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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • Work out a lot, enough to be buff

    Respectfully, I don’t think you necessarily have to be buff; you just have to be able to handle physical violence if it happens to come your way, and confident in your ability to do so. Because if you know that you “can take 'em” then you will have less reason to care about what they think of you, and less reason to fear that their bullying might ever go that far. Thus, IMHO, something like training in martial arts can be a very effective substitute for “becoming buff”. But “buff” without necessarily looking it can also be good enough, in some cases.

    I was never “buff” in school. In fact, from all outward appearances, I looked every bit the scrawny nerd that everyone always assumed I was. And I was a nerd… but I was also strong. I carried a book bag around throughout middle school and high school that contained all of my schoolbooks. I didn’t go to my locker; as I saw it, there was no reason to. I literally tore through bookbag after bookbag over the years. By about my junior year or so, it was a sports bag that held twice as many books as any backpack – because it kind’a had to be, since that’s just how many books the school had issued to me that year – but I was nonetheless easily manhandling that bag like it was paper mâché.

    I don’t recall the rest of the context of the conversation, but I remember this one football dude commenting about my sports bag, something along the lines of, “Yeah, whatever… it’s not that heavy.” So I called him out on his comment; I said, “Feel free to pick it up.” Having received the challenge, he certainly wasn’t going to back down – especially not from the scrawny nerd. He puffed himself up, walked down the aisle between the desks until he was towering right over me, and wrapped his big ol’ hand around the handle. He stood up with it by his side and paused in that position for a moment. He then very quietly put it back down on the floor and walked away without another word.

    (Morgan Freeman voiceover) It was that heavy.

    But you don’t even have to be “strong” necessarily; in some cases, what matters most is confidence. Later that same year, another bully – not another football player, just a rando dude who had decided he didn’t like me for some reason – told me to watch myself, because he was going to follow me home and (oh, so trite, reflecting upon it now) “beat me up.” Well, I knew who I was and I knew what I could do. Without even a hint of fear or hesitance, I responded to him, “Okay. When and where?”

    He didn’t show.

    Bullies are all talk and no show, especially when they’re alone and especially when you can confidently call them out on their crap. If they’re “just” making fun of you, do your best to ignore it; it’s not worth your time or energy to give them even the slightest bit of attention. But consider making an effort to get to a point where you’re confident in what you can do, if you should ever need to defend yourself… and then, never show them fear. They will usually back down and leave you alone when confidently confronted. And if they don’t back down… well, you’re confident for a reason. Defend yourself if you have to – but only if they start the fight. There’s never any point in picking a fight yourself.


  • First, head to the Anomaly station and buy all of the blueprints, if you haven’t already. That is always the right way to start upgrading any of your tech.

    Next, have you claimed a settlement yet? If not, do that. After working a few cycles through the settlement questline, you’ll get something interesting for your Minotaur.

    And of course, always check the exocraft salesman on the stations; they don’t always have the same upgrades, but you should eventually find some good options that’ll make your Minotaur more useful. I personally recommend only buying S class upgrades, if you can afford it.

    And if you haven’t already discovered this: there are two exocrafts that can navigate underwater… not just one.



  • Of course, nobody with two brain cells to rub together who reads that answer is sitting there thinking to themselves, “Huh… I guess I’ve had it wrong all this time, focusing so much on money.” Rather, they’re instinctively blurting out, “Yeah right – I call bull!”

    But I’ll give them partial credit; frequently it’s about money. Sometimes, it’s just about a work environment that used to be great going to crap. And sometimes, it’s about the employee coming to an epiphany, and realizing that their work environment was actually crap all along.

    That said, it may be true that not every job that I’ve ditched was entirely because of money… but it should go without saying that it’s always a factor in where I went for the next job. Also, it’s never the only factor – but it’s certainly one of the more significant ones.


  • I’m a long time Trekkie; I wasn’t alive yet when TOS originally aired on TV, (I mean, that was the '60s – I’m old, but I’m not that old!) but I grew up watching it in syndication. I also watched TNG, DS9, Voyager and (ahem) most of Enterprise, back when these shows first aired on broadcast television. The notion of binge watching wasn’t even a thing, yet. That said… I’m somewhat in the same boat as you for some of the newer shows, simply because I haven’t taken the time to sit down and consume all of “NuTrek” quite yet, so I do get where you’re coming from. (The rest of “life” sometimes gets in the way of good entertainment, eh?)

    But at some point you have to a acknowledge that you’re fighting a two-front war. You say that you don’t want to watch a series that is incomplete or at risk of an abrupt cancellation, which I certainly get… but at the same time, you say that you don’t want other people who have watched it to spoil it for you, while still having the option to discuss the shows you have watched with those same people. These are largely incompatible whims; you’re kind’a going to have to just choose a path and accept that there will occasionally be thorns in the bushes along that path, regardless of which one you choose.

    That is to say, as I see it, you have three basic options:

    • Either watch things according to your preferences at whatever pace suits you, and accept that the occasional spoiler is going to be inevitable,
    • Or binge everything that’s ever been released as quickly as you can, and accept that you’re going to end up watching and investing in some shows that may not last as long as you’d like,
    • Or simply pull out of the discussions as soon as you realize that a spoiler is coming… or maybe even isolate yourself from those discussions entirely, until such time as you’re comfortable with your level of Trek knowledge.

    Some combination of those options is probably going to be more or less palatable to you. (Personally, I go through spurts of all three modes at different times.)

    As an aside: shows being cancelled prematurely is by no means unique to the Age of Streaming. The original Star Trek series is a prime example… but more modern examples exist as well, including non-Trek franchises, like Firefly.




