Which is precisely why there are 100 pages open. I get to the end of a lot of them, but when I realize my brain’s too tired to keep up, I have to stop in the middle of a page.

Then the next night I pick up again, but sometimes with a different page because there’s just too much interesting stuff out there and sometimes I don’t intend to end up on Wikipedia, but a search leads me there and I fall into another rabbit hole. So then I have two pages open, not counting any I may leave open because, “Ooh, that’s interesting, I want to share that fact with my friend. But it’s midnight and I don’t want to wake them.” And… well, sometimes I remember and send the info, but sometime the page stays open until I do a clean-through of my tabs…

Which means ads follow the same rules as so-called “pick up artists.” No wonder they annoy me so much.

they want to support the websites

Are these people actually clicking on the ads and making purchases through them? Because if all they’re doing is letting the ads clutter space, but not interacting with them, does that really support the site at all?

Someone on here some weeks ago had a beef with me saying I skip passed promo content in YouTube videos. They said something about wanting to support the videomakers. K, but if I’m not in the market for a new mattress (as an example of an ad I sometimes hear), it doesn’t make sense for me to listen to the sponsored mattress read-through. If I don’t make a purchase with the YouTuber’s promo code, then what’s the difference if I skip a couple minutes ahead? Do I owe a video “respect” by listening anyway? And if for some reason the advertiser cares more about me listening to their spiel than about me actually making a purchase, well, that’s silly and sucks for them.

There are some things advertised that I’m never going to buy no matter how much they’re shown to me. Meal kits, gambling sites, men’s boxers, these are all things I’ve seen countless sponsored ad placements mid-video for, and they are all things I don’t use and can’t see myself using. Yet the ads persist.

So I will continue skipping.

Oh wow, that all makes sense. What a masterful game.

I already hated doing the jobs for Micah in RDR2. They were the most frustrating quests. When the twist came later on, I was ready to fight against him.

tuning out noise is a skill that your brain has to learn, and that’s why the health organizations recommend it limiting your time on noise cancelling headphones.

Is it different for people with autism?

The other commenter already responded to this point, but I wanted to stress the difficulty we have with this. I’d argue that differences in filtering out stimuli is a key component of autism - not just for sounds, but for all variety of inputs. Lights, tactile sensations, tastes and smells, they can seem “dialed up to 11” (or turned down to 1) for a lot of us. No two autistic people are the same, however, and my sensory experiences can be drastically different from another’s. It’s all about how the stimuli is handled in the brain.

Typically, human brains filter out a lot of information. Take the example of “can you feel the chair you’re sitting in?” Now that you’re thinking about it, you probably can. But before it was mentioned, were you aware? Did you feel the way the wood, plastic, or cushion pushed against your body? For an autistic individual, they may be acutely aware of those sensations before having them pointed out. How about your clothes? Are you wearing long sleeves, feeling the fabric against your arms? Some of us feel it constantly, to the point that some of us avoid long sleeves because of it. Or socks? I think I feel my feet sandwiched into socks moreso than most people do. Fuzzy socks aren’t fun for me - they’re distracting.

The experience can change based on other factors. Most days I can tolerate sunlight, though I prefer to wear my sunglasses. Rarely, there are days where light gives me such bad headaches that I need to wear sunglasses inside and/or turn lights off. Stress, general health, energy levels, and more can impact such experiences.

As to recommendations for one’s health, you might consider us the canaries in the coal mine. If we find an environment too overwhelming, it might be taxing your brain too - you just don’t feel it as immediately as we might.

How about “soft drinks”? Sometimes (in the US) I see that as a catch-all term for sodas (to contrast with “hard drink,” i.e. a drink with liquor in it.)

Other non-US anglophones, is that a common term where you live?

If only on one side of the body? A mirror, probably. If they’ve been used to treat phantom limb pain, maybe they’d work for itches too?

Laying on your stomach? Aww, honey, that might not be an option for much longer at all. Once boobs start growing, it’ll get less and less comfortable. I can’t remember the last time I slept on my stomach, but I guarantee it was before puberty.

Pro-tip for bras - when you put them on, center your nipple along the seams. That way if it’s cold, or your nipples decide randomly to go hard (for those that need to hear it - it does not mean someone’s horny. It’s just a thing nipples do sometimes), having them aligned with the seam will keep them from poking out visibly.

Otherwise, welcome to the boob club!

No no, the snow is good. Work already messaged me to say we’d be closed Monday. Don’t make them go back on their word.

