I’ll start. Not to toot my own horn but I feel I’m at least partially responsible for getting a friend to see the value of romantic love, which she managed to find!
My current girlfriend and my most recent ex talk and talked, respectively, about me changing their ideas on dating and how men should treat them.
My ex and I ended because of some things she was going through and she decided to break things off with me because of that; stuff impacting her life that had no bearing on me as a person.
But she would tell me about guys who would use her for easy, quick sex. She was obviously looking for love and they were looking for a quick fuck. She said that spending time with me and us dating made her feel valued and respected. She didn’t go on real dates with these other guys, she didn’t have them do things like hold the door open for her or other gentlemany things I had done. Honestly, I told her it was the bare minimum to do while on a date, and she should expect more for herself.
Not that she should be snotty and be entitled in the wrong ways, but don’t be afraid to tell some horny freak to fuck off once in a while. It’s not like you’re always horny and ready to fuck, why should it always be when he wants it? Why don’t you get some of the basic things you want too like being taken out for dinner and a movie and ending the night without always having sex? Why can’t he come around even when you’re unable to have sex, like when you’re on your period, and be able to just take you out for a nice evening? Why can’t you have some of the nice things like being treated like a lady sometimes, especially when you clearly are a respectful lady, yourself?! Why shouldn’t you get gifts and be taken out on a special day like Valentine’s Day? I had gotten her a rose like the one from Beauty and the Beast and she loved it so much, said it was the only time she ever got a gift on a V day and that honestly made me sad but feel good that I could make that day one to remember for her.
It was nice hearing her say those things about me and me getting a chance to show her a little taste of a what a real man can and should do for her. I don’t feel like I did all I could, but I tried and I felt good knowing we ended in terms that were better than others. I used to remind her that her dad, who she loved a great deal but had passed away, would want the best for her and would have fought to make sure only the good guys were in her life and she should do the same for herself.
My current girlfriend and I always talk about this, we just did before I came back from lunch. She told me how she’s not used to being the one to want sex from a man and she would just sort of “give in” when her boyfriends would ask for sex, even if she wasn’t really in the mood, because she felt like that’s just what you do in a relationship. Which, I guess can be true to an extent. A good partner will do things for their partner even if not in the mood but it doesn’t always have to be that way and not for every occasion. I told her that if she ever doesn’t feel like it, it’s fine for me. I have other ways to “please” myself, and they don’t have to involve me cheating either. Her ex husband cheated on her and she felt low self esteem as a result of it, for obvious reasons. But she says how she feels valued and pretty when she’s with me. She always has the most beautiful smile and blushing when I tell her she’s pretty or beautiful and it warms my heart every time. But she really is to me and I sometimes just stop and stare because I’m in awe of how I’m here at this moment and we just shared a kiss and how beautiful she is with her smile after each kiss we take. She’s said other things too that make me feel like I’m doing the right thing here and she’s experiencing romance in a different, but good way.
I don’t consider myself a great, terrific guy, but it always feels nice to hear this from someone else as a sign of reassurance that at least I’m not a scumbag.
It makes me feel good to hear these things, that I was able to help someone feel good and see a better side to dating.
Ask about your goals for getting to the next level. Be prepared to be told that no positions are open or expected to open soon, which is understandable, but your question is regarding goals so you’ll be ready when that time comes.
I already know one of them is going to be certs. So ask which certs does he think are most relevant to your current position and for advancing your career with the company. Those will be what helps you most when it comes time to either getting a promotion or moving elsewhere to another job at another company, which is how most people level up in this industry, unfortunately.
Along with this, ask if they do tuition reimbursement for said certs, where the company will pay either all or some of your costs for getting certs. They honestly should and you should take advantage of it if it is offered.
Ask what areas your boss thinks you can and should improve in and ask for specifics. If he thinks you don’t close enough tickets, ask what the recommended amount should be for you to hit, for example. This will help eliminate vague answers to legitimate questions you have and also help you better realize how you can improve and do better.
You should definitely be asking or getting a raise at your annual review. The cost of living is always increasing with inflation. The below bare minimum of 3% should be standard even though it doesn’t cover increases due to inflation. But there should be a raise in wage. They raise their rates on their customers, it’s not unfair to wonder where your cut is of that raise on the customer too.