  • The “I don’t know how to…” questions are mostly answered by doing exactly what you’re already doing… playing through those main questlines at the top of the list. But don’t hesitate to explore the secondary quests; there can be some good stuff there, too.

    One of the things I like the most about NMS is that there’s no real sense of urgency to any of it, other than what you imbue it with yourself… so picking and choosing whichever quest strikes your fancy at the moment can be quite satisfying.

    Also, I suggest that you don’t stress too much about units; if you can’t afford something right now, just look into it later. Even if you never read a single spoiler, in time you will no doubt discover a few methods on your own to obtain an overabundance of units.



  • A while back I started a Permadeath save specifically for the purpose of finishing off that last Steam task… so lately, I’ve mostly just been beefing up that save. Got a crap-ton of upgrades to my primary ship and Multitool, started a settlement, upgraded my Minotaur and got an S-class freighter – which I don’t even have on my original save with >500 hours!

    So now, I’m actually finding it next to impossible to repeat the process, and find an S-class freighter for my other saves.



  • This feels to me a lot like blaming the kids when dad comes home drunk. Some of the MCU movies have been absolutely great… some, not so much. Likewise for the Disney+ shows, for that matter. Just let each of them stand on their own two feet and stop casually casting blame on content that is at best only peripherally related.

    And for crying out loud… stop force injecting political agendas into a movie which offer no meaningful contribution to the actual plot. I promise you, that’s done far more damage to movies than any of the Disney+ content.



  • Consider adding Ars Technica to your list. They aren’t specifically focused on Apple news, but a couple of their journalists do routinely offer some fairly balanced reporting on Apple affairs. Plus, their Android expert is constantly comparing Android devices to Apple devices… and he very rarely gives Android a total win in any given comparison. I think it’s quite amusing to read, actually.



  • I’m glad you found your way back – but here’s a few little nuggets for the future: there are several different well-trodden shortcuts that can help you reduce the time it takes to get from one galaxy to the next. I have one save with base computers in every (ahem) accessible galaxy; once I got my stride, I think I was speeding through galaxies in as little as twenty minutes each or so. (Click on the spoiler below, if you’d like to read more about how to do that – but be warned, those spoiler tags are there for a reason!)

    The shortcut

    (Note that you may need to do some initial prep in order to fully take advantage of this shortcut, such as upgrading your freighter hyperdrive, collecting various elemental resources to fuel portals, and collecting a bunch of Vy’keen Daggers and such.)

    • From any planet, use your exocraft scanner to scan for an alien monolith,
    • Answer the monolith’s question.
    • If it liked your answer, you can ask it for the location of that planet’s portal in exchange for an artifact,
      • If it didn’t like your answer, go look for another monolith and repeat the process,
    • Once you’ve found the portal, fuel it and use it to travel to the “all zeros” address – that is to say, repeatedly click on the first glyph.

    If the hyperdrive in your freighter is fully upgraded, that will put you only one or two jumps away from the center.


    There are also strategies you can use to reduce the repair costs of each jump. (Care for another spoiler?)

    The "junker" method

    This strategy involves using your freighter, a “junker” ship, a “junker” multi-tool and at least one other ship:

    • Board your freighter once you’ve reached the exit solar system,
    • Switch to your “junker” ship, (which is nothing more than a ship which you have no intention of repairing),
    • Switch to your “junker” multi-tool, (same premise as the ship)
    • Make the jump to the center using your freighter’s warp controls instead of your ship,
    • Finally, once you’ve reached the next galaxy, switch to your non-damaged alternate ship and multi-tool to start exploring again – no repairs necessary.

    (Note that the “junker” method doesn’t help with the tech in your suit… but you can instead just store all of your suit tech to avoid damage there.)



  • Apple tech specs online says that it’ll support up to 16GB – but sometimes their spec sheets lowball the actual compatibility. At any rate, you can be sure that it’ll accept at least that much. (Source)

    And maxing out the RAM is always better for performance, regardless of whether you’re using macOS, Windows or Linux. (This is doubly true with older hardware, such as what you’ve found.) The question isn’t, is more RAM a good idea… it’s, is more RAM worth the cost. And with a 16GB RAM kit for that system going for about $16 on Amazon, I’d personally say go for it. (Double-check that I’ve found the right link for you, of course, just in case.)


  • Depends on the sub: in my experience, some subs were just plain more picky than others, and the reasons didn’t always map to a published rule. I was actually temporarily banned from one sub for posting something fairly innocuous – or so I thought. That was my first and only attempt to post to that sub; I promptly unsubscribed and never went back.

    As to whether or not lemmy is “better”… we can hope. But if we assume that the issue is caused by humans who are fallible, (or by code that humans wrote, which is by extension fallible) than I’m afraid the source of the issue isn’t particularly likely to change with the platform.


  • I think that in a full-on multiverse where absolutely anything is possible, you’d have to expect some of both now and then.

    Perhaps another way to look at it is, what are the chances that you’re going to encounter a more similar universe, vs a less similar universe? As far as I’m aware, none of the MCU multiverse stories have necessarily attempted to answer that question, as yet… but if I were to take a crack at it:

    I’d say that it largely depends upon the method used to traverse universes. If your method is intelligently directed, you could assume that encountered universes are more likely to be similar to your own universe. If on the other hand, your method is more random and chaotic, you’re more likely to end up someplace completely unfamiliar.

    But then again, with characters like America Chavez – who directs her travel with her own mind, and still has greatly limited control over where she ends up – the entire notion of what constitutes “intelligent direction” kind of comes into question… so it’s all rather too complex to analyze effectively, isn’t it?