Dear lord FlyingSquid I could handle the unhinged Trekkie rants but taking a picture of a monitor or TV screen instead of putting in the extra legwork to screencap? You’re not just unhinged, you’re a phoney. A big phat low-effort phoney!

Also thanks for sharing I really liked the video

My niece and nephew ended up in the system and I felt morally obligated to put my life on pause and help my parents get them adopted and taking care of them. I couldn’t even move back into the house as each child required their own room so for the past year I’ve been living in a tent in their back yard. The whole ordeal has been emotionally taxing, but also kind of rewarding in weird ways I didn’t expect.

In terms of the kids, its nice to be able to positively influence their lives and show them the kindness, love, and guidance I wish I had. When I make them laugh or they express gratitude It makes me feel like my existence wasn’t a complete waste.

In terms of living in a tent? I came to love it. It taught me to overcome many issues and made me much more resiliant. To better understand the difference between convinence and necessity. Most of the things you think you need, you really don’t.

From the basic survival stuff like adjusting to the climate, to building my own solar system, to learning how to clean myself and use the bathroom without running water. I minimized my entire lifestyle, let go of all the useless trinkets I thought I needed, and found the true basics of what a person really needs to be comfortable.

I also learned how to confront my fears of what other people think of me for daring to live an alternative lifestyle in their view.

I feel so mentally different from the person I was a year ago. More capable and confident. I feel like I can do anything, be anyone, go anywhere. I feel kind of great about myself and my situation in life. I feel like I’m an okay person living a genuine authentic life. Helping out my family while getting myself figured out.

Also given the current housing and renting market, I can’t help but feel like I’ve figured out a cheat code. "Affordable housing? That converted out car looks good enough to me. "

I dont think things would have gone this way had the kids not ended up in the system.

Lol when I read their comment I thought “Okay Biff Tannen”

Cheating? I didn’t think there were rules covering time-based warfare. Damn. Wheres the fun if you can’t cause some temporal paradoxes and get a few people stuck in Groundhog Day scenarios. Where’s the freedom?

It depends on how far back you go and who you contact about he incident and the evidence to solidify the claim. 9/11 could have been stopped relatively easily with a few days notice to national security. The air force could have shot both planes out of the sky. Just call the civilian deaths a tragic casalty of terrorism and use it to help fuel the war. The twin towers could have been shut down that day.

But you’ve gotta materialize right in front of the commander in chief, bring a mountain of carbon datable evidence like news papers and original classified docs, and hope that you don’t get brained on the spot before you make your case.

As for covid, you probably can’t stop it but maybe better warn and prepare world governments so they can get their population ready through subtle conditioning like trying to get wearing mask be a fashon trend or advertising bidets heavily as the new rich yuppie thing to show as a status symbol.

You have the wrong community, this is crazy people Facebook material

So, did it never occur to you that you can manually add custom search engine into Firefox?

Settings>search>manage alternate search engines>add search engine

Wow reading through these comments makes me a little sad. Most people still don’t know jack about search engines or how they differ under the hood, or eve just how to add them into your browser search bar. Looks like all the effort I put into that that simple search engine guide was in vain.

I have been interested in mesh networks for a long while but I want to connect with other peoples mesh networks and access public websites on the protocol without an ISP . Like a mesh router box I pay for one time and connect via radio or something and access a very basic Usenet or early 2000s lean design internet. Is it possible?

Just needs a little TLC, started up a few months ago. No title.

bandcamp/soundcloud/youtube downloaded locally with yt-dlp and the files put on a real mp3 player. I enjoy owning my music and listening to it any time any where without internet connection or monthly subscription payments.

All countries need patriotism, a little bit of ‘we’re better than everyone else/ the competition!’ Is good for morale boosting and fostering nationalistic pride especially if your country isn’t doing too hot socioeconomically. You don’t have families of soldiers willing to send themselves and their children to fight wars if they didn’t truly believe on some level america is #1. Id like to think its the same with most countries, nationalism is a powerful tool of propaganda.

Just wanted to give some input as someone who dealt with lifelong obesity. As a fat person, some people just don’t like to face the music or give themselves an honest look in the mirror. They don’t want to call a spade a spade. Changing around words to describe things in more complex and softer language doesn’t change the situation any, it just helps you psychologically cope.

