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What's something you're "in too deep" on?
A little white lie that got bigger than you anticipated.
A hobby you got a little too into.
The sunk costs of something irreversible in your life.
Whatever it is, you're "in to deep" on it and think fondly of surfacing (whether that's possible for your situation or not).
Share what it is, how it came to be that way, and what's next for you.
So in true fashion of the topic, I started writing a comment that's taken me around 2 days to put together before realizing that it might be a bit too much for a passing topic like this! hahaha
This might interest some millennials.
I've created my own personal IPTV server with over 40TBs of movies, TV Shows, and faithful re-creation of US TV Channels from the 90s & 00s, along with era accurate commercials that change with seasons. All this is locally hosted, so not something I share out except to like maybe 2 friends who have limited access to my local network via VPN. It's just hooked up to all my apartment's TVs using TiviMate.
Included is faithful re-creations of programming blocks like
A lot of these have intros if you catch them at the start, so it'll play like the Cartoon Cartoon Friday intro, or one of many Toonami Intros, or the Wonderful World of Disney Intro or One Saturday Morning, or the Disney Channel Movie intro.
These specific programming blocks contain shows that play in order every week. So if you tune in every week at the same time then you'll watch it in order. These blocks are separate from the random daily shows that play throughout the day.
Those are just the ones with custom programming blocks. I've thought about being even more authentic and having the kids timeblocks like Nick Jr. or Playhouse Disney, but frankly I'm a single male in his 30s with no kids and while authentic I don't need to have like toddler shows playing on this thing.
The closest I have to kids programming is PBS which plays Mister Rodger's Neighborhood, Dragontales, Arthur, Bananas in Pajamas, Magic Schoolbus, Zaboomafoo, The Big Comfy Couch, Lambchop, and Barney in the mornings, with Eyewitness documentaries, nature documentaries, Antique Roadshow, Magic Schoolbus, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and Mr. Bean at other times. But that's just because that is how I remember PBS when I was a kid.
All nostalgic re-creations have era accurate commercials and network idents for the era. This is an ongoing project since in order to inject commercials into the middle of a show you need to have chapter marks in the video file at the exact spots where the commercials go. The software I use will automatically distribute commercials evenly to round up to the nearest 30 minutes except for HBO that fills the end of a movie or show with commercials up to the nearest 30 minutes.
I had to write a piece of custom software in python that can batch scan video files for black frames and allow you to delete or add them, then re-encode the files with chapters, but this is very tedious and has to be done by hand due to false positives and some shows not having black frames where commercials are supposed to go.
I WISH I had a small committed group of people like me to systematically put chapters in all these files, as if there are no chapters it just pads a large commercial block to the end of the show. Haha if anyone is interested I wouldn't mind sharing some of my library to get that done!
Oh, also for some of the channels, commercials are seasonal between Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, so the type of commercials change from like summer break type commercials, back to school commercials, Halloween commercials, and Christmas commercials.
I even have back to back Girls Gone Wild infomercials that play on Comedy Central after 10pm, and some channels resort to 90s infomercials between 1am-5am, except for Cartoon Network which plays the satirical Adult Swim infomercials and shorts.
MTV plays about 2 hours of shows, then 2 hours of music videos, with an occasional live concert that I pull from a bunch of live show footage. The shows range from Beavis & Butthead, Pimp My Ride, Daria, Viva La Bam(which is a hard watch nowadays), Jackass, The Osbournes, etc. Right now the music videos are random from a custom playlist, so it'll play both modern and old commercials, but I'm working on a tagging system so I can start making themed genre and year blocks.
Some channels have shows that play at certain times of day, for instance on weekdays Nickelodeon plays Hey Arnold! at 7pm, then KaBlam! while ABC plays Home Improvement at 8pm on Mondays, and these are in order. Zoids & ReBoot! on Cartoon Network at 6am & 6:30am respectively.
The rest of the time the channels play a randomized assortment of shows that played on that channel, but all shows are randomized but the episodes are in order.
I also have a multitude of channels that play shows back to back 24/7 from King of the Hill to New Girl.
I have a Futurama channel, then next to it I have a channel that plays Everybody Loves Hypnotoad, which is just Hypnotoad looping forever.
I have franchise channels that play franchises, so Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings play the movies back to back 24/7, Star Trek randomizes all the shows and movies(again, shows are randomized but episode order is not). Marvel Studios plays all MCU movies in order back to back, Marvel plays all movies containing Marvel Characters outside of the MCU, DC does the same as Marvel but with DC characters.
I've got Director Channels that only play movies from those directors. Wes Anderson, David Lynch, James Cameron, etc. Also actor channels in the same vein, so Brendan Frasier, Nick Cage, Adam Sandler, etc.
I have decades channels from 1930s-2010s, and a 2020-Present movie channels, which play only movies from those decades, each channel will play about 10 minutes of high quality movie trailers of movies released in that era before playing a random Movie Theater policy trailer, bumpers, and feature presentation also from that era. Most of the older ones are cool Drive In Theater ones.
I have some sub-decade ones, so I have an 80s Drive In channel that plays cheesy 80s/early 90s horror and teen romance movies.
I also have genres and sub-genres. This is non-exhaustive but a good example:
I don't watch sports, but I have a Battlebots channel, as well as a FishCenter LIVE channel.
I also do a couple funny things like the Documentary channel has some found footage horror movies mixed in. haha
I have a Horror Anthology channel that plays Tales from the Crypt, The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Beyond Belief Fact or Fiction, Monsters, Are You Afraid of the Dark, & Goosebumps, Freddy's Nightmares, and Friday the 13th the show.
And there's a couple other random channels in there, one that plays educational YouTube videos, another that plays Storm Chasing videos from YouTube, another one that is CatTV so it plays videos for cats. Another one that plays TED Talks, etc.
I still have a lot to do though, and this is kind of my list:
Ooof, now that took me an hour to write, can you image the other post I had written? haha And to be honest, this doesn't even feel exhaustive. Yeah, definitely in too deep, probably sounding like an insane person.
Edit: Probably should have also mentioned why I've done all this and put so much work into it.
So around 2019 I fell down a rabbit hole of watching old commercial blocks on YouTube and realized that those scratched a nostalgia itch that I didn't realize I had. I didn't even realize it but those 90s and 00s commercials left an impression on me, it was the stuff I'd listen to in the background as I went to the bathroom or got dinner.
Like 90s & 00s commercials were creative, colorful, and had a sense of optimism about them, this feeling like things were awesome and the future was going to be awesome, something that today's commercials lack, everything now is just bleached corporate bullshit.
Eventually that wasn't enough so I used the PseudoTV plugin with my Kodi install, which allowed me to roughly play some commercials between shows in a TV guide like format.
Kodi updated, PseudoTV did not get updated, so I was forced to move that to another software called ErsatzTV. This software had a LOT more features and options, and I dove in.
And from there things just kind of expanded as I was unhappy with the lack of accuracy. What started as a nostalgia project turned into a full blown media project.
I have found I actually quite enjoy consuming media like this as opposed to streaming. I find myself watching movies and shows I wouldn't have otherwise sat down to watch and enjoying them.
Allows me to watch a show here and there without committing to the entire season.
It's also nice to have a routine around some of the time schedules. So it helps with routines in a way. Like if I have Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network on, I know it's time to get ready for bed when the Happy Days theme song starts playing or Adult Swim comes on. Or being up early on a Saturday morning and putting on Saturday Morning Cartoons.
Often I have it running in the background while I'm working or cleaning and will tune in/out as I want.
Okay, so I curate movies, music, and TV for myself and it can be a ton of work when I’m not FREAKING RECREATING THE 90’S - 00’S CABLE EXPERIENCE. I read your write up and that sounds like a ton of work, but it’s probably incredibly satisfying to be able to live through that nostalgia knowing that you yourself built it. I was actually just wondering the other day if there are people out there preserving that experience and not just the shows themselves.
Haha You have no idea.
The other day I was stoned watching The Rugrats on the Nickelodeon channel when it occurred to me that, at least to my knowledge, I might be the only person on earth experiencing 90s Nickelodeon like I did when I was a kid.
It's just nice having the option of being able to watch TV like I used to, as opposed to it being a memory.
