JayleneSlide

@JayleneSlide@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hot Take: most modern games are designed to purely kill time⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  At PAX 2017, I was disappointed by the overwhelming number of battle royale games. There were a handful of games that stood out for story or in-person party play, but the biggest booths were all for MMOs and battle royale games.

  I’ve long said that MMO games are so common because storytelling and world-building are hard. Also, Sturgeon’s Law: 90% of everything is shit.

  I’m guessing the downvotes are because people fail to see or deliberately ignore the generalization. Of course there are stellar story-driven, single player games still coming out, but 90% shit is to be expected.

  My only shred of disagreement here (more of a qualification) is time-wasting. Of course games are for sucking down time. It’s one of the circuses in “Bread and Circuses.” But the same applies to novels, hobbies, and lush green lawns. :D

  Another qualification I’ll add: I think we’re just getting more of everything with better coverage and more ubiquitous advertising, so it’s easier to see the shit games. It’s easier than ever to build a game, so of course the tide of garbage rises. But so do the standouts, unfortunately in roughly equal proportions. :D There have some great story-driven games recently as one other commenter noted. For me, “The Expanse,” “Cyberpunk,” and “Become Human” leap to mind (yes, I’m a very late adopter). Two of those are basically visual novels with choices, but the stories hit hard and get into complex moral and social issues.

  When you’re ready, I’ll be out on the retirement home patio with a cold one waitin’ for ya. We’ll gripe about it some more.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do I actually find a job that isn't retail?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Do you know any EMTs? I do, and it sounds like you might also. In the US at least, this seems the opposite direction of what OP is asking. Long hours, low pay when amortized over hours on call, high stress, **but *** potentially great personal satisfaction. Also potential career track to other first responder/medical roles, which can be another plus, e.g. wilderness SAR, marine emergency SAR, trauma nurse, etc.

  If I have any of that wrong, I sincerely would enjoy additional context and discourse.

  *A close friend from high school went the EMT->trauma nurse route. He has the temperament for it and absolutely rocks it. He is doing waaaaay better financially and spiritually than most of our social circle. His hours aren’t consistent per se, 3 days on, 3 days off plus any additional shifts he wants. He could have retired about 5 years ago, but loves the work too much.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do I actually find a job that isn't retail?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Know people.

  This aspect cannot be overstated. I landed my biggest* jobs because of my professional network. Moreover, I landed those roles during some serious labor market carnage: Dotcom Bust, Great Recession, and the current knowledge career uncertainty.

  *Highest salary, longest running, best environment, most career growth, or some combination thereof.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do I actually find a job that isn't retail?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The fundamentals are always going to be the same:

  • Develop marketable skills
  • Build out your professional network
  • Develop ace communication skills, written and verbal; this pays dividends everywhere in life
  • Strive to be either in the top ~15%* of what you do or bring a diverse set of skills to the table so that you can perform multiple roles; however, the latter tends to be an entirely different kind of job
  • Be punctual
  • Always continue with your professional development
  • Be the kind of person with whom you would like to work

  *This is not as hard as it sounds. Consider Sturgeon’s Law (“90% of everything is shit”) and how much people phone it in; it’s pretty easy to stand out in most fields.

  More specifically, I suggest “durable” career fields such as the trades (plumber, electrician, lineperson, crane operator, cement truck operator, etc). I mentor and tutor some high school and college students. There’s a lot of career uncertainty for the the foreseeable future, and the trades are not going anywhere. I generally suggest “do what pays the most and chaps your ass the least;” this is just a guideline and the kind of thing you need to figure out what your inflection point is. Whatever the fuck you do, avoid debt like it’s the plague.

  Unless you land a proper apprenticeship, expect some serious long days for a few years, e.g. working full time and schooling/studying full time. Maybe you’ll get away with a less arduous journey, but if you’re mentally prepared to go full-tilt then you’ll be pleasantly surprised if the journey is easier.

  Empathy by way of anecdote: I was a DJ and nightclub manager. I was surprised when I hit 25 and was somehow still alive. I decided to take this life stuff seriously and saw that there was most likely no path towards serious financial security. I went back to college for audio engineering, working full time and going to school full time. I did that for about five years. While audio engineering was cool, I thought it would be even cooler to write the software tools for audio. So I poured myself into independent study, using my nights and weekends to learn programming. And once I was comfortable with programming, I went back to college again for software engineering, again full time school + work. The journey was hard, but I was a senior software engineer within 8 years, manager and principal roles another 4 years after that. However, I never got a job writing audio software; it’s been all medical and financial software. “How do you make the gods laugh? Make plans.” So have a vision, but be flexible and open to opportunities.

