• 3 Posts
  • 39 Comments
Joined 2 months ago
cake
Cake day: June 5th, 2025

help-circle
  • Thanks for all the responses, I really appreciate it! I’ve editing my post rather than respond to each one. Just wanna say that while Linux seems intimidating, I’m realizing I was being overly cautious and thought each distro was like it’s own OS instead of just a variation. You guys really come out to help out newbies, so thank you!




  • Of course they have needs, that’s what the parents are meant to provide for. It’s illegal for a child to earn an income in developed countries already, 10 year olds are not allowed to have a job.

    Are you suggesting the gov’t give $1000 a month to every 4,5,6 etc year old? Or is it meant to go straight to the parents? $1000 per kid is insane, and couples would be popping out as many kids as possible. Imagine getting $10k every month because you had 8 kids. The system would be abused significantly more than child benefit programs already are, and the kids would suffer the most.

    Canada for example gives out child benefits every month to help with child needs. There’s a UBI pilot program starting in 2026, and you need to be 18 to apply. $1200 for singles, $2000 for couples, and $1800-$2400 per month for couples with kids. Generally, most UBI proposals that I’ve scome across have a couple of things across the board, namely being over 18, and making less than X amount per year (the Canadian pilot is less than $30k). Throwing that much money at kids is a recipe for disaster.










  • There are a few different edits, but my fave is the M4 Book Edit. It only follows what was covered in the book and cuts out all the additions like the Kili/Tauriel love story (and Tauriel is cut out completely along with Azog until the end), the Dol Guldur stuff, and Gandalf’s escapades outside the party. It cuts the trilogy down to 4hr18min. Aside from a few unavoidably janky transitions, it’s great.

    I absolutely adore it for 2 reasons: One, I really dislike the trilogy as a whole, but that’s because of the bloat, which M4 gets rid of. Two, the older I get the harder it is to go through LOTR as often as I like. I usually do an LOTR rewatch once a year, and tried to add in the Hobbit, but usually stopped after the first. It’s just too much time for not enough payoff. With the M4 edit, I’ll get stoned and watch it 5 or 6 times a year.

    For as much flack as Jackson gets the for The Hobbit movies, he did a phenomenal job where it counts. There really is a wonderful, true-to-source Hobbit adventure scattered throughout the 8hr52min bloat that is the trilogy.

    For funsies, if you like the other bits there’s another fan edit called Durin’s Folk and the Hill of Sorcery that’s 1hr8min that covers Gandalf’s adventure after he fucks off from the party at Mirkwood.




  • This brings up an excellent point about addiction. A quick longer than I’d planned anecdote: over the last few years I’ve nearly completely dumped all social media (and big tech in general). Facebook, Insta, Twitter, all gone. The only social for the last few years I’ve had left was Reddit, and I dumped that a couple months ago (all social media is toxic, I learned).

    I swapped Reddit for Lemmy a few months ago and noticed a huge difference, not just the fewer toxic people, but in the lack of posts overall by comparison. I found myself scrolling through the same Lemmy posts throughout the day, my brain trying to repeat the cycle from Reddit, but stayed strong and didn’t go back to Reddit haha.

    Anyway, there’s still toxicity on Lemmy, and I realized how much it affects me without the cloud of all the other socials bogging it down. Not a lot, but enough. So I made a decision and went back to my old nerd days. I didn’t want to miss out on legit articles I was interested in from social media so I set up an rss reader. I started checking out Lemmy in the morning, and my rss throughout the day, which doesn’t update often.

    What I found at first was I was re-checking lemmy, re-loading rss, and thinking about what else I can put on my phone to scratch that itch. I was (am) still addicted to the dopamine hit of forever-feeds of useless garbage. So instead, I picked up a book. It’s been a long time, and it’s a slow adjustment, but wow is it ever so much better. Aside from some small interaction on Lemmy in the morning like this, I don’t see comments anymore, I read the info I’m interested in reading and make my own judgments without comments trying to sway me, and use my former doom-scrolling time to read a book.

    To sum up, you’re absolutely right. Addiction is a bitch and the average person doesn’t even realize they’re addicted.