there has been a lot of connections with ADHD and Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria

Reading this phrase is like watching my life flash before my eyes. I’m struggling to think of issues I’ve had over the decades that I couldn’t relate back to that crap.

Yeah, unfortunately I think that both corporations and consumers have shown that they prefer the cheap option rather than whatever not-as-cheap options might offer in terms of quality, sustainability, environmental protection, lack of child slavery… you know, luxuries like that.

And that is speaking in general, mass-market terms of course. There are often options for those who care about the things I jokingly referred to as luxuries. But when something like that is niche instead of a widespread basic expectation, it gets priced as a luxury. Ugh.

Man, with the Linux users on one side and daddy Microsoft high on the cloud, C: don’t get no respect!

One of my absolute favorite things to do is just lay on the bed in a cool dark room with the fan blowing at me. It’s both for cooling down because I’m heat sensitive (completely separate medical issue) and for the sensory deprivation and recharging.

Sometimes I will still put on something to listen to, even in that case. Usually it isn’t typical music though. It will typically be a long form video of a video game speed run or some kind of asmr video with people talking in japanese.

And at work, on days I’ve stayed late for whatever reason, it gets very peaceful and productive for sure.

Being absorbed in my music while working brings that kind of peaceful productive feeling with it, actually. By occupying a certain part of my brain, it must prevent certain anxieties and distractions from getting that attention.

Hell yeah, some electronic & industrial sounds are always welcome. I do have chiptunes represented on my playlist too. There’s at least Strike The Earth from Shovel Knight.

Fortunately mr job is pretty good about leaving me alone to work on things. (or not, as is often the case)

I’ve learned that my brain’s ADHD department needs the opposite. It needs constant stimulation to keep it distracted so that it leaves me alone to have some semblance of executive function.

Audio stimulation works best. I used to always listen to podcasts, but I’ve found that specific types of music are best for getting work done. (in my case, it’s upbeat energetic thrash and groove metal)

Oof, I think I might be you from about 13 years in the future, after it all falls apart and you are deep into putting it all back together knowing much more about yourself.

I’m trying to think of how to distill this down into something memorable yet meaningful…

Make your personal well-being a top priority in your daily life, and make actual decisions based on that. But this is easier said than done, because we all have differed customized manuals for our brains and bodies, and we do not get a copy, so we must reverse engineer it. So look for opportunities to do the thing that you know will lift your spirits or get you moving instead of the thing that you actually want to do. For me this was usually socializing with friends, or giving in when my son wants to play way too much and I’m in the middle of a game or project. Or with work, deciding to drive to work with the windows down rather than snoozing a bit longer and working from home because my ADHD ass is useless working from home.

Lean into your hobbies, especially if they do not involve what you do at work. Double especially if they get you outside. Make conscious decisions to funnel more of your time and money towards the big hobby. This should not feel like a commitment or homework, it should feel like permission to do something you already want to do. Having something to be eager and excited about, something to look forward to, is good for the mind. For me, this centers around nature and animals. We have tons of pets now, but my big hobby is my koi pond. I am upgrading it this year, so for several weeks I have been spending hours at a time outside playing in the dirt, doing construction. I am lifting heavy shit while listening to music and going extended periods without seeing a screen. My phone is often in some shade by my tools while I use wireless earbuds.

Oh and drugs are your friend. That goes for ADHD medication, other mental health meds, and of course weed used in the right ways.

I’m glad to see the meme creator was smart enough to keep their Printer Gun handy!

Linux Mint is probably the perfect educational OS to switch to like that. I’m assuming most people are coming from Windows, are mouse+gui only, and are not used to being their own admin and installing all the basics like Firefox and libreoffice.

But it’s still Linux, so the user friendliness doesn’t mean you are locked out from going on tech or customization deep dives. Daily terminal user here, still love me some mint.

I picked up a great little test along the way: type the word ill or illegal followed by 100, using a capital I in illegal and mixing an upper case O and a zero in the number.

Ill10O

Can you clearly tell all these characters apart in your editor font?

I am all about Fira Code, myself

Transcending the need for willpower is a great way to put it, regardless where you end up. It’s always good to dig into the basics of what you really want, what you get from it, etc.

Like in this case, if it brings you some small joy to spend $14 and get a handful of games you’ve been reading/hearing about for years, I bet that is objectively a good use of your money and time given your priorities in life. No need for willpower, because you’re doing the small thing that helps you enjoy life.

In my case, I still play games on PC and console, but I started completely ignoring the sales and mostly not even using my wish lists. I still occasionally buy games, and most often on sale, but between my existing library and all the other stuff in life I am happy just ignoring the sales. No need for willpower because the desire went away.

I like the concept of destroying the biosphere by shredding the entire fucking planet, lol.

Using a calculator I referenced further down in the thread, a back hole with a 0.5m radius so that the event horizon would fit within the cubic meter would have a mass of over 56 earths. We’d be proper fucked!

According to a random black hole calculator I found, a black hole with a 0.5m radius would be over 56 earth masses and the temperature would only be 0.000364 K. So, still orders of magnitude less than the cosmic microwave background.

I know smaller black holes evaporate faster, but even that little thing (according to the calculator) would have a lifetime of a gargantuan multiple of the age of the universe. Like roughly a number followed by 45 zeros, times the age of the universe.

The calculator: https://www.vttoth.com/CMS/physics-notes/311-hawking-radiation-calculator

Jellyfin was more work on my end so that family could connect with https, but for me to set them up it’s literally just “here is the URL, login, and password.”

Thanks for tending to your replies so well!

Mint Cinnamon has been great for me.

It is fully featured right out of the box and is a great drop-in replacement for windows. I will without a doubt use it when upgrading family members who are about to lose win10 support.

It is based off the popular Debian -> Ubuntu distros, and is very popular itself. This is good when it comes to quickly finding existing answers to specific questions. And of course they disabled the iffy stuff from ubuntu (snaps) while supporting flatpak.

I’m a software engineer who uses the command line all day, and I use Mint at work and at home. You see, even though the distro is a polished, full featured, and “easy” option, it is still Linux. So it is not locked down and you can still do what you want with your computer.

It won’t teach you to configure your system from the ground up like Arch might, instead it starts you off in a complete well-configured state and you can leave it alone or change it.

Why yes I have! Did you see my own example of Chinese censorship I added to the discussion in this very thread you are commenting on?

Yeah, unfortunately for anything run by a US-based corporation, I think it’s not a question of whether there will be censorship but how bad it will get and how closely the tech industry we’ll continue to go along with the fascist flow.

Yeah, it’s pretty blatant. A bit after it hit the scene I got curious and started asking it about how many people various governments have killed. The answer for my own US of A was as long as it was horrifying.

Then I get to China and it starts laying out a detailed description for a few seconds, then the answer disappears and is replaced by the “out of scope” or “can’t do that right now” or whatever it was at the time.

It makes me think their model might be fine, but then they have some kind of watchdog layered on top of it to detect the verboten subjects and interfere. I guess that feels better from a technical standpoint, even if it is equally bad from a personal/political one.

This one always spoke to me. But I work on embedded systems so I get to fiddle with physical equipment to really make sure the code works.