I don’t know what normal people do but people like me don’t see ads because they use the appropriate protections from the invasiveness of the internet.

Pihole. Firefox. ublock origin, privacy badger, decentraleyes…

It also helps if you don’t participate in systems that attempt to intrusively shove ads down your throat, but you do you.

I’m with you. I make mid-100s myself and as a single homeowner with no children I still can’t afford to go on funky vacations.

My take home after 401k and taxes is like $7,600 a month and my mortgage, heloc, car and student loans eat about $5,000 of that.

But, car will be paid off in the next few months, student loans should be done about 2 years after that, he lock will be done about 2 years after that so 5 years from now it’s only going to cost me like $2,500 a month to keep my home.

I have been told that I fit into the Henry class, “high earning, not rich yet”.

I just wonder if I can keep going for 5 years to accomplish that or if I should just finish up the house and sell it and pocket the 200k in value it’s accrued, pay off any other outstanding debt, and then go find an apartment or something or go travel.

Yep. If you want to get woo-woo about it it is kind of interesting that the Bible says that we are the light of the world and when measured with appropriately sensitive scientific equipment it turns out we glow.

https://www.sciencealert.com/you-can-t-see-it-but-humans-actually-glow-in-visible-light

Not trying to push an agenda, just commenting on the connections that my mind makes.

I used to have one pop up ever so often on my neck, which was weird because up until a few years ago I didn’t even grow facial hair.

Just like overnight all of a sudden I would have a 2-in long white hair sticking out of my neck.

Humans emit photons as well, but very few of them, making it almost impossible for them to be detected except with special detection systems (I don’t know what they’re called).

Originally it was used as a hex to dispel demons.

Using it on a person is telling that person that you believe they are a demon that needs to be cast back into hell.

So how offensive it is honestly depends on who’s doing it.

The tatted out meth head with four teeth? Not offensive at all.

Kindly old church lady with a heart of gold and an apple pie in every pocket? 100,000 out of 5 offensive

I feel like you’re overlooking the death of the culture.

That’s what colonialism is really about.

If it were just sharing space and technology and advancement then nobody would have any problems with colonialism.

Colonialism extinguishes culture.

Every single space that has been monopolized by a billionaire has had its culture extinguished.

But it is colonialism. There are virtual spaces that are currently occupied by native inhabitants and deep pocket billionaires are literally bulldozing their way into the space, evicting the current tenants, and then exploiting that space for its resources.

I don’t think there is a better term for it than colonialism.

Would it matter if it were communist colonialism? I don’t think so. The result is the same. The space is disrupted, the native inhabitants are displaced, the resources are exploited.

They only look that way thanks to explosive decompression. Most blobfish are pulled up too quickly and end up expanding like that. At their normal pressures they look like almost any other fish.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychrolutes_marcidus

I see where you’re coming from but look at semiconductors. Right now Nvidia has dethroned Intel, and nvidia’s own insiders have stated that they are designing chips based on AI which they are then using to power the AI which design the next round of chips.

Maybe the stuff that you and I have access to will never cross the border into AGI territory to some sort of AGI scenario, but that doesn’t mean that there are not systems and processes in play that can.

As we approach the singularity, more and more things will be done by fewer people.

No one has a plan for the singularity, they are hoping that AI will figure it out.

May God have mercy on us all.

OF is a lottery for pretty girls or for people in very niche communities.

Like if your thing is wearing girly socks and mushing Jello between your toes, you could probably make some money on onlyfans but just being a generic 6.5 out of 10 or better looking? No chance in hell.

I moved to Washington State and got caught in a blizzard in an old beat-up pickup truck.

Part of my route to get home required that I go down a Long Hill, so I slowed to 5 miles an hour and dropped my vehicle in to low gear and made it about 20 ft down the hill before I lost traction.

As I’m slowly uncontrollably skiing down the hill on a bed of snow, to my left and to my right I am passing by row after row after row of vehicles that had been abandoned by their drivers unable to traverse this road.

