itchick2014 [Ohio]

This is really good for a person starting out with a DSLR. You have a great composition here. I recommend learning by experimentation and inquiring with others. A lot of photography concepts are covered well on YouTube. I learned a lot from Ken Rockwell though I know a lot of people don’t care for him. One thing to invest in is a good tripod. Take the same photo with multiple settings until you find what you want. Though knowing techniques is good and desirable, a lot of decisions are subjective to you as the photographer.

I was mildly interested until she took a mixer to the liquid and whipped cream….just use cream at that point! What a waste.

I bought a Boox Palma. The screen cracked on the first day. I wholeheartedly do not recommend them as a company as their customer support response is always “not our fault.” A quick google will find others who had the same experience I did.

I am an IT professional. I have had Kindles and Kobos and have NEVER had a screen break on any device. This company needs to be called out and boycotted.

Per the post…Android itself is old, yes…but they never promised security updates…only updates to the firmware. I don’t have a problem with this. Retroid is similar in that their devices are not current android, though not nearly as bad as Boox. It all depends on how you use a device as to if this is really an issue or not.

While this is stereotypically true, my grandparents that passed away 14 years ago were avid gamers. They adored their NES and bought a SNES when the NES died. I think it is worth inquiring with local nursing homes to see if they have anyone that has gaming experience. My grandma’s favorite game was Loopz. Grandpa’s was golf. Puzzle games especially are good for that age group as they keep the brain busy but don’t necessarily require adept fine motor speed like other genres.

Minecraft. Make your own to do list and play at your own pace. I will beat the ender dragon one day but for now I work on my next automated farm lol.

I would say this probably varies by person. I learned a lot by using multiple distros. When I put the dots together that yum, apt-get, and (later) pacman do the same thing, that was a huge ah-ha. Sometimes seeing the differences in how they work in command line especially helps you understand larger concepts. If you stick with one distro (like I did for too long) you may have trouble comprehending these concepts for longer. Some beginners may find choice overwhelming, yes, but I do think it can be useful having exposure to two or three distros out the gate…even if just on live USB.

I haven’t seen Arch recommended to new folks outside of the Arch community circles and even most of them express caution. I always recommend Ubuntu or one of its variants for a person starting out, but it does help for the person to try a bunch of distros to see what they prefer. When I was starting out everyone was recommending Debian or Fedora. The more user-friendly distros didn’t come out until much later. Since then even the mainstream distros have improved a ton concerning usability, though I will say documentation always leans a bit too technical for my taste…for Arch especially. Too many holes for people that have no experience.

I recently bought a used LG Gram to install Arch on after a few years of not having Linux…so recently did similar research, albeit with more Linux knowledge. I do NOT recommend Arch as a first distro unless you are willing to put in time for troubleshooting. That said, looking up a model of laptop you are considering + Linux in a search engine can be valuable in determining how much ease you will have getting basic (trackpad, Bluetooth, webcam, WiFi) items working. I dabbled with a CD distro as a gateway to Linux and the “live disk” option is still the best way to experiment. Nowadays it is on a USB stick. This method allows you to play around without actually installing. Others here have already given good advice. If you go the USB stick route, do be careful with anything related to disk partitioning and formatting. I accidentally wiped my dad’s hard drive once when I was not being careful!

Thanks! I’m well past the darkest time in my life, thank goodness. I do appreciate your kindness. We need more of that in today’s world.

I was so broken in my early 20’s. I had been consistently struggling with college, did not understand myself, and just genuinely felt alone. It wasn’t until my 30’s and getting into a psychology class that I started piecing together that I have ADHD (officially diagnosed now), a sleep disorder that makes me tired unexpectedly and intensely, and just generally started to find who I was as a person. It took years of working with a psychiatrist and psychologist (therapist) to start unraveling years of negative self talk and also work through some religious trauma.

The one point I remember is I was thinking just how easy it would be to drive off a bridge…but I liked my car too much to do it. Those were rough times, but I made it through and haven’t been that low since.

Glad I am not alone, though I follow unixporn and other communities so was very familiar with the overall sentiments about Arch before diving in. I look forward to when I know a bit more about it. I put it on a laptop I specifically bought to install Linux alongside the existing windows install (LG Gram) so I knew I had nothing to lose and my whole intention was to learn. I would have never installed Arch on a machine I actually need to use at this point. I am lucky that I got as far as I did so quickly. lol.

I agree that Arch is a pro distro. I do IT tech support, have background with Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, Knoppix, and Fedora and installing Arch was hard mode for me. Would I do it again? Hell yeah. Would I recommend it as a second or third install experience? Nope. Too many distros that are beginner to intermediate friendly. That said, I will forever have a fondness for pacman just because I like the name. I am still working out device drivers and a few smaller details a month later. Also, the wiki is written by someone who doesn’t do good technical writing. It assumes too much back end knowledge. I kept having to follow blog or article posts and still had to sandwich those snippets I got together hoping something worked…and again, I have some background knowledge of Linux already. An absolute beginner would be totally lost.

This is a tough decision that only you can make. I have been in and out of college since 2003 and still have a few classes til my bachelor. What worked for me once I was in the field I wanted was to cut back to one class at a time and just gradually churn through. Depending on your school/work/debt situation this may or may not be doable. What really matters is to step back and ask yourself why you are pursuing school, if continuing now will pay off in the future, and if pausing and returning is something you would actually do if you left now. Does your workplace offer assistance for education? That can be a great help if you want to slow down.

Harmon Kardon Soundsticks II about five years ago. $14

Toss up between raisin nut bran or basic 4. I just like the taste variety.

Look into backpacking meals. They keep forever practically and simply require heat and water most times to prepare.

As someone who has been trying to get my vision for a piece to fruition using AI for months…I absolutely think AI is OC. The argument that it references existing work cracks me up because all of art history is derivatives of what has come before. I do think there is “low effort” pieces, but you get that in other mediums as well such as photography. Also…need I mention Duchamp and the urinal?

Haha I never knew a fridge video could be so engaging!

I had the last version and thoroughly enjoyed it. MSRP is $70 so be wary of the high price on Amazon. If you go to other offers you will find the ships from Amazon for the proper price.

As someone that has eaten my lunch in my car at a park…it is way more enjoyable than Walmart. Sometimes just that little amount of respite is all people can afford or have time to enjoy.