Nepenthe

Middle-age would be in your 40s-50s. Not to diss my dead relatives too hard, but you’re thinking of old fucks that would have any solid opinion on that. In a handful of years, the music middle aged men will be up in arms about is *NSYNC.

On the one hand, I feel really proud that I got under your skin so much that mine is the only contribution you’ve ever replied to in the 7 months that whole account has even existed. Someone just clearly isn’t having a good day if that’s the one thing that set off a professional lurker.

But also, like…I thought about this all through my quesadilla and it’s just really sad? Is this like Incel Logic: Hobby Edition, where you’re either born perfect and flawless or you’re a permanent shit failure and therefore whichever way the coin falls, you never have to work at anything? Like Big Education is a trillion dollar industry now, and really society is divided up Airbender style and you just didn’t get the CalArts gene?

There’s only one kind of person I can see falling for this weak-ass angle, and it’s the kind of person who’s never taken up any recreation for more than 1-2 days in their whole life because they don’t start out amazing at it and you can’t fail at anything if you never do shit. And honestly, I’m kinda bummed out that you have to live like that. You know you can just look up tutorials for anything these days.

A lot of people you read about who grew to be leaders in their field by some ridiculous age like 25, spoke fluently in 5 different languages, etc. etc. did so because they had three things: dedicated one-on-one tutors, an appreciable collection of slaves and/or other general servants to free up their personal time, and enough family wealth to pay for both from the time they could walk.

Mozart was composing as a toddler, but he also came from a wealthy family of musicians that taught him basically nothing else. Ever. That was the one thing. He hyper-specialized in music and socially he was the guy that got bored and did cartwheels and meowed in public. If Mozart was in your position, with the kind of loving care and finances most students have today, he would have been the kid in class who beatboxes over the teacher.

I’m actually still coming to terms with this myself. with mixed success. I’ve always loved art, but I’ve never been where I want to be. I’ve been making strides again, but the further I take it, the more it becomes apparent that 90% of the problems I’ve ever had with it were not me, they were because no one ever bothered to teach me. And I’m pissed about the decades I lost simply because child me was never shown concepts that would have changed everything.

Do not judge your own accomplishments on the same scale as someone who had ample time to devote to their studies because their family had house slaves doing everything you have to do by yourself.

But the boxes were taken to the dumpster, yes? With time saved, even? Someone in a managerial position would rather hire, train, and pay a devoted garbage person instead of three adorably unpaid raccoons?

Just the nine, though? That’s only like 1.8 stabbings per day for me, tops. I could take being stabbed a little under twice for the whole day, and then the stabbing part’s over til tomorrow.

Oh, that’s what that was about? I honestly just assumed Starry was some crap knock-off that the restaurant just happened to have that day. Not really sure what the motive would be or why they’d expect the reaction to rebranding a nearly 20yr old product would be any other assumption. I’m going to disagree with them. They should be glad I’m not calling them Sprite.

Exactly. I’ve only ever pirated things I couldn’t afford, and even then I kept a running list of the good ones in the hopes that one day I could pay them legitimately. When I can afford to buy them fairly, I don’t pirate.

I was a thief when I was starving and I’m a damn thief now.

I’ve had strong feelings ever since I realized the little nubbins were where its legs used to be. Now I just eat them anyway and consciously don’t think about it

While not especially tech-inclined, I think I’m up for handling confusing these days and I got people I could bother if I run into jargon truly impenetrable. I really appreciate all the links as well as the recommendation, thank you :)

Edit: I also vastly appreciate the time they’ve taken to make a jargon and non-jargon version of the FAQ. That has to be a labor of love and most things along these lines can feel daunting and inaccessible past a certain point simply because other tech bros understand it perfectly without the need for crayons

Could you explain what Gemini is? I already know without looking that all my search attempts are going to be horoscope stuff, and I don’t have the info to really narrow it down to anything.

Then they logically wouldn’t have cared about the adblock in the first place…? Although I’m intending to go back to doing the same and it’s not about whether I make them sad or not. It’s a quality of life thing.