It was a good day to wear brown pants

However, by steering against the skid and not white knuckling and not riding my brakes and keeping the vehicle in its low drive I was able to safely ski down the road that I had found myself on and make it to the other side.

I was able to drive home that day by following my own advice.

If something like that happens to you, I hope you do the same.

No matter how comfortable you get driving in the snow, always drive slow.

I don’t care if you got four wheel drive chains and snow tires, drive like 5 10 15 miles an hour.

Also, if you start to skid, don’t slam on the brakes.

If it is a long skid and you have time to react, drop your vehicle down into low gear (which should not be very difficult because you’ve been driving slow right?) and let off the accelerator and allow the resistance of the drivetrain to slow you down.

If you feel yourself decelerating you can try tapping the brakes but if you do not immediately regain traction and slow back down, let off the brake.

When you are in a skidding situation, do not White knuckle your steering wheel. Especially when you are turning against the skid, suddenly regaining traction with your tires at an extreme angle can put you into an entirely new skid. You need to be prepared to let go of the steering wheel as soon as you have traction if need be.

Finally, practice.

When there is a gentle snow, which there often is prior to large snows, take your car out and drive it around. Find out how your car reacts in the snow and get a little bit of practice with the small skids that you might encounter on the roads that you travel.

If you live up or down a large Hill, find out if there are alternative routes that you can take to get to your destination. If there is no way to get to your house without either going up or coming down a large hill, identify places where you can safely park your car away from the hill and walk to your home.

Finding that information out beforehand will save you a lot of hassle in the event of a winter storm.

I’ll finish that up with saying, if you expect yourself to be in severe winter weather, it is a good idea to get some chains and some traction devices and some blankets and some water and store them in the trunk of your car during the winter season.

That way, if you are caught unaware’s, you will be prepared.

All of my advice are for severe places like Wisconsin. If you live in a place where the snow is well managed that might be Overkill.

That’s strange. Most niacin doses that I have seen are in the 500 mg range and the suggestion I was told was to take one gram and I don’t notice any weird issues from it at all.

the niacin is supposed to help reduce free fats in your bloodstream and prevent or reverse atherosclerosis and to help get your blood flowing.

Take 1 g of niacin and 1 mg of melatonin right before bed.

Haha, looks like Bob won in the end. Screw you, Jimmy Pesto!

I mean, if you were mindless and hungry you would eat the first food that came your way.

But you are not mindless and so you choose whether to eat a sandwich or a burger or a pizza and what kind of sandwich or burger or pizza it is.

You can choose to abstain from eating to lose weight or for religious purposes.

There is a part of you that has choice and control.

And even if that is a bioelectric chemical process, it’s not always in charge, there is no one standing piece of you that is always entirely completely in control.

But there is always an observer. A sense of self.

And depending on the chemicals in your brain that observer will make different choices either positively or negatively for you as an entity.

You can look at it and say it is just chemical reactions but who is to say that Free Will is not a chemical reaction?

What if there are literal chemicals in your brain that can undergo their chemical processes in different ways based on the choices you make?

Would not that overall function be free will?

I seen a lot of people have this particular question and the question that I have for them is what isn’t free will?

On the religious side you’ve got the people who are saying God knows everything so he already knows what you’re going to do. On the science side you’ve got all humans are just chemicals in a hot dog casing.

My opinion is, either which way you look at it you are free to choose what you want to do.

Just because somebody can make you question the freedom of your choices does not mean that your choices are not born of free will.

What helps me is knowing that everyone is fucking awkward.

I’ve met thousands upon thousands of people and I have never met anyone who is not socially awkward, just a lot of people who are socially skilled in different ways.

The people who don’t come across as awkward are the people who acknowledge their awkwardness and own it, who give themselves an opportunity to fumble with their awkwardness and to get used to it the same way you do with any other difficult thing like math or reading or studying or dance or games.

I said all of that to say, not being awkward is not a talent, it is a skill, and you can learn it.