Over the course of my time with my current job wheee I have been promoted and received a 20% raise on my first year, I wrote up a letter to my boss explaining why I felt I deserved a substantial raise of 20%. The letter covered my accomplishments over the the year, boasting about my good metrics and lightly comparing myself to my colleagues (you don’t want to bag on them too much because it’s bad taste and creates a hostile work environment, it’s shitty and can hurt them, and you don’t want your boss thinking you’re a haughty person), and also doing an informal average of similar jobs in my area for the same position showing that I was being paid 20% less than the average (implying that I could take my performance with me to any of these jobs and get the raise I’m asking for; I just went on indeed and picked the jobs with wages higher than mine, added them all up and divided them by the number of wages I had picked to get the average salary).
Your intentions are good, but just know that they are also counting who watches the content on their platform and they get the most purest numbers on this new platform since they have created it and manage it more than when it was on network or cable.
Your paid subscription to P+ doesn’t necessarily tell them you want more Star Trek, because you could be someone who forgot to unsubscribe, Halo, NCIS, or anything else.
When I had covid, I did do Instacart so I could get groceries delivered but I never wanted to get produce through it because no one can pick fruits and vegetables quite like you can.
My boomer uncle falls for all that crap. He means well, so I’m not trying to take a dig at him or others like him, they just don’t know better.
But holy fuck did these scumbags find the right avenue to pawn off Chinese junk.
He knows I fly my drones every now and then and he once recommended one of the ones he saw on a YouTube video to me. I know the one he’s talking about.
The commercial makes it out to be like “this is the same drone the US navy uses for their exercises, costing over $2.5 billion in R&D. But now can be yours for only $19.99!”
If your daughter is a smaller child, like under 13 years old, a cheap drone from Alibaba isn’t a horrible choice since kids just want to have some fun flying a thing around the house or in the backyard. And if it does crash and break, it’s not too much to get upset by because it was so cheap and your expectations are lower. You can get these for very cheap, as little as $5 from Chinese websites or $20 on Amazon. I wouldn’t recommend spending anything over $60 for one of these types of toy drones, though. Some don’t have cameras, and others that do will have very poor quality and the camera will be static, meaning you can’t move it around to see other directions while flying.
My beef with the commercials that were tricking my uncle was that they make it out to be that it’s more than a toy, when it’s just a toy. If they advertised it more accurately, I wouldn’t have seen a problem with it. I bought one of those as my first drone but knew it was cheap and just a toy and then gradually bought more as time progressed.
As far as something more complex, it’s a bit more tricky to explain unless you spend some time doing some research and it can get a bit lengthy for me to explain here. I’d recommend checking out reviews and watching some YouTube videos on recommendations to get a familiarity with what may be most suitable here for something more complex than a toy.
But the gist of it is that if you want something a little more high quality, reliable, better camera, better range, etc., then you have a few options. But to summarize: for the typical drones with fancy features and easy to use for beginners, you’ll typically want to go with a name brand like DJI but these can be somewhat pricey, as little as $150 used and sky is the limit brand new, depending on what you want. For most consumers, average pricing will be around $400, more or less for one of these.
Then there is another category which is more classified as quadcopters than drones but still the same basic concept of 4 motors that allow the device to hover and move around and also use a camera. Most of these are very specialized, similar to RC cars and you’ll find these at hobby shops. Most people use these for racing or doing stunts. Used will run you as little as $100 and sky is the limit here depending on what you want, but average for most people is $400. You can buy kits or the quadcopter preassembled and then also buy the battery and remote separately, which is nice, kind of like building a computer where you can take your time and spend money on a longer period of time. Buy the board or even 3D print one, then buy the controller board, the motors, the blades, etc. and assemble it for flying. These don’t usually have the fancy features like flying back home on a single button press or when the battery gets low or tracking capabilities. The cameras are also usually static, in one place and don’t have gimbals which allow the camera to look one side or the other. The batteries also usually only last for under 10 minutes, which doesn’t seem like a lot but usually is enough for a single round and you’ll typically carry multiple batteries to switch out as needed when out and about. But the higher horsepower and camera quality is what is usually eating the battery time.
The one you linked from Amazon seems like a decent one for a child around her age. Not too complicated but you bring up a good point about the smartphone aspect of it that I had forgotten.
