Rot is no good, sounds like a relief you got rid of that and a productive week overall!
Rot is no good, sounds like a relief you got rid of that and a productive week overall!
I’ve been learning Monster Hunter and am a little ways in - I started out with SnS but am trying out some other tools too. I kinda interspersed it with trying out Dark Souls too (which definitely feels like the more punishing of the two!) and it’s been pretty interesting to try out a more Japanese perspective on combat that’s often described like “watching animations and taking turns”. I’ve also been doing a bit of the Gower MMO Brighter Shores from time to time. It’s been lovely to see Andrew’s particular sense of understated humour in the quest dialogue, and I’ve slowly got a few hundred levels here and there idling away for XP.
Yeah, sensory overwhelm is definitely a thing; I’m pretty sensitive to light in my bedroom overnight, and then when I wake up I forget to draw up the blinds to let light in (and stop mould etc.). Huge draw on my spoons but it’s also what I need to do to stay functional.
I’ve heard a lot about habits and mentions of that book too! I found an article about his four laws – make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying (ctrl+f to jump down to it) and the cues/cravings responsive/rewarding cycle, which kinda makes me want to look into it in more detail too. I hope the book was useful!
The weather this year has been crazy variable so far - even in New Zealand where it should be summer we’ve gotten some severe Antarctic cold snaps! I hope you’re keeping warm, one step at a time.
I’m a week late to the discussion but just wanted to add some context about the last line: this was the announcement in September 2023 about that, The Beehaw project is entering some significant challenges. I took some time away from the Fediverse myself and also hadn’t been keeping up with it much over 2024, but I guess the new year’s spirit pushed me into trying to make it stick again (here’s to better habits this year!)
By the way, I think you’re right about small community groups, they are definitely hard to run and I can understand why a lot of them moved to more-closed discord groups with closed invites instead. I guess there will always be different ways for humans to connect in the social ecosystem, so at least there will be something out there.
In any case I guess welcome back and I hope you can find some cool discussions here again!
I made a similar move a few years ago - none of the for-profit newspapers, and like you said, a stronger preference for national broadcasters who don’t have to worry about revenue directly from the populace (even if they are funded by public taxes), and a lesser dependence on advertising. I’m not even from the US and signed up for the NPR newsletters because they were so good and interesting!
I can’t help but feel you’re correct that clickbait is leading to a decline in the quality of things-that-I-read. In my opinion, it’s the manifestation of capitalism in communication and socialization and feels like such a terrible problem. Money may make the world go round – but it is clear that it doesn’t always do it in a sustainable way. I do what I can (with contributions to the DeArrow extension for YouTube for example) to stay focused on mitigating it, but I feel like I’ll have to do more in the future.
I saw a thread discussing Jayz’s RTFM podcast (where he mentioned meeting up with Steve) and the commenters were concerned, already saying Steve was doing like 100 hour weeks (there are only 168h total in seven days, if true that doesn’t leave a lot for sleep!). Sadly that doesn’t feel sustainable to me. :(