I wish I could share it with others, but I don't want to put a target on my back.
Why don't you strike a deal with the copyright holders and sell this as a service?
I wouldn't be surprised if tons of people wanted to relive their childhood through this experience and it'd be something pretty original to show friends stopping by at your house. If they like it so much that they get it for themselves and end up showing their friends in turn it could even grow viral without any paid marketing.
It would be so funny if you ended up retiring within the next five years because of what was initially a niche, time-consuming hobby.
Then you'd really have a lot of time for niche, time-consuming hobbies haha
Honestly, the logistics of something like that sounds like a nightmare.
I did a small stint working with licensing back when I was working for Disney, and there are so many rules and regulations around licensing things to make sure everyone gets paid their royalties, that it would be unrealistic logistically for what I've set up.
Not to mention the nostalgic commercials are for products and companies that don't even exist anymore and uses licensed music who's licenses for use expired ages ago.
The best case scenario that I've had in my head is that if streaming companies release a feature for 24/7 streaming "Channels" similar to Pluto.TV but just for their services, ones that kind of pull from their older 90s content that people might have forgotten about or wouldn't otherwise actively seek out. I think it'd be great for content discovery and solve the whole "spending 30 minutes looking for something to watch" dilemma for a lot of people.
The other thing I've thought about is talking to a nostalgia museum and allow the content to be played under a legal loophole of "educational content" and have a legal team prepared.
As of right now, since I'm not comfortable sharing access to my server, the only thing I'm comfortable doing is building a comparable server based on my progress for someone else to have and do with how they please.
Interesting, it does sound complicated. I wonder if it would be worth the trouble.
This sounds incredible--like the realization of a pipe-dream project I've fantasized about many times but don't have the gumption to actually tackle, I'm very envious. The closest I've come to scratching that kind of reliving-media nostalgia itch is to set up a couple radio streams that cycle through old radio shows that I used to listen to while falling asleep when I was younger (mainly Coast to Coast AM from back when Art Bell was the host). I've also set up what at this point is essentially a private old time radio streaming service (it is exposed publicly but I'm probably the only person who uses it). I had a whole suite of scripts that would take OTR episode collections from archive.org and build a database of episode details (air date, episode name, etc.) and organize everything in a clean, consistent manner--I thought that was a lot of work, but what you're describing is next level.
Oh that reminds me! I have a "Radio Disney" channel that intermixes archived talk shows from old Radio Disney.
But I've actually thought about doing the same basic thing for music so I might actually look into that and hitting you up!
I like the idea of "stations" or "channels" in that it helps discover content and sometimes you're in the mood for a genre and not like a specific song or playlist.
I do think there is something lost with services like Spotify or Netflix where content discovery has taken a hit in favor of immediate access to content. Like with streaming you have to know what you want to listen to or watch, instead of just tuning in and finding things you didn't even know you'd enjoy.
Okay this one is kind of minor but it comes up ALL THE TIME in my family and I feel like it's still better just to let it go than to try to correct it and explain why it happened.
I am deathly afraid of horses. Like shaking in my boots, backing away slowly, uncomfortable even thinking about riding a horse. At least, that's what you'd believe if you asked anyone in my family. I'm not afraid of horses at all. I mean, at least no more than I am afraid of the ocean, or hiking, or snowboarding. Healthy respect for the risks but overall comfortable with the enjoyment.
I am not really, truly "afraid" of anything. That doesn't mean I'm some kind of adrenaline-junky daredevil. I just think almost all forms of entertainment are valid with proper consideration. In combination with my teenage haughtiness and general level of trivia knowledge, my family used to treat me kind of, poorly I guess? Because they believed I thought I was better than them.
So one day we went to Disneyworld and they had some kind of thing there with Clydesdales. I for some reason came up with this idea to pretend I am afraid of horses, so they would feel like they had something above me. I don't know why this was the plan I came up with.
Anyway I guess it worked because now they can't be around without bringing up my supposed "fear" of horses. "What is it called again? Equinophobia!?" They ask me every single time as if they don't know. It's such a weird thing but it's just not worth correcting at this point. My wife knows I'm not afraid of horses. I'm sure one day when it's time for my daughter to learn to ride a horse, and I'm not afraid of teaching her, the truth will come out? I'm sure they will frame it as me growing passed it or something.
Anyway it's very strange and thinking too much about it really just makes me cringe about how uncomfortable I have been being myself around my family for my whole life.
But yeah, that's my thing. Equinophobia as a bit.
I hope you know that while reading that I pictured you as Squidward from the classic "Stop it Patrick you're scaring him!" line in Spongebob (link). Like a family member holds up a picture of a horse and another one screams "Stop it you're scaring him!" meanwhile you're just standing there completely stoic.
This is more or less completely accurate.
Wow what a weird one :D small stakes, long years I love it.
If you need an out, I think your daughter is a good one you picked up on. Phrase you can borrow from women and our presumed low pain tolerance: a woman might be weak but a mother is strong. (I've met so many men over my life bragging about how much better men can bear pain than women. Not all men of course but many. It is my personal unscientific belief that some men are better at taking/ignoring acute pain, but I am better at chronic pain. Edit obvious disclaimer than women and men are invididuals and no better or worse at anything by simply status change)
As a younger man you were scared of horse but as Papa you've overcome it.
I wrote a pretty massive off-topic "essay" regarding your parenthesis, but then I figured almost nobody wants yet another episode of "ferrety trans woman rambles about metabolites, epigenetics, transactivation, and psychology". So I'm going to just leave you with an "it's a lot more complicated than a simple black and white statement™"
Noooo I want to subscribe to your newsletter, you had me at "ferrety"
Does ferrety describe your appearance, behaviour, pet choice, or some or all of the above?
I too would subscribe to your newsletter, since I've got my own assortment of gender questions and research interests. Admittedly, I'm catty instead of ferretty, but we can see what happens when those streams are crossed.
It’s funny that guys brag about pain tolerance. I’m trained as a first responder, and one of the questions we ask about is pain, including severity. It is always taught that women will grade the same pain at a lower severity (1-2 lower on a 1-10 scale) than men do. So the medical establishment knows guys are full of themselves even if other people don’t.
The way I see it you have two ways to play it when they finally see you on a horse:
Come completely clean and explain they were so desperate to cut you down that they took the bait on a random teenage lie, and spent decades bringing it up over and over again.
Gaslight. Insist you've never been afraid of horses and have no memory of seeing horses on that trip. You also don't remember them ever bring this up before. It wouldn't even make sense because why would they keep randomly talking about horses out of nowhere?
If that's not going to be believable, Insist you thought they were just doing a bit and didn't realize they really thought you were afraid of horses.
I kind of love the second option. I'll get my wife in on it and we can just be like "what do you mean? You must be thinking of someone else."
This is hilarious! Not exactly related but reminds me a little of that guy on reddit who met his girlfriend's parents' and pretended he didn't know what potatoes are.
It's too bad it's cringey, slow burn humor is the best. IMO it would be ideal to escalate it a few more times before the reveal. Hopefully with increasing absurdity. You're in this far already, when in doubt commit to the bit. Is there a phobia origin story? You already sold it with the Clydesdales, maybe you'll get a chance to oversell it with one of those little sebastion horses.
Then when your daughter learns to ride, the resolution is that your love and devotion to her motivated you to conquer your fear. Oversell that too, can you tear up? If they still miss the irony, wait for the next chance to escalate it, have a relapse or something. Maybe you can only handle horses when your daughter is nearby.
Either it eventually makes them laugh, or they don't have a sense of humor and it increasingly makes you wife and daughter laugh.
Click to expand obligatory millennial reference
Sum41 - In Too Deep (2001)Well maybe we're just trying too hard
When really, it's closer than it is too far
'Cause I'm in too deep
And I'm trying to keep
Up above in my head
Instead of going under
I would say it more proudly, but I do worry about backlash and judgement, so be gentle, and if you are wanting to offer ongoing support, sure, I'd love it.
Click to expand spoiler.
Homeschooling. It just made sense to spend a ton of time teaching your baby sign language, and teaching your toddler to love reading. Then kindergarten rolled around, and we had a large community of homeschooling outdoor indoor take home materials to keep going. Elementary years saw unit studies, annual memberships to museums / galleries / aquarium / science centers.
