Every night he jumps onto the computer keyboard until it beeps. I tried turning the computer off and he turned it on somehow.
I don’t know why. It’s after I’ve fed him. I always pick him up and bring him to the bedroom after.
Holy shit. I had no idea.
You might enjoy this 1964 essay “the paranoid style in American politics” : https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/
American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wing. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.
Supposed to go to a party this weekend. Last time I went to one with this crowd, it was pretty okay and I made a new guy-i-text-sometimes-friend.
Though the time before that was really dull, so who knows.
I send people links to posts on Lemmy, and tell people I can’t see Instagram/Twitter/etc.
Is it working? No, not really, but it feels like it should.
Thinking about it, a lot of things that I flag as idiotic come from putting emotions first. We’re all emotional creatures, but idiots are ruled by them. It’s idiotic to blow your rent money on candy, but the short term emotional high for an idiot is too appealing. It’s stupid to blow up at someone instead of admitting fault, but admitting fault feels bad, so the idiot can’t take that. Reading an essay is informative, but that’s boring work and the idiot might feel bad if they don’t understand it, so they’d avoid the whole thing. If the essay doesn’t agree with their worldview, that’s going to feel terrible.
rpg.net is pretty good, but I don’t post there anymore. I may have eaten a large ban in a stupid argument about accessibility. I still don’t think being able to unilaterally change the rules of the game in your favor in a multiplayer game falls under accessibility, but apparently some people do!
Guild Wars 2. It’s not so bad. Just hang out in one of the cities. Learn some magic.
I really liked Midnight Suns :(
I got to play video games with spider man and be in a book club with Captain marvel.
The deck building was pretty good. I wanted more cards and more excuses to use more heroes.
The fact that there’s no miss chance on attacks is subtle but a real improvement over the genre standard. And using the environment was a lot of fun, and very genre appropriate.
Doesn’t sound healthy, no. Why do you stop doing these things?
Oh is this the one that was posting under the name “Empty” about how they want a girlfriend, but won’t do anything except play a narrow set of video games? Or a different sad internet person?
Do you mean clinically depressed or just unhappy with life?
I know a couple people who are clinically depressed. They take medication for it. It helps.
Most people I know seem to be doing more or less okay. Not counting like stress about climate change and the political landscape and what not. But like one friend just did a nice trip with his partner, another guy I know just had a nice birthday party, another person’s enjoying her new job, etc etc.
This is good advice. I used to really push how late I’d stay up and then get jolted awake by my alarm. Felt like trash.
Now I go to bed like 9.5 hours before I have to get up (midnight -> 930) and usually wake up before the alarm. Feels great.
I set alarms for my bedtime to train myself into it. Like, alarm goes off at 11pm and I start winding down whatever I’m doing (video games, usually). Now I just do it naturally.
But as you said, how do you actually do the thing?
I’ve luckily never had problems with executive function, so I can’t really imagine clearly what it’s like to not be able to just make a decision and execute. One of my friends swears by medication, because they got diagnosed as an adult with ADHD.
This is true. The book “why does he do that” is a fascinating look into how abusive people (mostly but not always men) operate.
If you leave your house regularly this has a number of disadvantages. I can fit my phone in my pocket but most laptops are too large. I can operate a phone with one hand (eg: on the subway). 911 services I think work better with an actual phone. Gps stuff may also work better.
That’s just stuff off the top of my head.
My understanding is that a lot of venture capitalist funding is driven by gut feel and personal connection. Like, they’ll tell you that they’re the vanguard of the future with a vision, but most of the time they’re just cliquey bros going “dude, sick” and burning money.
There’s an anecdote in the book “the cold start problem” about how zoom got funding even though the guys funding it thought it was a solved problem, that a new video company wouldn’t go anywhere, but the zoom guy was their bro so they gave him millions of dollars.
I feel like it’s possible some future will look back at this the way we look at feudalism. Just like, that’s such a bad system , why did people put up with it?
This is pretty much it.
There’s a discord for a local community I’m in, but I have most of the channels muted.
Deleted my Facebook stuff years ago. Deleted Twitter. Never had tiktok.
I sometimes use YouTube but like not on purpose. I’ll search for a specific song, Simpsons clip, video game “how the fuck do you climb that cliff?” thing, etc. I avoid influencers and all that. It’s in and out like an excursion into The Zone from roadside picnic or whatever.
I really intensely dislike video tutorials that could have been a paragraph or two. Like, you can just tell me fire breath stacks with poison mist instead of making a double Wadsworth constant video. Sometimes video is useful, if it’s like here’s how you can navigate this maze" or something. But a lot of the time it’s not.
In addition to the actual costs other people are talking about, the mental costs of dealing with the system are inmense.
You have to update your information whenever you change your job. It’s not like your social security number that’d given once and you memorize.
Every year you probably have to review your insurance options and pick one. This is essentially gambling- if you pick a low cost one you save money, unless you actually need to use it.
You probably need to find doctors that are “in network” or pay a lot more.
Sometimes bills are sent directly to you and that’s a mistake. But sometimes you’re supposed to pay and be reimbursed.
You typically don’t know what the costs will be up front, so you have to guess what the best option is. Take a nasty spill on a bike? Is it worth calling an ambulance? Does your insurance cover that? Maybe just walk into the emergency room. But does your insurance cover that? Maybe just call a regular doctor?
In short, there’s a lot of stuff you have to think about as the end user. I’d rather it was just “oh shit you’re hurt, let’s take you to the doctor. Don’t worry about money”
bandcamp.
Now, if nothing you listen to is on bandcamp it won’t be as appealing. But there’s a wide variety of genres.
No other crisis at the moment, but you never know when you’re going to wake up with double cancer or whatever. I try to appreciate the nice moments.