A 50-something French dude that's old enough to think blogs are still cool, if not cooler than ever. I also like to write and to sketch.
Does it need to be US? If not, there is Kdrive Solo (Swiss): 5€/month for 3Tb https://www.infomaniak.com/en/ksuite/kdrive/prices. It' snot dedicated photo storage, but their app can backup photos from the phone (I take very little pictures so I have no idea how valuable it is for that purpose).
Edit: for the sake of completion and as a disclaimer, I'm a paid customer but I don't use their KDrive offering, I use their 'Ksuite +' at approx 1.60€/month which offers 1Tb Drive (storage can be increased to 6Tb) and also includes email and a few other perks: https://www.infomaniak.com/en/ksuite/myksuite/prices
LIst. A mere scrap of paper we keep nearby on which my spouse and I jot down whatever we see is or will soon be depleted and need to be renewed. The first of us that is able to do errands simply grab the list and that's it. The moment we notice the list is not where it is supposed to be 1) we know the other is doing errands 2) we start a new list ;)
Doing so, we never have to wonder what we need to buy when we're doing errands, we just follow the list.
If you don't want to consider leaving her (which I will say is perfectly fine, provided you are able to hear that it remains a legit option), then you need to make time for yourself, time that you will enjoy without her. Because you need to be able to feel... good, to recharge your 'I love her' battery by letting it rest from time to time.
Do you have any hobby? If not, a good starting point could be to experiment with a few various ones and see what you may enjoy doing.
My spouse and I have been together for 25+ years and counting, we love each other but you can believe me when I say we both can also be very taxing on the other. For me, the recharging of my 'I love her' battery involves writing, reading, daily long walks alone (and when she wants to go out with me I will happily do so but I will then have my own excursion alone, later on that day). It's sketching (poorly and I'm fine with that: I enjoy the act of sketching not being admired for it). I also started fixing stuff and making them from scratch, working with my hands. I like to play chess... against other people a lot more than against computers: I play chess exactly like I read books, in order to be challenged by ideas that are not mines, that force me to reconsider my own way of seeing things. No matter how fast or efficient they are, computers have no idea of their own.
As a matter of fact the reason why we've stayed together all those years and I see no sign of us parting ways any time soon is because we've quickly learned to be fine with the fact that
- We will never agree on everything. We're not an interchangeable male/female version of the same being.
- We respect the other's desire to do things on their own. She has activities and people she like to spend time with that I don't appreciate, and I have mine. And that's great.
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Now that we're back on the verge of nuclear annihilation (at least us, weak Europeans, if I'm to believe the official propag... news I would say that, no, they were not that great. They were naive years, at best.
I remember that 'end of history' idea of back then, and how many young people my age (I'm a little older than your boyfriend) were more than willing to believe that non-sense marketing garbage... The exact same people that are now old and in charge of the shitty, and most probably shittier than it ever was during the cold war, situation we're now in.
Edit: music and musicians were worth listening to, without any algorithm ruining the experience and there were still a few movies released that were not entirely chastised/neutered.
That said, I realize I might be in the minority on this, so I’m curious what others are doing to preserve their sanity.
You're not alone in thinking that. I would not say it is unusable but it is indeed way too littered with, well, with certain type of content I'd rather not have to deal with.
- For me, a careful selection of the communities I follow combined with limiting my home feed to 'subscribed only' does the heavy lifting quite well. I find it really efficient.
- I do have a couple filtered keywords, a couple like in two names (both being names of certain people that use to make the headlines around the world).
- Then, on a day to day level, when I'm faced with anyone that is not trying to participate in a conversation but is enjoying making a fuss, trying to create drama or anyone being constantly rude, or turning any disagreement in a personal matter, I will not hesitate to block them.
I 100% agree with your plea, and only +1 because I cannot + it more than that. But I also want to point out that ‘participation’ can be difficult to quantify rightly.
Take the simplest (and only ?) metric we can access on Lemmy: our user profiles. I just checked, hope you won’t mind: yours is 2 years old with 2K+ comments (let's ignore new posts even though you also have posted a lot), while mine is 7 months old for almost 0.8k comments.
Conclusion? We both are active but, on an absolute basis, I seem to be a lot less active than you are. But if we compare on a daily basis it seems I do comment a little more than you do.
But then, this says nothing about the type of content we both share (images? Texts? and so on), nor does it say much on our ability to participate. I mean, maybe I don't have a job and have all my time available to post silly shit around here, while you could be the CEO of one of those mega corp (well, maybe not that kind of CEO but you get the idea: someone really busy) or maybe you have serious health issues that make it much harder for you to participate. That alone should make a difference in the appreciation of our respective participation, beside sheer volume. At least, I would think so.
