, we started writing each other letters, the distance seemed to let us "get it all out." We both seem committed to making the next 20 years better than the first. If there is any interest, I'm willing to chronicle our journey back from the brink of divorce, as well as answer any questions anyone might have. I'm the one with the lower sex drive, and with sex more tied to emotional intimacy than my partner. I like Tildes as my personal space and don't really want my husband to have an account, but I would let him use mine to speak his own words if that is something someone would want to hear. If there is no interest, I'll delete this topic in about a week, as I would find it a bit embarrassing in my history.

Edit: I would also be interested in hearing how other people worked through this if anyone would like to talk about it.

Note: this will be a noisy thread! If you would not like to see it in your feed, please use the ignore feature!

IMPORTANT UPDATE

This offer is no longer available. Thanks to those who participated!

Anyone here in the mood for a new Steam game this weekend?

Presumably you are, because you clicked this thread to read it! Welcome!

What is this?

It's a Steam game giveaway! I figured some of you might want a new game to play this weekend, and what's better than getting an awesome new game for free?!

What's the catch?

There isn't one! No gimmicks, and no strings attached!

How do I get my game?

Comment below with your choice, and I'll PM you the key. To keep the thread from being pure noise, I would also like you to, with your request, tell me about a favorite “hidden gem” game you’ve played. I love hearing about diamonds in the rough, so let me know about an underappreciated game you’ve loved (the more obscure/unknown the better).

Also, if you end up playing the game you get this weekend (you don’t have to — it’s a gift, not an obligation!), return to the thread to tell everyone about it!

Are there any restrictions?

Only one game per commenter please, but note that multiple people CAN request the same game! I will give out as many of each copy as is requested!

Why are you doing this?

My pageant answer is about doing something nice for an awesome community during some difficult times, but the real truth is that I've been drinking a bit, there’s a seriously good bundle on right now, and as I looked at the titles in it, it made me feel deep down in my bones the unshakeable sense that more people need to play Yoku's Island Express.

What's on offer?

Your choices are below. I haven't played all of these, but, based on the reviews, there's not a bad game in the bunch! There's also a wide amount of variety, so hopefully you can find something that speaks to your individual interests!

What do you recommend?

First of all, thank you for asking! That’s so thoughtful.

• Yoku's Island Express

MORE PEOPLE NEED TO PLAY THIS (thus sayeth the truth in my bones). The game is a delight. It's charming, novel, and very well-made. "Pinball metroidvania" isn't exactly a common genre or even one that makes sense on paper, but it's pulled off splendidly. It’s also thoroughly enjoyable even if you're a complete pinball novice like me. If in doubt about which game to pick, choose this one! If, after you play it, it turns out I’ve steered you wrong, you’re allowed to return to this thread and yell at me.

• Yooka-Laylee

I honestly think this is one of the most unfairly criticized games out there. I genuinely don't understand why so many people had very negative reactions to it. I don't normally finish games, but I full-on 100%ed this one! It has a couple of rough spots and edges, but on the whole I thought it was wonderful and deserved far better than the lukewarm-to-hostile response it got.

Can just ANYONE ask for a game?

Yes. PLEASE DO. Don’t wait around thinking someone else deserves it more or you don’t want to be a bother or you don’t want to put me out or you might not play it this weekend or you might look like a freeloader. I literally WANT to give this stuff away. Nothing would make me happier than to see this thread deluged with requests! If you're someone who might get enjoyment out of any of these games, then DO NOT HESITATE TO ASK FOR ONE!

IMPORTANT EDIT: I am handing out games even if I'm not responding in the thread to each individual request! I didn't want to keep bumping the thread myself with confirmations.

Players are understood to be sharing a cake. How much cake do you want? Be fair. Anyone who has had the least gets to size the next piece. Don't finish the cake!

Is this plausible ttg rules text? Do you recognize the instructions?

So my girlfriend has this dog, a miniatura Schnauzer. He's 5 years old and in perfect health. For some reason, he fears even the slightest elevation. The dog is quite athletic but behaves as if he was much older. He does know how to get on things, like sofas that are not very high, but if we forget to "rescue" him he will literally never go down. Which is cute but also a bother. I wanna make him a bit braver and more independent. Any ideas?

Hello my lovelies,

I struggle with a moderate amount of anxiety and obsession with self-image, which tend to amalgamate as some kind of depression or other over time. At least I think they do. I've never really been sure if what I experience is actually depression, or if I'm just a Mopey Idiot, or if I have a more acute cognitive issue that I'm not aware of.

I keep very precise semi-quantitative logs of my mood and behavior every day, and they suggest to me that some of my stress is related to being a little overloaded. I'm working on cutting back on some of that responsibility. But it's also extremely obvious to me that, for quite some time—I think since about early October 2019—I've lacked the physical energy that typically allows me to be consistently happy. There was no one, singular "proximate cause" two years ago, certainly it was none of my actual obligations (at that time I had very little work to speak of). However, I nevertheless very distinctly remember that my energy was suddenly just sapped, and has not come back to the level it was at before. The best theory I have is that it might've been a mini-existential crisis triggered immediately by some books I'd been reading, with a background of relatively more social isolation than usual. There have been specific circumstances since then in which I can be high-energy (and I mean be, not just act like I am), but they are fleeting and rare. The overall background energy of my life has been different.

