I did it because I was blind. Hella blind. -6 and -9. When covid hit I suddenly realized that if supply shortages ever hit hard and I lost my glasses, I was absolutely fucked.

I could not drive, I could not use two monitors, I would be functionally blind... I always joked I would be dead weight in the apocalypse but in the midst of a hurricane, a wildfire, I could be absolutely fucked. With months before a replacement pair could be acquired. And with all the shit that went wrong with covid... I just wanted to hedge my bets.

Yeah, his targets are usually so vile that nobody questions his methods.

For anybody that wants to be the punisher though... like honestly if the punisher has gotten pulled into a problem he's less an angel descending from heaven and more of a fire burning through absolutely everything.

Like everything needs to be in a state of fucked for him to get involved. Absolutely fucked. Isn't it better to avoid that in the first place?

Besides the chemical addiction part, it's also a genuinely social one as well.

Smoking areas are designated places where strangers talk to each other. Asking for a light or offering one is a super simple way to break the ice. My dad quit cold turkey several times but he always fell back into the habit hanging with his friends

I heard "rightsizing" for the first time last year.

I have no idea what knucklehead PR dumbass came up with that but it made the following layoffs even more unpalatable.

It totally is in my experience. I have literally sat in meetings pushing AI... but absolutely NO steering or discussion on what we ought to do with it. They will relabel related things that have existed for years as AI.

It's like instead of having a bunch of nails and needing a way to pound them in, we've been given a nail gun and a requirement to use it.

"But we sell balloons"

"Dont worry, the nail gun will make everything better"

There's two types of costume contests, cosplay contests that break things down by experience, and random Halloween contests that are basically reenactments of popularity contests in high school.

The former you're gonna enter as a journeyman unless you built something so outrageous they gotta up the difficulty level. Make sure you have a TON of documentation and pics and explanations on how you did things. The judges are gonna wanna know how hard you worked on things and the amount of detail you put into it. If you spent 8 hours on the gold colored filigree on your bracers you damn well better mention it Typically unless you're doing best performance, you get three poses and you're off the stage. By the time you hit the stage the judges typically made their decisions so play to the crowd and do what looks good on film. If you are going for best performance, don't feel pressured to use your full five minutes, or however long they give. Waaay to many people overstay their welcome, you wanna leave the people wanting more, not less. Hit your points, your high note, and if you're still only halfway through your time, whatever. You're not disqualified if you don't use your time completely, and people will greatly appreciate someone moving the schedule faster than usual.

For the latter Halloween costume contests, effort means NOTHING. You could've thrown the damn thing together in five minutes and win, and if you spend 16 hours on it it will not improve your chances. The venue is looking for costumes that look great on the social media, is a character they love, makes them laugh, blows their mind, causes the venue to cheer, and (this is the most important bit) appears in front of whoever the hell is judging the competition. It's 1 to 3 people who pick on the previously mentioned criteria. Each judge is gonna be a little different. Some judges listen to the crowd, some judges love horror films so every slasher villain goes on stage, some judges do NOT know what the hell a star wars is. The one thing that all judges have in common though, is that they exist in a 3 dimensional space and only have eyes in front of their head. If you're a wall flower that doesn't interact with people, you will not win the contest unless the judge is also sharing your wall. Build a dance circle, tip the bartender to figure out who's judging tonight (they may or may not know) but if you wanna win, physics dictates that you appear in front of a judge as they wander the venue. That is more important than your costume.

... that's a really compelling reason for linux.

I mean the next few years are going to be rough. Being able to recycle these things for basic use is going to be huge. Windows, mac, people need the internet more than anything else. It's a sad way to gain adoption but it could be insanely impactful...

... I mean that would've been the clearest conflict of interest you could've possibly summoned.

Like seriously, if there was ever a time to do a concerted push for linux, it's now. Start the campaigns, start the tutorials start the memes and the warnings and get the process down to under an hour. It won't be a weird thing, it will be the lord and savior allowing your PC to continue even when windows says it can't.

Sadly it was only 4 years ago. But Iowa does feel like that sometimes.

Jesus Christ, that tops the worst thing I've ever heard a therapist say.

I heard a tale about a therapist in Iowa who after talking about issues with anxiety recommended eating brains shaped foods like, broccoli and walnuts.

The biggest mistake I see is that people don't ever mix with people anymore.

Honestly the biggest single question I would ask if I wanted to bet how likely someone gets a partner would be "how often do you leave your house outside of work and grocery shopping" Do stuff. Dating apps try to bring single folk to you but you'll have far more fun just... doing stuff. Doesn't matter if you go alone or with a group, it's usually more fun than just browsing the internet.

Go to a car show, go to an anime/scifi/star trek/furry convention, go to a craft fair, go to a bar and sit at the counter, find some way to have fun in public. Don't even bother trying to hunt down a partner, just have fun in a public setting. If you find ways to have fun in public, you start going out in public more. You do that, you start meeting potential partners by accident. Not only that:

1. You start learning social skills

Being surrounded by strangers means you can do a faux pas and nobody will remember it was you a week from now. They're strangers, they remember the story but not the person. A group of strangers can be oddly freeing, you can say no to them and never see them again. If they judge you you'll probably never see them again.

2. You start learning about your area

I learned Minneapolis has a fire breathing co-op so you can learn to juggle flames, a 501st legion of starwars cosplayers that can bring the empire to any event, a working ecto 1 that sometimes prowls the streets and has a youtube series.

3. You start becoming more interesting.

Did you click the links? You see what I mean? Now this is an interesting post. You now have things to talk about, about the land around you to whoever you're talking to. It also provides two really great topics to talk about. "what have you found around here?" "what have I found around here?" Is there another event? A club or bar that is just bizarre? A sport or game you've never heard of. Apparently Minnesota's roller derby team is amazing, still haven't found the time to watch a game, but if you can find one, why not try there?

Seriously just... do something. Find an event. If you think it's stupid then try to verify if it's stupid. (never was interested in cars, but it was free. Turns out the car show had the ecto 1, and the adam west batmobile. My hypothesis was proven wrong) Instead of scrolling through lemmy or facebook, wander around an event and watch and listen. If you see a booth, ask about it.

I found that I could keep things interesting to me by basically playing a scavenger hunt with events. Go to an event and find your next event at the event you're at. An event can be anything from a party, a convention, to a place that's just plain interesting. It also really got people interested. Whenever I brought up my quest "find an event at this event", people loved the idea and would often try to help. Heck, sometimes they'd even tag along at the next one.