Back to your point:
I BEG YOU! PLEASE, please, please… be a bit more willing to post and comment. If everyone was willing to spend a little time looking for new content to post to a few of the niche communities that they’re part of, (especially the least active communities,) and posted once a month or so, we wouldn’t have so many “dead” communities. And this would lead to a more rich experience on the Fediverse.
Once again, 100% agree with you. But I think there is something else going on... I don’t know what exactly. Allow me to use ‘my’ own community as an example.
A little over a year ago or so, I revived the !journaling@sh.itjust.works community.
It has been dead for a year when I joined and since I was myself into journaling (have been all my live, since I was a little boy and I'm now nearing my 60s) I thought maybe I could contribute content and help motivate more people to participate. At first I posted daily, then weekly, then less frequently, and now almost nothing (I published a note informing members that I had to deal with personal matters, it’s supposed to be temporary).
While I was regularly posting, I did get a few participants to post and comment too, that was great content. But it was also very little volume in comparison to the quickly growing number of subscribers. Like, really.
When I ‘reopened’ the community I did not thought about writing down the number of subscribers but I’m pretty confident there were less than 250 of us, today it seems we’re around 1,35k (if I can trust the instance metrics). I’m glad as fuck to see as many people interested in journaling but I don’t get it why there is so little content being shared, even more so knowing a few other subscribers are, very much like me, long term journalers with a lot of experience they can share, while others subscribers are beginners or are just curious about it, with a lot of questions and doubts they should be willing to share with like-minded people, knowing both groups are more than welcome to participate.
There was a new post a few days ago and it got a few comments and likes, and that was it. Why?
It’s a very niche community, meaning all members are at least already interested and/or curious about it. Why is there so few content posted/shared? No idea. When I started posting, I had the idea that peopel posted nothign because they were afaid to look silly (or were afraid of being judged). So I updated the rules and posted my own (willy/goofy) content thinking it will encourage them. It seems I was wrong.
If I had to conclude anything (which I refuse to do, at least not yet) I would say:
- Maybe the type of content I shared to begin with was not the best choice? Maybe that is true but then, without enough negative feedback, it’s hard to correct path. And the little feedback I got was quite supportive.
- I would almost be tempted to say people are just subscribing to communities they’re interested in just so they know they will see new content if there is any posted. And if there is none to be seen, well, they know they will get some elsewhere (looking at you, reddit). So, why would they bother posting anything themselves?Like I said, I refuse to conclude that but my gut feeling does go in that direction. And to oppose that trend I have no idea what I can do, nor if I should even try?
I will see how it goes after I’m back at it, hopefully somewhere end march or April.
Most of the communities I would like to see already exist, what they lack is... participants.
To name just one, among my few favorites of back when I used reddit there was r/Simpleliving, which exists on lemmy too: !simpleliving@slrpnk.net. Sadly, it's not active.
When I block someone, I want to be a ghost to them.
Depends how one defines 'blocking', maybe?
I mean, when I block someone (which I do from time to time) it's because I don't want to see whatever they can say or post. I don't care the slightest that they can read what I write, nor do I care what they can say about it either. I just don't want to be bothered by them. They could say the worst thing they want about me, that's fine provided their noise does not reach me ;)
I think moderation logs to be open is a bad idea
To me it relates to the idea that users, all of us, are supposed to be responsible and reasonable persons. The kind that is able to face unpleasant facts, words, and people too. Very much unlike users in most closed source/walled-garden social media that are treated like little children that need to be protected from everything, even their own shadow.
Alas, if the idea is great the reality is a little less so and not all of us are able to deal with... our own emotions when facing unpleasant things. Still, no matter how not perfect it is, I think it's worth promoting that approach. Even if it has a (real) cost.
Provided they don't post NSFW, make your home page only show the communities you're subscribed to? Sorry if I misunderstood your question, but that's what I do and I can't remember seeing that much NSFW, if any.
+1 to all you just said :)
We quit drinking soda (and I quit alcohol, too). Now it's, water, pressed fresh fruits (but not too much), tea and infusions. Maybe once a year I will have a drink of wine (I'm French, I have an excuse ;)
As for teas, my advice there would be to not cheap out on tea. quality teas, aka full leaves, are a thing of their own. Also I would encourage to get at least two tea posts (one for stronger teas and the other one for the lighter ones)
Fresh veggies & fruits, a little quality meat (but not too much and not every day), no industrial bread (I live in Paris, we still have access to a few real artisanal bakeries where they make their own bread, but here too they're getting replaced by industrial ones, so we've planned on learning to make our own bread soon), no industrial sweets/treats and no soda.