In short, I do not really have a solid anchor per se, even as I have many little mini-anchors. I have been floating around for a while as a result.

At least that has been my working theory for a little while. The persistence of my condition has led me to question whether that theory is useful, or whether there is something fundamentally wrong with my brain. I am Young and Naive so I simply do not know how to tell. The pandemic has made it much more challenging to figure out the root cause of my problems, because I cannot tell if they are just because I can't do the fun activities I like doing in the social environments I like doing them in, or something presumably biochemical.

Things that each help a little:

• Getting more sleep
• Getting more exercise
• Being good about meditating, or when my therapist is useful (rarely)
• Being successful (I have a job for the summer and a likely career after I graduate. Knock on wood)
• Being hot as fuck (I'm not that attractive, but I feel pretty after I exercise, or when I dress nice, or when people compliment my body)

Things that each help a lot:

• Having extremely attentive and caring friends
• Not being around people who constantly drain me
• Consuming certain substances

Specifically, the most non-low-energy I've felt in a long time was when I ate some funky little mushrooms with my friend this year. Specifically, after I snapped back to reality (mom's spaghetti). I was just more alert and more able to function properly. My brain operated at its normal capacity; words flowed freely from my mouth in a gorgeous array of sentences; positive banter was at an all-time high; I was positive and optimistic; and so on. You know how you can sort of visualize the ideas popping around and the gears turning when you're sober but just really on top of your social life? Well that's what it was. Unfortunately my ability to be a normal person only lasted like 1 or 2 days from there, and then it was back to the same old.

This has made me ask the question: might it be prudent to look into some sort of legal medical prescription that would have a similar effect? That is, anti-depressants or like whatever. I'm also open to alternative treatments but I am mainly asking about prescription meds. I just don't know anything about the whole world of medication. I almost never take meds for anything ever, even physical injuries, and I'm afraid that if I start doing medication I'll never be able to stop. The concept of always being medicated is a little scary to me. Like even if it helps, I'm still worried. But I kind of feel like nothing I've done so far has been able to permanently work, so I kind of need to do something.

I appreciate any thoughts that you can give!!!

xoxoxo
beezselzak

A few years ago I decided to ditch Gmail and started using Disroot as my e-mail provider. It was recommended by privacytools.io.

I realized that at least one e-mail I sent went to spam and now every time I send an e-mail I get paranoid if it will reach its destination. Is there a way to know if the e-mails I send are opened?

I've thought about switching to a more mainstream e-mail provider like ProtonMail but I already have so many accounts linked to Disroot that make switching dreadful. As a matter of fact I still have over 100 accounts that are using my Gmail address because it's so time intensive and not a priority to do the switch. Hopefully in the password-less future this kind of problem will cease to exist.

I've suffered from depression and anxiety disorders for a while now. I take medication daily and I am seeing a therapist. However, I feel that I should know more about the disease. I think it would be useful for when I'm talking to my therapist and psychiatrist for example.

Recently I had a healthy debate with my therapist because she believes I am too young to be dependent on meds and that I should aim to get out of them long-term. I explained her that before I started taking drug mix that (kinda) works for me, I was falling into an abyss. I couldn't function, I couldn't be independent. And, with my current knowledge and experience, I think I will be a chronic user of medication.

So I got the impression (I might be wrong on this and we will discuss it more in the future) that my therapist believes in some kind of separation of the brain from the biological world. For example, if someone is diagnosed with a heart disease and starts taking meds, no one bats an eye. When it comes to psychiatric drugs people get concerned. I am skeptical of this double standard.

I also believe that the current umbrella of depression will be revised in the future. I think for some people it is caused by a life event but for others, the brain just isn't working well and we can't (yet) identify a source for the depression. My therapist doesn't like this theory. She thinks that it all comes down to your emotional and behavioral landscape, both in the present and in the past. Now, I know that the brain is a "special" organ because, unlike the heart, we use it to think and feel. So there is definitely SOME relationship between depression and what you feel and act, but I think that is a simplistic way of seeing things. I have done brain exams before and nothing was found. But did someone test my brain chemistry for example? No. So There is probably much more to learn with regards to the disease.

So I guess this was a long way of reaching my request: I am looking for up to date and thorough literature on depression, mostly on it's causes, treatments and current undergoing research. I want to be more informed so that I can better communicate with my caregivers. I want to know what the hell is wrong (at least, most likely) with me. I want to know that there is hope in current research.
This literature can be books, papers or another medium.

I would like to finish by saying that I like my therapist a lot and the objective of this post is not to bash her. It's about explaining the context for my request.

Thanks.