Then COVID hit and it made sense to keep going at home while everyeon else is also home, following public curriculums from different cities, accerlerating and supplementing by mastery and interest, and staying a bit longer when more support is needed.
Annnnd then suddenly we're within a handful of years of university. Neurodivergence diagnoses (yes plural for the whole fam). Need for flexible travelling schedule to see my aging dad / opportunity for all the big city museum extracurriculars.
To be honest I'm starting to feel over my head. I'll start with the fact that I honestly don't mind if the kid now goes to public highschool at all. I have to pull a "trust me bro" and "it's not that simple" here; Im on first name basis with the highschool and have ongoing confirmation that we can switch any time. I have no pride at stake on this other than what works best for my kid.
I've pulled in occupational therapy for executive functioning, speech language therapist for different / visual communication styles, and I'm doing my best learning all the materials together on the fly. But I do find myself feeling short on time balancing a full time job on top.
Edit: I'm aware of where other homeschooling experiences have gone terribly wrong and am proactively working to not be like that. Yes we're religious, but the kid knows the earth is round and 4.5 GA old and humans have always had intersexed individuals and same sex relationships. We're doing AP courses lite this year, focus on engagement and understanding, not sure when or how much we will pursue AP exams until maybe a year or two before graduation, so we're not un-schooling either.
Honestly, I'd pull the trigger on sending your kid to public school. S/he's going to have a lot of adjustments moving into "public life", whenever that hits. High school is hell for many people (it's specifically why Buffy was set in high school), but s/he can make their adjustments during a period where they're already adjusting anyway, and put them into a better footing for going to college or getting a job.
I don't disagree with you. Being able to just re-invent yourself (maybe even every year) and possibly meet lifelong friends are definite highlights.
Hey I don't have any experience with anything like that (only have a toddler), but reading your comment reminded me of a Freakonomics study from a long time ago that might reassure you. Basically the study was that they looked at kids' developmental milestones and performances in early schooling and discovered that the kids did better when the parents bought baby/parenting self-help books. Wow, those must be amazing books, right? Well not really, the books themselves didn't matter. It's the fact that the type of parent who would go out of their way to purchase those parenting books and read them and try out the things in them are the same types of parents who are invested in their kids' development and schooling. So naturally those kids would have better results, not because of any information in the books themselves, but because the purchase of said books showed the commitment of the parents. That study has stuck with me for a long time.
So I don't know what you should or shouldn't do with your kid with regards to homeschooling or public high school, but I think that the fact that you're thinking a lot about it and it's weighing on your head means that you're probably doing something right. So whatever you end up doing, it sounds like your kid has already been set up for success by virtue of having a parent that cares deeply about their education (as evidenced by all the years of homeschooling, the therapists brought in to help, and this recent internal struggle about what might be best for their final years of school). I hope that brings you some solace/reassurance, as I often find myself thinking about that study when thinking about my own parenting. Good luck!
What an interesting study, and yeah there's a bunch of sideways correlation I guess. I have no doubt in my mind that I'm providing a better academic education for the kid; the rural highschool has its own challenges. (Example, the local dentist casually remarked kid has good teeth and complimented on not smoking tobacco /weed and drinking. At 12.) But as a parent we want it all for them don't we; so I'm working hard to facilitate making lifelong friends from this age too.
Okay, was gonna skip past but had to see what you were hiding.
Lol'd slightly at the Sum41 reference.
But um, I was homeschooled by a mother starting in the early 80s when it was illegal in California (also I believe you're in the US as well). And based on what I remember (and what she's shared from her side), I 1) feel bad that things have gone so screwy, and that so many diagnoses have emerged but also 2) I will always feel that (and this is 120% based on my mom's actual learning with me and my sibs, as well as other homeschooled families I knew) if a parent is that invested in their child's education, that child will benefit. There are so many issues with the public (and even private) school system in the US, and if parents would actually step in even a little, so many of those aspects would work much better. But I also know that not all parents are going to be the best teachers - I had a friend who homeschooled due to life situations, and both her and her daughter were like "yeah, that was a dark time", but it was still better than if she hadn't.
I don't have kids, and actually this is one of the main reasons, but I respect any parent who puts the effort into "raising" one. So big kudos to you and to the song reference :D
Thank you, that's very gentle of you and thoughtful to share. Yeah, absolutely wouldn't work for families where the kid doesn't like it, that'd be a recipe for disaster for both parent and child. Haha glad someone else knows the song
I'm tail-end of GenX, and that song is pretty legit. I mean fire? I dunno... but I'm always rooting for parents trying to do better by their kids. Seems at least yours won't end up worse than I did...
Mom was the grammar Nazi and I had to diagram sentences to a T, and dad came home and explained all the maths stuff. But hey, I'm making 6 figures and I love my job and all my other siblings are doing well and have many children who are also seeming to be doing well...
I think you'll be good in the long run, and what "failures" you may have, there are so many kids out there with sheit parents who still manage to excel in life. I'm pretty sure yours will be ending up on the good side!
I read a book called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Asian American writer Amy Chua, 2011, that was sort of a memoir of the grammar Nazi / drill Sargeant style of parenting and how it doesn't work like they wanted it to :) made an impression.
It sounds like your parents successfully instilled hard work and strong academics, and you knew they cared a lot.
I'm aiming slightly lower, for "strong academics opens doors, but we gotta make sure you'd still have healthy legs to walk through whichever door you choose to open".
Oh yeah, they made sure I knew I had to have strong legs... didn't pay for my college and while they were fine with me living at home, the rules imposed were ridiculous. So grow legs or
gostay home!I think yours will end up okay. I did! (hopefully... hahaha)
Kudos to you for being intentional about your kid's (s'?) education. That is The Most Important Thing. As parents, we make the best decisions we can and try to adapt. There's no perfect option and no way to predict all the consequences of a choice. So give yourself a little grace.
It's also worth remembering that if it doesn't work out, you can change schools or go back to home schooling. Even though we're very happy in Montessori and plan to stay in, we re-evaluate the pro's and cons every year.
It's hard to shake that feeling, y'know, even though you've weighted the pros and cons and chosen the better option, it's hard not to focus on the remaining cons in a "a better parent could have (magically) combined both pros into a (magical) actionable optimized outcome."
But yeah, a dear friend lost a child, and they told me their mantra is, at the end of the day, their kids are alive and know they love them. Considering that my parents put me in public school with all the wonderful pros and they still nearly didn't end up with an alive child and jury's still out on the second part, sometimes we just gotta take the small wins.
I do know! I can really perseverate over parenting decisions, and it can be overwhelming because there's so many, or some unexpected issue will come up and we just have to take it in stride with everything else. Probably half of my time in therapy is spent processing these feelings. A common mantra from my therapist is "you did the best you could with what you had available at the time".
I mainly wanted to encourage you that because you are worrying about these things, you are already a pretty good parent. I hope you don't beat yourself up by comparing yourself to an imaginary perfect standard. My therapist's other frequent reminder is that I am not perfect and will make mistakes, and that's okay.
If you haven't heard Persevere by Gang of Youths, it might be worth a listen.
Is it telling of my own mental health that I can only hear this in the negative, as a criticism, ie " --- and that's why it wasn't good enough" added? (Laugh cries) Just some of the time :) most times I'm very high horsey and kind to myself. If I oscillate fast enough between the two I average out to "okay acceptance" haha
Wow, powerful song. Thank you for the recommendation, the music and his voice hit me right away, but when I found the lyrics in the comments, that's when the dam broke. :')
I was homeschooled for most of elementary school, but when to public school for 5th grade through high school.
My only concern with going directly from homeschooled to college/university, if that’s the plan, would be how large of a change that would be “all at once” and how the social dynamics would be vastly different.
But my homeschooling experience was positive, and it sounds like you’re doing a great job with AP-lite courses and making sure your kid is getting an actual education
Thank you :) it helps to hear from others who have been on the other side. What pros / cons would your personal experience have been to enter public school sooner vs later ?
My parents gave me the choice of going into public school at 6th grade or 5th grade, and I chose 5th grade because I had friends from sports that were going into 5th grade. (I technically re-took 5th grade, but I was at the age cutoff where I was either going to be one of the youngest 6th grader or towards the older end of 5th graders).