You likely would want to avoid any of these that require a smartphone to use especially since they’re coming from China and not something you may be fond of having on your phone. Additionally, and this could go one of two ways, it will require the use of a smartphone to use the drone for her which has a pro and con depending on how you look at it.
Pro that she can’t just up and take the drone out flying on her own whenever she pleases which you may want that control. Con that it will require her to use your phone any time she wants to go along with it.
Additionally, I don’t like this because over time, those apps can be lost to time whether it be it’s no longer available for download or lost to which app you need because you no longer have the manual to know which app was required. But you do have that same thing happening to a physical controller, so it’s up to preference on that.
As to the durability…I actually have to say that for the cheaper toy drones like the way you linked, they often can take quite a beating that my more expensive, more hobby adult drones cannot handle. Most of these cheaper toys are made of plastic but unibody design and most often will have guards around the propellers which can help protect them if bumping into walls or other obstacles like trees. My first cheap toy drone was like this and handled a lot of abuse from my first few flights of learning how to fly.
The more expensive ones can be prone to more breakage, but the trade off is that this is because those pieces were designed to be removed and replaced, so repairability is a thing. Just know that on the one you shared, it doesn’t seem to have prop guards which could be a problem here and you may want to see if you can find one that does have propeller guards so when she inevitably hits a tree or a wall (it will happen), the chances of the propellers being destroyed is much less than with this design where the propellers are exposed.
Which brings me to another point of safety…the more expensive drone propellers can take a finger or at least do some serious damage requiring an ER visit if you were to stick your finger in while the propellers are turning. The toy drones have less of a chance of this but the risk of injury is still there. Having the propeller guards can help to avoid this for children so they’re less likely to be injured in this or similar ways.
The cheaper toys are not designed in the same way. If the propeller gets damaged, then there’s not much hope in getting a replacement, sorry to say.
You could think of it as comparing a life size car on the road to a Power Wheels car made for children. The kids car can withstand hitting a tree at its highest speed whereas an adult car cannot. But if heavily damaged, you can replace and repair much of the adult car but can’t with the child’s Power Wheels car.
As to your last question…Im unsure about open source boards that could handle that, but it’s possible. I do believe that Hollywood movie studios utilize quadcopters that have the capability like you’re describing, where you can control the drone and the camera separately, but not aware of any consumer or open source drones that can do that.
But this hobby is very unique and new things happen every day, so never say never.
I’d have to say Jury Nullification would be one and especially so because mentioning it or admitting that you know of it can get you pulled off an American jury.
It’s the idea that even if a person is brought to trial and is guilty of an action that is legitimately classified as a crime, if you and your fellow jurors disagree, you can still find the plaintiff “not guilty”.
For example: marijuana is illegal on the federal level and some state levels and if someone were in court on charges of possession of marijuana and nothing more, regardless what the law says or how the judge feels, you and your jurors can vote to find this person innocent so they don’t face the legal consequences for possession.
None that I’ve heard of. I believe part of it is the file format of these games that is not your typical .exe or .msi file which further causes issues and there is likely some extra online DRM that gets in the way to further complicate things.
The only method we have is to use GamePass in the cloud through an internet browser.
I don’t think Microsoft will ever truly bring GamePass to Linux or macOS because it’s just one more thing that keeps Windows on top of the market share.
I have seen that. There is a locked folder containing encrypted folders on the root of whatever storage device you install Windows apps/games to from the Microsoft Store.
I’ve been using this on my Quest 2 and it is so very needed. I hated having to use Oculus’ software to access stuff on the PC and started using a third party app from Sideload that was giving me some issues here and there to start but worked once connected.
Not sure who is at fault, but since switching from a 4070 Ti to a 7900 XTX, the latter is not officially supported for Meta PC VR and so there were some horrible performance issues. But no longer when bypassing the Oculus PC app.
I did have one issue on Steam VR where it lost connection and required me to restart the Steam VR on my PC to fix which sucked, but other than that, it’s been great.
I’m planning to try with my Steam Deck just for shits and giggles. I did with that Sideload app and playing Half Life Alyx wasn’t the worst experience but a nice idea for cheap wireless VR on the go without needing to buy the specific game on Meta’s marketplace.
When I was a teen, my cousin sent me a link on MySpace that went to a page with some old naked guys rubbing on each other in the shower. That’s how I found out what a lemon party is…
Thankfully I don’t remember the name of the site, but that’s one of the weirder ones that won’t escape my head, no matter how hard I try.