I'm setting up a server with nextcloud, plex, matrix and some other things I don't yet know, for some friends and family, (about 20 people if I get lucky)
and now I heard of a thing called single sign on/unified login. (Login to different services with the same user/pw and/or login once, access to all services)

so far I found out about Keycloak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keycloak

is this what I'm looking for? does anybody have experience in this? Are there other/better/simpler solutions for this?

Hi Everyone!

I'm looking to donate some money to a charity that is focused on helping children learn how to code.
I've always heard that lots of charities are scams, and I was hoping to get the opinions of you fine folks about a good charity to donate to!

Just getting this off my chest because the number of people I can talk to about it right now is very small.

My mom got diagnosed with cancer a few days ago. Tumors in her breast(s?) and the cancer has made it into her lymph nodes and possibly her blood as well. None of us have much idea where that puts us right now and we won't know much more until her consult + surgery next week. It's gut-wrenchingly awful. The unknown of everything gnaws at you -- I don't wholesale trust what I read on the internet but it certainly doesn't seem great. I'm still in disbelief -- my mom is only in her mid sixties and she is extremely healthy. My mom is obviously scared but she is doing ok otherwise -- she is a fighter and my whole family is behind her and ready to support her however we can. This next block of time is going to be so hard on both of my parents it physically hurts to think about. I guess as we learn more information things will become easier to deal with because it certainly isn't easy right now. Lots of tears, but lots of video chat smiles and laughing too.

The saving grace has been knowing how much time I have been able to spend with my parents through the pandemic as they have been helping us out with childcare. My mom has loved being a grandma, getting to watch her eyes light up when she holds our daughter has been amazing and I just want so, so, so badly for her to be able to continue to watch her grow up and for my daughter to know her. If you have a mom in your life please give her an extra hug/ehug this mother's day for me.

Also, if anyone has any personal experience of battling or having people close to you battle cancer please feel free to share if you want to. Cancer fucking sucks.

What is a "Screenless Day"?

Tildes "Screenless Day" is a simple event aimed at encouraging people to take a temporary step away from toxic or consuming aspects of technology and spend their time and energies elsewhere.

When is it?

It takes place over the weekend starting on the first Friday of each month. Participants will choose that Friday, Saturday, or Sunday to take as their screenless day -- whichever works best for their schedule.

Some people might not be able to participate in that window, and that's fine too. They can choose to shift their day earlier or later as needed. It is also completely fine (and encouraged!) to take personal screenless days separate from the event if you like. This thread will be posted the first weekend of each month, but it is open for comments the entire month.

Does it have to be truly "screenless"?

"Screenless" is an ideal, not a mandate. The spirit of the day is to deliberately step away from toxic or consuming aspects of technology, and what that means is different for each person. Thus, it is up to each participant to determine what "screenless" means to them. Some might only choose to not use social media for a day; some might choose to eliminate all "screens" but still use their ereader; some may maintain some screen use but only for necessity (e.g. work; classes; GPS; etc.). Some might get rid of screens entirely, or go fully "unplugged" for the day.

How do I participate?

You do not have to do anything formal at all to participate -- simply take your screenless day in whatever way is best for you! That said, I think it's more enjoyable and valuable to make this a shared experience, so the structured way to participate, for anyone interested, is as follows:

STEP ONE: Before you take your day, post a top-level comment in this thread detailing your plan for your screenless day.

Consider the following questions:

• Why do you want to take a screenless day?
• How are you personally defining "screenless"?
• What do you plan to do with your time?
• What do you hope to get out of it?

To have your plan stand out from normal conversation, please use the # markdown to title your post "[yourusername's] Screenless Day Plan"

STEP TWO: Take your screenless day.

• In the spirit of the event, you should probably not be reading or posting to this topic at all that day. To each their own, however. :)

STEP THREE: After it is over, return to the thread to reflect on your screenless day.

Post a response to your original comment in which you tell us all about your day.

• What did you do?
• How did it feel?
• Was it difficult? Easy?
• Did anything surprise you?
• Were there any unexpected challenges/breakthroughs?
• If you plan to do it again, what would you change? What would you keep the same?

To have your follow-up stand out from normal conversation, please use the # markdown to title your post "[yourusername's] Screenless Day Reflection"

Can I chat in this thread if I'm not participating?

Yes! The more, the merrier! Discussion from anyone, participant or non-participant alike, is welcome. Though, do understand that it might take a bit longer than normal for some people to respond. :)

Do you like them? Hate them? Don’t care about them? Take pride in them?

What do you consider good/bad achievements?

Do they affect how you play games?

Do you feel you have to get most/all of them?

What games have used them to novel effect?

Anything else you want to say about the topic is fair game as well. This is an open door for any discussion related to achievements.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my own attention lately, and I'm curious to hear others' thoughts. I don't want to prime the thread, but I'll probably type up some of my own considerations in a comment later.

Any and all comments/experiences are welcome, especially those from people with ADHD or other similar conditions that impact executive functioning.

• Are you happy with your ability to manage your attention and focus?
• Do you feel like you're in control of your attention? Is it something you have to manage?
• Do you feel as if anything has changed over time?
• How would you describe your attention/focus to someone who experiences theirs in a different way from you?

