Well? Is it?

Don’t offer stuff online for free. You attract the scum of the earth. If you list things for £1 you get a completely different type of people. Never engage with people who are looking for free things on Facebook marketplace.

If I were dying, or lost my job, or had a bereavement; I would find any one of these to be incredibly comforting:

May the force be with you

Live long and prosper

Here’s looking at you kid

My mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get

You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain

Cowabanga

Apes together strong

If you find yourself alone, riding in the green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled. For you are in Elysium, and you’re already dead.

You have my sword, and my bow, and my axe.

Why do we fall sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.

I live my life a quarter mile at a time.

I’ll be back

Which would be worse, to live a monster or to die a good man

Podcasts are my thing. I’ve got you covered.

Depends on what you’re into:

More or Less: Behind the Stats - analysis of some statistic from the news

The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos - what science says about how to be happy

The Audio Long Read - long form articles from the Guardian newspaper

You Are Not So Smart - cognitive science related. How we know things, our biases, how our thinking is flawed, etc.

Dan Snow’s History Hit - One of the few history podcasts I really like

Short History Of… - a short history of some specific thing

The Forum - expert panel discussion about some topic

Behind the Bastards - Very well known podcast focusing on some bastard personality

CrowdScience - in depth investigation of a listener science question

Radiolab - in depth investigation of a topic of their interest. Quite broad scope.

Unexpected Elements - a very varied mix of discussions around a science topic from the news

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford - Tim Harford is the podcast king for me. This show is a deep dive into something that went wrong in news or history, and an investigation of all the systemic failures around it. It tries to show how blame is hardly ever warranted on a single person and the systems are at fault.

The Martin Lewis Podcast - UK consumer advocate and saving guru

Show Me The Meaning! A Wisecrack podcast - a couple of philosophers talk about a movie

The Inquiry - a deep dive into a news story

Revisionist History - Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast about a range of different things

The Law Show - UK legal system issues

The Infinite Monkey Cage - comedy science panel show

The Supermassive Podcast - space related podcast

File on 4 investigates - detailed story from deep investigative journalism

Thinking Allowed - light philosophical ramblings

When It Hits the Fan - two public relations experts talk about PR issues from current events

Discovery - science related. Currently mostly doing shows about “a life scientific” I.e. talking to a scientist about their life

Overthink - philosophy made accessible

What It’s Like To Be… - a person from a particular occupation talks about their job

People Fixing the World - people from different parts of the world fixing some local problem in their community in a creative way

Hidden Brain - my absolute favourite. Cognitive science related. Explains how the brain works and how to use the understanding to male your own love better.

Within Reason Your Parenting Mojo - evidence based parenting. Can be a very dry long-winded research presentation, but this has improved my parenting (and life) immensely

sideways - different ideas and how to look at things differently

Darknet Diaries - stories from the dark underbelly of the internet

The Reith Lectures - once a year short lecture series, but well worth listening to the backlog

Evil Genius with Russell Kane - comedians discuss how some villains from history weren’t so bad and how some heroes from history were terrible people

Owls at Dawn - ramblings of a couple of philosophers

Sound of Gaming - excellent music show about music soundtracks from videogames

Playing god? - medical ethics discussion

30 Animals That Made Us Smarter - this series has ended but it is worth listening to the backlog

50 Things That Made the Modern Economy - this series has ended but it is worth listening to the backlog

A History of the World in 100 Objects - this series has ended but it is worth listening to the backlog

I would also recommend the podcast series made to accompany the Chernobyl and Last of Us TV series.

S Town - a nice fiction mini series drama story.

Tik Tok vertical videos?

Someone who does not spend excessive amounts of time on specific kinds of social media to consume memes and get steeped in the current internet “culture” and in-jokes.

Nobody wants “nobody”.

1. I’ve really been getting into retro emulation recently and would highly recommend it.

2. Pixel graphics are the best even in modern games (Enter the Gungeon, Dead Cells, Stardew Valley, Celeste, etc).

Your caveman brain. People think they’re educated an enlightened and everything they do now is so well thought out. Nope, the caveman is in the driving seat for all of us. Even your most high level meetings and interviews are influenced by how hungry, horny, or hurt you are by a teasing comment yesterday. Everyone is looking to establish dominance at any cost, when you don’t really need to.

See myself in a Teams meeting. Try to get rid of my resting bitch face. It somehow comes back again in 2 min.

This inflicts chip damage.

Spectator sports is entertainment.

You can put down a small tub or mug to catch the room temp water to use for something else. I run water into a mug and use that to wash my kid’s asses after their bedtime poop. I mix bubble bath into the remaining room temp water in the mug for the kids to play with when showering. Then they can get straight into the tub and warm water will come from the showerhead right away.

There are tons of uses for the room temp water…water plants, fill the iron, fill the floor mop bucket, etc.

I don’t think the point of the meme is to explain the real intended message of the song here.

It doesn’t have to be forced ignorance. I still follow the TLDR news and sister channels. They present a summary of a few key issues quite well. I know about the political parties I support and will vote in an election. I have an app for breaking news headlines (I just look at the headlines for just urgent breaking news…but I’ve uninstalled this recently).

Mainstream news I have no interest in following anymore. Especially since they’ve pivoted to reporting on “this person said this dumb thing on social media” and “royal family/celebrity does some dumb shit”.

I would also recommend using RSS for news if you have to. Subscribe to only what you want. Get news in chronological order rather than their bullshit prioritisation. Set blacklist filter words (I used to have a news RSS with a blocklist as long as my arm…Trump, Gaza, COVID, Ukraine, Musk, Twitter, Facebook, etc etc). But now I’ve uninstalled this too.

I unplugged a year ago and it has been great. Highly recommended.

I’m really looking forward to the sequel.

Oldest.

There’s a podcast by Malcolm Gladwell where he says data shows the single best predictor of successful college application or success with college sports is your month of birth. Being oldest in the class comes as a huge advantage and is making many American families “red shirt” their child by putting them in school a year later; and this making them the oldest child in the class all the way through.

This just sounds more and more appealing. Count me in.

This community is literally called “no stupid questions”. Don’t worry about it.