Recently started using mail merge.
Combined it with some vba scripting(didn’t learn it well, just found some scripts on the net and modified them a bit) so that I could get pdf files for emailing by clicking a macro button from an excel sheet.
Also, go to use the info about the keyboard mouse right click button when someone’s Right Mouse Button was not working. https://www.online-tech-tips.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Windows-Right-Click-Button.jpg
I mentioned only computer things because of recency, but please do share your experiences in other topics too.
For people with physical jobs, try a little weight lifting. You don’t have to be the best or lift super heavy weights for it to be useful.
It’s one thing to have signs up at work reminding you to lift with your knees. It’s another thing to really learn, through constant practice, how to move your body safely, and activate muscles you never thought about. You won’t need signs to remind you, and you’re less likely to lift something stupidly and fuck up your joints even if you’re in a hurry, because correct technique will be burnt into your brain.
I know it’s not exactly obscure knowledge but a lot of people don’t bother unless they’ve got some kind of body goal. I’ve found it to be an educational experience even if I’m not a bodybuilder.
Downloading and sharing files with a bittorrent client. Only wish there was a simple website explaining it ELI5 style.
Helping others when you need help, because eventually it’ll become so easy that you can even help yourself.
As anyone who recognizes this username knows, I always try to help teach the merits of Marxism, which I believe is more useful than ever these days in analyzing the world around us and what we need to do to fix it. I can give anyone here a good introductory reading list or answer any questions, if anyone wants that.
I also have taught soldering to a couple people.
i’d love a reading list! i have read a bit of marxist-inspired thought but never much marxism itself
Here’s a little “intro to Marxism-Leninism” list I threw together, modified a bit. It’s critically missing National Liberation theory, so any additions on that matter would be excellent. I am working through intersectional theory right now, which is why it is missing from this present list, the goal is to be as straight to the point as possible.
A good intro for someone with no familiarity is Engels’ Principles of Communism and if you are anti-AES but willing to read I recommend Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds.
From there, it becomes more important to understand that Marxism-Leninism is broken into 3 major components:
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Dialectical and Historical Materialism
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Critique of Capitalism along the lines of Marx’s Law of Value
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Advocacy for Revolutionary Socialism
And as such, I recommend, in order:
- Politzer’s Elementary Principles of Philosophy
By far my favorite primer on Dialectical and Historical Materialism. By understanding DiaMat first, you make it easier to understand the rest of Marxism.
Further reading on DiaMat, but crucially introduces the why of Scientific Socialism, essentially explaining how Capitalism itself preps the conditions for public ownership and planning by centralizing itself into monopolist syndicates.
- Marx’s Wage Labor and Capital as well as Wages, Price and Profit
Best taken as a pair, these essays simplify the most important parts of the Law of Value.
Absolutely crucial and the most important work for understanding the modern era and its primary contradictions.
- Lenin’s The State and Revolution
Excellent refutation of revisionists and Social Democrats who think the State can be reformed, and not replaced. Also a good call to action to cap off the intro.
- Vikky Storm and Eme Flores’ The Gender Accelerationist Manifesto
Critical reading on understanding misogny, transphobia, and homophobia, as well as how to move beyond. Uses the foundations built up in the previous works to analyze gender theory from a Historical Materialist perspective.
After reading all of this, whoever has completed these works should have a good grasp of the basics of Marxism-Leninism and be equipped to do their own Marxist-Leninist analysis, though tons of excellent and fairly critical works were dropped for the sake of limiting the scope to an intro reading list.
Yooooo thank you for including audiobooks!
I can’t take credit for it, a comrade who loved my list sent the links and suggestion for adding them in DMs. Hope you enjoy!
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This may seem basic, but I think some people really need it. I have a hard time remembering things like birthdays and such. So I make sure to add people’s birthdays into their contact info on my phone. Then it will show up on my calendar as a different color and I can see it coming up and actively try to be on top of it instead of it passing and feeling guilty for forgetting. Maybe you don’t care about everyone’s birthday in your life, but I at least try to add my friends and family so I can reach out to them or try to remember to send a gift to little ones that are far away, etc.
When an online conversation is getting too heated, stop responding for a while. Give everyone a chance to calm down and get perspective.