  Honestly, if I could have another go at it, I would have chosen marine electrician. Travel, boats + ships, technical + creative field, and get to pick and choose jobs I want to do.

  Woo warning ahead: there are qualitative aspects to the journey. Know what you want, rather than what you are avoiding. If you don’t know where you want to go, you are going to end up somewhere else. But something cool happens when you know what you want, know it in your bones, and commit to taking the steps. The universe delivers. Maybe not the exact thing you wanted, but some form of it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Space weather fans be like⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Which happens to be where Matt Inman (the artist) lives.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Space Honey⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  My guess it’s even older than that. My bullshitspiration is that peristalsis enabled more complex digestion when our quadruped ancestors needed more nutrition options.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Sounds of Silence⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  “DEFCON-4” leaps to mind (www.imdb.com/title/tt0087130/).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Moon Mommy Milkers⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Source: I made it up

  Lies! Try to cover up the truth all you want, but these facts were documented in Battlezone. (retroonline.net/Windows/Battlezone) :D

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do you fight abandonment issues when people keep abandoning you⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The abandonment issues are a huge challenge. Empathy by way of anecdote: my abandonment issues as a child were so bad that I couldn’t tolerate the idea of limited edition breakfast cereals. “What if I really like this cereal and they stop making it?!”

  It took me a lot of time, professional help, and mindfulness. Understanding my attachment style helped a lot. The super short, abstract spiel: attachment style is mostly set in stone; we can only work on our reactions. A positive inner voice is a huge step.

  Everything as it is, I’ve started having issues with feelings of being disposable… I can’t expect people to stick around, like they’re waiting for a reason to abandon me.

  That shit is going to happen. Stick with me here, because this is going to take a dark turn, but I found what works for me. You are disposable to most of the world. And you absolutely cannot expect people to stick around. To wish otherwise invites disaster. Graveyards are full of irreplaceable people.

  You can, however, be such a positive addition to your physical circle (with enough self-awareness and boundaries to prevent getting exploited) such that your circle regard it as unthinkable to be without you. That positive inner voice you’re working on… great! But it’s not going to be one big thing that makes everything work better. It’s going to be lots of little (and a few big) changes that turn the ship around. Give the self-work a couple years. You may not even notice the changes, but they all add up.

  In understanding your attachment style, you can more easily find people who are compatible. Spoiler alert: avoidant attachment tends to trigger people with abandonment issues; anxious-avoidant attachment styles tend to burn everything down around them.

  Calm your reactivity, improve your communication and self-awareness, grow your mindfulness and acting with intention. Non-violent communication (NVC) is the kind of thing that pays dividends everywhere in life. As is mindfulness. Develop a consistent meditation routine.

  In my experience, very people are looking for the relationship exit. Those that are, you didn’t need them around.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  This is also my understanding of “chav” from English and Scottish friends and relatives.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a word, perhaps as 40-letter compound word in German, that explains this annoying social phenomenon?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This is me too. All the same t-shirts, pants, shoes (four pairs go to the cobbler for repair while one remains in use), socks, underwear. Getting dressed in the morning is zero-thought and always comfortable. My daily kit always fits on my person and I never have to fumble for anything. Pants repairs are consistent since they all wear out exactly the same way. The cobbler loves my repairs because it’s the same patterns for four left and four right shoes (just one pattern flipped).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If I hear "% is a mathematical operator" one more time...⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Let’s not forget that it’s also the symbol for modulo operation. So many opportunities for ambiguity!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"Between raising two young boys and putting in long hours at a marketing job, Kevin Caldwell can almost never find the time to make dinner. So he and his husband spend about $700 a week to order in"⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m in Europe where restaurants and food are generally better regulated.