I’m a pretty introverted person, so the change to public school was a lot, but luckily I found an extracurricular (theatre) I enjoyed and was able to make friends there, which gave me a group to hang out with at lunch and after school.
Now, when I went to college, the biggest culture shock was Pop vs Soda, and I did get teased by one of my roommates for that.
I think the biggest difficulty would likely be misconceptions from others about your homeschool experience (basically every single time it came up people would say things like “wow I’d have no idea you were homeschooled”), or depending on how your kids do with homework and studying and how those sorts of assignments might be different in college, and not having the experience to draw on for motivation/how to study effectively/etc.
I guess I didn’t really answer your questions about pros/cons, but maybe that provided some insight? The most important thing is finding a way to make friends or people you can hang out with and study with in college IMO, and making sure they know what they can likely expect in terms of homework and assignments and tests.
Whether that comes from going to public school earlier, or from the ap-like classes and AP tests in a homeschool environment, I think either way is likely OK. (Also, with neurodivergent diagnoses, make sure to reach out/register with the university for accommodations. At the school I went to, most of the professors were good about it, but there were a handful that were not, and having “official” accommodations through the university made it easier to raise that up as a problem/get needs addressed)
Good notes all around, and yes having the accomodations lined up makes a big difference even at our current level.
From where I'm sitting (single-ish [it's complicated] dad of one very energetic child whose finishing VPK and getting ready for kindergarten) it sounds like you've done and are doing an amazing job.
Most parents are only interested in their children's schooling if the kids are in trouble or if the kids are doing something that will get the parents in trouble. You've invested huge amounts of resources, and more importantly love, in teaching yours. It sounds to me like you've done a good job of giving them a pretty well rounded experience in terms of learning content, and even if that wasn't the case, it's clear reading your words that you care tremendously about their learning. That, the significance of learning, cannot possibly be missed by your kids. They have to see it, and they'll carry that into adulthood.
I'd give anything to have more time and energy and everything really to put into my son's learning. We read and draw/write, talk a lot about different topics I believe are important (logic, geometry, numbers, physics), and I try to focus his media consumption on content that's somehow educational, but I always feel like he deserves more than I can give.
I'm sure you're maxed out and constantly task saturated with all that you're doing, but I just want to applaud you for investing so much of yourself into teaching your kids. The world needs so much more of that spirit.
Editing in some more direct feedback of the type maybe solicited? Anyway, I do think public high school might be a good idea. Your kids are likely, intellectually at least, way ahead of the curve. Socially though, there is an awful lot learned at school which cannot be recreated at home. University or high school, or even just entering the working world -- at some point they'll need to interact more frequently with folks outside the family, and high-school is basically a chance to take a shot at a public facing persona, change it up a few times, and then totally start fresh after graduating and going to college/uni.
University could be that first experience too, but the training wheels are off because generally uni students are not coming home to mom and dad every day with the option to talk through all the social stuff. For that reason, I'd probably advocate for letting them try public school, assuming they're into it.
Ooof you've distilled (modern) parenting into this gem, I think. My parents' generation operated on the ancient idea that children just ... spontaneously generated from a marriage, and they are there to support the family unit and raise the younger siblings. My generation got a lot better: parenting means to provide resources that the kids are responsible for making use of. And then my generation and yours, it feels like the survivability of our kids is solely our "fault" if they don't make it. I'm not at all criticizing this view, just that it can weight on us in a society where we no longer live near social safety nets ourselves.
All in all, yeah I'm in favour of providing more opportunities, and highschool can be one of those low stakes arenas. If they somehow mess up, it's okay other kids are messy too and we can try again at a different school / class / year
Hey chocobean, I don't have any useful advice since I don't have experience with homeschooling, but as another neurodivergent parent with a neurodivergent child I just wanted to wish you good luck. While it's absolutely important to do your best for your child, don't forget taking care of yourself is important too. Not saying this is your case necessarily, but often there's a lot of pressure on parents to do it all and do it to perfection. That's a lot to put on anyone's shoulders, and if you're not doing well, it'll impact your family too at the end of the day.
Thank you :) one of the better gains from 2025 was the advice, for my variation of ADHD, I need to prioritize not getting too tired because then everything can go super sideways fast when I do. Thanks and gentle reminder to the same for you as well: I always hear the advice of "putting your own oxygen mask on first" with the invisible extension of "because that's the safest and fastest way the child(ren) can also have a competent adult help them with theirs".
I'm in too deep withhome networking and self-hosting. I spent around 2000€ on all the stuff like switch, router, wifi APs, server hardware, too much time invested in setting the server up, and running the wires and then managing it all... It was kinda hobby and kinda needed and it works, but yeah, I'm so deep in it financially and time-wise.
But I'm hosting for the whole family, backing up the photos to another server of mine and I don't have any problems with networking at home. It was and still is worth it.
Ditto. I feel even more annoyed because i bought the wrong sized NAS for my rack and had to ship it back, and am now in this limbo of "what do I get then"...again.
On "what do I get" - I would repeat myself, so please have take a look here for some ideas.
At least you have a family that could benefit from all that. For my home network and homelab and stuff...it's just me! I spent like a thousand bucks back in August/September for new Unifi gear. To replace some of the smaller Unifi gear that I had only bought a year previous and was perfectly fine!
Next thing I'm looking into buying a new server...but those prices are scary these days.
I made my server from i5-4590 (or whatever) that I had on hand doing nothing. I also had motherboatd and RAM to go with it, so I just bought PSU and HDDs to store data in RAID5 and built my own case for it all. And added GTX750 later for on-the-fly re-encoding when needed by streaming from Jellyfin.
It's quite power hungry as it idles at around 50W. But the price of the hardware kinda leveled it out.
EDIT: It may not be the best idea, but have a look at RPi5 + SATA HAT maybe? Or some older notebook for a few bucks. Or older workstastion (like 5-8 years old). That way you'll spend kinda low money and will get the base of your server.
Man, I feel a lot differently about it still than you it seems like.
I've also spent a lot of time and money into self hosting a lot, and it breaks a lot.
(It's gotten a lot more reliable over time, but still, breaking updates happen every so often, and I have to relearn everything).
I often sit back and wonder if any of it is worth it, or if I would have been better getting all apple everything, spending the 10 bucks a month or whatever for iCloud storage and never worrying about any of it.
There was a thread recently that very strongly supports my decision to self-host. I'm not saying self-hosting is the best way to do things, I just like to have my things under my control. I have it running kinda well at the moment. Although I run Gentoo Linux and that, being on the bleeding edge, gets complicated sometimes, but so far so good. Maybe my experience helps, as I do this kind of thing for 10-15 years. I have took down my self.hosted services over the time though, I don't run my own e-mail service, I don't even have open HTTP(S) out into the internet anymore. But I set up much more services inside my network. Media library is one thing, Immich is another. And I run backup server (not service backup, just data backup) and I'm working on backing up photos for the whole family (my own and in-law too).
If you are going the cloud route anytime in the future, think about backing up, please. It was said in the linked thread's comments already - second cloud can work as your backup, for example, but that may get pricy. Maybe have at least your photos (or other important stuff) on cold harddrive connecting it only to make backups.
Gentoo home lab gang
Well, I run it on home server, you may even call it "production" if you will. And that is really adventurous! But I'm pleased with how it runs. It can have problems here and there like:
"You can't update Perl because you have lrevious version" - Well, that is THE reason I want to update it! And to update it, I had to remove it and then install it again (the new version). Or the whole system being pleased with Python 3.13 and that one package doesn't want to update because Python 3.13 is too new for it. You know - the everyday Gentoo stuff :-D
Actually this happens like a few times a year at max, more like just once or twice.
Yeah, besides those, the only real issue I've had was the profile update last(?) year when I tried to update the profile on my desktop an hour or so after the new profiles came out and I kept running into issues, but eventually I got that sorted. On my server, it was as easy as following the instructions (and waiting ages for the world rebuild, but with binpkgs that's not terrible).
I tend to not do binpkgs, I'm masochist. Buz I don't care how long it takes, the server runs 24/7 anyways and such rebuild isn't that crazy even on electricity bill.
