Earn 3 times the amount of a proposed rent? You’re golden.

Earn below 3 times the amount of a proposed rent (but still enough to pay it each month)? Now you have to pay a guarantor to back you up. Last estimate I got was $800 for that service. You’ve gotta pay that before a landlord will accept you.

So if you earn less, you’re forced to pay more. It’s so fucking backwards.

Source: currently homeless, on numerous “waitlists” for low-income apartments that can take years to get through, housing lotteries that have 10s of thousands of people also hoping for a home, and attempting to scrounge the bottom of the barrel with tiny studio apartments (which, even if I apply to immediately, I’m behind others who somehow got to them faster.)

The system is absolutely fucked. I’m just grateful I enjoy my job (which, yes, I work full time, and earn above minimum wage for. Modern US society has no mercy for any of us.)

If you’re a more visual person (or have a visual imagination), I find that remembering the context helps recall. Like, where I am, who I’m with, what I was doing, etc.

There’s also classic mnemonics, like acronyms, but done visually. Sometimes I imagine a scene that can immediately recall the thing I want to remember. It’s hard to describe in words, but then again sometimes the thoughts I want to remember aren’t necessarily in “words” anyway.

I have a notebook in my car, specifically for writing down things when I’m out driving somewhere.

Sometimes I spend so long trying to find it under all the rest of the crap in my car, that when I finally get down to writing, I’m lucky if I can recall the thought at all.

I mean, duh? I left the site years ago when it became clear they value making money over making a site I’d want to actually use.

They’re digging a hole in their userbase, even if they’re making money in the meantime. Just as the kid who tries to dig through the Earth can potentially “succeed” for a while, ending up in a hole several times deeper than they are tall, there will come a time when they look back up and realize they can’t get back out of it.

In other words, if Reddit keeps digging, there will come a point where things become untenable. (Although I’m sure those in charge will have their golden parachutes ready to go) the site itself will become so enshittified as to be unrecoverable. There’s no long-term plan to get Reddit out of that situation.

Aww, look at Reddit and its cute little shovel, digging their hole deeper and deeper without any real clue what they’re doing. Yeah, just a few feet more and you’ll dig through the center of the Earth, sweetie! Keep going!

Although Reddit disappoints me so much that I sigh whenever I see it linked, I am somewhat pleased that when GOG had to link a thread, they chose to use an old.reddit page in particular.

I used to think I wouldn’t quit Reddit until they got rid of the “old” style. Then the API debacle happened two years ago, and whelp. Here I am. 🙃

At least GOG knows how to treat its userbase.

How do you choose who the unlucky bastards are that get sent to the field to grow food for the people who don’t have to work?

Preferably, they’d be people without disabilities that prevent them from doing that kind of work. OP didn’t say, “Nobody should work,” just that being able to live shouldn’t be dependent on working.

For millions of people with disabilities, the difference between those two ideas is life-changing. It’s important not to conflate them.

… and if we don’t get a dopamine hit from exercise?

Goddamn, do I feel this. The urge for people-pleasing is real. Establishing boundaries that respect your limits is hard. I keep hearing the voice of ignorant neurotypicals throughout my life, echoing in my head, “You don’t need a break.” “You’re just lazy.” “Answer, answer now! You must speak!”

No! I can say no! I can say, “I need some time alone,” or, “I’ll get back to you tomorrow.” Acknowledging that I have limits IS OKAY. MOST PEOPLE WILL RESPECT THAT. Even if my own freaking parents can’t.

You got it. I can easily assume, but I wanted to know for sure. Ingredient lists would’ve been far more helpful than Quora.

bullshit options with shit ass quora usually at the top. Who dafuq uses quora?

I wonder the same thing. I used it once, and only once, in my life. I had been trying to find vegan birthday candles and having no luck finding sources for the wax (since I was explicitly avoiding beeswax), so I asked Quora where I could find vegan candles. The answer I got?

“Don’t eat birthday candles.”

Uhhh…

Apparently whatever fool worked there had no idea that “vegan” is a lifestyle, that goes beyond food. The question was closed and I had no way to appeal or add information. Fantastic.

My girlfriend has a hobby of growing/propagating/selling desert plants. The grow lights fill her living room, and they are intense. 😭

Thankfully, she knows me, and she turns them off whenever I come over.

I work from home 10-20 hours a day.

That’s fair. Drinking at one’s workplace is usually frowned upon.

This is the way. To cycle through several times may take years, but over time all the bits of practice add up. Until one day, you look at what you’ve created, and realize that you’ve actually gotten quite skilled.

