It’s an argument on the internet, there are never really winners. It seemed like backtracking because saying that a dissenting response is “actually the type of thing I’m talking about” carries an implication that the person responding misunderstood you, rather than acknowledging the possibility that you did not clearly/fully communicate your thoughts. As far as I and I assume the person you responded to could tell, that wasn’t “actually the type of thing” you were talking about. Backtracking may have been the wrong term, but there was a level of condescension in your comment that was so close to being sincere that it rubbed me the wrong way. Combine that with me half-disagreeing with you and that made for a response with some snark at the front. I am a little sorry for that. Also, why would you write “because of your own life experiences and emotions?” Unless the discussion is focused on something related to how people become the way they are, that statement has about as much meaning as “this is an aspen. You can tell it’s an aspen because of the way it is.” All it says is that you assume there is something wrong with the person rather than actually say anything about what that person has said or done. At worst it’s empty words and at best it’s an empty ad hominem.

Nice backtracking on “some other event,” that’s better than what 90% of the internet would do!

I still think it’s fine to use external dates for self improvement. I’m not very religious, but I love lent specifically because it’s a socially encouraged time to change a habit that lasts nearly the two months it takes to make a new habit or break an old one.

One year it was soda because I drank a few cans a week, since then I very rarely have any in the house. Last year I gave up meat, which is something I would never have pushed myself to do on my own.

It’s just a lot easier to test a change when it’s not permanent. There’s certainly an argument to be made that a full year of change at new years is too long to successfully commit to, but that doesn’t mean the whole thing should be discounted.

I’m a big fan of contronyms, words with two opposite meanings. I first learned looking for a word to describe the change in “literally” from meaning, well, the literal meaning of something to also the figurative meaning.

Another good one is dust. You can dust your house to remove dust, but you can also dust a cake with powdered sugar.

I interpreted “old reddit vibes” to be more about there being an actual discourse on posts more than being about the subject matter of the posts. If you look at the comments on reddit, they all just agree with each other because they’re the most popular opinions so they get the most upvotes. The thing I like about here is that I can still read that popular comment, but there are few enough total comments that scrolling down a bit leads to discussions that would have been buried in downvotes there. But since they didn’t define “old reddit vibes” I could be misinterpreting as easily as you!

If you haven’t read it, this blog post greatly increased my appreciation for mechanical watches: https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/

This begs the question “why did enough people start accepting that it was valuable?”

Even if Google stopped paying Mozilla, the organization has enough in savings to operate for several years. That’s plenty of time to cut back on spending and find other revenue sources. My only concern would be that they cut back on Firefox development rather than what I would consider a side project.

I listened to the soundtrack for about 4 years before getting around to watching the movie. Very fun. For how slow the build-up is, Playtime is Over is one of my favorite workout songs, always gets the endorphins running.

Caffeine has a metabolic half life of 6-12 hours. This means that after a 24 hour period, there could be 1/4 of the original caffeine amount you drank in your system. If you drink the same amount of caffeine again at that point, now after a 24 hour period you ‘ll have up to 1/4 of that 1.25 amount in your system. If you consume caffeine daily, this can lead to an accumulation of caffeine that your body adjusts to always being there, becoming the new baseline normal. This would feel fine until you stop, at which point the caffeine your body expects to be there is gone, and it needs to take time readjusting to that absence. That leads to withdrawal symptoms.

Oh nice, I just replayed The Last Autumn since the trees are changing color, just waiting on the first snowfall to play the main game. Let me know if there’s anything especially challenging you want advice on!

I’d like to point out that you have only talked about hope without personal action to support a statement about hope as a whole. A better term for that would be wishful thinking. While I agree that not acting while hoping for change is foolish, I believe acting on hope can drive a person to perform beyond what would normally be achievable.

If the world is truly hopeless, then why would anybody put any effort into saving it? It seems to me that at least some level of hope for a better world or life would be a prerequisite toward making that world or life a reality.

I couldn’t figure out the spoiler tags or I’d have left it up. I played it out on my DS so I got the full experience. If I remember correctly even if there wasn’t dialogue you’d still get a short cutscene of the gang eating ice cream after a long day of fighting stuff, which (for a middle schooler at least) really built up a connection by the end of the game.

I never thought a game could give such an emotional gut punch by asking ::: who am I going to eat ice cream with?! :::

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No, independent would mean you could cease that source of income and maintain your lifestyle. If you save 50% of your first paycheck and then quit I doubt that would be the case.

Being able to set that much aside would definitely make one wealthy (or live a very austere lifestyle) and fast track them toward independence, but it’s not an automatic qualifier.

It’s a myth so widely pushed and accepted over the decades that just calling it a myth won’t be accepted as an argument against it at this point.

What I think is interesting is that this sense of fiduciary duty can be used by a company to do whatever they want. Mass layoffs are part of a fiduciary duty to cut costs. Mass hirings are part of a fiduciary duty to expand operations for growth. At this point it’s less a myth and more an excuse for doing whatever.

One of the few series that I love for making me want to be a better person, then hate it because that’s hard, then love it all over again because it’s worth it.

You know, that would make it a lot easier, but he’s not a loser, or at least he wasn’t for the longest time. He’s done well for himself career-wise, even if it’s not exciting. He has a wife that cares about him and who he cares about. He’s the type of charismatic guy who meets someone and gets to know them, whether they’re a customer at work or the guy that helps him at the cell phone store. I have learned a lot about how to treat and respect the people I meet from him.

He’s just really bad at taking care of himself. He’s been treating his body like it’s 20 for the past 30 years and it’s catching up to him. While he’s good at making and keeping acquaintances he’s failed to keep many close friends to confide in. When Covid hit he started drinking to the point he was hospitalized and in the years since I don’t think he has ever learned to forgive or love himself, and as long as that’s the case there is nothing anyone else can truly do for him. Which really sucks. The only hope I have is that he lives closer to family now which will make it easier to offer opportunities for him to be loved and maybe realize he can be better toward himself. But until that happens yeah he is a bit of a loser right now. I just tell him I don’t care if he is.

I agreed to fly across the country to drive my dad’s car back home while he drove the uhaul with his stuff. The day I fly out, he calls and tells me he’s been drinking again, the movers canceled on him, and he’s a loser.

I get there and he’s puking up blood as he detoxes, hasn’t eaten in days, and I’m stuck with one driver and two cars. I had to ask my uncle to fly out to help instead of spending time with his son who was on military leave while my stepmother called around to find movers last minute, all while my dad complains about the pain he’s in and how he can’t sleep while taking constant naps and he’s such a loser.

Halfway back he has a seizure in the car I’m driving and I have to help him get the bile and blood he’s choking on out of his throat while operating a vehicle at 80mph to the next exit. Afterward his memory is frazzled and it takes a couple hours for him to remember where he is and what we’re doing.

We get home, I tell him I’m never helping him move again, his response is “but we listened to your music 90% of the way here!” This was three weeks ago.

Wow, I’ve never seen someone try to link bidet use to intelligence before. It’s almost impressive.