I remember wanting to be a forum mod when I was like 15 and thought that it would make me cool on the forum. As a grown adult… no way. I am so busy between work, grad school, and my personal life, I have no time for such silliness. I have a lot of respect for mods that donate their own time to run communities.

As someone with a background in linguistics, my jimmies are indeed rustled.

My last Ford was a Focus with the dual clutch transmission, it was a complete fucking lemon (to the point where they were successfully sued over it and have done multiple recalls to fix it). I can excuse an automaker for the occasional shit car if their overall lineup is good and they’re honest with customers, but they knew the transmission was majorly flawed and continued to manufacturer vehicles that used it anyway. I’ve had it refuse to shift while I was driving on the highway before, which left me redlining at maybe 45 MPH. Dangerous and it could have gotten someone killed. I will never buy another Ford.

https://www.freep.com/in-depth/money/cars/ford/2019/07/11/ford-focus-fiesta-transmission-defect/1671198001/

Socialism!!! 🤮🤮🤮🤯🤯🤯🤢🤢😷🤒

Think of the shareholders!!!

Probably not a popular view here but I’ve found my hobbies more fulfilling since I started doing stuff other than gaming. Native plant/food gardening, reading books, working out… all of this stuff can be affected by capitalism too of course but I’m less beholden to it. I still game a bit now and then but much less than I used to.

AI-generated articles, books, coloring books for example, are all a thing now. Behind the Bastards did a podcast episode on the latter two.

Remote workers are overall more productive, report a better work-life balance, and suffer less from occupational burnout. It also saves companies money because they don’t have to spend as much on office space.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/intentional-insights/202303/the-surprising-truth-about-remote-work-productivity

My time is the most precious commodity I have. Unfortunately I’m in a career where I can’t work remotely, but if I was I would refuse to go back to the office. Life is too precious to waste it sitting in traffic if you don’t have to.

I’m a student teacher right now in elementary! I try to get my kids to think critically whenever I can. I hear kids talk about insane shit they saw/heard on tiktok (I got into an argument with a student who thought Slenderman was 100% real because of something they saw on tiktok) and I try to really get them to think and actually justify why they believe things.

This is a great example of why it’s so important to emphasize teaching critical thinking in school right now. Misinformation and disinformation is just going to continue to grow.

I have an e-reader as well as a phone, tablet, and paper books and honestly I still prefer my phone over anything else. With my phone it’s easier to look up words/concepts I don’t know if I want more than a simple definition of the word. Sometimes I will use the e-reader with my phone next to me for when I want to look something up. These days I would say paper books are my least favorite medium though. Big, bulky, and it’s more work to read them in the dark.

I have very little faith in businesses to do the right thing for the right reasons. Publicly traded companies in the US literally can’t do that legally if they think it will hurt their bottom line.

People have entire careers devoted to advertising. It is a huge, profitable field that has tons of money and research behind it. Everyone is vulnerable to the influence of advertising.

https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/how-often-do-happiest-couples-have-sex-it-s-less-ncna828491

Once a week or so is the average. I’m at about the same amount of time in a relationship as you and we’re about once a week. Personally I feel like sex is nice but it takes time and effort and I’m not always in the mood to spend time pleasing someone else (and I’m not going to initiate unless I’m willing to do that). I could see myself having sex a little bit more often if I had a better work-life balance where I felt less pressed for time. This gets me thinking that I should check in with my partner about this topic though!