I was an active redditor for 15 years. I don't miss the platform, because kbin and Lemmy are far superior, but I do miss the volume of subreddits and activity. Maybe we will never have that here, but I'm not going back to that shithole.
Same for me, i was part of many smaller subreddits that had nothing to do with tech and i think most used the reddit app. They still haven't moved and I don't think they will. They simply don't care(bc they didn't yse 3th party apps)
This was discussed a while ago; here's what Ernest said about it:
With additional tools for moderators, a system for taking over abandoned magazines will be created. I want to automate this, but it will take some time. I am in the process of finalizing the last formalities. I will soon post a status update.
I'm in the "Use em if you wanna as they can easily accentuate points you try to make, and can help with understanding tone, but if you put more than like...3-4 max in 1 comment you should probably rethink your life" camp.
@GeekFTW@Ragnell I wish I had the link handy… this is referencing the person who asked ChatGPT to write an article about why Tetris is racist right? And the article is unsurprisingly terrible. I think all in response to Kotaku moving toward AI journalism.
I only had occasional luck with this even on Reddit. Some smaller subs for hobby stuff had genuinely good advice, but a lot of times it'd just be people repeating the same brands and products with a shallow recommendation. And there was a lot of astroturfing. Over the years I've learned to ask elsewhere:
For major appliances, the best approach I've found is to find a local business – a well reputed one that's been around for years, and does service as well as sales – and simply ask the salespeople what they recommend. If the shop's willing to warranty it, it's probably good enough.
For gadgets I tend to start looking at recognizable review sites that are easy to skim (RTINGS is especially useful, but Ars, The Verge etc. all have decent reviews) and then expand out to YouTube for the products I'm most interested in. Sometimes it's a good idea to look up the company itself for anything that might change your mind about them (Western Digital's unlabeled change to SMR drives is a recent example).
Shoes and clothes are the hardest thing to get good advice on. The most useful advice I've received has been very general stuff about what to look for in fit and quality. I've also found that high ethical standards from a clothing company tends to go hand in hand with quality and longevity.
Cars are an area where Reddit was still helpful. YouTube can be helpful here, but not so much typical car review channels: the most helpful YouTube videos are often from people who've owned a particular model for a year or so and can speak with experience about its quirks.
Finally, and most of all, I've learned to check the instinct to look up reviews. It's worth spending some time to research stuff between you and the ground, or that you'll use daily, but I've wasted too many hours comparing details that really don't matter. Make sure it's something you legitimately care about before you reach for other people's opinions.
Be careful on that appliance recommendation strategy. Even small businesses salespeople receive kickbacks from manufacturers. And pretty much every service plan from a store these days is underwritten by someone like Assurant.
If you can get in touch with either someone in customer service or a repair tech then you'll get the best info.
Customer service generally has the incentives in the right place. If they tell you something isn't returned often then that means they don't have to deal with you coming back and complaining for no monetary benefit to themselves.
There's also lots of channels on YouTube from small appliance repair companies and they're more than willing to tell you who sucks.
I am fine with them, especially since they can be used to indicate the tone of a comment that would otherwise be difficult to discern. However, when you do that every other word as emoji thing (like the various copypasta that go around) or you put hand claps after every word, then I will hate you for the rest of my life and haunt you from the grave.
There's always the remarkable story of Rasputin's death. He was an advisor to Nicholas II of Russia, and refused to die after being poisoned, shot, and beat.
"The would-be killers first gave the monk food and wine laced with cyanide, however, when Rasputin seemingly failed to respond to the poison, they shot him at close range and left him for dead. In spite of these murderous measures, Rasputin revived shortly thereafter and made an attempt to flee the palace grounds, only to be intercepted by his assailants who shot him again and viciously beat him. They then bound Rasputin, who was remarkably still alive, and threw him into the freezing Neva River. His battered body was found several days later and it was reported that there was water in his lungs, indicating that he finally died by drowning."
Shackleton's journey by open lifeboat from Elephant Island to South Georgia was in itself pretty astonishing. Captain Frank Worsley navigated using iirc a couple of pencils and a rubber band, and only caught a few glimpses of the sun to help his calculations. They landed on the wrong side of the island and had to climb a mountain pass to get to the whaling station. At the top of the pass they decided, what the hell, and slid down on their backsides. This didn't kill them, phew, but it did shred their trousers, so at the bottom they carefully safety-pinned the bits together, "in case there are ladies".
I recently became fascinated by the Shackleton story--it's really amazing. I can't add much, besides "yes, read up on it!", but here is a cool, relevant song with beautiful lyrics that captures the adventure aspect really well.
comes between that and William Bligh of the bounty. following mutiny his small crew was cast adrift 35 miles to the south of Tofua near the Kingdom of Tonga in a 23ft open keel-less boat. They were able to safely navigate across 4000 miles of open ocean to Kupang, Timor
With regard to Rasputin, the story of his death may have been exaggerated by the people who did it, in an attempt to convince the Czar that Rasputin was some kind of supernatural evil. The Czar really liked Rasputin, and the people who killed him (people whose wives Rasputin had likely bedded) wanted to avoid repercussions.
