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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 28th, 2023

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  • Eh, users can still learn a little, and fiddle with their personal stuff. My little “corebooted Chromebook running Q4OS Linux looking like Windows XP, with background from Apple and the start menu labeled as Finder” brings me joy every time I use it. It was and is pure fun.

    And the great thing about enthusiastic devs is that they tend to be happy to spread the joy of their own personal projects and help, unless they get overwhelmed by help requests.



  • As a woman who’s been that down: IMHO you can just empathize, but admit you don’t have the capacity to deal with her needs. That you wish her well, but for your own mental health, you can’t be her rock. She may well know she has trust and relationship issues, and is telling you for the very reason that she wants you to walk away now if you can’t cope, rather than break her heart later.

    Of course it’s also possible she’s has a personality disorder, rather than “just” depression, anxiety and trauma. So don’t let yourself be guilted back.

    In any case, for both your sakes, and I hope this does not need saying: No sex.

    Edit: Based on your responses you’re barely acquaintances. No action necessary, just let it drop.



  • You clearly stated you didn’t want to have someone comb through you papers and argue, and their value as evidence is obvious to anyone who bothers to take a look, so the reaction of “nothing will come out of continuing this conversation” is quite understandable. I returned to say thank you for posting sources, but since you seem to take this as some kind of “stunned them to silence”…

    The first two sources apparently refer to the same study; Okami 1995 is mostly literature review, methods, and intermediary results, while Okami 1998 is the final results.

    Okami 1995: “Consistent with the cross-sectional retrospective literature (and with our expectations), no harmful main effects of these experiences were found at age 17-18. […] Taken as a whole then, effects are few, but generally beneficial in nature.”

    Okami 1998: “No harmful “main effect” correlates of the predictor variables were found.”

    So I fail to see how they’d support your point.

    The last one, the Yahoo article, is not a study nor does it refer to any.

    Okami 1998 also had a link to Lewis 1988, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3421828/: “The results suggest that childhood experiences with exposure to nudity and sleeping in the parental bed are not adversely related to adult sexual functioning and adjustment. In fact, there is modest support that these childhood experiences are positively related to indices of adjustment.”

    Recognition of pre-existing bias: I’m Finnish, and this felt like an attack on family saunas.




  • Ditto. My partner and I are well into our 40s, mortgage paid off, etc. Childfree. Living in a one-story attached house in a sort of suburbs, 20 minutes to city center by bike or bus. So, not a city apartment, and could have a decent car if we wanted to.

    I never even bothered with getting a license, do not want to be responsible for a tonne+ murder machine.

    We rent a car twice a year to visit relatives in the countryside, often one or two times more if there’s a family event or other need. I take a taxi sometimes to go to the vet. Otherwise it’s cycling (very bicycle-friendly city) or public transportation (also well arranged), and train & public transportation for other national travel. Transporting furniture is sometimes a hassle, but how often does one need to do that? Way more carefree and cheaper than owning a car.




  • Hate is such a strong word. Some bad, some good.

    Bad:

    • Copyright infringement and other unethical practices in acquiring training data
    • Unimaginative AI art flooding the graphics market and the Internet
    • Taking work from actual artists that might generate something new
    • So much energy used on pointless, quickly forgotten “single-use art” in the middle of a climate crisis

    Good:

    • Okay starting point for logos for eg. small associations or clubs, preferably treated as version 0.1 and later worked on, but still an affordable option, and more personalised than clipart
    • Creative visual outlet for people with no interest in developing their graphical skills, but who have an urge to get a small number of specific images out of their system
    • Probably a good media for some commentary on the relationship between real a unreal, familiar and alien cognition, and such, but that itself is such a cliche
    • Simply a fun toy





  • Why do anything? Every goal is a value choice. Pleasure? Money? Leaving a legacy in children or added knowledge or whatever? Learning? Improving your community? Improving the world in general? Raging against the absurd?

    If self-centered hedonism is the way you want to spend your brief meaningless time in this meaningless world, go for it! Just go for it with the same full knowledge of its pointlessness and your mortality as you would anything else.


  • In a defensive war against an equal or more powerful enemy, everyone is needed to do the part the military organisation needs them to. For many it’s their civilian job, for the rest it’s whatever’s needed, including the front lines (after training, well-equipped and well-led). War’s ugly.

    I’d be highly sceptical of any beatings occurring. Common sense suggests that an unwilling soldier you got to the front that way would likely bring more harm to the morale of their fellow troopmates, than benefit through their own efforts.