Those are simply guiding questions to get the ball rolling, but I don't want to limit the conversation to just them. Really I'm interested in hearing anything anyone is wanting to share about their relationship with attention and focus.

I have a CalDigit TS3+ dock that I switch between my M1 Macbook Pro and a System76 Galago Pro that's currently running Windows 10 (I'm sorry, FOSS gods). The M1 has no problem using the TS3+ when it's connected or disconnected and reconnected. But the Galago Pro will only connect to the dock if it was connected while booting up. Disconnecting and reconnecting leaves the dock in a state where only the pass-through thunderbolt port works. So my monitor that uses the pass-through for DisplayPort can operate after reconnecting the dock, but no other devices plugged into the dock will. My mouse/keyboard for example don't even receive power in this state.

Oddly when setting up the drivers for thunderbolt I found that the only drivers available are for Intel's NUCs. IIRC someone on reddit said that this is actually the software I need to install, so that's what I did.

Any help getting the dock to work better is appreciated! Currently I need to reboot the laptop every time I switch back from the M1 to the Galago Pro.

2 years ago we planted a lime tree in our backyard. It was already about 5-6 feet tall when we planted it. There's a lemon tree next to it that is probably 50 years old and produces more fruit than we can use. We're constantly giving away lemons to our friends and neighbors, baking stuff with the ones we keep and we still too many left! But our lime tree barely produces anything. The first year it produced 3 limes, all of which were hard and almost juiceless. This year, so far it has produced a single fruit which doesn't yet look ripe. The thing is that it produces tons of buds that look like they're going to become limes, but they either die or are eaten by squirrels, I guess. I've heard a similar story from a coworker about her lime tree. Is there any secret to getting a lime tree to produce fruit?

I went to college in Massachusetts, and after awhile the winters began to get to me. A study-abroad trip to Paraguay helped me fall in love with palms. After I graduated, I explicitly looked for work in areas of the Southeast where I could grow palms, eventually settling in the Midlands of South Carolina (USDA Hardiness Zone 8a), which can grow a reasonable variety (our state tree is the cabbage palmetto, Sabal palmetto, and it is incredibly common in the area). I’ve currently got two potted palms: a European fan palm, Chamaerops humilis, and pygmy date palm, Phoenix roebelenii (the latter needs to be housed in the garage during the winter).

I terminated my position over 4 months ago and I'm still not able to apply for jobs. I'm frustrated with my inability to move on from the previous toxic work environments. My background is in a male dominated field and there was always something either insensitive, sexist or racist said in all my previous workplaces. I feel, I know I'm going to be met with some sort of comment in my next work place and I no longer want to put myself in those situations anymore. I don't know how I'll react, I feel like I may explode if I hear another ignorant phrase.

I want to be able to make money. People say I must not have liked what I did very much if I wasn't able to put up with the comments. Other people say that that's just how the world is, "get used to it!" I've also heard that I'm just going to have to wait for change because drastic/fast pace change causes recoil. All of these comments literally tell me to suck it up and allow the same rhetoric to propagate. And, of course, all of this has been told to me by white men, those who aren't effected by the comments said to me.

Things that have happened to me or that were said to me:

• Smile more
• I'm too soft spoken/nice
• I'm too aggressive
• "Do you want to fix your hair?"
• A project manager bought me hair product, I didn't ask. I have curly hair and it took me a long time to love my curls, but it's seen as "unprofessional"
• A Director was staring at my hair throughout an entire interview
• "I'll put you up there" when the males were talking about strip clubs
• "Why are women crazy?"
• I've been kissed on my face and told "if only I met you before my wife"... never had a fucking conversation outside work with this person. I didn't even speak to him more than once a week!
• "We were surprised that you and Mohammad spoke English". Both me and Mohammad were born and raised in the United States. When I responded with "Why did you guys think that?" they conveniently stumbled and changed the subject.
  ... Many more things happened, but require too much context.

I just don't get it. Am I suppose to let ALL these things slide? Am I suppose to hold empathy for people who don't have empathy for me? Who don't empathize with me and how what they have said may have made me feel? Should I forgive people who would rather hide the fact that they said something rather than apologize? (And yes, I filed reports for some of these comments/experiences and the rhetoric was "She got X fired", not "X's own behavior got them fired".)

And more importantly, how do I move on from this knowing that it's going to happen again? The last job had the most amount of sexism in it. The thing about sexism (and racism) is that it's meant to make you feel devalued, and shocker, I felt devalued. It took me so long to gain my self confidence back. And I want so badly to protect myself. I never want to feel those feelings again. But the world is still sexist and racist and homophobic and xenophobic... all the phobics. And how do I tell my next work place that the reason why I left and why I took a break from working was to deal with the emotional repercussions from a very toxic/sexist work environment (when workplaces see whistle blowers as a red flag)? And how to I prepare my little sister who is in college studying a male dominated field knowing that she'll have to deal with the same things I went through?