This reminds me of how my old dog used to like when you blew raspberries into her cheek. She’d push her cheek against your mouth to tell you she wanted more.

It all started because my brother’s a prick who likes to piss off animals. He used to blow in dogs’ faces to see how they reacted (and is the only person our childhood dog ever bit, in her entire 19 years of life.) But when he tried it with my dog, she liked it. Eventually it turned into blowing raspberries into the side of her face. Maybe she liked the vibrations? Maybe she liked our breath? Who knows.

Weird little pup, I miss her.

If there’s one thing AI is getting good at, it’s lying

Thank you for summing up the key reason that AI bothers me, giving words to the off-putting feeling in my gut whenever I think about it.

Theft, attacking artistic integrity, energy-consumption, these are all things I’ve heard and seen people say against it. But the simple fact is that AI is a liar, and it’s muddying the line between truth and fiction in a way that no propaganda can match. It’s insidious, it’s powerful, and it’s everywhere. It sprung up in a time and place where reality was already under attack and poured fuel onto the fire of rampant disinformation.

He literally has a “safe space” the way South Park imagined it? Poor Butters, going through all his shitty news just to find the rare, delusional comment in Trump’s favor.

Honestly, the amount of parents that act like their precious little baby is going to always be a precious little baby is astounding. It’s like the idea that their child is going to someday become an adult doesn’t enter their minds. They don’t realize how much they’re setting their kids up for failure by refusing to allow (let alone encourage) them to do things independently.

There are times and places to step in and help your child, absolutely. But as they get older, those times should become rarer and rarer. To hand-hold all the time doesn’t build their confidence, doesn’t let them hone their skills, and encourages dependence on someone else to always do things for them. It’s hard to let go, but it’s a part of growing up.

At age 4-12 you don’t really have stuff you don’t really have homework, except if you’re lagging behind with your work.

That sounds perfect. I wish good grades could exempt us from homework in the US. But if we don’t burden children with long hours of unnecessary busy work, how else will we condition them to accept jobs that demand the same thing? /s

I can draw and happily share my artwork today, but when I was a kid? I was self-conscious as fuck. I was already bullied for any and every conceivable reason. You’re absolutely right, those projects were torture. I have an issue with procrastination, but sometimes I would work on a project, actually complete the thing, then on the day it was due I wouldn’t bring it in because I didn’t want it displayed for everyone to see. I took the F because it was less painful.

It doesn’t help that more wealthy kids had access to better materials, and consequently got better grades because their work “looked more professional.” I either had a small budget, or had to make do with whatever we already had at home. You’d think the teachers would grade on creativity, but nah. Once those kids started coming in with their reports in fancy covers, looking like they made their own booklet, the rest of us (some of whom didn’t even own printers) were sunk. The individual effort never paid off - it was all about looking good. Add in that some students absolutely had their parents’ help (while my parents each worked full time to support a total of four kids), and yeah. The class differences became apparent - you could see it from our report cards.

If a thousand dollar computer isn’t enough to play your game, get fucked.

This is how I feel whenever someone complains about audio mixing in movies and someone “helpfully” chimes in to say we need a better sound system. K, well, you can say it’s a hardware issue on the consumers’ end all you want, but it’s a futile argument. Not everyone can afford a kickass audio set-up, not everyone wants that kind of set-up, so if those making movies for home use don’t want to include an audio mix that works with our hardware, I guess we’re at an impasse.

I realized recently that I expect pretty much everything purchased lately to break within months, no matter what it is. Buy a brand new shirt? It’ll have a thread unraveling on the first day you wear it. Buy a tray table? It’ll collapse after a few uses. I was gifted a tumbler for Christmas and the lid is already cracked. Everything is made so cheaply that nothing lasts anymore.

I think about how, generations ago, things were built solid. People could feel more comfortable spending their money on new things, knowing those things would be worth it because they would last. Today, it’s a shitshow. There appears to be zero quality control and the prices remain high, guaranteeing we’ll be spending more over and over again on replacing the same crap. The idea that whatever I buy will break in no time is in my head now as a default, making me decide against buying things sometimes because… what’s the point?

Tiiiiiin roof

Rusted

This is probably the 4th or 5th post I’ve seen on Lemmy about this poll this week. Each time I checked the results, they were the same (except for the very first one I saw, which was different by only one percentage point.) The answer’s pretty clear.

Although I’m pretty sure it’s a PR stunt at this point, I do appreciate that DDG asked its users at all. Every other company seems to be like, “We’re gonna make you use AI, regardless of whether you want to or not. Suck it up!”