I happened to stumble upon profile update long after it got out as I update the system like once a month or two. And I just followed instructions, easy as that. Compared with Gentoo of 15 years ago, it's a piece of cake nowadays.
I moved into the new house with my wife two months ago. Both of us have been introduced to the couple next door and both of us immediately forgot their names. It's now too late to ask again without it being awkward. This is just our life forever now.
If they own the place, you may be able to find their names from property ownership records.
this is how I knew a neighbor's name months before meeting them, and then when I met them I had to consciously avoid calling them that name before they told me
Just pretend you have some memory issues
hey! aren't you my new neighbor by any chance? let me introduce you to my wife!
Classic equinophobia situation
I feel your pain, but my motto is "better to admit I'm horrible at remembering people's names right up front", than spend an eternity in social agony. Just ask until you remember, then ask again if you haven't seen them for a while and forgot once more... You will eventually be accepted as loveably absent-minded if you're otherwise decent.
Omg it took me nearly until my neighbor across the street moved out, like two years, to propey remember his name. We've moved furniture for each other, borrowed lawn mowers and ladders, cared for each other's pets, helped each other's kids with stuff. For nearly all that time I knew his name started with a B... but couldn't tell you with any certainty what it was.
The house nexdoor to me has three grown men living there. I know one is named Scott. Great dude. Saved me by watching my dog, very last minute (previous arrangement flaked out) , when we had to go out of town for a month (including Christmas and new years!) back in 2022. I'll never forget Scott... but I know he's introduced me to the other two guys... A few times... I know there's some family relationship, like maybe the youngest is Scott's son and the older one is his uncle? Or maybe the older guy is Scott's brother and the youngest one is his brother's kid? I just don't remember and at this point I'd feel terrible confessing it.
A few months ago, I watched this George Carlin interview by a young, smokin' hot Jon Stewart. At one point, Carlin mentions that his profession is nothing more than rhetoric (then he does a fun little bit).
I was familiar with the idea of rhetoric, but for whatever reason, Carlin's words really intrigued me. So I start researching a bit, and Wikipedia very quickly sends me down the Aristotle rabbit-hole. Before I knew it, I read all of Aristotle's books on Rhetoric and Poetics, but I didn't stop there.
His way of thinking really clicked with me, and I became obsessed with applying his ethical and metaphysical frameworks to different aspects of my life. I was particularly fascinated by his ideas around causality, potentiality, and actuality.
Something about the idea of deriving meaning from the world using purely deductive reasoning was so satisfying to me. I now have pages and pages of my own notes on Aristotle's ideas, and it has been very fun trying to reconcile his "wrong" theories with modern theories on physics, biology, and mathematics. (Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on any of those things, I'm just recreationally fascinated by them, so I don't claim to be qualified to perform these mental exercises. Still, they are fun nonetheless).
Over the course of a few months, Aristotle easily became one of my all time heroes. I have so many questions I wish I could ask him, and I lament that we are missing so many of his works (I believe the list numbers in the hundreds, mostly lecture notes, etc., but still.
He opened up my mind in a way I did not know possible, and completely changed my approach to learning and how I view the world. I am so grateful to a single man that lived and died thousands of years before I would ever exist. And I guess I'm pretty grateful for George Carlin too, for sending me down that rabbit hole to begin with.
Socrates was ugly and came from a nearly-poor family where his father was a stonecutter and his mother a midwife.
Epiktetos started his life as a slave to one of Nero's secretaries.
Regardless of your origin or depth of experience with philosophy, know that the practice of it is for every person with the capacity to understand logic, including yourself. Maybe one day your philosophical ramblings will be considered important, BashCrandiboot. If not to the world, at least to a handful of people in your orbit.
Thanks! This is really nice of you to say. Do you have a favorite philosopher?
Edit (2m): If you would like some resources on philosophy, let me know. I have YouTube playlists, specific authors, substacks, and whatnot if you want to approach things slowly. I take an autodidactic approach to philosphy education, so I may have some gaps in my knowledge.
That is a difficult question to answer. When I think about my "favorite" philosophers, I don't view it as a competition between them, but moreso getting to build a dream-team where each philosopher's ideas can bulwark my own. I also tend to use the term philosopher more loosely to include individuals who ordinarily are not considered such.
General - Socrates, Diogenes the Cynic, Parker Settecase
For Stoic Ethics - Epiktetos, Marcus Aurelius
For Ideas on Friendship - Seneca
For Philosophy of Language - Noam Chomsky*, Stephen Fry+, Michel de Montaigne
For Leadership Philosophy- Simon Sinek
For Feminist Philosophy- Andrea Dworkin
I could keep namedropping prominent philosphers, because each one has added a little nugget of information –some framework or concept, to my life that has given me a boost. Baruch Spinoza, Rene Descartes, Henry Thoreau, Carl Jung, etc. But, at the end of the day I feel like you could throw a dart at a board and hit a good philosopher.
I would just avoid certain authors in the beginning of your journey (like Kafka or Camus) because if you walk in without mental preparation or some level of mental fortification, you will come out the other end of the rabbit hole with some philosophical trauma.
This is awesome, thanks! I usually start exploring new topics because they relate to something I'm currently doing or fascinated by. I'll slowly branch out from a core idea until I feel like I've lost the plot and then I go back and start over. Wikipedia has been an amazing resource for this, but WOW you can get overloaded fast.
You've already given me a great list of names to look into, but if you have any books/authors that you've found yourself returning to for a re-read, I'd love to know.
Thanks again for the great reply!
Not the person you’re replying to here, but you might find it interesting to take a community college class on Ancient Greek Philosophy, or other Philosophy classes if you can find one!
I got a minor in Philosophy to go along with my Software Engineering degree, because I enjoyed one of the required ethics classes I took that much (and because I was moderately interested in Stoicism at the time).
I really liked Aristotle and his approach to ethics that’s now broadly referred to as “virtue ethics”. I think we read a few articles by Martha Nussbaum and some by Alasdair MacIntyre.
I also took course on Applied Indigenous philosophy, where we explored some different ideas such as a kinship theory of ethics, influenced largely by Māori concepts. One article I recall reading was “Ngāti Kahu Kaitiakitanga” by Margaret Mutu, but I don’t know if it’s available for free anywhere.
I don’t know that I have a favorite “philosopher”, but along with Aristotle and the articles above, I did really like reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, Viktot Frankl’s Man's Search for Meaning, a couple of Camus books, though I really should read some more of them before I actually recommend them, and Walker Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos. …I may have been having a rough go of it during college.
This is great. Indigenous philosophy sounds very interesting. I've been reading a little bit about Taoism and Shintoism recently too, so I love having another avenue to explore outside the Western and classical stuff.
Thanks for all the recs!
So some of you have heard me talk about my 1983 Toyota Tercel SR5 Wagon Big Block Project for awhile now.
If I go back through comments I've made here, I've been talking about it for five years and while I am in the final stages of getting it going, it's also been five freaking years that I've been building the car.
A car I got for free.
A car that might be worth $4k when I'm done (not that I'm selling it).
Sure, I pretty much only work on it on the weekends.
Sure, a year of that was with me in a different state than the car and so I couldn't work on it at all.
Sure, I skip a lot of weekends because of other commitments, weather (all but about 8 months of this time it was in Texas where 6 months of the year are too hot to do any work on it), and any other thing that might get in the way.
Sure, the weekends I do work on it are only a few hours at a time, so collectively if I cut the 5 years down to 4 for the year I was away from it, down to 2 because 6 months of each year in Texas are unusable, multiply that by 52 weeks in the year, then double it for two day weekends, then multiply by four hours per weekend day, I've got maximum of 832 hours working on it, which is about 21 full 40 hour workweeks. It's a lot for a car that's still not running and has been moved to different places thrice.
At multiple points I've hit a roadblock and needed to find a solution. Original engine exhaust was on passenger side, now it's on the driver's side and the clutch cable exists where the exhaust manifold does as well. Original carburetor throttle plate rotated clockwise, new throttle body rotates counter clockwise with a spider's nest bracket to change its direction. Original brakes are unvented, small, and underpowered, new brakes were never meant to be on this car and required parts from four different vehicles to work properly. Original fuel pump is engine driven, new is in-tank, doesn't fit original tank, lines are too small and go right where the new exhaust will be and are on the wrong side of the engine bay. The list goes on and on and that's just the latest on my mind...