It's been 4 months and I'm still angry and still jobless. I've grown to hate social interactions for fear of someone saying some ignorant shit. I've grown a distrust of all people. I hate how much this thing has affected me, how belittled I feel and how I can't move on from this. I feel emotionally paralyzed and money is running out and jobs are hard to come by especially because I'm not white nor am I a male and my hair isn't straight Billie Holiday - I Love My Man.

I'm tired of confusing people with how my looks don't match my attitude/personality that they've been conditionally taught to think it was like. I'm tired of confusing people with how unashamed I am of my existence.

Heya!

Man I haven't been on Tildes for a minute. How the heck is everyone?

I've been on a bit of a roller coaster since I posted about looking for a new phone and have been keeping busy.

Just right now I really should be:

• Editing a book my dad wrote about our ancestors in the US - think Little House on the Prairie. It's going to be a surprise gift for his 90th. I'm having it printed all nice and whatnot.
• I need to contact the free lancer I work with in India to help me put together new online courses for the website I run as a side hustle. Hoping for a break out cycle next time and have it become something that might replace my primary income in the next 4-5 years. It's paying off but the work can be super boring.
• I have a lawn care landscaping guy coming over today to see about putting a french drain in around the basement foundation to get some water away. I am working from home full time now so I want to make the basement nicer (where I work from). Basically it's going to still look like a basement, just nicer. Going to epoxy the floor and put up that commercial type baseboard, fresh white paint on the walls and ceiling, then new lights. Then I'll add storage for things we don't use everyday. Should be cool but a ton of work.

Other stuff that's happened since I last talked to you all:

• I need to get passport photos for the family for a cruise in Nov that we probably will end up canceling unless the kids can get vaccinated by then. Bought it cheap at the height of the pandemic.
• Just yesterday I was at Costco and do you ever get annoyed by the check they do before you leave? Like normally its cursory but this time they really went through everything and it was this much older guy with a lot of Veteran-wear and he like really went out of his way to touch each item in our cart multiple times. I literally said "Are you going to touch everything?" But I don't think he heard me. I guess the issue was we had what looked like 11 items and only 10 on the receipt but one thing was a two-pack of shirts. We also weren't dressed particularity well and probably smelled like weed so there's that too. But no fun for sure.
• I took up stock trading during the March lows and lost about $8K then after a lot of work and mostly luck made that back plus $2k. Then I took a break for a while because it was hella stressful. Then I got in on gme early in my retirement account. So now I don't have to worry about retirement so much. Really mind blowing. I'm going to a financial advisor soon.
• I kind of called the pandemic early ... I have some neighbors who are Chinese and they told me how bad it was getting over there. So we went and got n95s when you could still get them at the big box stores and bought supplies including a handgun and a o2 machine. I remember driving up to the bank drive through window and getting $10k in cash out just for saf e keeping. We've basically been hunkered down ever since.

It's been a long strange trip man, how have you all been?

tl;dr: Got a Samsung Galaxy 8. Generally like it but dislike having to deal with both a Samsung layer and the Google layer - having just the Apple layer on the iPhone is nice. I didn't put any cool OS on it like I was talking about. The fingerprint reader works really well so I totally get why people use those.

The US, EU and assorted allies have gradually gotten into the habit, in recent decades, of using targeted sanctions (a lot) against both individuals and govts when the targets do something the West does not approve of.

Do they work? Do they help?

I think Obama-era sanctions on Iran played a part in getting Iran to at least consider the nuclear accord that Trump promptly renigged on ... but I also think Rouhani also wanted to develop a better relationship w/the US (and I'm sure he had at least grudging support from the Ayatollah), and gladly used the sanctions as the justification for speaking to the Great Satan.

Details aside, I think sanctions helped in that case. I can't think of any other examples where they were effective in helping achieve their intended effects.

OTOH, I think aggressive sanctions against North Korea have, at best, done no good at all, and have probably made the situation worse.

Any other successes come to mind?

Talk about anything you have "automated" in your life. No restrictions on the tools or things to automate. You have a simple "silence your phone at work" thing? Great job! Do you have a complex thing with hundreds of lines of custom code? Wonderful! All are welcome!

I myself have automated a bit of stuff, and am constantly looking for more (that's why this thread exists):

Home:

• My room will turn on the lights when it detects the brightness inside is going down, but will slowly do it relative to the current brightness so it doesn't suddenly turn on at once. (Tries to keep a certain brightness at certain times)
• I can send "loff", "lon" or, "lauto" through XMPP to turn my lights off, on, or toggle the automatic mode mentioned above from anywhere. I am blocking internet connections from my smart light hub so I had to re-implement that manually

Computer:

• Copying any YouTube links (or Invidious links, which get translated into YouTube) will automatically prompt me about opening them under MPV

Phone:

This is where I do the bulk of my automation, as Tasker is a very convenient way to automate stuff.