I read that the rasputin thing was probably made up by the people that killed him to convince the Tzar that he was a demon. He was fucking all their wives and embarrassing them. Unfortunately, the tzar and his wife were convinced he was curing their son with some kind weird ass spirituality nonsense. Truth is, what was keeping the kid alive was not letting him go to the horrible doctors of the time.
Kidney stones. I’ve passed three of them and the last time my wife called an ambulance because I couldn’t get off the floor. Think I’ll go drink some water…
I've had two kids, both ending in emergency c-sections after many hours of painful labour.
A few months after my second was born I got kidney stones. And that pain completely erased any conception of pain I had up to that point. Paralyzing, terrifying, unrelenting. It fucking sucks.
Oh good. So I wasn't overly dramatic as I broke down to the floor, crawled to the toilet and threw up from the pain when I had one? That had to be the worst physical pain of my life. Hope I never feel this again.
No. Literally everyone I talked to in the hospital when I was in for my few all said the same thing, it'll take even the biggest, baddest, meanest guy out there to his knees in tears. Until someone has experienced one themselves, it's impossible to describe, but I understand EXACTLY what you went through. I have no shame in admitting I cried. I'm pretty good with pain, I'm the weirdo who literally enjoys the feeling of being tattooed.
I had bad effects of them for several years. My dad did too at similar age. The consultants thought they could pass by themselves as small enough but got stuck in ureter and had to be pulled out. Ive had two years free of them since then but every now and then get warning signs.
I don't think mine were as bad as some people, I was never floored to the ground but have witnessed others curled up on floor with them. Having said that it's still the worst pain I've had and it was not just the pain it was that there was no relief, it was just constant wave after wave of it with no let up, no position to move or lie in to make it stop. It turned my stomach.
The day I had them take out, peeing afterwards was a horrible burning and stinging blood filled tomato soup of a thing that went on for a couple days as healed but despite that I was delighted that the real pain was gone.
Is there any real solution to not get them again? I just try to drink lots of water, watch weight, and keep eye on salt intake. I've heard fizzy drinks and cola are bad but despite seeing a number of doctors I never got any other advise outside of the above. I had hoped they would test the stone so would know it's make up they took out but they lost it!
I still live in fear of them and sadly suspect I will get them again.
Same with me. I felt ill overnight, and if I sipped a tiny bit of water, I would throw it up moments later, still cold. I tried to ride it out until morning, but the pain was so severe I had my wife take me to the ER.
I was embarrassed at how much I was vocalizing at the ER, but it was like nothing else I've ever been through. I've broken off almost a whole toenail, and that was nothing.
Same. I had my first one when I was in another country (fortunately, my wife was from said country and I was covered under her insurance, 'merica!). I thought I had to pee really bad, and the feeling never went away. And within minutes I was on the floor in a ball with tears in my eyes. Because of the way military insurance worked, we had to get approval from the post doctor, who originally told us it'd pass. He called back within minutes and said "yeah no, that's an emergency, get to the hospital now."
That was the day I learned how people get addicted to Vicodin (I didn't, I just realized how great they felt).
Anyway, I've had 12 more since, that I know of. Lots of people form stones that cause no pain. I've had surgery for 4 of them, the rest I just took meds to help pass them faster.
Actually passing the stone from your bladder to cursed "birth" is the easy part, I always say. It's over in a second. The problem ones are when they get stuck in the ureter. One of mine actually got me bumped ahead of a guy having a heart attack. Not sure how that worked. Another one resulted in an infection around a stent, which then likes to move, and feels like a mega-kidney-stone. From what I understand, the doctor who saw me that day was going to escalate because of the total lack of medication they sent me home with (nothing for infection, and a handful of Tylenol 3. For reference, it took 10mg of morphine to effectively manage the pain).
Anyway yeah, kidney stones are literally the worst. My aunt has had 4 kids, and gets stones like I do, and has said repeatedly that she'd rather have more kids. That's pretty damning.
It really is amazing. Was able to scrape a LOT of gorilla tape (it's like FlexTape) residue off of a painted surface using a few applications of goo gone, and an improvised plastic squeegee last weekend. No scratches on the paint, and no more than about 2 minutes of effort on my part.
The only time it's disappointed me was when I was trying to use it -- among a variety of other substances -- to deal with something other than sticker goo.
A few years back, a bunch of electronic devices were sold in the US that used some sort of rubberized coating that gave them a nice grippy feeling. Unfortunately, it turns out that after a couple of years, the coating degraded and turned into an incredibly sticky mess. I had a Grundig G6 Aviator shortwave radio that was affected, as well as a few other devices. It felt a bit like sticker adhesive, but trying to clean the stuff off with Goo Gone didn't work well (ultimately, isopropyl alcohol and a lot of elbow grease wound up being my most-successful combination).
