Ask Lemmy

Two years ago, when I was 16, my dad tried to set me up with one of his business partners. I told him off, and he never tried that again. Soon after that, I met this guy through my friends, and we started dating. He’s only one year older than me, so it’s age-appropriate. It’s a very laid-back and fun relationship, but we have to keep it low-key since we live in the Gulf region, and he’s a native. Due to sociocultural, religious, and even legal factors, he’s not supposed to date. However, like many of these wealthy native Gulf families, they do everything they’re not supposed to do on the down low. I don’t know if it will necessarily last long-term, but for now, we’re having a good time.

Dollar Tree stores, when they were a dollar.

Yeah it was a very nice point in time when you were tight on a budget and there was dollar tree near you, everything very affordable. Not everything was built to last and most of the food were arguably unhealthy but you got by with what you could get. Nowadays, we've seen Dollar Tree turn into just any dollar store you could think of.

24/7 Wal-Marts

It's been a while but there was that time Wal-Mart was opened for 24 hours. This allowed you to shop at 2 in the morning, in a big store, with next to no one. Sure some of the services might not be available but that isn't the point. And maybe it disgruntled a lot of overnight workers who're trying to get the store ready for the normal period of the day, now having anything disrupted and so few people to cover the store.

Video Games that were shipped in complete versions

Back when developers actually had to make sure that what they're shipping out to be played, was both good and functioning. Now everyone lately is so quick to release games that breaks on Day 1, require lots of patches that take weeks to even years, slapping on Early Access to milk even more money from people and eventually not even test it. While still charging top dollar.

..or, looking for tips on stuff that are useful to have that most people don't think about.

By now we've all seen the 'files', if you're like me you've used various AI to cross-reference them with other things like financial crashes, who else might be a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th degree connections, where do they work, etc etc etc and at the end of it you see the web of parasitic elites running our society.

How do we just go back to 'normal'??

We hear a lot about which destinations are overrated, too crowded, expensive, full of scams, suffering from overtourism, etc.

But which ones do you think are deservedly popular? Which ones justify the hype?

I havent found a good MMA/UFC/Combat sports in general community here. How could I start one and how could I foster engagement? Not asking for tech support just wondering how I could do it in general.

If so, how do you do it? Do you use Google Play books or use apps like PDF file readers? I'm only 19 and I'm interested to start my reading hobby. Though I can also grab some books on a close bookstore nearby, I am also interested to do it digitally.

I love cooking, but because my mom is too much of a bimbo and my dad too much of a “manly man” to ever step into the kitchen, I never had the chance to learn from them. I grew up on delivery, takeout, eating out, and the incredible food made by the amazing woman who cooks for our family. I became deeply interested in cooking at the start of my teenage years and taught myself through the internet, books, that same woman, and other relatives.

I'm asking for public policy ideas here. A lot of countries are enacting age verification now. But of course this is a privacy nightmare and is ripe for abuse. At the same time though, I also understand why people are concerned with how kids are using social media. These products are designed to be addictive and are known to cause body image issues and so forth. So what's the middle ground? How can we protect kids from the harms of social media in a way that respects everyone's privacy?

I noticed that local communities and posts within don't show up at all when you are unauthenticated, and they are basically exclusive to users of that instance. It makes me wonder if there are hidden exclusive gems only you have access to across various instances.

What are some of your favorite local only communities?

What do you think we should replace it with? Some years back, when my country replaced a corrupt, entrenched coalition govt of 60+ years, the winning party sort of looked around and said: 'uh.. huh, OK, we won. We werent expecting to win. Now what? We have no plan. Lolz?'

In that light, what do you think should replace the big C, and how do we ensure human nature doesnt juat exploit it for a few individuals benefit?

I've recently started trying to improve my typing speed, which has probably been held back by my somewhat unconventional typing style. Formal touch typing was never a part of my education, and while years of computer use eventually led to me being able to type without looking, I'm probably not as efficient as I could be.

Can you touch type - and with proper form? QWERTY, DVORAK or other layout?

I can't find any specific Yes / No via search and my understanding is that's not really possible due to how federated websites work, so hopefully someone more knowledgeable than me can give me a straight answer.

I had something I wanted to post that wasn't very relevant to any particular community, but more specific to me, kinda like a blog post.

Me (13 years old at the time): Dad, Mom’s cheating on you. I saw her making out with this man.

Dad: Listen here, princess. The guy’s filthy rich, and when you have money, it’s normal to have a hot mistress like your mom.

Me: But aren’t you jealous?

Dad: laughs

I was flabbergasted, lmao.

SiriusXM.

I felt I needed it to help me get through trips to and back from work. I always listened to comedy stations and nothing else, because the music resembled nothing I hadn't heard before on repeat through retail stores and FM radio. When I couldn't afford SiriusXM, I downloaded a podcast app that seemingly worked without needing a data plan or a subscription (I know the episodes are probably downloaded ahead of time on wi-fi). With this, I felt I don't need Sirius anymore.

Monster Javas

I was an addict and still a recovering addict of this drink. It's the only Monster-related beverage I always had, never caring for the other flavors. For a while, starting back about seven some odd years ago, I drank a can and I felt energized. Then as time went on, it turned into just a drink I'd have for the sake of comfortedness, because it was no longer doing anything for me anymore. Plus it was burning a hole in my budgeting because cans of these weren't exactly cheap on their own.

After being off from a single can after three weeks, I actually felt a lot better. Probably not going to get back into them.

I'd like to be remembered as someone who rode life by as they took it. I was born with no map and I simply just exist. But growing up through trial and error, I tried making the best of it as I can. Learning things the hard way and taking pleasure of the easy way. I would've wanted to be remembered this way through my circle, whom I would hopefully inspire and influence by living as your own of being a spirit of individuality, even if your path isn't clear.

I know I didn't invent anything to help society, didn't become rich and famous who could move mountains. However, I'd like to think I'd given ideas and creative input to be built upon and realized that could serve as a net benefit, big or small to anybody who needed it.

We are heading towards the unknown, seemingly with no brakes. Our fate now more than ever truly is up in the air. What do you think life will be like in the future?

Tidal

This was an alternative to Spotify that I've seen being recommended. I've tried it during work as a way to try and escape Spotify's onslaught of ads. However, after I created a playlist on Tidal of songs I wanted playing, all of them went for 30 seconds a piece. I couldn't deal with it and ran right back to Spotify to have a functioning playlist.

I saw that Indie Gala has a royalty free music bundle for sale of this - https://www.arcade-origins.com/

Thing is, checking their site, there's no way to actually buy straight off them, which is super weird. All "covers" are AI images and every video on YT channel was posted after Jan 2025.

I don't know enough about music other than listening to it, so I have no idea what cues, if any, to look out for when it comes to AI music. I also do not want to spend a single cent buying something done with AI.