The amount of comments in here that are conjecture or just straight up bullshit is off the charts… my tech illiterate wife, and my 80+ year old grandparents use Linux without any problems.
Different needs, different hardware, different skill levels. My kindergarten kids used it for 2 years for school, no problem. I still don’t use it because its too rough for my advanced needs.
Linux runs circles around Windows in terms of privacy, security, control, customizaton, and DE workflows and efficiencies… so what advanced needs keep you from using it? I’m genuinely curious because Linux is far more advanced than Windows in basically every single way I can think of… I can’t think of any reason I would prefer to use Windows over Linux. The only problem Linux suffers is from software support, so if you are in an industry with software that doesn’t support it… well then, yeah, you have to use Windows. Or if you want to play a game with anticheat… and you are okay with installing what is essentially a rootkit on your computer, then yeah, Windows.
If I do a Google search and a Reddit thread comes up with relevant info or discussion, I’ll check it out but I have completely stopped browsing and interacting with it.
A “dream” (?) I had a month after my father was killed. A long story, apologies for the book.
To start with, for clarification, I have always been a lucid dreamer, going back to childhood. Not every night. Not every dream. But every time I had realization in a dream that I was dreaming, I could control circumstances and events of the dream the entire rest of the time I was having it. Every single lucid dream. Without exception. Likely a few hundred times by the time this happened, just shy of my thirtieth birthday.
I was dreaming of playing backyard football with my friends as a kid. It’s a happy memory, and I dream about it now and then. This particular night, I was in lucid mode. I was having fun doing whatever I wanted (throwing 200 yard touchdown passes, running around like an Olympic sprinter, what have you… I kind of return to my ten year old self in this one).
Before one play, the football suddenly deflates and goes completely flat. Weird, I think to myself… I don’t feel like I caused that to happen. But whatever. I tell my friends I’ll change the football out, and we’ll get back to it. In my mind, I summon up the equipment shed from my campus recreation officiating days back on campus in college.
I open up the shed and step inside. It’s just as I remembered, of course, but kind of dark, not much light is bleeding in here from outside. I do a 180 toward the door to flip on the light. And I felt everything change. Everything. And I didn’t cause it. I also hadn’t looked at it yet. But I felt it.
Instant warmth. Comfort. A sense of peace that I can’t really describe… language isn’t really sufficient.
I turn around and see that I am in the foyer of a beautiful house, full of warmth. It is pure wood tones through and through.
I realize that I can really smell the air… The woods, and the ocean, in a perfect balance. I recall never having a sense of smell in any other dream, lucid or otherwise. I’m not panicked or worried, this place is just too peaceful for fear to be. Just confused.
Lying on a table next to an open window is my favorite cat from my childhood, Pudding. I give him a scratch right behind the ears in his favorite spot, he purrs, rubs into me… like hey buddy, missed you. Almost like it hasn’t been almost twenty years since he died, the last time I saw him. Realization dawns.
Realization that I still know that this is a dream. Or at least I thought it was. But if this is still a dream, and I realize this is so, why is all this stuff happening without my control? That’s certainly never been a thing in a lucid dream before.
And why am I smelling the fresh air of a forest that is twenty feet away from the ocean? Why do I have tactile feel of my furry buddy who died years ago? It feels like reality. Crisp, sharp, full of senses normally non-existent or dulled in normal dreams.
I catch some movement to my side and turn. Walking down the stairs, with a smile, is my dad. He’s clean, unhurt, in perfect shape… not at all like he was in the hospital when I last saw him, beaten up and brain dead. Before I even know what’s happening, he’s got me in a hug. I’m too stunned to react much.
“You’ve always been too stingy with the hugs,” he says. The feel of him, the sound of him talking… so real. I realize fully, finally, 100%. This is no dream. I hug him back, delighted.
As I pull away, all I can say is, “Aren’t I dreaming?”
He gives me the look he has always given me when I ask a completely stupid question. “Are you?” he says, all good-humor-light-sarcasm.
“But how… where are we?”
“My place,” he answers. “I needed to talk to you. Let’s go in there.”
He leads me down a side hall into a study. The few seconds while we walk, I’m still trying to reassert control. Open the floor and have us plunge through. Have him start dancing a jig. Have the house catch on fire. Anything to have proof that this is all a dream. Nothing works. As we enter the study, he tells me, “Morgan, son, seriously. Let go and relax.” He gives me that wry smile he gives when I’m being ridiculously amusing. “You’re not dreaming. Sit down.”
The room is supernaturally strong with the smell of cedar. Of pine. On the bookshelves, I’m noting some of my Dad’s favorites. Tolkien. Stephen King. James Clavell. A light bulb goes off over my head. This house is pretty much what my Dad would build if you gave him a perfect house button to press to make it come into creation. In a way, it feels like a piece of him, as real to me as he was right at that moment.
I take a seat in a wonderful leather bound chair. He sits across from me and says, “after this, we are going to talk about some things, and you won’t remember any of it consciously. But I had to tell you.”
And we talked. I felt the hours. I don’t remember the specifics… he was absolutely right about that. But I remember some feelings. Happiness and relief that he is okay here. Some good times… I think it was a good talk. Some sadness. I remember him hugging me goodbye. “I love you son.”
I woke with tears pouring out of me. Things “awake” felt… less real somehow, but still as they always were. I spent the next couple hours talking to my wife about what happened, in the middle of the night.
In the following days, I went back over my experience in my mind, while it was fresh. I came to the conclusion that it was most likely not a dream, because it was so unlike any other dream I had ever had before (or have ever had since). I left a small chance in my head (like maybe 2%) that it actually was a dream, because I’d been grieving pretty hard, and maybe there was some weird chemical imbalance in my brain chemistry or something. I was even slightly miffed at dad that he used this experience on me, and not my younger sister (who was taking this as hard as I was, if not more so).