  Ah, gotcha! That right there is an enormous game-changer, and I’m agree with everything you say here. The US food chain is straight-up toxic. You may know this already: the US allows food treatments that are outright banned in most other countries. My travels in Europe were a revelation; I can eat things over there that invariably sicken me here, most notably bread and raw eggs. I would probably dine out more too if I lived in Europe. :D

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"Between raising two young boys and putting in long hours at a marketing job, Kevin Caldwell can almost never find the time to make dinner. So he and his husband spend about $700 a week to order in"⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Totally fair and thank you for the elaboration.

  Trying to learn by own practical experience in this day and age seems like a bit late to the party, though.

  I’ll counter this point with: I think we’re in a golden age of home cooking. YouTube alone is a gold mine for technique development and refinement. That won’t do anything for your lack of interest though.

  So tired of hearing this dumb fuck argument. Ordering food =/= fastfood.

  Well that’s good, because I’m not talking about fast food; I don’t eat fast food. Ever. My point was about knowing what you’re putting into your body, knowing how it was sourced and prepped. Dining out is at least three layers of abstraction from that knowledge. I’ve spent a lot of time working in restaurants, including high end ones. Apart from zero-compromise, prix-fixe, tasting menu establishments, recipes are always built to a price point. More restaurants than not use Sysco, First Street, or other nasty industrial sourcing. Most restaurants source their meats directly or indirectly from IBP/Tyson because they cornered the market on meat at scale*. And that’s before factoring in time-saving shortcuts, like not washing produce and using Sysco bases. For just one example on the sourcing risks, at high end restaurant where I worked the pantry cooks had to wear gloves to receive and sort the produce because the pesticides and container treatment gave them rashes.

  *IBP used to be a reliable, quality source despite being CAFO meats, and what I used in my own charcuterie business. After the acquisition by Tyson, shit went downhill almost overnight. I closed up operations because sourcing at that scale was no longer possible for me.

  The amount of people that seem to think their little bit of homecooking can compete with professional chef’s is laughable.

  A chef is a cost engineer and inventory manager. But I get your point: Sturgeon’s Law absolutely applies to most people’s kitchen results.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"Between raising two young boys and putting in long hours at a marketing job, Kevin Caldwell can almost never find the time to make dinner. So he and his husband spend about $700 a week to order in"⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  How does it not? It’s just a boring activity.

  I sincerely asked, and I assume you are similarly sincere in asking.

  For me, it’s an absolutely quotidian task, every aspect of which I approach mindfully and joyfully. Using a good knife, decent pans, a halfway decent grill/range/oven… the joy of using good tools skillfully cannot be overstated. I mean… where else in our days do we get to play with knives around people and they love the results? :D Woodworking, I guess, but you can’t eat those results.

  I love everything about cooking:

  • sourcing good local and seasonal ingredients
  • prepping the ingredients properly and with the least waste
  • layering flavor profiles
  • creating a full sensory experience for myself and my circle
  • understanding the underlying physics and chemistry at every step
  • creating even a simple dish that appeals to all senses
  • did I mention playing with knives?
  • then getting to feed, nourish, and sate people with my craft… The experience of cooking takes the necessary and workaday task of sustaining ourselves and elevates it to an alchemical and spiritual level.

  From a holistic, connected-to-the-land, tree-hugging hippie context, cooking takes the alchemy from Shit Wizards (AKA farmers) and transmutates those inputs into magical energy. Food nourishes the body; good cooking nourishes the soul. Gathering tribe around a meal that I made is even more fulfilling than the literal billions of people who, directly or indirectly, use the software I built.

  From a biological context, knowing the provenance of my food is the culinary equivalent of using open source software. From an ethical living context, knowing that my food providers are using fair labor practices, compassionate animal welfare, and good land stewardship enables me to make food that I eat and share in good conscience. Also, garbage in, garbage out on every level. This is stuff you’re putting in your body. The body that carries around your brain, both of which ya kinda need to do other things you enjoy. Food is medicine, and so many ills I see, physical and otherwise, stem from poor food sourcing and prep.