I’m genuinely sitting here wondering if I can flip my brain to see it that way, and that might even work in theory. But if this is my best way out…I don’t wanna be turned on by hot sauce 😭

That’s the weird thing that got me just a couple minutes after posting this, and I just sat there for a while, staring into the middle distance.

I am a sadomasochist that needs my salsa to be mostly yogurt.

You can build a tolerance, I know. You’re literally burning your pain receptors out temporarily. But the kind of determination I appear to need to get there. How am I the world’s worst bitch

I don’t understand how people do this, to be honest. Do you know how spicy food works? The receptor it triggers in your mouth is TRPV1, which does handle heat regulation and sensitivity, but it’s also a pain receptor. Like, selectively removing it to treat the pain caused by bone cancer kind of receptor.

The kind of heat that sets it off is heat above 109F/43C, in addition to things like scorpion venom. Presumably it comes through as heat. Everyone tells me it feels hot. I don’t get “heat.” I get what is clearly agony in one of the most innervated areas of the body, and science backed me up on this.

Y’all are addicted to licking the curling iron and I’m the weird one

I suppose the difference is the LLM knows how to build a weapon.

My grandparents were turkish and swedish, respectively, but neither took it upon themselves to teach either language to their children. My mother didn’t even know her mom knew swedish til she was almost an adult, and the disconnected handful of turkish words was a result of trying to sneak ice cream past the kids. We were all 100% americanized and I feel horribly out of place even though I’m technically only second generation.

I do have relatives overseas, but I understand half of them are dead now. Since I was a kid when my own mom was ostracized, I barely even know any names and as I’ve said, I’ve never actually visited or interacted with them in any way. They may not even know I exist, tbh.

I could theoretically message my one remaining second cousin, I admit. You’re correct. I have the sense this would be very awkward and I’d honestly rather speak to a stranger than explain who the fuck I am and why they should care.

Bonus points if they turn out to be super racist hypernationalists like my granpa so I get to be rejected by the one remaining relative that hasn’t gotten around to it yet. Which isn’t a thing that’s physically preventing me, the prospect just popped into my head and makes me really sad and it would add to my therapy bills

If it helps, it only ever seems to be the tankies, which are progressively becoming the minority. I’m sure more dicks will show up in future waves, maybe, but…I’m kinda seeing the point of just the lowest possible entry hurdles.

Actually, hold on, tumblr was talking about ActivityPub a few months ago, so if they ever actually do that and do it functionally, that will change the culture pretty substantially. Much more weeb/sociopolitical. I’m happily fucking out of the politics here by choice.

A low enough priority that the further I get in my efforts, the more it sinks in with me that I’m mostly wasting my time. It’s a hobby more than a skill.

My attempts to learn my family’s native language have hit a roadblock: now that I have a handle on the grammar, there is no one for me to speak to. It’s frankly pretty upsetting and I’m very discouraged about it.

You’re required to know at least a workable amount of English in order to live and work here, so no matter where they were born, there is absolutely no one in what feels like this entire NW hemisphere that I do not already share a language with. And only one time have I ever known before they said. All other times, they’ve just happened to mention they’re from there after I say something about learning it.

Most immigrants I’ve met are perfectly incognito, and they speak more than well enough for us to understand each other casually. The point of language is to communicate. Goal achieved.

Trying to find a language partner in this situation is proving not only impossible, it’s nigh-pointless to even do unless you’re bored. It’s the same online — nearly everyone already shares a language with me, you’d never guess most of the time, and even country-specific subs sometimes post things in english.

There’s literally no one for me to practice on and zero need to practice unless I feel like going halfway around the globe pretty often in order to make the effort worthwhile. At which point they will still speak to me in english unless I’m lost in the super rural areas, and I will simply cry.

I’ve come to accept that going overseas even once in my life is never going to happen. Europeans seem to vastly overestimate Americans ability to afford to do that. Even if we could, we still have an entire hemisphere to get through first. Which costs significantly less, is almost just as fun, and doesn’t take multiple years of work for a skill you’ll only ever use once.

What was the worst movie you’ve watched?

Putting the collide in large hadron collider