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mrmaplebar

@ mrmaplebar @fedia.io

Posts
5
Comments
362
Joined
11 mo. ago

  • When someone's telling you something in great detail that you already know about, do you: A) patiently listen and let them finish?

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  • Honestly, it kind of depends how well you know this person and what kind of relationship you have, but I think it's best to take the "Yes, and..." approach.

    If you like or care about this person, then definitely don't rudely interrupt them to shut them down by telling them that you already know what they're saying. Obviously you don't have to pretend like you don't know... But people want to feel like what they're saying matters, so give them the small win of hearing them out, and then affirm them and add something to what they're saying of you can.

    So, here's an example of what you probably shouldn't do:

    A: "So the other day I was watching a video on painting and I found out that if you mix blue and yellow you--"

    B: "Green. You get green. I know that. I know everything about mixing colors. Everybody knows that."

    What would be better in most cases, would probably be something like.

    A: "So the other day I was watching a video on painting and I found out that if you mix blue and yellow you get green. And mixing blue with red will give you purple."

    B: "Yeah, totally! And red and yellow gives your orange, right? And I've heard it's also a good idea to have warm and cool versions of all of the primaries, so that you can get more mixing varieties."

    So, you're both listening and affirming what the other person is saying, and then demonstrating that you know a bit about this too by adding to it. You're not making A feel useless, stupid or unappreciated. You're not making yourself look like a rude jerk or a know-it-all.

    Obviously it depends heavily on who you're talking to and what your relationship is. (Some people who are friends love to talk shit to each other for fun, and in that kind of relationship you probably don't need to be as careful about hurting the other person's feelings.)

    Generally speaking, though, it's good to remember that a conversation isn't just about you exchanging information with another person, and so it's important to consider how other people feel when you talk to them, in my opinion.

  • My brother grew up to become a homicidal freak. Are violent men common in the general population or was our childhood ROYALLY fucked?

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  • If I were you I'd focus almost entirely on getting almost any job and making friends somewhere.

    • Whether we like it or not, in this world, money is our ticket to independence. Whatever you do or wherever you end up going, you're going need some kind of regular income to survive.
    • A job will take up some of your time and get you out of the house and away from these people. Friends will do the same.
    • The cost of living is expensive, and having some kind of friends and roommates who you like and trust is an invaluable asset to living a stable and happy life right now. Even with a decent job it can be hard to afford to live on your own, so having a couple decent roommates makes things a lot easier. Some people (like myself) are lucky enough to have a great family as a support network, but you're going to need to lean into friends. If you have some decent friends online who are interested in maybe being roommates, that might point you in a solid direction of where you can go next.

  • My brother grew up to become a homicidal freak. Are violent men common in the general population or was our childhood ROYALLY fucked?

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  • Your brother and dad sound potentially like psychopaths and/or sociopaths.

    It's one thing to like violence in media, but once you start bringing violence into your life against animals and people, it is a massive red flag that this person is not alright and is potentially very dangerous.

    I think it would be in your best interest to figure out a way to put as much distance as possible between your family and you. That might mean getting a job if you don't have one already, making trustworthy and kind friends in your area who might be willing to be your roommate, putting physical distance between you and them by moving somewhere else, filling your free time with activities outside of the house, and so on.

    (Also, if you can get any pets or animals to a safe place, then I highly recommend doing it as soon as you can.)

    Mom and Dad were authoritarian parents who never gave us comfort or affection. They were very impatient and demanding. Dad would physically and verbally abuse us. Mom would do nothing to intervene. Even when he threw a goddamn toddler across the living room.

    While this isn't normal or right, it's also sadly more common than it should be. So many kids are raised in bad or abusive situations and it's fucking awful.

    I'm sorry that you grew up in such rough circumstances, and I hope that you're able to cope and find peace with it as you grow further into adulthood. You can't really fix your past, but what you can do is work towards creating the future for yourself and for the people that you love that is significantly better than what you were given as a child.

    From a young age I became intensely sexually attracted to receiving nurture and affection. This created far fewer awkward moments than one might think, thanks to the environment I lived in, but it led to paralyzing insecurities later since it was a behavior my parents never exhibited and mainstream pornography didn't showcase it.

    While you're understandably being a little vague about this, it sounds like you're saying you have a kink, right?

    Well, kinks are by definition atypical, right? But as long as they only involve consenting adults engaging in reasonably safe activities, then there is absolutely nothing inherently wrong or unethical about them.