• Toggle full brightness and/or auto rotation on specific apps (Gallery, NewPipe, etc.)
• A couple of Android "Share" targets for
  • Uploading dumb images to my webserver
  • Adding links to Miniflux (abusing it's bookmarklet functionality)
  • youtube-dl through Termux
• And some (mostly gimmicky) text-to-speech notifications for calls and XMPP messages

Planned:

• Miniflux notifier over XMPP. My last attempt failed because Node-RED apparently doesn't reconnect over to XMPP when its connection drops :(

I've put quite a bit of work into my i3 set up recently and I'm curious if the people here are interested in that kind of thing.

I'd be interested in looking through configs to get ideas, and sharing screenshots and such.

Here is what my desktop looks like right now. Let me know what you think.

I’m enough of a Linux lay user that I’m not even sure if I’m using the right terminology in the question (feel free to tweak it if needed!). Here’s what I mean:

I’m running Pop!_OS currently, and I have at least one app installed via each of the following methods:

• Deb app from the distro repositories
• Deb deb downloaded from program website
• Flatpak app downloaded from Flathub
• AppImage app downloaded from program website
• Snap app downloaded from the Snap store

As someone who doesn’t really know or necessarily even care to know what’s going on under the hood, these all pretty much work identically for me (with the exception of AppImage which doesn’t integrate into my regular programs menu, and the standalone Deb, which requires manual updating). In fact, for most of the programs on my computer I couldn’t tell you which one they’re sourced from. They all just run like they should.

I’ve looked up differences between all of the options and usually end up finding conversations that go well above my head and get deep into technical details. My question here is basically aimed at cutting through a lot of that depth: what is the important, need-to-know information about these different methods of installing apps? Is there anything I should be aware of if all I’m really going to be doing is running them as a standard, non-power user? Also, if an app is available via multiple methods — is there one that is preferred/better/safer/superior/etc.?

For some reason I don't really have much issues with most things if I'm by myself, but when there's someone else (either irl or online) venting about the issue at hand, another issue or their own issues in a super negative way it always brings me down so hard.

Like, if I were watching the news and there was something about a murder or something on, I would watch and think "that's bad" but move on pretty quickly, but if you check for comments on the news online it's all super misanthropic and pessimistic shit about how the world being a vile place, etc, and funnily enough that's the thing that triggers far more of a reaction that the issue at hand itself.

Similarly, if I read all sorts of comments of people online about stuff like "hope being a joke", "life being a piece of shit", "humanity being a disease", etc, I feel all anxious and hopeless until it eventually just fades from my attention or if I see someone argue the opposite.

I've also always heard people in school complain about this or that, and I just... do it and shut up about it? Sure, I complain too sometimes, but overall I don't really got bogged down into a swamp of darkness like that.

This is really making me want to severely cut my internet usage since it's like this on an almost daily basis, though I'm not really in the position to do this atm since I don't have a job, education or anything else so this is like my main source of socializing. But I'm definitely going to go through with it once I get back into the flow of things.

Does anyone else have this problem?

I'm in Hungary, and my local doctor's office just called to tell me I have a Tuesday appt to get the first shot of the Sputnik V vaccine.

Problem is, I'm moving to The Netherlands in 2 weeks. I would have to stay here for another month to get the 2nd shot. Too much already put in motion for the end-of-April move.

I could have just gotten the first shot here, and then see what/when I get up in The Hague. But A) that feels like cheating, and 2) IDK how wise it is to mix vaccines.

Now if I die of Covid before getting vaccinated up there, I'm gonna feel like an idiot.

Thoughts?

ETA:

For the record, I did cancel the appointment, and I assume that, by now, my slot has been filled and I would get pushed to the bottom of the list, if I were to call my doctor back at this point.

Hungary, for whatever reason, is perhaps the #1 best country in the EU to date, for progress on getting its citizens vaccinated (32% half, 14% fully vaccinated, compared to the EU average of 16% and 6%). Being willing to use the Russian and Chinese vaccines w/o EU approval is, I'm sure, a contributing factor.

The Netherlands, on the other hand, is desperately struggling to be "not dead last" in the EU vaccination rankings.

Additionally, I'm 53 years old, right on the cusp of "not quite old enough to be high risk".

So it really was tempting to go ahead and get at least halfway-vaccinated before I go. But the Russian vaccine (as well as the Chinese one) seems to be especially dependent upon getting both shots. So, hopefully I don't die of Covid before The Netherlands gets around to me, but for now, I'll keep wearing masks and washing my hands.

This could be a gaming series that is very popular but for some reason or another doesn't resonate with you, or maybe a weird one-off within a genre that you love. What aspects didn't resonate with you and what could have been done differently that would made it easier to like the game?

I apologise if this comes off as self-indulgent. I'm not have a good few days and writing this has helped. I'm also not entirely sure it's in the right place so please do move if needs be.

--

Goodbye then. I think we both knew this day was coming but it was always going to come too fast, too soon - I would always want one more day, one more stroll in the woods together, one more evening snuggle by the fire.

But in the darkness of loss a whirling, glittering constellation of memories shines brightly. The first moment I saw you in that badly lit, chilly ferry terminal, you were all wobbly and woozy from the boat trip. You never did get over that travel sickness, despite everything we tried. All the first times, all the adventures, all the unspoken moments of connection between us.

