Little bit of everything!

Avid Swiftie (come join us at !taylorswift@poptalk.scrubbles.tech )

Gaming (Mass Effect, Witcher, and too much Satisfactory)

Sci-fi

I live for 90s TV sitcoms

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 2nd, 2023

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  • This is a very nuanced question, because art isn’t always about skill.

    I remember I was one of those guys who thought modern art was stupid. My family took me to MoMA and I remember I was looking at a painting of a red square. It was a large 2 foot by 2 foot red square. I remember saying “but anyone could do this” to my aunt. She replied:

    But nobody else did.

    Stopped in my tracks and it clicked. The fact that they had done it, and we were there talking about it and discussing it, that right there proved it was art.

    So it’s not just quality. I’m sure AI could spot out 1000 red squares, and some would consider that low effort, but no one would ever discuss them.




  • It helps me to remember that informed voters 50-70 years ago were people who read the papers. Not even regularly, just those who knew what was going on in the world on a regular basis. It is not normal or healthy to have a constant barrage of news and input - and more than that it’s not wrong to take a break from it. I had to learn that the hard way, that it’s okay to take a break, it doesn’t make you a bad person, that online is making you anxious. I folded in on myself, I had panic attacks, I couldn’t function - and I got help. That help helped me realize that I don’t have to shoulder this alone, I do not have to keep watching and listening. I’m informed, I know what’s going on, I know what happened today - but that doesn’t mean I’m going to turn my filters off either.






  • I use it for parsing through legalese or terms and conditions. IT IS NOT PERFECT. I wouldn’t trust it ever over a lawyer. But it’s great for things like “Is there anything here that is extra unusual or weirdly anti-consumer or very bad for privacy?”. I think it’s great for that.

    People here are just “it will take jobs it’s inherently evil”. They said the same about Photoshop, and computers before. I think there are evil uses for it sure, but that doesn’t mean that it has no valid usages







  • Okay no one has said this, but feel you. When I was younger I was so happy my family thought I was smart and leaned into it. It’s great, they want something installed, they want advice, it works. Then they get greedy, they stop respecting my time, I get chastised for not answering my phone because they HAVE to get into their email RIGHT NOW.

    So, if you’re feeling all of this, it may be time to start setting boundaries. Some helpful things:

    Mom, if you want to ask for my help then you can’t just undo my help right after I leave. If you want my help, you will use what I set up, you will use this password manager and you will put in the effort to learn it. I offer these services for free, Geek Squad would charge you $200 for this service alone. If you can’t do it that’s fine, but then you can go to them for help.

    I understand that it’s not working right now but I’m not a 24/7 service. I can help you in <reasonable time frame>.

    At some point some older people just stop trying to learn anything new. I also worked geek squad, which is where I saw this first hand. Some very very basic problem solving and just the will to learn something new will take them 90% of the way, but most have lost those basic skills. For those, well, politely you have to tell them that they have to rely on others, and that’s why geek squad exists.

    A lot of geeks laugh at the $200 price tag. That’s ridiculous! I could do that in 10 minutes! Correct! The fix is usually the easiest part of the job. That’s why there’s only 1 or 2 actual repair techs per best buy, but 10 or more desk agents who just sit and listen to the elderly talk about how much they hate computers and refuse to learn it.


  • We’ve all seen the “I’m very smart” people who come to social media, use random vocabulary vomit because they want to sound smart, and it happens here a lot. I agree with you, that’s great if you can, and I won’t say you “have to dumb yourself down”, but often they do it to sound smart and want to feel superior because they think most people understand.

    Actually a lot of people do understand them, they’re just eye rolling at how pretentious they’re being.

    There’s a balance. After all why use many word when some word do trick?