Ultimately, it'll be a car I've touched on nearly every single aspect of in order for it to be as new and refreshed as possible when it is completed. Every suspension component is new, every bushing replaced with polyurethane, a new engine that's never been installed in this chassis, larger brakes, fuel injection, new wiring, custom-made-or-adapted-by-me nearly everything on the car to make it as close to an OEM+ build as possible and all done properly.
At the end it'll be a fully restomodded classic car, but it's still one long ass road for what amounts to a funky Japanese econobox off-roader that I got for the low low price of "come and get it".
Did I mention I have a racecar waiting in the wings for a similar treatment?
All the car guys on Tildes: I don't see anything wrong with this situation. You're not in too deep. You're just a car guy. (At least that's what I tell myself about all my project cars )
Hey, I'm in the same position, except with my 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
I pulled the engine in December 2019 and then through COVID didn't do much on it, because the motor was at my friends house. I finally completed the rebuild and dropped it back in in May 2025 and since then, the only thing I've actually done is reassemble the intake and bolt it back into place.
I honestly I don't have that much more to do, just reassemble the front of the engine, install the radiator, fan, etc, put the transmission, transfer case and drive shafts it and that should theoretically be it?
But...I'm just not interested in doing it. The only reason I've really made any progress on it at all is my wife encouraging me and pushing me to keep going with it. In the interim, I've been working on a second project car, which ended-up being my daily. It's not necessarily a full blown project car, but just an old van we bought for our (at the time) growing family and I've been enjoying just getting things sorted on that and making it a solid, reliable daily for us. It's been hard to motivate to finish up my Jeep especially given I'm not terribly interested in camping with it anymore; I still want to go hit the trails with it, but if I'm honest, I've kind of lost some interest in that.
But it's still sitting there, waiting for me to finish it and it doesn't have that much more to go. All my family and acquaintances are often asking, "How's the Jeep going?" and at this point, if I could stop, I probably would. But for my own pride, I need to see it finished. Anyway, once my kids are back in school in January here and I finish up some other projects that I need to have done by February, I'm going to try and get back to it and finish reassembling the front of the motor, because that's the last major roadblock; getting the tranny/transfer case and driveshafts (well, I do need to rebuild them. I have all the parts) should be easy peasy.
Edit: I should say that I've also touched most parts of this car. The suspension is all new (and upgraded), ditto the steering, I've done all the general maintenance, wheel bearings, refreshed the gears in the axles, etc, etc. It's all ready to go, it just needs motive power. Though I am worried a lot of the rubber bushings in the control arms and stuff are rotted at this point from not moving for 6 years.
I finally have a house and my own damn garage, so I can finally have a project car, myself. The Tercel wagon sounds sick!
I’m loosely thinking about a Z31 Nissan 300ZX, a 3rd gen Camaro, or a 4th gen Mustang. I need something with some power.
As someone that prefers the JDM and the less common and has a Z32 (the racecar) I'd vote Z31 and probably encourage importing a RHD example.
Brewing beer.
It started as a hobby back in 2009. At the ripe young age of 19, my American friends and I were unable to buy beer. But we figured out there was no age restriction on the ingredients to make beer.
Our first few batches were pretty bad. But with time, we learned, and improved. By the time we turned 21, we kept going, it was fun and more cost effective. The basic starting kits were quickly outgrown for equipment that was better for bottling, better for transferring among vessels, easier to clean, easier to measure. More precise fermentation measurements and control were bigger costs (A Tilt Hydrometer, along with a chest freezer/raspberry pi/ardiuno to run Fermentrack). Then moving from bottles to kegs, and the equipment costs of building my own keezer (Chest freezer converted for use with kegs). I'm probably $2,000 in equipment, on a hobby I now only get in to 2-4 times a year, now that I'm in the swing of being a dad with three young kids.
But I keep telling myself I'll get back to it...eventually.
Use your kegerator for juice pop in the meantime :P with recent findings that no amount of alcohol is totally not harmful, and with liquid calories being a thing, maybe it's just as well. For now.
(Husband was into home brewing, fun times)
Eh, I still drink socially. Not nearly as much as I did back then, I'm good for zero to three beers a week, average of one. I did throw together a keg of Brulosophy's non-alcoholic H-brü-O Hop Water last year. It came out pretty nice, I'll put together another keg of it soon. But my brewery is crafted to five gallon batches, which is a lot of beer for someone who doesn't drink very much now a days. That's probably my biggest barrier to trying to really get back in to the hobby.
I'm way too into travel gear and clothing optimization. I've followed the r/onebag and r/heronebag forums for too long, and loved the freedom of making a single 35L duffel and a tech backpack suffice for 1 week+ work trips, constantly sorting and resorting for that idealized capsule wardrobe that's professional by day and flexible for after-hours fun without being drab.
Cue the merino fabrics, packable down jacket, detergent sheets, titanium cup, spork, and chopsticks, Aeropress, universal shoes, One Power Adapter To Rule Them All, VPN travel router, shampoo and conditioner bars, etc. I've worn literally every single article of clothing that I packed, all at once, to deal with an unexpected polar vortex event; the seven-layer striptease video call with the spouse was hilarious.
And it's all been for naught. There's just no joy in carrying that extra 15 - 20 pounds by hand, fighting for overhead space. I found myself wasting time running to the store to get something I could have brought - a big enough size of sunscreen, shampoo that works in hard water, shoes suitable for a fancier-than-expected business dinner, an extra pair of socks or underwear when the sink-washed ones haven't dried...
These days, I check a roller suitcase that has more stuff, but more optional, joyful and whimsical things. Two or three colors (and even some bright patterns!); two or three pairs of shoes (no more irremediable stank!); more coverage for unexpected weather conditions (a full-size umbrella!); liquid toiletries; one week's worth of underwear... It sounds stupid, but I'd definitely spent too much time overoptimizing and I'd like to think I'm better now.
I've posted before about the psychology of compulsive optimization - the feeling that everything you do has a moral valence and it's so important to be right even about the most trivial things.
One-bagging can be a competitive means of virtue signaling - look how lightly I can travel, how much time I save, how liberated I am from excess consumption! It's been years since I worked at the job that kept me living out of a go-bag, but the reflexes are still in action.
It sounds like we both went down the rabbit hole with the best of intentions, only to go around the U-bend of creating more problems than we solved and adding to our own suffering. I didn't quit one-bagging until my hands and shoulders gave out, and I still catch myself feeling badly about no longer being the person who could dash nimbly from place to place.
Glad to hear that you've been able to relax into normal practicality, and hoping I eventually get there myself. TBH, I have no regrets about what I learned and bought for one-bagging, I still use all the bits and bobs, but they're no longer setting the boundaries for what I can bring on the road.
Next work trip is 2 weeks in Hawai'i, and you can bet I'll be bringing an actual swimsuit instead of making the gym clothes/sleepwear/hiking gear (i.e. a sports bra and bike shorts) do extra duty.
The concept and term of satisficing is relevant here.
https://www.psychologistworld.com/cognitive/maximizers-satisficers-decision-making
Oh wow
That sounds like a hilarious and amazing experience
I've never been able to travel light, so it's like peeking into opposite world mirror to read your account, and somewhat healing to imagine I also could have that level of functioning, and decided not to anymore either
28°C in Fort Lauderdale to -27°C in Omaha was more of an extreme variance than I was properly prepared for. 🥶
Mind you, I haven't stopped optimizing my packing list, but now it's more on the side of "but what if I need more than one package of blister bandaids" than "I suppose I could bring a second blister gel if I leave the aspirin behind".
I adore onebag in concept, but two bags is probably a good tradeoff at least 50% of the time.
It started with a stupid "only one checked bag paid for" policy at the company I worked for. In my case, that checked bag was full of tools and equipment that couldn't be sent ahead of time, and I could not get a personal checked bag covered. Things just spiraled out of control from there and became habits, then virtues...