I remember running around the garden together as summer storms drenched the thirsty ground, yelping and laughing and soaked to the skin by hot rain. Eating raspberries fresh off the cane for breakfast as the dew sparkled on our toes. Lying quietly by the fire as the party slowly died away. The awful long, hot, car journeys to far-away places where your eyes would light up with joy at the sight of a new beach, a new hill to climb, new people to meet or a new place to explore.

The time we clambered over the rocks and you terrified me with your boldness, seemingly unafraid to fall. The time after we were first apart for days, overflowing with happiness and relief to be together again. The time we went camping and you were not sure about it but discovered the wonder of waking up with the dawn and being outside all day. The time you first saw the snow, the sheer amazement in your eyes as we stepped outside to a blanket of white just waiting to be played in.

The time, all those years later, we first brought the baby home and you were so gentle, as if his tiny body might break at your slightest touch. Don’t think I didn’t notice you quietly taking guard over him, for all your gruff standoffishness, I know you loved him and wanted to protect him as much as I did.

And the worst time of all, the blackest star looming large in my mind’s sky. The nurse taking you away as your life drained from you, tired and afraid and so far away from me. I’ll always regret I couldn’t be there with you at the very end, but such regrets are dwarfed by the enormity of the joys of all that came before.

The small things stand out more than the big. The little rituals of the day that I get partway through before remembering you’re not there any more. The patterns are broken - getting ready to go to bed, getting up the next day, preparing food or finding our cosy places in the evening. All those familiar shapes to life are gone, shattered like ice, the shards of how we lived together destined to quietly melt away, as unstoppable as the tide.

You touched so many people’s lives, brought so much joy and love to the world, but to no-one more than me. Those days when my back hurt so much I could barely bring myself to do anything, you gave me the strength to at least go for a walk, and that always helped. Those dark nights when I felt alone and afraid, you’d always notice and come over with some love to make me feel better. It might be too much to say you saved my life but it might not.

I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you as much as I could have been for the last year, we’ve all struggled, we’ve all been tired and I know now you probably needed me more than you could tell me. Neither of us knew the cancer was taking you from the inside, not until it was far too late. If I could have the last few months again I’d be by your side every day, I’d be more patient with your struggles because they were so much more than I understood.

Goodbye, old friend. The pain is over now, and the life before it was beautiful. I love you.

After loving Waiting for Godot in the theater years ago, I recently tried to read the novel Molloy, by Samuel Beckett, in the Portuguese translation. It was a humbling experience. Most of the time I did not know who was talking, where they were talking, to whom they were talking, or what they were trying to talk about. The words were definitely arranged in interesting ways that pleased me at times, but I can't really say if what I was doing could be qualified as reading.

Half the book doesn't even have paragraphs, it is just one continuous block.

Maybe that is the point? I don't know. Critics do seem to get a lot more from these than I do, to the point that I ask myself "are they just deluding themselves, creating meaning where there is none just to justify their very existence? Wouldn't a work with little to no meaning render critics useless anyway?".

I don't know, I'm rambling. I'm looking at Molloy defeated, like one day I looked at Joyce's Ulysses.

Maybe I should read these books without thinking, like listening to music with lyrics in a language I don't speak (I can kinda do that in a movie, but a movie is only 2 hours...).

Maybe I'm not worthy.

Intro

A while ago, we held a LGBT Q&A panel that allowed people to ask questions to LGBT people that they might have been afraid to ask otherwise. I think this was incredibly valuable, and I would like to try a slightly less structured and topical version of the thread.

This thread is for questions about any topic that you're worried might come across as insensitive or invasive or uncomfortable or whatever -- questions that might get responded to negatively if you were to ask them elsewhere. Ask a question that you tend to keep to yourself, for whatever reason.

My hope is that people can ask some questions in good faith and get answers in good faith. In order to do that though, I do think it's important that we have some norms in place:

Ground Rules

Anyone can ask questions or provide answers or both. This topic is not a panel but a Tildes-wide discussion.

Askers

Ask a genuine question that you want a genuine answer to. Feel free to ask informational questions, experiential questions, and opinion questions. They will be afforded the principle of charity, but also understand that this is not a thread for hot takes or passive aggressive shots or anything like that.

Follow-up questions are allowed and encouraged.

To keep threads organized, post a new top-level comment for each separate question, unless your questions are all related to the same topic and work better as one comment.

Answerers

Give genuine answers to the questions given. The goal of the thread is education and understanding. Even (and especially) if a question is difficult, frustrating, or off-putting, I think one of the best things you can articulate is why it is that way for you as a way of helping others understand your experience and perspective.

All

Please abide by this principle: if your words have the potential to cut, then please have the courtesy of using some anaesthetic. If you know you're entering into potentially inflammatory territory, please go out of your way to soften sharpness and defang your words. The last thing I want this thread to be is a set of escalations or inflection points.

