I think your comment is the key. Many others tell what to do, but yours addresses the core in that you won’t be happy unless you decide or allow yourself to be happy (perception).

I used to mock those people who would say things like “smile in the mirror and tell yourself that it’s going to be a great day”. Later in life, I figured out that that’s what they needed to do, so good for them. For me, it’s something else. I need to be around nature to ground my feelings. Other times, it’s physical cardiac exertion, like a bike ride.

Medication can help if there’s a real medical problem, like depression. Self medicating can be dangerous.

I’ve done this same thing. My dad lived on the other side of the country and it was a way for me to “take him out to eat” at a restaurant that he loved but was too expe dive for his tastes. Another time, I bought him a round of golf at a nice golf course that he would not treat himself to. He did not “believe” in gift cards wither, but on both occasions he mentioned that it was as if I took him to eat/golf and it was a nice gift for the guy who has everything.

Similarly, I have a cuckoo clock. I could watch the internal mechanism for hours.

Given my skill with 3d model creation, i’d be more likely to create something that would hurt me than inflicting harm on someone else. Mostly when I take that razor sharp tool to remove anything from the build plate, but also just my awful measurements and tolerances.

I had to double check that I didn’t write this because those words could have literally come from my fingers.

I’ve run the gamut with these apps and none seem to really work I’ve even tried a few paid ones. These days, if you’re not in my contact list or you don’t provide caller ID, I don’t answer.

I’ve been doing street complete for over a year now and didn’t know how much I would enjoy it. It’s also doing something for the community of people who use open street map data (usually hobbyists or folks looking for an alternative to the privacy violating giants). I feel proud of my work when I see my contributions on OSMAnd+ or when I post a picture of a place and somebody can use that data to contribute to the map.

This has been happening for a while. Most starter homes in the US are townhomes, detached townhomes or small single family homes in a denser neighborhood. Through the years, the building code has changed bit by bit to make those homes unaffordable. It’s similar to how you can pay half the price for a car in Mexico; there are much less mandated safety features. In houses, there are new energy codes (good for the environment) additional safety features like fire sprinklers and other similar things. Additionally, labor is more expensive, appliances and building materials are more expansive.

On the other side, you have people who have lived in their house for decades. The house (actually land) value has increased steadily and maybe they’ve kept it up, remodeling or putting in an addition. Now their kids are all moved out, they’ve retired and they’re ready to downsize, but the house they bought so long ago has appreciated and selling it to downsize would trigger a huge tax event on the appreciated value. They’re better off (financially) to keep it, pushing new buyers to look elsewhere.

It’s a complex problem intermixed with policy and also all the corporations mentioned elsewhere who have learned to profit from the broken system.

Garden & walks fix a lot. Also, if you eat it off the plant directly, it doesn’t count against your diet!

I wanted to quit nagging my kids to close the pantry door. It conflicts with the fridge door and they’re both getting banged up pretty bad. I replaced one of the pantry door hinges with a spring hinge (and removed the latch mechanism from the handle) and now the pantry door closes on its own. Sometimes, I hear them fling the door open and hit the fridge anyways, but I giggle just a little when it bonks them on the head.

Upvote for.disabling firmware. It’s a sad state when the average printer consumer needs to know how to disable firmware updates and even needs sysadmin skills to know how to block a host from the internet.

I have a similar story as your first point. It boils down to tucking away money with each financial gain. I put in enough to my 401k to get the full match, then with each raise, increase the amount invested by the raise. I’d already learned to spend within my limits and had no credit card debt, so each raise was “new money”. Years later, after adjusting our financials to pay for daycare, when the daycare expenses dropped (infants are most expensive, costs drop down as they age), we started putting into a college savings and some for school expenses. We had saved up enough to pay for private school, which was less than daycare. Now that private school is done, college is paid for, we’re paying down the mortgages. We locked in at 3% years ago. The house will be paid off when the kid graduates HS and we turn 55 and are eligible for the employer’s retirement program, including health care. We plan to travel in those years where we’re young enough to be healthy and old enough to have some money tucked away.

Oh, we also did the same for cars. When the car was paid off, we’d put the same money into a separate bank account and when it was tome to look for a new car, we had almost enough to pay for it outright.

Of course all of this can only happen when you have the skill to spend with your means.

I have the Debian netinst disk, but it doesn’t include the dm-cache modules, so I downloaded the live DVD last night. I only get about an hour a day to work on stuff.

🤦‍♀️ I’ve never considered this, but it’s the simplest solution and makes perfect sense. I’m always so diligent to keep my system clean to save a few megs.

This particular server is an old PowerEdge server I’m using to learn server stuff on and a practice home lab. Unfortunately, it won’t boot from SD card, so I have a few DVD RW’s in a drawer. I’ve read that there’s a SD slot inside that you can emulate a floppy, but haven’t explored it.

This, and addition to company sponsored anti features, governments can ask or force companies to add back doors, unbeknownst to the consumers. For this reason (and others), I’ll only ever trust open source software for security software, like VPN.

There was a news station I saw while vacationing in the Smokies. They called it “news with a heart”. They did all the same news stories, bit didn’t dwell on the death toll or show video of the carnage. It was the first time I didn’t become enraged by the news.

We have a drinking game for the NBC Nightly News. Drink any time they say “breaking news”, “disaster”, “epidemic” or show people crying. You won’t make it through the news.

I work at a big bank. I bank at a local credit union.

This isn’t what you’re really asking, but I have a bunch of stuff in the freezer that I can pull out when I’m sick, don’t have enough time to prepare a meal or am just exhausted from whatever.

Making lasagne? Make 4, freeze 3. Mex night? I make 20 black bean burritoes at a time. Check out https://onceamonthmeals.com/ for inspiration. Less cooking, less dishes and less food waste. Go pro and pick up a food saver. I make 8 cups of rice and freeze it in a pint food saver bag. It’s winter where I live and I have “soup bags” in the freezer so I can take out veggies that were at their peak when they were frozen and put it in a crock pot so I can have summer fresh soup.