    As someone in the kink space myself, I think that as long as what you're into is consensual, ethical, responsible and legal, then just let your freak flag fly and embrace that side of yourself. (Of course, if your kink is ethically or legally problematic, it goes without saying that you ought to get professional help with that before hurting yourself and others.)

    Kink can be just as core to a person's sexuality as any other preference or orientation, in my view, so there's very little point to fighting against it or letting it drag you down a spiral of shame and self-negativity. Instead, I think the vast majority of kinky people are much better off accepting and embracing their unique interests, meeting other people in that space (for fun, but also just to know that you aren't alone), and enjoying yourself. It's much easier said than done, of course, but it's worth the emotional investment to try.

    There's a lot more to human sexuality than what "mainstream porn" offers, and I promise you that whatever niche thing you're into, you can absolutely 100% find other people who share that interest.

    I believed that nobody would ever like me because I was sensitive and wanted care and was shamed for those things. I struggled with masculine gender roles and felt like I was unwanted by the world. I became suicidal and wanted other people to hurt me.

    I'm so sorry that you've been through all of this emotional turmoil.

    Being a "man" isn't about being tough, violent, angry, driving a big truck or being full of rage... It's about being a good father, husband, boyfriend, son, uncle, mentor, teacher, protector, citizen, etc. You dad and your brother don't know the first fucking thing about it, frankly.

    You really need to put some distance between the bad people in your life and go out and meet some good people, because they do exist. You will absolutely find that there are kind, loving, caring, protective, empathetic, responsible, thoughtful, and just decent people out there.

    Unfortunately, you have to put in some extra effort to find them while getting away from the assholes in your life, but you will find them I promise.

  • Fetterman calls on Trump to fire Noem: ‘Americans have died’

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  • Too little, too late, you fucking caveman.

  • Does anyone have any advice for young adults that are struggling in life?

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  • What do you value in life? What do you want?

    Figure out what you want, and then go for it.

    • If you want to make money, then be determined to focus on a career white-collar that will make you money. Get the education that you need for your career, and then work on the career.
    • If you want to focus on relationships, then spend quality time with people as much as you can, build friendships, find love, start a family, etc. Meet people and do things as often as you can.
    • If you want to be an artist, musician, chef, or any other crafts-person, then find ways maximize the time and energy that you spend on your craft. Start making things now, start hanging out with others who share your passion.
    • If you want to do something meaningful, try to build a life around the idea of helping people, animals, or generally leaving the world a better place than it is toady. Volunteer, get licensed for social work, etc.
    • Only worry about things that you can act on tomorrow. Worrying about things far in the past or future is nothing more than anxiety, and it's not helpful.

    I don't think we can really plan our lives, and even trying to do so is probably a fool's errand because things rarely, if ever, go as planned. (Of course we all need to work and take care of things on a daily basis to make ends meet, and such...) But I think the best thing you can do for yourself during early adulthood is determine what you value most in life and what you want to do with your time on this Earth.

    Likewise, do yourself a favor and internalize the idea that you don't need to do what other people want you to do or live anyone else's dreams. Everyone is going to have their own values and opinions about what you should be chasing in life, but chances are they they are not compatible with your way of thinking.

    I think life is really about attempting to do whatever you want. Think about the Greek philosopher Diogenes and consider that you don't have to do anything at all if you don't want to...

    Once you know what you want to do, then you can simply focus on taking the steps to needed to do that thing.

  • What are some alternatives to US bonds, stocks and ETFs?

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    • I would assume that your country has some kind of bond or stock market.
    • Investing in yourself by furthering your education, training, buying things of long-term value for yourself, or investing into some kind of business for yourself.
    • Buying equity in a local small business.
    • CD (Certificates of Deposit), especially those with a credit union that has a mandate to work within the local community.
    • Real Estate
    • Crowdfunding
    • Like it or not... decentralized cryptocurrencies...

    It should go without saying that you should try to fully understand the risk:benefit trade-off of all of these things before investing a lot of money into them.

  • ‘Completely lost his mind’: Trump's 'deranged' letter sends shockwaves across the globe

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  • And still... nobody in America (including the two supposedly coequal branches of government) will actually do anything about it.

  • [meta] pls stop banning people

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  • What?? I hope the reason people are being banned is a little bit less stupid than whatever this is...

  • Are Trump's supporters getting what they want from his second term? Here's what a new poll shows

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  • I don't care if Trump voters are getting what they want or not. I'm waiting for the day they get what they deserve.