When I started using a camera as a teen, I didn’t let people call me a “photographer.” I was just “a person who likes taking pictures.” To me, being a “photographer” implied possessing skills and purpose beyond what I’d had.

A few years later, I came across some blog about various artistic principles, including ratios and framing. I went back through some of my favorite shots and was surprised to realize they already followed those rules. Apparently, over the years, I’d picked up a bunch of photography skills that people take classes to learn. It just took tons of practice and experimentation, which I returned to in cycles.

Haha, this is what I say, too! “My hobby is collecting new hobbies.” There are supplies for no fewer than five types of crafts on my living room table right now. (Also water bottles, several video game controllers, a solved Rubik’s cube, my medications, and some cannabis paraphernalia.)

USA users are also aggressive when you complain

It’s another effect of the last few generations being raised on authoritarian teat. They’re always right, and all dissenting opinions aren’t just wrong, they’re personal attacks.

I saw this shit in adults when I was growing up, in the US in the 90s. People here are straight-up brainwashed. I became a skeptic by age 12, and boy oh boy, did my teachers have a problem with it. I’d debunk myths and “old wives tales,” especially when teachers spread them. I’d research and bring in evidence to support my points. Sounds like a great teaching opportunity, right? Not when the teachers lean authoritarian.

Even the best science teacher in my middle school couldn’t admit to the class that he lied about swallowed gum staying in your stomach for seven years. He told me I was right in private, after I brought in two books and a magazine explaining that it was a myth. But the other kids? They didn’t believe me, because teacher said it’s true, so it must be true. As to the teacher, I guess it’s just easier to control kids with a lie than to have a little humility, stand up for truth and science, and accept whatever happens after. It spoke volumes to me about where the adults around me stood. I already knew the kids were swallowing the propaganda, but seeing the adults have so little backbone angered me.

So yeah, we’re pretty fucked as a culture. Needless to say, I stopped being surprised by the acceptance of fascism long ago. Too many people here like the idea of just being told things by someone speaking with confidence. To question that is to be a shit-stirrer and there will be consequences for it. This also explains why we accept terrible bosses and working conditions - it’s all part of the same big picture.

Wait, what? Where’d you hear that from? I’m on .world and my home internet is hard wired to a VPN. I’ve never had a problem.

Or a song repeats on full-blast inside your head, drowning out your own thoughts, all because a car drove by an hour ago with the windows down and that song was on their radio. Now your brain won’t turn it off.

My brain also does this neat/annoying trick where it connects details I see or experience with details from song lyrics. Like, I could have to stand on a corner waiting to cross a street, and my brain will decide to start playing, Take it Easy by The Eagles for the rest of the day… just because I was “standing on a corner” (though not in Winslow, Arizona.)

Some people think I have an irrationally strong negative reaction to catchy “ear worm” songs… but I figure it’s because such songs aren’t as debilitating to most people. For me, when songs take over my brain like this, I can’t think a single sentence straight through. They legit hijack my brain and I’ve never learned a way to make it stop.* It’s as distressing as it is distracting.

* I haven’t learned a way to make it stop in the moment. However, I have found that anti-depressants help prevent this from happening overall. Just as negative thoughts stop looping through my mind when I maintain my Lexapro, songs are less likely to get stuck in my head. Just an interesting sidenote.

AuDHD here. I also have very little filter for incoming noises. I suspect it’s an auditory processing issue.

My “cocktail party” effect is weak, I sometimes struggle to hear words properly through phone calls (which is a big part of why I don’t like making them), and if a show or movie doesn’t have captions on I’ll probably miss a lot of dialogue. I’ve had plenty of people ask, “Are you deaf?” or tell me to get my hearing checked when I ask them to repeat themselves, despite every hearing test I’ve ever taken showing that my hearing is better than average. It’s not my ears that struggle, it’s my brain’s ability to filter/process/prioritize sounds that’s unusual.

At the same time, I’m distracted by all sorts of details. I had an ex once remark that when people spoke a language he didn’t understand, he found it easier to tune out. I thought that absurd; if anything my brain becomes even more distracted by foreign languages. I still detect (and can recreate) novel language sounds, even though linguists and brain-researchers claim I should’ve lost the ability to do that decades ago.

I wish I could get a brain scan when listening to sounds and compare the results to scans of other people. I can’t help but think it would shed light on a lot of life-long issues and peculiarities.

How do they do it?

I assume they just don’t. For my mom at least, she absolutely will not apply mental effort to anything that doesn’t strictly require it. If a mental task can be offloaded to someone or something else, she’ll do that instead, every time.