My spouse and I also learned to cook, instead of going out to a restaurant multiple times a week like we used. Saves us money and it's a fine moment we spend together too ;)
As for the time it takes to cook fresh food: either we will make very simple meal, which takes minutes (plus we often have fun while cooking) or we will cook a meal that we will last us 2 or 3 days. So it's really not that much of an issue. And since eating better helps us feeling a lot less tired too, well... we think it's really worth it. The real effort is to be willing to change one's own habits, at least if I can relate to my own experience.
Edit: maybe I should make it clear that the key change, and the very first step anyone should do is to stop eating those ready-made, over-processed and over-packaged shit food that we've learned to consider normal food. Sorry I this sound rude, even more so in the USA I would imagine, but this what I think they're worth (with all their sugar and salt, and conservatives and colorants) and how good I think they're for our health: barely a few weeks after I quite eating that I started getting better. To me, it's the same shit as the cigarettes and if we don't self-destroy in a nuclear holocaust (or ins ome ecological major crisis) before that I have little doubt this industrial food will end being an even worse scandal than tobacco ever was.
- Daily long walks.
- Eat less.
- Eat better. I quit stuffing myself with industrially processed food, best decision ever. Even better than quitting smoking (which I did some 20 years ago). BTW, eating better helps a lot in eating less.
Edit: some improvements made to my (severely) lacking English.
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I barely use my phone (as a phone, no apps, no nothing special installed on it) but up until a couple days ago my answer would have been easy:
The flashlight. I've been using it since there has been one on my smartphone.
Since a couple days ago, since I switched from iPhone to android (Pixel 9a) after having been an iPhone user since 2007, I have a second favorite feature.Not sure about its exact name but it allows Google to block all suspected spam calls. It's not like the 'filter unknown callers' we have on the iPhone since it allows Google to actively filter out whatever Google identifies as spam calling, while letting other unknown numbers reach us. This is great... so far (only one call spam managed to ring my phone), but I will need more time to see how well it really works. If it works as well as it seems to be working, this alone would be a good reason to switch from the iPhone... had I not just done so ;)
Do you think she is able to change her mind? If not, maybe it's not worth trying to refute whatever she can say or think.
I was still a child when I realized my mom and I would never agree on much. At first, I tried hard to force her to understand my point of view on whatever was at stake, not realizing the contradiction between 'understanding' and 'forcing'. I was barely a teen when I realized that contradiction and that it was useless to insist. It mattered even less that back then I knew for a fact I would not be spending my life with her, also I know I could spend time people with whom I felt... more welcomed/understood. Back in the 70s and early 80s, it was simpler for young kid to spend time outside of the house, even with perfect strangers... No idea how hard it has become for kids nowadays but I'm afraid this won't help them find some peace and hope (as a child, my life was more painful within my family than with any of those strangers I met outside and spent as much time as I could with).
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Jpeg offers better (albeit destructive) compression, can store photographic metadata (IPTC and so on). It's also very widely popular.
On my blog, I use neither JPEG or PNG as I want the best compression I can. I use AVIF, even though it's a video file format it works great with still images (it's even better than webp) and it's supported by all modern browsers. Edit: I should point out that I don't share much photos either, I've quit doing photography many, many years ago.
Then you know you need darker. I use HB, 2B or 4B depending if I write (2B, HB) or sketch (4B, sometimes 2B)
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I don't use social media beside the Fediverse (here, on Lemmy), and I don't specifically use it to discover content (even though this can happen), I use it to discuss.
For discovering content, I rely on... blogs where people will take the time to explain why they share the things they want to share with their readers. Meaning they are not publishing just a link to, say, a YT video or some post on another website, but they also write a few words explaining why they it's worth our time to go check it.
A fountain pen, a few books.
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Would you be disappointed if you received money as a Christmas gift (especially in the West)?
I don't know about the UK, but here in France most older people (like myself) would feel it awkward to receive money from someone younger. Christmas, or not. Even more so if it's their child's girl/boyfriend. It doesn't matter how 'lazy' (or not) it could be considered, for many people the age gap is not supposed to work that way. It's the elder who give money to the younger ;)
See with your boyfriend if he can explain the 'no gift' situation to his parents, or maybe ask him to accompany you to quickly buy a little something at a nearby store? Nothing fancy.
What I can also tell you is that both my spouse and I we don't wish to receive any present, from anyone. And if someone was really to insist on making me a gift I'd rather much prefer a very little thing, or much better: a short personalized note or something they would have done themselves, a sketch or even a bouquet of flowers
Is it an expensive subscription? ;)