  • ‘My god’: DOJ’s latest effort to block release of Epstein files leaves onlookers floored

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  • Tell me... Did your sense of humor also mysteriously "commit suicide" in prison? 🤔

  • ‘My god’: DOJ’s latest effort to block release of Epstein files leaves onlookers floored

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  • Listen, this is a minor issue, relatively speaking...

    But as someone who just spent like $130 on fucking printer ink, I'm curious how much printing out all of those reactions would cost.

  • Would it be realistic to try to set up an america-free instance?

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  • I mean, you can make whatever you want. And I get it, to quote The Clash, I'm pretty bored of the USA too.

    Of course, an IP block isn't going to work because an American like myself can just use a VPN in another country to get around it. And yes, the moment you start federating with other instances you're going to come across American stuff again, so unless you isolate your instance (which you could do... but then people are unlikely to join it) you're gonna have to deal with Americans.

    With that said, I actually think it's a great idea for people to make regional fediverse servers, not necessarily to block out Americans in an attempt at digital nationalism/isolationalism... But to make sure that the infrastructure of the internet is not so America-centric, and to make it so that there is always a place to talk about local issues and events that matter to you, in your native language.

    Even as an American, I feel that right now the internet is far too reliant on American infrastructure, services and communities.

    I'd love to see, for example, Japanese lemmy server, an Italian mastodon server, a German peertube server, a Brazilian pixelfed server, a Canadian misskey server, and so on.

    I just think that banning Americans and American topics is probably not an effective way to do it, particularly because there are lessons to be learned for us all about what is going on here right now.

  • What do you wish you'd have known before you started your hobby(s)?

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  • Maybe!

    Or it's possible they didn't like me saying that you can play with a band in just a few weeks of practice. Even though I think you definitely can if you focus on rhythm and moving roots or power chords around.

  • What do you wish you'd have known before you started your hobby(s)?

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  • For guitar and bass:

    • The mostly ortholinear grid relationship between frets and strings mean that you can think a lot about "shapes", or positions of notes relative to other notes. Unless open strings are involved, sliding any shape up and down the next gives you the same quality of chord or scale just shifted up and down in pitch/key. (Not all instruments have such an intuitive layout!)
    • You don't need to memorize the note names (C, C#, D, Eb, etc.) of every fret on the fretboard! It's essential to learn the names of the open strings first, so that you can tune your guitar using a tuner. But did you know that the notes at the 12th fret (often marked with double dot inlays) are the exact same notes 1 octave higher? This means that everything above the 12th fret is an exact copy of everything on the lower half of the fretboard (cutting the task of memorization in HALF)! Similarly, because the lowest and highest string are both tuned to "E" in standard tuning, they have the same notes all the way up and down the neck (that's another 7.5% of the task eliminated). Finally, I recommend starting to memorize the note names strategically, starting with only the inlay/dot frets (3, 5, 7, and 9) on the 2 fattest/lowest strings (E and A string). Once you've memorized these key "landmarks" on the lowest/fattest strings, you can use logic to deduce the other notes pretty quickly! (What's the note between A and B? Bb! Between C and D? C#)
    • Finally, learning 2 note intervals will eventually be your best friend. Not only can you use octaves to make deducing note names easier while memorizing the fretboard, but you can also play octaves to enhance all kinds of music from punk to jazz. A perfect 5 interval is the heart of the "power chord". And knowing intervals will help you do everything from reading sheet music to writing interesting guitar parts in all genres.
    • The huge number of popular rock music that you hear can be played with 2 or 3 note "power chords" alone. This is important because it means that you can become proficient enough to play rhythm guitar parts with a band in a matter of weeks of solid practice! All you have to do is memorize the note landmarks on the lower strings, be able to build a power chord on the appropriate note, and strum it in time with the music! Whether it's guitar or bass, you don't need to be an expert to start playing or writing songs.
    • When you eventually learn your first scale, try to learn it in 2 positions on the neck. For example, if you learn E-minor pentatonic, learn it starting from the 6th string at the 0 fret (which is the same as the 12th fret, remember!) AND learn it starting from the 5th string at the 7th fret. This may seem harder at first, but over time you will learn how to connect these scale shapes with intermediate shapes, and you'll unlock the entire fretboard for soloing!
    • On a right-handed guitar, your right hand can be mostly thought of as a rhythm instrument, just whacking away at strings like a drummer whacks at their drums. Whether you hit all the strings, some of them, or just 1 string at a time, the rhythmic aspect is what matters most. It takes practice to become fluent here, but looseness and fluidity is key. Eventually you can incorporate other techniques to change the timbre of the rhythms being played, but remember to keep the rhythm going in constant movement. (On a left-handed guitar or bass, this would apply to your left hand.)

