"Ah, yes I see I see, and that’s very understandable. Thank you for paying us by the way.

Now, since you’ve been so loyal for all these years…what about [slides agreement across the table] you pay for it…AND you watch ads?"

– Basically every streaming service hopping on the bandwagon at this point

This year I haven’t worked any traditional employment, but have done various projects for friends in exchange for money.

When I just had a typical job, taxes were almost fire-and-forget easy…but I’m a little worried about that whole process this year to be honest.

A lot of times the free one only covers that “I have a typical job” case…but anything different and they’re like “OH YOU NEED BUSINESS-OWNER PREMIUM PLUS” or something.

(I haven’t started a business and earned maybe 4 figures this year…) 😅

I’m a chemical (aka process) engineer.

Well now I’ve got this song stuck in my head again, which probably accurately describes life with particularly bad peoject management.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whdzP0GHuc4

Oh…geeze. This read like a note found in a Resident Evil game…

Ha! What a coincidence, my household is currently rewatching House.

The mysterious cosmic attraction of memes! :p

Username checks…out…? 😂

Remember when “social media” was our friends posting vacation pictures on their glitter-GIF-dumpster MySpace pages and memes were about funny cats who couldn’t spell, instead of both being weaponized fashy-virus vectors?

And now we’re talking about entire nations banning internet platforms thanks to ultra-rich crybabies using meme-fluence to buy elections.

. . .man. . . :(

Anyway, yeah Germany, we’re over here on our own community-led open-source infrastructure having a great time, jus’sayin.

I’ve heard your people even have the best memes too!

Germany’s feds better not start a tiktok. :(

When they ask why, tell them “Because you’re friggin weird and we’ve had enough.” Lol

This is the case with so many world leaders. If nobody accepted their money, and everyone just pointed, laughed, rolled their eyes, and moved on whenever they opened their mouths, they’d instantly cease to have power over world events.

If only…

Sure is! I haven’t seen it in ages either LOL. I probably haven’t seen it in more than a decade (or two?!) by this point. I wonder how it holds up? It’s definitely one of the classic “so bad it’s a masterpiece” kinda movies hahaha.

…things were simpler then, weren’t they? Hehe.

Thanks!

BTW nice meme. :D (yoink!)

Pro tip as a 3D printer owner/user though:

Oftentimes for small elements like this you can just contact the company and they’ll send you a knob or whatever. (Probably won’t be that lucky on repair parts though)

But I also enjoy the pride of seeing things I’ve repaired and longevitized with my own equipment. :)

A while back I would use those local secondhand auctions that mostly dealt in amazon returns. (As opposed to directly buying from amazon.)

I’m surprised how everything would be intact for a lot of items, but most commonly if I got bamboozled, it was something like, everything is fine except for missing a set of screws, or a single crucial knob or something.

People literally will just order the same thing again, pull the part they missed, and instantly return it. Which is especially scummy when it’s no longer a secret these returns just get destroyed or incinerated for no reason.

It’s just disgusting consumer-brain behavior. (Amazon, of course, being sheer evil, enjoys the market advantage of a “no questions” return policy.)

If it was a very specialty piece beyond a simple hardware store run, a lot of times I’ve been lucky enough to politely contact the manufacturer of a thing, sometimes I tell them I got it as a gift so they don’t ask for a proof of purchase. And they’ll just send me the missing bit. Free. Super simple. The most I had to do was take a picture of the model tag.

The fact that this was too much for people to bother with grosses me out.

Surplus clothes.

In highschool I liked having a lot of storage. So I liked things with pockets. Cargo pants were my jam! Turns out, military surplus BDU pants are somewhat cheap and VERY durable for around $30-$45 a pair. They can survive a tumble or two, can be repaired, wash easy, and breathe well depending on the blend.

Outdated or impractical camo is a fun aesthetic (can be punk as heck) and olive drab is a lovely color. (Thankfully I was never cringey enough to strut around in actively deployed uniform patterns unless it was on an airsoft field haha.)

Oh yeah, I have one of those funny tall-lanky bodies that you can’t department shop for pants for. Tac-pants come in a huge variety of fits.

I also hated shoe shopping. So a sturdy pair of combat boots lasted me ages without falling apart, were all-terrain, and supported the ankles! These boots were made for wear, so I never had to be upset over scuffs.

The BEST part? No (visible) brand names.

I still have some of those pants I wear since I graduated in the early 00’s. The ones with more cotton are a little threadbare now though. I just need some basic colors and my everday casual wardrobe is filled out. Acquiring replacements doesn’t break the bank either.

Form and function. Durability and mobility. Picking up some groceries or hiking the mountains. Incredibly versatile.

I don’t understand how the fashion industry continues to con people into expensive sweatshopped single-ply polyester that turns the wearer into a walking douchey billboard.

I say we let him have it. No, seriously! Just like we should let Musk have his Mars mission.

Give 'em a little certificate. “Look, you now own the thing! Good job!”

…Drop them off to survey their spoils…

…and frickin’ leave 'em there to be forgotten forever.

Like everyone’s bigoted elder who tones it down just a notch until their Great Leader is in charge again and they feel like they get carte blanche.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

–Robert A. Heinlein

Yeah I don’t agree 100% with this author or anyone, really, but I always return to this quote when I watch the world attempting to corral the magnificent potential wonder-beings that are humans, into hyper-specialized hive-pod roles.

All the jobs out there that actually pay seem to want people who were bred and raised their entire lives for that stupidly specific role to the exclusion of all else. Humanity’s versatility is our strength, and once again, the rich want to covet it while making the rest of us into specialized parts for their machines.

So my answer is “learning.” A lot of people don’t know how to learn new things, and stop trying, probably because their schooling failed them.

They are then frustrated easily by inconvenience, and incapable of solving problems or finding help. This is a brain gone to waste.

A lot of people pick one specialization and decide to just not learn anything else and that’s the most depressing thing in the world to witness. (I met a lot of older people who just stopped learning things after what must’ve been highschool. Huge yikes…)

Fix things. Make things. Fail a lot. Troubleshoot. PLAY.

Try whistling. Can you snap your fingers yet? How about training your way up to a handstand, maybe? Hey, yo-yos are fun.

Don’t like guns? Go learn how to safely use one anyway just for perspective. Cars? Try learning your own (simple!) repairs. Never learned to ride a bike? Best time is now!

Try planning a hangout. Join a meetup that sounds vaguely interesting. Learn how to tie knots. Learn how to stop trauma bleeding. Sew a cloak or something maybe. Teach somebody else things you know!

Don’t limit yourself by your first impressions of things you’ve never experienced. So many people look at something and just say “I can’t. I’m not that person. I won’t like it probably.”

Our modernization led by ruling classes has stripped us of so many experiences and then sold them back to us with admission fees. So much human potential and knowledge has been siloed away and sold back to us as “goods and services”, while we’re relegated to being “consumers.”

Human beings were made to do a multitude of tasks, and use their strengths to cooperate to the betterment of all, not to be alienated and separated by specific specializations they aren’t allowed to stray from.

Seriously, enjoy how much absolute potential you have instead of doing one thing you felt good at and being scared to try anything else.

Yep. Right there with you. With my upbringing if someone was silent around you, they were seething at you for something you did. And you know what it was! (You probably don’t, actually. Good luck guessing.)

This makes things unnecessarily interesting when I have long car rides with my naturally-introverted wife and I start feeling like I’ve done something terribly wrong when she doesn’t have much to say.

Haha my laundry room door says this.

So, so far ahead of his time. What a genius.