And that was all the site was. It was just a video or a gif of that and nothing else from what I remember before closing out the window.
I believe the ip rating they are referring to has to do with the level of waterproofing in the phone. Like how the iPhone has an IP68 meaning that it is water resistant up to 6 meters for 30 minutes in fresh water.
My current girlfriend went through therapy and it really shows in her and how she is and has always been this way since our first date. I’d highly recommend it based on the transformation she’s told me about and she says the same about herself.
I work at an MSP, and got sexually harassed by a client recently. I just found out he got fired over it. I get to disable all of his accounts and stuff. It’s so amazing.
I used to work in that same space too and that was always something I aspired for, even if it didn’t seem feasible.
I got a bit irritated with one of the workers who was having a meeting with one of my clients. The client was an older lady in her late 50’s and she was telling us how she wanted to get actual employment outside of our program. Our program was “vocational training” and only for 2 hours each day of actual work. Her worker told her something along the lines of being “realistic”, but I couldn’t stand that.
Sure, she likely never will because of her age and her disabilities, but I’ll be damned if I don’t support her can-do attitude and make sure we give it the best shot we can. I’d rather have that spirit and encourage it than encourage someone to stay down and out and never give it a try.
Think a lot of that is out of Microsoft’s hands. Sort of like the way Netflix went. Other companies began pulling their stuff off the service and Microsoft/Netflix has no choice in the matter.
I say this because I’ve been playing older games like Fable II and Fable III without any issues over GamePass for years. But those titles are effectively controlled by Microsoft, so they can keep it or take it off whenever they please.
Hopefully we don’t end up with a situation like Netflix where all these other publishers create their own streaming services alongside GamePass because I will not subscribe to 50 different services. I don’t for television, as it is. Thankfully EA’s is included in GamePass because I wouldn’t have it on its own without it.
Agreed. My house insulation sucks. Summer would be 85°F outside and 90°F inside. Now it’s 56°F outside and 65°F inside and I’m not running any sort of heating. I can tolerate the inside temps at this level too. The summer inside temps were unbearable.
What's something you've done that you're proud of?
I’ll start. Not to toot my own horn but I feel I’m at least partially responsible for getting a friend to see the value of romantic love, which she managed to find!
What are some good questions to ask your boss during your yearly review?
I am a level 1 help desk tech at an MSP. I’ve been at this job for a year. I’ve been working in IT for 1.5 years, though....
New browser arrived! - Pissandshittium (pissandshittium.org)
Still better than chrome…
PC gaming's biggest disappointments of 2023 (www.pcgamer.com)
New Paramount Takeover Buzz Could Impact Star Trek Franchise (trekmovie.com)
Valve To Steam Deck Owners: Stop Huffing Its Vent Fumes (kotaku.com)
SEGA says reveal of IP revivals is “just the start of our initiative” (mynintendonews.com)
New Skull and Bones leaks suggest forced PvP coming to PS5 and Xbox. Ubisoft is still pitching Skull and Bones as a single-player RPG with co-op, but it sounds more like PvP will be unavoidable. (www.theloadout.com)
Fntastic closes days after The Day Before's launches on Early Access (www.gamesindustry.biz)
What are some things you simply won't order online?
What's something that feels illegal to know?
Gamepass Ultimate on Linux?
Hey all!...
Steam Link on Meta Quest 3 is going to stregnthen a unified VR market (www.pcgamesn.com)
most super-based non-credible air-to-air combat of all time (sh.itjust.works)
What are some strange and interesting websites you have found?
Nothing nsfw please
Nothing's iMessage app wasn't its only security lapse - Android Authority (www.androidauthority.com)
What’s the least amount of money that would significantly improve your life?
Is CCleaner still people's preferred computer cleaning app?
Has something new come along? It’s been so long since I’ve needed to do this that I assume CCleaner has enshittified by now.
What's the most satisfying thing that's happened at a job you've had?
I work at an MSP, and got sexually harassed by a client recently. I just found out he got fired over it. I get to disable all of his accounts and stuff. It’s so amazing.
Microsoft Wants Game Pass On PlayStation, Nintendo, And "Every Screen" Possible (www.gamespot.com)
Which is the best part of winter: the sun setting at 5pm every day, or it literally hurting when you go outside?