I play guitar and have since I was a teenager, and have been hoping that one of my kids would get into music and I finally got one because my daughter's music class has uke's and she asked for one for Christmas. I was a little worried because I know what guitars cost, but you can get one of these for like $40 that's totally fine.

Hey don't forget about the other half of the posts, which are in a language you don't understand. Seriously, my block list is long because language settings here mean nothing, and while I'm sure that's quality content, uh, I can't understand it.

Lots of stuff -

On the internet, more open standards and community driven stuff. It's currently really, really annoying that on my mastodon there are a lot of people sharing bluesky codes, as if that's not just punting the ball for another couple of years. Although this will hopefully be a better outcome than straight up silos like the old social media, fediverse still should be the default way we think about connecting humanity (or something like it, the underlying tech isn't really that important.) Also, far more things should just be like, a dollar a month or whatever instead of having a massive amount of privacy invading, user experience destroying ads.

In software in general, more privacy. It should be assumed that unless I explicitly opt in, my data is just that, mine. This is a tricky one because I remain hopeful about generative AI and that needs data to improve the models, I'm leery of sharing my data with it because so far the more pedestrian uses of data mining have not been used for things that I can really support. I remain extremely leery about GAI that isn't explicitly open source and can't be understood generally.

On the hardware side, computers have mostly been good enough for a while now. Tech will always get better, but I would like to see more of a focus on keeping working devices useful. Like, at some point, technology products will cease being possible to be useful in a practical way because it can't run modern software, but we're leaving a lot of shit behind where that's not the case. Just about any device with an SSD and a processor from the last 10 years (including phones!) should be able to be easily repaired, supported longer, and once support ends, opened up for community support.

I don't think so, I just think these movies have largely not been very good. Like, I really liked Loki S2, have rewatched NWH a hundred times, I liked the Marvels, etc. The problem isn't superheroes, you can use that as a backdrop for just about any type of story you want to tell and it can be great. For example, WandaVision tells a very different kind of story than anything else and it was really good. But of course, Marvel decides (I'm guessing late into post-production) they're going to fuck up all of that character development in a post-credits scene and then ignore it entirely in the next movie.

I think they're going to have to get a lot more creative about what types of stories they want to tell and what themes they want to get after and stop making them feel like cookie cutter properties. The early phases I think managed this a little better. Like, I remember walking out of TWS and thinking "damn, that was a really good Bond film with a Captain America skin on it" which is a compliment. Somewhere in there the whole thing got really generic.

I don't know how we can't legislate this into existence eventually if nothing else just based on climate change and the amount of working material we just... throw away. Especially as more and more things integrate software, I imagine that it's going to feel absolutely insane to people in a few decades (after the water wars and the great migrations) that they had technology like the microscope in the post but the company decided no more software updates so now it's just garbage.

So many things in your house that are probably pissing you off:

• it's very easy to replace an outlet that doesn't hold a plug or is a little off for whatever reason.
• ditto light switches
• door handles and shit. We hated the jank handle on our patio door that barely worked and required specialized training to get to lock. $12 for a new one, that was much more aesthetically from this decade. (that said, some lock lube, which is a thing, goes a long way)
• ditto for the various shitty faucets in this house (or any slightly older house.) You can get a ton of bathroom fixtures for under $30.
• hinges. Unless you're trying to re-hang a safe door, you're going to be under $20.
• faucet diffuser. They just screw on. Have you lived in your place for more than a few years and haven't replace them? Just do it, it's like $4 a faucet.
• doorbell. Smart doorbells can easily be had for under $50. A little easier often than replacing the traditional bell because you usually have a plug in chime rather than something wired.
• a can of sprayfoam. Seal that area that is letting in air. Trim it with a box knife, chances are you won't know the hack exists.

a few random things:

• $5.99 magnetic measuring spoons. They stick together and nest.
• $18.99 MagSafe phone car mount. I use iPhone and my car supports Android Auto/Carplay, but there isn't really a good place to stick your phone. This thing is basically a big magnet, I plug my phone in, throw it on this thing, and we good. Worth noting, even if you have CarPlay (guessing Android Auto as well) even though you don't need to use your phone, some apps have some functions when you're using them in this manner. EG: maps displays the next few turn by turn directions on the phone screen, and the overview of the map on the carplay screen.
• decent/good chef's knife. I think the one I'm using now is about $30, but you can get the ol' reliable Victorinox for around that price or a little cheaper.
• cabinet lighting pucks. I think Walmart has them for like $12 for two, but they are basically stick somewhere, motion activated lights that are battery powered. Paired with rechargeable batteries, I can now see the food that we push to the back of the cabinet to die.
• new streaming stick thingy. Though I greatly prefer Apple TV, it's hard to justify the price of those compared to Roku/Fire TV. That said, if you're hanging on to an older version of the Fire TV/Roku, upgrading helps the annoyance factor because it's just far less slow. We just added a $24.99 4k Fire TV stick, much nicer.
• Wireless chargers for phones. You can get them for like under $10. Buy 5, put them where you generally set your phone down. Or more simply, right next to the bedside. I generally only charge at night, so much nicer to be able to just drop it on a pad/magnet, etc.
• $9 dimmer switch. Our master bath is weird. The toilet/shower area has a door. The sink area connects directly to the bedroom with no door. The sink area has large mirrors and massive amounts of lighting. Fucking sucks if you're just getting up to pee and you now have the light of the sun on you and your partner at 3am.

more niche, bunch of smart home shit:

• just think about how $10-$20 and a little bit of thought can improve your life. I have a switch connected to my espresso maker, now I can yell in the shower to turn it on to pre-heat. If I had a regular schedule, I could automate this further just on time. I have it set so that once I tell it to turn on, it turns off after 20 minutes.
• motion sensor lights. though technically you don't need a smart home for this, there are some lights in my house that I only want to turn on when someone is there. I have a hallway, for example, that is more or less a cave tunnel. Any time I'm in that hallway (or anyone else) I want to have some light. So I have a motion sensor that turns the light on, and based on the status of the sun, it dims accordingly. When I walk into my garage, there are a few lights that turn on in sequence and it feels like you're walking into the bat cave.
• buttons! You can buy many different remotes for < $20. Pretty much anything you automate via voice you also need a button for. Pro-tip, use in-wall switches where you can, but in my case I didn't have a neutral wire because it's an older house, and my options were pretty limited/expensive.
• last example: my entryway lights. I have a door sensor ($10-15) so if I open it I can perform an action. My entry light has a smart bulb ($9.) I also have a floor standing lamp adjacent to this that has a smart bulb. What this allows me to do is check when I've recently arrived, and if it's after sunset and the bigger light isn't already on, turn on this entry light. If my TV is playing a movie, the light goes on in the dimmest setting so arriving people don't disturb.

Hi, Overton window? Can you hear me? You're moving too fast!

The trend when doing web-development since at least 2014 or so is mobile-first responsive design, which is basically as you describe, and it is really not that hard.

You're right - the only reason that any regular website isn't performant is usually because it's chock full of bullshit. Most of the web is unfortunately riddled with a few problems:

• library bloat. The vast majority of developers (even outside of just web) will include a giant library for 1-2 functions instead of just writing it themselves. I don't really blame them, most of the incentive for development these days has little to do with building things well, but instead focuses on building them quickly. With web dev in particular, it's extremely common to import a few thousand npm packages from dubious sources.
• on the web especially, everything seems to be running 3-4 different tracker networks, ad tech bullshit, anti-adblock stuff, click/scroll/jackers, etc. I'd hazard a guess that the vast majority of the regular web, the content is less than half of the actual function of the site.
• It's also extremely common in web dev to use some cool kid toolset designed to recreate photoshop on the web to build a blog or whatever.

Just having the freedom for literally anything. I have a stable, boring job that sucks, but it keeps a roof over my head (barely) while also leaving little time for anything else. I’m nearing 40 now and I definitely wish I’d gone back in my 20s and taken a lot more risk before I had responsibilities. Even then, I don’t want to be a wandering hippy, but a 30 hr work week with 3 weeks mandatory vacation? Sign me the fuck up.

Optimist: the glass is half full
Pessimist: the glass is half empty
realist: is this piss?

Up the Long Ladder is an episode in which they picked up some backwater folks with Irish accents, in which the hot Irish woman existed mainly to yell about how men are useless and then bang Riker after coyly attracting him by asking him to wash her feet. It is widely regarded as not a great episode, and the only way they could have stereotyped the Irish further would be if someone ran through each scene yelling about how they're always after his lucky charms.

Probably should have posted a pic with a good wheel.

OPs whole shit is wrong, honestly. I have a house furnished on quite a lot of Ikea shit that's been going strong for 10ish years through multiple moves? Though I don't disagree that I'd rather have better materials like real wood that can be refinished and really can last a century, that is not happening for anywhere near Ikea prices.