Hi, it's me, the nail polish person. I started this journey in August or September, and now have spreadsheets for my inventory and polishes worn. The spreadsheets interact with each other to help me keep track of everything. I have barely dipped a toe into the nail polish world, and I already feel like I'm heading in the "in too deep" direction. I spent a respectable amount of money on getting into the hobby, as many do when first getting into something, getting tools and supplies, etc. I'm cutting down on buying stuff now, but this is so fun. It's absolutely bewildering to my parents. Mr. Alpaca is a good sport and occasionally assists with picking colors. The cat has also been known to help pick colors.
Note: this is not "gel polish." We're talking regular nail lacquer. Untrained folks doing gel manicures at home are likely to make themselves allergic to the ingredients, which is a big nope to me.
It started with picking out a nail polish for my wedding with the help of my coworkers - and then I found out how much nail polish they own and what variety exists out there. They have ways of keeping organized (swatch sticks and filing cabinets and display shelves, oh my). They have favorite brands. They have magnetic polish, thermal polish, polish with glitter and iridescent flakes and shimmer so bright it glows. I've adopted some of their habits (swatch sticks) and begun forming some of my own.
Now, while my collection is comparatively small (it's not unusual for people to have 300 polishes), I have gotten pretty ensconced in the knowledge of the nail polish world. I've joined a nail polish discord, and I've looked into making my own polish. I'm figuring out what I like and don't like, and I'm coming up with new ways to use my polish. For example, I just figured out a way to do the "fridge magnet look" tonight, without making my nail polish into decals to stick to my nails, which is usually how it's done. This effect was done directly on my nail with the help of a fridge magnet and a laptop stand. I'm doing a lot of trial and error. Error: allowing the furnace vents to blow in your general direction while painting your nails.
I own about 40 polishes, 8 of which are on their way to me. My original goal was to have a jewel tone of each shade and just live on those 10 or so polishes. I started with ordering most of a drugstore collection that I liked that came in a variety of colors and finishes. But then I discovered pharmacy coupons would let me get polish for free. I have now given these up because I ran out of polish I wanted from there. Then, I discovered some boutique brands and indie brands. This is where I'm at now - trying not to buy too many things. Where can I go from here? Supporting indie brands that do charity polishes, maybe making my own polish. Discovering what types and colors of polish I like, vs. what I will actually wear. I just started shaping my nails, which is a whole separate aspect of this. My goal for the moment is to work my way through my drugstore polish (which are surprisingly delicate flowers when it comes to the environment in which I apply them) and my thermal polish (which stop functioning 1-2 years after first use). Honestly, at this point, I think polish is around to stay. My spreadsheet says I already have at least five years' worth of polish, which is probably an underestimation. I'm looking forward to emptying my first bottle sometime in the next year, lol.
I don't know if this was intentional, but it made me smile :)
I (he/him) have had my fingernails and/or toenails painted a few times by my daughter. In theory, I'm not opposed to the idea of painting my nails, but the thing that weirds me out is that I look down and feel like it's somebody else's hands or feet. Does that ever happen to you? If so, did it go away?
It wasn't fully intentional, but it seemed like a fitting metaphor to me!
I can't say I've had that feeling when it comes to nail polish, as I've had it applied to my nails every once in a while for as long as I can remember. My mom and I would do our nails, or maybe she would just do mine... I remember these mini polish bottles kicking around forever, but I think she probably had some for herself, as well. I don't actually remember ever doing that or wearing polish, though. It's probably just normalized for me, as a she/her/AFAB person. However, I shaped my nails for the first time yesterday, and that is definitely giving me the "whose hands are those" feeling. The different nail shape makes my fingers look different, as well. I'm hoping I'll get familiar enough with it that it goes away, or change them up enough that my brain is less attached to what my nails "should" look like and becomes more adaptable to what it sees.
I hope you and your daughter enjoy nail time! In my experience, it takes some time and energy and concentration, which means you are living in the present for those moments with her :)
I (also he/him) have been putting polish on my nails for the past 3 years (also lacquer, since it's easy for me to do at home on a weekend morning while watching YouTube), and there have been very few occasions where I haven't had them painted since then.
At the start it was definitely strange and I felt the exact thing you're talking about. I still remember how I felt the first time I went out in public with them done and how I'd constantly be checking them as if to confirm whether they were really mine or not. The next time I didn't as much, and soon after it was just normal for me. As mentioned earlier, my nails are basically always done now, and I would feel something was missing if I didn't. Pretty much exactly the opposite of how I started.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I have a lot of anxiety in general, so it's reassuring to know there's hope on the other side :)
Reading this while my wife and her mother are in the next room making a spreadsheet of my wife's polishes gave me quite a chuckle. She collects Holo Taco brand polishes. I collect titanium tools, so I don't complain 😁
They're not alone! The polish world is a lot bigger than I thought it was when I started this. My first (and only intended) Holo Taco has been circling my house for three days with the postal service, ha!
The tough thing with collecting is that it's hard to stop or slow down when it's a consumable good and there are a lot of options. I found a brand yesterday that is a much cheaper alternative to the recent stuff I've been buying, so I'm going to try a few of theirs out and see if it scratches the itch. I don't love feeling frantic about getting stuff before it's gone.
Skiing.
My wife has wanted to get the kids into skiing for a few years now. I always dismissed it as too expensive --there are some other personal reasons I was avoiding it but not getting into that because cost was always reason enough.
A month ago I was working with an Indian guy who's pretty new to the country and he was talking about how he has all these plans this winter like getting swimming lessons and ski lessons. It got me thinking that maybe it's time I actually consider it. We hadn't done christmas shopping yet so I talked to my wife when I got home and commited to doing ski equipment/lessons/seasons passes to the local bunny hill.
I used to ski as a kid/teenager so I'm not going in totally blind here but its been quite a few years and now I'm the one paying the bill... my wife never skied and had no idea.
We're into this for at least $4k for this year (not including equipming my wife but that's a seperate discussion) but the big spend doesn't end at this year of course. Exery single year we'll have to buy lift passes and/or seasons passes. Each trip to the bigger hill will be $200 for me+kids. Trips to the really big hills are more money. My minimum spend per year going forward is $2k PLUS replacement gear as the kids get bigger. I won't buy new gear every time again but still.
I've basically commited myself to the equivalent of another car payment (maybe an econobox 20 years ago). I used to like skiing and I probably should get outside more but holy shit man.
Yeah, skiing is less and less approachable. Lots of thoughts inbound. Take what you're interested in, leave what you're not.
I stopped from 20-29 because I just couldn't afford the pass, the gas, a place to stay, and all the bits and bobs. I only started again because my wife's parents lived in Tahoe and we had a free place to stay. Accommodation sucks, and has been getting much, much, much more expensive in the last 2 decades. All the little, cheap motels are closing and the mega resorts are opening in their stead. That sucks. My mom got around it by dragging us into the car at 8am, dumping us on the mountain at noon, and then hauling us all home again at 4pm. It's a big day of driving for a half day of skiing but she always preferred it to a full weekend. Not sure where your at or if that's possible, but it'll be a consideration for me when our kiddos are old enough to ski.
Gear though feels the opposite. You can sit on gear for a long time (minus the kids who will need updates every few years) and once you know what you're getting, you can really shop the deals. I've snowboarded most of my life, but recently got into backcountry skiing (partially because costs are so high on the mountain). I ended up with a full backcountry package (split board, bindings, pucks, skins, poles) for like $800 by paying attention to demo/factory seconds/defects sales. Normally it would be like $3000. I know that's a bunch of time to look into deals, but if you're keen the deals are out there. For my resort gear, I ended up updating all my hard gear (board, bindings, boots) in 2023 - which again was like $1500 with far less deals (I just went to the local mountain shop) - but before that I hadn't bought anything new since like 2007, so a little over 15 years. Gear has gone down in price, quality has gone up, and things are built to last a good long while. Minus entry level boots, those fucking suck.
Also, also this is kind of area specific, but in much of the western USA, if you're really getting into it, passes have gotten much cheaper. If you buy early and buy the local versions you can get yourself on the mountain for like $400-500 dollars a year. I'm not sure what the kids prices are doing these days (but I should find out with baby on the way). When I was growing up if you were under 13 and wore a helmet you could get a day pass for $5. We pushed that until about 16. I'm sure those deals are dead, but I'm sure there are discounts to be had.