If you're worried your question might look provocative, openly state your intention and give some background for why you want to ask, to show that you're acting in good faith and willing to listen to answers. If you're worried your answer might slam on someone, openly state your intention and give some background for why this is a topic that elicits such strong feelings from you.

If a question or answer does cross lines or occurs in bad faith, please label it as malice.

If you do not want to see this topic in your thread for any reason, please use the ignore post feature.

I am hoping that we can have some very thoughtful, compelling, and insightful conversation here, and, based on what I know of the Tildes community and our last attempt at a thread like this, I have full faith that we can achieve that.

Long time lurker, first time poster. I have a 7 year old lenovo y-40 running Ubuntu which has served me well, but I am starting to get concerned that it may be time to put it out to pasture. Nothing has broken, but I know it's getting a little old.

The way I see it, my options are to stick with this computer and upgrade the ram (currently 8gb, space for up to 16) and perhaps replace the hard drive (although replacing things makes me a little nervous, I have only replaced the battery thus far), or buy a new computer.

I kinda hate buying things but will throw down for a decent piece of gear if I need it. I have a budget of ~1000 (but if it can be cheaper that's better), want to run linux and use my computer mostly for programming and internet-stuff. I am also unsure if I need to stick with a laptop-I almost never take my computer anywhere and have it hooked up to a monitor anyway. I mostly have been looking at getting a T14 or something from System76 but they all seem a little pricey. Thoughts?

Where to post this feels tricky. The terms in my post title -- "Product Backlog" and "Sprint" are very IT-specific terms from a popular business management philosophy (Agile) and methodology (Scrum) for creating software.

However, I am intentionally trying to adopt and adapt these concepts to my own life goals, personal improvement efforts and general day-to-day "get shit done" task lists.

Has anyone else done this? It only just now occurred to me to search the 'Net to see how unusual this idea is, and of course, I'm seeing plenty of evidence that I'm not the first person to think of it.

For the non-IT folk, here's the nutshell version. Large, long-term software development projects get broken down into bite-sized tasks, those pieces get prioritized and best-guesstimated as to each one's difficulty, and then short-term "Sprints" (each generally 1 week to 1 month long) are devoted to completing a selected subset of those tasks.

As an on-going process, the overall project goals and tasklist (the "Product Backlog") get reviewed, re-evaluated and re-prioritized, and past efforts are regularly evaluated for effectiveness, and the lessons learned get incorporated into future planning.

Probably the most significant piece of the Agile philosophy is the iterative process. Never lose sight of the overarching goal, but focus -- hard -- on those bite-sized pieces, always review your own efforts and learn how to improve your process of getting things done, and always be ready to modify all mid-term and long-term goals as the journey unfolds, as new information comes to light.

... And I realize I'm meandering, perhaps, a bit too much into the philosophy of software development ... but I hope it's clear how well this could translate over to personal development, life goals, self-help, stuff like that.

At any rate, that's what I'm doing over the next two weeks ... I'm running my own personal "Life Goals" Sprint, adopting the various tools and terms and ideas built into Agile -- and specifically, the Scrum-style implementation of Agile (which is more philosophy than process). Depending on how it goes, I may well be doing this for a long time to come.

Would love to discuss the idea, get feedback, pros and cons, yada ...

I recently went into my attic and pulled out my old 1990s 4-track Fostex X-26 tape recorder. I was hoping to transfer some of my old band tapes to the computer. Alas, it is dead. While it turns on, the motor appears frozen, and the device hums. (I don't mean there's line noise when you plug a speaker into it, I mean the device itself audibly hums, even when not using the tape controls.)

I have seen online that some people repair theirs. It's probably beyond my skill level to do so, though. (And I don't really want to do it myself.) I have contacted a few shops near me (Los Angeles), but have gotten no replies, unfortunately. I was wondering if anyone here knows of a good shop that would repair an older device like this.

I have also contacted some places that claim to do cassette to digital transfers, but none have replied to my questions about whether they can deal with a 4-track recording. Also, just looking at their prices, it seems like it would cost significantly more to have them convert my tapes than to get the recorder repaired. (And I'm not sure what's on all of the tapes, so I don't really want to hand over some embarrassing practice tape or tape containing some out-of-context banter between takes on it.)

I've looked online for a used one, but all the listings I've found have been "for parts only", which is what mine would be if I were to sell it. And knowing how these things go, they probably all have the same broken part. So any recommendations are appreciated!

By B-Tier anime I mean anime that is "average", nothing that you would consider the best-anime-in-the-world, or so-bad-that-is-good, or something that you would have strong opinions about; but animes that are just "ok" but can hook you up from start to finish.

The best that would fit this category for me is Uninhabited Planet Survive, which is about some kids in the future who get space-shipwrecked in an unknown planet. The premise is so simple but every episode is enjoyable and have a decent overall story.
It's not the best anime in the world nor it tries to be (it's mostly aimed for children), the animation is ok, the soundtrack is nothing special, and the characters aren't very original but they feel real (every one with their own flaws).

So, it was an interesting experience for me to find an anime that fit this category, and I would love to read if anyone else feels the same with any other average anime.