Then, in July the same year, my mom fell ill and passed away. And I hit the wall of pain all over again. But this time, with a sliver of peace that I didn’t have last time. I realized that this is why Dad shared this experience with me. He knew this was going to happen, and soon.
I’ll never forget the gift. The view into the other side. The transition that makes my grief for those who have passed into a selfish thing… that I trust that they are fine, and I’m really just sad that I’m not going to see them again for a long while.
Thank you. It doesn’t hurt the ability to tell the tale that this is still so strongly etched in my mind. It still feels like it was 15 minutes ago, and not 15 years ago as it actually was.
Literally Groundhog Day, it’s one of my favourites and about 20 years ago I started a tradition of always watching it every Feb 2nd, and so I’ve watched it 20 times plus maybe half a dozen times before then.
I haven’t run Linux myself, but I know people who have.
The Linux experience, from the outside, seemed to consist of solving problems that wouldn’t exist if you just used the OS your computer came with, and being so very proud of your geek prowess, without having the self awareness to realise you’re the one who broke it in the first place.
The cure seems to be growing up, having adult responsibilities, and not having the time or inclination to spend an evening un-fucking your computer.
That’s amazing! I always wished there was a pill or something that could give me amnesia for a fee hours so I could enjoy something for the first time again.
Us early adopters have some advantage in that we have grown with the communities. You’re now looking at a much larger list than we did.
I would search for stuff you’re interested in and subscribe to them. Then maybe look at the mods and see what else they have posted and commented on. These will likely be people that are engaged well on lemmy and may have similar interests as you. Maybe subscribe to places they are engaging with.
After you have a solid base of 20-40 communities, use the All feed and sort by newest posts to try and find stuff you may be interested in and are active. That will show stuff from lots of other instances.
It’s pretty nice as I do a lot of creative work so if I’m struggling for inspiration I’ll usually take a nap or just go to bed a little early with a notepad nearby.
The crazy part is since I started taking meds for my ADHD it’s basically every night.
Edit: Most of mine are surreal or hyperreal though if that makes sense. By hyperreal I mean that every detail, every sensation, everything is there. Every single tiny sensation, except they are all cranked up to like 11.
For example: There you are standing on the edge of a cliff looking to the vista below. The trees sway with wind and life, flowing like seaweed caught in the current. The winds reach your face as a soft caress, lightly brushing your cheeks and running it’s fingers through your hair. The smells of earth and water fill your lungs with each breath with a slight chill. The sounds of the trees jostling and the wind swishing consume all sound but your breath.
You close your eyes to take it all in.
Your breathing deepening with each breath.
You feel your self slipping backwards away from the cliff but you know the ground will welcome you.
You gently stop on the moss covered ground. It’s like velvet on your skin.
Running your fingers through it you feel every little branch.
You let yourself fall deeper in sleep as the darkness consumes you.
The smells leave your nose, the wind leaves your hair, the velvety moss loses its touch.
You wake in your bed, feeling more rejuvenated then you have in days.
My depression meds give me VIVID dreams, usually nightmares but they don’t scare me anymore? Like they’re clearly nightmares but I don’t wake up with a fast pulse or a sweat just oh hey that happened, anyway! And I definitely remember them much longer than I used to
A few years ago I was driving to my wife's parents place to let their dogs out. It was about 6pm so not dark yet but, the sun was down. I turned the corner o t a back road that went next to the river and all of a sudden it rather dark outside, and I had a really bad sense of dread like the air was heavy. Some of the worst fear I've ever had was setting in. Then suddenly on the right I saw man who was pitch black wearing a hat leaning against a sign. Half a mile later I saw him again sitting on the guardrail on the other side of the road, so I sped up and got out of there. A few hours later I was headed home and same thing happened d I turned on the road and had fear well up inside me. I came around the bend and watched a Jetta go flying off the road and the girl driving hopped out and looked at me with tears pouring down her face, usually I'd be one to stop and make sure all was ok but, with the fear I had I just wanted out of there. Then I came around the next bend and saw him standing in the middle of the other lane roughly where I'd seen him before so I just floored it and got out of there. Still get spooked thinking about it and have a lot of nightmares since where the man with a hat is chasing me while I drive
This practice comes from Japan. In 1980s, certain companies, like Toyota, understood the importance of product and process quality. And one of the practices to ensure that everyone is ‘on the same ground’, and that the product under development would surely satisfy the consumer’s needs, was close communication between the stakeholders and receiving the feedback.
Long story short, it was part of their broader ‘Quality first’ strategy. However, it is only viable if the organisation is properly managed, and all Quality management things are put into practice (the hardest part).
This is just my understanding from a book I read during my free time. My knowledge may be incorrect.
Minecraft. I don’t know how many hours, but I bought it before nether portals were a thing and I’ve been playing it ever since. Sometimes a game just clicks for you.
What do you even have left to do in Minecraft at this point? Not asking to be rude, but as an ADHD guy I actually can’t imagine playing a game that much!
I probably spent the most time in Red Dead Redemption 2 or ARK, but that’s because I went for 100% completion and there were always things to do for me. Once I completed the games (about 400 hours each), I was over it.
Modpacks. There are hundreds. And probably tens of thousands of mods. You can easily make your own modpacks nowadays, using a launcher and config editor.
It’s been so long since I’ve played the vanilla version, I haven’t seen any content from the last few updates. I’ve started a vanilla world just to explore them.
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