And just to validate your feelings, this was a recent article from a Nevada based satire magazine. It's satire, but it only hits because there is an unbelievable amount of truth behind it. Hope you're able to enjoy it and find a way to participate that doesn't feel like taking a second mortgage!
Ya theres nothing like that. We do have a sort of local bunny hill that's affordable. I did a family seasons pass and they're open 7 days a week with night skiing Monday-Friday so it's easy to pack in a lot of learning.
Edit: my parents afforded it by having hills closer by and occationally doing trips to big hills. I think they may have spent more money than they had at times because my mom was into it.
A couple years ago I started snowboarding. If lift tickets were cheaper, I’d probably be more than still a beginner by now. This is an expensive hobby! I ended up going a lot the first winter but then no more than 2-3 times.
Yeah, expensive is right. My brother was recently talking about going snowboarding around Las Vegas, where he lives. There's a little place called Lee Canyon nearby to him and he was planning to go like Christmas Eve or even like NYE. He said they were charging $95! For this little tiny ass resort with like 28 trails. That's crazy.
My parents, who also live in Vegas, still try to go snowboarding at least once a season. And they're willing to drive to Utah, even SLC, or Colorado, or California. But the prices they tell me are insane. Like $200-300 for a single day! Wut.
I still have a snowboard and all my gear at their house, but...that's a lot of money for one day of playing on the slopes.
Yeah, it's gotten nuts. Most the resorts got bought up by Vail Corp or Alterra and they're both pushing people into passes. So while a day at our local is $220, my season pass is $450 (granted with major blackout days over the holidays and ski week, but then again who wants to be in that mess anyway). It's fucked unless you go a lot and in that case it's gotten cheaper. They brought the adobe subscription model to the mountain! Fuck them and fuck private equity!
For me it’s about a 1.5 to 2.5 hours drive depending which place I want to go to. I am spoiled for choice here, but my favourite is Sunshine Village (near Banff, in Alberta, Canada). It’s around $190 for a day now if you don’t have a season pass (I don’t). There are some things you could sign up for and get some discounts, but if you just want to be spontaneous, that’s the price. Plus gas $ and food of course.
I mentioned in another comment, but we have access to a small local hill that's cheap an accessible to us. After a quick couple of hours of the hill last week I'm still decent at it but I'm very out of shape for spending a full day on a real hill.
I have something like a local hill that’s cheaper, but the snow on it tends to be terrible and icy because it’s too warm. I still wipe out quite often, so fluffy snow helps a lot.
Ya... its never great but its in the higher up/colder part of town so okayish. They also bought a snow machine a few years back just to be able to have a good base consistently.
I've spent about 3582 hours learning how to build an app, building the actual app, and trying to turn it into a business. So, if we value my time at, let's say, a lower-range $40/h, then I'm $143'280 deep into it 💀
What’s the app?
I'd like to launch in a few weeks so it's not yet available publicly but you can have a look at it here. Happy to take any kind of feedback! (Even if only on the concept since it's not yet available)
Wow, this actually looks like a really cool idea and I will be happy to try it out when you launch.
That's awesome to hear, thanks!
Neat, looks like a more advanced, sleek, and automated version of sidebery in a way.
Is it a browser extension, or a browser of its own?
Thanks! It's just a browser extension for now, not a browser of its own.
Do you mean starting from zero or did you already have programming knowledge?
I already had some programming knowledge, I was studying computer science at uni before dropping out after a year and a half, but I didn't know any Javascript or Typescript for example.
The project now uses Javascript/Typescript, React w/Redux, Next.js, Postgres (Supabase), Effect TS, so the time spent learning things inflated the total number of hours.
Then, there's all the non-technical aspects as well, such as working with a designer to create nice illustrations and videos, and other things, which also contributed to the tally.
Awesome stuff! I might be heading down a similar path in the near future, so this is inspiring.
Oh really? Can you tell us more?
Nothing to tell at this point, really! Details are very much unresolved but I'm going to pick up programming this year with the ultimate goal of giving myself more flexibility in where I work/live. I figure that essentially means I'll need to develop a product or service at some point, so it's useful to have a trajectory to compare. I'll probably make a post about it soon.
I see! Programming is definitely a good way to find remote work opportunities and maybe even get into the digital nomad lifestyle if that's your thing. Good luck on your journey
Romance anime, as the people who saw my comment in the year in review thread found out. I've seen more than 40% of all TV anime in the romance genre according to the popular database sites like MyAnimeList and Anilist that try to cover everything that isn't a super-niche indie project.
As I continue to go further into the depths of forgotten titles from the past decades, are the ones I'm finding and watching now good? Nope, not really. Am I going to continue for the foreseeable future looking for hidden gems? Yeah.
By extension I've done a lot with my home server as well; the amount of anime with no legal availability is significant. That's not the only reason as I first tried cable cutting around the time Netflix began streaming and well before I got back into anime, but it's certainly contributed to my ongoing efforts. I've made a conscious effort to start pruning some things off my NAS that I definitely don't need like an archive of reddit comments but I still have something of a digital hoarding problem.
When you feel like you've hit the bottom of the dredges, wanna stay into Japanese romance dramas?
I've neglected enough other hobbies that I don't need any new ones, but I imagine I'll still want something to scratch that itch so maybe. I'm not a huge fan of manga as a medium but I know a lot of shoujo and josei stories have live action adaptations which might work better for me.
I am way, way too into tabletop RPGs. I started playing a little of AD&D back in Boy Scouts when I was young, then played some 3e back in my teens. I had a very long break where I didn’t play anything until 2018, then started running 5e as a DM for several campaigns until a couple years ago. I found that 5e seemed overly complicated to run and stressful (I was also having panic attacks around that time, probably unrelated) and started expanding into other games, and heavily into AD&D, B/X, and other OSR games. I’ve also acquired a lot of the 3e books, tons of Call of Cthulhu, Traveler, Warhammer Fantasy, etc. Whenever I find or get into a new game, I tend to obtain every single book for that game and/or edition in new/mint/near mint condition, and definitely try to get any special editions of a book, even if the game likely won’t see play at my table because others I know tend to be a one-game type of person. I bought a Wyrmwood modular gaming table during their first Kickstarter, and all in all I’m probably 10s of thousands of dollars into the hobby.
Shitty cars, lmao. So I’ve always been interested in cars and motorsports and stuff, but I didn’t start working on my own cars until about 10 years ago. It started with oil changes, spark plugs, and brakes, but now, tearing down an engine or swapping a transmission doesn’t phase me. While it’s nice to be able to do all this work myself and save a ton of money, the “in too deep” part is that I give myself any excuse possible to buy new tools and the way I value cars is utterly broken. I cringe at spending more than like $4k on a car, so my life is filled with turds that deserve to be pooped in, but I decide to fix them and like them instead.
For real, it’s a fun hobby and I do love cars, but I sometimes think it would be way easier if I were a normie and would be okay buying a 5 year old Honda civic as my only car, driving it for 10 years, repeat.
Since I started working on cars 10 years ago, I’ve owned 10 cars and had a handful more in my driveway at points (borrowing/swapping with my car friends). I’ll be buying another one or two this year as well…
OSRS, aka Oldschool Runescape. I'll write up a better comment when I'm in front of my computer, but if you know you know.
...I was just telling myself, as I wrote a comment in the mental health thread, to not keep yapping about my crush. sigh
In the end, I've ended up becoming very invested in a person I know I haven't met yet. A little more than month we will. I'm not going to write down all the details(both for privacy and it being goddamn embarrassing to let it out in public), but suffice to say, if we don't click irl there's no way in hell it won't cause a big crash for both of us.
At the same time, it's very anxiety-inducing, yet I know I wouldn't make any different choices at the start if I had to make them again.
You can't let people in without risking hurt. It's the price of it all. I hope it works out for you though. And if something (maybe not everything) doesn't, I hope you can both laugh about it. (◠‿・)—☆
I've basically received a confirmation it's one-sided yesterday. And, for a long set of complications, it basically put me in a position where I will need to confess, knowing I can rejected, the evening in my time.
Needless to say I'm not feeling to well.
I joined a derby league at age fo^H^H^H way too old. I was literally starting up roller skating 30 years after I last skated as a teen.
It's a cult. Seriously. But, not a bad cult... until I break something.