  From an efficiency, conservation, and creativity context:

  • turning “waste” material into an amazing stock
  • turning leftovers into an entirely new dish that utterly slaps
  • that on-the-knife-edge, tuned-up feeling of bringing a meal together… it rivals playing live to a sold-out crowd
  • doing more with the least amount of everything… give me a good knife, good cutting board, good produce stand, a saute pan, and a shitty butane burner, and I will crank out a meal for you that will get YOU laid :D
  • the mind-body connection of skillfully wielding my tools in pursuit of an explicit and relatively immediate goal; it might take me years to build software, but it takes just an evening to make something that feeds my tribe

  In the grand scheme of human experience, there are few things that everyone can do that fire on all sensory cylinders while delivering the spiritual high of creativity manifested. Cooking is something everyone can do.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"Between raising two young boys and putting in long hours at a marketing job, Kevin Caldwell can almost never find the time to make dinner. So he and his husband spend about $700 a week to order in"⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Why does cooking suck for you?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I consider myself as a left-libertarian who supports limited government and direct democracy. Can left-libertarians support limited government?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Government will always be abused and turned against the people so its power should be limited

  Fully agreed. This is the nature of power. It is a problem as old as humanity, and there have been loads of attempted solutions to that end. Probably the oldest known is the Insulting the Meat Ritual in hunter-gatherer tribes to prevent hunters from becoming egotistical. Given the rarity of remaining hunter-gatherers, we can guess how that worked out.

  Decentralization (why we’re here in the Fediverse, right?), social ownership of the economy, revocation of corporate privileges… all excellent goals to which we can aspire. It’s a bit hackneyed but the truism applies: think globally, act locally. On social ownership of the economy, may I suggest looking into timebanks? Join your local timebank if it exists; start one if it doesn’t. A lot of what timebanks (can) accomplish represents most of these ideals. Disclosure: I’m a founding board member and the treasurer of my local timebank, so I have a lot of bias for timebanks as one potential arrow in the quiver of effecting social change.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I consider myself as a left-libertarian who supports limited government and direct democracy. Can left-libertarians support limited government?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Does that answer your question?

  Yes, thank you for the elaboration! I agree with your points regarding the police state. May I suggest Behind the Bastards’ 3-part on the history of policing (~2020 Jun 16)?The US has been a police state for more of its history than not. And the series underscores the Socialist tenets in your explanation: unions absolutely work. The police union in the US is ridiculously effective at protecting those “workers.” Too bad that union is protecting workers who stomp on the citizenry.

  I will add that direct democracy prima facie sounds great, and I used to also hold this belief. We absolutely have the technology for a full direct democracy. The problems with direct democracy are legion, some of which we are seeing right now in the US with low-information voters. Now scale that up. The enormous volume of legislation and policy research on any single issue would stop most citizens dead in their tracks. Take international trade policy for example. My employer paid for me to study international trade compliance for five years. Ain’t nobody got time for that, and international trade policy hits all of us in the wallet, waistline, daily interactions, and health/wellness measures. We hoi-polloi still need to work, get dinner on the table, and do laundry. Voters should understand all of relevant issues at least at a cursory level, but wish in one hand, shit in the other… Hell, how many voters actually read the voter guides and research their local candidates? How many attend city council meetings?

  If you want as direct a democracy as possible, focus your efforts at your local and state level. Small changes in your community have ripple effects. Get your neighbors and local social circle to educate themselves and attend. Connect with your local council and governing boards.

  As @zxqwas@lemmy.world pointed out: don’t sweat the labels; choose the policies that appeal to your sensibilities. The labels and affiliations will shake out from there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I consider myself as a left-libertarian who supports limited government and direct democracy. Can left-libertarians support limited government?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You keep repeating this, without going into any detail on what any of this means to you. How do you square economic equality with limited government? The former requires extremely strong and well-considered regulation with well-funded government agencies to stick it to corps and billionaires.

  When someone says “I’m Libertarian,” the implicit translation is:

  • I want to do any and all drugs I want (great, go for it; this is probably their only respectable plank, but enacted in isolation the consequences are dire)
  • I want to fuck minors (eww)
  • I don’t want to pay any taxes, but I still want all the trappings of a mutually beneficial society (“what do you mean my local roads are in disrepair, there’s no garbage pickup, and my neighbor poisoned my well with his unpermitted auto repair business?!”)
  • AnCap FTW! (eww, again)