But for what it is actually billed for, adhesive residue, I've had good experiences.
Note that Goo Gone, or at least the variant I have, has a quite-strong citrus smell, which I assume is there to mask some less-pleasant smell that the active ingredients have. So when I use the stuff, everything nearby smells like oranges for a while. Haven't had a situation where that's a problem yet, but thought I'd mention it in case it would be an issue for anyone else using it.
If it's a rubberized coating on new devices, it may be a similar formula that doesn't have the degradation problem. I haven't personally had any devices do that in several years (not saying that there aren't products that do, mind).
And I remember that when the coating was new, before it broke down into a horrible sticky mess in a few years after purchase, it did feel pretty good to me. And it seemed pretty durable -- like, it didn't wear through or anything.
Just that when the Stickyocalypse did happen, it was awful.
I remember reading on Reddit once that people who bought a variety of dress shoes with a particular type of substance used in their soft soles had something similar happen. For a few years, many types of shoes from different manufacturers would break down and degrade in the closet. You take them out after a couple years, and they just crumbled apart. Wasn't a sticky mess, but I bet that people who rarely wore those shoes were pretty irked.
I wipe sitting. I think most people probably do. Standing up will push your arse cheeks together, so the poo inside the crack will just smear everywhere.
As for bidets, I don't use them. They're very rare in my country. I just wipe with toilet paper. I try to get my arse as clean as possible with the toilet paper, so I wipe multiple times.
Thank you for reading my post about my pooing habits.
Rare or not, get a bidet for home. It's like $25 US for a basic model, and you will never go back. I feel like an absolute savage when I can't use a bidet now. My best argument is this: Imagine if you fell into a pile of manure. Would you just get some dry paper towel and wipe yourself off and call it good?
If your answer is anything other than no, I don't have a rebuttal, but you do you.
In answer to the question, I still wipe the water away sitting down. Standing up doesn't make any sense as you essentially make a shit sandwich with your cheeks... and even though I'm clean down there now - I learned that way and don't plan on changing.
I used a $30 bidet for about 6 years. It's has always been amazing. We finally redid our bathroom so I went with a deluxe heated seat, heated water, blow dryer, etc. Gat damn is it wonderful, but it will spoil you. Makes pooping anywhere else dreadful. I'm trying to solve this by gifting my friends bidets for Christmas. So far it's working.
I know exactly what you mean. People are too embarrassed to talk about this basic truth truth: if I go back to somebody's house on a date and they don't have a bidet, I'm not going to do butt stuff with them.
I love my bidet, but I can't get anyone else on board. How do you get people comfortable with sharing one? I've attempted to get my sisters to try mine, but they both think a bidet is like a personal item and gross to share.
Wow, bidets for $30? It can be $1k to $3k cad just for the bowl here. It's like $500 and up just for the seats! That doesn't account for the other bits and bobs you need to get it all installed.
They are bolt on seats only, not a full toilet style bidet. You can see a bunch of them here on amazon. tushy ones seem to be pretty popular over on the place that will not be named. They are low on frills (like no heated water typically).
Personally, I splurged for a Kohler with all the bells and whistles (definitely wasn't $30). OMG it's hands down the greatest thing I have ever bought. Heated seat, air dry, heated water, amongst other things.
I think the price difference is between electric and not electric. the electric ones are pricier. The ones that don't use electricity are much cheaper. These kits don't come with a seat or a bowl and use your existing toilet.
Lol if I fell in manure I wouldn't just take the hose and wash it off, then paper towel dry either. There would definitely be LOTS of saop involved. Just saying.
I'm in total agreement though. Got a nice bidet seat and it's hands down the best thing ever. I hate using bathrooms in the wild, at all, because they lack the heated seat my bidet has, in addition to the lack of the bidet part.
/kbin just has better algorithms. It's why I switched from Lemmy. I have the exact same set of subscriptions on both ends, but my subscription feed on /kbin just felt way more balanced.
Only issue I've noticed is that /kbin doesn't seem to respect pinned posts in Lemmy communities.
I'm okay with giving it a once every two years run, that's enough to forget it enough to enjoy it all over. Leviathan is easily the best dlc made for any game, imo. Witcher e's blood and wine being a close second.
Walking around the Citadel in Mass Effect 1 is one of my favorite gaming memories. It felt like I really was free to explore a giant space city. It felt so massive and open.
Mass Effect is the only game I ever played where I read -every single entry- of lore in the encyclopedia. First game with achievements I did 100% on as well. I built my own Normandy models, even... both of the SR-1 and -2.
I hope ME4 is a return to form when it releases. I also hope the TV series I've heard about treats the franchise well... The story would do well as a prestige title IMO so I'll be super bummed if they don't do it justice.
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