Somewhat related to this so I’m piggybacking here, look into power plants. Once you’re generally competent holding wrenches and understanding OSHA compliance, you can easily become some form of laborer at power plants. From there, learn everything you can about power plants while getting friendly with some in-house people and you might get yourself into Operations or Maintenance. It took years and luck, but I got in as an entry level outside operator at a bit under $40/hour a few years back; after raises and a promotion I’m now operating the on-site ZLD plant for $52/hour. Control Room Operator starts around $60/hour here. This area is expensive so these rates might be higher than you’d find near you, but I’ve heard of higher rates than this in some plants. The only real drawback is that rotating shift work is pretty standard.

I’m not sure what it might be called, but I totally get that. I think it has something to do with the anxiety of expectations. Maybe you feel judged for how you’re choosing to spend your time, or maybe you feel like there’s an expectation that you’ll get better at whatever it is that you’re doing, or maybe it’s as simple as just not wanting to be viewed as predictable. If you’re unhappy with this tendency that you have, I highly recommend working with a therapist to either find a way to change your behavior or change how you feel about your behavior. It sounds like you’re not hurting anybody, so it seems like there’s just some unhappiness for one reason or another that a professional could help you out with so that you can get a little more enjoyment and peace of mind. If the 94 in your username is your birth year, then you’re 30ish and maybe just struggling a little with being comfortable with your identity in some capacity, like you “should’ve” figured out who you are and become comfortable with it by now, and you might be feeling some additional anxiety for not achieving that? Idk, I’m just some guy on the internet who had a similar thing, and it’s helped for me to adopt a slightly more complex version of the hakuna matata philosophy, which I think of as a sort of optimistic existential hedonistic nihilism: nothing matters, so there’s no sense getting spun up; just do what you feel like doing so long as it isn’t fucking others over. You like CAD? Then fuck around in CAD. Enjoying a video game? Hell yeah, that’s something cool to look forward to spending some time with this weekend. Knock out chores and errands for a bit and then you’re free to do whatever the fuck you feel like doing. Hell, light a scented candle while you’re at it. Really enjoy it.

I’m genuinely not sure whether this is a teachable skill or something more like a character trait.

Depends. At a meh bar with bar food, probably an IPA. Mexican place with Mexican food, probably margarita or tequila sunrise. At a cocktail bar, I’ll pick a signature cocktail, probably one with a whiskey of some kind. If it looks like they know what they’re doing but they focus on botanical type stuff (which I don’t really like), then I’ll usually go for something like an old fashioned or a Manhattan, and if it’s not too busy I might request it with the bartender’s choice of unique flair on it. Or I might order a carajillo if they have an interesting one on the menu and if I see an espresso machine.

I disagree since I met the woman who is now my wife through Tinder lol. We both were looking for something casual and found something worth much more. But it’s almost certainly gotten shittier like everything else, so I understand your reluctance to try it.

In that case, get yourself cleaned up and head out to a bar/club and see if you can meet somebody organically. Be ready to talk about your job, hobbies, and interests. Maybe get a few clever jokes locked and loaded. Passionate, nice, and funny will make you a magnet to decent people. Just temper your expectations because it sounds like you’re probably gonna a swing and miss a few times until you find a comfortable batting stance.

It varies from person to person. The act itself imo is pretty good, but I don’t really enjoy it unless there’s a real connection. Others mentioning things like hiring prostitutes here are recommending that you miss out on what I think it’s a pretty key part of it, plus I think you’d be assuming some real risk in terms of whether that’s criminal, will you be robbed, could you get an STI from them, and of course whether it’s even affordable in the first place. I can understand the desire to try it once, but I can’t imagine it being much better than masturbating compared to the risk and cost.

I think I’d recommend getting on Tinder or something similar and just making it clear in your profile that you’re looking for something casual but want to message a bit first to make sure they’re at least somewhat of a match for you. Sometime before getting naked, it’d be a good idea to say that you haven’t done this before and ask for clear communication so that both of you can enjoy yourselves. You want to be on the same page. And go slowly. You almost certainly won’t have a good time if you’re feeling pressured and rushed.

Overall, yes it’s worth trying, but a lot of people stop thinking rationally entirely when sex is a possibility and I think that’s a bit silly. It’s okay to come to the conclusion that it’s not worth the hassle or even not enjoyable at all to you. It’s totally subjective. Just don’t do anything you don’t feel comfortable with.

He’s spelling it out for voters to get them off their asses. People said “yeah right” in 2016 when the ones who were paying attention said that the scotus was on the ballot, and it turns out we were right. It’s probably good to hear the calm warnings straight from him rather than just from “alarmist” friends, relatives, and coworkers this time.

