You’re f*cking human like everyone else. Real talk - most people don’t pay attention to other people half as much as you think. Imagine your last trip out to the grocery store - do you remember what everyone wore that walked past you? Of course not. You’re more self-conscious of your looks than anyone else.

Who the hell cares if you “pass” or not in your mind. Stop doubting yourself and be who you want to be.

It takes massive courage to step up to society and say “this is who I am.” - so many people in society can’t. You’re a bad-a$$ for being brave enough to take that leap. Why stop now? People like myself admire you for being yourself. Rock it!

Please stop beating yourself up - I know society wants you to doubt yourself but stop.

Donald Trump is a poor man’s idea of a rich man, a weak man’s idea of a strong man, and a dumb man’s idea of a smart man.

Cool - forcing ads into the start menu, forcing edge on users. Guess like Win10 is where I leave windows forever.

I downloaded Mandrake Linux back in 1992. I’ve always fiddled with linux over the years but could never fulfill all my needs. But things have changed recently. I’ve started using ChatGPT to help me when I hit roadblocks with Linux, and it’s REALLY helped work around the various barriers that have kept me from fully adopting linux. Honestly, I am looking forward to switching entirely over to Linux for my business - I’m tired of Windows. And I’ve been here since Win3.1!!

Funny, during the boycott of Reddit when squabbles was growing, I signed up and created two new communities - one for earbuds and one for vaporents (dry herbal vaporizing).

My earbuds community was quicky approved, but the vaporents group took almost a week before it was approved. It’s almost like the site’s owner (since back then he had no mods or admin team) was hesitant when it came to something possibly clandestine in nature. I guess drugs aren’t cool, but hate speech is?

Barns are red because of exploding stars - https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/barns-are-painted-red-because-of-the-physics-of-dying-stars-58185724/

Is that his f*cking blue steel look? Wonder how long he spent practicing that expression in the mirror this week.

I was a Netflix DVD subscriber before they released a Wii streaming disc then started streaming Netflix back when it was glorious with all your favorite shows. Eventually I downgraded to the cheap $8 plan for a single user at 1080p resolution which was fine - my old television is still 1080p native resolution.

Then they quietly raised the price… and dropped the resolution to 720p without telling me. Finally I had enough - after more than a decade I finally cancelled my Netflix account last year and haven’t looked back.

I don’t miss their “netflix originals” which only last for one or two seasons before getting canned because netflix needs more viewership to justify the investments.

Truth be told, I don’t watch must television (or even youtube) in general - I have better things to do with my time than vegetating on a couch watching a tv screen.

My partner needed to buy a new vehicle. A Tesla Model was easily in budget. But they opted not to buy one because they want zero affiliation with Musk or any connotations that they may endorse his behavior by owning one of his products.

That partially already happened at the start of the war. There was a massive “brain drain” among the higher educated part of society, which did include a bunch of hackers. Why live inside russia these days when you can move elsewhere and get paid better?

I’ve told this story before, but about a decade ago I had banked enough PTO days that I was able to take off every Wednesday in the summer (with my boss’s permission, natch). So I effectively worked no more than two days in a row for four straight months. Off weekends, work monday/tuesday, off Wednesday, then back to work Thursday/Friday.

The first month went about as expected - “yay! Wednesday off!!”. But I wasn’t expecting to experience what I did by the second month of my experiment: my mental health and attitude towards work had changed. That “Monday blues” you get was gone. Every work day felt like a “Thursday” or a “Friday” to me - because the “weekend” was no more than a day away. The dread of Sunday evenings knowing work was starting the following day disappeared.

By halfway through my experiment, I was happy to go to work because there was stuff I wanted to accomplish and thus was more efficient at my job. Nobody ever complained that I was gone every Wednesday for four months, my work always got finished on time (or ahead of schedule).

But I really was shocked at how my mental health improved by NOT working five days in a row.

I fully support a four day work week and wish everyone has the opportunity to experience what I did.