I did a similar thing. I was talking to my friend through my headphones as I was getting ready to leave the house and put my phone in my hoodie pocket. Then I put my rain coat over my hoodie and left. 5 minutes later I freaked out when I couldn’t find my phone in my rain coat pocket. My friend reassured me that I must have it because I was still talking to her but I didn’t remember what I’d done until I took my rain coat off. Was a weird experience and one that made me realise how dependent I was on my phone.

First attempt was Slackware, installed from a CD that came with a magazine because we didn’t have the internet in about 2001 or 2002. It worked for one glorious afternoon but I’d tried to dual boot with Windows and nuked that partition. Got into big trouble and was banned from the family computer for the rest of the summer. Couldn’t try again until a couple of years later when I got my very own laptop and paid my friend £5 to leave his PC on overnight downloading an ISO of dynebolic over dial up and burn it to a CD for me.

That was great but then I got my hands on a beefier PC and used Ubuntu thanks to the free CDs you could get in the mail. When I finally got a job and a broadband connection I switched to Mandriva, then Ubuntu again for a few years with most of that being Xubuntu and for like the last 10 years mostly Debian. I switched to Fedora a couple of times and tried a few others like MX Linux and Qubes. I also had a Pinebook Pro for a while running Manjaro ARM. I just always ended up going back to Debian. I can’t see myself ever changing distros again.

That head really creeped me out.

I’ve tried PopOS as I have a machine with an Nvidia card but every tine I’ve done the first apt upgrade it nukes grub and won’t boot again. Probably something I’m doing wrong and it has been a couple of years since I last tried.

Debian, on servers and a desktop. I spent a long time using Ubuntu so I’m used to APT and Debian is suitably lightweight for my not amazing hardware. I also like the non rolling nature of it.

Yea when I said that I excel at Excel I was somewhat exaggerating, much as I have at every job interview I’ve ever had. It’s become something of a reflex these days. But as someone else has said I think that particular issue is just down to Excel being crap.

Excel, it wouldn’t be useful but I’d still be great at it.

Been 20 years exactly almost for an actual “concert”, like just seeing one or two bands. Travelling to a venue is expensive for me as I live in the middle of nowhere. Plus I don’t really have anyone to go with. I go to local gigs with my brother and his girlfriend once every month or two. They travel all over for concerts but I think I’d feel like a third wheel if I went with them, though I might tag along if it turns out they’re seeing a band I really want to at some point.

I went to some festivals in 2023, it feels easier to justify the cost of travel to see a bunch of bands over a whole weekend. Was actually going to go on my own but my brother came with before he got with his gf. Might actually do one on my own next year. Rebellion in Blackpool is great and indoors which is a big plus in the UK.

SCAB

Sorry to hear that. I also lost a friend to addiction who’s experiences with older men in her formative years were unfortunately quite negative, which sent her down the addiction spiral and made her seek out more experiences with older men. Those experiences and the addiction both, I believe, ultimately stemmed from her father’s actions. His own addiction and abusive, neglectful behaviour being a result of trauma in his early life. I can’t speak to your friend’s past of course but I imagine men and substances filled a hole in her own life likely left by a similar generational trauma and abuse cycle.

Girls I was at school with used to get picked up by guys in cars when they were like 12 and 13 so those guys were at least 17. At 17 I wouldn’t have wanted to hang out with a 12 or 13 year old girl.

What did the karma coins actually do? Never understood that part of Reddit.

Nowadays, everybody wanna talk like they got somethin’ to say

But nothin’ comes out when they move their lips Just a bunch of gibberish

And motherfuckers act like they forgot about beans

The spez protests led to a lot of people sharing alternatives on Reddit and when I heard there was an open source alternative, checked it out and saw posts about Linux and beans I knew I’d never go back.

I don’t think communism is a moneyless system. Pretty sure people paid money for things in the USSR. Have there been any communist countries without money?

Yea my neighbours know I live alone and I can hear them so pretty sure they can hear me and must think I’m crazy.

If I’m walking around its likely I’ll be having a conversation with myself in my head which eventually ends up with me absent mindedly speaking to myself out loud so if I see someone in public I immediately try to shut myself up lest they think I’m truly mental.

It’s a test, designed to provoke an emotional response.