Lol happy to help! Yeah, nowadays it’s easy to hit a gig in data usage without even realizing you’ve used any at all. I wish the unlimited tier were cheaper. It feels like we have gotten to a point where we should be able to use GPS or do a Google search without considering a cost. Kinda feels like if anything, they should be paying us for allowing into our pocket this ever changing billboard that scrapes our metadata. But that’s unrealistic to get anyone else onboard with, so I’ll settle for free connectivity to knowledge in exchange for advertising and spying on me.

What state are you in? I’m in VA and considering going from Google Fi to Mint mostly because we would go from minimal data usage to unlimited for about the same price. Definitely not making the switch if you’re also in VA and can vouch that it doesn’t work here.

I’ve been on Google Fi for 3 or 4 years and it’s been pretty much flawless. I’ve traveled to Mexico and Spain with it, and there’s a sort of calibration period of like 30 minutes before you have service in another country, but that’s literally the only time I’ve been without service for any period of time. My wife and I are on it and use very little data, so covering both phones is typically about $60/month. We usually have 5G service around our home in northern VA.

Proof of bill cost:

Toxic by Britney Spears. Absolute fucking banger. Musically interesting for an American pop song. Each chorus has the chords walk down, which is pretty cool, but then on the next bar something really interesting happens. Instead of walking down from the second of the four chords, there are back to back tritone substitutions! So fucking cool!

If things would stop getting shittier, then yes. I’m not entirely sure that it applies here so I understand your annoyance, but you’re seeing “enshittification” everywhere because we’re seeing the practice of enshittification everywhere. I applaud it being called out. We shouldn’t be seeing higher prices for worse experiences, but that’s the current trend. If you’re tired of seeing the word, then it’d probably be a good idea to take a break from c/technology because I don’t think it’s stopping any time soon.

I would be a better husband, first of all. I’d have much more time and energy available for more than what I already do around the house plus better dates. Beyond that, I think I’d write and record a bunch of music just to share with the world, maybe try to make a few bucks off of it but not beyond “buy me a beer” type donations from people who can spare it. I really want to do a post-rock concept album before I kick the bucket, just to have a big completed project checked off. Maybe I’d write some bad poetry too until I got sorta good at it, maybe a book if I had enough to say.

I’d also play even more video games, obviously. Maybe I’d finally hit champ in Rocket League lmao.

Imagine starring in a movie where your character is desperately trying to explain to loved ones that they’re trapped in the wrong body and don’t understand how to navigate this gender that they find themselves in and then come out in the other side being transphobic. Like, he’s so media illiterate that he doesn’t empathize with his own characters. So then it was just hateful jokes the whole time, I guess. Dude stopped maturing at like 15.

Oh, I don’t, lol. That was more of a prediction than me saying that I’d be doing it. I never made a Twitter account. It already seemed shitty to me even before musk utterly destroyed it.

Time to drop a ton of photoshops of Musk with a diseased micropenis until he changes his mind about this. Maybe shops of Zuckerberg and Musk heads onto gay porn stars so it looks like Mark is dominating Elon’s asshole in the literal sense rather than just the figurative sense.

Depends on the day. If I dismiss outliers where it’s less than 20 minutes, my average is probably about 90 minutes based on checking my app history over the past few weeks. A good chunk of that is typing comments, sometimes looking up a good link to include. I usually swipe through while skimming posts and open comments for a post once in a while, occasionally adding a comment in there. I rarely post anything but comments.

Today I’m at 35 minutes and probably mostly done for the day.

I think there’s not really a hard and fast expiration date. I think it’s more of a probability gradient which can skew from person to person. Career bounceback depends on industry, fitness, credentials, network, etc. Love life depends on personality, looks, intent, intelligence, sense of humor, stability, etc. A loser in their 40s can’t even really compete with somebody in their 60s who’s on top of their shit.

I think that if you’re concerned about this, therapy and/or meditation might help you to get uncomfortable enough to identify aspects of yourself that need work to improve. Small changes can yield big advantages in terms of tackling specific goals. Everybody can benefit from therapy, so don’t let some weird stigma scare you out of getting the best out of life.

No, askreddit is the reddit version of asklemmy.

Was genuinely thinking of them here. Hail To The Thief released in 2003, and it kinda sounded like they were winding down. Imagine blinking and then having In Rainbows, The King Of Limbs, and A Moon Shaped Pool dropped on you all at once.

I’ll also say Foo Fighters. Based on the 2004 criteria, we would only know about what’s below the red line here and then suddenly have a ton of other, evolved stuff.