  Libertarianism is an extremely naive political platform. Most people who subscribe to its ideals fail to investigate the history of Libertarian ideals in action. Speaking as a former, briefly Libertarian-voting individual, after diving into the planks of the platform, it quickly became clear that Libertarianism is antithetical to a functioning society.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨🤏🤏🤏⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This is actually a very significant factor. The guideline is that an ocean freighter spotted on the horizon will be on you in five minutes (guideline, we know the math doesn’t exactly check out). That doesn’t leave a lot of margin for being away from the helm or distracted while on watch.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨🤏🤏🤏⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Ocean-going sailor here. Some people might be surprised how often some people have trouble avoiding huge ships. These days, we have modern systems such as AIS, Doppler radar, proximity alarms, and all can be integrated into autopilot. Yet there are still so many stories of near-misses with tankers, freighters, and container ships.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨And my axe.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  And my hammer… altaonline.com/…/california-kelp-forest-urchin-cu…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bats beware⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Wait til you see bats getting eaten by centipedes!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's the key to a woman's heart and does finding love have a cutoff point?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
  • Don’t be ugly, especially not inside, but it helps to look like you at least care about your body and appearance. Added bonus: by going to the gym/hiking/bicycling/being active, you’ll get out more and meet more people. The stronger your network, the more likely you will meet a person who is a good match. Funny things happen when you get deep into active hobbies: you meet more people with those same interests.
  • Choose partners because of how well they match with who you are right now. Stated another way: don’t choose potential mates on deterministic physical traits. Sure, everyone wants the super-hot partner. Choose partners because traits over which they have control appeal to you.
  • Even if you meet a great person, that person will most likely change. Emotional maturity here is supporting and understanding your partner’s growth. If you cannot accept how the person has changed, end gracefully and amicably. Move on.
  • “Keys to her heart:” Communication. Ask, listen. Corollary to that, being explicit about your needs and wants in a relationship. Out of 8 billion people, your romantic paradigm cannot possibly unique. It’s up to you to develop the patience, emotional intelligence, and interpersonal skills to fulfill those needs by nurturing healthy relationships.
  • Anxiety and agoraphobia: get help. Empathy by way of anecdote, I have crushing depression, paralyzing anxiety, and nearly intractable ADHD. I spent almost three years in intensive therapy, with two separate therapists, seeing them both every week. TL;DR: want results? Put in the self-work.
  • “Feels like my time of finding someone has gone past its chances:” The time is past only if you give up or you’re dead. Here’s a speedrun of how “too-late” it is: I imploded my first two marriages. The second marriage didn’t even last a year, although we were together for 20 months prior to getting hitched. After a few years of working on myself and examining the root causes of my failures, I met my dream partner at 47 years old. We just had our 8-year anniversary.
  • “Hopefully I can get out of this deep hole I’m in as I’m in a terrible rut right now:” When you’re in a hole, stop digging. Change whatever it is you need to change. Otherwise if you keep doing what you’ve done, you’re going to keep getting what you got.
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Negative. I got mine at 23, but only because it took me five years to find a doctor who would perform it.

  Good luck. Also, the recovery times are very serious.

  And everyone is different (duh), but there has been a complete absence of regret. Added bonus: my partners have been very appreciative that the onus of birth control is not on them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do some companies like a utility put out ads?⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I see a lot of “For the PR” comments. This is only a fraction of why ads are purchased by utilities, large companies, and other entities with whom you never directly do business. The overarching reason they purchase ads is to have influence over narratives by those networks.

  Source: used to develop software in the energy sector for a multinational; my employer and their corporate customers regularly bought ads to help bolster energy efficiency initiatives. These initiatives and interventions are frequently countered and opposed by exactly the corporate dickwads you think would oppose reduced consumer energy consumption.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I got herpes. What can I expect?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I had a partner with genital HSV-1. YMMV, but in general:

  • No BFD; the stigma of HSV is the result of a marketing campaign in the 70s (not 100% on the date) by a company selling HSV treatments
  • Be honest and inform your prospective partners; yeah, some people who haven’t done the reading are going to react negatively
  • Antiviral treatments are available; the one my partner was a daily pill
  • In eight years of unprotected sex with her, she never had an outbreak and I test negative
  • You may never have another outbreak, you may have regular flare-ups, or something in between
  • Talk to your doctor and any take all of my previous comments like the Internet rumor it is
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ads when you’re pumping gas⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Oregon. And at least half the pumps must still be staffed. Washington has had self-serve for at least 30 years (when I moved here).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I came in here for this. Thank you, kind stranger with distinguished cinematic taste.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is it so hard to buy the same toothbrush twice?⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  orthodontic sneakers

  How does your footwear straighten your teeth? :D