  • Anyone else about ready to give up on tech?

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  • Not really, no. In fact, I feel that free and open source tech is the only means we have of fighting back against big tech corporations and technofeudalism.

    I think about the fact that I can use tailscale (or headscale, or even a DIY wireguard mesh network) to create a WAN that allows me to log into my home server and access an entire collection of music, shows, games, utilities and projects that I care about from anywhere in the world and I realize that I actually don't have much use for the "world wide web" anymore outside of work, shopping and social media.

    Corporate social media, I should add, is becoming increasingly useless as it fills up with more bots, slop, and unhinged people, making the importance of the fediverse and self-hostable FOSS alternatives that much more important. While it's not always easy to get people to move away from corporate social media, the first step towards a more healthy future for society is, at least, the existence of an alternative.

    The web itself is poisoned.

    Why do you need "the web" at all? What websites and services are you using on a daily basis?

    For me it's mostly the fediverse, a little bit of browsing reddit (i no longer comment or participate), github/gitlab, youtube, youtube music, twitch, amazon and the occasional other online store.

    I have a script running on my PC which "backs up" all of my favorite youtube videos and music. I clone interesting repos to my home gitlab. I'm weaning myself off of reddit more and more all the time. I use the *arrs to through a VPN to get access to shows that I want to watch. I play some online games, but mainly ones that work peer-to-peer or have self-hostable servers. Unlike most people, I have basically zero subscriptions.

    Reddit is already garbage and gets full of more and more AI slop every day (i really only continue to check it out of addiction/habit, and only to read from a bigger pool of comments when some fucked up shit happens). The minute youtube becomes useless to me for discovering or acquiring new media, I'll be done with it. I only check twitch for the network effect of the few small streamers that I like there, and usually only once a day.

    I don't find that I need a lot from the corporate internet anymore.

    Browsers are turning into tracking engines.

    The great thing about FOSS is that there will always be someone who rips out the AI slop and tracking shit, even if that person ends up being you.

    Sites rely on manipulation and dark patterns. Social media is full of misinformation and ragebait.

    Stop going to those sites.

    It feels exhausting to route around a web that’s already been captured.

    The part I don't understand is why you feel that the problems of the WWW are at all relevant to your WAN?

    So Facebook, Reddit and Youtube are a disaster... but what implication does that have on your private technology stack?

    Why not trade the illusion of digital control for actual peace, get a dumb phone, a CD player, and check out books, movies, music, and games from the library as my entertainment?

    Sure why not? Nothing wrong with that...

    But why not also take those things from the library, rip them into a digital format, and store them on your server?

    The "internet" is certainly in a death spiral. But I'll be fine because I understand that technology isn't the enemy, large corporations are. FOSS technology belongs to the people and we can wield it for our own benefit without any corporate or government gatekeepers other than our ISP (and maybe not even them...).

  • Digg launches its new Reddit rival to the public

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  • This has all the markings of more VC AI garbage. Hopefully it does pull some users away from Reddit just to break up the centralization a little bit more, but overall I don't see what the appeal is supposed to be.

    I'll stick with the fediverse.

  • Digg launches its new Reddit rival to the public

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  • Where they are... even more dead?

  • Bandcamp bans purely AI-generated music from its platform

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  • Good.

    And sure... People will obviously try to break this rule, and I'm sure some will succeed. But that's true of any rule. Rules don't prevent bad behavior, only deter it.

  • Do we need more users ?

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  • I don't disagree that we need more positive and high quality hobby content. Sure.

    But personally I'm so sick of dudes complaining about "political shit and rage bait and virtue signaling", whatever half of that banal nonsense is even supposed to mean...

    In fact, I'd go as far to say that people who whine about everything being "political" is a bright fucking red flag to me. My immediate assumption upon reading that is "this person is a Trump supporter who voted for this exact shit to happen because they want it to happen, and they don't want to be confronted by the fact that other people don't." I know exactly what kind of people don't want to hear about "politics" anymore now that Trump is elected, trampling our institutions, and fucking everything up. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, right?

  • UK government starting to think about leaving X

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  • Starting to think, huh?