The same with playing the blame game on outside factors like genetics and disability. Blaming everything you can but yourself and your own choices and failures and unaddressed mental insecurities. Thats not a fat person thing though, thats a general human being thing I tend to see in most groups of people one way or another. Its easier to convince yourself that you never had a choice, than it is to acknowledge the bad personal choices that lead to the consequences of your failures.

When you have fat rolls, and stretch marks litter your stomach, and you look more like a slug than a human being, and you need help wiping your own ass or a bigger toilet to support the weight, when you have to go shopping at specialty close stores (before amazon) just to find a size that fits, and you have no self control or desire to change your habits to stop the self destructive spiral as your stomach swells like a balloon, thats obesity. Regardless of arguments on BMI or CICO or genetics or whatever else, you’ve got a serious problem that needs addressing or it will destroy you slowly but surely.

“At least I’ll die happy!” my type 2 diabetic father would always gleefully tell me as he shoved another tasty cake in his mouth before jabbing himself with an insulin pen. I don’t think the junk food ever did make him happy though. He had mental health issues he never worked through in life. Instead, he relied on the temporary relief of junk food for pleasure, eventually having his addiction dominate and guide his existence.

As for me? I’ve gone through cycles of gaining and loosing 100 pounds. Right now im on a downward trend, lost 40 pounds this year. Hope to loose another 40 by this time next year. I gain the pounds during cycles of extreme depression, and loose them during cycles of great determination and self-agency. Our physical well-being is tied to our emotional and spiritual well-being. Self destructive cycles are much easier to enter when you feel nihilistic and out of control of your own life.

How do I loose weight? I don’t eat. CICO, Simple as. I eat one meal a day, if that. Maybe snack on some dried preserved nuts and fruits once or twice.I drink water and lemon juice. I am a 6’1 man the calorie calculators tell me I should have around 2000 calories daily and cut down by 500 to loose a pound every once in awhile. Fuck that, I have maybe 500-1000 calories daily.

Im a little hungry a lot of the time, but I see the results of my conviction when I step on the scale expecting it to raise 5 lbs and seeing it drop 10 lbs. I look at myself in the mirror, examining my fading stretch marks and receding folds, I examine my skin tightening around the muscles and notice my face not quite as round as it once was. Thats the reward physical evidence of improvement. That my efforts aren’t for nothing. It helps to remind myself of what im doing it for, and the price ive already had to pay for my insecurities and failures to control myself.

The physical act of loosing weight is hard and requires self-control over a very long time often multiple years. The mental act of introspection and reflecting on what lead to your obesity often requires analyzing the roots of your negative aspects while confronting those past traumas. That requires a mental strength and intelligence many people lack. At the end of the day, its easier and feels nicer to twist words and point fingers than fix your own problems.

Computer, zoom into frame 30

Thats good info for low spec laptops. Thanks for the software recommendation. Need to do some more research on the model you suggested. I think you confused me for the other guy though. Im currently working with a six core ryzen 2600 CPU and a RX 580 GPU. edit- no worries we are good it was still great info for the thinkpad users!

Thank you thats useful to know. In your opinion what context size is the sweet spot for llama 3.1 8B and similar models?

Thanks for the suggestions. Updated the post with the list.

Linux Mint cinnamon is gold standard for quality IMO. All my modern systems that can comfortably run it do.

That said it also uses more resources than your old craptop may like depending on just how old we are talking about.

If cinammon is a little slow, try mint xfce. Its a lot lighter on system resources. Last time i tried xfce it was a great performance compromise if a little unpolished in places.

If Mint xfce is also too slow you can give MX Linux a whirl. Its way faster and more minimal that mint out of the box. Yet it feels modern and allows you to install all the same programs as mint from the default software repo including flatpaks. MX fluxbox is probably as minimal as you would want to get. Try their flagship xfce first.

If you are trying to beat new life into a 25 year old dying dinosaur Puppy Linux will do it, but you won’t enjoy using it.

The worms are back again. Gotta dig out out Microsoft’s parasites with a screw driver.

They were there from the beginning, check the template it’s been untouched since first upload. The only edit I made to the image since was better cropping. I intended for those white strips to be coke lines. Its a small detail but if you zoom in you can see some extra white on the nose lol. Why I added it to the character. Definitely smoking a joint still with that bud